Shameful Display of Anarchy and Violence

[InfraBeat]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:19 PM, tadmjones said:

How can a government infringe on noncitizen legal rights by defining strictures and requirements for entry? The idea or remedy for such an infringement presupposes a morality based  entity ‘higher’ than the country’s sovereignty over ‘itself’ and its laws.
If this is the argument then I assume morality supersedes legal institutions, ipso facto , nation states are a priori immoral, no ?

That argument doesn't work. 

(1) If a government doesn't provide a remedy for a violation of a right, then that does not entail that the violated right is not a moral right. Let's say I have a moral right to purchase almonds, but a jurisdiction makes it illegal to buy almonds, and even the Supreme Court upholds the jurisdiction's legal right to disallow buying almonds. Then I have no remedy for the violation of my moral right to buy a bag of almonds, but it is still my moral right.

(2) Moral rights are not limited to what sovereign states recognize as rights. That holds especially if one eschews moral relativity, in which case one holds that moral rights are not relative to whatever particular jurisdictions happen to recognize as rights. Surely, it is a human right not to be summarily executed by a death squad, even though some governments not only allow death squads but they are part of the police or military of the governments themselves. 

(3) It is a non sequitur to go from "moral rights are not relative to jurisdictions" to "therefore, it is immoral to have jurisdictions'. 

Edited May 15 by InfraBeat

[InfraBeat]

On 4/9/2023 at 10:16 AM, tadmjones said:

unlimited immigration would be a more politically palatable situation if immigrants were charged a one time fee equivalent to a fair estimation of the average payroll/income tax a citizen would have contributed by the age of emigration.

That doesn't make sense to me. 

People first entering the country haven't taken benefits (whether in the form of financial assistance or public opportunities such as roads, schools and libraries) from the country all the time they were not yet in the country. It doesn't make sense that they should have to pay for benefits they haven't taken. Meanwhile, citizens start taking benefits from birth or from the start residence and/or citizenship. 

Citizens don't pay such fees - not at birth nor at age of majority. Meanwhile, it seems fair that a person entering a country would be legally obligated to pay taxes just like all citizens, residents and visitors; that is, a person is legally obligated to pay taxes from the moment of appearance in the country - either from birth or by entering from outside the borders.

Edited May 15 by InfraBeat

[necrovore]

3 hours ago, InfraBeat said:

But, if I understand, you claim that a jurisdiction does have a moral right to use force to stop people from entering public property in the jurisdiction.

Actually I never said anything about public property.

[InfraBeat]

4 hours ago, necrovore said:

Actually I never said anything about public property.

Yes, I misunderstood your passage about the formation of a "jurisdiction". 

So, if I understand correctly now, your view is that (1) it is morally allowed that private property owners (individually or in association) bar people (non-citizens or citizens) from entering the owners' private property. [That is no a matter of contention here.] But (2) you have not said whether it is morally allowed for a jurisdiction to bar non-citizens from entering public property. 

 

[tadmjones]

11 hours ago, InfraBeat said:

That doesn't make sense to me. 

People first entering the country haven't taken benefits (whether in the form of financial assistance or public opportunities such as roads, schools and libraries) from the country all the time they were not yet in the country. It doesn't make sense that they should have to pay for benefits they haven't taken. Meanwhile, citizens start taking benefits from birth or from the start residence and/or citizenship. 

Citizens don't pay such fees - not at birth nor at age of majority. Meanwhile, it seems fair that a person entering a country would be legally obligated to pay taxes just like all citizens, residents and visitors; that is, a person is legally obligated to pay taxes from the moment of appearance in the country - either from birth or by entering from outside the borders.

Citizens of a welfare state have their wealth taxed before they receive benefits also, the line of reasoning I was using here was that in a welfare state unlimited immigration is fiscally untenable and politically unpalatable.

[Doug Morris]

14 hours ago, necrovore said:

If a property owner can say "no trespassing" then a group of property owners can join together into a "jurisdiction" and also say "no trespassing."

This would require unanimity to be morally justified.  And the justification would cease if the unanimity ceases, if for example someone who does not agree inherits or buys one of the properties.

 

[necrovore]

I would like to recommend that these posts about immigration be moved to another thread. I'm not sure what to title the new thread, though.

"Public property" is sort of an anomaly, since in a capitalist system all property should be privately owned, but I suppose public property could be considered "jointly owned" by taxpayers (or, without taxes, by those who voluntarily fund the government). "Government property" such as courthouses and military bases is also jointly owned by taxpayers, but it is not open to the public for general purposes.

"Public property" has to be run in such a way that it does not infringe the rights of any minority, and this would require that, if even one property owner wants to allow immigrants on his property, the immigrants must also be allowed to traverse the pubic property in order to get there. (I think this fits with Doug Morris's point above.)

[InfraBeat]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

Citizens of a welfare state have their wealth taxed before they receive benefits also, the line of reasoning I was using here was that in a welfare state unlimited immigration is fiscally untenable and politically unpalatable.

I don't know what the economic implications of unrestricted immigration would be for the United States. But for the sake of argument, I would accept the premise the implications would be dire. But the question of practicality is not the question of moral action. I'm interested in whether jurisdictions have a moral right to use force against people moving around. That is a question about jurisdictions in general, not only pertaining to the United States in its particular circumstances or even to other nations that provide welfare.

If one holds that governments may morally use force only to protect rights, then that does not include using force to prevent a bad economic situation. One may oppose providing welfare, but that is separate from whether governments have a moral right to use force to prevent people from moving from place to place. 

/

Citizens also may receive welfare before they have paid taxes.

Edited May 15 by InfraBeat

[InfraBeat]

deleted by poster

Edited May 15 by InfraBeat

[InfraBeat]

40 minutes ago, necrovore said:

"Public property" has to be run in such a way that it does not infringe the rights of any minority, and this would require that, if even one property owner wants to allow immigrants on his property, the immigrants must also be allowed to traverse the pubic property in order to get there.

I think that follows from a non-collectivist, rights-protecting viewpoint.

But I think we can go further: Even if not a single private property owner wants anyone to enter his property, then still non-citizens have a moral right to enter public property. 

So there are two prongs: The moral right of private property owners to have guests enter their property. And the moral right of non-citizens to enter public property.

Edited May 15 by InfraBeat

[InfraBeat]

3 hours ago, necrovore said:

in a capitalist system all property should be privately owned, but I suppose public property could be considered "jointly owned" by taxpayers (or, without taxes, by those who voluntarily fund the government). [...] "Public property" has to be run in such a way that it does not infringe the rights of any minority, and this would require that, if even one property owner wants to allow immigrants on his property, the immigrants must also be allowed to traverse the pubic property in order to get there. 

In either case - funders either as taxpayers or as voluntary contributors - would determinations about use of public property be made by voting? Would the amount funders contribute give them greater weight in voting? Or, suppose there was a person who no funder wanted to be visited by? Could the funders disallow that person from entering public property? Suppose a person lives in a house but doesn't pay taxes or make voluntary contributions; could the funders disallow him from entering public property, so he'd be stuck in his house?

Edited May 15 by InfraBeat

[necrovore]

3 minutes ago, InfraBeat said:

In either case - funders either as taxpayers or as voluntary contributors - would the funders have a moral right to determine all aspects of entry onto public property? Would the funders have a moral right to disallow left-handed people from entering private property? Would such determinations be made by voting? Would the amount funders contribute give them greater weight in voting? If a person missed paying dues one month, could he be disallowed from waking on public sidewalks until he got caught up in his payments?

It would take whole books to answer all these questions...

[InfraBeat]

10 minutes ago, necrovore said:

It would take whole books to answer all these questions...

I don't doubt that they are difficult questions, but isn't it reasonable to ask for at least a rough idea? The notion of such a system is at least several decades old, so wouldn't there already be such outlines, or better, a systematic prospectus? 

Edited May 15 by InfraBeat