Borders
Why?
When I think of national borders, I imagine some combination of the Berlin Wall or those Mexican-American crossing points from TV and Movies. The only one I ever crossed was the Canadian-American one, sometimes by boat, or canoe, and sometimes by car. None of those cases was particularly memorable, but then they all happened in the 1990s, well before the modern era.
Nowadays borders are a big deal, I hear. Even before the genocide began, Israel had turned Gaza into the world’s largest open-air prison: guards, checkpoints, walls, razor wire, snipers. Everything you need to keep a sovereign impoverished racially-segregated people away from the winners in the apartheid lottery. The Tyrant also built himself part of a wall—I hear—and roving bands of American brigands routinely rob, sexually assault, and murder people crossing the more undefended spots.
But a wise person on the Threads app pointed out to me that we don’t actually need borders, and my eyes were made clear, like pure gold.
The History of Borders
Yeah, I’m not a historian. I just did some quick google searching. Take all of this with a grain of salt.
In the earliest days of human history, I have a hard time believing there were surveying teams drawing out complex maps of who owned what and which parallel determined the nationality of the people born above and below it. I did see the cowboy movies Shane and its spiritual inverse Open Range, though. I personally like the Kevin Costner movie better. I like the idea that itinerants can meander freely across uncultivated land without barbed wire turning it into ugly rectangles. But I’m pretty uninformed and disinterested in the whole thing. so I probably shouldn’t speak up about the tragedy of the commons.
Obviously slaveholders (antebellum as well as modern), speculators, corporations and other businesses have a lot of interest in maintaining borders and delineating everything, but from what I can tell, homeowners don’t even really know where their borders are until Karen tries to put up a fence where your tulips are growing.
So when did it become a fad for countries to have borders? Random wetware interface on Reddit has some dates for us.
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/ce77ad/when_did_countries_establish_definite_borders_and/
… but reading that put me to sleep, so I’ll just use the google summary:
Pre-Modern (Before 1600s): Borders were often fluid, undefined, and represented by “borderlands” or natural features like forests and mountains. However, some empires, such as Rome, utilized marked frontiers.
The Westphalian System (1648): The treaties that ended the Thirty Years’ War are considered the turning point, defining the modern nation-state and giving rulers authority over specific, fixed, and mutually recognized territories.
19th Century Formalization: The rise of nationalism, industrialization, and the need for taxation/control led to precise surveying and mapping of boundaries, transforming them from general lines into strictly regulated barriers.
Modern Era (20th Century): 60% of current European borders were drawn in the 20th century. The number of border walls has increased dramatically, with most constructed after the Cold War.
So, while citizenship is an old, old, old thing, the concept of nation-states with formalized borders seems to be a much more recent development. I mean most modern governments are less than a few hundred years old so even if their borders and national identity pre-date them, we have to assume that those borders changed over time.
But, I don’t honestly care about national borders—PSYCH—I care about closed borders.
source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/17/us-immigration-system-profit
America’s borders closed in 1924. a mere 102 years ago. Most of America’s history had wide-open borders, and the major reason they were closed was eugenics and racism. Nowadays it seems like it must have always been this way: right-wing rhetoric tells us we have to beware of “illegal aliens,” as if a human-being could be illegal. Also, something something commies, terrorists, hate our freedom. You know, hateful, they’re savages, they’re degrading the culture, we’re the chosen people, this is God’s land (Thanks Zack de la Rocha!), ugly, racism stuff. Even liberals and a few on the left will tell us that borders reinforce national security and immigration must be carefully controlled.
I call shenanigans.
Deconstructing Borders
Let’s start with a simple premise: all human beings are equal.
If you’re not following me that far, the rest of this will be hard for you to handle.
By this I mean, ALL humans.
Skin-color
Religion
Physical Abilities
Physical Characteristics
Sexual Orientation
Gender Identity
Wealth
Education
Culture
Criminal History
Brain Pan or whatever pseudoscience
People from Wisconsin
People going 80 in the 65 mph section of Hwy 77
Everyone.
But wait Naomi. You just said Criminal History: I saw what you did there. That’s not what you meant to say, right?
Without trying to be ableist… “Did I Stutter?”
As I discussed in recent post, which may or not have been published yet—Human Justice is innately flawed. Saying a person is inferior based on the "the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land” assumes that neither of those things can be wrong (Sorry, King John or whatever Magna Carta-architect put that line in). I’m not going to say a person is inequal based on that, even if you can convince me they are a bad dude.” Still equal.
Next premise: no group of people is inherently better or worse than another by virtue of membership in that group. They must each be judged individually with all due accomodations.
Yes, I like watching Nazi’s get punched. Yes, I think 9 people sitting at a table with 1 Nazi is Nazis-party-of-10. But, is every Nazi as horrible as Adolf Hitler? I don’t know: I haven’t heard all of their cases, yet. I can entertain that there exists a righteous Nazi a la Oskar Shindler, but again, haven’t heard his case.
What this means, as pertains to this case, is that national security is not a justification for closed borders.
Google numbers tell me that about 85% of the mass-shooter suspects since 1900 have been American-born. But we are more clever than that: foreign-born individuals are 15% of the country! This is the ratio you would expect!
Yeah, exactly. Both groups are equal, that’s my point.
But Naomi, 97% were men, surely that group is worse than women. Uhhhh. That’s a compelling argument—but again, let’s measure each person based on their own deeds.
Premise the Third: National Borders only apply to the poor
I don’t think this one is particularly controversial. The Tyrant’s Gold Card visa program explicitly states that anyone with a spare $1 million can skip the line and get permanent residency. My ******** was only allowed into the country because I had proved I had the financial backing to support *******.
Let’s look at the countries that the Tyrant has banned (GDP included):
Iran
: $375.64 Billion
Nigeria
: $334.34 Billion
Cuba
: $201.99 Billion (Approx.)
Angola
: $109.86 Billion
Côte d’Ivoire
: $111.45 Billion
Tanzania
: $95.35 Billion
Venezuela
: $79.92 Billion
Turkmenistan
: $76.90 Billion
Burma (Myanmar)
: $65.17 Billion
Zimbabwe
: $55.43 Billion
Libya
: $49.16 Billion
Senegal
: $39.99 Billion
Sudan
: $39.47 Billion
Zambia
: $32.04 Billion
Haiti
: $25.96 Billion
Burkina Faso
: $23.12 Billion
Gabon
: $21.50 Billion
Benin
: $21.48 Billion
Niger: $19.40 Billion
Afghanistan
: $18.08 Billion
Yemen
: $17.15 Billion
Laos
: $15.83 Billion
Congo, Republic of the
: $15.72 Billion
Chad
: $15.34 Billion
Syria
: $13.50 Billion (Estimated)
Equatorial Guinea
: $12.77 Billion
Somalia
: $12.11 Billion
Malawi
: $11.01 Billion
Mali
: $23.00 Billion)
Togo
: $9.93 Billion
Sierra Leone
: $7.55 Billion
South Sudan
: $4.27 Billion
Gambia, The
: $2.51 Billion
: $2.21 Billion
Burundi
: $2.16 Billion
Eritrea
: $2.07 Billion
Dominica
: $0.75 Billion
Tonga
: $0.57 Billion
Look at all those economic powerhouses! Our frontrunner (Iran) was ranked 36-44th before we decided to massacre all their civilians. Obviously, there seems to be some correlation between economic performance and being unable to enter America.
These are the 10 most powerful passports in order of GDP (there are ties):
United States
: $31.82 Trillion: $5.33 Trillion
Japan
: $4.46 Trillion
: $4.23 Trillion
: $3.56 Trillion
: $2.70 Trillion
: $2.42 Trillion
: $2.04 Trillion
: $1.95 Trillion
: $1.94 Trillion
: $1.41 Trillion
: $1.11 Trillion
: $1.07 Trillion
: $761.17 Billion
: $750.11 Billion
: $711.50 Billion
: $606.23 Billion
: $604.20 Billion
: $601.16 Billion
: $547.69 Billion
: $505.36 Billion
: $500.05 Billion
: $417.13 Billion
: $364.53 Billion
: $335.53 Billion
: $304.84 Billion
: $280.55 Billion
: $269.92 Billion
: $167.73 Billion
: $113.13 Billion
: $107.76 Billion
: $104.65 Billion
: $78.18 Billion
: $52.25 Billion
: $48.24 Billion
: $35.48 Billion
: $30.44 Billion
: $10.12 Billion
Our winner from the first list would rank 23rd on this list.
Long story, short: borders are racist and classist. I bet if I dug in more I could find other groups that are also disadvantaged based on their respective -isms.
Naomi, wise google-scholar, you’ve convinced me. So we need comprehensive immigration and visa reform, right?
No.
We need to not have a border. Citizenship is enough of a barrier to prevent whichever people you hate from stealing your tax-money.
Naomi, you are Leftist Trash
Proud member.
But let’s dig a little deeper before we go all ad-hominem.
National Security, right? Setting aside the racism and counterfactual biases against groups of people—surely we need to protect our nation and its resources from foreign nation states.
Makes sense.
How do we do that if we don’t have a firm border?
The Navy?
Fighter planes?
The Coast Guard?
Radar?
Sonobuoys?
Satellites?
Intelligence?
Stationary Missile Defenses?
The National Guard?
The Police?
The Space Force (vomit)?
Do you think a line on a map determines the jurisdiction of any of these?
Sweet movies like Red Dawn and Olympus has Fallen aside, I’m not too worried about being conquered by a foreign military invasion. We’d know about it far, far in advance of anyone crossing a physical border. Besides, we violate airspaces all the time. It’s kind of our thing.
Okay, I’m not conceding that: I just don’t have a comeback. Surely it will hurt our economy?
Putting aside how racist that is, it’s also stupid, and ignorant; nice Trifecta!
40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants. 30% of patents belong to immigrants.
Immigrants contribute trillions in taxes.
Undocumented Immigrants are funding the economic safety net for Americans, despite not being eligible for any of the benefits.
Poorer immigrants tend not to horde money in interest-bearing accounts and instead use their wages to support the local community. In fact, they represent 10% of America’s total consumer spending.
Immigrants work jobs that middle-class Americans won’t. Immigrants make up 18% of the American workforce but are heavily involved in industries facing staffing shortages: think farms, construction, fast food, food processing, and hotels. They are 49% of all maids and housekeepers, for example. This isn’t to say that native-born Americans don’t do these jobs, but they have disproportionately low representation in those sectors.
Fine, you can have that one, too. But culture! Native-born Americans have a unique culture that is diluted by immigrants.
Um. Unless you are indigenous, your people brought that culture here with them. If it was developed here (Jazz, Blues, Musical Theater, Vaudeville, Hollywood) it was almost certainly appropriated from minority communities or heavily influenced by foreign-born individuals.
I’m thinking where you are getting this is that driving down the street you see Halal markets, Thai food, and food from countries that wasn’t prevalent 20-30 years ago where you live. One, Mexican food wasn’t popular throughout America until 1960; Italian food didn’t reach the Midwest until the 1940s. Chinese food didn’t really break out until the 1970s. Adapt or die. Or just don’t go to those places if they bother you.
And if you are upset about people speaking a foreign language you don’t understand… maybe learn some new languages? If a foreigner is speaking a language fluently and you don’t understand it, then they are better at it than you: lol, you are losing. Better hit the books and prove how much smarter you are than them, racist loser. Seriously. If they are speaking a language you don’t understand, they probably aren’t talking to you, so mind your own business. If you can’t understand their accent… learn, adapt: don’t be a dinosaur.
A World without Borders
That’s all I’ve got. No borders.
I’m more economically aligned with the undocumented immigrants working in fruit fields than I am with the naturalized-Immigrant getting government contracts to blow up poorly-made rockets and dig half-finished tunnels in California or the second-generation immigrant Tyrant who hates even his own family.
I want everyone to enjoy the quality of life I have (better than mine, actually), not build fences to keep random groups down.
I want more cultural diversity, better food, more shops with more interesting products, not every city to have the same sixteen brands in identical looking strip malls supplied uniformly by one distributor.
I want new scientific advances and medical breakthroughs by the world coming together intellectually.
I want America to stop blowing people up or dropping them off alone in the woods in 30-below weather after a false arrest based on the color of their skin or how their name sounds.
And mostly I want rich cishet yt protestant people to stop treating every one else like they are inferior lower-quality humans.