Immigration and multiculturalism news

Marduk

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Here's a past Ilya Somin article about this topic:

It is a completely smoothbrain take that completely ignores everything related to nationality, citizenship, and any rights and duties that come with them, acting as if we live in a fictional world of global citizenship and 100% interchangeable populations between even most wildly different and hostile states.
It's like saying that you can't forbid the neighbor's kid from coming to your house for breaking stuff and generally behaving badly, because you wouldn't kick out your own kid for doing the same.

Meanwhile in the real world visiting a foreign country is a privilege, not a right. The receiving country can set any conditions it feels like on who gets to visit, and withdraw this permission if the visitor acts inappropriately, resulting in a deportation (and that's in the nice countries, in the not so nice countries that can result in gulag or getting disappeared).
Some, usually friendly and well functioning countries make all sorts of deals to make visa free, or even border free visit rights to each other, but that again is just a favor on government level, usually linked with all sorts of cooperation meant to alleviate any resulting issues. It certainly shouldn't happen regarding shitholes who are unwilling or unable to provide such safeties and return such favors.
 

WolfBear

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It is a completely smoothbrain take that completely ignores everything related to nationality, citizenship, and any rights and duties that come with them, acting as if we live in a fictional world of global citizenship and 100% interchangeable populations between even most wildly different and hostile states.
It's like saying that you can't forbid the neighbor's kid from coming to your house for breaking stuff and generally behaving badly, because you wouldn't kick out your own kid for doing the same.

Meanwhile in the real world visiting a foreign country is a privilege, not a right. The receiving country can set any conditions it feels like on who gets to visit, and withdraw this permission if the visitor acts inappropriately, resulting in a deportation (and that's in the nice countries, in the not so nice countries that can result in gulag or getting disappeared).
Some, usually friendly and well functioning countries make all sorts of deals to make visa free, or even border free visit rights to each other, but that again is just a favor on government level, usually linked with all sorts of cooperation meant to alleviate any resulting issues. It certainly shouldn't happen regarding shitholes who are unwilling or unable to provide such safeties and return such favors.

Yeah, I mean, there would actually have to be some other place to which you'd be capable of sending your own kid to, such as a relative's or friend's house, but if there was, and yet you still insist on keeping your kid at home but punishing them in some other way (such as by grounding them) for breaking your stuff while kicking your neighbor's kid out of your house for the very same offense (breaking your stuff), then you are indeed being inconsistent in regards to your treatment of these two kids. But Yeah, one doesn't necessarily have to view this as a problem.

There are also the present-day child support laws to consider: These laws ensure that certain children get a much better standard of living than certain other children simply based on who their parents are and on how exactly they were conceived (through intercourse, through artificial insemination, et cetera), all of which is completely out of their own control. And these laws also often involve coercion by forcing people to be legal parents against their will, thus being comparable in that sense to immigration restrictions--and also in the sense that they violate people's right to freedom of association.
 

Marduk

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Yeah, I mean, there would actually have to be some other place to which you'd be capable of sending your own kid to, such as a relative's or friend's house, but if there was, and yet you still insist on keeping your kid at home but punishing them in some other way (such as by grounding them) for breaking your stuff while kicking your neighbor's kid out of your house for the very same offense (breaking your stuff), then you are indeed being inconsistent in regards to your treatment of these two kids. But Yeah, one doesn't necessarily have to view this as a problem.
The point is, you don't owe the neighbor's kid identical treatment to your own, because they aren't the same, one is your kid, and one is your neighbor's, in this way they don't have the same status, and so you have a different set of duties and rights regarding treatment of each.
The same goes for a country's treatment of own vs foreign citizens. If citizenship granted the same rights in a given country as not having it, what's the fucking point of having it? Worse yet, if it would grant the same rights and protections but extra duties, why would anyone even want it? You could start giving out citizenship as a punishment, as funny as it sounds.
There are also the present-day child support laws to consider: These laws ensure that certain children get a much better standard of living than certain other children simply based on who their parents are and on how exactly they were conceived (through intercourse, through artificial insemination, et cetera), all of which is completely out of their own control. And these laws also often involve coercion by forcing people to be legal parents against their will, thus being comparable in that sense to immigration restrictions--and also in the sense that they violate people's right to freedom of association.
Varies by country, and is a whole another can of worms, especially in USA.
 

WolfBear

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The point is, you don't owe the neighbor's kid identical treatment to your own, because they aren't the same, one is your kid, and one is your neighbor's, in this way they don't have the same status, and so you have a different set of duties and rights regarding treatment of each.
The same goes for a country's treatment of own vs foreign citizens. If citizenship granted the same rights in a given country as not having it, what's the fucking point of having it? Worse yet, if it would grant the same rights and protections but extra duties, why would anyone even want it? You could start giving out citizenship as a punishment, as funny as it sounds.

Varies by country, and is a whole another can of worms, especially in USA.

FWIW, Ilya Somin argues that states should treat citizens and non-citizens identically as much as possible because citizenship creates a modern-day hereditary aristocracy:


The ultimate logical extension of this viewpoint, of course, is that there should be identical voting rules and social safety net access rules for both citizens and non-citizens. As in, you want to vote? Then live here for 18 years and pass an equivalent of the citizenship exam regardless of whether you're a citizen or a non-citizen. You want to get social safety net access? Then live here for 18 years and pay taxes for 5 or 10 years or whatever regardless of whether you're a citizen or a non-citizen.
 

Marduk

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FWIW, Ilya Somin argues that states should treat citizens and non-citizens identically as much as possible because citizenship creates a modern-day hereditary aristocracy:


The ultimate logical extension of this viewpoint, of course, is that there should be identical voting rules and social safety net access rules for both citizens and non-citizens. As in, you want to vote? Then live here for 18 years and pass an equivalent of the citizenship exam regardless of whether you're a citizen or a non-citizen. You want to get social safety net access? Then live here for 18 years and pay taxes for 5 or 10 years or whatever regardless of whether you're a citizen or a non-citizen.
So he essentially questions the existence of sovereign states. All of them. Digging as far into deeply consequential questions like "Who really owns a country?" After all, many modern countries pretty directly came out of a system where monarchs was the sovereign into one where the citizenry was a collective sovereign with representative government. If the current citizenry doesn't have any particular right to its ownership and should share it with any random person from anywhere in the world equally to their very own children and compatriots, what's the fucking point of keeping it, instead of, say, selling it to the highest bidder and then using the money to form some sort of corporate state with actual defined, measurable, inheritable and tradeable stakes? Not to mention why would anyone give a damn to defend or invest into such a state that is bound to treat them the same way as people who don't, or even people who do the opposite.
 

WolfBear

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Not to mention why would anyone give a damn to defend or invest into such a state that is bound to treat them the same way as people who don't, or even people who do the opposite.

People who don't do what?

But Yeah, ultimately, this sort of is where the logic of this could lead to, I suppose. That people should set up their own corporate states if they don't want to be ruled by outsiders.
 

Marduk

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People who don't do what?
Like volunteer for military service, do any kind of volunteering for civil benefit, even stick around for a draft in case of war, stuff like that.
But Yeah, ultimately, this sort of is where the logic of this could lead to, I suppose. That people should set up their own corporate states if they don't want to be ruled by outsiders.
Exactly, why would anyone want to be ruled by outsiders, and especially outsiders who came there solely for a piece of the local wealth?
 

WolfBear

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Like volunteer for military service, do any kind of volunteering for civil benefit, even stick around for a draft in case of war, stuff like that.

Exactly, why would anyone want to be ruled by outsiders, and especially outsiders who came there solely for a piece of the local wealth?

Yeah, that makes sense. Of course, in theory, a state can draft non-citizens as well.

Ilya Somin believes that not letting in outsiders who want to become richer is almost morally comparable to refusing to allow Jewish refugees to move to the US during the 1930s:


The problem with Ilya Somin's argument, of course, is that even if voting rights are not given immediately, they'll have to be given eventually to the descendants of immigrants due to birthright citizenship. And even if that were not actually the case, you'd be creating a hereditary caste system, and people generally don't like being an inferior hereditary caste. So, there would have been a risk of violence right then and there. And Ilya Somin is underestimating the very real possibility that people could choose to move somewhere for the sake of better economic opportunities even if they don't agree with this country's form of government or policies or whatever. I suspect that a lot of democracy-loving Americans would likewise want to move to an autocratic state (but one with free emigration) if the quality of life there was much better than it was here in the US--say, a GDP PPP per capita of $500,000 or $1 million a year. This won't mean that they'll agree with its form of government, or its policies, or whatever, but they'll still want to move there, either temporarily or permanently, in order to make much more money for themselves and perhaps also to give their descendants a much better life.

And even in regards to Jewish refugees, one could accept the argument that they should have had somewhere to go to but not necessarily their preferred destination. In other words, if there would have already been the capacity and willpower in Palestine to absorb hundreds of thousands of (or even more) Jewish refugees in the 1930s, then there wouldn't have actually been a need for the West to allow Jewish refugees to move to Western countries in the 1930s. Indeed, Americans generally don't object to the fact that the US largely closed its doors to Soviet Jewish immigrants in late 1989 because they actually had another place to move to--specifically Israel--albeit one that was not ideal due to its terrorism and rabbinic Jewish fundamentalism problems.
 

Marduk

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Yeah, that makes sense. Of course, in theory, a state can draft non-citizens as well.
Cue all eligible foreigners fucking off once international tensions that may result in war happen.
Ilya Somin believes that not letting in outsiders who want to become richer is almost morally comparable to refusing to allow Jewish refugees to move to the US during the 1930s:
Which is ridiculous. Such ridiculous, self-disadvantaging moralistic notions are just a fancy way of saying "let's abolish our country".

And even in regards to Jewish refugees, one could accept the argument that they should have had somewhere to go to but not necessarily their preferred destination. In other words, if there would have already been the capacity and willpower in Palestine to absorb hundreds of thousands of (or even more) Jewish refugees in the 1930s, then there wouldn't have actually been a need for the West to allow Jewish refugees to move to Western countries in the 1930s. Indeed, Americans generally don't object to the fact that the US largely closed its doors to Soviet Jewish immigrants in late 1989 because they actually had another place to move to--specifically Israel--albeit one that was not ideal due to its terrorism and rabbinic Jewish fundamentalism problems.
Refugees are meant to be charity cases, not some kind of invisible super-passport holders who can go anywhere and be treated at minimum as well as the local citizens.

And Ilya Somin is underestimating the very real possibility that people could choose to move somewhere for the sake of better economic opportunities even if they don't agree with this country's form of government or policies or whatever. I suspect that a lot of democracy-loving Americans would likewise want to move to an autocratic state (but one with free emigration) if the quality of life there was much better than it was here in the US--say, a GDP PPP per capita of $500,000 or $1 million a year. This won't mean that they'll agree with its form of government, or its policies, or whatever, but they'll still want to move there, either temporarily or permanently, in order to make much more money for themselves and perhaps also to give their descendants a much better life.
That's a very obvious one. There are even some westerners moving to China to do barely lower middle class jobs in media and education.
 

WolfBear

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Cue all eligible foreigners fucking off once international tensions that may result in war happen.

Which is ridiculous. Such ridiculous, self-disadvantaging moralistic notions are just a fancy way of saying "let's abolish our country".


Refugees are meant to be charity cases, not some kind of invisible super-passport holders who can go anywhere and be treated at minimum as well as the local citizens.


That's a very obvious one. There are even some westerners moving to China to do barely lower middle class jobs in media and education.

Yep, always a risk.

Yeah, I mean, the idea of citizenship would have much less value if everyone or at least everyone's descendants would have had easy access to it. In theory, you could have guest worker programs without citizenship, but then you'd have to scrap birthright citizenship, which isn't actually politically feasible in the US. You'd also have to do things such as put a large part of guest workers' earnings in a savings account that they can only access after they will leave the country AND prevent such measures from getting struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. In theory, guest-worker programs could help a lot of people improve their lives, though even then, you'd have to be selective due to crime and terrorism concerns. (The individual risk of terrorism on the net is low, but your odds of becoming a terrorism victim are very likely much higher if you, say, decide to ever publicly engage in "Islamophobic" speech. Theo van Gogh and Samuel Paty found out this lesson the very hard way, unfortunately. :()

As for refugees, completely agreed. Refugees should have somewhere safe and livable to go to, but not necessarily to always have a right to move to their preferred destination.

And as for China, I'm certainly not surprised. I've heard a hypothesis/theory that some or even many US white men might be interested in working in and/or for China in the future since they're not valued as much here (due to affirmative action, et cetera) as they are valued by the Chinese.
 

PsihoKekec

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Ilya Somin believes that not letting in outsiders who want to become richer is almost morally comparable to refusing to allow Jewish refugees to move to the US during the 1930s:
Ages ago they said that the patriotism is a scoundrel's last resort. Now that patriotism is forbidden, the Holocaust took it's place, with all kind of scoundrels invoking it to justify their scumbaggery.
 

WolfBear

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Ages ago they said that the patriotism is a scoundrel's last resort. Now that patriotism is forbidden, the Holocaust took it's place, with all kind of scoundrels invoking it to justify their scumbaggery.

What exactly was patriotism used to justify?
 

Marduk

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The main problem with their market visa scheme, which they even point to, is that the price of the visa would be pretty high. But they don't follow up on that and realize that this means a return to "black market visas", aka illegal immigration and labor of those who couldn't get a job paid well enough to justify a visa. Meanwhile if you had means and the will to effectively enforce the prohibition of that, you don't need the market scheme to begin with. So you just end up with a perhaps more streamlined version of the current system with similar problems.
 

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