Likewise, there are places where you don't have to lock your doors.

Granted the comparison of countries with drug houses is a little simplistic. :)

It's complex enough to make the point, but I certainly do appreciate that it isn't that straightforward in the real world.

Correspondingly, enforcing internal or external security with absolutist certitude virtually guarantees a serious error sooner or later.

A great many political theses are advanced from all over the political spectrum in the format of 'You wouldn't tolerate X - so why does the government? We the people demand an end to X!' However, 'we the people', when taken as a whole, have a demonstrable tendency to disagree amongst ourselves, and almost never act in concert. There are all sorts of thing which we should find surprising or unacceptable within our own homes but whose existence we accept or at least tolerate within our county, state, or country because either a majority of our neighbors hold views which differ from ours or because constitutional or legislative power takes precedence over our own preferences.

A better analogy might be to consider the country as something similar to an apartment building or even a small town.You can exert a degree of security insofar as it serves the common good, but an absolutist approach of the kind you describe rapidly becomes self-defeating and unsustainable over the longer term. I might add that absolutism in this context refers to the idea of abolishing borders as much as to the idea of sealing them. After all, we have controls in between the borders of US states with limited powers to enforce prohibitions or requirements unique to that state, from carrying certain produce to wearing a motorcycle helmet, and these are not considered especially onerous.

Rather than abolition of borders, I see a trend away from a presumption of exclusion as the default and towards a policy of neutral vigilance - in other words, personal migration will come to be seen in the same light as other trade flows, subject to inspection and monitoring but requiring specific grounds for interference.

So, suppose you have a business importing silk from China, and the hacky part is that it's woven in conformity with 6502 assembler code or something. It comes into the US in a cargo container, and we all accept that DHS/CBP want to assure themselves that it doesn't include radioactive materials, smallpox, or marauding silkworm colonies. That done, we expect them to be indifferent to the question of whether 8-bit silken handkerchief designs will affect the US economy in positive or negative fashion - that's for the market to discover, not the customs inspectors, as long as there's no ongoing trade dispute between China and the US justifying their exclusion in accordance with treaty.

We already have such a policy in place for visiting tourists and businesspersons from other developed countries, and which is mostly reciprocal - you can grab your passport and fly to Japan on a whim for up to 90 days, and vice versa. Within both the US and the EU, the benefits of allowing migration between the individual member states seems to considerably outweigh the various costs; economics suggests that rational policymaking on international migration will go the same way sooner or later.

Of course, this isn't foolproof and the downside of such a policy is that criminals can exploit such openness to further their wicked ends. But insofar the number of such people/incidents is low - not least because more people appreciate the freedoms of the open model, and have a stake in its preservation - that risk is tolerable.

What are you talking about? The recognized governments of the world are the sole powers of the areas of land they control, in the same manner that I might be recognized as being the master of my domain; in fact more so!

In essence: enough other people agree that they are, so they are. I think you're reading too far into the analogy to assert that democratic governments as entities in and of themselves don't fit.

That done, we expect them to be indifferent to the question of whether 8-bit silken handkerchief designs will affect the US economy in positive or negative fashion - that's for the market to discover, not the customs inspectors, as long as there's no ongoing trade dispute between China and the US justifying their exclusion in accordance with treaty.

I'm not sure what part of the planet you live on where this happens. When and if we actually do establish it with trade, we can start worrying about immigration.

The difference is that while it's relatively easy for you to make a decision and then act upon it, in a democratic country it's quite rare for the population to be so unified that the government of the day engages in completely unilateral actions. Not only is the government constrained by disagreements among the governed which affect its capacity for unitary policymaking, it's also usually constrained by constitutional matters which may prevent it from acting in certain ways despite the clear wishes of a legitimate majority.

That's why I suggested that scaling up the behavior of a householder to the size of a country is going to give you a monarchy of some kind. North Korea is governed by someone who seems to believe that the nation's security is best served by sealing off the whole country from its neighbors, but I rather doubt you want to live there.

When and if we actually do establish it with trade

Well this is quite close to what we have now. If you or I decide to start importing stuff from China, the customs people don't give two hoots about which particular things are imported in most cases. Nobody, for example, is going to call you up and say 'we halted your furniture shipment because we don't like tables with built-in drawers, what the economy needs right now is a greater supply of chairs.'

Did you miss the whole "Let's go on a desert adventure and finish what dad started" that happened a few years back?

Well this is quite close to what we have now.

No offense, but if you actually think this you are completely ignorant of world affairs in general, but specifically international trade. Things to Google: Softwood Lumber, Corn Industry subsidies, Farm subsidies, OPEC.

I could go on...

Give me one example of an import/export international trade experience that has not been subject to protectionist measures of some nature and perhaps I can explore your point some more.