Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

spot.colorado.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 130 posts

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#91

Post by mc32 »

coldtea wrote: post #79
mc32 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to ask this question, then you might want also ask how would they had fared had Cuba and USSR succeeded in those places, it's not as though we don't have people fleeing post-USSR countries like Cuba, Georgia and Russia and Ukraine, etc. And how much is Russia taking in for their past internationalist activities? I think the answer in the current world political context should be obvious if we consider…

> If you're going to ask this question, then you might want also ask how would they had fared had Cuba and USSR succeeded in those places Better? Cuba, considering the embargo that fucked them twice over, is better off compared to most of the hell-holes intervention created in Latin America. Even as a dictatorship it's much more benign compared to people like Pinochet that was supported, put in place, and much belove…

I'm not sure we can reach that conclusion. Many of those places were industrializing with light industries before the ussr and Cuba meddled. Another issue is and was demographic growth and transitioning from rural to urban societies which created social issues the user and Cuba tried to leverage in their quest to evangelize their political and economic systems.

Also, do we ask something from the UK for embargoing us for a couple hundred years?

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#92

Post by coldtea »

fiatjaf wrote: post #53
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, if the state is illegitimate, then there are no landowners. You are a landowner only in as much as the state guarantees your right to the land, or (the only other alternative) as much as you can protect and enforce your rights to your land. So, without a state, some big bullies with access to better guns will have you for breakfast. Besides, who gave you this "right" to the land in the first place? Only a seri…

> You are a landowner only in as much as the state guarantees your right to the land, or (the only other alternative) as much as you can protect and enforce your rights to your land. You think you are so clever to come up with this argument that you imagine will end the discussion, isn't it? In the following passages you recognize that it is difficult to know who is the "right" owner of something, but before you were…

>You think you are so clever to come up with this argument that you imagine will end the discussion, isn't it?

No, I just think the argument I responded to was obviously half-thought, to put it mildly.

Mine is not particularly clever, not very original. It's just a statement of fact.

>In the following passages you recognize that it is difficult to know who is the "right" owner of something, but before you were saying that the State de facto owns everything. So what is it?

I fail to see the contradiction. Confused much?

The fact that, as I acknowledged, it's difficult to know who is the "right" owner of something, e.g. some land, it's totally orthogonal to my other point.

I didn't say the State enforces the "right" ownership. Just that it enforces the existing ownership rights -- whether they are "right" (ultimately justified) or not. It's a fact that the State has the power to, and does, enforce the property rights currently in existence in the US. That's a statement of fact.

Second, I never said that "the State de facto owns everything" (although they could). Just that they de facto enforce all property rights. Anyone claiming to own a piece of land in the US, must pass through the state procedures to prove so -- else it is not considered theirs, and is taken away from them.

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#93

Post by fixxer »

mozumder wrote: post #83
classicsnoot wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, rather i hope, you forgot the /s tag. I find it interesting that many purportedly non-americans seem to think that Westboro Baptist Church has widespread support, gays and undesirables are hunted down if they stray from the Safe Zone, and children recite the pledge every ten minutes while we burn a book written by a jew. Good to hear that Germany is finally considering legalizing gay marriage, BTW.

So, do you think our current right-wing government will ban gay marriage?

If anything, they'll push it back to the states to decide. I put zero probability of a Federal ban on marriage equality.

My friends on the left always push for universal, top down rulings on social issues. In reality, there are really good reasons historically for why groups move and congregate within the United States - they get better treatment and opportunity in different places. States rights is a safety net against political swings like we're dealing with and we should all support it not because we like what Alabama or Indiana wants, but because we want California or New York to be able to represent and manage itself.

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#94

Post by CuriouslyC »

MichaelGG wrote: post #34
coldtea wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make any sense. "A democracy is only legitimate to the extent that people choose to participate in it" is correct, but only applies to the people within the bounds of the democratic state -- those upon which the effects of the democratic decisions will be applied to. Not to arbitrarily anyone. So refusing the vote to blacks or women etc, within a state is undemocratic, refusing the entry to the state (an…

This is what I never see addressed, and it certainly must be helping the "right wing" groups because it seems so obvious. Given a choice, the majority of the world would choose to move to Europe or North America. I'd bet if you polled, say, Guatemala, and offered everyone free residency and resettlement in the US, you'd have acceptance numbers over 80% at least. And a lot of the people choosing to stay would be those…

In my travels in third world countries, I've observed that the people are often tremendously proud of their national identity, and strongly connected with their culture. Emigrating is not a step people take lightly. Of course, if you take someone who's sick and starving and offer them a free lunch and medical care they're going to jump at the opportunity, but I am willing to bet that if in most cases they would prefer to get those things in the context of their own country rather than having to relocate.

It is worth noting that the trend in migration from Mexico to the USA has actually reversed lately.

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#95

Post by classicsnoot »

mozumder wrote: post #83
classicsnoot wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, rather i hope, you forgot the /s tag. I find it interesting that many purportedly non-americans seem to think that Westboro Baptist Church has widespread support, gays and undesirables are hunted down if they stray from the Safe Zone, and children recite the pledge every ten minutes while we burn a book written by a jew. Good to hear that Germany is finally considering legalizing gay marriage, BTW.

So, do you think our current right-wing government will ban gay marriage?

Do i think the Federal Government will ban gay marriage?

No. What would the motivation be? What would be the precedent[s] cited?

Do i think the Federal Government would not mount an active defense of gay marriage if a given state sought to outlaw it?

Maybe. It would depend on the state and precedent[s] used to justify the endeavor.

May i pose a non sequitur query? What was the Women's March on the day after the Trumpnoguration protesting? What legislation, executive actions, or campaign promises were they seeking to highlight and defeat?

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#96

Post by pimmen89 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #23
WillyOnWheels wrote: post #14

The United States has plenty of moral responsibility to accept immigrants from countries in Central America after spending billions screwing them up with dirty secret wars in the 70s and 80s.

How does that help? Letting in a small percentage of the population while the rest still lives in terrible conditions isn't much of a solution. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like much short of near colonization will fix these places on any reasonable timescale. Simply sending money/aid programs might alleviate a bit but an outside solution is needed to properly coordinate/manage resources.

I didn't say that, I said that even if only a few people could move it could help. You asked "How would that help?"

I'm not saying that remittances from some lucky people who have the means to move are the solution to world poverty, but they help. If you don't want to do anything that helps, but won't solve the problem in three seconds flat without any side effects, then I'm all ears of what your suggestion is?

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#97

Post by wz1000 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #74
wz1000 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like much short of near colonization will fix these places on any reasonable timescale. Simply sending money/aid programs might alleviate a bit but an outside solution is needed to properly coordinate/manage resources. This view is simply ignorant of history. The US doesn't need to colonize countries to "manage resources" for them in a benevolent way. The first thing it needs to do is…

That's great, meanwhile what's an actual solution for today? You've got hilariously corrupt governments and incompetence at every level of society. Stuff doesn't work and people are resigned to it. High performers will do their best to insulate themselves or emigrate. Just because the US went halfway in meddling before doesn't mean that a proper setup (replacing local government with a governor) would not work. If th…

Like I said,

> Interestingly, "benevolent" management of resources that "primitives" mishandle has been a justification for nearly all colonization programs in the past few centuries, except perhaps what the Belgians did in the Congo.

Even US foreign aid is distributed in a way completely subservient to US geopolitical interests. The perhaps most chilling example(and there are many examples) of this would be when the US denied food aid to Bangaldesh in '74, when the country was undergoing a massive famine(which ultimately led to the deaths of 4 million people). This wasn't just a simple denial, but an act of ransom against an impoverished, suffering people who just won their independence from a genocide-committing, US-backed Pakistan. The Americans had initially promised food aid to Bangladesh, and this aid was ready to deliver, when the Bangladeshis were told that they had to immediately cease all trade relations with Cuba to see any of it. Not only was Cuba one of the few trading partners of Bangladesh at the time, but also one of the first few countries to recognize their independence and status as a nation. By the time Bangladeshi leaders agreed to this demand, the famine was largely over and had claimed the bulk of its victims. US aid finally arrived too late to be of any use.

All of this was at the same time as when America was giving massive quantities of grain as food "aid" to South Vietnam, which was on its own a surplus food producing country. The grain given to South Vietnam was used(indeed, meant to be used) as barter in exchange for weapons from other countries. Just another instance of when American "charity" is used for American geopolitical interests rather than any meaningful form of charity.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that a nation state, especially one with the track record of the US, can be trusted to "benevolently" interfere with other countries. The only thing it will do, indeed can do, given the power structures that comprise it, is act in its own best interests, which are often as not to the detriment of the host country.

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#98

Post by fixxer »

mozumder wrote: post #88
fixxer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NIMBYism is rationalism. It is irrational to think you can/should have policies in your system to serve people from a separate system. It presumes that you can establish a metric for right and wrong that applies to others, which is really just jingoism. Edit: wrt your 'A', there is a massive amount of things not said about how immigrants take on the values of their new country. Cato has published a few papers on that…

Economics is rationalism. Literally. And economics has no concern about the well-being of any social group. If another social group creates more wealth than yours do via immigration, guess what? Your social group dies. If a bunch of marauding dark-skinned anti-gay Muslims practicing Sharia law creates more wealth than sweet, huggable white libertarians with flowers in their hands, guess who's going to dominate? There…

White nationalism doesn't exist. This is just a label invented to explain why the Democrats have lost influence among middle-class America in places like Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa...

The left, however, is a real thing. When I worked with Obama's people, I worked with people that identified as "anarcho-socialists" that openly discussed entitlement expansion as a means to break the system. I could not invent the crap I heard these people say.

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#99

Post by fixxer »

classicsnoot wrote: post #95
mozumder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, do you think our current right-wing government will ban gay marriage?

Do i think the Federal Government will ban gay marriage? No. What would the motivation be? What would be the precedent[s] cited? Do i think the Federal Government would not mount an active defense of gay marriage if a given state sought to outlaw it? Maybe. It would depend on the state and precedent[s] used to justify the endeavor. May i pose a non sequitur query? What was the Women's March on the day after the Trump…

My friends who went to the March still have no idea what they were _not_ protesting. Saul Alinsky would be mortified to see how unfocused activism is today.

Re: Is There a Right to Immigrate? (2010)

#100

Post by mozumder »

fixxer wrote: post #98
mozumder wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economics is rationalism. Literally. And economics has no concern about the well-being of any social group. If another social group creates more wealth than yours do via immigration, guess what? Your social group dies. If a bunch of marauding dark-skinned anti-gay Muslims practicing Sharia law creates more wealth than sweet, huggable white libertarians with flowers in their hands, guess who's going to dominate? There…

White nationalism doesn't exist. This is just a label invented to explain why the Democrats have lost influence among middle-class America in places like Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa... The left, however, is a real thing. When I worked with Obama's people, I worked with people that identified as "anarcho-socialists" that openly discussed entitlement expansion as a means to break the system. I could not invent the crap I…

I agree that white nationalism exists, especially with white-nationalists like Bannon in control of our government. They are truly a dangerous group that doesn't represent America's multi-cultural values.

We have to make sure that white-nationalism is purged from this country, and an open-borders society is probably the best way to fight-off white-nationalism.

We need to make sure a Sharia-law supporting Muslim is able to freely immigrate into this country and sit freely and peacefully alongside a Brazilian transgendered activist on our subways.

That is the multiculturalism that we Americans want.

Post reply on HN