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Why is driving a privilege, yet visiting the USA is seen by some as a human right for all of our species? What claim does a random foreigner have on the USA th

by VLM 10y ago

Why is driving a privilege, yet visiting the USA is seen by some as a human right for all of our species? What claim does a random foreigner have on the USA that ranks their desire to visit above the commander in chief's desire for them not to visit, in other words why is the desire of the elected president believed by some to rank lower than the desire of any random non-citizen human visitor? It seems an incredibly peculiar ranking. Why are some countries allowed to control who visits them, and some are not? Why is the USA one of the countries that is not allowed to have any border controls? Is that, pragmatically, successful? Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form, rather than the somewhat more likely and seemingly easier to convince specifics of this individual border control ruling being wrong? If this regulation or law needs to be repealed because it can be "proven" wrong (where proving amounts to yelling really intimidatingly loud) then why is only this regulation or law being targeted as opposed to NORML or the IRS or a bazillion other laws and regulations which are both more likely to be nonsense and hurting more people?

jcranmer 10y ago
> Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form, rather than the somewhat more likely and seemingly easier to convince specifics of this individual border control ruling being wrong? Context is everything. The US is already regarded as having a well-working, effective screening process for visa and refugee applications. This means that it's hard to find any justification for drastic, emergency-sounding restrictions. Particularly since Trump was well-known for espousing a religious test ("Muslim ban") on the campaign trail, Giuliani says this is what he suggested when asked how to implement the Muslim ban, and the government hasn't offered any evidence for why the additions are necessitated for national security, it is rather easy to assume that this is an attempt to ban Muslims. And imposing a religious test runs afoul of the Constitution, even if there were good reasons for it.
yedava 10y ago
Firstly, the US already has intensive screening for immigrants and does reject a lot of people from entering the country. So Trump and other like minded folks saying that the US has open or porous borders is false. The motivation for that claim could chalked down to old fashioned xenophobia rather than any concern for security. On the issue of privilege vs human rights, the US is populated by immigrants and many of them who argue against bans like this see themselves in new immigrants. The Trump/Bannon/Miller argument is that since immigrants are stealing jobs and are weakening the value system of the US, we need to cut back on immigration. That sends a very strong signal to present immigrants that their presence is harming the country. The outrage against Trump stems from this kind of signalling from his administration.
_jal 10y ago
I'll play along. > Why is driving a privilege, yet visiting the USA is seen by some as a human right for all of our species? The comparison makes no sense. A non-non-sequitur question would be the same comparison about guns, given that guns are essential for the livelihood of far fewer people than cars, it would be comparing deadly objects to deadly objects instead of humans, and legal standards would actually match up in a slightly more sensical way that might produce an actual answer[1]. But to ignore the multiple ways it makes no sense, an answer would look something like, because piloting deadly weapons with a modicum of skill is something many people find positive, whereas travel in the abstract is considered by many people a fundamental human right. > What claim does a random foreigner have on the USA that ranks their desire to visit above the commander in chief's desire for them not to visit The president's status as "commander in chief" means nothing in a civilian context, and I see nothing in the constitution about Presidential Whim being a meaningful legal basis - can you point to the SCOTUS case establishing "do what thou wilt shall be the the whole of the law"? > Why are some countries allowed to control who visits them, and some are not? I have no idea what you're talking about, or what it has to do with Muslim bans in the US. If you can point to someone of relevance making that claim in relation to the Muslim bans, please do share. > Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form This is what a red herring looks like. > why is only this regulation or law being targeted as opposed to NORML I dunno, perhaps because NORML is not a sitting president currently banning Muslims? Perhaps because people see different relevance to their lives between different bad laws? Perhaps because this is happening now, we want less of it, and the best way to get less of something is to nip in in the bud? Perhaps because many people see banning people based on religion abhorrent to the character of their country in ways that bad taxation doesn't? How about I flip that around- when there are so many other absurd laws, is this the only one you want to defend? Why aren't you throwing your rhetorical skills at some other battle? [1] The answer, of course, is the constitution.
anigbrowl 10y ago
Why is driving a privilege, yet visiting the USA is seen by some as a human right for all of our species? Driving involves heavy metallic objects moving at high speed. The US makes it harder to drive than to own and operate guns, which isn't logical either. Migration is a human right for all people. What claim does a random foreigner have on the USA that ranks their desire to visit above the commander in chief's desire for them not to visit, in other words why is the desire of the elected president believed by some to rank lower than the desire of any random non-citizen human visitor? It seems an incredibly peculiar ranking. Because it's a bullshit comparison, as you know. But let's get right to the core of the issue: on the one hand, the US holds itself out as the beacon of liberty and democracy, takes great pride in its ability to take people in and turn them into liberty-minded democratic Republicans, and is so proud of this that it likes to be symbolized by Lady Liberty. On the other hand, it's also a country that was founded in part on slavery, and which has a large demographic that still depends on the economic logic of slavery for commercial gain. Pick one. Why are some countries allowed to control who visits them, and some are not? Why is the USA one of the countries that is not allowed to have any border controls? Is that, pragmatically, successful? Quit with the talk of 'not allowed'. Many people within the US wish to change the existing system because they consider it pragmatically flawed. It's not some external agency being unfair to the US and telling it that it can't, it's a majority of the American people saying that existing policy is no good and should be reformed. Yes, not having border controls is pragmatically successful. That's why you don't have to show a passport when traveling between US states. Do you honestly think the US economy would be as strong and resilient as it is without free movement across its internal borders? If there were passport controls and tariffs between states? No, the federal government was set up precisely to prevent that outcome. The fact is that economic growth takes place most easily when there is relatively free movement of both capital and labor. As regards relationships with other countries, the US has made it super easy for capital to move all around the world in search of opportunities, and the same should apply to labor. Making it easy for capital and difficult for labor has led to the formation of a huge underclass, which is nothing but slavery by a new name. Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form, rather than the somewhat more likely and seemingly easier to convince specifics of this individual border control ruling being wrong? It isn't, spare me the false-premise arguments. If this regulation or law needs to be repealed because it can be "proven" wrong (where proving amounts to yelling really intimidatingly loud) then why is only this regulation or law being targeted as opposed to NORML or the IRS or a bazillion other laws and regulations which are both more likely to be nonsense and hurting more people? A bullshit argument whose only rhetorical purpose is to poison the well of debate by implying bad faith on the part of your interlocutors. Actually, people are opposing all kinds of laws all the time, and there is no ranking of the different issues that says immigration is more important than ending the drug war or reforming taxation or whatever. You chose to come into a thread about immigration and ask 'why is immigration so important.' Nobody was making the argument that immigration has to be addressed before this or that other issue until you came along to punch that particular straw man. Not only are the issues you mention, and many others, the subject of their own hot debates, they're also the site of a great deal of political activism by voters who are exercised about those issues. One significant difference with immigration from many other issues is that you have a population which can vote making life-changing decisions about another population that can't vote. Similar to penal policy and restoring the voting rights of felons, massive asymmetries in equity and political representation create incentives for abuse; having once created an underclass, some see their political benefits in the maintenance, perpetuation, and even expansion of the same. The privatization of incarceration for profit is an outstanding example of this.

by VLM 10y ago

jcranmer 10y ago

> Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form, rather than the somewhat more likely and seemingly easier to convince specifics of this individual border control ruling being wrong? Context is everything. The US is already regarded as having a well-working, effective screening process for visa and refugee applications. This means that it's hard to find any justification for drastic, emergency-sounding restrictions. Particularly since Trump was well-known for espousing a religious test ("Muslim ban") on the campaign trail, Giuliani says this is what he suggested when asked how to implement the Muslim ban, and the government hasn't offered any evidence for why the additions are necessitated for national security, it is rather easy to assume that this is an attempt to ban Muslims. And imposing a religious test runs afoul of the Constitution, even if there were good reasons for it.

yedava 10y ago

Firstly, the US already has intensive screening for immigrants and does reject a lot of people from entering the country. So Trump and other like minded folks saying that the US has open or porous borders is false. The motivation for that claim could chalked down to old fashioned xenophobia rather than any concern for security. On the issue of privilege vs human rights, the US is populated by immigrants and many of them who argue against bans like this see themselves in new immigrants. The Trump/Bannon/Miller argument is that since immigrants are stealing jobs and are weakening the value system of the US, we need to cut back on immigration. That sends a very strong signal to present immigrants that their presence is harming the country. The outrage against Trump stems from this kind of signalling from his administration.

_jal 10y ago

I'll play along. > Why is driving a privilege, yet visiting the USA is seen by some as a human right for all of our species? The comparison makes no sense. A non-non-sequitur question would be the same comparison about guns, given that guns are essential for the livelihood of far fewer people than cars, it would be comparing deadly objects to deadly objects instead of humans, and legal standards would actually match up in a slightly more sensical way that might produce an actual answer[1]. But to ignore the multiple ways it makes no sense, an answer would look something like, because piloting deadly weapons with a modicum of skill is something many people find positive, whereas travel in the abstract is considered by many people a fundamental human right. > What claim does a random foreigner have on the USA that ranks their desire to visit above the commander in chief's desire for them not to visit The president's status as "commander in chief" means nothing in a civilian context, and I see nothing in the constitution about Presidential Whim being a meaningful legal basis - can you point to the SCOTUS case establishing "do what thou wilt shall be the the whole of the law"? > Why are some countries allowed to control who visits them, and some are not? I have no idea what you're talking about, or what it has to do with Muslim bans in the US. If you can point to someone of relevance making that claim in relation to the Muslim bans, please do share. > Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form This is what a red herring looks like. > why is only this regulation or law being targeted as opposed to NORML I dunno, perhaps because NORML is not a sitting president currently banning Muslims? Perhaps because people see different relevance to their lives between different bad laws? Perhaps because this is happening now, we want less of it, and the best way to get less of something is to nip in in the bud? Perhaps because many people see banning people based on religion abhorrent to the character of their country in ways that bad taxation doesn't? How about I flip that around- when there are so many other absurd laws, is this the only one you want to defend? Why aren't you throwing your rhetorical skills at some other battle? [1] The answer, of course, is the constitution.

anigbrowl 10y ago

Why is driving a privilege, yet visiting the USA is seen by some as a human right for all of our species? Driving involves heavy metallic objects moving at high speed. The US makes it harder to drive than to own and operate guns, which isn't logical either. Migration is a human right for all people. What claim does a random foreigner have on the USA that ranks their desire to visit above the commander in chief's desire for them not to visit, in other words why is the desire of the elected president believed by some to rank lower than the desire of any random non-citizen human visitor? It seems an incredibly peculiar ranking. Because it's a bullshit comparison, as you know. But let's get right to the core of the issue: on the one hand, the US holds itself out as the beacon of liberty and democracy, takes great pride in its ability to take people in and turn them into liberty-minded democratic Republicans, and is so proud of this that it likes to be symbolized by Lady Liberty. On the other hand, it's also a country that was founded in part on slavery, and which has a large demographic that still depends on the economic logic of slavery for commercial gain. Pick one. Why are some countries allowed to control who visits them, and some are not? Why is the USA one of the countries that is not allowed to have any border controls? Is that, pragmatically, successful? Quit with the talk of 'not allowed'. Many people within the US wish to change the existing system because they consider it pragmatically flawed. It's not some external agency being unfair to the US and telling it that it can't, it's a majority of the American people saying that existing policy is no good and should be reformed. Yes, not having border controls is pragmatically successful. That's why you don't have to show a passport when traveling between US states. Do you honestly think the US economy would be as strong and resilient as it is without free movement across its internal borders? If there were passport controls and tariffs between states? No, the federal government was set up precisely to prevent that outcome. The fact is that economic growth takes place most easily when there is relatively free movement of both capital and labor. As regards relationships with other countries, the US has made it super easy for capital to move all around the world in search of opportunities, and the same should apply to labor. Making it easy for capital and difficult for labor has led to the formation of a huge underclass, which is nothing but slavery by a new name. Why is the battle almost exclusively being portrayed as it being immoral and unethical for only the USA to have any border control at all of any form, rather than the somewhat more likely and seemingly easier to convince specifics of this individual border control ruling being wrong? It isn't, spare me the false-premise arguments. If this regulation or law needs to be repealed because it can be "proven" wrong (where proving amounts to yelling really intimidatingly loud) then why is only this regulation or law being targeted as opposed to NORML or the IRS or a bazillion other laws and regulations which are both more likely to be nonsense and hurting more people? A bullshit argument whose only rhetorical purpose is to poison the well of debate by implying bad faith on the part of your interlocutors. Actually, people are opposing all kinds of laws all the time, and there is no ranking of the different issues that says immigration is more important than ending the drug war or reforming taxation or whatever. You chose to come into a thread about immigration and ask 'why is immigration so important.' Nobody was making the argument that immigration has to be addressed before this or that other issue until you came along to punch that particular straw man. Not only are the issues you mention, and many others, the subject of their own hot debates, they're also the site of a great deal of political activism by voters who are exercised about those issues. One significant difference with immigration from many other issues is that you have a population which can vote making life-changing decisions about another population that can't vote. Similar to penal policy and restoring the voting rights of felons, massive asymmetries in equity and political representation create incentives for abuse; having once created an underclass, some see their political benefits in the maintenance, perpetuation, and even expansion of the same. The privatization of incarceration for profit is an outstanding example of this.