Celebrate—While You Still Can

Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,
The plague full swift goes by;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

—-Thomas Nashe, speaking for the once United States

Our leaders want no borders. Not only not for us, but not for anybody. Ask yourself this: if they were granted this indulgence, and there were no borders, every place being the same as anywhere else, who would be in charge?

Item What If There Were No Borders?

I think it would be the case that if there were some kind of open-border policy, poor people would be better off if they could move to opportunities. But this is precisely what the populist movements in Europe and the U.S. are dead set against, giving these people open borders so that the poor of the rest of the world can come here and compete for jobs.

Item Join The Undoing Borders Campaign

From Brexit to the Windrush scandal, the movement of people across borders continues to dominate political conversations at every level. The media is key in framing these conversations. But instead of questioning racist policies and their effect on people’s lives, mainstream narratives continually ignore the voices of those who migrate. We are a student movement fighting against the ‘hostile environment’ infringing on our campuses and collectively creating a new vision and future.

Item There’s Nothing Wrong With Open Borders

There’s a witheringly obvious moral, economic, strategic and cultural case for open borders, and we have a political opportunity to push it. As Democrats jockey for the presidency, there’s room for a brave politician to oppose President Trump’s racist immigration rhetoric not just by fighting his wall and calling for the abolishment of I.C.E. but also by making a proactive and affirmative case for the vast expansion of immigration.

Item Trump’s border wall isn’t about national security. It’s about stoking racial resentment.

Donald Trump’s wall is Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate as a $25 billion budget item. And if Democrats reward him for birthering the entire country over the wall with what could soon be the longest partial government shutdown in American history, it will only fuel the racist fire Trump hopes to ride to re-election.

Item A “Smart” Border Wall Is Just as Racist as a Physical Barrier

While a “smart wall” isn’t a physical barrier, it’s every bit as racist, unproductive and horrific as a physical wall. The concept draws on the apparatus of the security state to normalize the militarization of the border with 21st century technology.

Item Progressives Should Support Open Borders — With No Apology

The slogan “Abolish ICE”—first raised by grassroots migrant justice activists and lifted up by the Democratic Socialists of America—has been brought into official U.S. politics and even carried onto Capitol Hill by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The slogan has become so potent that the president and vice president have had to go out of their way to denounce it—something Trump did again in the most recent State of the Union.

Item Racism does not need racists

You don’t need to be racist when the law and the culture already are.

Item The learned speak in peer-reviewed journals:

1. Open borders: the case against immigration controls
2. Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders
3. No Borders: The Case against Immigration Controls
4. It goes on and on for pages like this…

Item One of many, many.

So it’s not just Confederate monuments https://t.co/C7NZdq3AG5

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) July 3, 2019

Contra

Item War Is A Racket, By Major General Smedley Butler (Your host has spent many hours on the base named after this fine gentleman.)

We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

Item The Great American Fourth Of July and Other Disasters, Jean Shepherd.

Item Grandma’s best hot dog recipe!

Item Everybody knows the story of Ben Franklin and the Constitution, and how he quipped that the fathers had created a Republic, if we could keep it. We did not keep it, Ben.