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I was surprised he did not address the issues of loyalty and betrayal. To whom does the state owe its loyalty? To its own citizens first, or to everyone (i.e. n

I was surprised he did not address the issues of loyalty and betrayal. To whom does the state owe its loyalty? To its own citizens first, or to everyone (i.e. no-one)? It's no surprise people feel betrayed when the countries they and their ancestors helped build offer them no more than a level playing field on which they are to compete against the world. A world that seldom reciprocates those open and individualist attitudes, as it has not forgotten "united we stand, divided we fall". Of course this does not apply so much to major corporations, but that is a different matter.

Nthgenimmigrant 6y ago
I find it funny how the ancestry logic (presumably European) sounds so alien to US ears. Our majority isn't 30th-generation immigrants. But what claim does ancestry truly offer? If my parents are from the UK, do I qualify for Super Citizenship there? What if those parents had only been UK citizens for 2 generations? What if it's my great-grandparents, but they were part of a lineage that spent 22 generations "building" the UK, surely an absence of only 3 generations is just a rounding error!
- rbecker 6y ago
  You try to paint this as some ridiculous hypothetical proposition, but it's the status quo in most of the world. What are you even trying to say? Because there are ambiguous edge cases, countries shouldn't look after their own citizens first at all? And US immigration policy favored Europeans, based exactly on shared ancestry, all the way up to the Hart-Celler Act of 1965. So for most of its history, this logic didn't sound alien to US ears at all, despite being a young country. It has abandoned it only relatively recently, paradoxically as it got older. In fact, with how often the US is still accused of xenophobia (despite immigration policies that will see its former 90% majority become a minority in a mere 24 years), I find it puzzling how you can make that statement in the first place. As for your question about your grandparents, many countries do indeed recognize a right of return, but the UK is not among them, so you're out of luck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return

Nthgenimmigrant 6y ago

I find it funny how the ancestry logic (presumably European) sounds so alien to US ears. Our majority isn't 30th-generation immigrants. But what claim does ancestry truly offer? If my parents are from the UK, do I qualify for Super Citizenship there? What if those parents had only been UK citizens for 2 generations? What if it's my great-grandparents, but they were part of a lineage that spent 22 generations "building" the UK, surely an absence of only 3 generations is just a rounding error!

rbecker 6y ago
You try to paint this as some ridiculous hypothetical proposition, but it's the status quo in most of the world. What are you even trying to say? Because there are ambiguous edge cases, countries shouldn't look after their own citizens first at all? And US immigration policy favored Europeans, based exactly on shared ancestry, all the way up to the Hart-Celler Act of 1965. So for most of its history, this logic didn't sound alien to US ears at all, despite being a young country. It has abandoned it only relatively recently, paradoxically as it got older. In fact, with how often the US is still accused of xenophobia (despite immigration policies that will see its former 90% majority become a minority in a mere 24 years), I find it puzzling how you can make that statement in the first place. As for your question about your grandparents, many countries do indeed recognize a right of return, but the UK is not among them, so you're out of luck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return