General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI am one Democrat who does not want or need "border security". Open borders...
is my preference by far.
I recently read (wish I could find the article) that every congresscritter from districts on the Mexican border is against a wall. I have seen plenty of reports of locals down there with thriving bi-national relations who are happy the way it is. US and Mexican towns on the border seem to have excellent economic and social relations. People who are directly affected don't seem to think there's any emergency. Some are worried a wall will mean they lose their land.
Europe has been the example of open borders. For over 1500 years it has a history of warfare. Thirty Years War, Hundred Years War, Franco-Prussian War, War of the Spanish Succession... An almost constant state of war since the Roman Empire ended.
After the biggest, baddest wall of modern times, the Maginot Line, failed to work and we spent countless lives and treasure solving the problem, we, America, had our proudest moments.
Not the military victory, but the aftermath. No Versailles, no League of Nations... But a solid new world order based on human rights and democracy, with each nation pledged to work for the betterment of the whole.
The UN, EEC, NATO... Working together is far better than fighting. The European Union is more than a customs union. It is having severe problems now, but it is modeled on our own history and is a step toward a possible United States of Europe.
You can now drive from Germany to France and not know you are in a different country until the signs change to French. Driving from Denmark to Spain isn't any bigger deal than driving from Minnesota to Texas. People commute across borders.
"Hey, tonight let's zip over to Florence for dinner."
Not so easy if you want to zip over to Tijuana
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And, speaking of Tijuana, the wall there is disgraceful. San Diego and Tijuana should not be Berlin-by-theSea.
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Don't get me started on what they did to what used to be a nice ride to Montreal.
brooklynite
(94,703 posts)Unless you believe that any person who makes it to the border should be allowed in (and no Democratic lawmaker does), then you believe some for of border security is necessary.
uponit7771
(90,359 posts)LongtimeAZDem
(4,494 posts)The only guaranteed outcomes of the prohibition of a desired good or service are 1) increased cost of procuring the good or service and 2) increased violence associated with procuring it. Any law enforcement officer will tell you; if you crack down on vice, you just drive it underground and make it more expensive and dangerous.
Southwestern states understood this for decades; illegal immigration was inevitable, and so it was monitored and managed. If a situation got too egregious, it was cracked down on, but by and large it was seen as a trade-off. We paid a cost in services such as education and emergency care, while enjoying the benefits of low labor cost in housing and agriculture. Border trafficking was low risk, and therefore low-cost, and there was almost no violence associated with it.
Then people like Joe Arpaio turned it into a rallying point, and the crackdowns began. The cost of crossing the border skyrocketed, and so the drug cartels, who had ignored it as unprofitable, got into the action. As a result, many parts of the border are now far too dangerous to travel into.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)MineralMan
(146,325 posts)tour with an orchestra and a big choir. In 14 days, we traveled to or performed in eight European countries.
I showed my passport just once, at Heathrow airport. I never had to show it to anyone again on the entire trip, which involved multiple border crossings. Not once, until we landed at LAX at the end of the trip.
The buses we were on were all just waved through at every border.
I was surprised and very pleased to see how civilized nations handle such things. We need something like that here, I believe.