In a way it is. The 'public domain' is nothing more than land that we all own. I have a right to cross it under most circumstances as I am one of the 300 million owners. Random man in China however does not - they have no rights over that land and are not one of those owners. The same can be said in reciprocation.
Oh, come on. You know you are pushing the limits of what it means for lands to be part of the public domain, and I say that because you and I both know that the only thing making you and I "own" the U.S. public lands is a set of man made laws, not natural laws. I see your remarks above as academic, and for this discussion, they are surely intriguing for the sake of intellectual debate, but as a practical thing, which is what immigration amounts to, not so much.
Not in the least. As a matter of fact it is the EXACT opposite - as a practical matter this is EXACTLY what it is. Public ownership is the collective ownership of the land by the people of this nation and we have the RIGHT to regulate who and what we allow into the nation.
Further, I could make the exact claim about all property rights - they are a set of man made laws and not natural. That argument would be incorrect IMHO but it would not differ from the one that you are making.
Well, when you can line up those citizens with their deeds showing that they actually own the land, I'll believe you. You know darn well that I have a deed to the land in which is found my basement and thus applying the private property principle allows me to deny others access to it. And you know darn well that the public land is deeded to nobody and exists as "ours" only because it falls within the political boundary that defines our country. Movement through it to others is restricted not by any natural law or right of property by only by the man made laws that result in the definition of political boundaries.
So, come on, stop equivocating by trying to liken private and public property concepts when only a "creative" interpretation of public ownership is the only straw on which that line stands; that tactic is great for comedians, but in a serious discussion, I would have thought it beneath you. Or isn't it, and I've overestimated you?
Why are you hung up on "natural law"? Your interpretation of natural law seems to be something you just made up to express your opinion of how things should be. In nature, a rabbit is free to go where ever its feet will take it. However, there are many predators in nature that are free to make a meal of the rabbit if they can catch it. Is this "natural law", the way nature works?
Countries have borders and the governments of the countries have laws about who are allowed within their borders. Natural law has nothing to do with this.
You'll perhaps understand why "natural law" is part of the discussion if you trace the discussion back to
post #7. In that post I answered the question "do non-U.S. citizens have the right to enter the U.S?" My response was yes, because the right of freedom of movement (anywhere) is an inalienable right.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" may be the three inalienable rights expressly noted in the Declaration of Independence, but that they are the sole three noted doesn't mean there are only three. Inalienable rights are those that we each have regardless of what laws, policies or political borders men make or draw on a map, that is, they are rights that are given by nature and from nature comes their inalienability. Freedom to move around the planet is another inalienable right, one we all are given, and that right has nothing to do with political boundaries or man made laws.
You can write about "rabbits and predators" if you want to, but realize that doing so ignores the fact that we are not rabbits, and the "predators" that would correspond to your analogy are not creatures other than we, humans. So unless you are of a mind to liken one group of humans to the predator and the other to the prey, all the while knowing that we are not predators or prey to one another, find a better analogy, one in which the substantive similarities, not just the incidental ones, are shared among the creatures and humanity.
Where your analogy falls apart (detailed discussion provided for folks who want to offer a rebuttal):
Pick your rabbit or your predator...Would rabbit A deny rabbit B the right to freely move anywhere? Yes, it would; A would deny B freedom of movement, access, to the small part of the land that A has claimed as it's warren. A's warren is it's "personal" territory in very much the same way as my basement, like the rest of my house, is my personal territory. That analogy corresponds to the idea of private property.
You might want to consider a creature that is a territorial predator, perhaps a large cat or canine, or even other primates.
The thing there is that like the rabbit, they have what is there "exclusive use/home" territory and their "ranging territory." The former, is much like yours or my home or the rabbit's warren; the latter is analogous to what I'm referring to as the public domain. While there may be some conflict when groups/individuals encounter one another, but as long as the "arriving" group isn't attempting to occupy the "home range" of the residents, there is no issue.
Now that all may sound very similar to what's at issue in this discussion, and in some ways it is. The thing that differs is that those critters are acting in accordance with a "natural law." Their "uncrossable" boundaries are given by what each of them considers their home, not by what is just part of the adjoining/surrounding "public domain." In contrast, the idea of banning foreigners from the whole of the U.S. is permitted not by natural law, but by human law.
I am not at all suggesting that you or I should take immigrants into our homes, just into the unoccupied area that may be near our homes. My home in D.C. is mine. Period. The D.C. metro area and the rest of the U.S. is my "ranging territory." I suspect the same is true for you with regard to wherever your home is. You and I both manage to "get along" in peace with other folks moving through our "ranging territory" and who claim a small piece of it as their own, their home.
Assuming you read the content at the link I provided above, you'll have noticed that competition for resources is a strong motivator of conflict among groups/individuals when they encounter one another in the "ranging territory." Is there some resource that you or I might lose or be denied, and that we otherwise would have controlled/consumed/owned if folks born in other places come to the U.S. and move about our "ranging territory?" Is there some resource that we lose that you or I might lose or be denied, and that we otherwise would have controlled/consumed/owned if folks born in other places come to the U.S. and establish their own home in a small piece of what was, prior to their doing so, part of our "ranging territory?" For both questions, the answer is clearly "no" because were it "yes," we'd have not let the resource(s) remain in the public domain for an immigrant or other existing resident to claim as their own. (The second question isn't even relevant to the question the OP posed, for the question asks only about entry into the land, not settling there after entry.)
