4 ms·

Why the preference for Americans?

• kelnos 6y ago
  This is actually an insightful question (or at least has the potential to be one), and it's a shame it's being downvoted. Why do we automatically prioritize jobs for people who just randomly happen to live inside our borders, over people who don't? 110 years ago my great-grandparents moved to the US, and maybe I wouldn't exist today if the attitude then was "prioritize Americans at all costs". There's nothing inherently special about someone who has the same passport as you when it comes to where they should be allowed to live and work. Our borders are mostly just arbitrary lines drawn based on who had the best military at a particularly pivotal time in history for that region. Given the diversity of thought and values across the US, I expect I have more in common with a lot of people who are not US citizens, who live in other parts of the world, than huge swaths of America. Maybe I want more people in this country that share my values. I've never really thought about immigration in these terms before, but this question has prompted some tangential thoughts about it.
  • refurb 6y ago
    It’s only an insightful comment if you just discard the entire notion of a state and citizenship which most of the world has been structured around for the past several hundred years. Sure, you could just say “anyone can come to the US to work”, but you’d also have to entirely overhaul the whole societal structure to accommodate that.
  • cyberdrunk 6y ago
    It's because you want the people who already live here and are your neighbours, your co-taxpayers, your co-voters to thrive. The alternative (lots of miserable and frustrated Americans) can lead to a shitty living environment even for those who are doing fine. Also, as the history has shown, such situation in extreme can lead to end of democracy.