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cropped sc because tensions are running high so no need to start unnecessary beef, but this is something literally no country on earth has, and it’s fucking annoying when people act superior to you because you’re grappling with this shit as it actually exists rather than airly imaging utopias.

Immigration enforcement *is going to exist*. Police and the military *are going to exist*. Someone is going to enforce the state’s monopoly on violence. It is going to happen. It is worth thinking about what that would look like in the least bad version.

"your solution of expanding courts and legal rights pales in comparison to mine, abolishing the entire state as it currently exists" like ok you do you, but I'm not going to regard you as my moral superior because you're writing higher-concept fiction.

Is your argument that abolishing most immigration restrictions would be *bad* or just that it’s *unlikely to happen?* Because I completely agree with you if you’re only arguing the latter, and firmly disagree if you’re arguing the former.

I think the basic thing is "even with extremely lax immigration controls, you will need to have some kind of immigration bureaucracy and some kind of ability to control who enters and leaves the country"

Do you? Genuine question.

My argument is that staking out a maximalist position and then denouncing anyone who engages with real world tradeoffs as a squish is common and extremely annoying social media behavior.

Well we agree on that.

I think going totally, 100% open borders is unrealistic unless we’ve hit “withering away of the state” territory but something like CAN/US/MEX Schengen and default ILR for anyone entering said zone who doesn’t have outstanding Interpol warrants is a realistic-ish transitional program”

Open borders was the effective immigration policy of America until after the Civil War. Borders don’t make a state, they just define that state’s jurisdiction.