Borders

I agree with conservatives that strict boarders are necessary for nation states.

They call it a necessity evil, I use it as an argument to abolish all states.

Wouldn’t removing or abolishing borders result in more invasions and wars, not fewer? Weak or unprepared nations would no longer have allied agreements for protection and would surely be under attack.
- I think the point is there just wouldn't be Nation-states anymore, just a single united world. Partially because communism is definitionally stateless and classless (by Marx at least).
- Yes, the states must be prepared and it can't be done all at once. See how not every country is automaticly added to the EU and Schengen, often it takes time.
- potentially, it's really dependent on any given geographical region and the military capability in that area i guess.
  I don't actually know what would stop this, on a global level, aside from a global military force, so arguably you could refer to it as a "single nation earth" i guess.
- Yes, this is the entire reason behind the contemporary idea of the geographic border defining the political state. If we just hit "reset" after the war and all agree that states should embrace political sovereignty which isn't tied to ethnic divisions, then slowly it will kind of all blur into one big quasi-federal good time.
  This has actually worked decently well in most places, with some notable exceptions.
I like my boarders to be easygoing rather than strict, makes the conversation easier.
Do you have locks on your doors or windows?
You call it a necessary evil, I use it as an argument that people are violent and need boundaries.

Border have to exist to some degree, simply from a management perspective. Even if we threw all state and country borders away, it'd be literally impossible for a single government to effectively govern the world. You'd need to divide it all up into smaller regions to be managed. Otherwise, we'd might as well just fall back into the pre-industrial age as infrastructure erodes due to poor governmental oversight and management.

Why do you assume we need an entire government to do work?
- Because we had to live with shit in the streets for thousands of years before the invention of a strong government.
  Look at what corporations (made up of people) do with the slightest deregulation.
  People are, in general, awful.
- Infrastructure.
I agree, but those aren't the kinds of borders OP is talking about, I think. And it's a naïve simplification, in any case.
I interpret OPs point is about free travel and employment, without restriction or passports. The kind of "no borders" that exists in the EU: any citizen of a country in the EU can travel to, live in, and work in any other EU member country, without restriction, without limitations, and without passport.
It doesn't require, but is greatly facilitated by, a common currency; and as the EU has demonstrated, there's a lot of moving parts for this to function well. Having a common set of standards for human rights, having some basic economic model alignment, having mutual non-aggression agreements for a members... they're all essential components. Heck, I'd suggest that it'd be super-helpful if there was adopted a neutral, universal second language that all member countries require children to take a couple of years of in the public education system - a conlang like Esperanto (by virtue of sheer numbers of speakers), but certainly one where no single country has a advantage by having it be the natural native language, which excludes English.
Anyway, that's the kind of "no borders" I think OP is talking about, not the governance kind.
- That's called an open border. No border is a stupid thing unserious morons on the internet make up.
Nooo don't break up the giant monolithic top down states into smaller federated communities, noooo!
- But there'll still need to have common policies across all of those communities, otherwise you just end up right back at square one with nation states. The US and EU are literally just this, a bunch of states (US) or countries (EU) that agree to allow free travel/living/learning/business/etc between each other with a larger governing body that oversees all of it.
It would also effectively mean that every region in the world would have to have the same laws.
Take Canada and the US. Very similar culturally, very similar economically, but some pretty important differences in human welfare. Like, every Canadian resident pays taxes to support a healthcare system, and if you need healthcare it's free.
If you eliminated the US/Canadian border, people could live in the US where taxes are cheaper until they had a serious illness, then they could move to Canada to get free treatment whenever necessary, moving back as soon as the treatment was done. That obviously wouldn't work well.
The only ways to make that work are either to eliminate the border, and have both regions have exactly the same healthcare system, or keep the border and allow both to have different systems.

This has so completely disappeared from discourse over the past four years. I remember when it used to be that "building the wall" was stupid at best and bigoted at worst. But now, it's all, "Of course we agree that we need a strong border, but we're the ones who will actually do it, Trump's all talk."

It's always the Republicans that get to set which values and goals the country persues, while the Democrats just run on pragmatism and efficiency. It's like they're allergic to making moral claims.

It's because it's a one-party system masquerading as a two-party system.
- it's really not one party.
  To be clear we have one party, that is effectively fascist, and another party that is, center left/right and very moderate.
- Oh, oh no, no no no no no, No. this isn’t a one party system, this is something far worse, this is what comes exactly right before a one party system. That is a two radicalized polarized adversarial party system. One must go but neither will leave willingly, there is more concentration of money and power in these two parties than possibly any other group on earth and maybe through out all history, make no mistake the only thing that will hold the country back from civil war is the Bomb, and that is only a maybe.
  We might not quite be that bad yet but all the peaces are in place and adversarial moves are already being made.

liberals have a lot of "very serious people" who talk about the sanctity of the nation state.
So you agree that nations should be abolished, including any and all borders?
- I think we should strive toward a world without borders. but until all governments can agree that borders serve no good aside from trade boundaries and taxation (which is arguably theft anyway) and should be abolished, then I think they do serve a protective purpose as well. Other nations are territorial so you have to be in defense of the place you live else you risk losing it to more territorial peoples.

I have never once heard and have not been able to imagine an explanation of how not having borders could possibly work.

Notice how there is no border between your town and the next one? Same, but on a larger scale.
- But there is...
- Yes, but the next town over is protected by the same military, is under almost exactly the same laws, is covered by essentially the same tax system, and so-on.
  If you're suggesting eliminating borders once there's one world government covering every country and a planetwide tax system, then sure. Until then, it seems like it would be a disaster.
You can just keep going where the border would be.
Simple. In the past there is no "border". You are someone from Frankfurt who came to Paris to set up business and there was no question asked.
- In the past that was true of certain classes, other classes were tied to the land and forbidden from leaving their manor lord's land.
A example that’s not borderlessness, but still interesting, was the Behind the Bastards episode on Harlan Crow which talked about how there was seasonal migration of people from Mexico into the US during peak agricultural seasons. They would return to Mexico in the winter, but the introduction of a hard border incentivized people to remain in the US.
It seems the hardening the border lead to the exact thing Harlan Crow and the other racist trash were trying to fight, increased immigration.
All immigration is a net positive to the economy in a number of different ways, and most of "problems" are caused by material conditions created by having classes of citizens versus non citizens. The US basically had open borders for much of its history and that's a big reason why it became such an industrial powerhouse.
The original idea behind physical border control has more to do with espionage and sabotage than restricting immigration.
What do you mean "how it works"? What function would 'having no borders' serve?
Ask the EU.
- They have a lot of borders.
  They're similar to the US under the Articles of Confederation. Separate states with free passage among them. Going from France to Germany is effectively the same as going from Georgia to Tennessee.
- EU has borders though, it just functions like the United States does (in a republican wet dream) in that it's a conglomerate of a bunch of "states". ask the UK fucks that get kicked out of Spain now. No borders inside the territory but there's absolutely borders on the outside.
- Which drowns refugees seeking asylum in the Mediterranean? That EU?

No free trade without free movement!

"Yeah, but proceeds to present an argument that completely ignores the underlying premise that everyone should be cool with all being one planet helping each other instead of returning to squabbling tribal mentality of 'us vs them' and 'if I give them some then I'll have less' and people need to stop letting conflicts of our parents and great-great-great-x147-grandparents started decide how we view our neighbors"

Haha checkmate, logical thinkers.

Do you think the Russian army should just be allowed to march to France?

Usually the idea that borders shouldn't exist is connected to the idea that armies shouldn't exist.
- How do you propose to stop armed groups from forming?
- Until one guy with an army realizes no one else has an army, then they march their army into whatever they now claim as theirs. Humans are too greedy, selfish, and divided to completely abolish borders and armies any time soon.
I think the Russian and French armies should be disbanded and the workers of the world should unite to violently eliminate
until we can all be free to equitably trade our services in furtherance of the common good in society, enabling a time of total enrichment and pursuit of happiness.
Anyway this tos is crazy right.
- workers of the world should unite to violently eliminate
  Workers uniting to violently accomplish something looks like an army to me.
Hey! You comment in support of Israel bombing hospitals. Thanks for commenting in bad faith and alerting me to your post history.
- Do you support that Hamas uses hospitals as military facilities?
Without borders, there would be no 'Russian' and no 'French'.
- Just roving bands of armed robbers, pillagers, and looters.

I'm pretty sure neoliberals also actually advocate for open borders and reduced immigration in general, and often accuse the left of being anti-immigration because of concerns regarding wages by unions.

neoliberals advocate for open borders only for capital. Capitalism itself would collapse overnight if there was free movement of labour
- Just not true
  About 1.7 million people commute to work across a European border each day, and in some regions these people constitute up to a third of the workforce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area?wprov=sfla1
  Schengen zone, and to a lesser extent USA, show that capitalism can continue to function with a free movement of labor within relatively large and varied economic zones. This would continue to be the case worldwide, I believe. There remains significant barriers to movement even without borders: time, money, separation from family and cultural support systems, and more. There are people in the US and EU who want to "escape" their current state/country due to local laws but cannot do so despite it being perfectly legal to do so.

thats more Anarchism than Leftism isn't it
at least if you believe governments aren't efficient to make the world a better place

Anarchism is the leftist ideology.
- Yes!
Communism is a global goal, and works best with every human on board so the parasites have nowhere to hide and no secure place from which to attack out of.
- I was actually quite disappointed that the Fallout show mentioned using separate Vaults as a control mechanism to contain any rebellion and didn't do anything with it.
Anarchism is leftism, where is the contradiction? And I hope that most people in this community believe that nation states and their governments are not efficient to make the world a better place and on the contrary are one of the reasons billions of people suffer and die.

Replace "Liberals" with "Literally everyone except middle school history flunk-outs" and you got yourself a real meme going there.