# Do away with borders
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 11, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238 "2014-09-11T21:15:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/81 "2014-09-13T03:58:03Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Well, we’ll see how you enjoy life with one testicle, then we’ll see what sort of attitude you maintain with none, and then if necessary we’ll say goodbye for ever.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you were a badass. Now that I know, I’ll be sure to shot you in the back first before I take your stuff.
Like I’ve said, if I can win an unfair fight what motive do I have to fight fair?
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### Author:  [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/82 "2014-09-13T04:40:02Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Well, we’ll see how you enjoy life with one testicle, then we’ll see what sort of attitude you maintain with none, and then if necessary we’ll say goodbye for ever.
So you’re now going to be watching your back every waking moment of every day, since you know that **Chessic Sense** is planning on killing you and taking your stuff. And let’s humor you and assume that you could easily best **Chessic Sense** in a fight, something that’s no guarantee even when all the cards are in your favor. But what when you sleep? You can’t guard yourself 24 hours a day. If only there were some people you could pay who would keep you and your belongings secure even when you couldn’t do that yourself…
But I digress. How are you going to stop Tony Soprano and his goons? They’re bigger, and more numerous, and better armed than you could hope to be. Well, you could band together with your neighbors, and form some sort of coalition to fight the bad guys, but that’d be a government, and that’s not allowed. So you’re fucked. Bottom line is, there’s no way to stop an anarchy like you envision from becoming law of the jungle.
Might doesn’t make right. But absent the existence of government, it does.
If you actually want to read about a more plausible anarchist utopia, put down _Kapital_ and start reading about revolutionary Catalonia, or the anarchies envisioned by modern American right-wing writers. Bottom line, these anarchists may not have a government so to speak, but they still have a strong power structures (unions and courts, or insurance companies) to keep these peace. And they’re still highly unlikely to actually work, they’re just more realistic that what you’re proposing now. Bottom line, a border is probably the worst possible place for an anarchist society. An island or extremely isolated rural area would work better.
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### Author:  [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/83 "2014-09-13T05:10:13Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Well, we’ll see how you enjoy life with one testicle, then we’ll see what sort of attitude you maintain with none, and then if necessary we’ll say goodbye for ever.
You don’t seem to understand. You won’t catch me. You’ll be dead and I’ll be gone. No punishment whatsoever. How exactly are you planning to stop me? Magic? My guns are bigger than yours, and plus, I have a tank. So good luck with that.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/84 "2014-09-13T05:32:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you were a badass. Now that I know, I’ll be sure to shot you in the back first before I take your stuff.
My stuff ? Who said anything about private property ?
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/85 "2014-09-13T05:35:05Z")
> [@](#):
>
> How are you going to stop Tony Soprano and his goons?
The governments of the fuzzy non-bordering states can sort that shit out - they don’t want the ingenious new geopolitical arrangement spoiled, and they certainly won’t want Soprano and co imposing border tolls.
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### Author:  [@Uther\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uther_Penguin)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/86 "2014-09-13T06:31:04Z")
Only the chaps living in the anarchy zones can create a true Assless Society!
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/87 "2014-09-13T06:32:43Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#):
>
> You don’t seem to understand. You won’t catch me. You’ll be dead and I’ll be gone. No punishment whatsoever. How exactly are you planning to stop me? Magic? My guns are bigger than yours, and plus, I have a tank. So good luck with that.
YOu beat me to death, and step over to take one of the communal flat screen TV’s - that’ll look nice in your apartment. You turn round and find 50 angry anarchists with pick axe handles, but being slick you escape with a mere beating. You go back where the oligarchs have devised a new TV tax for the plebs. Four heavily armed state sadomasochists in uniforms kick your door in and take your new TV. Welcome to the state, citizen.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/88 "2014-09-13T06:41:09Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> YOu beat me to death, and step over to take one of the communal flat screen TV’s - that’ll look nice in your apartment. You turn round and find 50 angry anarchists with pick axe handles, but being slick you escape with a mere beating.
Or more likely walk away without a problem because the 50 angry anarchists are either dead or busy beating on each other already.
Not that there is likely to _be_ a “communal flat screen TV” to take, since it’ll have long since been smashed and the building it was in set on fire.
---
### Author:  [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/89 "2014-09-13T12:24:35Z")
My problem with the border zone is, who enforces the borders? Some states are pretty freakin’ huge ya know. So you build huge fences/walls thousands of miles long around what’s left of the states. Where do you get the resources/manpower to build these walls? And who patrols them? You’ve pared down your population, meaning less people to do the work. People will move inwards to get away from the anarchy zones, so there’s not going to be many willing to live near the border.
States are surrounded by anarchy zones, so there goes any interstate commerce that’s not heavily armed. You wouldn’t be able to surround each state with an anarchy zone, but maybe you could, say, give the anarchists several states. That would eliminate some of the problems, but anarchists wouldn’t want to work in shops and factories, so there goes pretty much any technology. I could see some anarchists attempting to keep the electrical grid going, but they’d run into a ton of problems.
I could see people banding together in the Anarchy Zones for protection, amd establishing their own communities, rules, etc, but on a large, long term scale it just wouldn’t last.The anarchy zones would attract most of the criminals, who would attack each other and everyone else. It would basically be Mad Max without the happy ending.
Where are the anarchists going to get food from? They’d have to depend on the non anarchists for food and supplies, and what would they have to trade? Sure, some of the anarchists could band together and run farms but they’d be in danger from others who would try to take what they have. The non anarchist states would have to provide food and probably medical care so the zones don’t become plague zones.
Eventually the anarchy zones will be barren due to disease, violence, and inability to sustain itself. Maybe we will have removed most of the violence in our gene pool and live on as a peaceful species. But I doubt it.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/90 "2014-09-13T12:57:01Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> YOu beat me to death, and step over to take one of the communal flat screen TV’s - that’ll look nice in your apartment. You turn round and find 50 angry anarchists with pick axe handles, but being slick you escape with a mere beating. You go back where the oligarchs have devised a new TV tax for the plebs. Four heavily armed state sadomasochists in uniforms kick your door in and take your new TV. Welcome to the state, citizen.
Would you mind giving us your definition of “anarchist”? It doesn’t seem to be meshing up with the one we are used to. Organized anarchists with communal flat screen TVs?
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/91 "2014-09-13T13:55:38Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Would you mind giving us your definition of “anarchist”? It doesn’t seem to be meshing up with the one we are used to. Organized anarchists with communal flat screen TVs?
Is this one of those ‘No True Anarchist’ arguments? 😉
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/92 "2014-09-13T14:05:04Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#):
>
> Is this one of those ‘No True Anarchist’ arguments? 😉
Hell, he still hasn’t explained how he rounded up all these anarchists and convinced them to become border guards. Something-something about how they won’t be wearing uniforms…?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/93 "2014-09-13T14:17:55Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> YOu beat me to death, and step over to take one of the communal flat screen TV’s - that’ll look nice in your apartment. You turn round and find 50 angry anarchists with pick axe handles, but being slick you escape with a mere beating. You go back where the oligarchs have devised a new TV tax for the plebs. Four heavily armed state sadomasochists in uniforms kick your door in and take your new TV. Welcome to the state, citizen.
Actually I would imagine that mob would cheer me on. They were presumably there to beat you up. I would imagine they were mad about being forced to pay a tax to buy you a TV.
Or did I misunderstand? Did somebody else pay for the communal TV in your apartment? The anarchy fairy? Your parents who are supporting your anarchist lifestyle? A loan from Satan?
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/94 "2014-09-13T15:14:45Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#):
>
> My problem with the border zone is, who enforces the borders?
The borders are fuzzy and undefined, they work on an formal/informal level. They can’t be fought over because nobody knows exactly where they are, yet everyone knows they are there somewhere and the people in the state can rest assured that their lives are orderly and they are well governed- thus saving lives and money, and relieving the population of unnecessary existential angst.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/95 "2014-09-13T15:18:28Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Would you mind giving us your definition of “anarchist”? It doesn’t seem to be meshing up with the one we are used to. Organized anarchists with communal flat screen TVs?
Why limit something with definitions ?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/96 "2014-09-13T15:19:16Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> The borders are fuzzy and undefined, they work on an formal/informal level. They can’t be fought over because nobody knows exactly where they are, yet everyone knows they are there somewhere and the people in the state can rest assured that their lives are orderly and they are well governed- thus saving lives and money, and relieving the population of unnecessary existential angst.
Pray tell, how does interstate commerce work in this system?
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/97 "2014-09-13T15:19:53Z")
[quote=“Little\_Nemo, post:93, topic:698238”]
I would imagine they were mad about being forced to pay a tax to buy you a TV.
[QUOTE]
Worker owned TV production plant + trade with the states who value the peace dividend the anarchy zones provide.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/98 "2014-09-13T15:20:25Z")
> [@MrQwertyasd](#):
>
> Why limit something with definitions ?
Because duckbutter.
edited to add: or: If you don’t tell us what the hell you’re talking about, we won’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/99 "2014-09-13T15:22:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Pray tell, how does interstate commerce work in this system?
You get a truckload of commodity A, drive over to the other state and swap it for money or commodity B, then drive back again. Don’t worry about the borders, they are there somewhere, you will recognize the other state when you get there. You might do some trade with the anarchists along the way. You could also drop by and enjoy some weed and a game of skittles with them too - but be sober by the time you get to the other state because they get all BDSM about that kind of thing.
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### Author:  [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-away-with-borders/698238/100 "2014-09-13T15:23:39Z")
By the way, when I mean state, I don’t just mean the USA type states. I was thinking more Europe, really, but anywhere will do.
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