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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   11799 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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Europe’s Entry/Exit System (EES) will become fully operational from April 10, 2026, replacing passport stamps with digital records and biometric checks.

EU countries are now collecting the fingerprints of all foreign travelers. They are also taking photographs of travelers' faces. The result so far is that 2 hour lines are common for entry into the EU.

I'm generally opposed to this. For one, I'm libertarian in that I oppose most international borders. The reason is that it violates human rights for very little justified purpose. There are ways to justify borders, but no country or entity on Earth is in the position to do that at the moment. The EU does not have a moral right to do this when it won't stop 99% of the harmful immigration into the EU, which is all legal.

This measure is offensive to people with legitimate rights to travel, while not significantly affecting those coming in immorally but legally, for the maybe-upside of catching a few more street criminals trying to come in on a fake passport. Is the point of this that cocaine prices should go up even more in the EU? Why? What is the point? Who is vulnerable to cocaine addiction? Why does money need to be spent on protecting them from their own decisions?

I'm predicting this will spread, too. If the EU is collecting fingerprints of all of country X's citizens that go to it, then country X will want to collect fingerprints for all EU citizens that come into it. Otherwise the EU has an advantaged biometrics database. As a proponent of free travel, every little tin-pot government collecting vast biometrics sounds like it will chill the ease and personal security of traveling. How long until it's DNA?

The reason is that it violates human rights for very little justified purpose.

I never failed to understand how libertarians could think like that. Human rights are fiction created by the state and existing only trough the state.

And it is easy to prove - take any human, do the thoroughest possible vivisection on them and you won't be able to find a single right.

I never failed to understand how libertarians could think like that. Human rights are fiction created by the state and existing only trough the state.

I'm not a libertarian, but I am sympathetic to their position. I'm not sure I would frame the issue in terms of human rights, but I remember my youth when you could live your life without constantly showing your ID to people. I crossed between the US and Canada many times without being asked for a passport or even a driver license. I flew many times without presenting any kind of ID, let alone fingerprints.

I am not thrilled about the fact that we've drifted into a police/surveillance state type of situation. I do appreciate the lower crime rates, but I think that almost the same thing could have been accomplished if the West had stayed 90+% people of European descent.

The classic American viewpoint is that rights are given by God. Such as this famous line.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--

That free will allows for bad humans to trample on god's gifts doesn't make them any less divinely bestowed to the classic American viewpoint.

the state.

"The state" is not real, outside of being what we call the most powerful and recognized dominant organization of a given area or people. It is composed of people and in the classic view it is the people's own responsibility to fight for and protect their own natural rights, granted by God, from others who mean to harm them. Hence the American revolution, usurping an abusive state for one of their own.

States are fictions created by individuals and exist only through individuals. Go to any courthouse, police station, parliament building, do the thoroughest possible search, and you won't be able to find a single state. Just a bunch of individuals! Rights are a Schelling point that let individuals who don't call themselves members of the state regulate the behaviors of those who do. Without these Schelling points, the state is allowed to do anything whatsoever. That's obviously bad.

It may be bad, but states have always been allowed to do whatever they please.

And it is easy to prove - take any human, do the thoroughest possible vivisection on them and you won't be able to find a single right.

This applies to a ton of things though. Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, mercy, fairness, god, faith, happiness, race, love, LLCs, etc. The list goes on. Not everything is a physically existing element.

A strictly materialist viewpoint of reality is likely insufferably bleak to the point that no one alive would want to live it.

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