Why can’t I work wherever I want to?

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Saturday May 15, 2010 · 9:31 AM PDT

2010/05/15 · 09:31

The idea of the foreigner—the outsider, the stranger—has been with us since we gathered in clans and huddled around campfires, guarding what was ours against others who wanted to take it from us.

The passport, however, is a modern innovation, an invention of nation-states designed, along with citizenship papers and work visas, to control where people may live and work.

Why should an accident of birth determine these things for me? So long as I keep the peace and behave properly, so long as I can support myself financially, I should be able to go where I like. These controls, I maintain, constitute a conspiracy by the nations of the world to deprive me of my human rights.

Of course, if all controls were lifted, rich countries would be inundated by people from poor countries seeking better living and working conditions, overloading local schools and hospitals, taking low-paying jobs while legitimate citizens can’t find work . . . oh, wait: the public thinks that’s already happening. [h/t to ontheleftcoast for revision]

So what would happen, actually, if immigration were decriminalized, if we had ‘free labour’ agreements, not just ‘free trade’ agreements?

erictmacknight

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Thursday April 29, 2010 · 5:15 AM PDT

2010/04/29 · 05:15

I’m a foreigner here, and I look like one. Easy to pick out in a crowd. I’ve been here a few years, completely legally. But at any moment a cop could stop me and demand to see my papers. They don’t, usually, and most of the time I don’t carry them with me. I’d worry about losing them if I carried them with me all the time. I could make photocopies, I guess, but would a photocopy convince a cop?

Still, from time to time the word goes round that people are being stopped and asked for their papers, and then I do carry them, until things relax again. . . .

erictmacknight

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday April 17, 2010 · 8:11 AM PDT

2010/04/17 · 08:11

America needs a culture that respects education. A culture in which learning is admired. A culture that honors the achievements of educated people and recognizes their importance to the entire society.

Anti-intellectualism has deep roots in American history and culture. Educated people are far too often subjected to suspicion and ridicule. These are the names Americans use to demean the educated:

Eggheads. Pointy-headed intellectuals. Ivory-tower academics. Bookworms. Nerds. Geeks.

If President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan hope to improve the dreadful state of America’s public schools they must tackle this culture of anti-intellectualism head-on. . . .

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Why can’t I work wherever I want to?

I'm a foreigner here, and I look like one (but my boss doesn't!)

How to fix America's schools