5 ms·

I mean, I'm sure many people have different thoughts, but if you're specifically asking my views on borders, I very much prefer completely open borders. This i

by jMyles 4y ago

I mean, I'm sure many people have different thoughts, but if you're specifically asking my views on borders, I very much prefer completely open borders. This is a huge country with plenty of room, friendly people, fresh water, and lots of work to be done. I have no interest in my state deciding whether my new neighbors are wanted.

cturner 4y ago
(not an american citizen or resident) Open borders is not a serious public policy position for a western nation. Western culture is difficult to bootstrap, and requires effort to maintain. In the US, civics are taught to all of your children through the education system. People have shared mythologies about freedom and duty and senses of right and wrong. Even with this, there are strong frictions between traditions. If you resettled a city of people from Sudan or Afghanistan to a western city, those people would not suddenly become western by virtue of their new geography. In Sweden in the last twenty years, inadequately managed immigration has created a gang and gun crime culture. I am astonished when I see westerners advocate for open borders. I think it comes from a mistaken assumption that live and let live is the default order in the world. It is not. Live and let live is a hard won cultural achievement, and needs to be tended.
- notch898a 4y ago
  Americans prefer to breed our own gangs rather than import them.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Americans prefer to breed our own gangs rather than import them. We breed them and export them, which help exacerbate and sustain a lot of the stability problems in Central America.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  I recommend taking a look at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903. Some core points pertinent to your concerns are: There is no precedence for lots of folks from ones location suddenly flooding a country just because they now can. There were huge fears Puerto Ricans would do this. Yet once they got the right to move to US states, only very, very few immigrated. It took up a little more once a Puerto Rican exclave formed somewhere and friends and family started following existing immigrants. Immigrants typically commit fewer crimes than the native born population.
  - cturner 4y ago
    There is a wealth of precedence. For the last twenty years there has been a network of people smugglers in south east asia who fire up whenever the Australian government takes its eye off the ball. I am currently in Malta and have had several conversations with hire car drivers who are living in difficult circumstances because they came here on boats as part of a plan to get to the UK and got stuck. There has been a significant controversy in the last month in the UK about that government’s attempts to dissuade unauthorised entries. It is an ongoing project for European governments to manage fallout from the syrian civil war. Some of these people need to be monitored for terrorist tendencies, adding pressure to law enforcement. In the US there is an ongoing project to ensure appropriate controls on its southern border. These thing are happening right now, across the western world. Large investments from western governments trying to stay in control of their immigration arrangements.
    - em-bee 4y ago
      manage fallout from the syrian civil war but these people came as refugees, and the borders were opened for them. without the war, they would not have come. so basically, for refugees, the borders are already open, and most people who are not refugees would not come even if borders were open for them too.
sokoloff 4y ago
That view is shared by only about 1 in 3 American voters, which is why we have a system like this to balance the genuine personal interests of US citizens who marry non-citizens against the desires of the majority to have at least some level of immigration and naturalization controls.
- FpUser 4y ago
  >"some level of immigration and naturalization controls." I would not call it "some level".
ajmurmann 4y ago
Open borders always gets framed as crazy, unrealistic and extreme when I advocate it. I think it's really that way because of where the overton window is right now. Bryan Kaplan does a fabulous job in his book Open Borders to address all concerns about open borders from all angles: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903
JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
Every country which is not an island has defacto open borders You just need the competence, physical fitness and vehicles to cross the border offroad and not at the border station. Even an island you could get there via an appropriate vehicle (a boat) and many people do from Cuba to the Us and from Africa to Europe The policy you are referring to would be more aptly characterized as ‘oper welfare state’ or’safety net for all people geographically located in the land’
- jMyles 4y ago
  Sure - I agree wholeheartedly. And I think we conduct a better service by walking back our welfare state and allowing many more people to join us.

by jMyles 4y ago

cturner 4y ago

(not an american citizen or resident) Open borders is not a serious public policy position for a western nation. Western culture is difficult to bootstrap, and requires effort to maintain. In the US, civics are taught to all of your children through the education system. People have shared mythologies about freedom and duty and senses of right and wrong. Even with this, there are strong frictions between traditions. If you resettled a city of people from Sudan or Afghanistan to a western city, those people would not suddenly become western by virtue of their new geography. In Sweden in the last twenty years, inadequately managed immigration has created a gang and gun crime culture. I am astonished when I see westerners advocate for open borders. I think it comes from a mistaken assumption that live and let live is the default order in the world. It is not. Live and let live is a hard won cultural achievement, and needs to be tended.

notch898a 4y ago
Americans prefer to breed our own gangs rather than import them.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Americans prefer to breed our own gangs rather than import them. We breed them and export them, which help exacerbate and sustain a lot of the stability problems in Central America.
ajmurmann 4y ago
I recommend taking a look at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903. Some core points pertinent to your concerns are: There is no precedence for lots of folks from ones location suddenly flooding a country just because they now can. There were huge fears Puerto Ricans would do this. Yet once they got the right to move to US states, only very, very few immigrated. It took up a little more once a Puerto Rican exclave formed somewhere and friends and family started following existing immigrants. Immigrants typically commit fewer crimes than the native born population.
- cturner 4y ago
  There is a wealth of precedence. For the last twenty years there has been a network of people smugglers in south east asia who fire up whenever the Australian government takes its eye off the ball. I am currently in Malta and have had several conversations with hire car drivers who are living in difficult circumstances because they came here on boats as part of a plan to get to the UK and got stuck. There has been a significant controversy in the last month in the UK about that government’s attempts to dissuade unauthorised entries. It is an ongoing project for European governments to manage fallout from the syrian civil war. Some of these people need to be monitored for terrorist tendencies, adding pressure to law enforcement. In the US there is an ongoing project to ensure appropriate controls on its southern border. These thing are happening right now, across the western world. Large investments from western governments trying to stay in control of their immigration arrangements.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    manage fallout from the syrian civil war but these people came as refugees, and the borders were opened for them. without the war, they would not have come. so basically, for refugees, the borders are already open, and most people who are not refugees would not come even if borders were open for them too.

sokoloff 4y ago

That view is shared by only about 1 in 3 American voters, which is why we have a system like this to balance the genuine personal interests of US citizens who marry non-citizens against the desires of the majority to have at least some level of immigration and naturalization controls.

FpUser 4y ago
>"some level of immigration and naturalization controls." I would not call it "some level".

ajmurmann 4y ago

Open borders always gets framed as crazy, unrealistic and extreme when I advocate it. I think it's really that way because of where the overton window is right now. Bryan Kaplan does a fabulous job in his book Open Borders to address all concerns about open borders from all angles: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42867903

JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago

Every country which is not an island has defacto open borders You just need the competence, physical fitness and vehicles to cross the border offroad and not at the border station. Even an island you could get there via an appropriate vehicle (a boat) and many people do from Cuba to the Us and from Africa to Europe The policy you are referring to would be more aptly characterized as ‘oper welfare state’ or’safety net for all people geographically located in the land’

jMyles 4y ago
Sure - I agree wholeheartedly. And I think we conduct a better service by walking back our welfare state and allowing many more people to join us.