October 25, 2017

Borders Are Inhumane

By wise sloth

Photo of a "Caution" sign by the side of a highway next to a very tall border wall. The "Caution" sign has a picture of a man, woman and child running

 

The world is a confusing place, and there’s so much disinformation and misinformation pushed in our faces every day it’s hard to tell reality from fiction. Here’s a little trick that will help you see through a lot of the illusions. Social issues always involve multiple people, usually from multiple groups. These different people from different groups get differentiated with labels like gay, straight, American, Korean, president, citizen, soldier, officer, enlisted, supervisor, immigrant, owner, renter, customer, capitalist, communist, etc. These labels have their uses, but sometimes they confuse the real issue more than they clarify it. If you ever run into an issue you don’t understand, try replacing all the labels with the term “human being.”

For instance, if you’re having a hard time answering the question, “Why should straight people should the right to marry and homosexuals shouldn’t,” replace the labels with the words, “human being.” Then ask yourself, “Why should human beings have the right to marry and human beings shouldn’t?” When you do that, you see the justifications we use to deny one group of human beings the same rights are absurd. We’re all human beings. Bringing labels into the equation just confuses the issue and creates an environment where one group of human beings can oppress another group.

Let’s apply this concept to political borders. Suppose your child asks you this question: “Why aren’t Mexicans allowed to move freely into the United States, and why are the Mexicans who sneak north across the border paid slave wages and not given any employee benefits while people born in the United States are guaranteed a higher minimum wage and certain benefits and protections from their employers?”

When you replace the labels with the words, “human being,” the question becomes: “Why aren’t human beings allowed to move freely into the United States, and why are the human beings who sneak north across the border paid slave wages and not given any human being benefits while human beings born in the United States are guaranteed a higher minimum wage and certain benefits and protections from their human beings?”

When you do that, the question sounds absurd… because it is. But that’s hard to see when you fog reality with arbitrary labels. The truth is our passports are lies that perpetuate a false and inhumane reality. They’re not designed to help us get around the world. They’re designed to limit our freedom to travel, which limits our freedom to choose where to live, which limits our freedom to choose which laws we live under, which rights we have and probably most importantly, who we work for and who we pay taxes to. Borders don’t keep bad people out, they keep taxpayers in.

Any country that truly believes in freedom would open its borders unconditionally, but no country in the world has done that because it would free the human beings from the stranglehold that rich human beings have on poor human beings. Eliminating borders would give human beings the ultimate power to veto their corrupt leaders by simply leaving.

If that were possible, then rich and powerful human beings wouldn’t be able to create trade restrictions and sanctions that exploit human beings from poorer nations. The corrupt leaders from those poorer nations wouldn’t be able to exploit their own people or rule them with brutal force. People wouldn’t sit around saying to themselves, “Oh, the world sucks but what can we do about it?” They would simply leave and go live under the laws of a more just nation, and no leader wants that.

If we are all truly human beings, what right does one human being have to tell you where you can live? In truth, they have no right. All they have is the authority you give them over you. Unfortunately, so many people believe the lie of political borders and help enforce it that they make the lie real, and in doing so we eliminate our own freedom to travel, to choose which laws we would live under and which dictator’s regime we fund with our taxes. That’s the reality we’ve created for our children to grow up in.

 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2017 at 5:04 am and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , and posted in American Laws, Racism and Xenophobia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

3 responses to “Borders Are Inhumane”

  • Bullion Baron
    November 14th, 2017 at 4:05 am

    I have a lot of respect for your work, but inclined to disagree with your opinions covered above.
    This video is worth a watch if you haven’t seen it, for a visual of how little western countries can do to reduce poverty through immigration / open borders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
    Look at what is happening in Europe with mass immigration, it has led to a massive clash of cultures, causing a lot of problems. Even if you ignore the far-right propaganda, I don’t think anyone could admit honestly that Europe’s immigration policy has been sensible.
    If we take your line of reasoning to it’s logical conclusion, then what right does any family have to maintain a border at the door to their home? Should everyone be required to have an open house policy where the homeless or less fortunate can just live in whichever home they like? I would honestly be interested in your answers to these questions.

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  • Brent
    October 26th, 2017 at 9:54 am

    Right on, thank you – just posted to my one social media account as I couldn’t say it better myself and will surely have less flak to ignore than if it was me ranting!
    Cheers Sloth!

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