Good fences make bad optics (to some)

Here's the new year (by my calendar, anyway) and the first things that pops up on my blog radar is this:

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Greece's decision to build a 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) fence along its border with Turkey in a bid to curb illegal immigration has caused mixed reactions, with humanitarian agencies saying the fence could prevent asylum seekers from reaching safety.

Not the idea, the place or anything, just that the reactions quoted in the article cover a lot of ground on the general subject. Before I get to that, a bit of history.

The Peace of Westphalia (1648) created the Nation State as we know it today. It was also the beginning of the end for overt religious wars in Europe and a lot of other things, but the biggest residue remaining today is the concept of sovereign states. Nationalism has of course caused a lot of trouble (WWI in particular) but your options are roughly as follows:

1. Empire: the default state for much of history and most people until the mid 20th Century. Can be secular or religious in nature. Rome and various Caliphates are your examples;


2. Kingdom: can be independent or a sub unit of empire; think Monaco or kingdoms of the British Raj respectively;


3. Anarchy: never lasts in it's pure form since nature abhors a vacuum; modern analogue is the "failed state", Somalia the most obvious current case. Rapidly turns to brigandage and quasi-feudal organizations and may stay like that for a long time in the absence of anyone strong enough to pull it into either of the above.

Political scientists can quibble with my divisions/descriptions, but they hit the high points. The point I'm working toward is that the concept of a State with firm borders which is ruled in all respects by the government of that State really dates from that era. This leads to the following pull quote from the article:

Kalliopi Stefanaki, the UNHCR protection officer for Greece, has described the fence as a "strong measure" but said every country has the right to guard its own borders. "We agree that Greece in entitled to enhance security at its borders in any way it sees fit," she said.

Ok, I chopped that one a bit for the part that I wanted. These NGOs are not so powerful that they can force countries how to police their borders; they will try, but one of the things inherent in being a State is that it can decide who comes into it. What I find interesting is that groups like the UNHCR now feel the need to publicly acknowledge strong borders, even if the second part of the sentence (snipped) tried to weasel around that.

In the case of Greece, they can't afford their own lifestyle, let alone half of Africa fleeing their shithole countries. Harsh language, but anything less would merely be a euphemism because it's true. Immigration has always been osmosis from countries/regions of more crap to ones of less crap pressure. Of course with osmosis, whatever is in the "more" area moves to the "less" and takes some of its' (in this case "crap") with it.

I dislike stupid people equally, so I will give a middle finger to charges of racism. People of good character who make a net positive contribution to a country are the ones you want as immigrants to yours. This requires some sorting, which requires control measures. This brings us back to the fences.

Greece wants fences, Arizona wants fences, and I doubt you'll find many border regions in comparatively affluent countries who are in favour of letting in whoever wants to come. The real problem with immigration today is Entitlements. In the old days when you worked or you starved, you got motivated immigrants. Today when you can crash the gates and get on benefits that will have you living better than you could back home, you tend to get the wrong sort of person. This mostly applies to the refugee policies which is appropriate since that's most of the problem.

Just ask legal immigration applicants how they feel about the queue jumpers and you'll see the same rage that many taxpayers and people put out of work by cheap immigrant labour will express on the subject. The time has come for this to be dragged out into the open for debate, and I see that starting to happen, all over the world.

Good fences make good neighbours, and happy citizens. Finally the chattering immigration lawyers, politicians and bleeding-heart hypocrites are being challenged, and I hope to see more of it, and some realistic figures on how many people we can have in Canada before we ruin what's left that makes the county attractive to decent people from around the world. That way we get the best, and so do they.