duns wrote:baldeagle wrote:This should put a crimp in the open borders crowd's arguments.
Who do you mean by the "open borders crowd"? A long time ago I read a book "Open Borders: The Case against Immigration Controls" by Teresa Hayter, Pluto Press, 2000. She argues that unrestricted migration has the potential to increase prosperity worldwide while controls cause human suffering and cost a vast amount, while doing little to control numbers. This incident seems to illustrate that she is right on the the ineffectiveness of controls. Reducing or abolishing immigration controls is not the same as permitting or facilitating drug running, a distinction that seems to be lost on many people.
One irony is that America is supposed to be the ultimate capitalist country. Capitalism means freedom to compete. This freedom exists for businesses - these can operate across borders freely - but it does not exist for ordinary workers. America of course was built by migrants.
Unfortunately, the link to the news items was not working when I tried it just now.
What I mean by open borders is precisely what you defined it as - unrestricted immigration. What unrestricted immigration does is allow anyone who wants to to enter a country. Restricted immigration, which is what America has always had, allows a country to decide who enters the country and who does not. In the former case a country allows both productive and unproductive people to enter, including criminals, drug addicts, anti-social types and even people who are dedicated to the overthrow of the very country they have entered. In the latter case a country allows only those to enter who can contribute to the country's betterment.
For anyone to think open borders would increase prosperity more than restricted borders, that person would have to be an illogical thinker. Common sense tells you that non-productive people, criminals, drug addicts and similar types of people would not contribute to prosperity no matter where they reside. And people dedicated to the overthrow of a country (such as the Mexican Reconquista movement -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista_%28Mexico%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) are clearly counterproductive.
Furthermore, to argue that companies can cross borders without restrictions, one has to ignore the many hurdles, both legal and illegal, that a company has to cross in order to establish a commercial presence in a country. America isn't the only country that requires business licenses, compliance with laws and regulations and, in many cases, a certain under the table gratuity to do business there.
People who spew the kind of foolish thinking that you cite demonstrate either a dangerous naivete or a willingness to overlook the facts in order to promote a point of view.