Reblogged: Set the Bar Low for Immigration but High for Citizenship

[Undercurrent]

Questions about immigration and citizenship are front and center now that immigration legislation is being actively debated by Congress. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S.744), which has passed the Senate and is currently pending in the House, contains a controversial provision which would allow undocumented immigrants currently residing in the US to legalize their immigration status and eventually to obtain U.S. Citizenship after 13 years of residency. This bill raises a question: what should be required to be a United States citizen?

Public debate often ties the issues of immigration and citizenship together, with one used as a bargaining chip for the other. While there is some overlap, the two issues need to be viewed separately. To put a common misconception to rest: one can vote in favor of an open immigration policy without supporting citizenship for all immigrants. Indeed, in order to preserve American values, citizenship standards need to be high.

Some argue that people should have the right to move and have legal residence wherever they can manage to travel and make a living. If that is so, does moving to a country entitle people to citizenship? What is citizenship, and who should have it?

One question at a time! A central aspect of citizenship is the right to vote—the right to decide who will lead one’s government and how it will govern. Another aspect is jury duty, which involves deciding the fate of accused lawbreakers. Both of these powers have life-altering implications. So being a citizen means more than just living in a country. It means having a legally recognized share in governing that country. Citizens make decisions that will affect the freedom of other individuals. The decision of who should become a citizen and therefore get to exercise these powers should not be taken lightly.

Okay, so we should take the decision seriously. Now what? Well, if we decide to develop high standards for citizenship, questions about who has the right to immigrate will become far removed from questions about citizenship. Not just anyone who moves to the US would be able to become a citizen.

What would happen if the United States had open immigration but loose standards of citizenship? If all residents voted, the country’s leaders and the policies enacted would be chosen by people who would know less about the interests of the United States, who may not have our best interests at heart, and who may not be fully invested in the future of the country. Suppose that a referendum is held to decide whether to give full college tuition to every Mexican immigrant using American tax dollars. If citizenship were too easily granted with residence, we might see many of the 11.4 million immigrants born in Mexico vote in favor of this referendum—even if they have just arrived in the country.  The US would plunge even further into debt and millions of dollars would be expropriated from taxpayers who have lived in the country for years.

But there is nothing to fear about open immigration as long as standards for citizenship are strict. There should be tough standards for who decides the fate of the country via voting. Non-citizens should be entitled to the government’s protection of all of their fundamental human rights, and they should be allowed to assemble and advocate for causes they believe in, but they should not have the right to cast a ballot deciding who will fight for their causes in government—not right away.

What about jury duty? Citizens decide not only who makes the laws, but whether or not someone is guilty of breaking the law. Voters must understand the consequences of the laws they have voted to enact. Citizens are guaranteed a trial by their peers. If any immigrant could become a citizen, the trial would be decided by people who may have no loyalty to the laws governing our country or even knowledge of the language in which these laws are written.

The right to vote is often characterized as an essential human right. Some left-wing commentators believe that voting is a sacred right, the denial of which offends against basic human dignity. But voting is not a fundamental human right. The only fundamental human rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and it is the government’s primary job to make sure that no one infringes upon these rights.

Liberty, for example, is essential to living a dignified, flourishing life. A slave has no liberty and consequently lacks both dignity and the ability to flourish. Without the right to vote, one may lack a power that others have, but this does not violate one’s human rights—especially not if the government still protects one’s basic human liberties. Human rights are fundamental rights of human beings. Civil rights, like the right to vote, are derivative rights that help protect those fundamental rights. For instance, voters can prevent abuses of fundamental rights by voting against those who promote those abuses. Everyone has the right to liberty, but the right to vote should be assigned to those who are best equipped to ensure that a government protects these liberties.

The rights of citizens are best assigned to those who are most likely to believe in and understand the political system which protects freedom. So immigrants must earn the rights of citizenship by demonstrating that understanding. Citizenship should be difficult for immigrants to obtain because those choosing the future of the government and the fate of those subject to its laws should be those who are completely invested in the country and its laws and who understand the weight of their responsibility.

A free country like the United States must have high standards for obtaining citizenship; mere residence is not enough. In order to maintain these high standards, Congress must remove “path to citizenship” from legislation in the coming immigration proposal; instead, citizenship should be granted to immigrants based on their proven understanding of and commitment to the system of laws that protects individual rights. Placing a high value on citizenship means placing a high value on the country’s laws, present and future. The responsibilities of citizens, and therefore deciding who should become a citizen, should not be taken lightly.

Creative commons-licensed image from Flickr user Grand Canyon National Park. 

The post Set the Bar Low for Immigration but High for Citizenship appeared first on The Undercurrent.

Link to Original

[HandyHandle]

... one can vote in favor of an open immigration policy without supporting citizenship for all immigrants. 

 

In today’s political climate illegal immigrants are refused suffrage and very little else. Open immigration without citizenship will result in effective citizenship for all immigrants.

 

Look what happened to California’s Proposition 187, a referendum on the abolition of all taxpayer funded welfare for illegal immigrants.  That was in  1994 when California’s demographic was not as heavily (legal) immigrant as it is today.  Despite well funded opposition from the usual suspects the referendum passed two to one.  Within hours the Ninth Circuit Court issued a temporary injunction, later extended indefinitely.

 

... there is nothing to fear about open immigration as long as standards for citizenship are strict. 

 

There’s a lot to fear.  Look at LAPD’s most wanted list on any random day, or any big city.    

 

Then the Leftists will bewail the fate of “second-class citizens” and after the courts are through they’ll be first class citizens, with the vote along with everything else.  

 

Non-citizens should be entitled to the government’s protection of all of their fundamental human rights, and they should be allowed to assemble and advocate for causes they believe in, but they should not have the right to cast a ballot deciding who will fight for their causes in government — not right away.

 

Leftists promote immigration for their own reason.  These days about 85% of legal immigrants, and practically all illegal, are from the Third World.  Statistically – overwhelmingly if not all – Third World immigrants vote for the most socialist candidate.  A few “valedictorians” don’t make up for this.  Unrestricted immigration is changing the face of America, its culture – and its politics from part-way socialist to full-tilt socialist.

 

Immigration without citizenship is the camel’s nose under the tent.  It’s amnesty under an assumed name.   Opposing it is the selfish thing to do.  

Edited March 24, 2014 by HandyHandle

[Nicky]

It’s amnesty under an assumed name.   Opposing it is the selfish thing to do.

Have you considered the full costs of opposing immigration because it seems to serve your ideology?

One of those consequences is that no rational person will ever take you seriously as an advocate for individual rights. By denying others their rights, you will have forfeited the ability to bring a persuasive argument in favor of any right you may wish to exercise.

[HandyHandle]

I oppose open immigration because of my idea of America – and the Third World is not my idea of America.

 

Nicky says that I deny others their rights.  Perhaps he refers to foreigners’ rights, as many open border advocates do.  Their position is that a foreigner has a right to come into my country whatever I may think of him, that the very idea of “my country” is spurious – collectivist and socialist.  I have no right, and my government has no right, to keep him out.

 

I’m slow to understand.  Just as the skin of your body separates you from your environment, a country’s border separates the body politic from the rest of the world.  Outside of one world globalism the very idea of a country requires a border, and if a border means anything it is a barrier to indiscriminant entry.

 

Contrary to so-called libertarian anarchists, government does have a proper role to play in America.  An important part of that role is to give our border meaning by protecting America from invasion.  This protection does not entail violating anyone’s rights, for a foreigner in fact has no inalienable right to enter another country.  In fact this was the way things were in America from 1924 to 1968 as a matter of law.

 

Since 1968 the government hasn’t been doing its job.  The Immigration Reform Act of 1965 (the Hart-Cellar Act), which went into effect in 1968, was a big step in the direction of open borders.  Reagan’s amnesty of 1986 was another.  

 

The consequence of open borders is conquest by immigration.  Slowly and slowly and by degrees that is what is happening.  And like a cloud changing from a fox terrier into a monster your unconscious of the change.  You look away and look back, and the terrier is gone.

 

Whether to oppose this conquest or not is a question of self-defense.  We’re losing our country, if that means anything to you.

 

[softwareNerd]

An important part of that role is to give our border meaning by protecting America from invasion.

Price is just a way of rationing goods, and a border-crossing is invasion if enough people say so. Misuse of proper concepts to denote something different. Edited March 25, 2014 by softwareNerd

[HandyHandle]

The question, how many invaders constitutes an invasion, is like asking how many hairs on a man’s chin constitutes a beard.  

 

Hey, it’s a beard.  You may think it’s only some hairs everywhere you look.  Whatever, the man needs a shave.  

 

No, I’m not saying we should mow down immigrants, the analogy goes only so far.  But yes, illegal immigrants should be deported and much more done to keep them out in the first place.  Restriction worked from 1924 to 1968 in America and it works today in, for example, Israel.

 

We must also end birthright citizenship – anchor babies, like a ship weighing anchor (we get the ship as well as the anchor).  This could be done without a Constitutional amendment – the current interpretation of the Constitution is simply wrong.

 

As for foreigners that had entered legally and been made citizens (or illegals amnestied in 1986) but should not have been, that’s a more difficult problem.  At least a “naturalized” – an oxymoron based on wishful thinking – citizen convicted of a felony, or a misdemeanor involving assault, ought to be “denaturalized” and after serving his sentence, deported.  Getting rid of such rotten apples in the immigrant barrel would require a Constitutional amendment.

 

I’m sick of reading about unspeakable crimes committed by Third World types.  Another consideration, mentioned before, is that they are voting us into full scale socialism.  Again, opposing open immigration is the selfish thing to do.

 

[softwareNerd]

The question, how many invaders constitutes an invasion, is like asking how many hairs on a man’s chin constitutes a beard.

"How many" is the wrong question.

[Nicky]

I’m slow to understand.  Just as the skin of your body separates you from your environment, a country’s border separates the body politic from the rest of the world.  Outside of one world globalism the very idea of a country requires a border, and if a border means anything it is a barrier to indiscriminant entry.

No, your first definition was fine: a border separates the body politic from the rest of the world. In other words, it denotes the jurisdiction of a government and its laws.

Tagging on "it's a barrier to entry" is just your arbitrary editorialization. You're trying to define your way into being right.

[HandyHandle]

Nicky:

 

No, you’re trying to define “border” into meaninglessness.   An abstract line surrounding an area.

 

Even open border advocates recognize the barrier nature of a country’s border, they just disagree on what to bar.  For example, admitting only foreigners free of contagious diseases (though many diseases are difficult to diagnose in the early stages) and only foreigners without a criminal record (which wouldn’t mean much if their country’s government is corrupt, and nothing at all if they hadn’t been caught), etc.  I’ve never heard of an open border advocate who argued for no restrictions whatsoever.  Unless Nicky is one.

------------------------------------

 

Corrections (to my first post regarding Prop. 187):  

In 1994 it passed three to two, not two to one.  The injunction was issued within days (three) not hours.  The injunction was issued by “a federal district court judge” of the “United States District Court” as many references say.  None of these corrections affects the point of the post.

------------------------------------

 

"How many" is the wrong question.

 

If you don’t elaborate I can only guess what you mean.  We’re not supposed to notice the beard?  

 

Pretend that Third World immigration hasn’t changed American demography and politics?  Pretend it hasn’t made harder turning America toward freedom?  Pretend it hasn’t further turned America toward socialism?

 

Or what?  Please tie any abstract pronouncements to their concrete results.  If the concrete result is evil, we can be sure the abstraction is wrong or inapplicable.

 

I doubt if Prop. 187 could pass in California today, and the reason involves asking: how many.

Edited March 26, 2014 by HandyHandle

[softwareNerd]

If you don’t elaborate I can only guess what you mean. We’re not supposed to notice the beard?

What's elaborate? "How many" is not relevant. If you want to keep people with beard out, say so in principle.

How about we resurrect the plan to resettle these troublesome negros in Liberia?

Pretend that Third World immigration hasn’t changed American demography and politics?  Pretend it hasn’t made harder turning America toward freedom?  Pretend it hasn’t further turned America toward socialism?

It has not. Do you know what happened in the late 1800's with the Progressive movement? Have you any knowledge of the political thinking of FDr and his brain trust, that got us here in the first place? Do you have Caucasian friends who are at least second-generation immigrants?

Instead of banning mexicans who want to come here for a job, your logic would say we should ban college.

[Nicky]

Regarding the proposition that peaceful Mexicans don't have an inalienable right to freely move about and work in the US, based on statistics about that minority's crime rates and voting history:

There are other identifiable groups with both higher crime rates and more left leaning voting records than Mexican immigrants. Do members of such groups also not have the right you are seeking to deny Mexicans? If they do, what's the difference?

P.S. One example of such a group is African Americans. But there are many others, that include whites, Asians, etc.. I'm confident that I could even come up with a group that fits that description and includes you, if you tell me a few random things about yourself.

Nicky:

 

No, you’re trying to define “border” into meaninglessness.   An abstract line surrounding an area.

In fact you are using that very concept to define the group of people you wish to bar from the US: people born withing abstract lines that define the "Third World".

"an abstract line surrounding an area" has more than enough meaning to count as a valid definition of a concept.

Please tie any abstract pronouncements to their concrete results.  If the concrete result is evil, we can be sure the abstraction is wrong or inapplicable.

If the abstract principle is contradictory, we can be sure it's wrong. I am asking you to explain the inherent contradiction between you affirming a set of rights that you supposedly have, and at the same time denying those rights to peaceful individuals.

You are replying with pragmatic arguments and refusing to even acknowledge the concept of individual rights.

Do you believe in the abstract concept of individual rights?

Edited March 26, 2014 by Nicky

[HandyHandle]

I had asked softwareNerd to

“... tie any abstract pronouncements to their concrete results.  If the concrete result is evil, we can be sure the abstraction is wrong or inapplicable.”

 

This is rather more than saying:  a contradiction is sure to be wrong.  What I was getting at is that our abstractions about rights and immigration should be tied to the real world.  If applying individual rights to a certain case leads to the end of America as we know it, then there is something wrong with the application.

 

That’s common sense, not pragmatism.  

 

... explain the inherent contradiction between you affirming a set of rights that you supposedly have, and at the same time denying those rights to peaceful individuals.

 

What?  Sounds like Nicky equivocates between a foreigner and an American.  

 

It’s not that the foreigner (peace loving or whatever) has no rights at all, merely that he has no right to enter America without due process.   By forbidding such entry, or requiring conditions for it, we take nothing from him.  In this regard he has nothing for us to take.

 

America was not such a bad place from 1924 to 1968.  First the “roaring twenties” then a depression, then unprecedented prosperity.  Nicky makes it out to have been one of Stalin’s Gulags or something.

 

[HandyHandle]

 If you want to keep people with beard out, say so in principle.

 

I wonder if softwareNerd understands my analogy.  I thought he had asked when does immigration become an invasion, so I invented the following analogy:   A hair is to one illegal immigrant invader as a beard is to an invasion of illegal immigrants.  (A reference to the well-known conundrum.)

 

SoftwareNerd makes some astounding claims:  Third World immigration has NOT changed American demography and politics.  Third World immigration has NOT turned America further toward socialism.

 

Astounding because so easily refuted.  For the first (demographics) visit most any town or city and look around you.  For the second (politics) look at the voting statistics for the last presidential election, with the assumption that most immigrants today are non-white and Obama is more socialist than his opponents were.  For example, Hispanics:

“Latino Voters in the 2012 Election” (Pew Research)

Obama 71% : Romney 27%

Asians were even worse than Hispanics: 

“United States presidential election, 2012”  (Wikipedia)

Obama 73% : Romney 26%

 

Patriots should seek an end to Third World immigration.  Spare us the Mexican sob stories.  Whatever is positive in open immigration is worth far less than the price of the baggage it comes with.  Ultimately only altruism can justify open immigration.

 

If you’re a racist for not wanting your country swamped by the Third World you’ll just have to live with the designation.  You’re a racist.  Get used to it ringing in your ears.  

[softwareNerd]

SoftwareNerd makes some astounding claims:  Third World immigration has NOT changed American demography and politics.  Third World immigration has NOT turned America further toward socialism

... ...

Obama 73% : Romney 26%

I gave you examples of America's moves to socialism that far pre-dated non-white immigration. If you're in the camp that thinks Obama is the greatest villain in American politics, who has turned this country toward statism that it would never have sought without him, then there's little point discussing anything more. I recommend you get a longer-term perspective on what drives American political ideology.

[Nicky]

Do you believe in the abstract concept of individual rights?

Hm. I thought this was a simple enough question to answer. I guess I was wrong.

If you can't answer this, I guess I best forget about trying to ever get an answer to this out of you:

There are other identifiable groups with both higher crime rates and more left leaning voting records than Mexican immigrants. Do members of such groups also not have the right you are seeking to deny Mexicans? If they do, what's the difference?

Oh well. I suppose regurgitating stuff you read on a blog somewhere, over and over again, is the best you can do.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Nicky

[HandyHandle]

I gave you examples of America's moves to socialism that far pre-dated non-white immigration.

 

“Most Hispanics vote big government”  is rather different from  “most everyone who voted big government is socialist.”  

 

I see what I eat, but don’t always eat what I see.  

 

Just because the Progressives were socialists doesn’t change the 2012 (and before)  election statistics.   In general Third World immigrants overwhelmingly choose the most socialist candidate.  Their children aren’t much better, see for example “Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project” Figure 4.2

[HandyHandle]

You are replying with pragmatic arguments ...

 

Pragmatism maintains that if something works in a particular case it’s true in that particular case.  If it doesn’t work in another particular case it’s false in that particular case.  Et cetera, case by particular case. There is no generalization, no hierarchy of knowledge, each case is isolated from the one before and the one after – a literally insane way to view the world.

 

But this much is correct:  If something doesn’t work there’s something wrong somewhere.  An argument for a blunder always contains a flaw.

 

Objectivism doesn’t mean you walk into an inferno just because someone with an agenda hands you a glib Objectivist-sounding argument proving fire doesn’t burn.

 

Some Objectivists argue that the concept of individual rights leads to open immigration.   Yet per my earlier posts Third World immigration is destroying America.  The argument of these Objectivists must be fallacious.  No one is obligated to explain where their argument goes wrong, pointing out the consequences is enough.  “Don’t bother to examine a folly ...”

 

Nicky is the one who must explain.  Our government ought to restrict immigration in order to protect our way of life.  Nicky claims this violates the foreigner’s person, his rights.  How?  No one sought him out in his country.  No one dragged him to our border.  He came to the border, not the border to him.  

 

Nicky is obliged to explain exactly how immigration restrictions violate a foreigner’s rights, and why, in the name of open borders, we must stand by and watch our country being destroyed.

Edited March 26, 2014 by HandyHandle

[tadmjones]

If the destroyer of America is not the progressive welfare state-ism funded by government debt and taxes, what is the optimum number of individuals that should be allowed to reside in its borders? And how to handle the excess?

Edited March 26, 2014 by tadmjones

[softwareNerd]

In general Third World immigrants overwhelmingly choose the most socialist candidate.

My point was that third world candidates did not elect Wilson, FDR, Johnson, and JFK.

Even more important is that the Democrats aren't responsible for taking the U.S. it is hard to move one's focus away from the present, but you should really drop Obama from your thinking, if you want to understand underlying U.S. trends. I think that gives one a better perspective.

Bush and Bush might have been more ideologically free-market than Carter and Clinton. However, you will be hard-pressed to find the final outcomes under their presidencies being more free-market. Bush senior's term brought us the ADA. And, while he might not have wanted to raise taxes, he actually did. Clinton gave us CHIP, but Bush gave us Medicare Part-D. Note though, that Orrin Hatch was a major sponsor of CHIP. Romneycare was a model for Obamacare. If Clinton was a GOP guy who had said all GOP-sounding things, while doing everything he actually did, you would probably be praising him for the 1997 tax-cut (as Heritage does) and for trying to deregulate energy and banks (a process started by Carter, BTW).

If McCain had been elected, we would not have Obamacare, but there's a pretty good chance he'd have expanded coverage for the poor in some incremental way, and it would have gone down in silence from GOP voters, with Dems protesting that he was not doing anything.

And, while spending less taxpayer money on subsidizing health-care, McCain would likely have spent it on Afghanistan and Iraq. he also wanted to get involved in Libya and Syria, and was sounding belligerent on Ukraine. Not only would he have been little better than Obama overall, but in the areas where he was better, he would simply be doing Democrat work, making it easier for the next Democrat to take the next step.

It is so convenient to focus on a target like immigrants. Really, Americans should buy a mirror if they want to spot their enemy. GOP people first because many of them pretend they are for free-markets.

Edited March 26, 2014 by softwareNerd

[FeatherFall]

Handy, you're really side-stepping the issue of rights. Nicky isn't the only one who wants you to respond to that. What would you say if I told you that my rights (as a native Wisconsinite) are violated when you bar immigrants from my neighborhood? Have I no right to free association, to employ or rent my home to whomever I choose?

Once we resolve that, we can discuss whether it is moral for you to disenfranchise people for how they vote. But I won't entertain that one until I hear your response to the issue of rights. I'm just going to ask you again if you avoid it.

[HandyHandle]

My point was that third world candidates did not elect Wilson, FDR, Johnson, and JFK.

 

I can’t imagine anyone ignorant enough to think otherwise.  Third World immigrants were a tiny fraction of the electorate before Hart-Cellar kicked in.

 

Americans have been demoralized when it comes to the subject of immigration – demoralized by schools, television, movies, every mainstream persuasive outlet.  Mustn’t hurt immigrant feelings, as we march into the multicultural sunset.

[HandyHandle]

If the destroyer of America is not the progressive welfare state..., what is the optimum number of individuals ...?

 

No one here has said welfare isn’t helping to destroy America, quite the contrary.  To repeat, these days immigration is the prime tool of Leftists.  No need to persuade recalcitrant Americans to socialism, just import socialists ready-made.

 

No one here has mentioned limiting the population per se.   Since you bring  up the subject, there may be a sort of inflation factor when it comes to people, the more there are the less human life gets valued, or at any rate the less pleasant things might be.  I haven’t really thought about it except to lament the over-crowding in places where I once lived and came back to visit years later. 

 

This thread is not about limiting population but limiting immigration.  I’ve argued for an immigration moratorium like what was in place from 1924 to 1968.  I hear they were good years, even – culturally speaking – during the great depression.  When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

 

I’ve been emphasizing the political cost of Third World immigration but there is also a cultural cost, well captured in this article by Bryanna Bevens:

"Not Your Mom’s Mall Any More”

I recommend it from first hand shopping experience.  While I am, as Nicky might say, regurgitating webpages, see also 

"Catholic Elites Spend Millions to Sell Illegal Alien Amnesty” 

by Brenda Walker on the same website.  It should give Objectivists pause to find themselves on the same side of an issue as Leftists and the Catholic Church, not to mention Baptist, Lutheran, Jewish and Evangelical organizations (if not rank and file church-goers, which is something else again).  That’s not much of an argument against open immigration (guilt by association), just something that should make us think twice before joining the parade.

[HandyHandle]

FeatherFall introduces a new argument.  Instead of enlisting the (bogus, as I’ve argued) right of a foreigner to move to America, FeatherFall argues from an alleged right of every American citizen to bring a foreigner to his  property.  If we don’t allow open immigration it is the American’s rights that get violated, not the foreigner’s (or not just, per Nicky).

 

I see three flaws in this argument.  The first, relatively minor, is that FeatherFall (to use this exemplary American) doesn’t own the property between the border and his place through which to transport the foreigner.  But let it pass.  Suppose FealtherFall can get him to appear at his place somehow or other like teleportation, say a rocket drops down, or (rather a stretch) all of America is privately owned and he contracted with a ribbon of property owners to carry him.

 

The second flaw is much more important.  FeatherFall, I think we can assume, expects this immigrant to have all the rights of an American except suffrage:  access to the courts, emergency waiting rooms (ever been to one recently?), protection by the police and military, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly – for example with like minded immigrants, etc.  (If not, it would be chattel slavery.)  Americans will pay for all this and also be influenced by the foreigner’s actions.  Eventually he will want the vote, and lobby for it, and Leftists will help him do it.  The rest of us have an interest in all this.  It’s our country after all.

 

The third flaw is the worst.   The assumption that the immigrant will remain on FeatherFall’s property is absurd.  An immigrant is not like a sack of flour that stays where it’s put.  He has a mind of his own and two legs.   No way will he stay at FeatherFall’s place for long.  

 

When a politician says "guest worker program” in practice it’s another name for amnesty.  Quoting this: Nothing is more permanent than temporary workers.  

 

As with Nicky’s notion that any foreigner has a right to move here, so with FeatherFall’s notion that any American has the right to bring him here – the result is the same: mass immigration.

 

What about the American’s individual rights?  The following is not just a rhetorical analogy, it’s justified by my argument above.   An American has no more right to import random foreigners than he has to set fire to his house and sprinkle incandescent sparks on someone else’s.

Edited March 27, 2014 by HandyHandle

[Nicky]

Nicky is obliged to explain exactly how immigration restrictions violate a foreigner’s rights, and why, in the name of open borders, we must stand by and watch our country being destroyed.

I feel like I'm probably wasting my time appealing to Objectivist principles such as individual rights, since your refusal to answer my questions shows that you reject them, and are pushing some other agenda that you are afraid to be open about. Unless you are willing to reveal your actual position, I can't argue against it. The best I can do is press you for answers.

But, alas, for those of us who believe in Capitalism: in a rights respecting society, individuals looking to exercise or affirm their rights in fact owe no explanation.

It is the government, and the proponents of government actions, who must justify them and prove that any proposed government action is a proportionate response to initiation of force, in protection of individual rights. It is the proponents of government actions who must also prove that their proposals are consistent with the entirety of government policies, directed at other groups.

You are refusing to do either. The vast majority of immigrants do not initiate force, nor do they violate rights. In fact, Mexican or Latin American immigrants as a group do not lead other ethnic, racial or political groups in crime rates, or socialist tendencies. Your proposal that they should be persecuted for belonging to that group, fails to meet the requirements of justified government action.

If you are suggesting that voting for a left leaning candidate is a violation of rights, then you should be consistent, and argue for the banishment of EVERYONE who casts such a vote. But then of course your proposal would be revealed to be absurd, and would no longer fit the chauvinist ideology that's really behind your rationalizations.

[softwareNerd]

Even a GOP moderate like Peggy Noonan is anti-immigrant, as she shows in this piece. On the face of it, it is pro-immigrant -- she's second-generation, and is all praise for immigrants. Beneath that, though, is the usual specious "illegal" vs. "legal" immigrant idea. it is a stolen idea, because illegal immigrants would be a bad thing if the law was proper. Instead, this grand-child of an Irish immigrant whose skills got her a job as a bathroom attendant, ignore the fact that a Mexican with the grand-mother's profile would not be allowed into the U.S. And, this is obviously all right with her, because when they come anyway, in violation of a grossly racist law, she thinks they're somehow less than her white-skinned granny.