Monday, June 29, 2009

No Borders

Kent McManigal challenges "borderists."

It's his 100th column and he'd like to see it widely read.

I have said I disagree with him. But continuing that debate here is not something I can focus on right now.

Go read what he has to say, and if you have comments, share them with him.

Click here to do that.
Posted by David Codrea at 6/29/2009 08:51:00 AM

3 comments:

jon said...

i still hold that a border is a promise between exactly two individuals or interest groups. it is a physical impossibility for a third party to have standing. a line does not have three sides.

to the extent that the nation is our people, as defined by thomas paine in rights of man, the nation and the state are not the same thing. you can always leave a nation, while remaining present, as you may always leave a Church, while continuing to attend services in their same building. while our nation cherishes this liberty (or used to), the state does not feel the same way about it.

the rothbardian position, i believe, is that whether a nation has "no borders" or "national borders" or somewhere inbetween is something for that nation's border-contract market to decide. to assert that "no borders" is necessarily the solution to the perceived problems arising from "national borders" which have been corrupted for state ends is inconsistent with this, and inconsistent with the free market -- but as an opinion in and of itself is welcome for scrutiny. i don't think kent is quite stating this but it is an important distinction because that is the typical "left-libertarian" stance. i still personally believe men who live upon a border have a duty to form militias and control borders on behalf of everyone else they want to associate with, as a nation.

our situation today? to the extent that there is a u.s. border, then the u.s. government owns the land on its side, and you do not. to the extent you have to surrender tribute to remain on it, the u.s. government owns the land, and you do not. these are not national borders. these are state borders. just because they are not yet lined with dogs and land mines does not mean they are fundamentally the same in principle -- and who knows what terrors american ingenuity could improve upon the russian designs with.

6/29/2009 12:32 PM
Anonymous said...

"Mending Wall", by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'

6/29/2009 9:05 PM
Kent McManigal said...

'Good fences make good neighbors.' True, but I won't let some tyrant thousands of miles away come to my home and fence me in or dictate who I can let onto my property. Would you?

6/30/2009 1:30 PM

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