THE DISADVANTAGES OF POLITICAL BOUNDARIES

Political boundaries consist of lines drawn by cartographers and surveyors, or defined by natural features.  Frequently fences and/or walls were built upon or near these lines in order to limit access across them.  These lines were often drawn following the conclusion of warfare.

Natural features, such as rivers and mountain ranges, were often designated as boundaries, because they usually required more concerted effort to cross.  Both of these sorts of boundaries were obviously established to serve as barriers to one group of people from entering into the lands resided upon by other groups of people.

However, people are often driven to seek to relocate--perhaps across a border, perhaps across the globe--in search of political freedom and/or economic opportunity.  Sometimes even more compelling motivations, such as safety, shortage of food, or other basic human necessities, prompt people to seek relief in new places.  We are, in fact, told that, since 1945, more than eighty million of our fellow human beings have been impelled to seek new places to live due to fear, hunger, or the hope of better prospects

Lines drawn by mapmakers and surveyors may constitute quite unnatural bases for dividing people.  So too do rivers, of which at least 214 happen to flow through what have been designated to be two or more nations.  This concept applies even more commonly to mountains, which are frequently divided among a number of countries.  For example, the Andes comprises parts of seven South American nation-states.  Notwithstanding, up within these mountains, movements of water, soil, weather, and natural life pay little heed to the boundaries that man has devised and imposed to separate us from one another.

Boundaries, and the separation that they represent and promote, are the basis for all sorts of disadvantages, and outright wrongs.  These borders, and at times their accompanying fences, have played various roles in causing distress and despair in various places--usually for naught.  In fact, border disputes were a precipitating factor in many of the international conflicts that took place between 1945 and 1990--which conflicts cost at least seventeen million lives, and many billions of dollars.  And ironically, after all this death and destruction, a number of disputed border situations yet remain:  such as between India and Bangladesh, India and China, India and Pakistan, and Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

In 1934, Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over an ill-defined border region called "Chaco," at a cost of six thousand lives.  In August of 1960, Somalia and Ethiopia clashed in what was described as "bloody border fighting."  A month later, Jordanian and Syrian troops gathered on both sides of their common border in anticipation of armed conflict.  In 1980, a long-smoldering border dispute between Iran and Iraq, over a waterway that served as an outlet for Iraq to the Persian Gulf burst into a war that lasted for eight years, and wasted over a million lives.  Between 1981 and 1995, Peru and Ecuador participated in many fierce border clashes concerning their common boundary.  In 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan engaged in warfare over a disputed territory called Nsagorno-Karabakh.

Thus, these altercations concerning the concept of boundary continue to rage on today, in a variety of places and dimensions, year after year, all over the world. 

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Borders stand as symbols of mankind's persistent somewhat selfish mind-set, whereby we strive to exclude most of our fellow humans from territories we call "ours."  They come and go over time.  They are far from permanent or enduring--because they are expressions of a concept that is faulty to begin with.

That is not to say that we shouldn't be able to exclude others from our private property, such as our homes or places of business.  Nor does it apply to fences or restrictions erected or enacted in order to keep out those who may wish to enter a place in order to do physical harm or property damage.  In these instances, such barriers are necessary and proper.  However, as a general principle, and under ordinary circumstances, civilized human beings should not be excluded by lines, fences, or policies put into place by other human beings, around what they consider to be "their" respective portions of our world.  For preventing my fellow human being from residing, or carrying on his or her occupation or business, lawfully and peacefully, next to me, is illogical--when it is based upon the fact that he or she  was born on the other side of some line--or even halfway around the world.

To be sure, migration by "have-nots" has for ages been viewed with dread and consequent disdain by the "haves"; as these indigenous perceive migrant newcomers as threats to their culture, and especially to their livelihoods.  Prime examples are observed  in the history of the American colonies--when people from a few places in Europe emigrated to take up residence in a strange and distant land--a land, by the way, whose natives had not established a system for ownership of real property.  These early colonists proceeded to call this real estate their own--but were not always similarly sharing as regards the people who came afterwards.

For example, as early as 1882, when Chinese laborers began to compete for jobs with people already here, the Chinese Exclusion Act forbade further entry of workers from China.  And in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed an immigration bill to prevent further immigration by Japanese laborers to our West coast.  In 1917, the state of California issued a further obstacle to the Japanese in the form of a law forbidding them to own land in this country.

By 1917 as well, we had devised a more acceptable rationale for our attempts to exclude, by means of a "literacy bill."  By only admitting individuals who could read and write, we claimed to be declining admission to people with less chance of fitting into "American culture."  But the actual, and desired, effect was to reduce the numbers of people coming here from southern and eastern Europe.

Later, exclusionary policies expanded further, closing the door to people adjudged to be afflicted with "unsatisfactory moral standards," "radical leanings," or "poverty."  Yet, our credo has always been, and continues to be, freedom to behave as one pleases (so long as noone is harmed thereby); freedom to espouse different or unusual beliefs (so long as noone is scandalized, offended, or otherwise harmed thereby); and freedom to attermpt to overcome poverty via hard work and sacrifice (so long as one's endeavors are honest and lawful).  In 1952, our legislators--many of whom being themselves second and third generation descendants of similar eagerly aspiring entrants--slammed the door once more, via the McCarren-Walter Immigration and Naturalization Act.  It was, by the way, carried despite President Truman's protests and subsequent veto.

As time went on, U.S. immigration policies have grown increasingly restrictive, engendering hostility toward America and Americans on the part of much of the rest of the world.  And in 1974, following a similar path, Canada expresseed concern over "changing racial patterns," and likewise tightened its immigration controls.

Currently, much protest and debate is being carried on concerning the entry--usually illegally--of great numbers of people from Mexico and other places south of the U.S. border.  Most of them are merely seeking opportunities to work--quite hard, for minimal pay.  But the recent terrorist activities and threats across the globe, as well as the occasional illegal entry of trespassers for the purpose of dealing in the drug trade, has caused most Americans to become quite vocal about America's porous borders.  It is of course obviously necessary for any governing entity to exercise dilligence concerning the movement of people--from any place to any place, regardless of whether such movement be a few miles, or halfway around the world--in order to guard against terrorism as well as illicit drug trafficking.  But this dilligence should be directed to and applied towartd the activities that are sought to be prevented--as opposed to complete exclusion of certain people, or people from certain places, by reason of--or worse, as a substitute for--such dilligence.

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