Feb 10, 2007 4:13:23 AM cite

From my point of view, everybody should have the right to choose where he or she wants to live. It would be a nice thing. The only problem is that states exist with certain economies. Exactly these economies are one of the main reasons behind why it is not possible that everybody can live where he wants to. For assuring a minimum living standard i.e. whater, food and medical assistance an economy is not able to accept every person which would like to be a part of the corresponding society.

by maka

Sep 28, 2006 1:15:40 AM cite

hello. I see these people saying these things and I'm confused. Do you mean to tell me I can live in France if I want? I can move to Berlin and get a job and live there, being an American man. I don't think so. Maybe in a temporary sense. To add to this question. Is it possible, in the future, to have a muslim world, a Christian world, a Buddist world, an anarhist world, maybe a seculist world. Divide the world anew. Then the people would be truly free and able to choose where they live and the laws which govern said society, Is that world and that freedom ever possible.

by rufus11_33@hotmail.com

Sep 14, 2006 2:33:29 AM cite

we should have the right to choose where we live.

by Deannahawk

Sep 10, 2006 8:06:11 AM cite

Everyone has the right to choose whatever he wants. The point is that you have to give you this right yourself. So if you come to understand that you are a not only a small part of all but the whole you can mold your experiences up to your preferences. You are no longer a slave to collective thinking.

by mbl

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: Yes of course, it is one of liberties because it doesn’t depend on any place. I have been worked in many countries of the world and have been everywhere. I meet people so I can see differences not out of books but from my own example, from my own experience how different and how at the same time similar people are. They all have wishes, or one single human dream to live, to be happy and to be loved, to be able…because art always unite people and artists are considered people cosmopolites and people with no denominational ties. And it is not the only reason. They move because they are free-minded. People put themselves in chains on their own; they chain up themselves to prejudices. I don’t include those examples when someone is locked up by force, but I am firmly convinced that a man being imposes limits of religious, political prejudices; of prejudices about people on himself and in his […] he bounds himself. And nowadays when a lot of people suffer from depression merely because they feel lonely because they cannot get out; they cannot do it. If such a man would move from Japan to America or India nothing would change because he is self contained. Freedom of movement freedom to choose a place for living is one of very positive liberties. But I convinced that first of all a man has to free himself from his own chains and to look around and rethink his inner being. Yet it’s wonderful. Our world is so multiple with a great diversity of cultures and so rich for all sensations: for sense of smell, sense of touch and for eyes there are so many colours, flowers and colours, so many nuances, and a man who have got a possibility of movement could feel all this differences on his own experience. He would understand the idleness of his egoistic necessities.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I guess that this question is very old and classic and continuously asked. There has been always fight between personal freedom and social responsibility. It is a moral issue which demands high moral manner. This manner can replace the standard which is law and constitution. Law distinguishes always between personal freedom and social responsibility.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: I think the right to chosse where to live is inalienable. The problem is that the world doesn´t belong to everyone. We have invented so many borders that prevent us from moving freely on this planet. I believe that everyone should be free to choose we to live in this world. And I find it almost tragic that we have to fight so hard to become able to choose a place, we want to live. For example, to be able to come to this meeting in Berlin I was given a visa for four days. I came two days ago and on 11. September I have to leave, because my visa is only for four days. As Colombian, as a citizen of this world I have no right to enter this paradise, the paradise of the First world, just for four days. I think this is a good example for the absurdity of systems, human beings have invented. We cannot choose where to live, we cannot choose where to go, as if the world woudn´t belong to everyone. It is very sad, when I think that we spend only few decades on this planet and not even have the right to move freely, to go where we want and to live where we want. I think this is something we should change.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Hi Judy. In a perfect world of course we should. In a realistic world we never get to. We live where we can afford to live, we live where we were told to live, we live where we were born. We live where our parents are buried. We live where we grew up. Our choices are really subscribed by the realities of international borders, boundaries. Very often like in South Africa people were removed, forcefully removed from where their ancestral homes are. So, yes in a perfect world of course we should get to choose where we live. The chances are more likely we may not be having to. So we do the best we can. In a world, in a perfect world, we get to live usually where we were born. We get to live where we can get work. Most people end up living where they can get work. Many African people travel to Europe in search of work, in search of opportunity. They end up living there. It’s not because they want to, it’s because they have to. So, our choices are circumscribed by the realities of our lives, not necessarily by our dreams.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Judy, you and I we have the right to choose where we live. Most people have no choice. Just like you and I they have the right to choose where they live, but they are restricted by their own governments. I happen to be sitting next to a beautiful woman from [inaudible] who in the name of democracy has gone to war. And those oppressors who land in there don’t even give her permission to travel to where she need to travel, where she want to travel. Even to visit brothers in other countries. Under the pretend of the law of that it had to be your mother or your father. So when we talk about democracy and choosing to where we can live we haven’t got there. We just haven’t got there. We have a long way to go to understand the significance of the freedom to be able to choose where you live. Many of us are depending on the families inherited where we come from. So most of us don’t have that choice. But indeed, you have the freedom to choose where you live. Let me tell you I have seen parts of the world and it is absolutely incredibly beautiful place, what we call Mother Earth. Worth visiting. I pray to the Great One that you will be able to visit incredible place called Earth. Thank you.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: Absolutely. People should have this right. And it’s interesting that so many people in the world today do not have the rights to choose where they live, but so many people have been dispossessed from places that they would like to live, or have been compelled to exist in their circumstances that allow them no mobilization, no freedom of movement. And the reality is that the control of the movement of people is very beneficial to the interest of capital, very beneficial to the interest of politicians who act as the executive protectors of the interest of those corporations, of those corporate interests, because if you can control the migration of labor, you can control and isolate and divide workers through national boundaries, through state boundaries, through ethnic boundaries, you can keep people weak and divided. You can keep people from uniting collectively. You can keep people from finding circumstances in which they can improve their conditions and therefore threaten those divisions that are in the interest of people who find the capital, they can move the capital around the world, but then restrict the right of labor to move around the world, to find better circumstances, better conditions. And it helps to keep people isolated, marginalized, vulnerable in circumstances where they feel that they have no alternative. They have no ability to improve their circumstances or very little prospect of doing so. So, you find that. You also find people denied the right to choose where they live on political basis. So, for example, I as an American Jew, even though, I have never lived in the state of Israel or lived in Palestine and my family has never lived there, I have the right to return. I have the right to live in Israel, to be a citizen of Israel. But, people whose families were dispossessed, people who themselves were dispossessed in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, who were dispossessed in 1967 in that war and the expansion of the Israeli state and the expansion of settlements, people who have been refugees from their own homes, they do not have the right to return if they are a Palestinian, because of the political nature of that state. And that is a fundamentalist –- it’s an injustice, which is repeated in other conflicts around the world.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: Yes, of course, we have to have the right to choose where we live. We have a saying in our country that mother and motherland is better than heaven.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, I believe, of course, we should have the right to choose where we live. I mean we live in a world where capital can move, where goods can move; and I don’t understand why there is a mystery about people moving. Why do we have borders when we are -- don’t have borders for capital and goods to flow and we do not want to give the same opportunity to the people. We forget that it’s economic policies which take away opportunities from people who are then forced to flee their lands. Look at NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, which has resulted in almost 500 Mexican small family farmers being displaced from land each day. They are the people, for example, who tried to come to the United States with dreams but all that they find is incarceration at the border, xenophobic legislators. They find incarceration and sometimes even death at the border. So, if the goods and capital can move, I do believe that people should be allowed to move as well and have the right to choose where they live. And perhaps that will be one way of having peace in this world and promoting security of everyone because then we would all be living in nations which are diverse nations, and a unity can come from diversity.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I find this question very interesting in terms of the right to choose where we live. And again, the question of choice and where we live, our great spiritual traditions have taught us that where we are, can we really be here now. Most of us in our ego consciousness and ego life aren’t even right now, where we are. Because we are locked into the ego boxes of our minds and the artificial spaces of our ego consciousness. And so our great teachers have taught us that even to achieve entering here and now, and to be here fully, truly now is a great achievement of freedom. And we have a choice of the consciousness in which we are in, that to me is the interesting question. And do we have a right to choose where we live? It’s in the other sense that we have the freedom and liberty to move around the planet and choose the location or even within our nation or culture, to relocate ourselves. Of course, that’s a more limiting form of the question. I don’t find that is interesting of having that right, but the right to be here now is the ultimate question for all human beings to wake up and be in this moment. And we do have a right and responsibility to make that choice to be here now. To me, that’s a great formula of global wisdom, be here now. Open up the space of this moment right here, in the space-time continuum. We do have a right and responsibility for that.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: It would be lovely to be able to live wherever you would wish to live, but people often face the constraints of many factors in their lives that do not allow them to live where they may wish. So it depends on each individual. Some people may want to live in a foreign country but may have family obligations and duties or may wish to live at home and their job requirements do not allow them to live at home. So this being a, a world where we are, we don't get everything we want, the ability to live where we want must take into consideration all the factors that one goes through in analyzing where it is best for one to live in any given circumstance in life. Many people from developing worlds would like to live in the developed world, but they have many difficulties. Some governments will not allow them the papers, the necessary documentation to be able to meet the requirements of the laws of the country to which they wish to move. So there are many factors that impede one's ability to be able to live where one may wish. But as a matter of opportunity, it would be lovely if we were all able to move about and go where we would want to. Is it possible? No, not in every situation, not in every circumstance. Is it appropriate? It depends from individual to individual. With respect to the laws and regulations of the laws of a country, they vary and are diverse, and laws are implemented and created by countries for a variety of reasons. So this actually is a very complex question even though it is posed in a very simple way.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: Yes, we should have this right. Everybody should live there where he wants to, everyone should be allowed to live there as he wishes. But this has its limits too. One is not allowed to enter any other's house and just decide: "I want to live here at yours house'." It is not such simple. One should be allowed to live, to stay and to go there where one wants to, as long as one does not disturb or do harm to others. So you have to be considerate of others. But as long as one does not disturb others, one should be allowed to live there where one wants to. Sayings such as "You are born in a country, so you belong to this country." are mindless. Country, state and nation do exist for the individual and not vice versa. Every individual should select his own life and his way as he will. So again: As long as he does not disturb others.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: We are born into this world in a place with the family, with the life in conditions that are the kind of -- yoga says it is our karma. So, we’re born into this life with karma. And do we have the right to change that? Do we have the right to choose where we live? It comes right after the question of our freedom. Do you have the freedom to choose on where we want to live? And in some cultures in countries, it’s a very easy one. Yes, we have the freedom to choose where we want to live. I want to live in California, I can live in California. If I decide to live in the other part of the country, I can. If want to go to Italy, or to France, or South America, to Germany, wherever I want to go in some ways, if I want to live there, I can. And in other cases you can’t because of different political things that are in the way or that have been set up so that not everyone can choose. And in other country like America they exercise that freedom of choice more than in other countries. Whereas in other countries, people don’t have the resources available to them to choose, to step out of the current cycle that they’re in, the hardship that they’re in because of the economics and the social systems that they’ve been born into; it’s very hard to choose to leave and to move from where they live. Should we have the right to choose where we want to live? Should we have the right? Could we have the right? Do we have the right? Do we need to have the right? We are the children of the earth. We walk upon her land. She supports every step that we take. It’s the mother that we live upon her should be in a way of respect and responsibility, and it does take in the consideration in where you live, though it depends on the culture that wish to discern yourself with, and if that is supportive of who you are as a person. And if you need to choose a different context then to be who you are, which truly that you are, and so be it.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 1:15:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: I think we should have the right to choose how to live better. And for that reason, we need to make every place in the world, on this planet, a better place to live. There's a myth that the grass is greener on the other fence of my neighbor property. We need to eliminate this myth. And if we make every place in the world a better place to live, then the choice is not where I should live, the choice would be, how can I make a better way to live.

by Benson Venegas