When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas • Hacker News Board

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#41

Post by ChicagoBoy11 » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #31

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #11

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 abs…

Immigration is a huge issue. It implies tremendous demographic and resource management, logistic, cultural chocks, including educational challenges. Of course nations want to control borders. If you don't, you can't deal with the population flow and all of the above. And you need to deal with the above. Just hoping everything will be ok if you don't think about it is like hoping schools will be ok if we don't think a…

And yet, for a long time in the past century, the U.S. dealt with a massive influx of immigration from all around the world, with all of the complications around culture, resource, and education that you mention. But it seems to me that it is one of the chief sources of the country's strength, no?

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#42

Post by wacowz » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #5

Passports 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 often see stories of people quitting their jobs and travelling the world and how awesome it is. It's sth I look forward to doing but being the holder of a Kenyan passport, I highly doubt I'll actually manage to "travel around the world", given all the legal barriers setup against passport holders from developing countries.

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#43

Post by mynameislegion » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

anovikov wrote: post #33

wtbob wrote: post #26

I'm reminded of this famous piece by A.J.P. Taylor: 'Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He c…

It's simply a replacement of informal barriers with formal ones, plus compensation of the lowering of travel and communication costs due to technology: someone who traveled abroad in the XIXth century was either well-off so he would pass any currently existing barriers easily, or really really needed it so he would do it, too. With international air ticket worth less than a good meal, some other barrier had to be con…

Even in modern times, international air tickets are more expensive and worldwide wages lower than you imagine.

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#44

Post by sheepz » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

J-dawg wrote: post #29

The UK has obviously seen a lot of debate about immigration recently, around the Brexit referendum. I've often felt like non-EU immigration was the elephant in the room during all this. 'Leave' voters have often been portrayed as racist bigots by liberal 'Remain' voters. (I'm one of the latter, and I've been guilty of this myself at times). But if we extend the same logic to the whole world, isn't the EU basically a…

Please stop using the word 'racist' where it does not apply. The freedom of movement within the EU is definitely not based on race, but on the citizenship of any of the Schengen Area countries. "Xenophobic" is a much better term here.

Furthermore, where does it say that the freedom of movement is due to some ideology which considers all nationalities to be equal, rather than just being a policy to improve the welfare and trade between EU members?

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#45

Post by wodenokoto » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

    >But delegates ultimately decided that a return to a 
    >passport-free world could only happen alongside a return to 
    >the global conditions that prevailed before the start of 
    >the first world war.

I wish the article was more detailed about what was/is considered changed in the global condition.

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#46

Post by rjsw » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #7

jstanley wrote: post #2

A 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!

I suspect it has a lot to do with the rise of relatively cheap global travel and strong disparity in the median wealth of different nations. 100+ years ago could you travel from a poor country to a wealthy country with relative ease and expect to raise your own standard of living? Either the journey was expensive and arduous, or the situation in places you could travel to was not likely to be a massive improvement on…

There can be problems even if the newcomers can contribute immediately if they make it harder for existing citizens to contribute themselves.

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#47

Post by zwieback » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

When I read Dickens I'm always surprised how citizens could get locked out of their own city walls at night or would bribe the watchman to "forget" that they've seen the villain or hero pass the gate.

I think in the past there were much more restrictive laws in place at times, other times maybe more lax.

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#48

Post by zajd » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #40

zajd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you have to understand that when white Europeans complain about "immigrants" what they really mean is "brown people". It's 2016 baby, thinly veiled racism is the name of the game. edit. I'm sure with these downvotes someone will come answer your question... lol

I don't know if that's entirely fair, the pro-Brexit people had strong opinions about Poles and Italians too.

Eh the pro-brexit people probably feel they're brown anyways.

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#49

Post by mikeash » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:37 PM UTC

insickness wrote: post #15

This 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…

I don't think it's at all synonymous. Borders mean a lot more than just who is allowed to cross them. Case in point, there are no border controls between US states, but states clearly have borders and maintain meaningful differences between each other.

Re: When world leaders thought you shouldn't need passports or visas

#50

Post by someguydave » Sun, Oct 02, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

zajd wrote: post #22

someguydave wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I would be fine with "open borders" as long as every subsidy and welfare program is eliminated. It is unfair for people to have free stuff from the local government just because they happen to have been born there.

Would you be ok if every local government was required to provide welfare programs and subsidies to their population? Seems "fair".

Sure zajd, sounds great. The US should make a welfare /subsidy rule for the entire world. Since lots of backwards reactionaries will resist it will likely take force and war to annex unruly lands and enforce this law. Let's call the program COMINTERN for old time's sake.