I'm appalled at how many self-described liberals I know who consider themselves to be guardians of civil liberties not bat an eye to these restrictions. The matter of fact is that all the restrictions we put in place with respect to the free movement of peoples -- and the accompanying restrictions around employment, leisure, etc. -- are single-handedly the single biggest breach of human rights in the world. It is absolutely inexcusable that any person should "defend" any policy short of complete and total freedom of movement. I think this is the one thing that I believe in most strongly in all of my life -- I am confident that in the future -- perhaps many, many centuries from now -- we will look at these things with the same eyes with which we look at slavery in the past.
When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
11–20 of 203 posts
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#12Passports and citizenship in many ways are the most unfair thing in the world as your place of birth influences what you can do in life. For many of us the idea of having a bad passport is only theoretical in nature but it decides many things in life for others and sets stupid arbitrary ceilings that should not exist.
I find that Chris Rock has the best summary of it with his "I'm American" routine: "What, you think you’re better than somebody from France ’cause you came out of a pussy in Detroit?"
Nothing specifically American about it though. Many people in France think they're better than Syrian refugees because they're born from a pussy in Paris.
Full transcript: http://www.cswap.com/2004/Chris_Rock:_Never_Scared/cap/en/25...
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#13A large majority of people view me as a crackpot when I say passports should be abolished, and free men ought to be able to travel the planet freely. It never occurred to me that the world was like this as recently as 100 years ago!
Nowadays, travel is much more efficient. Therefore, we have to artificially make it difficult, otherwise large migrations will occur.
Suppose you are on a ship carrying a thousand people. If all people want to go to the left side then there's a big chance the ship will sink. Passengers are free but there must be some limitations to what they can all decide on total.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#14In his book "Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars" [1] historian Paul Fussell devotes a whole chapter to "The Passport Nuisance":
> As a fixture of the european scene since 1915, the passport now seems so natural that one forgets the shock and scandal it once occasioned. Robert Byron is one who treated his with a due contempt. In the space asking about "Any special peculiarities," he entered "Of Melancholy appearance," and in the square reserved for a photograph of bearer's wife he drew a ludicrous cartoon, "resulting," Anthory Powell recalls, "in the document being withdrawn."
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#15This discussion is synonymous with whether countries should even have borders. If borders aren't policed, they may as well not even exist.
It would be great if all people were kind and caring, if there were no corruption, war, terrorism, religious fanaticism, crime or discrepancies in standards of living. But we've seen over and over that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The problematic migrant situation in Europe is a good example of that.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#16I'm appalled at how many self-described liberals I know who consider themselves to be guardians of civil liberties not bat an eye to these restrictions. The matter of fact is that all the restrictions we put in place with respect to the free movement of peoples -- and the accompanying restrictions around employment, leisure, etc. -- are single-handedly the single biggest breach of human rights in the world. It is abs…
There's no innate human right to freedom of movement within other societies.
Humans are individuals, individuals form into groups, and those groups when large and cohesive enough form into societies, civilizations, and now nation states. If those groups are to exist as a "group" they require these shared norms, values, culture to remain a viable group. If part of that culture is to exclude outsiders on the area of land on this earth that they control, then who is one individual or many individuals to say that this is invalid?
This presents a lot of opportunity for places like the United States where immigration and freedom of movement is more accepted - so you get more immigration and more growth. But that is something citizens of the US have decided, not external actors.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#17I'm appalled at how many self-described liberals I know who consider themselves to be guardians of civil liberties not bat an eye to these restrictions. The matter of fact is that all the restrictions we put in place with respect to the free movement of peoples -- and the accompanying restrictions around employment, leisure, etc. -- are single-handedly the single biggest breach of human rights in the world. It is abs…
There's no innate human right to freedom of movement within other societies. Humans are individuals, individuals form into groups, and those groups when large and cohesive enough form into societies, civilizations, and now nation states. If those groups are to exist as a "group" they require these shared norms, values, culture to remain a viable group. If part of that culture is to exclude outsiders on the area of la…
> There's no innate human right to freedom of movement within other societies
No human rights are innate though, they're all man made.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#18I'm appalled at how many self-described liberals I know who consider themselves to be guardians of civil liberties not bat an eye to these restrictions. The matter of fact is that all the restrictions we put in place with respect to the free movement of peoples -- and the accompanying restrictions around employment, leisure, etc. -- are single-handedly the single biggest breach of human rights in the world. It is abs…
I support freedom of movement, but I also understand people's worries about unmanageable burdens placed on support systems for a nation's people. Of course, if there were no support systems this would be a moot point, and is one of the few counterarguments to, say, increased public healthcare or pensions, that made sense.
HN has a lot of proponents of universal basic income. Say a small country, maybe Iceland with only a few hundred thousand people, introduces a basic income of $1000 per month. For many people around the world that is an incredibly huge sum. How do you handle the millions that are likely to arrive to enjoy those benefits? Do you:
* Tell them they can come and live there but not claim it, effectively making them second class citizens?
* Bankrupt your government providing this benefit to people who are not initially contributing lots of taxes?
* Restrict entry to people who are probably going to be a net gain for your government's coffers?
Not to mention that when you see a large, _sudden_ influx of people with substantially different language and culture it can be a severe shock to the original inhabitants. I am ardently in favour of helping refugees but I can understand the challenges that occur when newcomers with different cultural norms become a significant part of a place's population. (Aside - it's kind of ridiculous that the US is squabbling about taking maybe ten thousand refugees from a place that they destabilized while Germany takes over a million)
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#19I'm appalled at how many self-described liberals I know who consider themselves to be guardians of civil liberties not bat an eye to these restrictions. The matter of fact is that all the restrictions we put in place with respect to the free movement of peoples -- and the accompanying restrictions around employment, leisure, etc. -- are single-handedly the single biggest breach of human rights in the world. It is abs…
There's no innate human right to freedom of movement within other societies. Humans are individuals, individuals form into groups, and those groups when large and cohesive enough form into societies, civilizations, and now nation states. If those groups are to exist as a "group" they require these shared norms, values, culture to remain a viable group. If part of that culture is to exclude outsiders on the area of la…
> There's no innate human right to freedom of movement within other societies.
Sure there is, at least if you acknowledge the notion of human rights in the first place. (There's no "innate human right" to not be tortured.)
Without governments, there is no impedance to freedom of movement. This isn't merely theoretical: as governments have become stronger and their reach extended across the globe, the ability to move freely has correspondingly decreased.
Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas
#20This discussion is synonymous with whether countries should even have borders. If borders aren't policed, they may as well not even exist. It would be great if all people were kind and caring, if there were no corruption, war, terrorism, religious fanaticism, crime or discrepancies in standards of living. But we've seen over and over that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The problematic migrant situati…
The problematic migrant situation in Europe is a good example of that.
Is it? Are illegal immigrants more likely to cause problems that both natives and legal immigrants? From what I can tell, at least the attacks that make the news have all been perpetrated by people born and raised in Europe.
EDIT: http://www.dw.com/en/report-refugees-have-not-increased-crim...