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

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

#51

Post by zajd »

someguydave wrote: post #50
zajd wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's almost as if "fairness" isn't something we should be concerned about when it comes to immigration. Almost as if... people don't have that much control over their government and should probably be treated as individuals as opposed to a "immigrant from X"

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

#52

Post by jfoster »

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…

That said, I think it's worth pointing out that in 1914, the means to travel didn't exist as it does today. We've given up some freedom but made gains on capability.

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

#53

Post by J-dawg »

sheepz wrote: post #44
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…

You're right, I don't think EU freedom of movement is based on ideology. But it was definitely used as an ideological argument by both sides during the Brexit debate.

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

#54

Post by maccard »

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…

> But if we extend the same logic to the whole world, isn't the EU basically a racist organisation? Why should a French, German or Romanian arbitrarily have special rights to enter my country, while an Indian, Mexican or Nigerian is subjected to ever harsher visa rules?

Because that right is reciprocated to British people in those countries!

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

#55

Post by yummyfajitas »

CalRobert wrote: post #18
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…

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 on…

If helping people is what we care about, perhaps we should consider whether unrestricted immigration or basic income/other welfare state policies will help more. From what I can tell, neither BI nor traditional welfare states can come even remotely close to the benefits of open borders. It kind of makes one wonder whether helping people is the real goal of BI proponents.

As for the "sudden influx," I think it's important to recognize what the real problem is. In Europe, Muslim immigrants seem to rape and commit other crimes a lot more than natives.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3317978/Torn-apart-o...

I say "seem to" because stats on this are notoriously hard to come by. For example, Sweden censors that data in their crime statistics. Similarly, various police agencies seem to ignore crimes in order to avoid seeming racist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/12...

https://www.rt.com/news/328465-police-500-assaults-cologne/

I suspect if Europe imported more peaceful immigrants, or even had a credible plan to handle this issue, the sudden influx would be less of a problem.

NYC and London have faced a sudden influx of foreigners over the past 15 years but no one really cares. Why worry about some Indian or Russian working at a bank, doing yoga after work and then going home?

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

#56

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by PhasmaFelis »

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…

> With international air ticket worth less than a good meal

Jesus Christ, where are you getting your lunch from?

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

#58

Post by truth_sentinell »

wacowz wrote: post #42
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.

What kind of legal barriers kenyans have to travel?

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

#59

Post by tarancato »

bisRepetita wrote: post #12
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 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...

The ancestors of that pussy in Paris built an advanced society with equal rights, education, respect, etc. That's why people born from a French pussy deserve that, while people from other societies do not.

Is it our fault that other people that have had the same hundreds of years to build advanced societies haven't done it? Do we have to literally live worse because of it?

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

#60

Post by tdkl »

bisRepetita wrote: post #12
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 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...

You can easily turn this around, since some people think the other citizens from EU should cater to their beliefs because they were born from a pussy in Kabul and Damascus.
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