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Immigration as related to loyalty

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Grames

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19 hours ago, JASKN said:

This makes me want to cry. So much for Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. We're talking about hardworking, honest people, more respectable than many Americans, who, with our "lawful" faucet drip of an immigration process, have no better hope of making a better life for themselves than bypassing the "process" altogether.
 

And who the hell cares about country "loyalty"?

Your first paragraph is altruism.

Your second paragraph asserts moral equivalance between all political states.  You should at least be aware of a crucial difference between some nation-states on the legal status of homosexuals, so thats rather hypocritical of you.  Then theres the value equivalence of professing to not prefer any language or culture or even climate over any other.  I don't think you are so robotically indiscriminate on your personal tastes that you can truly claim that for you no place on Earth is better than any other.  

You are not a citizen of the world.  Most of the world in fact would reject you if it became aware of you.  Even in China, setting aside homosexuality, just your Objectivist philosophical activities could get you or I imprisoned if we came to the notice of certain officials.  Even the minor differences within the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition between the English speaking countries should be significant to a politically aware citizen.  Does it not matter to you that Great Britain has no equivalent to the American First Amendment freedoms?  Or the Second?  I think it should.  That's what I mean by country loyalty, not whether refried beans are better or worse than fried rice.

**MOD EDIT: moved from http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/30795-white-supremacist-protest-violence/ **

Edited by Eiuol
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Just now, Grames said:

Your first paragraph is altruism.

...If I think it's in my interest to support a tribalist immigration system, and if I think the quality of people entering the country anyway make my life worse.

2 minutes ago, Grames said:

Your second paragraph asserts moral equivalance between all political states.

Before the state come the principles which enable its value. Given your proud support of the racist tiny captain, I assumed your use of "loyalty" suggested the opposite. In principle, I am proudly a citizen of the world.

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11 minutes ago, JASKN said:

...If I think it's in my interest to support a tribalist immigration system, and if I think the quality of people entering the country anyway make my life worse.

How do you know anything at all about the people entering the country if they are not to be examined, and what use would that examination be without the right to deny entry?

11 minutes ago, JASKN said:

Before the state come the principles which enable its value. Given your proud support of the racist tiny captain, I assumed your use of "loyalty" suggested the opposite. In principle, I am proudly a citizen of the world.

Well what of your current country of residency, the U.S.?  The rest of the world does not share the principles of America, and so I value the rest of the world less than I value America.

And why do you call Trump racist?  Serious question.  Where does this come from?   No one ever asserted such a thing before the 2016 Presidential election season, and being such a fat rich juicy target certainly someone would have taken the shot?  

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4 hours ago, Grames said:

Your first paragraph is altruism.

No. JASKN was essentially saying "others should be free too:. That's being principled, not altruistic.

You may be reading altruism into it via some assumptions you're making about the type of people who are immigrants, and the motives you're assuming. The words on the statue of liberty could be characterized as altruistic, though I would dispute that too. However, what JASKN said are much clearer than those words.

He is saying that hard-working, honest people should not be restricted from coming to the U.S. The argument that US has the right to restrict who enters wiggles around the essential issue, by being incomplete. U.S. citizens have no right to enact laws that violate other people's individual rights, including their freedom of association and their freedom of movement, without good, moral reason

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6 hours ago, softwareNerd said:

He is saying that hard-working, honest people should not be restricted from coming to the U.S. The argument that US has the right to restrict who enters wiggles around the essential issue, by being incomplete. U.S. citizens have no right to enact laws that violate other people's individual rights, including their freedom of association and their freedom of movement, without good, moral reason

Self defense is a good moral reason.

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1 hour ago, Grames said:

Self defense is a good moral reason.

I'll take an immigrant worker over U.S. citizen back-country hillbillies or inner-city career welfarists any day. Anyway, this argument fails because we already have millions of "illegal" immigrants who work and make this country better, and don't go around threatening people with violence.

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11 hours ago, Grames said:

How do you know anything at all about the people entering the country if they are not to be examined, and what use would that examination be without the right to deny entry?

This is sacrificing the perfect for the good, making the exception the rule, ignoring the nonviolent norm that is already happening outside of the law, and in turn violating rights.

11 hours ago, Grames said:

Well what of your current country of residency, the U.S.?  The rest of the world does not share the principles of America, and so I value the rest of the world less than I value America.

This is not the point. Ideally, rights-violating countries would not exist. "I consider myself a citizen of the world" is an acknowledgement that there is only one legitimate way for men to deal with one another, no matter which borders are erected or which laws are passed.

11 hours ago, Grames said:

And why do you call Trump racist?  Serious question.  Where does this come from?   No one ever asserted such a thing before the 2016 Presidential election season, and being such a fat rich juicy target certainly someone would have taken the shot?  

The anti-immigrant rhetoric and now action is beyond pandering, he is obviously racist. "Keep dem out! Get rid o dem!"

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29 minutes ago, JASKN said:

I'll take an immigrant worker over U.S. citizen back-country hillbillies or inner-city career welfarists any day.

 

21 minutes ago, JASKN said:

The anti-immigrant rhetoric and now action is beyond pandering, he is obviously racist. "Keep dem out! Get rid o dem!"

Lordy, who is engaging in "racists" rhetoric exactly?

Edited by New Buddha
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17 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

Lordy, who is engaging in "racists" rhetoric exactly?

Since I didn't mention skin color, I guess it's you for implying that these groups are only of a particular "race"?

Edit: Seriously, though, at this forum of all places let's not get anywhere near to the loony practice of shouting "racism!" at the mere acknowledgement of stereotypes, the mention of racism, grouping people, etc.

Edited by JASKN
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9 minutes ago, JASKN said:

Edit: Seriously, though, at this forum of all places let's not get anywhere near to the loony practice of shouting "racism!" at the mere acknowledgement of stereotypes, the mention of racism, grouping people, etc.

I agree.  But if you ask yourself the question, Why did so many white (men and women) Democrats in the South and the Rust Belt vote for Trump after having voted for a black President twice AND if you ask yourself, Why did illegal immigration from Mexico soar under NAFTA -- then you might learn something about the current state of the economy.  Trump also got more Black and Hispanic votes than both McCain and Romney in some key States.

It is possible to be against open borders - as current governmental institutions and trade agreements exist -  and not be a racist.  However, the Left knowingly tries to reduce the immigration issue to a binary choice:  Either you are for open borders OR you are a racist and/or Islamaphobe, homophobe, misogynist, anti-Free Trader (as if the Left is pro-Free Trade, lol) and so on.

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3 hours ago, JASKN said:

This is sacrificing the perfect for the good, making the exception the rule, ignoring the nonviolent norm that is already happening outside of the law, and in turn violating rights.

I asked "How do you know anything at all about the people entering the country if they are not to be examined, and what use would that examination be without the right to deny entry?"   So this is the sum of your response, to simply deny or evade the fact that evil exists and that some evil people have and will cross the border of the U. S. to commit evil acts of criminality or political terrorism inside its borders?  Or perhaps you do not deny evil but are proposing to let the blood and destruction flow and celebrate the victims as martyrs, the necessary price that has to be paid these days to have a virtuous border policy?

3 hours ago, JASKN said:

This is not the point. Ideally, rights-violating countries would not exist. "I consider myself a citizen of the world" is an acknowledgement that there is only one legitimate way for men to deal with one another, no matter which borders are erected or which laws are passed.

It is entirely the point.  We don't live in an ideal world and never will in any possible future, to think otherwise denies humans have volition. It is unjust to refuse to acknowledge that some countries are better than others at protecting rights right now.  To value those countries would mean taking action to preserve and protect them.  

If you want to acknowledge the one legitimate way for men to deal with one another I would recommend Galt's Oath.  "I consider myself a citizen of the world" has the problem of looking like egalitarian indifference to differences between countries while striding across the world like a colossus far above the concerns of lesser men.  That phrase is tainted by a bit of megalomania that Rand avoided in crafting her own phrase:  "I swear - by my life and my love of it - that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."  

 

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4 minutes ago, Grames said:

"I consider myself a citizen of the world" has the problem of looking like egalitarian indifference to differences between countries while striding across the world like a colossus far above the concerns of lesser men.  That phrase is tainted by a bit of megalomania that Rand avoided in crafting her own phrase

I suppose you can choose your sentiment/summation, Rand can choose hers, I can choose mine.

5 minutes ago, Grames said:

So this is the sum of your response, to simply deny or evade the fact that evil exists and that some evil people have and will cross the border of the U. S. to commit evil acts of criminality or political terrorism inside its borders?

Evil must be stopped. What we have today does not first have that goal in mind. Now that I've acknowledged that some "border" control is necessary, you can acknowledge that today's immigration laws are seeped in racism and are unjust and immoral. The transparent trick is to claim that we're just trying to keep the bad guys out when really they just don't want the brownies in, which is what Trump does (mixed with his "egomaniacal" bullying).

11 minutes ago, Grames said:

We don't live in an ideal world and never will in any possible future, to think otherwise denies humans have volition. It is unjust to refuse to acknowledge that some countries are better than others at protecting rights right now.  To value those countries would mean taking action to preserve and protect them.

Modern America is "ideal" compared to savage eras of human history. The point is you don't reach an ideal by denying its foundation - you don't create a society based on individual rights while violating some individuals' rights.

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6 hours ago, Grames said:

Self defense is a good moral reason.

Sure: but it should be a reason, not a rationalization. When people talk about keeping Muslims out, even if I disagree, I can see how they would link that to self-defense. Similarly, I can understand applying it to gangs -- even though I think deportation is far less ineffective than putting people in jail. 

However, the real issue in immigration, and the biggest numbers are people who are kept out for no plausible rational moral reason related to self-defense. 

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11 minutes ago, JASKN said:

The transparent trick

Your conspiracy theory is only supported by your confirmation bias.  You might have a point if there were proposals to reduce the numbers of legal immigrants but there have not been so you don't.

 

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From an interview with Donald Trump by The Economist magazine

On another element of Trumponomics, immigration…
Right.

Do you want to curb legal immigration?
Oh sure, you know, I want to stop illegal immigration.

And what about legal immigration? Do you want to cut the number of immigrants?
Oh legal, no, no, no. I want people to come into the country legally. No, legally? No. I want people to come in legally. But I want people to come in on merit. I want to go to a merit-based system. Actually two countries that have very strong systems are Australia and Canada. And I like those systems very much, they’re very strong, they’re very good, I like them very much. We’re going to a much more merit-based system. But I absolutely want talented people coming in, I want people that are going to love our country coming in, I want people that are going to contribute to our country coming in. We want a provision at the right time, we want people that are coming in and will commit to not getting…not receiving any form of subsidy to live in our country for at least a five-year period.

But the numbers of those people could be as high as the numbers that are coming in legally now? You’re not looking to reduce the numbers?
Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, we want people coming in legally. No, very strongly. Now they’re going to be much more strongly vetted as you see. You know, we’ve broken the all-time record [of detentions at the border] by many times, 73, we’re up to 73, it’s going to go up to almost 80% at the border, we’ve…you know, really stopped it. We also want farm workers to be able to come in. You know, we’re going to have work visas for the farm workers. If you look, you know we have a lot of people coming through the border, they’re great people and they work on the farms and then they go back home. We like those people a lot and we want them to continue to come in.

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10 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

The RAISE Act proposal is a merit based immigration system (similar to Canada's).

Maybe it's me...

1 hour ago, Grames said:

You might have a point if there were proposals to reduce the numbers of legal immigrants but there have not been so you don't.

 

1 hour ago, Grames said:

From an interview with Donald Trump by The Economist magazine

And what about legal immigration? Do you want to cut the number of immigrants?

Oh legal, no, no, no.

From Wikipedia:

Quote

Co-sponsored by Republican senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, the bill seeks to reduce levels of legal immigration to the United States by 50% by halving the number of green cards issued.

From the National Review:

Quote

To be sure, the RAISE Act would alter immigration levels: It would definitely reduce legal immigration, probably increase illegal immigration, and almost certainly reduce overall immigration.

It must be me.

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Southie Speakeasy

5 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

It must be me.

What you and others are failing to understand is that Trump's position on illegal immigration  - specifically illegal immigration from Mexico -  has all along been tied directly to the re-negotiation of NAFTA, which just started today.

I would still like for JASKN (or someone) to try and explain what they think caused the dramatic and unprecedented increase in illegal immigration from Mexico under NAFTA?  And while they are at it, also explain why poverty in Mexico hasn't budged an inch under NAFTA (still just over 50%).  And for the record, I have a sister who lives in Mexico (married to a Mexican) and I do care deeply about the economic health of our southern neighbor - not only for personal reasons but because an economically strong Mexico is in the United States rational self-interest.  

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55 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

What you and others are failing to understand is that Trump's position on illegal immigration  - specifically illegal immigration from Mexico -  has all along been tied directly to the re-negotiation of NAFTA, which just started today.

I think they're completely linked. His position on NAFTA is bad too: well correlated with his views on immigration. These are different variants of protectionist policies.

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28 minutes ago, softwareNerd said:

I think they're completely linked. His position on NAFTA is bad

Explain what you think his position on NAFTA is, if you can.  And I notice that you failed to provide answers to my two questions.  If you know his position is wrong, then provide answers.

Edit:  I'll even give you a hand since I doubt you even know what the issues are.  Two images.  The first is Mexico's GDP.  The second is the exchange rate of the Peso against the Dollar.

 

mexico-gdp.png

us-dollar-mexican-peso-exchange-rate-historical-chart-2017-08-17-macrotrends (1).png

Edited by New Buddha
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23 hours ago, Grames said:

Your first paragraph is altruism.

“We will reform legal immigration to serve the best interests of America and its workers, the forgotten people. Workers. We’re going to take care of our workers.” - Donald Trump

When you stand for Trump, THAT is what you stand for. Once you support that, you have no leg to stand on accusing anyone else of altruism. Donald Trump's stance on immigration is driven by clear, pure, undeniable altruism. He wants immigrants (legal immigrants, who are wanted in the US by American companies) kept out because they "don't serve the best interests of American workers".

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