UK Politics V - Have We Got News For You

[Snowygerry]

You can’t all be on the left, logically someone needs to occupy the right of your political spectrum, if it is not your government, and it’s not the opposition.

Who is it, the oligarchs and the bankers?

 

[Akka]

(thereby proving my point)

What point ? That you pretend that illegal immigration isn't "unlawful" ? Or simply that you bend over backward to find a way to call people hypocrite even when they are pretty open about being anti-immigration ?

 

[Gorbles]

You can’t all be on the left, logically someone needs to occupy the right of your political spectrum, if it is not your government, and it’s not the opposition.

Who is it, the oligarchs and the bankers?

I'm not saying we're all on the left. I even mentioned someone who wasn't

What point ? That you pretend that illegal immigration isn't "unlawful" ? Or simply that you bend over backward to find a way to call people hypocrite even when they are pretty open about being anti-immigration ?

Relying on the law as the basis of a moral position definitely won't backfire on you at all.

Then again not sure why I'm bothering when the only reason you're here is to try and dunk on Lexi (and defend whatever your position is on immigration).

 

[Ajidica]

Inno's analysis really only applies to modern Europe and it could be applied probably more or less equally to the Greek poleis of classical antiquity (which are the model of a "self-ruling community" in Western thought), but of course his argument ignores the fact that borders have very frequently been a tool of imperial rule imposed on people who, somehow, managed to live without them. One of the perennial features of the spread of "civilization" through empire has been the usually extremely violent imposition of borders on nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples. The Roman empire's provinces (created of course when Rome was still a "self-ruling community" in the form of the Republic) imposed borders where there had been none before, and in many parts of the empire the Romans brought formal borders to places where nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples had lived without any borders.

I think you are pushing things a bit too far here. Roman imperial provinces frequently followed the borders or zones of influence of the pre-Roman polities. This was seen particularly clearly in Britain where it strongly appears Rome took the pre-Roman polities and turned them into provinces.
And for what it is worth, I think it is worth distinguishing between internal borders and external borders. External borders were not something Rome - or indeed any pre-modern state- viewed as a Thing. In the Roman mindset, there were areas where Rome ruled, and there were areas where Rome didn't rule. Despite modern maps drawing a nice 'border' along the Rhine between Rome and the barbaricum, it is easy to imagine one would have to get pretty deep into the barbaricum before Roman rule ceased to matter.
All of this to say nothing about how we have pretty strong evidence that 'borders' existed in nomadic and semi-nomadic cultures. Nomads for the most part didn't wander aimlessly. Rather, they tended to move along relatively constant seasonal routes following herds or grazing lands.
(Indeed, one of the forces in the 19th century that drew the establishment of US military forts west was to stop the fighting over land between various native tribes - including nomadic, semi-nomadic, and sedentary - that was disrupting the fur trade.)

 

[Lexicus]

I think you are pushing things a bit too far here. Roman imperial provinces frequently followed the borders or zones of influence of the pre-Roman polities.

Hence why I said "in many areas of the empire"

External borders were not something Rome - or indeed any pre-modern state- viewed as a Thing.

This isn't entirely correct, where the Romans saw a peer competitor (pretty much just Parthia/Sassanids) they certainly did recognize the concept of an external border.

All of this to say nothing about how we have pretty strong evidence that 'borders' existed in nomadic and semi-nomadic cultures. Nomads for the most part didn't wander aimlessly. Rather, they tended to move along relatively constant seasonal routes following herds or grazing lands.
(Indeed, one of the forces in the 19th century that drew the establishment of US military forts west was to stop the fighting over land between various native tribes - including nomadic, semi-nomadic, and sedentary - that was disrupting the fur trade.)

This appears to be a series of strawmen; that there are no borders among nomads does not mean there is no fighting or that nomads' movements are completely random.

 

[Lexicus]

What point ? That you pretend that illegal immigration isn't "unlawful" ? Or simply that you bend over backward to find a way to call people hypocrite even when they are pretty open about being anti-immigration ?

What do you think about the Berlin Wall? Legitimate expression of a community's right to police its borders or gross violation of human rights by a police state?

 

[Ajidica]

This isn't entirely correct, where the Romans saw a peer competitor (pretty much just Parthia/Sassanids) they certainly did recognize the concept of an external border.

I would be leery of that. It was a border in the sense of reflecting where each states power ran at that time (and should be rectified in your favor as soon as possible). In the worldview of the Roman elite, all lands were entitles to Rome, there were just some irritating barbarians who provided some speedbumps. The existence of Persia as a "civilized" state was an unwelcome intrusion into the Roman worldview and quickly swept under the carpet in Imperial rhetoric.

This appears to be a series of strawmen; that there are no borders among nomads does not mean there is no fighting or that nomads' movements are completely random.

You said they lived without borders, I noted that there is strong evidence there were 'borders' between different nomadic groups reflecting seasonal migrations and customary practice.

 

[Akka]

What do you think about the Berlin Wall? Legitimate expression of a community's right to police its borders or gross violation of human rights by a police state?

Berlin Wall was about preventing people to LEAVE. Anti-immigration is about preventing people to ENTER.
You're here putting on the same level someone who is keeping a family member captive in his basement, and someone who is preventing a stranger from entering his house. That's hardly a winning comparison.
A community is legitimate to chose who can join them. It's not legitimate to prevent people from leaving it.

 

[EvaDK]

What do you think about the Berlin Wall? Legitimate expression of a community's right to police its borders or gross violation of human rights by a police state?

Considering that the East German border guards at the Berlin Wall had orders to shoot to kill anyone who tried to escape to West Germany through crossing the border, I'd say the latter. At least 100 East German citizens were shot/killed attempting to escape East Germany over the wall.

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/world/europe/13germany.html#:~:text=BERLIN, Aug.,Germany, including women and children.

 

[Lexicus]

Right so when y'all are like "the Berlin Wall was totally evil, but fortifying Europe to make immigrants drown in the Mediterranean is fine," it....raises questions

 

[Akka]

Right so when y'all are like "the Berlin Wall was totally evil, but fortifying Europe to make immigrants drown in the Mediterranean is fine," it....raises questions

It's like you just completely ignored the entirety of the answer given just to reiterate that two fundamentally different things are actually the same despite being shown the opposite, and somehow argued as if no answer had been given at all. That's a bit surreal.

 

[Lexicus]

It's like you just completely ignored the entirety of the answer given just to reiterate that two fundamentally different things are actually the same despite being shown the opposite, and somehow argued as if no answer had been given at all. That's a bit surreal.

I'm unconvinced by your arguments, though I am vaguely interested in how far you're willing to take the spurious analogy between a state and a private house...

 

[Akka]

I'm unconvinced by your arguments, though I am vaguely interested in how far you're willing to take the spurious analogy between a state and a private house...

You're unconvinced by the tautology that opposite concepts are different ? You're saying that you're not convinced that "a group doesn't allow its own people to leave" is different from "a group doesn't allow outsiders to join" ?
So it means you're saying that "keeping in" is the same as "keeping out", and that "insiders" are the same as "outsiders" ? That two pair of opposite concepts and saying that they are the same despite being opposite ?
What can I even answer to such Orwellian doublethink ?

 

[Gorbles]

Preventing people from leaving is the same as preventing people from getting in when you're criminalising the act in question. Arguments to popularity can be left at the door.

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: This is the UK politics thread, not a general immigration discussion. If you want this diversion split off from the main thread, let me know.