unghhhhhhhh

why do I watch these things [yeah, this clip is pretty old...I know]? It's even scarier since I sided with Bill on this one. It's not necessarily that Bill is "correct", it's just that the other dude's argument was not that logical based on speculation.

State boundaries are fictive, constructed. Humans are real. Social institutions have always imbued upon people constructed values, identities which make people easy to manage. Classification is a method of social control. The church created heretics. The state creates criminals. Medical institutions create mental illnesses. The nation state creates citizens.

The thing is that in a modern, global political economy the construction of the citizen cannot be ignored. Perhaps it seems like an inevitable, necessary tool, just as the nation state itself is a necessary tool for capitalism to function. Therefore, humans are citizens before they are humans. That is a political economic perspective which doesn't really yield to human rights definitions, unfortunately.

The state as a territory defines humans in a political perspective before a biological perspective, and thus all beings within the fictive borders of a state must abide by such definitions. That is a prerequisite for legitimately existing within the borders of the state. To exist within a state, you must be classified by the state accordingly. You could, however, proclaim that you exist not in a nation state but simply on a land on earth. This is more of a biological definition, and as such it requires to arbitrary abstractions. You simply exist as a biological creature. But if you in any way associate with the state, you are an object of the state. That is unfortunate. Political economic paradigms usurp any other and make it impossible to exist in the world free of political classifications. You can't not be a citizen of some state; you must have a passport for international travel. You must have a political identity to legitimately exist in the global political world. I find these unfortunate truths, not that I actively support them, only because hegemony is the lesser of the two (anarchy) evils.

So, yes, an "illegal immigrant" must abide by the rules of the state in order to live within its boundaries. It seems perfectly reasonable to say that if an immigrant that doesn't abide by state identity classifications kills a citizen of the state, they can remove that person from their boundaries, since they didn't have the "right" to be there in the first place.

In analogy: I steal a cookie from the jar. I get caught, and receive punishment on two accounts - (1) for stealing; and (2) for stealing a cookie before dinner. This distinction is important because a crime is committed when it is predicated upon another; I stole, but I stole at a certain time. The first is an act, the second is a condition in which the act takes place. Both require volition, the will to act, and the will to act in a certain condition. Thus, a person can kill, and they can kill when they are in a certain condition (illegal residence).

The problem, as Rivera points out, is that migrants come not to wreak havoc but because of economic promises. It complicates the 2nd account of cookie analogy but does not entirely refute it; migrants come out of their "volition" but it's pretty fatalistic. And of course shifting attention away from the individual to structural issues is something people with little critical insight never do. Deviance has long shown how problems are individualized. The state should assume economic responsibility for globalization, not individuals.

Anyway, it's not like I directly support state hegemony, but I find it the lesser of two evils. Isn't that reform is all about?