Nations and Borders

22 January 2016

是什么赋予各国权力来控制哪些人可以越境?这就是我们在本周节目中要解决的问题。毕竟,在某种意义上,我们都是这个星球上的公民,享有平等的权利,所以我们不应该在任何我们想要的地方生活和工作吗?

当然,严格地说,人们是国家的公民,国家决定谁可以进入他们的领土,以及一旦他们到达那里,他们可以做什么。但这只是事实。What we’re interested in is the normative question:Shouldnations be able to prevent anybody from crossing their borders? And if so, why?

Here’s one argument in favor of the rights of nations to control their borders: Governments have a responsibility to provide security, along with economic and social stability for their citizens. Without border control, there would be mass immigration, which would lead to major job losses and economic instability, as well as excessive burdens on the state’s infrastructure and public services. In other words, without border control, there would be chaos.

这似乎是一个支持边境控制的有力论点,但它并没有完全回答我们开始时的问题。它以国家的合法性为前提,然后提出保护这些实体的务实理由,而国家的合法性恰恰是我们所质疑的。毕竟,如果我们考察大多数国家的历史,我们会发现战争、征服、盗窃、占领、种族灭绝和驱逐的故事。这不是一个漂亮的画面。如果我们感兴趣的是正义而不仅仅是统治,那么我们就必须质疑这些随意形成的实体所提出的主张的合法性,这些实体被我们称为国家,因此他们有权控制他们称之为边界的沙线。

现在,我们可能会承认,国家的历史是黑暗和混乱的,但仍然想捍卫自己的权利,决定谁可以进入他们的领土。虽然今天肯定有许多边界和领土存在争议,但可以说,对于大多数稳定的国家来说,黑暗的历史已经过去了。导致国家形成的行动,无论它们在当时是多么不合法,都发生在很久以前,对所犯下的任何不公正负有责任的人已经死去了几代人。一个国家的现任公民不可能永远为过去的不公正付出代价。如果一个人出生在一个国家,如果他们纳税,遵守法律,那么他们难道不享有非公民不享有的某些权利和特权吗?

I’m not sure I find this line of argumentation convincing. Consider an analogy. Imagine my great-grandfather stole an important piece of art many, many years ago and that it has been in my family for several generations. While it would be strange and unfair to hold me either morally or legally responsible for my great-grandfather’s crimes, which were committed long before I was even born, I don’t think it follows that I’m now entitled to keep this work of art just because it has been in my family for a few generations. The art rightfully belongs to someone else. Even if I was not the person to steal it in the first place, it doesn’t mean that it belongs to me or that I have any right to say what should happen to this work of art.

同样,仅仅因为我个人没有窃取任何人的领土,这并不意味着我对被我的祖先窃取的领土有任何特殊的权利。别人的所作所为不能怪我,但我对那些被强行占领的领土是否有合法的主权也不清楚。

Of course, the history of territories is much more complicated and messy than the art analogy suggests. The world does not already come with works of art—they must be brought into existence, they must be created by someone—whereas land is just there to be discovered. If we go back far enough in the history of any particular land, at some point someone just claimed it as their own. And then some group invaded, took the land away, until another war happened, and then maybe the land became part of some empire thousands of miles away, until another war happened, and another war, and eventually a new state declared itself, and expelled and displaced one particular ethnic group that had maybe been there for centuries before, and so it goes. In these messy histories, how do we ever determine which group has the ultimate claim to the territory? It seems like at some point we just have to accept the arbitrariness of the lines that delineate one territory from another.

那么,这种任意性会带来什么呢?这是否意味着没有人拥有管理领土的最终权利?我不这么认为,但这确实意味着这些权利必须有不同的理由。我先不谈这个问题,回到边境管制的具体问题上来。即使我们承认共同生活在一个特定地区的人们有一些自决权(例如,通过立法在领土内的某些行为),这些权利是否延伸到决定谁可以和不能进入他们的领土?除了我们开始时的务实考虑,我们如何证明一个国家有权控制其历史上混乱且任意划定的边界?

A second set of questions we should ask concerns the rights of non-citizens once they have crossed the border. As a law-abiding non-citizen living in a foreign land, what should you be entitled to? Public education, health care, emergency services? What about the right to vote, either in local or national elections? If we exclude non-citizens from these institutions, on what basis do we do that, particularly considering how so many undocumented workers pay taxes and social security without ever benefiting from their contributions, and they often hold up regional economies by doing a lot of back-breaking work that citizens would never do?


Photo byМарьян Блан | @marjanblanonUnsplash

Comments(13)


mirugai's picture

mirugai

Saturday, June 22, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

NATIONS AND MORALITY

NATIONS AND MORALITY
Nations are fictions designed by those with power over others by a number of means. Nations are the fictions; power is the reality. And the ?power-over-status? serves only the goals of those in power, though there may be benefits to those not in power. The issue is not: where I live, or where I was born; but who or what has the power to control certain matters of my life and convert some of them from private to public. ?Nations can have moral significances,? says the guest; the question is who defines the ?significances? as ?moral,? and why. The attachment of ?moral? is a way to not have to discuss whether it is moral or not.
The new global community created by the internet (which doesn?t get any mention in the show!) is redefining political power completely, just as the internet is redefining everything. Believe it: those in power must (and many do) fear the internet more than any other political movement ? and they ought to. And so should all those who have a stake in the maintaining of pre-internet powers.

MJA's picture

MJA

Monday, June 24, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

Freedom has no walls, and

Freedom has no walls, and equal is the light of the promised land.
我不能带你去,因为我们已经在那里了,我们要做的就是成为它的一员。
Be true,
=
"Free at last..."

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, June 24, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

One of the problems a manager

One of the problems a manager can except to deal with is the conflicts between workers who demand precise boundaries and those who view boundaries as fuzzy constructs. There is a place for both viewpoints, which points to the difficulty of establishing a global village except in a communications context (and even there, there is the problem of implementing a universal language).
社会主义的一个经典问题是,一旦社会主义把人们从赤贫中解救出来,他们就开始倾向于私人所有制(和低税收)。
如果有可能的话,古代雅典可能会成为防止无边界社会混乱的典范。那时他们还没有发明公民权的概念(这是很久以后罗马共和国的发明)。雅典鼓励移民,但必须是雅典的第三代居民才能参与政治。

Laura Maguire's picture

Laura Maguire

Monday, June 24, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

Arvo, Not sure what you mean

我不知道你说的“公民身份”是什么意思,但是古代雅典确实有这个概念。柏拉图和亚里士多德都写过公民身份。Check out The Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Ancient Political Philosophy here:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-political/

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, June 25, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

Thanks for your comment,

Thanks for your comment, Laura. As I understand it, references to Athenian citizenship, Babylonian citizenship, etc. are merely convenient anachronisms. The right to participate in Athenian politics emerged from residency; a man had to be at least a third generation resident of Athens (as well as being at least the age of 35 and freeborn). These criteria were relaxed at times, such as when greater manpower was needed for war, but there was as yet no concept of being born into citizenship or of being naturalized.
罗马的天才之处在于,它能够将自己的影响力安全地扩展到意大利半岛,通过向各个部落提供“公民权”,以换取纳税和服兵役的权利。
As I say, I am not an expert and will gladly accept correction if I am misinformed.

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, June 29, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

Philosphy Talk for Who...

为谁讲哲学....Grade Schoolers - please find a better way to spend my public radio membership support - far from enlightened discussion - In Good Health and Mind, Gerard

Guest's picture

Guest

Monday, July 1, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

I read somewhere, somewhen,

I read somewhere, somewhen, that nationhood is a concept first posited by Mohammed. This may or may not be true, but if we look at the discontent fomenting in Islamic countries these days, we must ask questions about the expediency of the concept. Come to that, the notion is not working well in non-Muslim countries either. The world-federalist movement may still be viable, but, I have heard little from them in the last thirty years or so. Just saying...

Mark Caplan's picture

Mark Caplan

Saturday, July 6, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

Where does the state get the

Where does the state get the right to turn back migrants at the border? Is that really such a conundrum that the two hosts and the guest expert couldn't provide a satisfactory answer? Where does the state get the right to put convicted murderers in prison? Where does the state get the right to require pharmacists to be licensed? The American state gets its rights from the Constitution and legally passed statutes and legally issued executive orders.

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 -- 5:00 PM

让我给你讲个故事。My

让我给你讲个故事。我哥哥离开美国的时候,许多人都在这样做。后来(不久),我也这么做了。越南战争的溃败在自由选举产生的美国政府犯下的错误中排名靠前。它可能是第一名,但这不是我说了算的。哥哥事业有成,养家糊口,至少有一个孙子。我没有那么强的动力,当吉米·卡特说我可以回美国时,我回到了美国——在假释期间。在我们做出决定时,边界是很重要的。我们不能因为我们的“罪行”而被引渡。有成千上万的人因为战争流亡到不同的国家,许多人想要忘记,有57000多名死去的人,他们的家人和朋友不能也不会忘记。 Nations and borders have advantages. My brother and I got second chances, those many years ago. But, I have no country, while he is just where he wanted to be.

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Thursday, January 21, 2016 -- 4:00 PM

A timely re-visitation of

马奎尔女士,及时再次提及这一问题。我觉得你在文章的第三段就说对了。混乱不利于经济稳定。欧洲无疑已经抓住了老虎的尾巴,我尤其为亲爱的老德国感到不安。我们所有人都是世界公民的观念在一段时间内当然是利他的。唉,世界可能已经不是以前的样子了,而坏角色(阿萨德、ISIS/ISIL和所有其他的wannabile)似乎就像从洞里钻出来的鼹鼠一样不断冒出来。最近,我创造了一些新的短语,试图简要描述我们自己(和其他人)所处的一些问题领域。1)复杂性使混乱复杂化:如果我们看看21世纪进步的许多影响,我们会看到越来越多的负面因素,因为我们不断地想做什么,想成为什么,嗯,越来越多。例如,我们的孩子,被赋予越来越少的时间做孩子。他们年纪越来越小了,对这种胡说八道的东西敬而远之。 And, often then, they become alienated from most everything else. It is all about progress, success and the treadmill of competition. It simply will not do for them to fall behind because although "winning" may not be everything, "losing" is nothing at all. 2) Complexity is nuclear, feeding upon itself. Or, in other more ominous terms, we have reached critical mass sociologically. I firmly believe this and that we should be very afraid. 3) Simplicity supports serenity. This was an axiom of an earlier age and is only now practiced by a faithful few (ascetics, regressives and the like). We cannot stop the train. Moreover, we cannot see any compelling need to do so.
It is too bad we have come so far in so many ways and one must wonder, I think: Where are we going now?
Warmest Regards,
Neuman.

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Sunday, January 24, 2016 -- 4:00 PM

Arvo, pace Laura, was quite

Arvo, pace Laura, was quite right. The issue is problematic because, for one thing, national boundaries are not a national authority, they are all determined by bi-national or international agreement. It is odd, I suppose, that no one is calling for fences around our shorelines, or of removing the "dry-foot, wet foot" distinction, or ceasing the preferential status of Cuban immigrants. It is also difficult because the terms 'nation' and 'state' are confused. Poli-sci tries to clarify by defining 'nation' as a people, and 'state' as the apparatus of government. This gets obscured by the relation in the US between state and federal authority.
这里有一个有趣的想法,仔细阅读威廉·布拉德福德的普利茅斯历史发现清教徒不想在他们的"专利"允许的地区定居,因为"弗吉尼亚",从卡罗莱纳到新泽西北部的任何地方,都在英国国教的管辖之世界杯赛程2022赛程表欧洲区下,这是他们想要避免的。他们希望在后来成为纽约的荷兰人附近的某个地方,能让他们拥有渴望已久的自由,但他们不想被荷兰语言或习俗同化。很明显,这群人中有些人一直都想要科德角,这一点我们只了解一点点。目的是在他们的合法所有权之外解决问题。非法定居:非法定居或“无证”定居未经允许越境不是犯罪,只是一种轻罪,不能作为重罪处罚。此外,大多数人来到这里,是为了在我们的法律下生活。因为他们更喜欢我们的法律,所以他们侵犯了边境。惩罚热爱我们法律的人似乎是不合常理的。无论如何,大多数移民现在停留一段时间然后离开,美国实际上处于净移民状态。 And, the very idea of border controls is very new. In fact, it may be the result of a disastrous policy of Woodrow Wilson to divide Europe on nationalist lines, hence the term "nationalism", which Hitler embraced to such infamy.
另一个更正,美国合法权威的基础不是宪法,而是被统治者的同意。失去这种区别是危险的。宪法从未得到人民的认可。它的通过只是基于一项权利法案的承诺,这并不完全像承诺的那样,但仅仅是,勉强,足够好。它不是圣经。正如我试图在另一个话题中解释的那样,许多人认为把法律以书面形式固定下来并不是一种解放的行为,最早的成文法律旨在奴役,包括《汉谟拉比法典》和《摩西律法》,至少巴比伦的“俘虏”在“返回”以色列时是这样报道的。

MJA's picture

MJA

Sunday, January 24, 2016 -- 4:00 PM

Just beyond the border is

Just beyond the border is another border, and then another and another, and once we cross them all surely there is freedom, the light that follows the day, the promised land, free at last! I'll wait for you here. Be One, =

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Thursday, February 4, 2016 -- 4:00 PM

Call me "snarky", but:

Call me "snarky", but:

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies?
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
这样的严肃!One could see he was wise,
当有人看着他的脸的时候!
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
一张他们都能看懂的地图。
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
"They are merely conventional signs!
“其他地图也有这样的形状,有它们的岛屿和海角!
But we've got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best?
A perfect and absolute blank!"
This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
And that was to tingle his bell.