A Country's Purpose
Why does the country you live in exist?
Warning: Rambling Ahead.
I'm not asking about the history of your country. How or why the specific boundaries or governmental and economic systems are in place. I'm talking big picture. Before the administrative decisions, why did they bother setting all this up in the first place?
Perhaps it's easiest to just start at the small scale. A home. Why do you live in a house/hut/cave? It's somewhere to feel safe. Somewhere you can feasibly protect. You know its limits and, perhaps more importantly, so does everyone else. The walls are a physical demarcation that what is inside and what is outside are two distinct things. You likely own things and so it's easiest to keep them in one spot, if only so it's easy to find them again. But again, it's also a matter of being able to protect them. How can you prevent animals (or other people) from eating your food if it's just strewn about?
Oftentimes a home isn't just for one person. A family may occupy a home. So now you may ask, why do you share a space with others? Well, it can be useful. While you're out working, someone can be at your home keeping a good eye on everything. If you're a child, unable to protect yourself/your stuff, it's nice to have someone around who is willing to do so on your behalf. In this scenario, everyone plays a role in a slightly larger dynamic.
I won't belabour this point any further, but you can imagine the same progression from home to family to village to town to city to state. Each step along the way growing in size and complexity.
The point I'm aiming at here is that your state (country) is the same as your home. It exists as a place of safety for you (the citizens). It protects you. It contains your belongings (economy). It is an extension of you. It may (or may not) have physical walls, but the boundaries are real all the same. What's inside one state is distinct from that which is outside of it.
Your country exists as a product of the hard work of previous generations to establish as stable and prosperous a home as they could. Not just for themselves, but for their family. And their neighbours. And their children. And so on. But not infinitely. There is a limit to the extents of a country. It cannot encompass everyone/everything. Not only because that is logistically infeasible, but because not everyone wants to be included.
With all that in mind, I ask you to resist the dissolution of states. Just as a home was built for the protection of its occupants and their possessions, so too was the country. To proclaim that the borders of a country are merely 'lines on a page' is to propose that concrete walls are simply a figment of your imagination. To decide that anyone may enter your country is to allow any stranger wandering by into your home while you go to work.
... OK this is beginning to grow beyond my initial scope here, but this will be continued.
Yours Truly,
[Redacted]