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I believe in freedom of movement as an ideal, just as I believe in freedom of speech as an ideal. The UN declaration of human rights also includes freedom of mo

I believe in freedom of movement as an ideal, just as I believe in freedom of speech as an ideal. The UN declaration of human rights also includes freedom of movement as an ideal. No freedom is a state of normalcy, we spent thousands of years killing each other for saying things we didn't like, or moving into our space, or being gay, and many other things that would shock modern conscience. I think we should try to rise above that and be better, and part of that is not acting like territorial animals. Immigrants are a) not a financial burden long term, people might need assistance at first but will generally get established and then pay into social programs and b) the US is incredibly wealthy. We can spend trillions on the military, we can afford welfare. The point about east germnay was that it inhibited freedom of movement. I see no practical difference between preventing someone from leaving and preventing someone from entering. Both deny the person their freedom to live where they choose. The point about colonialism is that colonialism is the reason much of the global south is in cycles of war and poverty (eg, european powers dividing up africa ignoring tribal boundaries). so it's pretty rich to extract wealth from a place to build your indsutrial economy, and then tell people trying to escape that war and poverty that they aren't allowed the fruits of that wealth extraction. and why are you pretending this is ancient history? the french were comitting war crimes in algeria against the independence movement in the 60's!! automation is coming. expanded welfare will be necessary regardless -- we cannot have a world of 10 billion programmers and service workers. the top strata owns the vast majority of the world's wealth. if we returned to 50s era tax rates these people could still live extremely opulently and we would have morw than enough resources for all americans and immigrants.

burfog 8y ago
You clearly want to allow everybody to come here, and you clearly don't approve of killing people for being gay. How do you resolve the issue of immigrants coming from places where the people have voted for killing those who are gay? Are these immigrants also to be welcomed, despite the fact that they will vote to enact similar policies here?
- Rotten194 8y ago
  there's no evidence that immigrants are more intolerant than the general public. most domestic terrorism against minorities is committed by people who are not (recent, obv if you go back far enough white people are immigrants too...) immigrants. and in my anecdotal experience as a trans person, i have never been harassed by someone who immigrated here, just by white-bread WASPy nazi types. I'm sure it happens, but so does tripping into the garbage disposal and losing a finger, it's really not common. And when it does happen, conservatives hype it up in their anti-immigration rhetoric even as they use their actual structural power to strip away my and other queer people's rights! Like Trump talking a big game about how much he wants to "protect LGBTs" from immigrants (implying immigrants can't be queer...) while under his administration documentation changes for trans people are getting harder to get, LGBT people were removed from the 2020 census... don't get me started.

burfog 8y ago

You clearly want to allow everybody to come here, and you clearly don't approve of killing people for being gay. How do you resolve the issue of immigrants coming from places where the people have voted for killing those who are gay? Are these immigrants also to be welcomed, despite the fact that they will vote to enact similar policies here?

Rotten194 8y ago
there's no evidence that immigrants are more intolerant than the general public. most domestic terrorism against minorities is committed by people who are not (recent, obv if you go back far enough white people are immigrants too...) immigrants. and in my anecdotal experience as a trans person, i have never been harassed by someone who immigrated here, just by white-bread WASPy nazi types. I'm sure it happens, but so does tripping into the garbage disposal and losing a finger, it's really not common. And when it does happen, conservatives hype it up in their anti-immigration rhetoric even as they use their actual structural power to strip away my and other queer people's rights! Like Trump talking a big game about how much he wants to "protect LGBTs" from immigrants (implying immigrants can't be queer...) while under his administration documentation changes for trans people are getting harder to get, LGBT people were removed from the 2020 census... don't get me started.