4 ms·

There seems to be a common belief, even among the educated, that the security of nations is somehow completely unrelated to the security of the individual. In

There seems to be a common belief, even among the educated, that the security of nations is somehow completely unrelated to the security of the individual. In reality, one is the macro; the other, micro. They are solutions to the exact same problem at a different scale. The same way that you lock your door, we collectively close a border. The same way that we call the cops on the drug house, we bomb << entity >> . So, to re-phrase your future view a little: If you foresee us being able to dispel the notion of door locks in favour of trusting our fellow humans completely, you can imagine your border free world. I am a little more pessimistic, to be honest.

epochwolf 16y ago
I can't agree with this enough. Granted the comparison of countries with drug houses is a little simplistic. :)
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  How about"The same way that we call the cops on the guy we think is running a drug house, we bomb << entity >>. :-) It's complex enough to make the point, but I certainly do appreciate that it isn't that straightforward in the real world.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Even at the local level, this is problematic - it's depressingly easy to find reports of incorrectly targeted police action. In such a case, the security-first approach (of both the police and the homeowner) has resulted in wrongful arrests and death not withstanding everyone acting in good faith. Correspondingly, enforcing internal or external security with absolutist certitude virtually guarantees a serious error sooner or later.
    - run4yourlives 16y ago
      You are missing my point.
anigbrowl 16y ago
The problem with this analogy is that while it's reasonable to think of oneself as the sole authority over one's own home, that concept does not scale in any meaningful way to the size of a country, unless the governing power is vested in a monarchy. A great many political theses are advanced from all over the political spectrum in the format of 'You wouldn't tolerate X - so why does the government? We the people demand an end to X!' However, 'we the people', when taken as a whole, have a demonstrable tendency to disagree amongst ourselves, and almost never act in concert. There are all sorts of thing which we should find surprising or unacceptable within our own homes but whose existence we accept or at least tolerate within our county, state, or country because either a majority of our neighbors hold views which differ from ours or because constitutional or legislative power takes precedence over our own preferences. A better analogy might be to consider the country as something similar to an apartment building or even a small town.You can exert a degree of security insofar as it serves the common good, but an absolutist approach of the kind you describe rapidly becomes self-defeating and unsustainable over the longer term. I might add that absolutism in this context refers to the idea of abolishing borders as much as to the idea of sealing them. After all, we have controls in between the borders of US states with limited powers to enforce prohibitions or requirements unique to that state, from carrying certain produce to wearing a motorcycle helmet, and these are not considered especially onerous. Rather than abolition of borders, I see a trend away from a presumption of exclusion as the default and towards a policy of neutral vigilance - in other words, personal migration will come to be seen in the same light as other trade flows, subject to inspection and monitoring but requiring specific grounds for interference. So, suppose you have a business importing silk from China, and the hacky part is that it's woven in conformity with 6502 assembler code or something. It comes into the US in a cargo container, and we all accept that DHS/CBP want to assure themselves that it doesn't include radioactive materials, smallpox, or marauding silkworm colonies. That done, we expect them to be indifferent to the question of whether 8-bit silken handkerchief designs will affect the US economy in positive or negative fashion - that's for the market to discover, not the customs inspectors, as long as there's no ongoing trade dispute between China and the US justifying their exclusion in accordance with treaty. We already have such a policy in place for visiting tourists and businesspersons from other developed countries, and which is mostly reciprocal - you can grab your passport and fly to Japan on a whim for up to 90 days, and vice versa. Within both the US and the EU, the benefits of allowing migration between the individual member states seems to considerably outweigh the various costs; economics suggests that rational policymaking on international migration will go the same way sooner or later. Of course, this isn't foolproof and the downside of such a policy is that criminals can exploit such openness to further their wicked ends. But insofar the number of such people/incidents is low - not least because more people appreciate the freedoms of the open model, and have a stake in its preservation - that risk is tolerable.
indrax 16y ago
Then why doesn't New York ever need to bomb Pensylvania? If the border of these two areas can be open, then so could other borders. Likewise, there are places where you don't have to lock your doors.

epochwolf 16y ago

I can't agree with this enough. Granted the comparison of countries with drug houses is a little simplistic. :)

run4yourlives 16y ago
How about"The same way that we call the cops on the guy we think is running a drug house, we bomb << entity >>. :-) It's complex enough to make the point, but I certainly do appreciate that it isn't that straightforward in the real world.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Even at the local level, this is problematic - it's depressingly easy to find reports of incorrectly targeted police action. In such a case, the security-first approach (of both the police and the homeowner) has resulted in wrongful arrests and death not withstanding everyone acting in good faith. Correspondingly, enforcing internal or external security with absolutist certitude virtually guarantees a serious error sooner or later.
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    You are missing my point.

anigbrowl 16y ago

The problem with this analogy is that while it's reasonable to think of oneself as the sole authority over one's own home, that concept does not scale in any meaningful way to the size of a country, unless the governing power is vested in a monarchy. A great many political theses are advanced from all over the political spectrum in the format of 'You wouldn't tolerate X - so why does the government? We the people demand an end to X!' However, 'we the people', when taken as a whole, have a demonstrable tendency to disagree amongst ourselves, and almost never act in concert. There are all sorts of thing which we should find surprising or unacceptable within our own homes but whose existence we accept or at least tolerate within our county, state, or country because either a majority of our neighbors hold views which differ from ours or because constitutional or legislative power takes precedence over our own preferences. A better analogy might be to consider the country as something similar to an apartment building or even a small town.You can exert a degree of security insofar as it serves the common good, but an absolutist approach of the kind you describe rapidly becomes self-defeating and unsustainable over the longer term. I might add that absolutism in this context refers to the idea of abolishing borders as much as to the idea of sealing them. After all, we have controls in between the borders of US states with limited powers to enforce prohibitions or requirements unique to that state, from carrying certain produce to wearing a motorcycle helmet, and these are not considered especially onerous. Rather than abolition of borders, I see a trend away from a presumption of exclusion as the default and towards a policy of neutral vigilance - in other words, personal migration will come to be seen in the same light as other trade flows, subject to inspection and monitoring but requiring specific grounds for interference. So, suppose you have a business importing silk from China, and the hacky part is that it's woven in conformity with 6502 assembler code or something. It comes into the US in a cargo container, and we all accept that DHS/CBP want to assure themselves that it doesn't include radioactive materials, smallpox, or marauding silkworm colonies. That done, we expect them to be indifferent to the question of whether 8-bit silken handkerchief designs will affect the US economy in positive or negative fashion - that's for the market to discover, not the customs inspectors, as long as there's no ongoing trade dispute between China and the US justifying their exclusion in accordance with treaty. We already have such a policy in place for visiting tourists and businesspersons from other developed countries, and which is mostly reciprocal - you can grab your passport and fly to Japan on a whim for up to 90 days, and vice versa. Within both the US and the EU, the benefits of allowing migration between the individual member states seems to considerably outweigh the various costs; economics suggests that rational policymaking on international migration will go the same way sooner or later. Of course, this isn't foolproof and the downside of such a policy is that criminals can exploit such openness to further their wicked ends. But insofar the number of such people/incidents is low - not least because more people appreciate the freedoms of the open model, and have a stake in its preservation - that risk is tolerable.

indrax 16y ago

Then why doesn't New York ever need to bomb Pensylvania? If the border of these two areas can be open, then so could other borders. Likewise, there are places where you don't have to lock your doors.