Thread by @jonst0kes

I've worked there, so I know something about this, & I imagine many or most of the MAGA right would actually go UAE-style labor mobility if the whole, entire system were really a possibility -- but you won't understand what I mean from this excerpt.

What I mean is this: You can leave your wallet laying out in a cafe, and nobody will steal it. Nobody is ever going to take something from your hotel room. You won't get into a fight there, or really see any of the foreign-born workers breaking the law.

Why?

Instant deportation for breaking the law. They will absolutely scoop up a foreign-born janitor, waitress, or petroleum engineer and yeet them back across the border if they break a law.

In other words, it's not "open borders" in the sense of anyone can come and go as they please. They know who's in the country, and they will remove you from it if you get crossways with the authorities even just a tiny bit.

Somehow I don't think this is what the left-libertarian "open borders" crowd is really proposing, though. But I think the right would probably be ok with it.

The other thing that I pretty strongly dislike about this post -- apparently it's by @bryan_caplan so I will tag him here since I follow him -- is the idea that people are coming there because tolerance and diversity and hope and better life etc.

You would not learn this in a one-day layover the UAE chatting with some friendly locals, but when you work there enough to get a feel for the regional dynamics & how people who live there talk when they're at dinner, you learn the real reason why people leave behind the ancestral homelands where their families & tribes have dwelt for millennia to go to the UAE and wait tables or scrub floors:

The whole region is a hot mess, and is often destabilized, and every time a new country over there gets shaky and violence breaks out (often because the US is mucking about in some way with it), people head for the UAE as the central island of stability where they can hold down a steady job and send money back to their ancestral homeland where they would actually be happy to stay and live if it weren't in some state of collapse or turmoil.

Anyway, that whole post is terrible and I would urge Caplan to reconsider this approach of, "I had a one-day layover and chatted with some people and took some pictures, so here is why this place is great and we should be more like it" genre of... well, I don't even know what to call this.

When I landed in the UAE, there were armed guards in the airport and as I crossed through this one section after getting my bags from the baggage claim, they approached me and took me aside into a room and were like, "Where is the knife. Get it out of your bag."

They screen every single bag that comes into the country down to the smallest detail -- a friend of mine said there was a good documentary about this and how insane the level of scrutiny is at the airport -- and they found my Leatherman and I had to give it up.

I also had to show them I was there to work and give them phone numbers and where I was staying etc.

"Open borders" lol pleeze. I'm so cheesed at how bad that article was I can't even.

The UAE is a monarchy. And if you criticize the monarchy they will send you right back across the "open borders" and you won't be able to get back in. So you do not, under any circumstances, criticize the government while you are there.

Even white-collar startup guys & VCs etc do not criticize the UAE government while they are on UAE soil. Everyone knows better than this. If you have some negative thoughts about the monarchy, you keep it to yourself while you're there. But hey, tolerance!

I was about to say that I don't think Caplan has ever lived in a place with a ruthless set of codes around what's off-limits to say, where you get un-personed instantly for a single slip-up, but then I remembered he's an academic so he should be better calibrated than this.

This doesn't shock me at all. Again, it's a monarchy, & if you're on their soil & are not a member of their monarchy or possessed of some other form of massive leverage then you are there at their arbitrary pleasure & they will do what they like with you.

https://x.com/corey_lanum/status/1848448464558133736

Just to be clear: I don't actually dislike the UAE. It's a lovely enough place, & I'd go back to Dubai for vacation or whatever. If one of my kids grew up & went there for work, I'd be like "cool have a good time, just be careful." I also don't dislike Caplan, the post's author.

What I dislike is "open borders" in both its libertarian and lefty anarcho-tyranny manifestations, & I especially dislike that extremely creepy and bad substack post.