Borders

Borders serve a purpose. In this great big world with so much cultural diversity, belief systems and ideological variety, borders theoretically serve to protect the bases of all of them. Conceptually they also serve to protect resources. I think though we in the US (well really the West now) have kind of gotten it backwards on border crossing. As a nation we spend way too much time worrying about, fighting about who can come in... why we should let these people in, why we shouldn't let those people in. We devote no time to talking about who we shouldn't let out. What if the solution to the problem of who we let in is found by talking about who not to let out?

Why we worry about who and how many come to the US:

1) Security:

We aren't too well liked in large portions of the world, there's a lot of people trained in guerrilla war fare, small bands of people or even individuals can carry out massive destruction. Nineteen people changed the entire world over the course of a few hours. Their act is still having massive global impacts fourteen years later. So it isn't baseless to be a bit xenophobic. But why did they do it? Could who we let out of the US have stopped that horrible day from happening? In this case if we hadn't let our military and oil corporations out during the Afghan civil war in an effort to strike at the USSR would there have been less radicalization and would their eyes be turned to Russia instead of of us?

2) Jobs:

We worry about foreigners taking up the limited jobs we have here. If we restricted trade with foreign nations to goods, rather than allowing our corporations to cross outside of our borders through these massive trade deals that lead to American factories opening and operating outside of the US we would have plenty of jobs here. We also wouldn't devastate foreign local economies and environments so that local peoples don't need to leave their homes and come here in order to survive.

3) Drugs:

We worry about drugs coming into our country. Drugs are a huge problem, there's numerous crime syndicates that exist simply because drugs are illegal and of course there's addiction. We were so worried about this we thought it was a great idea to attack the problem at it's source... where the drugs grow. If we hadn't sent the FBI, CIA and US military across our borders into foreign lands thousands of agents wouldn't have been corrupted in ways that lead to even more drugs getting into our country but also growing crime syndicates that devastated local lives so much so that they fled... to our border.

What would America look like now if we had been more restrictive of who we let out? To be clear, I'm not talking about imprisoning anyone within our borders, that would be horrible. Individuals should always be free to travel the world. I hope that it's obvious I'm talking about our military, LEAs and in the case of corporations, losing their charter if they operate outside of the US... they can take their money, their name and their product and negotiate with the governments of the countries they wish to operate in, on their own not through the US government and then they can negotiate with the US government for trade as a foreign corporation if they want to sell their products here.

a reply to: Kali74

Fantastic points Kali, and a great way to look at things.

And I agree... the less we let the military/politicians/corporate shills/banksters out to play, the better off we would all be as a cohesive species.

a reply to: CranialSponge

Thank-you and thanks for mentioning bankers.

a reply to: Kali74

I'm having a "slow brain" day. (been reading and researching history too much).
So it took me a while to quite grasp what you've been meaning in the OP. Part of my problem was in trying to mentally feature a way to not "let Corporations" leave the US in the sense that you describe. Its murky to me. I interpret what you've written as not allowing "Corporations" to close the US factories and then essentially relocate the production in Mexico or China. Maybe my problem is that I made the mistake of going to law school and then worked for a major US Corporation because I really can't quite understand "in the case of corporations, losing their charter if they operate outside of the US... they can take their money, their name and their product and negotiate with the governments of the countries they wish to operate in, on their own not through the US government and then they can negotiate with the US government for trade as a foreign corporation if they want to sell their products here. "

So....lets think about that. Coca Cola comes to mind. Coca Cola is registered, probably like most as a Delaware (US) Corporation. So, since probably 1920.....Coca Cola licensed with a Mexican Corporation to manufacture and sell Coca Cola in Mexico: you can sort of see that at: en.wikipedia.org...
(and I guessed right about the 1920's). And I'm quite sure that Coca Cola the US Corporation gets paid a handsome fee off every bottle made in and sold in Mexico.

So what you want to do is tell Coke that they're going to lose their franchise if they don't terminate their agreement with the Mexican Corporation to manufacture, bottle and distribute (sell) Coca Cola in Mexico?

Uh, yea....they'll take you up on that and incorporate in the Bahamas and then the US Gov't would only be able to tax the income gained from Coca Cola sales in the US.

So would ExxonMobile; Chevron; Apple; IBM; Pepsico; TransOcean.....ooops, I forgot....TransOcean already left and the rest of the Dow Jones Industrial Average member companies. (Well....not all maybe).

But wait....there is a slight "jobs" problem with this idea. When ExxonMobile goes, they'll move their HQ out of the US to.........wherever and with that HQ they'll relocate....Accounting and IT and Investor Relations and.........

And so will Chevron and Apple and IBM and Pepsico and...............

Maybe we should rethink this?

a reply to: TonyS

What's to rethink? They off-shore their labor, production and profits. Most major corporations pay little to nothing in taxes so we're not benefiting there either. So they take their administrative and PR jobs with them, so what? Another company will fill their void.

the concept of borders is one that nature itself teaches. Creatures, environment, pretty much everything has a definition of where it ends and something else begins. When it comes to animals the more intelligent ones understand they are separate from the others and that crossing the boundary involves permission, cooperation or submission. In many cases there are undesirable consequences when crossing the boundary is done in the wrong way.

In psychology we understand the idea that there is value and importance in respecting boundaries personal space, borders. However, it seems these ideas are not generally very well communicated or taught to us when it would matter most, setting us up later for allowing things to transpire that we shouldnt have.

a reply to: Kali74
well then i guess you will be disgusted at uncle sams practice of revoking all passports of those charged with a felony?????????????????????????????????????????????????

a reply to: fixitwcw

Not sure what this has to do with the topic. If you're charged with a felony you're passport is suspended until you're cleared so that you can't flee to a country that doesn't allow US extradition.

a reply to: Kali74

But why did they do it? Could who we let out of the US have stopped that horrible day from happening? In this case if we hadn't let our military and oil corporations out…

I clipped that because its been true before 911 and after. The current flood of refugees from (somewhere) comes only months after the US began bombing Iraq (again) and now Syria, ostensibly to defeat some ISIS, but look at the results. Same with Yemen.

Floods of desperate peoples always flee massive bombing campaigns. Talk about opening Pandora's box.

If this was your home town in Yemen, would you stay there?

a reply to: Kali74

thank you for this post. i have been thinking these exact thoughts for a very long time. the main reason i do not shop at walmart is because they bully companies into cutting production costs with threats of "we wont carry you in walmart anymore" and it does scare these companies because walmart has a massive market share. so its either outsource to lower costs or lose 90 percent of your sales because your product isn't carried by the largest retailer.

a reply to: ratsinacage

It is what some call "natural law".

I think it's simply a question of "where do I end and you begin?" If I expect to have my boundaries respected, I shall have to respect yours. If I want to have security and freedom myself, I must allow you to have yours as well, I must not violate you.

I was just discussing this with my 8-year-old son. He wanted his big sister to swim with him, but since she didn't feel like it he scribbled on a picture she drew, then she couldn't swim with him because she was busy re-doing her drawing. So I took the opportunity to reason with him, explain that he doesn't have control over her and he can't destroy her things to coerce her, and doing so does not get him what he wants. If he wants someone's cooperation, he needs to respect that they have a choice NOT to cooperate with him if they don't like how he asks (or in some cases demands).

When it comes to individuals in public, most people understand there are boundaries. These boundaries become more of an issue, and there can be more violations, when it comes to personal relationships. That is if we're not explicit in describing what our boundaries are.

We're practically raised to believe that these boundaries need not be observed and respected by authority figures and/or organizations that we perceive to be more powerful than the individuals composing it. So, if we feel ourselves to be "an authority" in some sense, we think we have rights that supersede the rights of our "subordinates", therefore we can violate them. It's authoritarian philosophy and conditioning.

Our governments (or the individuals composing them) believe they have the right to control individuals in their land and also to challenge the authority of other governments over the individuals on their lands. Hey, if those people believe in authority, they should believe in the "right" authority, correct? Let's go impress them with our particular way of violating their rights and replacing them with the privileges that we think they should have. They'll love it.

Corporations (or the individuals composing them) believe they have rights that supersede even the powers of governments. They want to spread their power and influence as well. They control governments and make sure there are loop-holes they can take advantage of in order to exploit the population for profit.

I don't think there's any way, without more ridiculous authoritarianism, to literally keep those forces of evil within their national borders. The only way I can imagine addressing the problem would be to circumvent the authoritarian power struggle. No group, no matter how many people are composing it, has more rights than the individual. If we could somehow add this simple idea as a foundational part of our culture, it would be much more difficult for those who desire the power-to-exploit to actually gain the support necessary to obtain it.

(Not all of this is directed at ratsinacage only, it was just their comment that got me going on this train of thought.)

a reply to: blondegiraffe

Thank-you for making the point about wal-mart. Though I'm aware of most of the horrible things they do, I wasn't aware of that. Do you have any info I can read?

a reply to: eMachine

And now we start to see the consequences of condoning authoritarianism. Still the burden is placed on the same old shoulders it always was while we complain about refugees and dream up new ways to demonize them.

a reply to: Kali74

There was a show on PBS about it, probably almost a decade ago, going into detail of Walmart's practices. Of course, it's undeniably propaganda. I trust you to determine what is factual and what is manipulative. I think the show explained how they get their "low prices" by bullying manufacturers, but I learned about it during orientation to work at a Walmart that was about to open when I was 18.



Oh, here's an article addressing that by itself. Nevermind the 30-minute video, unless you want to watch it.
Stop the Bullying, Walmart

Big Box Bullies talks about it more specifically.

“It’s that big bully in the school yard mentality,” says Danny Moretto, who runs a trucking company out of Windsor and Montreal. He says Target’s move is similar to what he experienced in his relationship with Wal-Mart. Moretto’s firm had a contract to transport farm produce to Wal-Mart’s distribution centres, but he walked away from $1.1 million worth of business with the giant three years ago.

“Every year when we’d renew the contract, they’d want a price reduction,” Moretto explain. “Being in transportation we have fixed costs — fuel, equipment, drivers. Our costs tends to go up every year, but they expected us to take their costs down. Any reduction would have come straight out of our pockets.”

a reply to: eMachine

Thank-you. I always attributed their low prices to killing the competition and manufacturing with slave labor and not having restrictions on what they could do to the environment. This aspect makes for strong arguments in other areas.

a reply to: Kali74

Seems like our last conversation had an effect on addressing this problem at its root.

Thank you for that Kali.

a reply to: projectvxn

It did. I've always thought this way, that our actions in other nations lead to crisis for the local peoples and interfere with their ability to rid themselves of political corruption and cartels, I never thought to flip it around though. The current crisis and your thread pushed me to try to find a better way of discussing it. So thank-you for the spark.

a reply to: Kali74
I thought everybody knew that corporate CEO's are soulless and have no conscience?

a reply to: Kali74

Borders - you are right on the button

the reason they are coming down though is because while its not being said yet, TPTShould Not BE want an international economy where there are not boarders. What follows economies without boarders? Countreies without boarders.

Supprising what one can learn from TV by lsitening carefully.

I saw an interview on Australian TV recently with some busienss bloke from the US, when asked about the Australian economy, did not even use the word 'Australia' he used the phrase 'that or this economy.' Note the connatations.

Some may argue thats no big deal, well in my time I have seen vest changes take place in a particular segament of the countries life just by changing the terminology.

those of us who believe in an imminent "new world order" type scenario see modern developments in borderless economies, travelling etc as building blocks of that "order", hence our general unease with those developments.

On a personal level im very liberal regarding immigration, trade, travel etc....in principle......but seeing how nefarious entities are using those avenues as means to accomplish agendas which are not often for the public good it makes me want to rebel against them, though doing so may give me the appearance of not being humanitarian or liberal. In fact nothing could be farther from the truth, i just dont want to see evil win.


its in times like these we could really benefit from a just and beneficient philosopher king.