bending the rules 3

I think of central America as the land between the Americas.  Mexico is in southern North America.  and central America begins south of Mexico and continues past the canal until it hits Colombia and South America..

A short google search reveals libertarian arguments for and against open borders.  I've long known that libertarians support legalizing pot, and all drugs as well I believe.  One of the things I liked best about libertarianism is their non-interventionist foreign policy.  Rand Paul never sang so sweetly to me as when he ridiculed our involvement in the mideast, but everything else he favored gave me the willies.  Libertarianism has things that appeal to both the left and the right, but its central tenet of limited government appeals most strongly to the right, so that when libertarians run for office they jettison the cool stuff like legal dope and non-intervention, to appeal to their conservative base.  Son O Rand is even anti abortion which is decidedly non-libertarian.

Open borders is what we dems are now routinely accused of backing, on the theory that the only alternative to tossing a kid in a cage is to have open borders.  I don't see open borders going anywhere in the current political climate, and nobody running for any office would dare utter the words, but you know if you consider what if, it may be a position worth discussing.   I's so crazy it just might work.


I oppose zero tolerance in everything.  You could say I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance.  On the face of it it's just so stupid.  People like it because it sounds tough, and people like to look tough, but in practice I have yet to see where it works on anything.  I remember a judge running for office and his commercial consisted of a slamming cell door.  It made me think why do we need him them, why don't we just pass a law where everybody gets the maximum sentence? 

Along with honesty and fairness and obeying the rules we were also taught patriotism.  We pledged allegiance and we were taught that America had never done anything wrong.  And it wasn't just our country, we were supposed to be proud of our state and our city, and our school as well.  School spirit that's where they lost me.  If I lived just a few blocks more this way or that I would be in another school, and the whole thing kind of unraveled there.  If my family moved I would be in another city and another state, and if my great grandparents had moved east I would be in some Russkie school wearing a young pioneer uniform so what the fuck?

Here's one thing I wonder about.  Along with that patriotism thing we were taught that our leaders were all upstanding men honest as the day is long, and that Americans, being the good guys were also honest and fair.  Well if everybody is obeying the laws, doesn't it make sense for you to obey the laws too?  But then as we grew older and I think the press became more investigative and it was revealed that our leaders and our fellow men were not as good as they were cracked up to me.  So didn't it then behoove us to bend a few rules too. 

But what if we never learned this?  Wouldn't we behave well all our lives?  Wouldn't that be good?  Probably not because wouldn't we just be toadies for the local dictator?