Borderland Memories

"There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don't come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations because there will be no humanity." - Isaac Asimov

"From space I saw Earth - indescribably beautiful and with the scars of national boundaries gone." -Muhammad Ahmad Faris, astronaut

Now that congress has stepped in to "solve the problem of immigration" - we can all rest assured that matters will get much worse for everyone concerned. Given that the very legislation that is produced is not even read by those responsible for enacting the law,  and given that every measure within the law is obscured by convoluted legalese, questionable data, voodoo actuaries, and hidden agendas - there can be no doubt that the final product will be further away from freedom and closer to global serfdom.

As usual, the crisis of the moment will be solved with the same methodology involved in its creation. 

This is freedom. 

Don't look away. 

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The word "border" itself was a 14th century Middle English word, derived from the French "bordure", and indicates that which is contained by the outer edges of an escutcheon - the surface on which a coat of arms is depicted. 

Though the tradition of heraldry extends into ancient times, the coat of arms itself serves as an emblem of exclusivity and a likely indication of aristocratic privilege. From here the irony completes itself. 

Borders do not benefit the common man. Borders serve the purposes of systems - governmental, corporate, legal. And these systems have always been dominated by those oligarchs and money-interests whose favorite pathology is power.  

It seems that regardless of the nation identified by a given set of "scars" on a map - those at the top of the symbolic pyramid, those wielding the heralds of their "nation", those influencing and directing the Leviathan of state are the only ones with a real vested interest in the concept of borders, and must be concerned by the tangible shape of their relative power.

Any time I meet someone who was once contained by a border different from my own - I am not surprised to find a deep similarity. After all, people are people. Left to their own devices, in a world without borders and division, I am certain that humanity would flourish beyond measure. Systems of control, on the other hand, would not.  

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I realize that it's idealistic, but I imagine a truly free society, one without force or coercion exercised by centralized authority of any kind. One available to all of humanity. One that operates on the basis of volunteerism - financial, social, and commercial. One in which the only purpose of government is to ensure the liberty of each individual and to provide an open and fair legal system for the settling of disputes. Anything more concentrated in terms of power would become a danger to the people. At least this is the prevailing lesson of history. 

Henry David Thoreau once stated that government serves to show "how successfully men can be imposed upon, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage."This is just as true today as it was in the 19th century. And it's for this reason that the apparatus of government must be as weak and diluted as possible. Only then can we be assured that those who control the levers of power will have control over nothing of consequence. 

Without the power to impose, there can be no significant gain. The same view must be held when evaluating the concentration of power within the corporate model - a model whose sole purpose and legal obligation is to maximize profit regardless of socially enlightened concerns. But to paraphrase the wisdom of noted economist and defender of free-markets Milton Friedman, the best argument for limited government is that it prevents corporations and money interests - which inevitably take control - from gaining anything of real advantage. 

Without the ability to game the system - because there is no substantial system to game - corporate and financial insiders would be unable to gain unfair advantage over competition through the regulatory power of the state. This would serve to create a new atmosphere in the world of commerce. 

Fair competition is the people's regulator. Governments belong to the likes of Monsanto and Goldman Sachs.   

One might ask, where would we be without national pride? Patriotism? Flags? Social Security? Welfare? Compulsory schooling? Exponential debt? Centralized banking? Corporate domination? Standing armies? Clandestine military operations? The CIA's rendition? The NSA's spy-grid?  Constant warfare? Environmental exploitation? Covert experimentation? Sophisticated forms of propaganda? Bread and circuses? 

....Well, we would certainly be somewhere new - somewhere far removed from the world we see today. 

And whatever problems would arise from such a radically altered reality would be preferable to the problems we face at this critical moment in history. As Thomas Jefferson once stated, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it." 

Sadly, however, the machinery of the system has supplanted self-reliance.  Unbridled freedom is equated with visions of anarchy and roving bands of lawless marauders, citizens starving in the potholes of unpaved streets, the old being fed to the young, the strong dominating the weak. 

How are we to survive without an enormous and inefficient bureaucracy to offer shelter from the storm of reckless freedom? 

Thus, our fear of freedom empowers systems, institutions, and authority. It enables the illusion. It fortifies the lie. And it transforms us all into servants and slaves. 

In the United States, our rigged, gerrymandered, and digitally questionable elections grant us a new class of royalty every two years - complete with privileges, excesses, and levels of compromise and corruption never imagined by those who sought to establish a government of, by and for the people. An entire class of insiders who sell themselves willingly to the system for gain and who are harvested with enough frequency to provide the electorate with the illusion of choice. 

And now these same people are going to settle the issue of immigration and borders. If anyone thinks that it will get any better for either the immigrant or the common citizen - then may your ignorance grant you bliss and "may your chains set lightly upon you." As for me, I no longer have any faith in our current political reality and have no expectations that any of this will lead to anything less than increased centralized control and the continued sacrifice of liberty.  

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Perhaps it is mankind's metaphysical purpose to do away with systems of control altogether. To rid ourselves of rulers and restrictions. To find harmony and peace without need for force or coercion. To evolve beyond the need for leaders and rulers.   

Carl Jung once offered this aphorism: Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. 

The answer lies within the journeywork of the individual. Not nations. Not states. Not political parties. Not collectives. Individuals must awaken to their own power. Those who place their faith in the material world are placing their faith in illusions and dreams. The mania of ownership and wealth and power are sorry substitutes for the true alchemy of self-actualization.  

If we are to evolve as a species, then we must no longer comply with systems of control. We must consider human freedom to be incompatible with borders and other phony divisions.  

"...all of the countries and all of the boundaries - all the legislation - all the statutes - and all of the limitations that have been put upon human consciousness are all a construct of human consciousness. We made the whole thing up, folks. It's not real. What's real is life. What's real is us." -Max Igan, 

The ruled are many. The rulers are few. The system is what we allow it to be - if we allow it to be at all. 

Adios, mis amigos.