Not at all. Force, violence, and legal coercion (backed, of course, by threat of violence) continue to be used to protect existing economic interests and property relations, particularly where communities, workers, or activists threaten profitable industries or major investments. Just looking at trade unionists:
Half of all countries arrest or detain workers for exercising their union rights, with a sharp rise in violence worldwide.
Do you think Kropotkin was “drunk/high/off their meds”? That should be the OTT standard for inclusion, not political disagreements, especially around easily-vetted statements of fact.
That was IMHO perfectly fine for GD (but IANAGreatDebatesMod). It’s bringing it in here that was unnecessary.
Force and violence is how any government operates. We usually don’t think about it that way, but it’s true. Without it, nothing would ever get done. Hopefully it’s used to the betterment of citizens, though of course that’s not always the case.
You say “not always”, I say “hardly ever”. Corporations aren’t citizens, and benefiting mainly the rich while keeping down the workers is not a nett benefit.
To clarify, though I only mentioned my irritation over attempts to undermine jus solis citizenship in the US, my sentiments are also guided by an undercurrent of discontent and simmering rage from having encountered so many clients whose citizenship status cannot be readily resolved despite their clearly and unambiguously having a US citizen parent. Why? Because they were born abroad. And by “abroad” I mean just across the river, literally in sight of the United States and in what was (and to some degree still is) essentially the same community as what’s on the US side of the border.
Or even people who were born on the US side of the border… but good luck proving it when a lot of these rural communities in bumfuck nowhere Texas didn’t have hospitals or county offices nearby to register births. Midwife births.
And it’s extra special when you throw the two together and are trying to prove that the Mexican-born descendant of someone who was born in Bumfuck-Along-the-Rio-Grande, Texas is a US citizen when dad’s birth in Nineteen Dickety-Six wasn’t even registered until dad was already 30 and the one horse town (if you could even call it a town—more of a ranch with some huts for the migrant workers to stay in) dad grew up in had a repurposed barn as a “schoolhouse” and it never got integrated into any kind of municipal or county school system so good fucking luck finding attendance records or any other proof that dad had at least 10 years in the US before son was born on the wrong damn side of the g-damn river because of course it was just cheaper to be born there.
But of course US law didn’t always require dad to have spent 10 years in the US before he could pass on citizenship to a son born abroad. And indeed, for people born more recently, it doesn’t require quite so much time anymore.
Oh, but the best part to that 10-year thing is that 5 of those years have to be after dad turned 14. I mean, just do the math, people. What if dad gets married at a young, but perfectly acceptable age (18) and in this perfectly acceptable (to the prudish mores of yesteryear) marriage manages to get mom pregnant on their wedding night? It may well be mathematically impossible for dad to transmit citizenship to a child born “abroad” (on the wrong fucking side of the river because it’s cheaper to live and give birth there) under such circumstances. And god help you if dad did live on the wrong side of the river when mom gave birth, and only worked on the US side (because of course it was cheaper to live on one side, but you get more money working on the other). In which case dad doesn’t get full credit even for the days he worked in the US: we have to start counting hour by fucking hour to try and come up with 10 years of presence (5 of which must have been after turning 14).
I mean, fuck me to tears, right? If only these fucking people would just be more integrated into our society, right? It really is a “both sides” issue, isn’t it?
No.
Statelessness is a problem created by states, not the stateless. Likewise, these problems I encounter around ambiguity over US citizenship (a close cousin to statelessness—especially where someone actually was born in the US but can’t prove it because the records don’t exist anymore or never existed at all and everyone who might have direct personal knowledge is looooooong dead).
See? That right there? When abuse (and denying access to basic services is abuse) is allowed to create stateless children, or children who cannot prove their nationality, that’s not a problem created by the stateless children, that’s a problem of the state. If a state wanted to, it could craft laws such that people born into such an abuse-prone atmosphere could more easily escape it and be accepted in the wider society. That states do not is, again, a problem created by the state, not the stateless.
Once more, a problem created by the state, not the stateless.
Again, a problem created by the state, not the stateless. Countries have full control over not only who they will deem a citizen, national, or resident, but also which services they will limit to citizens, nationals, or residents. The stateless, by contrast, have no control at all.
A problem created by the state, and one which, as indicated above, I have personally encountered quite often along the US-Mexico border, and not limited to migrant workers’ families, even. Sometimes, geography gets in the way.
Do European countries want a system that promotes statelessness among certain heavily marginalized ethnic groups? If so—say it with me now—that’s a problem created by the state, not the stateless.
Yep. Enforcing arbitrary borders that are calculated to restrict the free movement of people (and peoples) sure does lead to a lot of violence, I’ll give you that. You know who creates borders and sets the regime for their enforcement with violence? It’s surely not the stateless. Nor is it refugees. Not even mere “economic migrants” (referencing a term that gained traction in Regan’s America to minimalize the dangers and hardships faced by certain Central and South American immigrants trying to establish themselves in the US).
. I liked your joke it was funny)