Jbrenner,
Let me begin by saying that the only reason I started this with you is that the explanations and reasoning you were receiving were not working for me either. I had to do some serious reflecting and ask some questions in a different way to get the answers I needed. I am hoping that a different presentation may allow you to be less defensive and think about it differently. I too shared the pragmatic solution of sealing the border to stop the bleeding and then work out a solution from there but I could not reconcile that with the knowledge that most of those coming here from Mexico are trying to improve their lives and we would be interfering with that on the basis of what? Our fear.

We already have passports and visas. We already have the TSA. We already have walls, and border patrol and security checkpoints. Why are we still in fear? We have the most powerful military on the face of the planet. Our police are more militarized than ever. (overly so) We have "a rifle behind every blade of grass". Yet we still live in fear. Why? We have reversed cause and effect. Passports and visas, TSA, walls and proder patrol and checkpoints, all these things are symptoms of our failure to properly protect ourselves.

The three things, eliminate welfare, end the war on drugs and end the income tax. Welfare only brings some of them here. The income tax alienates them all and keeps them out of the system, adding to the welfare numbers. And the war on drugs brings the violent ones or encourages them to be violent. Eliminate those and who is left? Only those we are truly at war with and we have oceans between us and them. No, that will not stop them, but it does slow them down and decrease their numbers. But why do we even still fear them? With our military, and our rifle behind every blade of grass they should be afraid to show their heads from under the rocks they live under. But they grow braver and braver and the fact that we want to try to stop them at the border is evidence that we have utterly failed to beat them and protect ourselves. And the police state we create to hold them back is just proof that they are still winning. Still advancing, even.

When you walk down a busy sidewalk it's not tens, but hundreds or even thousands of strangers you will walk past. You do not attempt to greet them. But you don't cross the street to avoid them. It is not fear that stops you. You don't look at each one wondering who is the serial killer, or a gang banger (do people still use that term?) or even more dangerous, a liberal. Why, then, is their immigration status so important?

I cannot argue with your last paragraph. It only reenforces everything I've said here. The only thing I can say is that I cannot figure out for the life of me how you can say everything you said up till then, and still come to that conclusion.

There is an enemy out there. And some of them are here as well. And they aren't afraid of a passport check or a border security checkpoint. They revell in it. That is their victory. The very thing that encourages them to keep pressing forward. The more we impose, the more they've won. The only thing that stops them from standing up en masse and shouting allahoo ackbar (or whatever it is they shout) is the threat of devastating retaliation, and that is all but gone. We're to busy arguing about our damn borders.

Regarding "As to waging war, again a country is not an entity. The individuals that are citizens within that geo-political area are entities that can wage war and within Objectivism can only do so to stop aggression against the citizens of the country and to resolve jurisdictional disputes with countries that want to aggress with force instead of work through agreed upon court systems of venue."

Ayn Rand would not agree. In The Virtue of Selfishness she writes, "Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the non-existent “rights” of gang rulers. It is not a free nation’s duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses."

Regarding "At what point does your crossing a border become an act of force? Is it an act of force to go across town? Or maybe to the next town? Is it an act of force to go into the next county? Or state? Why would it become an act of force when it is the border of a country?"

Thought experiment: Assume you live in an Objectivist nation in which essentially all property is private, including streets, highways and airports, and all property along the border. Re-ask the questions above. You may come to a quite different conclusion.

Thank you Zen. And thanks for the help getting this straight in my own head.

Excellent.

I appreciate the effort that you made during Vietnam. What I meant by leaving LBJ out was that he did not want peace, and did little to exhibit strength to the outside world.

There's a difference between giving something up and having it taken from you.
Whatever you do, don't ever, ever tell that cop (who pulled you over a for a tail light) the truth about carrying a large sum of money in your car.
Don't ever open a bakery if you are the type of Christian someone into PC would call a homophobe.
If you own a lot of land, think twice about turning that creek into a catfish pond.
If you have a kid, make sure he does not point a finger at another kid during recess and say, "Bang! Bang!"
Do not give your kid lemonade for a lemonade stand beside the street.
I'm still thinking of stuff . . .

I could have gone back further, but "Peace through Strength" defined the Reagan/Bush era. My choice was intentional and valid. If I had gone back further, I would have left LBJ out of it and gone back to at least Eisenhower and probably Truman.

Reagan and Bush were part of that failure, particularly both Bushes, neither of whom I supported. I would have voted for Reagan had I been two months older, and would have done so proudly. We do not need to add to any of the police state concepts. Most of those are symptoms of a failure, rather than the cause.

Reagan and Bush were just as much a part of that government failure as anybody else. They share the responsibility for the state of the police state that we currently have. The drug wars, the patriot act, the TSA, failures of our government to do it's proper job and the list is long. Is it the right thing to do to add to that?

See the follow-up to
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

I am glad you asked, because this discussion is the perfect starting point for me to respond to a related question from Zenphamy.

We should not look to other countries for examples of how to set our border policies. The right of a nation to defend itself is derived from the individual's right to self-defense.

Going back to the earliest civilizations of man, man has built walls, moats, citadels, etc. to defend himself and his family against invasion. Were walled cities in medieval times restricting the right to travel of immigrants? Of course they were, and the citizens of such walled cities were doing so in their own self-interest. At that point in human history, invaders would band together and take cities (and later nations) by force. National defense was a sad (dare I say, pragmatic) acknowledgement that some people do not respect property rights. As for the concept that an individual's freedom to travel trumps a free nation's right to self-defense, there are at least two flawed premises.

a) All individuals are not always rational and will not necessarily follow just laws.

People of faith are not always rational. Particularly, adherents to any faith that expects a government to be a theocracy, including the Muslim faith, can be expected to violate just laws if they think that doing so is being consistent with their religious expression. The extreme case in this example would be Muslim suicide bombers. They are not the only such example, only the most recent.

In any society, a certain percentage of any population will use force to commit burglary, murder, rape, etc. In such circumstances, is not the society correct in limiting the freedom to travel of such individuals, even in the most limited of cases such as an electronic tether or having to occasionally report to a probation officer? Anyone who disagrees with this last concept is an anarchist, and cannot expect a reasonable society to exist precisely because the percentage of individuals in a population who will commit such acts of force is higher in a society where such acts are not retributively acted upon by the society.

b) What precondition is necessary for the presumption of innocence?

You may say none, but I will show you why I disagree.

Requiring passports and visas at the border does not mean that the government has failed in its only valid mission of protecting its citizens from invasion. It means that it is correctly doing its only valid task.

Why do you think that America has the presumption of "innocent until proven guilty"? Whenever one encounters a complete stranger, does one automatically walk up to that person and welcome him or her? Most people do not, out of a fear that the stranger might not be a person of good will. This fear is derived from any animal's most basic concept of self-defense. The admission of strangers (immigrants) to a nation is no different, athough Objectivists will likely disagree. The nation's citizens have no knowledge a priori of the good will of the immigrant. This is precisely why the passport/visa process is necessary. After a straightforward discussion with the prospective immigrant, if the immigrant appears to be of good will, then the nation accepts (and perhaps even welcomes) the immigrant. At that point, after the immigration service has executed its duty properly, a citizen can have a reasonable expectation that the immigrant is "innocent until proven guilty" and can expect to have value-for-value exchanges with that immigrant.

If, however, the immigrant does not do the host nation the courtesy of announcing his/her presence, then that immigrant must be presumed to be of ill intent, and therefore, unworthy of value-for-value transactions.

Is there any nation on Earth that does not have an unlawful entry law? If so, it missed the point of the last two paragraphs.

Consider how your freedom to travel would be restricted if the nation does not fulfill its proper role regarding passports and visas. Do you really want to go around being suspicious of people rather than unsuspicious? The passport/visa process is liberating for the citizens of the host nation precisely because they should have no basis for suspicion when a nation's government does its only proper role. When immigrants went to Ellis Island to announce their desire to come to America, some Americans did show biases against certain ethnicities, but overall those immigrants were assimilated into America quite well. Legal immigrants today are likewise generally welcomed. I welcome all legal immigrants. I talk with at least 100 per day who are on student visas from all over the world. Because they have honored our visa laws, I welcome them with open arms and engage in value-for-value exchange with them, regardless of faith (or lack thereof), ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, etc. The passport/visa process results in increased freedom of travel for a nation's citizens, better welcoming for the immigrants, and better commerce for all involved in value-for-value exchange.

Police should have NO responsibilities to enforce immigration. Police's role should be at the local level, and perhaps at the state level, but definitely not at the national or international level. No police state can or should fix an immigration problem. If police are forced (word chosen carefully) to intervene because the federal government has not, then that is an indication that the federal government has failed us. Such a failure does not mean that more government power is needed. It does mean, however, that those in command (such as President Zero) need to be replaced by those who are interested in the one valid role of a federal government. That is your answer.

The promise of retaliation is the backbone of the "peace through strength" foreign policy that Reagan and Bush had. It only acts well as a deterrent when invasion is taken seriously.

I am not in favor of the drug wars, but Mexican military patrol southern Arizona as if it is theirs. That, by definition, is an invasion that provides an example to your "The lack of a proper retaliation is why we are still in a war."

Regarding the military crossing signifying the beginning of a war, I will answer, "Maybe". Sometimes the war has been started prior to that. The Quran is quite explicit about the stages that Muslims should take when they are small or large in numbers in a nation. The concept of sleeper cells is consistent with the Quran. Though I have not read the whole Quran, I have read much of it because I deal with dozens of Muslims per day. They pay me quite well, and I count most of them as friends. The majority of those who have cheated on my exams are Muslim, however. Some can be trusted, and some cannot. I treat them as individuals.

What is it about a border or boundary that protects us from invasion? Is it not, instead, the promise of retaliation that protects us from invasion? The lack of a proper retaliation is why we are still in a war. A border is just a property line. What is on the other side of that property line is what should determine your intent when crossing it. A threat of devastating retaliation is what we should have facing any would be enemies.

"When a military crosses an international boundary, it is act of force. It is what starts wars."
Is it not more accurate to say that a military crossing a border signifies the beginning of a war? Since the war must have been already started in somebodies mind for said military to push across a border. And do we really want to be looking to other countries for examples of how to set our border policies? What country is so worthy of that honor, that we should drop our own principals and take up theirs?

If a nation's government has allowed/created a situation where it needs to check a passport at the border to protect it's citizenry, hasn't that government already failed in that duty? How can any amount of police state fix that? How can the solution be more government power?

Well the government did fail us. And more government power with an increased police state is not the answer. So what is the answer?

Crossing a national boundary is fundamentally different than crossing internal boundaries because the primary purpose of a national boundary (protection from invasion) is different than the purposes of internal boundaries.

Passport or visa checks at the border, port of entry, or international airport are the means by which a nation's government can reasonably assure its citizenry that the nation's government can do its only acceptable purpose (as defined earlier by dbhalling).

When a military crosses an international boundary, it is act of force. It is what starts wars. Mexican military control southern Arizona as if it is theirs and will tell you that it should be theirs based on claims prior to the Mexican-American War. When an individual crosses an international boundary without declaration of intent, most host nations call such a person a spy. When an individual crosses an international boundary with declaration of intent, that person should be welcomed. When a person crosses an international boundary without declaration of intent, it is only logical for the host nation to consider such a person to be of ill intent. Does anyone want to do business with someone who has already shown that they will willingly violate a country's laws? If they do that, then expect deception in your transactions with that individual as well.
Crossing internal boundaries does not start wars.

Hello jbrenner,
Some things to think about.
At what point does your crossing a border become an act of force? Is it an act of force to go across town? Or maybe to the next town? Is it an act of force to go into the next county? Or state? Why would it become an act of force when it is the border of a country?

If someone is walking down the sidewalk, at what point do you have the right to know who they are or where they come from or are going? Their immigration status? That would mean guilty until proven innocent. You are a trespasser until you prove you are not. Maybe it is their intentions that give you that right? I hope I do not need to rebut that one. If you have no right to know this information, where does the state get this right?

Real ID is a farce. On that we agree. Whether the amount of ID checking is making a difference or not is hard to know. Most of the 9/11 terrorists trained at flight schools here in Florida. Fortunately none of them went to my university's flight school. Quite a few of the other flight schools in Florida, including the only other big competitor to my university's, did have terrorists training at them.

As for Florida, a driver's license will continue to be sufficient, and a passport will still not be required for those traveling on Caribbean cruises that start and end here.

I have to deal personally with the ID checking requirements more than most Gulchers because about 5 times per year I have to write letters on behalf of my students to extend their visas so that they can finish their degrees. That is a pretty small price to pay to know that America's territorial integrity is being protected.

As for TSA screening, I turn it into something more enjoyable by asking the agents politely to sniff my shoes if they ask me to take them off.

Regarding the freedom to travel, I hear about many road trips from my many international students. They do not consider themselves restricted once they get through the passport process and the once per year requirement to check in with my university's International Students office to fill out 10 minutes of paperwork.

Really, do you think that's their intent? Or is it to get control over the location and free travel of it's citizens.
If you wish to fly from your home in Florida to another state next year and don't have the proper ID, guess what. You won't be able to. How does that have anything whatsoever to do with the territorial integrity of this nation.
I think that damn near the entire state of Florida is within 100 mi from the country's border, so the 4th Amendment doesn't even apply to you. Does that have much to do with the territorial integrity?
Has all that ID checking and elimination of the 4th stopped any terrorist attack or done anything to strengthen the supposed territorial integrity.

The argument for a month has been that individuals have the right to travel without restriction. In this and multiple other threads, there are several people who have argued that this right to travel supercedes a nation's right to its territorial integrity, and in fact, have denied that nations have any rights whatsoever. A passport or visa check is how nations, whether free or not, establish their territorial integrity.

When did this turn into a discussion of ID and government monitoring who, what, where?
That's an entirely different topic.