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

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Nicky, spare us the Objectivist boilerplate and name-calling.  I’ve stated my concern several times:  I don’t want to be swamped by the Third World.  This is evil?
 

The vast majority of immigrants do not initiate force .... 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. 

 

Not lead in socialist tendencies?  That part is false – overwhelmingly false.  Nicky should investigate the white vs. non-white statistics.  See my previous posts for some introductory references.
 
All illegals initiated force, whether they broke the lock on the door or found an unlocked door.
 
Nobody here said most immigrants commit violent crimes.  Relative ethnic crime rates is another question.   The "stranger violent crime” rate for non-whites, including non-white Hispanics, is much higher than that for whites.  (By stranger violent crime I mean a violent crime where the perpetrator and his victim were previously unknown to one another – the kind of attack against you or yours that you worry about.)  
 
Nicky mentions  "Mexican or Latin American immigrants as a group” then claims that according to me "they should be persecuted for belonging to that group.”  Actually I address foreigners and “illegal immigrants” – that is, more foreigners.   And by opposing open immigration I am not (to paraphrase) “persecuting foreigners.”  That’s  Left-wing  victim talk.
 
To get what they want the Left works to inculcate white self-loathing, or  "liberal white guilt.”  This is the extreme end of the demoralization process I mentioned in an earlier post. 
 
Nicky is right about one thing, he is wasting his time with yours truly.
Edited by HandyHandle
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Nicky, spare us the Objectivist boilerplate

What's with the plural? Are you royalty or siamese twins?

And no. How about instead you start reading the names of forums you join, and avoid the ones about stuff you're not interested in.

Not lead in socialist tendencies?  That part is false – overwhelmingly false.  Nicky should investigate the white vs. non-white statistics.

Why those specific statistics? Are you arguing for the banishment of all non-whites from the US?

Also, did you know that most immigrants to the US are white?

Edited by Nicky
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HandyHandle, I didn't introduce a new argument, but rather I clarified the right to freely associate. The immigrant's right is one side of that coin, the native's right is the other corollary side.

 

Thanks for trying to give me the benefit of the doubt regarding what you saw as the first flaw in my argument. I respect that you imagined my argument in the best possible light - with an unbroken chain of property owners from the border to my doorstep. However, my argument requires no such chain of cooperative property owners. The right to use a property includes the right to travel to and from it and the larger world. If someone purchases the area around my house I retain the right to travel through that area - and to have guests. Imprisonment is an act of force. The law will properly define a passageway that I may use. I will skip the second perceived flaw for now and address it at the end of this post.

Your third perceived flaw rests on the assumption that I assume an immigrant will stay on my property. I make no such assumption. This issue can be addressed by the same principles of free association and travel that I mentioned in the above paragraph. If an immigrant has a right to be on my property, and I a right to provide hospitality, then the same is true for that immigrant and everyone else in the world at large. They need not know each other before hand; the immigrant has a right to seek them out. He must make sure to avoid all properties properly marked by "Private property: no tresspassing" or "No foreigners allowed" signs. But otherwise he may go about his travel much like you or I may and for the same reason: Rights impose an obligation to refrain from using force until force is used.

Your assertion that force is initiated simply by illegally crossing the border stems from your second perceived flaw. Your argument seems to be that because the US has a welfare state, illegal entry is sure to impose a net burden on the welfare system and that burden amounts to force. You are right only in the sense that the welfare state is a use of force, but many other aspects of your argument are false. Firstly, consider that each immigrant represents a different net welfare outcome; some illegal immigrants actually pay more than they will receive. Even if we could assume that an immigrant will be a net drain on the welfare system, there are a couple of false distinctions to consider. One such false distinction is illegal versus legal status. If a(n) (il)legal immigrant is a net drain, then any and all immigration is an act of force. The second false distinction is that a net drain on the welfare system can be treated differently depending on the national status of the recipient. Your argument assumes that the moral status of the citizen recipient is higher than that of the immigrant recipient, but there is actually no truth to this assumption. A net drain represents the same risk to the system no matter who receives the loot.

Acting on these false assumptions is the real use of force. Consider that, by your own admission, closing the borders is an attempt to protect the balance sheet of the welfare state. You are violating my rights and the rights of the immigrant to protect a welfare system that is itself immoral. And again, by your own admission, closing the borders is an attempt to control how people vote. If it were moral for you to use force to influence the outcome of a vote, why stop at immigrants? Why not use force to bar welfare recipients from voting, or their children from citizenship? There may be a good argument for non-automatic citizenship. But even so, voter rolls must not be determined by which party benefits from the particular demographics; rather, they must be determined by objective criteria.
 

Edited by FeatherFall
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If we liken a foreigner to a piece of goods, then an American can bring him over, or have him brought over, despite intervening land owners who don’t like it by obtaining a right-of-way easement against them. 
 
I had assumed that the American would make no attempt to keep the foreigner or quasi-immigrant on FeatherFall’s property.  (“Quasi-immigrant” because he isn’t a citizen and can’t vote – “not right away” as The Undercurrent  says.)  Without that assumption my objection becomes stronger.  The point was that keeping him on the farm or whatever was impossible.  Not even attempting it gives away the show from the beginning.  Just one American willing to say “come on over” then over they all can come, everywhere.  
 
FeatherFall points out that the quasi-immigrant can use a chain of like-minded Americans, who allow him on their property, to travel around the country.  This will end up being everywhere an American can go whether Americans object to it or not.  Today there are laws governing “public places” (even if privately owned), so-called civil rights laws (which violate civil rights), laws governing emergency rooms, there are the police, courts and so forth – as I mentioned earlier.  And as I argued, these quasi-immigrants become voting immigrants and a political force. 
 
The existing welfare situation makes my position stronger but isn’t  necessary to object to all this.  Suppose, contrary to fact, there were no welfare.  Today, most Third world immigrants (most new immigrants today) vote for welfare whether they are productive or not.  The posited no-welfare state would soon be under siege.   See my earlier references  and  this one.
Edited by HandyHandle
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... some illegal immigrants actually pay more than they will receive. 

 
And for many the reverse. Whatever.  Whether they are on welfare or not, most Third Worlders vote welfare.

 

Your argument assumes that the moral status of the citizen recipient is higher than that of the immigrant recipient ...

 

No, I observe that current immigrants are more likely than native Americans to vote for the candidate promoting the most welfare.  See end of last post.
 

... by your own admission, closing the borders is an attempt to protect the balance sheet of the welfare state. 

 

Not quite.   An immigration moratorium like we had before 1968 will help prevent the growth of welfare-statism, and help end it.  We ought to be proud  of the attempt.

 

... by your own admission, closing the borders is an attempt to control how people vote. 

 

Not at all.  An immigration moratorium will prevent foreigners who by and large would vote welfare from becoming such voters.  FeatherFall turns the clock forwards and back simultaneously, as if Asians, Africans and Hispanics etc have a right to decide U.S. elections even before they move here.
 

Why not use force to bar welfare recipients from voting ...

 

Why not, per above, help end welfare so they cannot be  recipients?

Edited by HandyHandle
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My argument requires no chain of like-minded property owners. I didn't bring it up; that was your invention. Such a chain is irrelevant to this discussion. 

Voting procedures need to be set to ensure that people have a hand in their government. The best way to establish such procedures is open for debate. Such a debate will never include a mechanism by which people are disenfranchised for how they might choose to vote. That's naked tribalism.

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Quasi-immigrants possess the same legal rights as Americans except the vote, until they get that too.  Therefore, we should care about these immigrants, care about their culture, how they act and think, how they will behave and vote.  If they are worse than the average American, they will make America worse.
 
Laws do not make us good.  The best legal system imaginable would collapse if we did not by and large act decently when the law isn’t looking.
 
Open immigration is like adding vinegar to wine.  The label on the bottle isn’t going to keep the wine from turning vinegary.
 
Regarding voting procedure FeatherFall admonishes:
 

... never include a mechanism by which people are disenfranchised for how they might choose to vote.

 

But foreigners aren’t franchised to begin with.  How could they be dis-enfranchised?  The real question is whether everyone in Asia, Africa, Latin America, etc should be offered the U.S. franchise in the first place.
 
The answer is, No!  If you want to keep America, it’s flaming obvious
 
We don’t need a reason to exclude foreigners, we may exclude any foreigner for any reason or no reason.   The claim that, on the contrary, a foreigner has an inalienable right to move here, negates the idea of a country, negates my vote, yours too probably, and makes a mockery of rights. 
 
Individual rights, individual rights.  Why must we give up our freedom and way of life – it will be taken from us much faster – for a foreigner?  Only stupid, colossal, self-sacrifice could justify it.
 
Race is a factor whether we like it or not.  Today most non-whites (immigrant and native) vote welfare and most whites do not (though a significant percentage do).  The total determines the winner.  In the 2012 presidential election about 60% of whites voted for Romney, yet he lost.  
 
If Obama makes your gorge rise, then so should the immigration disaster.
 
Harry Binswanger and Yaron Brook give the impression that on average new immigrants are at least as freedom-loving as the America they moved to.  That simply isn’t true.  Again, look at the evidence.  Exceptions do not disprove the overwhelming trend.  (See pervious links.)
 
We are at the tipping point of no return.  Why make things worse than they are already?  Without violating anyone’s rights we can stop making things worse by instituting a moratorium on immigration like the one we had before 1968.  Take the opportunity for goodness’ sake.
 
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Considering that the Cherokee, Navaho, and so many others that resided on this continent did not lay the intellectual groundwork that culminated in the formulation of these united states, - the evidence appears to support that America, from it's roots to its inception, was founded by immigrants.

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Quasi-immigrants possess the same legal rights as Americans except the vote, until they get that too.  Therefore, we should care about these immigrants, care about their culture, how they act and think, how they will behave and vote.  If they are worse than the average American, they will make America worse.

Again: if you want to socially engineer this country, why are you so focused on a single group? Why not make America as good as it can be, by getting rid of everyone who is behaving and voting against America's interests (also called the "common good" by your fellow collectivists)?

 

Jews for instance are widely known to vote overwhelmingly Liberal. Same with Blacks, 99% of them voted for Obama. Don't get me started on homosexuals. They're as left leaning as it gets. Why not eliminate them all? Wouldn't America be a better place if you did?

 

Can you think of ANY reason why Hitler was wrong?

Edited by Nicky
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I hope Nicky can think of a few.  But of course he’s not really asking me, he’s saying I think Hitler was right.  I’ll ignore the slur except to point it out.
 
It is the immigrationists who are changing the country, I want to preserve it.   
 
Hart-Cellar was social engineering on steroids. 
 
When speaking of immigration we are talking about foreigners, not Americans.  As I have argued, restricting immigration (of foreigners, naturally) – any focus, any reason, no reason – doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.   No foreigner has a right to U.S. citizenship.  
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Considering that the Cherokee, Navaho ... [et al]  that resided on this continent did not lay the intellectual groundwork that culminated in [the U.S.]  – the evidence appears to support that America, from it's roots to its inception, was founded by immigrants.

 

So now we must give America back to the Indians?
 
I prefer the Pilgrims.  You might say I was mugged by reality.
 
The following is my abridgement of a paragraph from  “Huddled Clichés,”  an essay by the late Lawrence Auster subtitled  “Exposing the Fraudulent Arguments That Have Opened America’s Borders to the World”:
 
Imagine what the British would have said if they had adopted “we are a nation of immigrants” as a guide in 1940 when facing imminent invasion by Germany.  “Look, we’re a nation of invaders.  First the Celts took the land from the Neolithics, then the Anglo-Saxons drove out the Celts, then the Normans subjugated the Anglo-Saxons.  In between were Danish invaders and Viking marauders.  Since we ourselves are descended from invaders, who are we to oppose yet another invasion of this island?  Being invaded is our national tradition!”
 
An immigration enthusiast might reply to that satire:  Don’t speak to me of invaders.  America is an idea, a philosophy, a “propositional nation.”  By choosing to come here an immigrant signs on to the American ideal.
 
But do they, the immigrants of today?  Rich or poor, about three quarters vote authoritarian government.   This doesn’t faze immigrationists, they just keep plugging away.  “We are a nation of immigrants.”  They used the same cliché to get the Immigration Act of 1965 passed, when it would have been less misleading to say:  “We are a nation of Western immigrants.”  
 
In 1776, when Founders walked the earth, we were a nation of British colonialists.  Saying “we are a nation of immigrants, any ol’ immigrants”  is saying we are a nation of nothing.
 
I have been emphasizing the vote because objective, simple, unarguable facts about elections and polls of political attitudes prove the restrictionist case.  But the problem with open immigration is even worse than that more  immigrants will vote us into dictatorship.  America is not just an idea or abstract creed.  America is a culture, manners, language, literature, history, tradition, customs, moral exemplars.  And all that is slowly being destroyed by unrestricted immigration.  
 
The Left loves it, which is to be expected.  But Objectivists?  Except for Leonard Peikoff (on again off again), the official ones deny it is even happening.
Edited by HandyHandle
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I don't think I suggested that America should be given back to the Indians.

Culture, manners, language, literature, history, tradition, customs, moral exemplars are all ideas used to abstract creeds. As such, it is a proper understanding of these aspects that do more to uphold and prevent long term deterioration. Blaming immigration for the erosion misses the crux.

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Several political factors contribute to America’s decline, and unrestricted immigration is the worst because irreversible.  If you are sick from drinking wood alcohol, drinking more wood alcohol will make you even sicker.  The fact that unrestricted immigration isn’t the sole cause of America’s decline doesn't mean we should continue committing suicide.
 
Of course these causes of decline themselves have causes, and one of the most far reaching is fear of standing up for yourself.  After decades of multicultural propaganda people are afraid to criticize immigration.  You get the treatment if you do.  
 
But a sea change is in the air.  The immigration disaster is reaching critical mass, when it will become impossible to reverse America’s decline by political means, and more and more Americans are beginning to wake up to the fact.
 
By the way, libertarians  (loosely defined) are practically all immigration enthusiasts.  One notable exception is Ilana Mercer, well worth reading on this subject.  (Sometimes she annoys – me anyway.  Comparing the alleged right of a foreigner to move here to the alleged Palestinian “right of return” is a stretch.   Her analogy might help convince people who have friends in Israel, but it’s not a complete argument.  Ethiopians etc. never lived within what came to be America, for one thing.  This is not to argue for “right of return” but to point out that the restrictionist position for America is stronger than the Israeli position against “right of return.”)
Edited by HandyHandle
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I hope Nicky can think of a few.  But of course he’s not really asking me, he’s saying I think Hitler was right.  I’ll ignore the slur except to point it out.

 

It is the immigrationists who are changing the country, I want to preserve it.   

 

Hart-Cellar was social engineering on steroids. 

 

When speaking of immigration we are talking about foreigners, not Americans.  As I have argued, restricting immigration (of foreigners, naturally) – any focus, any reason, no reason – doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.   No foreigner has a right to U.S. citizenship.

You're not trying to deny them US citizenship, you're trying to deny them freedom of movement and employment.
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I could have written:  No Afghani, Bolivian, Cambodian, Dane, Ethiopian or whatever has a right to come here, take up residence, take advantage of every aspect of U.S. citizenship except – and the exception wouldn’t last long as I have argued at length and even most immigrationists admit (and Leftists hope for) – the vote.
 
He has no right to move here at all.  
 
When something seems possible in theory but is impossible in practice, there’s something wrong with the theory.  Saying an Afghani or whatever could move here yet always remain on private property is so outlandish a proposition I wonder why anyone has to point it out.
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Saying an Afghani or whatever could move here yet always remain on private property is so outlandish a proposition I wonder why anyone has to point it out.

 

Dude, you're being obtuse. Nobody needs to stay on private property - so repeatedly knocking down that strawman will get you nowhere. In fact, doing so demeans every other argument you might try to make; it triggers our pattern-recognizing brains to look for more evidence of dishonesty rather than to shed the best light on your argument.

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.... I respect that you imagined my argument in the best possible light - with an unbroken chain of property owners from the border to my doorstep. However, my argument requires no such chain of cooperative property owners. The right to use a property includes the right to travel to and from it and the larger world. If someone purchases the area around my house I retain the right to travel through that area - and to have guests. Imprisonment is an act of force. The law will properly define a passageway that I may use.

 

 

This is just false. There are "landlocked" properties, created not having an easement through adjacent properties. While it is usual custom to create properties having a formal easement when landlocked, that is by no means automatic. Some easements are informal agreements and become void when disagreements between property owners arise. Many banks will not lend for home construction on landlocked properties for a number of obvious reasons. Even so, there are quite a number of landlocked properties in the US and other areas around the world. If you buy a landlocked property, be prepared to fly in. Your neighbors are under no obligation to left you pass on the ground. They are entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of their property, and have no obligation to help you in any way. The law makes no such defined passageway.

Edited by aleph_1
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Whatever.  The existence of landlocked property doesn’t hurt my argument, and immigration enthusiasts will say that a foreigner has a right to deal with landlocked property the same way as an American.

 

Dude, you're being obtuse. Nobody needs to stay on private property - so repeatedly knocking down that strawman will get you nowhere. In fact, doing so demeans every other argument you might try to make; it triggers our pattern-recognizing brains to look for more evidence of dishonesty rather than to shed the best light on your argument.

 

Naturally I don’t think I’m obtuse or dishonest here.  Part of FeatherFall’s second sentence warrants a reply.
 
If the foreigner comes here he is somewhere, either on public property or on private property – or on private property unjustly treated as public by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but in the even subsume that property in “public property.”  Unless the foreigner is in perpetual motion, now and then he will pause in his travels, again either in a public or a private place.  
 
"Nobody needs to stay on private property”  means  "Everybody can stay now and then on public property.”  In this discussion the bodies FeatherFall refers to are Americans and foreigners combined.  
 
Thus he claims that every man on earth from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe has as much right to use American public property as an American does.
Edited by HandyHandle
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@Aleph_1, the paragraph you quoted is not false. If I had easement rights prior to purchase of the surrounding areas, a just system would allow me to retain those limited rights of travel. While you're right in the sense that not every case of surrounded property deserves such easement, that's not really material to the discussion. HandyHandle maintains that no such easements should exist, especially with regard to immigrants.

@HandyHandle, I'm right about public property. To paraphrase Rand, "It's a collectivist fiction."

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I thought FeatherFall was thinking of public versus private property when he wrote "Nobody needs to stay on private property."  I read that with emphasis on “private property”  and thought:  where does he think they can be?   
 
However if his emphasis is on "stay,"  what then?  Nobody ever needs to pause in their travels?  That would be absurd.
 
Distinguishing between  perpetually traveling around the country  and  remaining in one place  gets us ... nowhere.
 
Added:  "Public property" may be an invalid concept, but there are public parks, public schools, sidewalks, streets, etc.  Then there is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 regarding businesses that violates freedom of association.
Edited by HandyHandle
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... If I had easement rights prior to purchase of the surrounding areas,.... 

 

This is just the problem. You do not have the right to presuppose an easement exists.

 

 

While you're right in the sense that not every case of surrounded property deserves such easement, that's not really material to the discussion.

 

 

The way I see it, it is exactly pertinent to the discussion. A person does not have the right to cross any property he does not own or have an easement granting him the right to cross. There is no "right" to cross a property. To claim such is a false sense of rights.

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This is just the problem. You do not have the right to presuppose an easement exists.

 

 

 

The way I see it, it is exactly pertinent to the discussion. A person does not have the right to cross any property he does not own or have an easement granting him the right to cross. There is no "right" to cross a property. To claim such is a false sense of rights.

That really is an awesome way to argue. To claim otherwise is just not awesome. And not being awesome isn't awesome, so don't do it.
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Nothing but empty rhetoric, "don't do it.”
 
Aleph_1  has a point.  Right-of-way can't be used automatically or everywhere, not if we respect property rights.
 
In post #6 I said I was sick of reading about unspeakable crimes committed by Third World immigrants.  Nicky should read about them, say the latest development in the case of Juan Garcia: Hispanic Immigrants Taking Over FBI's Ten Most Wanted.
Edited by HandyHandle
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Nothing but empty rhetoric, "don't do it.”

 

Aleph_1  has a point.  Right-of-way can't be used automatically or everywhere, not if we respect property rights.

 

In post #6 I said I was sick of reading about unspeakable crimes committed by Third World immigrants.  Nicky should read about them, say the latest development in the case of Juan Garcia: Hispanic Immigrants Taking Over FBI's Ten Most Wanted.

I'm sick of reading unspeakable crimes committed by Jews. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_American_mobsters

It's time to deport all Jews. And gays: http://www.officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com/showthread.php?t=905

Oh, and white men: http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/serial.htm

Wait a minute. I'm a white man too. Ok, forget about this last one. I can live with reading about unspeakable crimes committed by white men. But unspeakable crimes committed by Jews and gays I'm tired of.

Oh, and throw in Italians too. They'll turn this country into a Mafia empire. I don't like those kinds of people. I don't like them coming into this clean country with their oily hair, dressed up in those silk suits, and trying to pass themselves off as decent Americans. I dislike their masquerade - the dishonest way they pose themselves. Them and their whole fucking families.

Edited by Nicky
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