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MisterSwig

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Of course that's not what he said, but we can't ask him for more details so the best we can do is give our interpretation of the implication. I'm not sure what you mean by define citizenship away, because all anyone really means when they say it is certain legal privileges. What kind of negative consequences do you see? I already said that everyone in the border should have their rights protected, because banning force should be a goal, not a subscription service. It doesn't have to be altruistic if we enumerate a bunch of specific legal rights. 

 

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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

What kind of negative consequences do you see?

It's like having the right to life but not having that right written down in a legal document. Non-citizens would face the same problem that undocumented immigrants face: the constant fear that a new government could deport them, since it's not written down anywhere that they don't belong to a foreign country. You could say that under new laws, everyone inside the country's territory would have rights even without citizenship, but citizenship is the only way to guarantee, with a legal document, that no future government can deport immigrants. Without the promise of rights protection being written down as a legal document (via citizenship), it's not really a law, just a promise. Just like rights like "right to life", "right to property", etc need to be written down on paper, the "right to non-deportation" (aka citizenship) also needs to be written down on paper. Since US law doesn't apply to everyone in the Universe, it needs to be written down to whom the law applies to (via citizenship), not just the geographical jurisdiction (which is indirect and incomplete [earlier example]).

Without legal documents, immigrants would be no different from slave workers in UAE, who don't even have a right to get a passport to escape (because they're not citizens).

If you're not a citizen, technically, you're not a legal entity. Just like the US doesn't have to grant rights to animals (even when they are within US territory), they don't have to grant rights to you (if they don't recognize you as a legal entity to whom rights apply). Even historically, people from certain races as well as women were excluded from citizenship. Immigrants would have the same fate.

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2 minutes ago, human_murda said:

It's like having the right to life but not having that right written down in a legal document.

 

2 minutes ago, human_murda said:

Just like rights like "right to life", "right to property", etc need to be written down on paper,

Magical paper! Man, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, China and the Soviet Union must've been using the wrong kind of paper, since they write down all sorts of things as rights.

 

I'll just leave this link right here so you can unconfuse yourself on your own time:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(law)

 

 

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7 minutes ago, human_murda said:

You could say that under new laws, everyone inside the country's territory would have rights even without citizenship, but citizenship is the only way to guarantee, with a legal document, that no future government can deport immigrants

My impression is that this alternative gives ground for a surveillance state. You would be creating a specific infrastructure where all people at all times must provide and declare all the relevant information to the government. I could imagine a scenario where immigrants are afraid that their very clear immigrant status would give grounds for future governments to remove their existing citizenship or otherwise add extra surveillance that no one knows about. Even citizens would be concerned, because all levels of government would in practice have all kinds of data on every single person. 

18 minutes ago, human_murda said:

Without the promise of rights protection being written down as a legal document (via citizenship), it's not really a law, just a promise

"This government shall henceforth protect the rights of all individuals within the borders of the United States of America." Easy. Worried that sounds like a promise? That's basically everything the government does - make promises. 

24 minutes ago, human_murda said:

but citizenship is the only way to guarantee, with a legal document, that no future government can deport immigrants.

Dictator Eiuol: I'm going to deport all first-generation immigrants.

Citizen: I'm a first generation immigrant and I am a citizen, you can't do anything!

DE: I don't care. I'm going to send my paramilitary force to your house and kidnap you. You won't know when. Then I'm going to throw you out of a helicopter.

Citizen: That's a illegal!

DE: I am the government!

 

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21 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Guilty of what? Must we assume guilt to check for threats at the border?

Guilty of being a threat.

 

The immigrants who want to come here to obey the laws, get a job and maybe meet somebody special; they are not a threat to anyone. The immigrants who come here to vote for Sharia law and kill infidels are. I don't think you (or anybody else here) would disagree with any of that. I'm not even in favor of letting someone in once we know that they are a threat; all I'm saying is that unless they're trying to cause some immediate and specific form of real-world mayhem, we should assume their innocence (EVEN IF they might hold some stupid ideas, like almost all Americans do anyway).

 

We should not assume that people are dangerous until or unless they prove themselves to be so.

 

21 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

It's a police agency, and the police must be allowed to detain and question people in order to safeguard the nation. 

Based on what?

 

We don't let the police stop and interrogate random people on the street for no reason (except in New York, where they've been paying dearly for that mistake for a while now). If the police have a REASON to consider you a possible hazard then they can question you all they want, but otherwise they have to let you go about your business. That's all covered under "unreasonable searches and seizures".

 

I'm not even saying that we shouldn't interrogate the people who try and cross our border. We should - at bare minimum we should ask if they think it's okay to explode people who disagree with them, and bar anyone who answers "yes" from ever entering the same continent as you or me.

But if they say "no" and we have no good REASON to think that they'll do anything violent then we have to assume their innocence (i.e. their non-threat-status) and let them do their thing.

 

Part of the reason why we should assume their innocence (in the way I just described) is that making their beliefs our business, and concerning ourselves with the contents of anyone else's brains (regardless of where they were born) is a mistake that would ultimately hurt us far more than it'd ever hurt any of them.

Giving our own government some "beauro of thoughtcrime" would not really hurt people who live hundreds of miles away. The lives it would wreck would be yours, mine and our own childrens'.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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5 hours ago, 2046 said:

Service guarantees citizenship, kiddos:

 

YES! THANK YOU!!!

 

8 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Of course that's not what he said, but we can't ask him for more details so the best we can do is give our interpretation of the implication.

Actually, Yaron almost always answers his superchat questions on YouTube. If you're subscribed to him it'll give you a notification whenever he's doing a live broadcast, and if you go to it there'll be a live "chat" feed where you can either make a comment for free or pay like $5 for a "superchat" comment. Anything you spend on it goes to him and (probably for that reason) he's very meticulous about responding to almost every one he gets. Just don't be anti-semitic.

But I really, really doubt he meant that immigrants' rights just shouldn't be enforced.

 

If anyone manages to catch him in the next week or so (which is about how often he does live events) it'd be fascinating to get his thoughts on all this.

 

PS:

Epic music video! I just woke up my roommates with what I'm told was an "evil laugh" but I guess they're not gonna stay up long enough to learn who Pinochet was. I love it!

 

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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1 hour ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

all I'm saying is that unless they're trying to cause some immediate and specific form of real-world mayhem, we should assume their innocence (EVEN IF they might hold some stupid ideas, like almost all Americans do anyway).

Can we not make baseless assumptions and check for threats based on objective criteria? Like, if we're at war with Islamic totalitarians, then we spend extra time identifying and evaluating a Muslim's specific beliefs and travel history?

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3 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Can we not make baseless assumptions and check for threats based on objective criteria? Like, if we're at war with Islamic totalitarians, then we spend extra time identifying and evaluating a Muslim's specific beliefs and travel history?

Spending extra time with Muslims while we're AT WAR with them (as Yaron Brook, Peikoff and I all agree we have been since at least 9/11) is not baseless. There is a very good and rational base for that (namely: the Objective evidence we have that many of them want to blow us all up right now).

No, I would say that we couldn't spend extra time with any immigrant BASELESSLY. But anyone who'd call extra time with a Muslim immigrant "baseless" either wasn't here for 9/11 or isn't being honest with themselves.

 

We have a very good reason to give extra-special scrutiny to all Muslim immigrants. And as long as it's based on Objective rules and properly done (so that any Muslim who truly does want to come here for work is able to) then I see no issue with that.

 

Yaron Brook has gone even further towards agreeing with you than I would. He thinks it's okay to completely ban ALL Muslim immigration until we've won our "war on terrorism".

 

The primary thing for both of us is that there is a good and logical reason for any potential immigrant to have any trouble at the border (and in this case I think we'd all agree that "blowing up infidels" is a logical reason for concern) and that nobody is bothered to whom it doesn't apply.

The fact that we're at "war with terrorism" doesn't make it right for us to detain any random Honduran or Columbian immigrant. We should assume their innocence until they show us otherwise.

That's ultimately because we should assume EVERYONE'S innocence at first.

 

 

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6 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

We have a very good reason to give extra-special scrutiny to all Muslim immigrants. And as long as it's based on Objective rules and properly done (so that any Muslim who truly does want to come here for work is able to) then I see no issue with that.

Okay, now how are you initially going to pick out the Muslim from the non-Muslim? Unless you accept my basis for ideological screening, I see your position as impotent and ineffective. You have no objective justification for even asking someone at the border his religion.

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8 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Okay, now how are you initially going to pick out the Muslim from the non-Muslim? Unless you accept my basis for ideological screening, I see your position as impotent and ineffective. You have no objective justification for even asking someone at the border his religion.

 

1. The justification for questioning people at the border is (as you yourself pointed out) the protection of everyone living on this side of it.

Cops are allowed to say "hello" to anyone on the street, and ask them any question they feel like asking. And everyone on the street has the right to walk away without answering, unless they're doing something objectively suspicious.

Why these very same rules would not apply at the border is beyond me.

 

2. Asking if someone is a Muslim to determine whether or not you need to check them for bombs is not the same as asking in order to determine the direction they'll vote a few decades down the line. The former is just being realistic about the kinds of threats we're supposed to be looking for; the latter is policing people's thoughts.

And although it doesn't mean much to the broader point, for this particular example you don't even need to ask. Just LOOK at who's hiding their women in big black bags and go from there. That's exactly what I'd expect any halfway-competent officer to do.

 

Maybe an example would help. One moment.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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My right to move freely wherever I need to go, without being harassed by law enforcement, is a human right that applies to every rational animal on Earth.

You would expect (and WANT) the cops to stop and question you if you were strolling down main Street with a bloody machete. Even if you had a perfectly valid reason to be in that situation, it would be irrational to expect everyone else to know it automatically. But by the same token, you'd be outraged if you got that same treatment for strolling down main Street with a basket of flowers.

And all I'm saying is that those same rules ought to apply to the border.

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23 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Epic music video!

As hilarious as it is, I think it shows an absurdity when any government starts to make ideology part of defending the rights of others. You get a guy like Pinochet who puts in place actual free-market policies, but at the same time made belief in communism or socialism a violation of rights. We get a fight for freedom that quickly turns into secret police and paramilitary kidnappings. I don't think Swig intends that, but there is historical example of the risk of ending up there. It doesn't even take very many steps. We even get free market ideology in there! 

 

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6 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Cops are allowed to say "hello" to anyone on the street, and ask them any question they feel like asking. And everyone on the street has the right to walk away without answering, unless they're doing something objectively suspicious.

Cops are allowed to arrest you with probable cause. Trying to cross the border without paperwork or answering questions by border control is evidence of illegal entry. It seems like you disagree with the validity of laws regulating border crossings. And so it seems like you don't agree with my main argument. My argument is based on property rights.

It seems that your idea of a threat is someone trying to cross with a bomb or a body in a bag. If so, then you only have a justification for physical searches, not for ideological questioning--or even for questioning to determine identity and purpose of travel. Nobody's thoughts are going to physically hurt someone. It's how they act based on those thoughts that's the problem. That's what I mean by ideological threats, and I would restrict or deny entry to activists against individual rights, primarily property rights, which means socialists. I want the United States to radically protect capitalists.

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1 minute ago, Eiuol said:

I don't think Swig intends that, but there is historical example of the risk of ending up there. It doesn't even take very many steps.

Neither do I.

Actually, I'm very sympathetic to a lot of what he's said here. I associate the notion of a "right to immigrate" with Alexandria-whatever-Cortez and Angela Merkel (neither of which am I comfortable to agree with), for one thing. For another, you don't have to invoke the specter of the Nazis to find real-world examples of murderous ideologies whose adherents would love nothing more than for America to open its borders to them. When you think about it, a lot of the concerns voiced by MisterSwig, Nicky and others are not completely without merit.

But you are right. As much as I wanted to avoid playing the "thought-crime" card (or cudgel) this is exactly where it's warranted. There's really no other way to say it.

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13 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Cops are allowed to arrest you with probable cause. Trying to cross the border without paperwork or answering questions by border control is evidence of illegal entry. It seems like you disagree with the validity of laws regulating border crossings. And so it seems like you don't agree with my main argument. My argument is based on property rights.

Correct. Basically.

I'm not advocating for a totally unregulated border (as I keep trying to stress) but certainly one that's less regulated than ours is, today. It's true that I disagree with your main argument, but I'd also add: inasmuch as there can be no contradictory "rights" I don't believe your position is correctly derived from property rights, at all. I can see that's what you were trying to do (and off the top of my head I could not actually say where or how it's wrong) but I don't think that's what you've done. If it were then there couldn't be a "right to immigrate".

 

And does anyone here know the proper legal standing of Ayn Rand's immigration?

 

13 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

It seems that your idea of a threat is someone trying to cross with a bomb or a body in a bag. If so, then you only have a justification for physical searches, not ideological questioning. Nobody's thoughts are going to physically hurt someone.

That's true. And I suppose I shouldn't have used the term "ideological" (sorry) because what I mean is basically just a very sophisticated way of asking "are you gonna blow up any infidels" in a form that most laypeople wouldn't be able to answer with a lie.

 

And at the end of the day, if they don't have a bomb or a body bag and they say "no, sir, I don't want to kill any infidels" then I am saying we should just let them in.

 

I'll be back tomorrow to explain why in more detail.

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44 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Actually, I'm very sympathetic to a lot of what he's said here. I associate the notion of a "right to immigrate" with Alexandria-whatever-Cortez and Angela Merkel (neither of which am I comfortable to agree with), for one thing.

And this should be a sharp alarm for you, because the position is based on a flawed view of rights. I plan to explain that soon in a new topic.

52 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

But you are right. As much as I wanted to avoid playing the "thought-crime" card (or cudgel) this is exactly where it's warranted. There's really no other way to say it.

The fact that a bad government will abuse the power to control its borders is not an argument against ideological screening. It's an argument against bad governments, which is exactly the situation we might avoid if we start controlling for socialist activists. It might be enough simply to state our anti-socialist national policy, as this will help orient our culture away from socialism.

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13 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

It's an argument against bad governments, which is exactly the situation we might avoid if we start controlling for socialist activists.

Is it though? Is it really avoidable? I think the point is that implementing such a policy is the very first step to get a bad government and you can't turn back after that. Immediately all the bad people will take advantage of it, even if it's only one or two people in the entire country. I don't think anyone really thought that Pinochet would kidnap socialists and murder them. You give an inch and someone takes a mile. Sure, as I said, the government operates on promises, but what kind of ideological "vaccination" will there be for the people in government? In my eyes, ideological screening weakens the ideological immune system, which inevitably invites much worse by implicitly giving support to the belief that ideas can be force. It's a promise waiting to be broken.

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14 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

It might be enough simply to state our anti-socialist national policy, as this will help orient our culture away from socialism.

What happens if you ever meet a socialist with something new to say; some points that are actually halfway-decent?

I'm not joking. When I first read 1984 there was a snippet from a fictional book on how 'automation will soon remove the need for anyone to ever have to work again' and it took me several solid days of chewing on that to realize what was wrong with it. Many people (even on this very forum) wouldn't be able to untangle it by themselves and might end up entertaining ideas that are seriously socialistic! Would that make them bad or dangerous people?

Now, if we were to implement your notion consistently (to natives and immigrants alike); if I asked you that question under such a system you'd just deny the very possibility of a good socialistic argument. You would have to. You would know that your privilege to live in your own home comes with strings attached to it; strings that're tied to the most privately personal recesses of your own soul.

At this point a clever socialist might mention Rand's statement "I am not primarily an advocate of Capitalism, but of Reason; the rest proceeds from that" and her identification of "faith" as the real root of all evil; they might ask if we shouldn't be banishing people for political ideas, but for their psycho-epistemological methodology. And that would actually make it far worse.

Because the "thought-crimes" from 1984 are exactly what you're describing. It could not lead to anything good (for anyone involved) because it would be anti-mind and consequently anti-life.

 

This is an evil idea.

 

I know that's not how you're looking at it, but that is what it is. And I don't think you should be punished for that. :thumbsup:

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43 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Because the "thought-crimes" from 1984 are exactly what you're describing.

If you're going to repeat this assertion, perhaps you should provide at least one example. Can you describe a thought-crime in 1984 and show how it's "exactly" like what I'm proposing? If not, you should drop the straw man.

Edited by MisterSwig
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8 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

If you're going to repeat this assertion, perhaps you should provide at least one example. Can you describe a thought-crime in 1984 and show how it's "exactly" like what I'm proposing? If not, you should drop the straw man.

 

Yes, "thought crime" is a very loaded term that people tend to throw around in places it doesn't belong. That's precisely why I'm loathe to use it at all, if I can think of another way of saying it.

But are you really saying that your "ideological screenings" would be something different from that?

 

Are you kidding me?

 

I really can't stress this enough - really??? If I was going to straw man your position then why would I mention in EVERY SINGLE ONE of my most recent posts how it's not a totally insane position to have? And can you honestly not make the connection to 1984 for yourself? Or were you just looking for SOMETHING to say besides "gee, I hadn't looked at it that way and I guess I've got some thinking to do".

 

 

I'm obviously putting WAY more effort into this conversation than you are and it's really starting to frustrate me. Have fun with your straw men.

 

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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17 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Because the "thought-crimes" from 1984 are exactly what you're describing. It could not lead to anything good (for anyone involved) because it would be anti-mind and consequently anti-life.

 

This is an evil idea.

 

9 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

If I was going to straw man your position then why would I mention in EVERY SINGLE ONE of my most recent posts how it's not a totally insane position to have?

Is it an evil, anti-mind, anti-life position--or not a totally insane one? Do you typically sympathize with evil ideas? Is that why you want to let evil socialists into the country? You do realize that Thinkpol was the creation of evil socialists, right? So, am I an evil socialist who hates evil socialists? What exactly is my malfunction?

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19 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Sure, as I said, the government operates on promises, but what kind of ideological "vaccination" will there be for the people in government?

What do you mean? If they went to a good school and read the news, they would have learned all about socialism. We don't let murderers into our country or government, yet somehow we know about murder and that it's evil.

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