231–240 of 270 posts
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There's full freedom of movement, so it's an open border. The Schengen zone is no border.
it’s not an “open border”. on the contrary. there are actual physical borders between schengen countries and the rest of the eu. whenever you enter/exit schengen you have to pass border control.
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>the places with the strictest border controls are often those that are quite desirable cheeky counterexample: North Korea
Pay a bit of money in China and you'll have a visa in no time. That's doesn't work with, say, Switzerland, at least not with a similar amount of money.
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Having driven all over both MD and WV, both in cities and country. they are _very_ different. I also think that Belgium and Australia are very different in many ways, but they're also on opposite sides of the earth, whereas, as was pointed out, MD and WV share a border. I've also been all over NY and VA and would say they are more similar compared to the WV vs MD comparison. I'm not sure where you saw that NY is the…
I recently visited WV and I found it an interesting contradiction. A lot of the major infrastructure I saw was in perfectly fine condition, even quite good in many places. But in a lot of the little towns the poverty was palpable. Houses in such an amazing state of disrepair with patches cobbled on top of patches. Then you drive into the hills around the town and sooooo beautiful, big houses on big plots of land, etc…
And unlike some other regions known for mountains (like New England) there are no (relatively) wide valleys between them.
It's wild, beautiful, and absolutely awful for building even a decent sized town in. It's why the few cities in the states are at the far edges, and even they are hilly. It's also obviously terrible for building transport infrastructure to get anywhere quickly.
I think the degree to which open borders are a reality within the U.S. is under-appreciated. As a reminder, U.S. states are sovereign entities with their own criminal laws, tax regimes, educational systems, property and contract rights, civil rights, economic growth, industries, natural resources, etc. In some cases their laws are pre-empted by U.S. federal law, but there remains quite a bit of diversity. Despite thi…
States can hardly be considered sovereign entities anymore. They are subservient to federal laws, educational standards, international trade restrictions, environmental protections, etc. States aren't even allowed to leave the federation.
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Oregon and Washington are an interesting case. Washington has the most regressive tax system in the US. Oregon is one of the least regressive (yeah, all states are regressive). You would think that wealthy folks would really want to move across the river to escape Oregon's income tax. The problem, though, is that there are just two bridges across the river and they are frequently very busy, and 99% of everything is o…
The issue is washingtonians working in oregon would pay oregon tax. Tax applies if you work in the state not if you live there. Living in portland and working in Washington is the best bet if you can pull it off
(until 5 years ago I lived in Portland and worked in Vancouver)
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I recently visited WV and I found it an interesting contradiction. A lot of the major infrastructure I saw was in perfectly fine condition, even quite good in many places. But in a lot of the little towns the poverty was palpable. Houses in such an amazing state of disrepair with patches cobbled on top of patches. Then you drive into the hills around the town and sooooo beautiful, big houses on big plots of land, etc…
The puzzle piece you are missing is topography. Load up a topo map of the state sometime. Nearly all of it is a twisted, practically fractal landscape of hills/mountains. And unlike some other regions known for mountains (like New England) there are no (relatively) wide valleys between them. It's wild, beautiful, and absolutely awful for building even a decent sized town in. It's why the few cities in the states are…
Antarctica too: if you can get there, you can step onto the ice. There's a pattern here: the only places with open borders are places where you wouldn't really want to live anyway, while the places with the strictest border controls are often those that are quite desirable.
In Russia you can take a tour boat to St Petersburg from Finland and they let you in for 3 days no problem. True of many countries that accept cruises. I think cruise ship may be a good way to get into a country without trying to get a visa.
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For me. I'd love to see open borders, where everyone has the freedom to move to where they can achieve their goals and dreams, rather than being restricted to the country where they happened to be born. How many Einsteins have been born in Africa, but denied the chance to make the contribution to humanity that they could have? (And before the cynics note that open borders are incompatible with welfare states, that's…
How many non-Einsteins from Africa and Asia would want to move to Western countries if given a chance? a few hundred million? A billion? How does a say Germany or France support a couple hundred more million people all at once? I think open borders is inherently a call for decreasing standards of living for the populations of those countries where most of the migration would be directed to. I just can't picture a sce…