2 ms·
You are engaging in absurd double-think. Loosening restrictions on movement is not tightening restrictions on movement no matter how many mental hoops you try t
by TheCoelacanth 8y ago
You are engaging in absurd double-think. Loosening restrictions on movement is not tightening restrictions on movement no matter how many mental hoops you try to jump through.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- leereeves 8y agoThis discussion is becoming too hostile for Hacker News. I'll make one more attempt to explain my point of view, then I'm out: Loosening restrictions on select people is not loosening restrictions on everyone. Vatican City, with their tightly controlled migration policy, is not the country with the most freedom of movement simply because they allow freedom of movement to carefully chosen people. In the Vatican, for example, a given person either has a 100% chance of migration or a 0% chance. Israel has similar numbers. In the Schengen area, it's either a 100% chance or a very small chance. Update: Perhaps this will be clearer. Every free country grants total freedom of movement to some group of people. In Israel, this is Jewish people. In the United States, US citizens. In the Schengen area, citizens of the Schengen area. What does that have to do with nationalism? Nationalism is a distinction between the treatment of in-group people and out-group people. In the Schengen area, people from the Schengen area are the in-group.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoThis line of argument is absurd. You cannot become more restrictive by becoming less restrictive.
- leereeves 8y agoNationalism isn't standalone, it's tied to a particular nation. Changing loyalty to a larger nation isn't the same as becoming less nationalistic.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoThe Schengen Area is not in any sense a nation. Look at the definition of the word nation: "a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory". The Schengen Area checks off people and territory but nothing else. It doesn't even have a shared government to try to make it fit if you are trying to use "nation" as a synonym for "country". Most of the countries are part of the EU, but Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland are part of the Schengen Area but not the EU.
- leereeves 8y ago> united by common descent, history, culture, or language Are you saying Europeans don't have any descent, history, or culture in common?
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoDescent, mostly not. Culture, mostly not. History, yes, of constantly fighting each other for hundreds of years (which is the type of shared history that creates national separations, not the kind that unites nations). There are some groups of countries that have some descent and culture in common like Portugal/Spain or Benelux or Scandinavia, but there is no pan-European culture. Portugal, Greece, Monaco, Latvia and Iceland have almost nothing in common.
- leereeves 8y agoThen why hasn't the Schengen area admitted north Africa or the middle east? Spain is a lot closer to Morocco than to Norway, but Spain partnered with Norway rather than Morocco because they share the same descent (European) and culture (Christian).