NATIONS AND MORALITY
Nations are fictions designed by those with power over others by a number of means. Nations are the fictions; power is the reality. And the ?power-over-status? serves only the goals of those in power, though there may be benefits to those not in power. The issue is not: where I live, or where I was born; but who or what has the power to control certain matters of my life and convert some of them from private to public. ?Nations can have moral significances,? says the guest; the question is who defines the ?significances? as ?moral,? and why. The attachment of ?moral? is a way to not have to discuss whether it is moral or not.
The new global community created by the internet (which doesn?t get any mention in the show!) is redefining political power completely, just as the internet is redefining everything. Believe it: those in power must (and many do) fear the internet more than any other political movement ? and they ought to. And so should all those who have a stake in the maintaining of pre-internet powers.

Freedom has no walls, and equal is the light of the promised land.
I can't take you there because we are there, all we have to do is be it.
Be true,
=
"Free at last..."

Arvo, Not sure what you mean by "citizenship" but Ancient Athens certainly did have this concept. Both Plato and Aristotle wrote about citizenship. Check out The Stanford Encyclopedia entry on Ancient Political Philosophy here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-political/

Where does the state get the right to turn back migrants at the border? Is that really such a conundrum that the two hosts and the guest expert couldn't provide a satisfactory answer? Where does the state get the right to put convicted murderers in prison? Where does the state get the right to require pharmacists to be licensed? The American state gets its rights from the Constitution and legally passed statutes and legally issued executive orders.

A timely re-visitation of this issue, Ms. Maguire. I think you nailed it in the third paragraph of your post. Chaos is not conducive to, among other things, economic stability. Europe has definitely grabbed the tiger by the tail here and I feel trepidation for dear old Germany in particular. The notion of us all being citizens of the world was certainly altruistic at one time. Alas, the world is not the same place it once may have been, and the bad actors (Assad, ISIS/ISIL, and all of the other wannabees) just seem to keep popping up like moles from holes. Lately, I have coined a couple of new phrases in attempting to briefly describe some of the problem areas we have gotten ourselves (and others) into. 1) Complexity compounds chaos: If we look at many of the effects of progress in this 21st century, we see more and more of the negative aspects of our ceaseless drive to do and be, well, more and more. Our children, for example, are given less and less time to be children. They are alienated from such nonsense at an ever decreasing age. And, often then, they become alienated from most everything else. It is all about progress, success and the treadmill of competition. It simply will not do for them to fall behind because although "winning" may not be everything, "losing" is nothing at all. 2) Complexity is nuclear, feeding upon itself. Or, in other more ominous terms, we have reached critical mass sociologically. I firmly believe this and that we should be very afraid. 3) Simplicity supports serenity. This was an axiom of an earlier age and is only now practiced by a faithful few (ascetics, regressives and the like). We cannot stop the train. Moreover, we cannot see any compelling need to do so.
It is too bad we have come so far in so many ways and one must wonder, I think: Where are we going now?
Warmest Regards,
Neuman.

Arvo, pace Laura, was quite right. The issue is problematic because, for one thing, national boundaries are not a national authority, they are all determined by bi-national or international agreement. It is odd, I suppose, that no one is calling for fences around our shorelines, or of removing the "dry-foot, wet foot" distinction, or ceasing the preferential status of Cuban immigrants. It is also difficult because the terms 'nation' and 'state' are confused. Poli-sci tries to clarify by defining 'nation' as a people, and 'state' as the apparatus of government. This gets obscured by the relation in the US between state and federal authority.
Here's an interesting thought, a close reading of William Bradford's history of Plymouth shows that the Pilgrims did not want to settle in the region their 'patent' permitted, because it, 'Virginia', anywhere from the Carolina's to northern New Jersey, were under the authority of the Church of England, which they wanted to avoid. They had hoped that somewhere near the Dutch in what would become New York would allow them the freedom they craved, but they did not want to be assimilated to Dutch language or customs. It is obvious, reading-in only a little, that some of the group intended Cape Cod all along. The intent being to settle outside their legal title. To settle, as it were, illegally, or "undocumented". Crossing a border without permission is not a crime, it is only a misdemeanor, and cannot be punished as a felony. Besides, people come here, for the most part, to live under our laws. It is because they prefer our laws that they violate the border. It seems perverse to punish people for loving our laws. Anyway, most immigrants now stay for a while and leave, and America is actually under net emigration. And, the very idea of border controls is very new. In fact, it may be the result of a disastrous policy of Woodrow Wilson to divide Europe on nationalist lines, hence the term "nationalism", which Hitler embraced to such infamy.
Another correction, it is not the Constitution that is the basis of American lawful authority, it is the consent of the governed. It is dangerous to lose that distinction. The Constitution was never properly ratified by the people. It was passed only on the promise of a bill of rights, which is not exactly as promised, but merely, barely, good enough. It is not holy writ. As I tried to explain in another topic, fixing law in writing is not the liberating exercise many suppose, the earliest written law was intended to enslave, including the code of Hammurabi, and the law of Moses, at least as reported by the Babylonian 'captives' on their 'return' to Israel.

Just beyond the border is another border, and then another and another, and once we cross them all surely there is freedom, the light that follows the day, the promised land, free at last! I'll wait for you here. Be One, =

Call me "snarky", but:
 
The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies?
   Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
   The moment one looked in his face!
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
   Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
   A map they could all understand.
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
   Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
   "They are merely conventional signs!
"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
   But we've got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best?
   A perfect and absolute blank!"
This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
   That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
   And that was to tingle his bell.