A Brief Rant About the Logic of Borders
Here’s a headline from Bloomberg News: “Rhode Island Police to Hunt Down New Yorkers Seeking Refuge” (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/rhode-island-police-to-hunt-down-new-yorkers-seeking-refuge)
This is where we are at today, as the virus count increases geometrically. We have state governments attempting to shut their borders to people from other states — Rhode Island and Florida will not be the last to do this.
This virus is real. The impacts are real. But this is the kind of thing that happens when there is no federal leadership and when we have a president whose prescription for all ills is to close our national borders rather than to address the infections that are killing us from the inside.
Immigration? Shut the borders and, for god’s sake, don’t address the reason that millions around the globe have been forced to flee their homes — kleptocracy and corruption, climate, war, violence, broken economies, etc.
Terrorism? Shut the borders and, for god’s sake, don’t address the root causes of terrorism, which are similar to those driving the refugee crisis — corruption and a sense of lost power.
COVID-19? Shut the borders to China. Then Europe. And now, the state’s are closing their borders to other states, attempting to restrict the movement of Americans within their own country, as if the virus respects borders, as if the virus can be contained without an aggressive and unified response.
We need federal leadership. We need to nationalize the manufacture of ventilators (Trump final ordered GM to manufacture them under the Defense Protection Act, though other companies need to be doing the same). We need the manufacture of tests, research into drugs, a moratorium on mortgage and rent, on insurance payments, utility payments at a national level, which in turn would allow people to stay home without as much worry about their finances.
The governors of Rhode Island and Florida are doing what they think will protect their residents and, while I think their approaches are problematic, I can’t blame them.