It's interesting to see the efforts to lock down our once permeable borders succeeding in recent decades. It seems that for much of our history we had no issue with free passage across, but we have in my lifetime used the politics of fear to militarize our borders. Obviously some will disagree but this seems to me a regressive change.
Freedom of movement is tenuous, and one of the greater paradoxes of the modern "libertarian" movement. The freedom isn't even universally supported on the left -- democratic socialist countries rely on high taxes and low economic inequality to maintain their systems, which, the reasoning goes, is unsustainable in the face of an unrestricted influx of economic refugees.
> The freedom isn't even universally supported on the left
It could be argued from a "leftist" position (whatever that means nowadays) that: it's mostly working class people that need to compete with immigrants. If the immigrants are undocumented or very poor, they are more likely to tolerate lower wages and unsafe working conditions, meaning that I (if I was a working class American) would have less negotiating power when it comes to my wages and work conditions, as there are plenty of people who would be happy to replace me. Also, working class people are more likely to meet with the immigrants that are engaged in illegal activities, whereas if you are middle-upper class or rich, you'll meet the educated, immigrants that maybe help your business growing or at the very least help you keep your household running.
I'm just trying to show a different "leftist" take, I don't really have a strong opinion on this issue as I believe there are good people on both sides and figuring out the best approach is basically impossible.
> It could be argued from a "leftist" position (whatever that means nowadays) that: it's mostly working class people that need to compete with immigrants. If the immigrants are undocumented or very poor, they are more likely to tolerate lower wages and unsafe working conditions, meaning that I (if I was a working class American) would have less negotiating power when it comes to my wages and work conditions, as there are plenty of people who would be happy to replace me.
That sounds very similar to the "they're stealing our jobs" argument I hear sometimes from people on the right.
It might feel like a cosmetic nitpicking, but if I say they are "stealing our jobs", I'm blaming and vilifying the immigrants without wanting to understand their reasons for coming here and the unfortunate situation they are in.
On the other hand, my ability to negotiate with the powerful owner class is strongly reduced if there are people that are willing to be exploited or simply don't have another choice due to their immigration status and poverty. It could be argued that more people coming in results in bad working conditions for both the immigrants and the working class, whereas the rich can take advantage of the situation and amass a fortune on the misfortune of the poor (both native and alien).
Bernie Sanders, once a prominent leftie, said in one of his honest moments that the open borders is a "Koch brothers proposal".
From my perspective any self-proclaimed leftist who is against freedom of movement is essentially a crypto-fascist. The working class aren't really taking back the means of the production if that so-called working class is a privileged group drawn along nationalist or racist lines that explicitly exclude the workers of the world.
The way I see it, freedom of movement is pretty much the most fundamental freedom that exists in organic beings. We eat, we grow, we migrate. All the other freedoms are built on that one. If people aren't free to change their living conditions by moving somewhere that provides better opportunities, then they're not really free at all.
I love Bernie but he was also running for president of the United States and this forced him to have a somewhat centrist position from a global perspective. He only seems lefty to us because he genuinely cares about labor, health care, and free education. But in many places this platform is not particularly leftist.
This would be called national chauvinism and has multiple times created major splits of the labor movement in the past. Can't really be a leftist and support border controls. Elon and Jeff Have more than enough money for everybody .
Plus if America and about a dozen other countries stop interfering, destroying through military action, and otherwise preventing the overwhelming majority of nations from independent development of industry then there will not be much of an inflow to this country.
What you say is correct, but I am reminded of something David Harvey says: “wealth redistribution is the lowest form of socialism.”
If you have true community ownership of the means of production, then people gain wealth by working for cooperatives, not by state guaranteed benefits. In such a system I would think there is more flexibility in how benefits are distributed.
> The freedom isn't even universally supported on the left
Freedom of movement is tied to left internationalism, but radical (i.e., all-at-once/revolutionary) internationalism is not as strong as it once was, and even people that see freedom of movement as a long-term goal often see unrestricted freedom of movement as having unacceptable costs between states that aren't both much further along than any actually are as having practical problems.
> The freedom isn't even universally supported on the left
In the U.S., the left broadly supports immigration as well as freedom of movement. But if you take a peep at European politics, and even parts of the left in Canada, you might find that support for immigration and freedom-of-movement really is more complicated.
It's one of those weird usages of terminology that the left in the U.S. is described as "liberal." In Europe and Canada, liberal means center-right. But at least in this case, calling the American left liberal is appropriate.
Having been born in East Germany I can assure you that the "Left" is not a proponent of free movement and that they will gladly attempt to shoot you for trying to escape from socialist paradise.
Calling US Democrats "socialist" for wanting things like universal free health care makes me cringe in light of that.
Political discussions in the U.S. using the word "socialism" are basically meaningless, because people use that word to mean several completely different things:
1. Socialism as practiced in eastern Europe during the Cold War - basically the state is a prison, no one is allowed to leave, people who attempt to leave are shot and left to die, everyone is under surveillance, and dissent is punished very harshly. These governments were proud to call themselves socialist. In East Germany, they referred to themselves as "Socialism as it exists in reality" ("real existierender Sozialimus.") These are not governments that someone is now choosing to call socialist to give socialism a bad name.
2. Socialism as practiced in Europe these days, with a focus on Scandinavia. Somewhat higher taxes, reasonable universal health care, generally people are not left to starve in the street. I'm not sure if it makes sense to call this "socialism." I guess it's social-something.
3. Socialism as a scarecrow in American politics: Anything I don't like is Socialism. Any policy where the government provides benefits is Socialism. Any healthcare system where illness doesn't lead to bankruptcy is Socialism.
As a result, people talk past each other, and discussions tend to become nonsensical. Anyone who wants to have an informed opinion on socialism should just take a look at what happened in East Germany and the rest of eastern Europe from 1945-1990.
There is another kind of socialism discussed in the USA today. That’s a type of socialism not driven by government but instead direct ownership of the means of production by workers. Basically your economy is a bunch of cooperatives instead of a bunch of firms with a bunch of workers and a small number of owners. The former leads to an economy where everyone is part of the ownership class, eliminating the sharp divide in our current society between owners and workers. It is also a free market system that does not require government intervention to function. This is truer to the writings of Karl Marx than the various 20th century socialisms, as Marx did not generally advocate for a state of affairs where the state owns the means of production.
See for example Richard Wolff for a modern day economist who has been advocating for this type of socialism for a long time. Though you will find a historical through line of advocates going back to the 19th century. Notably there is a growing body of socialists who see the folly and horror of state-run socialisms who have gone back to the original theories and renewed their interest in direct control of collectively owned firms instead of state control.
> 2. Socialism as practiced in Europe these days, with a focus on Scandinavia. Somewhat higher taxes, reasonable universal health care, generally people are not left to starve in the street. I'm not sure if it makes sense to call this "socialism." I guess it's social-something.
I mean in France it's literally the Socialist Party. Isn't it more useful to use the word to refer to a political movement that's real and relevant today rather than one that vanished for most practical purposes over 30 years ago?
> These are not governments that someone is now choosing to call socialist to give socialism a bad name.
No, they were governments someone choose to call socialist to give authoritarian state capitalism a good name.
Somewhat more generously Leninism (which they represent, or represent later derivatives of), was an attempt to adapt Marxist Communism (in which “socialism” is the name of a stage of development, and not necessarily in the same sense as “socialism” is used by people who identify it as an ideology of its own) to the conditions that existed in Russia at the time, particularly, the absence of capitalist development and broad proletarian class consciousness. This shortcut was then controversial within the Marxist community, much less the broader socialist community.
Even if one is generous enough to accept Leninism as a valid form of socialism, there is no possible justification for seeing it as representative of socialism in general, more than, say, the broad displacement of the system Marx described as capitalism with a new system shaped largely by socialist critiques of capitalism (sometimes called “mixed economy” or “welfare state”) as the dominant system of the developed West is.
Now, if someone is actually substantively advocating Lenin-/Stalin-/Mao-ism, then, sure, the experience of actual states practicing those systems tend to be relevant. If they are advocating something else, then those experiences are about as relevant as looking to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to assess systems other than Juche that nonetheless are described as “democratic republics”.
> Socialism as practiced in Europe these days, with a focus on Scandinavia.
What the heck are you talking about?
Denmark is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a mixed economy. The current government is a majority coalition of a social-democratic, a moderate-liberal and a conservative-liberal party. It is considered centrist. There are seventeen parties in the danish parliament, two are socialist parties, and both are small minorities. Denmark does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
Norway is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a mixed economy. Norway is often called state-capitalist because of the large amount of state owned company shares. The current government is a minority coalition of a social-democratic party and a centrist-agricultural party. It is considered center-left. As a minority government it relies on opposition votes to rule. There are ten parties in the norwegian parliament, two of which are socialist, and both are small minorities. Norway does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
Sweden is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a mixed economy. The current government is a minority coalition of a moderate, a liberal and a christ-democratic party. It is considered center-right and relies mostly on votes from the right to govern. Sweden was governed by a center-left minority coalition of social-democrats, greens, centrists and liberals, which collapsed. There are eight parties in the swedish parliament, one of which is a small socialist party. Note it was not part of the last government either. Sweden does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
Finland is a parliamentary republic with a capitalist mixed market economy. The current government is a five party coalition led by the social-democrats and including a centrist, a green, a socialists and the swedish party, in order of size. It is the only scandinavian country in which a socialist party is actually part of the government, but with 8% it is more the little far-left cousin of the leading social-democrats. It holds the ministry of education and the ministry of health and social affairs. The government as a whole is considered center-left, and there are ten parties in parliament, with the previously mentioned one being the only socialist party. Finland does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
---
For those who can only think in left/right, east/west, blue/red, and are terrified and confused by the idea of a parliament with seventeen parties: to understand european politics one must first learn to differentiate and be specific. For example: "democratic-socialism" and "social-democracy" are two very different political concepts. A mixed economy is not socialism, but a capitalist market economy with strong regulatory oversight and some state owned property, often controlling shares of key industries. And social benefits are an implementation of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the first three of the U.N. sustainable development goals.
---
TLDR: There is no scandinavian country that practices socialism these days.
Countries with freedom of movement still have limits on how many people can stay. Those are more organic than dumb border controls though: it comes down to wether you can find a job and a pay a place to stay, and those aren’t infinite.
That’s where coming in to become homeless won’t be allowed , same way housing laws will forbid staying in places that are not adequate for residency (rooms with no windows, packing 12 people in one bedroom etc.). Same for minimum wages and taxation stopping a run to the bottom if too many people come in with no value to add to the economy.
Basically you’re free to come and go, but will need to find a spot you fit in if you intend to stay.
And yet almost all of the most prosperous democratic socialist countries have signed on to allow free movement of people from many of the poorer parts of Europe.
Yes this is very regressive change. I remember times when I could drive into US and back with just regular driver license. I see a zero reason other than turning people into a cattle for sacrificing freedom of movement.
The increasing legal constraints offset the declining technological constraints. Given modern communications and transportation technology, open borders would have very different practical effects today than a century or two ago. The number of people who would come in would be hugely greater than in the past.
Cool. Let’s welcome them and also stop bombing their countries with our militaries and restricting their ability to clone our working technology and maybe they’ll stop trying to leave their homes.
EDIT: Point being that open borders has the benefit of forcing us to face the ways in which we are harming other places. The fact that currently many people would leave their homes to come here is a feature not a bug. We’re trying to abuse the rest of the world for our benefit and that makes other people unhappy. We should stop.
The US mostly abandoned its involvement in Central America and all it did was provide an opening for drug cartels to take over, which has led to a huge influx of migrants. Sorry but your theory just isn't supported by the facts in evidence.
Looking at Google Maps it appears several other buildings in the area also straddle the border. The reporter mentioned an insurance dispute in passing, but it would be interesting to have more details on how it all works from a legal perspective. Presumably they get two different property tax bills. Are two different building codes enforced depending on which part of the building you're in?
> James Tanner, the Gaston County tax director, said the state will have to refer to old laws regarding residency for houses the border now divides.
> "What is going to be that main decision is they go back to the old voter guidelines or rules," Tanner said. "And that's where the head of household lays down to sleep. So basically where the master bedroom is located in that property, whichever side that's on is going be dependent on where the residence is."
> The border legislation passed in both states said that residents who moved from North Carolina to South Carolina will remain eligible for North Carolina in-state tuition for 10 years after the change, provided that they remain on the same property that was formerly in North Carolina. Residents whose homes moved from South Carolina to North Carolina are eligible for South Carolina in-state tuition for two years after the change.
> ...
> Dee and Glenn Martin, age 88 and 90, live just a few houses away from the Ingold family, and their property was moved entirely from South Carolina to North Carolina. Glenn has a number of significant health issues, including pulmonary fibrosis. He spends most days at home, seated in his favorite armchair and attached to a tank of oxygen while Dee serves as his primary caretaker.
> Under South Carolina's healthcare provisions, he was allowed at-home visits from a primary care physician. Although the Martins have found a North Carolina doctor to serve as Glenn's primary care physician, they remain unsure what kind of access they will have to at-home care.
> People like Kemp need to take some time to describe precisely where they live. He walks in his front door in Rhode Island, but his kitchen is in Connecticut. He votes in Rhode Island, which is also where his car is registered, but he sleeps in Connecticut.
> Of course, he pays taxes to both towns.
> ...
> Several people approached for this story living on the border said they’d rather not be quoted in an article about how they were following the requirements because, generally speaking, they were not.
> ...
> Even before COVID, there were complications on state borders. What school do your kids go to? What cable service do you get? To whom do you pay taxes, and in what amount? Who plows your road? When you need to get your property fixed, do you need a contractor licensed in both states?
What if their house straddles the border, and they work from home? Are they not allowed to have their computer in one side of the house? Who monitors this?
Technically they would probably have to be dual citizens, or a citizen of one country and permanent resident of the other, to not break laws. And then they'd have to file taxes in both countries.
No idea if it's enforced, but if it were, it would probably be such a pain that people would just stop buying/building houses that straddle the border. Why complicate things unnecessarily with a house split between two countries when you can just buy a house that is (like most houses) entirely in one country?
Not at all true, it sounds like you're just guessing about what how you think things should work?
> And then they'd have to file taxes in both countries.
Not at all true again, regardless of where your house is, even if you're a dual citizen. The US is the only country that claims to be able to tax the earnings of its citizens outside of its borders.
Are there two separate parcel IDs? One for each authority in the respective state? Do you pay property tax on the full acreage to each state or only on the partial acreage in each state?
There was a building in the outer Washington, DC, suburbs that straddled a county line. Somehow or another its status became subject to a vote twenty-five or thirty years ago--though the electorate eligible to vote on this must have been tiny.
And I did once meet a programmer who lived or had live in a house straddling the New York/New Jersey line NW of New York City. I didn't ask about the tax status.
I don't know how it works in Vermont/Quebec, but there are many houses straddling the Belgian border here in the Netherlands. In those cases, the tax obligation is based on which country the front door opens to.
«The line of tape on the floor was added to mark the exact border line after a fire decades ago set off a fight between insurance companies over who had to pay for damages, the tour guide explained.»
While the border looks extremely porous, the reality is that it is heavily monitored. You will be met by the police or border patrol if you cross in the wrong place or even if you simply loiter near the border.
I've spent time in a few of these wacky rural Canadian border places and for the places I went to, it didn't seem that likely one'd be caught in many spots, it's just the consequences if one does are potentially quite severe, and there's a pretty good degree of self policing of the honor system as word gets around a small town real fast. (Unless enough people wish to keep certain crossings secret... interesting idea.)
Although a somewhat common story I've heard is youths goofing around on ATVs or snowmobiles being intercepted and let off with a strict warning. Perhaps somewhat mythologically passed down generation to generation.
Sounds about right. The CA-US border is extremely long and sparsely populated in most areas. Reckless snowmobile use is a common thing in the northern lower 50. The worst is drunk snowmobilers going 90 mph.
Well they can run on water so they're basically all-terrain jetskis. Florida should be scared of the secret backdoor invasion where it's least expected.
I wonder whether that photography project was in any way related to this one (https://clui.org/projects/united-divide), or whether through a coincidence two different people came up with the same idea in roughly the same timeframe…
one piece that is omitted from this is how the border is enforced. From the looks of it, unless you’re looking at becoming employed here they don’t really check your citizenship. That’s a win in my book.
Reminds me that when I was a kid you could travel to / from Canada without a passport (only nation with that privilege if I recall correctly) and now you can’t. I recall no real good reasoning for it other than the DOH wanted to close the loop hole, without any real evidence it was a cause of issues
You mean all the things just as hard to get as a passport, some invented specifically to be used for this new program? Sure, I guess you could get one of those instead. But there's no reason to get one of them rather than a passport except as a fig leaf for people to say a passport "isn't mandatory".
Or, and bear with me for a second, we could have kept freedoms we had on September 10th, 2001.
It’s far easier to get an EDL than to get a passport, what are you talking about?
We never had Schengen. Almost every other country has similar entry requirements, why should the US and Canada be any different? They’re not in a far-reaching political alliance, there’s no incentive to have open borders or provide exceptions to rules.
9/11 changed things. It’s absurd to expect things to always be the same and just because it was open before doesn’t mean that was ever intended or expected to be permanent.
> It’s absurd to expect things to always be the same and just because it was open before doesn’t mean that was ever intended or expected to be permanent.
On the flip side, there's also an interpretation under which passports (and possibly visas) were not intended or expected to be permanent:
This article quotes various delegates to international conventions apparently taking for granted that it would be desirable to return to a pre-WWI default of people not usually needing travel documents or being subject to border formalities¹.
(I've seen this article several times, but haven't seen if there's a contrary interpretation under which the diplomats or politicians did not, in fact, have the intuition or consensus that it describes. Obviously improvements in transportation technology mean that there are orders of magnitude more international trips than there were in the pre-WWI era, so one could imagine that most migration -- and tourism -- was seen as a relatively marginal activity in the past and that it no longer looks that way when so many more people can afford to do it.)
¹ not quite sure how to reconcile this with inspections of migrants around the turn of the 20th century, even if those were more focused on public health and stuff
>not quite sure how to reconcile this with inspections of migrants around the turn of the 20th century, even if those were more focused on public health and stuff
More than public health. Every single migrant who came through Ellis Island and other US border stations had to
* Pass said public health examinations
* Prove, to the satisfaction of inspectors, of disaffiliation with a variety of subversive organizations/ideologies (Communism and polygamy being two prominent examples)
* Provide proof of financial support in the US, whether by oneself or from a US financial sponsor
Don't pass any of these tests? You're on the next ship out of the US. Shipping companies were responsible for return passage (just as airlines are responsible for paying the way of those who do not pass US border entry today), so had incentive to make sure that their passengers would pass scrutiny.
I am a migrant to the US. I am very much in favor of restoring and enforcing such rules today.
So I'm kind of confused about who was and wasn't inspected. Was the inspection only for people intending to remain permanently or intending to start a naturalization process? Was this based on what travelers said their intentions were, or the kind of transportation they used, or something else?
My intuition is that someone coming as a tourist, for instance, wouldn't have been subject to this level of inspection. But I also suppose that was much rarer at the beginning of the 20th century than today.
(I also don't know what happened at the land borders in prior centuries.)
It's gone the opposite way between US and Canada since 9/11. Used to be able to cross the border with just a driver's license. Now you need a passport and the border agents are often incredibly hostile.
As a result I make a habit of not going to the Hostile States of Overarmed Americans despite it being only an hour away. The people are super nice, the government... not so much.
>Now you need a passport and the border agents are often incredibly hostile.
Are the Canadian agents hostile as well, or only the American ones?
>The people are super nice, the government... not so much.
The Americans that tend to go into law enforcement jobs are not super nice people, quite the opposite really. It's really eye-opening going to other countries outside the US and interacting with cops and other law enforcement agents (including airport security and customs agents) and seeing just how differently you're treated. Even as a US citizen, entering the US is not a fun experience at all.
The Canadian agents are comically friendly, but that's because I'm coming back into my own country, where I'm a citizen, and, y'know, they have to let me in. Cuz it's my country. I hear from Americans that they're often not very nice, but it sounds not nearly as terrible as "please stand in this room for an hour AND DON'T TOUCH YOUR PHONE while we tear your car apart for no reason because, I dunno... a hunch or something... oh, all's fine have a nice day bye enjoy your tourist trip to the USA"
>The Canadian agents are comically friendly, but that's because I'm coming back into my own country, where I'm a citizen, and, y'know, they have to let me in. Cuz it's my country.
Returning to your own country doesn't mean the agents have to be friendly to you. I'm American and the agents there are not friendly when I return. They don't just do it to non-citizens; they're assholes to everyone. Of course, there's a lot more limitations on what they can do to US citizens than to foreigners, but they don't turn into nice guys when they see a US passport.
Every time I've visited Canada, the agents there were reasonably friendly to me too. To me, this shows that the two countries simply have extremely different standards in what kind of people they hire to be agents, and how agents are allowed to act.
Purely anecdotal and third-hand and a few years old by now, but this trip report to Estcourt (another slightly unusual border situation) also bears this out:
I've experienced asshole power-tripping border guards on both sides. They're much less frequent on the Canadian side, and I have a US passport, but they exist.
> Reminds me that when I was a kid you could travel to / from Canada without a passport
I assume you mean the era of your childhood, but, Canadian and American children can go back and forth between the US and Canada without passports, provided it’s a land crossing. So to be pedantic, as a kid you can still travel to/from Canada without a passport.
> I recall no real good reasoning for it other than the DOH wanted to close the loop hole, without any real evidence it was a cause of issues
After 9/11 there were (false) rumours (spread by US Congressmen IIRC) that some terrorists entered the US via Canada. Even though that was shown to be false the stigma remained and I think it was a big part of the reason for the changes.
There were a lot of people in border towns affected. Before 9/11 some people crossed daily for work and knew all the border agents. They would just drive through with a wave but that all changed.
According to their web site, you can visit the place without a US visitor visa from the Canada side.
As the only entrance to the library is in the US, all non-American visitors passing through US territory to enter the library must understand that their movements will be monitored by the US Border Patrol and the RCMP.
Passports and visas are not necessary to enter the Haskell Free Library & Opera House. However, please be aware that both the US Border Patrol and the RCMP have the right to ask to see personal identification and detain anyone who is not of legal status. We do encourage you to bring your papers with you, just in case.
Also see Canusa Avenue just a km/mile or two to the west. Just as the name described the Canada-US border runs through the middle of the road.
I’m Canadian and I’ve been stopped by the RCMP while visiting. It was right on the border as I was about to enter the USA so I can enter the library. I only had my driver’s license and one of the RCMP officers went to background check me on his computer while his partner held a conversation with me and their American border agent counterpart. It was pretty intimidating but they finally let me go on my way into the library without further issue.
I grew up in Stanstead. I have fond memories of story time as a child in the library, borrowing movies and comic books, and playing age of empires 2 with my best friend on the two shared computers in the front room.
There’s also a street in the town (aptly named Canusa st.) which is half in the US and half in Canada. Interestingly, the houses on one side have flags reminding you where you are, while there are no flags on the other. Figuring out which side is left as an exersize to the reader ;)
I would say likely Ontario, and specifically the Ottawa capital region. Though, since the Convoy, waving a Canadian Flag has taken on a Conservative/right wing/populist connotation that I think is still around today, so it may be shifting in the direction of Alberta and Saskatchewan.
(Also note that in Quebec provence flying a Canadian flag can be a bit of a political statement… it seemed easier to me to be carefully neutral on such things).
Yes! My mother-in-law grew up in Stanstead, and we’ve spent a lot of time there with her side of the family (and lived and worked in Sherbrooke for a couple years, though we are Australian and are in Australia now).
107 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 178 ms ] threadIt could be argued from a "leftist" position (whatever that means nowadays) that: it's mostly working class people that need to compete with immigrants. If the immigrants are undocumented or very poor, they are more likely to tolerate lower wages and unsafe working conditions, meaning that I (if I was a working class American) would have less negotiating power when it comes to my wages and work conditions, as there are plenty of people who would be happy to replace me. Also, working class people are more likely to meet with the immigrants that are engaged in illegal activities, whereas if you are middle-upper class or rich, you'll meet the educated, immigrants that maybe help your business growing or at the very least help you keep your household running.
I'm just trying to show a different "leftist" take, I don't really have a strong opinion on this issue as I believe there are good people on both sides and figuring out the best approach is basically impossible.
That sounds very similar to the "they're stealing our jobs" argument I hear sometimes from people on the right.
On the other hand, my ability to negotiate with the powerful owner class is strongly reduced if there are people that are willing to be exploited or simply don't have another choice due to their immigration status and poverty. It could be argued that more people coming in results in bad working conditions for both the immigrants and the working class, whereas the rich can take advantage of the situation and amass a fortune on the misfortune of the poor (both native and alien).
Bernie Sanders, once a prominent leftie, said in one of his honest moments that the open borders is a "Koch brothers proposal".
The way I see it, freedom of movement is pretty much the most fundamental freedom that exists in organic beings. We eat, we grow, we migrate. All the other freedoms are built on that one. If people aren't free to change their living conditions by moving somewhere that provides better opportunities, then they're not really free at all.
Plus if America and about a dozen other countries stop interfering, destroying through military action, and otherwise preventing the overwhelming majority of nations from independent development of industry then there will not be much of an inflow to this country.
If you have true community ownership of the means of production, then people gain wealth by working for cooperatives, not by state guaranteed benefits. In such a system I would think there is more flexibility in how benefits are distributed.
Freedom of movement is tied to left internationalism, but radical (i.e., all-at-once/revolutionary) internationalism is not as strong as it once was, and even people that see freedom of movement as a long-term goal often see unrestricted freedom of movement as having unacceptable costs between states that aren't both much further along than any actually are as having practical problems.
> The freedom isn't even universally supported on the left
In the U.S., the left broadly supports immigration as well as freedom of movement. But if you take a peep at European politics, and even parts of the left in Canada, you might find that support for immigration and freedom-of-movement really is more complicated.
It's one of those weird usages of terminology that the left in the U.S. is described as "liberal." In Europe and Canada, liberal means center-right. But at least in this case, calling the American left liberal is appropriate.
Calling US Democrats "socialist" for wanting things like universal free health care makes me cringe in light of that.
Political discussions in the U.S. using the word "socialism" are basically meaningless, because people use that word to mean several completely different things:
1. Socialism as practiced in eastern Europe during the Cold War - basically the state is a prison, no one is allowed to leave, people who attempt to leave are shot and left to die, everyone is under surveillance, and dissent is punished very harshly. These governments were proud to call themselves socialist. In East Germany, they referred to themselves as "Socialism as it exists in reality" ("real existierender Sozialimus.") These are not governments that someone is now choosing to call socialist to give socialism a bad name.
2. Socialism as practiced in Europe these days, with a focus on Scandinavia. Somewhat higher taxes, reasonable universal health care, generally people are not left to starve in the street. I'm not sure if it makes sense to call this "socialism." I guess it's social-something.
3. Socialism as a scarecrow in American politics: Anything I don't like is Socialism. Any policy where the government provides benefits is Socialism. Any healthcare system where illness doesn't lead to bankruptcy is Socialism.
As a result, people talk past each other, and discussions tend to become nonsensical. Anyone who wants to have an informed opinion on socialism should just take a look at what happened in East Germany and the rest of eastern Europe from 1945-1990.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
See for example Richard Wolff for a modern day economist who has been advocating for this type of socialism for a long time. Though you will find a historical through line of advocates going back to the 19th century. Notably there is a growing body of socialists who see the folly and horror of state-run socialisms who have gone back to the original theories and renewed their interest in direct control of collectively owned firms instead of state control.
I mean in France it's literally the Socialist Party. Isn't it more useful to use the word to refer to a political movement that's real and relevant today rather than one that vanished for most practical purposes over 30 years ago?
No, they were governments someone choose to call socialist to give authoritarian state capitalism a good name.
Somewhat more generously Leninism (which they represent, or represent later derivatives of), was an attempt to adapt Marxist Communism (in which “socialism” is the name of a stage of development, and not necessarily in the same sense as “socialism” is used by people who identify it as an ideology of its own) to the conditions that existed in Russia at the time, particularly, the absence of capitalist development and broad proletarian class consciousness. This shortcut was then controversial within the Marxist community, much less the broader socialist community.
Even if one is generous enough to accept Leninism as a valid form of socialism, there is no possible justification for seeing it as representative of socialism in general, more than, say, the broad displacement of the system Marx described as capitalism with a new system shaped largely by socialist critiques of capitalism (sometimes called “mixed economy” or “welfare state”) as the dominant system of the developed West is.
Now, if someone is actually substantively advocating Lenin-/Stalin-/Mao-ism, then, sure, the experience of actual states practicing those systems tend to be relevant. If they are advocating something else, then those experiences are about as relevant as looking to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to assess systems other than Juche that nonetheless are described as “democratic republics”.
What the heck are you talking about?
Denmark is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a mixed economy. The current government is a majority coalition of a social-democratic, a moderate-liberal and a conservative-liberal party. It is considered centrist. There are seventeen parties in the danish parliament, two are socialist parties, and both are small minorities. Denmark does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
Norway is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a mixed economy. Norway is often called state-capitalist because of the large amount of state owned company shares. The current government is a minority coalition of a social-democratic party and a centrist-agricultural party. It is considered center-left. As a minority government it relies on opposition votes to rule. There are ten parties in the norwegian parliament, two of which are socialist, and both are small minorities. Norway does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
Sweden is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a mixed economy. The current government is a minority coalition of a moderate, a liberal and a christ-democratic party. It is considered center-right and relies mostly on votes from the right to govern. Sweden was governed by a center-left minority coalition of social-democrats, greens, centrists and liberals, which collapsed. There are eight parties in the swedish parliament, one of which is a small socialist party. Note it was not part of the last government either. Sweden does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
Finland is a parliamentary republic with a capitalist mixed market economy. The current government is a five party coalition led by the social-democrats and including a centrist, a green, a socialists and the swedish party, in order of size. It is the only scandinavian country in which a socialist party is actually part of the government, but with 8% it is more the little far-left cousin of the leading social-democrats. It holds the ministry of education and the ministry of health and social affairs. The government as a whole is considered center-left, and there are ten parties in parliament, with the previously mentioned one being the only socialist party. Finland does not call itself socialist or claims to practice socialism.
---
For those who can only think in left/right, east/west, blue/red, and are terrified and confused by the idea of a parliament with seventeen parties: to understand european politics one must first learn to differentiate and be specific. For example: "democratic-socialism" and "social-democracy" are two very different political concepts. A mixed economy is not socialism, but a capitalist market economy with strong regulatory oversight and some state owned property, often controlling shares of key industries. And social benefits are an implementation of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the first three of the U.N. sustainable development goals.
---
TLDR: There is no scandinavian country that practices socialism these days.
That’s where coming in to become homeless won’t be allowed , same way housing laws will forbid staying in places that are not adequate for residency (rooms with no windows, packing 12 people in one bedroom etc.). Same for minimum wages and taxation stopping a run to the bottom if too many people come in with no value to add to the economy.
Basically you’re free to come and go, but will need to find a spot you fit in if you intend to stay.
EDIT: Point being that open borders has the benefit of forcing us to face the ways in which we are harming other places. The fact that currently many people would leave their homes to come here is a feature not a bug. We’re trying to abuse the rest of the world for our benefit and that makes other people unhappy. We should stop.
(This is a good one) What if your home was in two different states? Changes to the North, South Carolina border leave residents frustrated - https://abc11.com/north-carolina-nc-south-sc/1896481/
> James Tanner, the Gaston County tax director, said the state will have to refer to old laws regarding residency for houses the border now divides.
> "What is going to be that main decision is they go back to the old voter guidelines or rules," Tanner said. "And that's where the head of household lays down to sleep. So basically where the master bedroom is located in that property, whichever side that's on is going be dependent on where the residence is."
> The border legislation passed in both states said that residents who moved from North Carolina to South Carolina will remain eligible for North Carolina in-state tuition for 10 years after the change, provided that they remain on the same property that was formerly in North Carolina. Residents whose homes moved from South Carolina to North Carolina are eligible for South Carolina in-state tuition for two years after the change.
> ...
> Dee and Glenn Martin, age 88 and 90, live just a few houses away from the Ingold family, and their property was moved entirely from South Carolina to North Carolina. Glenn has a number of significant health issues, including pulmonary fibrosis. He spends most days at home, seated in his favorite armchair and attached to a tank of oxygen while Dee serves as his primary caretaker.
> Under South Carolina's healthcare provisions, he was allowed at-home visits from a primary care physician. Although the Martins have found a North Carolina doctor to serve as Glenn's primary care physician, they remain unsure what kind of access they will have to at-home care.
---
Apparently, these are known as Line houses... and there's a Wikipedia article on them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_house
Some Straight Dope from 2013 https://boards.straightdope.com/t/property-spanning-two-stat...
(on the different states and their quarantine requirements in 2020) https://www.heraldnews.com/story/special/special-sections/20...
> People like Kemp need to take some time to describe precisely where they live. He walks in his front door in Rhode Island, but his kitchen is in Connecticut. He votes in Rhode Island, which is also where his car is registered, but he sleeps in Connecticut.
> Of course, he pays taxes to both towns.
> ...
> Several people approached for this story living on the border said they’d rather not be quoted in an article about how they were following the requirements because, generally speaking, they were not.
> ...
> Even before COVID, there were complications on state borders. What school do your kids go to? What cable service do you get? To whom do you pay taxes, and in what amount? Who plows your road? When you need to get your property fixed, do you need a contractor licensed in both states?
>...
No idea if it's enforced, but if it were, it would probably be such a pain that people would just stop buying/building houses that straddle the border. Why complicate things unnecessarily with a house split between two countries when you can just buy a house that is (like most houses) entirely in one country?
Not at all true, it sounds like you're just guessing about what how you think things should work?
> And then they'd have to file taxes in both countries.
Not at all true again, regardless of where your house is, even if you're a dual citizen. The US is the only country that claims to be able to tax the earnings of its citizens outside of its borders.
China, Eritrea tax worldwide income of non-resident citizens.
A bunch of other countries do it in limited circumstances, e.g.
- French citizen living in Monaco
- Some countries tax non-resident citizens living in tax havens
And I did once meet a programmer who lived or had live in a house straddling the New York/New Jersey line NW of New York City. I didn't ask about the tax status.
«The line of tape on the floor was added to mark the exact border line after a fire decades ago set off a fight between insurance companies over who had to pay for damages, the tour guide explained.»
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.0108844,-73.3349375,3a,75y,1...
EDIT: In response to the skepticism, here is a source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ishmaeldaro/us-canada-border-photos
This Photographer Spent Three Years Documenting The Canada-U.S. Border
Along the way, Rutkauskas found that the "longest undefended border in the world" is a lot more heavily policed than its reputation suggests.
Although a somewhat common story I've heard is youths goofing around on ATVs or snowmobiles being intercepted and let off with a strict warning. Perhaps somewhat mythologically passed down generation to generation.
And they don't have many snowmobile issues in Florida.
Reminds me that when I was a kid you could travel to / from Canada without a passport (only nation with that privilege if I recall correctly) and now you can’t. I recall no real good reasoning for it other than the DOH wanted to close the loop hole, without any real evidence it was a cause of issues
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Travel_Init...
Yes, the requirements are stricter in that you have to prove citizenship in some way but there are multiple ways to do that which are WHTI-compliant.
Or, and bear with me for a second, we could have kept freedoms we had on September 10th, 2001.
We never had Schengen. Almost every other country has similar entry requirements, why should the US and Canada be any different? They’re not in a far-reaching political alliance, there’s no incentive to have open borders or provide exceptions to rules.
9/11 changed things. It’s absurd to expect things to always be the same and just because it was open before doesn’t mean that was ever intended or expected to be permanent.
On the flip side, there's also an interpretation under which passports (and possibly visas) were not intended or expected to be permanent:
https://fee.org/articles/passports-were-a-temporary-war-meas...
This article quotes various delegates to international conventions apparently taking for granted that it would be desirable to return to a pre-WWI default of people not usually needing travel documents or being subject to border formalities¹.
(I've seen this article several times, but haven't seen if there's a contrary interpretation under which the diplomats or politicians did not, in fact, have the intuition or consensus that it describes. Obviously improvements in transportation technology mean that there are orders of magnitude more international trips than there were in the pre-WWI era, so one could imagine that most migration -- and tourism -- was seen as a relatively marginal activity in the past and that it no longer looks that way when so many more people can afford to do it.)
¹ not quite sure how to reconcile this with inspections of migrants around the turn of the 20th century, even if those were more focused on public health and stuff
More than public health. Every single migrant who came through Ellis Island and other US border stations had to
* Pass said public health examinations
* Prove, to the satisfaction of inspectors, of disaffiliation with a variety of subversive organizations/ideologies (Communism and polygamy being two prominent examples)
* Provide proof of financial support in the US, whether by oneself or from a US financial sponsor
Don't pass any of these tests? You're on the next ship out of the US. Shipping companies were responsible for return passage (just as airlines are responsible for paying the way of those who do not pass US border entry today), so had incentive to make sure that their passengers would pass scrutiny.
I am a migrant to the US. I am very much in favor of restoring and enforcing such rules today.
My intuition is that someone coming as a tourist, for instance, wouldn't have been subject to this level of inspection. But I also suppose that was much rarer at the beginning of the 20th century than today.
(I also don't know what happened at the land borders in prior centuries.)
It changed too many things that should not have been changed.
>"It’s absurd to expect things to always be the same"
Exactly. We should expect them to get better and more free. Otherwise we are moving in wrong direction.
As a result I make a habit of not going to the Hostile States of Overarmed Americans despite it being only an hour away. The people are super nice, the government... not so much.
Are the Canadian agents hostile as well, or only the American ones?
>The people are super nice, the government... not so much.
The Americans that tend to go into law enforcement jobs are not super nice people, quite the opposite really. It's really eye-opening going to other countries outside the US and interacting with cops and other law enforcement agents (including airport security and customs agents) and seeing just how differently you're treated. Even as a US citizen, entering the US is not a fun experience at all.
Returning to your own country doesn't mean the agents have to be friendly to you. I'm American and the agents there are not friendly when I return. They don't just do it to non-citizens; they're assholes to everyone. Of course, there's a lot more limitations on what they can do to US citizens than to foreigners, but they don't turn into nice guys when they see a US passport.
Every time I've visited Canada, the agents there were reasonably friendly to me too. To me, this shows that the two countries simply have extremely different standards in what kind of people they hire to be agents, and how agents are allowed to act.
https://mrgris.com/travel/blog/labrador/3/
Quote from the Canadian border guard about the neighbouring US customs officials: "ah yes, they have a... different frame of mind"
Of course, if your car isn't registered in an Eastern European country you probably won't even know that this is a possibility.
I assume you mean the era of your childhood, but, Canadian and American children can go back and forth between the US and Canada without passports, provided it’s a land crossing. So to be pedantic, as a kid you can still travel to/from Canada without a passport.
After 9/11 there were (false) rumours (spread by US Congressmen IIRC) that some terrorists entered the US via Canada. Even though that was shown to be false the stigma remained and I think it was a big part of the reason for the changes.
There were a lot of people in border towns affected. Before 9/11 some people crossed daily for work and knew all the border agents. They would just drive through with a wave but that all changed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Ressam
what value to the discussion does one-upping bring here?
I grew up in Stanstead. I have fond memories of story time as a child in the library, borrowing movies and comic books, and playing age of empires 2 with my best friend on the two shared computers in the front room.
There’s also a street in the town (aptly named Canusa st.) which is half in the US and half in Canada. Interestingly, the houses on one side have flags reminding you where you are, while there are no flags on the other. Figuring out which side is left as an exersize to the reader ;)
(Also note that in Quebec provence flying a Canadian flag can be a bit of a political statement… it seemed easier to me to be carefully neutral on such things).
The flags on Canusa St are amusing :)