7 ms·

I take the libertarian non-aggression principle-based point of view on many things, especially immigration. Basically, there's a group of people (the government

I take the libertarian non-aggression principle-based point of view on many things, especially immigration. Basically, there's a group of people (the government), that's threatening violence on me and my family because of where I was born. This is my home. The constant threat of violence that's associated with temporary statuses like the H-1B really really suck. Yes, I chose to make this my home. You have no right to threaten violence on me and my family, when I've done absolutely nothing morally wrong. C.f. https://www.zeroaggressionproject.org/ https://www.zeroaggressionproject.org/

sokoloff 7y ago
I also take the libertarian “people should understand and make the best choices for themselves and those that they’re responsible for and own the outcome thereof” point of view.
SamReidHughes 7y ago
Well you're an open borders advocate, a fine idea for a dictatorship whose water table isn't falling lower and lower every year. But if we stipulate that immigration is to be limited to N people per year, we need some means of determining who gets in and who doesn't. There's no reason why our immigration policy should care about you. I'd say we should let in everybody whose presence makes this country a better place to live. And nobody who makes it worse. That's a selfish, aggressionist policy, and it seems consistent with ethnic/nationality based quotas.
- winter_blue 7y ago
  The immigration laws, especially the per-country limit, was rooted in explicit racism. It was not a mistake or an oversight. The people that wrote the Immigration Act of 1965 had the foresight to predict a lot of skilled immigrants coming from China and India. They wrote Section 202 of the INA intentionally, to exclude Indian and Chinese immigrants. > I'd say we should let in everybody whose presence makes this country a better place to live. And nobody who makes it worse. That's a selfish, aggressionist policy, and it seems consistent with ethnic/nationality based quotas and it seems consistent with ethnic/nationality based quotas. So to you, racist immigration laws ("ethnic/nationality based quotas"): "makes this country a better place to live". Well then, why not go back to the National Origins Formula that used from 1921 to 1965? It explicitly set preferences for Western European countries, because of course, the authors of those immigration laws thought it "made the country a better place to live". C.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Origins_Formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Origins_Formula I must admit, it's quite amazing to see an open white nationalist on HN. I looked at your profile, and it looks like you worked for RethinkDB. Funny thing is I've known Slava Akhmechet (coffeemug on HN) from back during his days at Stony Brook. (I used to frequent the LUGSB club that he was pretty heavily involved in back then.) I wonder what Slava would think about your white nationalist comments. --- The other important thing to recognize is that the majority of this country is in favor of immigrants. And the only reason the law doesn't reflect the desires of the majority, is because the U.S. is a truly representative democracy. Pew Research studies have shown that the majority of Americans are pro-immigrant, and want to grant legal status to the undocumented[6]. Moreover, some pro-immigrant folk might still vote Republican due to wanting lower taxes, pro-life views, opposition to large government, etc. Take the Dream Act. The only reason the Dream Act didn't pass in 2010 was because of the Senate filibuster (despite Democrats controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency). The Senate, a wholly undemocratic institution to begin with, blocked the Dream Act with its effective 60% majority requirement for legislation. In 2013, the Senate managed to pass a bipartisan immigration bill, but the Speaker of the House blocked it[1]. Despite there being majority support among members of the House. Why was it blocked then? Because of the Hastert Rule[2]. And how did the Republicans have a majority in the House in 2013? Democrats received 1.4 million votes in 2012[3]. Yet, Republicans won because of massive gerrymandering[4]. Ugly, undemocratic gerrymandering. So if the United States were a more representative democracy, most of the undocumented immigrants in this country would have had rights and freedom already. Even that disgrace has become President despite losing the popular vote by 3 million. Current immigration laws are rooted in racism and xenophobia of the ugliest kind. Grover Norquist said it beautifully: "Historically, opposition to immigration in the United States has been racially and religiously motivated in the ugliest, nastiest way possible"[5]. The only reason pro-immigrant policy has not become the law is because a minority is allowed to dictate policy thanks to a bunch of highly undemocratic institutions and practices. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Security,_Economic_Oppo.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Security,_Economic_Oppo.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_House_of_Re.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_House_of_Re.... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering [5] https://reason.com/video/grover-norquist-on-open-borders-and.. https://reason.com/video/grover-norquist-on-open-borders-and.... [6] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/majority-of.. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/majority-of....
  - thrower123 7y ago
    Veiled threats are really cool, that's definitely what we need around here.
  - dang 7y ago
    You've been breaking the site guidelines badly by arguing uncivilly, personalizing arguments, and using the site for political and ideological battle. We've had to warn you about this before. I'm certain that there are valid reasons for your interest in this topic and your strong feelings about it, but it's not cool to let that translate into abusing Hacker News. Treating HN as a platform for an agenda, which you've been doing, with repetitive quotes and talking points and lists of links—that's off topic for this site. It's not driven by curiosity, and it makes discussion more repetitive, less interesting, and more nasty. Worse, firing off ideological rhetoric with both barrels (e.g. comparing the other side in an argument to the SS and claiming that HN users are full of intense hatred) is the flamewar style of comment that people here are expected to abstain from. Worst of all, making personal attacks on people who disagree with you is a bannable offense here, even if they are completely wrong and you completely right—and you've done that particularly aggressively. This has unfortunately been a pattern for a long time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13599190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13599190. We ban people for less than this. On the other hand, you've also posted interestingly and kindly about non-overheated topics, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you not to do the above things on Hacker News any more. If you'd review the site guidelines and take them to heart, we'd appreciate it. I know that's hardest to do in areas where one has strong feelings, and that's also when it's most important to do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - SamReidHughes 7y ago
      Well, I could apparently have been more explicit about what I was saying, and made more clear that national quotas was crudely consistent with that goal (maximize EV for the existing population) because of particular ways in which having large unintegrated minorities in a country can affect that (extrinsic) metric.
    - 7y ago

sokoloff 7y ago

I also take the libertarian “people should understand and make the best choices for themselves and those that they’re responsible for and own the outcome thereof” point of view.

SamReidHughes 7y ago

Well you're an open borders advocate, a fine idea for a dictatorship whose water table isn't falling lower and lower every year. But if we stipulate that immigration is to be limited to N people per year, we need some means of determining who gets in and who doesn't. There's no reason why our immigration policy should care about you. I'd say we should let in everybody whose presence makes this country a better place to live. And nobody who makes it worse. That's a selfish, aggressionist policy, and it seems consistent with ethnic/nationality based quotas.

winter_blue 7y ago
The immigration laws, especially the per-country limit, was rooted in explicit racism. It was not a mistake or an oversight. The people that wrote the Immigration Act of 1965 had the foresight to predict a lot of skilled immigrants coming from China and India. They wrote Section 202 of the INA intentionally, to exclude Indian and Chinese immigrants. > I'd say we should let in everybody whose presence makes this country a better place to live. And nobody who makes it worse. That's a selfish, aggressionist policy, and it seems consistent with ethnic/nationality based quotas and it seems consistent with ethnic/nationality based quotas. So to you, racist immigration laws ("ethnic/nationality based quotas"): "makes this country a better place to live". Well then, why not go back to the National Origins Formula that used from 1921 to 1965? It explicitly set preferences for Western European countries, because of course, the authors of those immigration laws thought it "made the country a better place to live". C.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Origins_Formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Origins_Formula I must admit, it's quite amazing to see an open white nationalist on HN. I looked at your profile, and it looks like you worked for RethinkDB. Funny thing is I've known Slava Akhmechet (coffeemug on HN) from back during his days at Stony Brook. (I used to frequent the LUGSB club that he was pretty heavily involved in back then.) I wonder what Slava would think about your white nationalist comments. --- The other important thing to recognize is that the majority of this country is in favor of immigrants. And the only reason the law doesn't reflect the desires of the majority, is because the U.S. is a truly representative democracy. Pew Research studies have shown that the majority of Americans are pro-immigrant, and want to grant legal status to the undocumented[6]. Moreover, some pro-immigrant folk might still vote Republican due to wanting lower taxes, pro-life views, opposition to large government, etc. Take the Dream Act. The only reason the Dream Act didn't pass in 2010 was because of the Senate filibuster (despite Democrats controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency). The Senate, a wholly undemocratic institution to begin with, blocked the Dream Act with its effective 60% majority requirement for legislation. In 2013, the Senate managed to pass a bipartisan immigration bill, but the Speaker of the House blocked it[1]. Despite there being majority support among members of the House. Why was it blocked then? Because of the Hastert Rule[2]. And how did the Republicans have a majority in the House in 2013? Democrats received 1.4 million votes in 2012[3]. Yet, Republicans won because of massive gerrymandering[4]. Ugly, undemocratic gerrymandering. So if the United States were a more representative democracy, most of the undocumented immigrants in this country would have had rights and freedom already. Even that disgrace has become President despite losing the popular vote by 3 million. Current immigration laws are rooted in racism and xenophobia of the ugliest kind. Grover Norquist said it beautifully: "Historically, opposition to immigration in the United States has been racially and religiously motivated in the ugliest, nastiest way possible"[5]. The only reason pro-immigrant policy has not become the law is because a minority is allowed to dictate policy thanks to a bunch of highly undemocratic institutions and practices. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Security,_Economic_Oppo.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Security,_Economic_Oppo.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_House_of_Re.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_House_of_Re.... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering [5] https://reason.com/video/grover-norquist-on-open-borders-and.. https://reason.com/video/grover-norquist-on-open-borders-and.... [6] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/majority-of.. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/majority-of....
- thrower123 7y ago
  Veiled threats are really cool, that's definitely what we need around here.
- dang 7y ago
  You've been breaking the site guidelines badly by arguing uncivilly, personalizing arguments, and using the site for political and ideological battle. We've had to warn you about this before. I'm certain that there are valid reasons for your interest in this topic and your strong feelings about it, but it's not cool to let that translate into abusing Hacker News. Treating HN as a platform for an agenda, which you've been doing, with repetitive quotes and talking points and lists of links—that's off topic for this site. It's not driven by curiosity, and it makes discussion more repetitive, less interesting, and more nasty. Worse, firing off ideological rhetoric with both barrels (e.g. comparing the other side in an argument to the SS and claiming that HN users are full of intense hatred) is the flamewar style of comment that people here are expected to abstain from. Worst of all, making personal attacks on people who disagree with you is a bannable offense here, even if they are completely wrong and you completely right—and you've done that particularly aggressively. This has unfortunately been a pattern for a long time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13599190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13599190. We ban people for less than this. On the other hand, you've also posted interestingly and kindly about non-overheated topics, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you not to do the above things on Hacker News any more. If you'd review the site guidelines and take them to heart, we'd appreciate it. I know that's hardest to do in areas where one has strong feelings, and that's also when it's most important to do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    Well, I could apparently have been more explicit about what I was saying, and made more clear that national quotas was crudely consistent with that goal (maximize EV for the existing population) because of particular ways in which having large unintegrated minorities in a country can affect that (extrinsic) metric.
  - 7y ago