Supporting sensible controls on immigration hardly constitutes 'intolerance'. The framing of anything short of open-borders as 'intolerance' has perverted the entire modern political discussion.

"Imagine there's no countries." -John Lennon.

I heard an interview of him where he explained that statement. He said it referred to before the rise of the modern nation-state, where you could walk somewhere and suddenly it was another country, and it just sort of worked as a continuum of places. The idea of passport control came out of World War I. Your boundary-heavy "sensible" version is a very small part of human history.

I am aware of what people say will happen if we erode those boundaries. It's overblown. I recognize this is a minority position. But maybe let go of your fear.

Anyway. I don't think you're intolerant for believing this. But when there is subtext that immigrants are subhuman, or one nation or subgroup is preferential, which seems to go around a lot these days, then yes, I have a problem.

Bizarre to combine "immigrants are subhuman" with "I prefer my own nation".

The first of these statements is mindless hate supported by a fringe of a voiceless fringe.

The second is a common belief within nearly every human group ever. It is evolutionarily inevitable given how groups outcompete atomized individuals. It is justified within a reciprocal altruism framework. It is evident in everyday behavior where people from San Francisco to Milwaukee form social groups with others like them.

The issue occurs when you prefer your own nation so much that you spend an inordinate amount of time building cages to store members of other nations, or doubting the birth certificates of people whose names look a bit like they might have come from a different place as yours, or, one that shocks me but is "accepted wisdom": you believe that another nation's citizens should not be entitled to civil rights of your country. These are things that occur in the open, with increasing frequency, and I have problems with.

At that point and many similar ones I would stop calling it "I prefer my own nation to exist and it differentiates itself in ways I appreciate" and more of a "hangup".

Also, the suggestion that John Lennon's 'Imagine' was written before the rise of the 'modern nation-state' is complete and absolute rubbish. By the time John Lennon wrote that incredibly asinine song, India and Pakistan had already clashed at least three times over Kashmir. Israel had already fought wars against the surrounding countries five times, and the Soviet Union had already violently annexed many of its neighbors. I'm attacking this so vehemently to combat the risk that anyone might be tempted to believe such foolishness. Even if your statements were in any way factually correct they would be meaningless in the context of today's world.

> Also, the suggestion that John Lennon's 'Imagine' was written before the rise of the 'modern nation-state' is complete and absolute rubbish.

When did I say that? I said he said in an interview that ideas of another time inspired that particular line. Not that he lived to see such a time or that 1971 was such a time. I wasn't too shocked at your previous reply even if I disagree, but now you are attributing insane comments to me. Slow down. Relax.

Perhaps I misread your initial comment, I posted it quite late. My apologies, I'm willing to delete my last post there for the sake of remaining civil if that helps.

No need to apologize or delete, friend. (We are outside the time limit for the latter anyhow.) These topics rile us up and I was also concerned I took it too far or rushed too much. So please accept my apologies too.

You must be joking. Just FYI, I'm not an American and nor am I a supporter of Trump. In the recent Democratic Primary debates a majority of candidates supported state-sponsored healthcare for 'undocumented' ( sic, the newspeak term ) immigrants. On a humanitarian level I support this. I would hate to think that a person in need of medical treatment would ever be denied essential treatment. On a financial level, this is ludicrous. When coupled with the democrat candidates' majority stance of supporting decriminalisation of illegal border-crossing, this would be analogous to directly paying American tax dollars overseas. You can't look at this issue on purely social terms, it is economic in nature. If there is no disincentive for illegally breaching a country's borders to obtain access to that country's welfare system, it will inevitably attract the immigration of indigent populations from other nations seeking welfare that their own country cannot or will not provide. How could it be any other way? We've already seen this to be true. The migrant caravan from South America is already proof of this.

When you mention that 'passport control came out of World War I'. This is incredibly disingenuous. The politics of pre-WWI Europe can not be compared to the modern day. You are talking about an era where ideas that would be considered radically nationalist were completely normal. You may have been able to cross borders, but your ability to integrate economically into a new country may have been limited. Not to mention the fact that the entire economic landscape of this point in history is not comparable to our current era. There was no globalism, global trade and global industry would have been extremely minimal compared to today.

We do pay American tax dollars directly overseas it's called foreign aid.

Of course. Individuals on the receiving end do not play a role in deciding when/where that money is spent though. Foreign aid is something entirely different, it is something decided upon by congress. An individual illegally crossing the border with the express purpose of seeking treatment for a pre-existing medical condition is an entirely different thing.