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The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. The interests of outsiders are simply not

The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. The interests of outsiders are simply not relevant to that - they have their own government to represent their interests, which can and should enact policies that benefit them, and negotiate in international agreements policies that will help their citizens. If it's a win-win situation (which is the expected situation for skilled immigration visas) then sure, we should look at how the incentives are aligned; but when it's a tradeoff between the interests of your citizens and foreigners, then the government is elected to ensure that the interests of their citizens are facilitated - if need be, at the expense of others, to whom the government has no inherent duty whatsoever except the voluntarily undertaken commitments to certain international treaties. And if the government is implementing some policies that hurt their citizens to benefit others (which it may well do for all kinds of reasons - e.g. governments do humanitarian aid, which costs your citizens and benefits others, but presumably with support from the voters/taxpayers), then that has to happen due to the choice and consent of these citizens, otherwise they have all right to replace the government with something that will act as the citizens desire.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kaens 6y ago
> The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. According to who? I understand that this is a kind of framing used here often, but the federal government has been concerned primarily with itself for a long time now at least to my eyes.
- _jgdh 6y ago
  According to ground realities. In a well functioning representative democracy, voters will kick out politicians/administrations that don’t represent their interests well. So if you want to be the one politician that values non-citizens’ rights over citizens’ rights, good luck getting re-elected. Or you could set up an autocracy and try to manage this anyway. For further reading, I recommend the book The Dictator’s Handbook or CGP Greg’s 20 minute summary of it.
  - kaens 6y ago
    ground realities are that, for example, flint michigan barely has clean water after seven years. if you are claiming the usa is not a well functioning representative democracy, i agree.
    - bumby 6y ago
      >if you are claiming the usa is not a well functioning representative democracy, i agree. A claim on the intent of a government can be made without making a claim whether that intent is being fulfilled
      - kaens 6y ago
        right, that's why i put "if" there :P
    - marcusverus 6y ago
      Obviously the Flint water crisis is a tragedy and an embarrassment, and I can understand how the issue might cause you to question the competence of the local leadership, but in what way is it an indictment of the functionality of America's representative democracy?
      - rweir 6y ago
        uh because presumably if you ask people if they want safe water, they say yes, and yet ... if Flint isn't an indictment of US democracy, what would be?
        IgorPartola 6y ago
        Sanctioned government violence against its citizens by the police comes to mind. Weak environmental policies that are leading to things like wildfires on the west coast. The president* making his Dex fueled escape from Walter Reed and immediately taking off his mask telling people to not worry about COVID. The same president* profiteering off the presidency and 40% of the country unquestioningly supporting it. The same 40% refusing to wear masks in public because somehow being a spoiled brat is patriotic. This is what I imagine the Roman Empire felt like right before it collapsed on itself. The US has grown too big and too spoiled and is ripping at the seams.
- squidlogic 6y ago
  That's a pretty basic tenant of democracy. The government is by the people and for the people.
  - kaens 6y ago
    if i write "bees" on a box, does the box contain bees?
  - phaemon 6y ago
    Perhaps just a typo, but since I've seen this mistake before: it's "tenet" rather than "tenant".
- PeterisP 6y ago
  The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens even if a particular government fails at this duty. When a government does not properly fulfil their role, that is the direction towards which we push them, to better represent the interest, desires and choices of their citizens - not to act for the benefit of everyone else in the world.
garyfirestorm 6y ago
Lol so you're saying EEO is out the window
bluGill 6y ago
>The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. This is the same argument that is used to justify slavery. You don't want to go there.
- wing-_-nuts 6y ago
  What a ridiculous statement. If anything, reforming the h1-b program is a good thing for the incoming workers. There were tons of H1-B workers who did not get visas because some 'IT sweatshop' flooded the program with cheap, relatively low skill applicants. Now? Better applicants have a higher chance to be approved!
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    The only reason why H1B is a problem is that there's a limit and requirement for being employed. That disrupts the free market approach with sunk cost fallacies and fear of being "sent home".
    - burntoutfire 6y ago
      I saw a study somewhere that if USA opened its borders, roughly 1 billion people would move in there in a short order. Obviously, no country can handle that, hence the need to have limits.
      - verst 6y ago
        GP is suggesting removing the 85k H-1Bs annual cap but keeping all other requirements in place (with or without new wage standards). EDIT: GP is also suggesting removal of the immediate deportation proceedings should someone lose their job in H-1B status. The status should follow the employee, not the employee/employer pair. This wouldn't necessarily lead to a lot more immigration. It would lead to fewer people leaving who are already working for US companies on F-1 student visas in OPT status (they attended US institutions)
      - JAlexoid 6y ago
JAlexoid 6y ago
The duty of the government is to justify the existence of the government.
druddha 6y ago
Gobbledygook. > The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. Truism. The point of contention is around what constitutes "best interest." > The interests of outsiders are simply not relevant to that If this is so simple, why did it require an additional 500ish words to qualify it? Your point seems to boil down to this: In cases where there is a conflict between the perceived "best interest" of citizens and those of non-citizens, if the citizens haven't specifically directed the government to do otherwise, the government should act in the perceived "best interest" of its own citizens. But it's reductive and short-sighted to say that humanitarian aid "hurts" one side and "helps" the other. For instance, the marginal impact of a U.S. dollar on a U.S. citizen's productivity is effectively nil. But that same dollar spent in a third-world country would have much higher marginal impact. The productivity of that other citizen allows them to specialize and trade, and then everyone benefits in the long term. The hyper-nationalism perspective that your country should take whatever it can at the expense of other countries is exactly what led to both of the world wars.
charwalker 6y ago
The duty and role of government is to act in the interests of those with power and influence. If a vote has more power and influence than money or connections due to how the government is structured or elected then the government can represent the interests of the people. However, even voters are not equal in the US with those in Wyoming holding almost 3x the voting power for president compared to California due to the electoral college. Senate votes are an entirely different ballgame where small population states are equal to large states in theory but the vote count behind the senator may be millions vs tens of thousands. Also, the less populated but more numerous red states have led to a tyranny of the minority in the US Senate since 2010. If you are curious about that look at the number of justices Trump has appointed vs Obama, and Obama had 2 full terms: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-compares-with-other-recent-presidents-in-appointing-federal-judges/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-c... The US is not really a functional democracy or represenatative republic at this point. Money and power run most policy: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-cor... (from 2015). Lobbying dollars hugely outweigh voter preference in policy: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014/05/02/88917/how-campaign-contributions-and-lobbying-can-lead-to-inefficient-economic-policy/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014... And if you are a company looking to make a profit lobbying may be the best investment to make over capital or other useful growth moves: https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/return-on-investment-for-lobbying-91e2f40e5d36 https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/return-on-investment-... That's right, ROI on lobbying is about 200,000% though 10 years it ago it was closer to 20,000%: https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/04/09/return-on-lobbying-investment-22000/ https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/04/09/return-on-lobbying... There's been an admin change in that time plus the Citizens United decision. Remember there are many questions around where PPP loans went, including millions to the newly appointed USPS leadership plus Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Majority leader, and his wife, Elaine Chao, Secretary of transportation: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lawmakers-and-transportation-secretarys-family-owned-business-collectively-received-millions-of-dollars-in-ppp-loans-2020-07-07 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lawmakers-and-transportati... Trump himself won with a 2.8 million popular vote deficit, similar to Bush in 2000. There are 3 other examples in the mid 1800's. In 2016 the GOP won a minority of votes in the US house yet held a 10% seat majority alongside a lopsided Senate. These are not symbols of a functional republic or election process, or at lest one that reflects the will of the people. From the 2016 election results alone your first statement on the duty and role of government is failed by the US. We are at risk of becoming a failed democracy for similar reasons. Lobbying and campaign finance operations are destroying the value of voter preference and need to be reigned in through massive overhaul of the campaign and election processes. I'm all for setting a window for campaigning like the UK, assigning a budget from public money that ALL donations go into to remove lobbying issues, as well as an overhaul of the actual voting mechanisms reverting to paper ballots handled entirely by mail and air gapped technology using a ranked choice or first alternative process to determine the popular vote like Maine implemented this year. Connect that to the bill going around for states to pass their electors to the popular vote winner directly and you have the start of a government serving at the will of the people, not lobbyists, a minority, the powerful.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kaens 6y ago

> The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. According to who? I understand that this is a kind of framing used here often, but the federal government has been concerned primarily with itself for a long time now at least to my eyes.

_jgdh 6y ago
According to ground realities. In a well functioning representative democracy, voters will kick out politicians/administrations that don’t represent their interests well. So if you want to be the one politician that values non-citizens’ rights over citizens’ rights, good luck getting re-elected. Or you could set up an autocracy and try to manage this anyway. For further reading, I recommend the book The Dictator’s Handbook or CGP Greg’s 20 minute summary of it.
- kaens 6y ago
  ground realities are that, for example, flint michigan barely has clean water after seven years. if you are claiming the usa is not a well functioning representative democracy, i agree.
  - bumby 6y ago
    >if you are claiming the usa is not a well functioning representative democracy, i agree. A claim on the intent of a government can be made without making a claim whether that intent is being fulfilled
    - kaens 6y ago
      right, that's why i put "if" there :P
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    Obviously the Flint water crisis is a tragedy and an embarrassment, and I can understand how the issue might cause you to question the competence of the local leadership, but in what way is it an indictment of the functionality of America's representative democracy?
    - rweir 6y ago
      uh because presumably if you ask people if they want safe water, they say yes, and yet ... if Flint isn't an indictment of US democracy, what would be?
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        Sanctioned government violence against its citizens by the police comes to mind. Weak environmental policies that are leading to things like wildfires on the west coast. The president* making his Dex fueled escape from Walter Reed and immediately taking off his mask telling people to not worry about COVID. The same president* profiteering off the presidency and 40% of the country unquestioningly supporting it. The same 40% refusing to wear masks in public because somehow being a spoiled brat is patriotic. This is what I imagine the Roman Empire felt like right before it collapsed on itself. The US has grown too big and too spoiled and is ripping at the seams.
squidlogic 6y ago
That's a pretty basic tenant of democracy. The government is by the people and for the people.
- kaens 6y ago
  if i write "bees" on a box, does the box contain bees?
- phaemon 6y ago
  Perhaps just a typo, but since I've seen this mistake before: it's "tenet" rather than "tenant".
PeterisP 6y ago
The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens even if a particular government fails at this duty. When a government does not properly fulfil their role, that is the direction towards which we push them, to better represent the interest, desires and choices of their citizens - not to act for the benefit of everyone else in the world.

garyfirestorm 6y ago

Lol so you're saying EEO is out the window

bluGill 6y ago

>The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. This is the same argument that is used to justify slavery. You don't want to go there.

wing-_-nuts 6y ago
What a ridiculous statement. If anything, reforming the h1-b program is a good thing for the incoming workers. There were tons of H1-B workers who did not get visas because some 'IT sweatshop' flooded the program with cheap, relatively low skill applicants. Now? Better applicants have a higher chance to be approved!
- JAlexoid 6y ago
  The only reason why H1B is a problem is that there's a limit and requirement for being employed. That disrupts the free market approach with sunk cost fallacies and fear of being "sent home".
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    I saw a study somewhere that if USA opened its borders, roughly 1 billion people would move in there in a short order. Obviously, no country can handle that, hence the need to have limits.
    - verst 6y ago
      GP is suggesting removing the 85k H-1Bs annual cap but keeping all other requirements in place (with or without new wage standards). EDIT: GP is also suggesting removal of the immediate deportation proceedings should someone lose their job in H-1B status. The status should follow the employee, not the employee/employer pair. This wouldn't necessarily lead to a lot more immigration. It would lead to fewer people leaving who are already working for US companies on F-1 student visas in OPT status (they attended US institutions)
    - JAlexoid 6y ago

JAlexoid 6y ago

The duty of the government is to justify the existence of the government.

druddha 6y ago

Gobbledygook. > The duty and role of a government is to act in the best interest of their citizens which that government represents. Truism. The point of contention is around what constitutes "best interest." > The interests of outsiders are simply not relevant to that If this is so simple, why did it require an additional 500ish words to qualify it? Your point seems to boil down to this: In cases where there is a conflict between the perceived "best interest" of citizens and those of non-citizens, if the citizens haven't specifically directed the government to do otherwise, the government should act in the perceived "best interest" of its own citizens. But it's reductive and short-sighted to say that humanitarian aid "hurts" one side and "helps" the other. For instance, the marginal impact of a U.S. dollar on a U.S. citizen's productivity is effectively nil. But that same dollar spent in a third-world country would have much higher marginal impact. The productivity of that other citizen allows them to specialize and trade, and then everyone benefits in the long term. The hyper-nationalism perspective that your country should take whatever it can at the expense of other countries is exactly what led to both of the world wars.

charwalker 6y ago

The duty and role of government is to act in the interests of those with power and influence. If a vote has more power and influence than money or connections due to how the government is structured or elected then the government can represent the interests of the people. However, even voters are not equal in the US with those in Wyoming holding almost 3x the voting power for president compared to California due to the electoral college. Senate votes are an entirely different ballgame where small population states are equal to large states in theory but the vote count behind the senator may be millions vs tens of thousands. Also, the less populated but more numerous red states have led to a tyranny of the minority in the US Senate since 2010. If you are curious about that look at the number of justices Trump has appointed vs Obama, and Obama had 2 full terms: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-compares-with-other-recent-presidents-in-appointing-federal-judges/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/15/how-trump-c... The US is not really a functional democracy or represenatative republic at this point. Money and power run most policy: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how-cor... (from 2015). Lobbying dollars hugely outweigh voter preference in policy: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014/05/02/88917/how-campaign-contributions-and-lobbying-can-lead-to-inefficient-economic-policy/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014... And if you are a company looking to make a profit lobbying may be the best investment to make over capital or other useful growth moves: https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/return-on-investment-for-lobbying-91e2f40e5d36 https://medium.com/numbers-that-matter/return-on-investment-... That's right, ROI on lobbying is about 200,000% though 10 years it ago it was closer to 20,000%: https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/04/09/return-on-lobbying-investment-22000/ https://sunlightfoundation.com/2009/04/09/return-on-lobbying... There's been an admin change in that time plus the Citizens United decision. Remember there are many questions around where PPP loans went, including millions to the newly appointed USPS leadership plus Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Majority leader, and his wife, Elaine Chao, Secretary of transportation: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lawmakers-and-transportation-secretarys-family-owned-business-collectively-received-millions-of-dollars-in-ppp-loans-2020-07-07 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/lawmakers-and-transportati... Trump himself won with a 2.8 million popular vote deficit, similar to Bush in 2000. There are 3 other examples in the mid 1800's. In 2016 the GOP won a minority of votes in the US house yet held a 10% seat majority alongside a lopsided Senate. These are not symbols of a functional republic or election process, or at lest one that reflects the will of the people. From the 2016 election results alone your first statement on the duty and role of government is failed by the US. We are at risk of becoming a failed democracy for similar reasons. Lobbying and campaign finance operations are destroying the value of voter preference and need to be reigned in through massive overhaul of the campaign and election processes. I'm all for setting a window for campaigning like the UK, assigning a budget from public money that ALL donations go into to remove lobbying issues, as well as an overhaul of the actual voting mechanisms reverting to paper ballots handled entirely by mail and air gapped technology using a ranked choice or first alternative process to determine the popular vote like Maine implemented this year. Connect that to the bill going around for states to pass their electors to the popular vote winner directly and you have the start of a government serving at the will of the people, not lobbyists, a minority, the powerful.