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Birthright citizenship is one of the best things we have going for us. I see no reason why we should treat people differently depending on whether or not they h
by danny_codes 3mo ago
Birthright citizenship is one of the best things we have going for us. I see no reason why we should treat people differently depending on whether or not they have an imaginary stamp labeling them as special (IE, as citizens). Birthright citizenship ensures the problem of unequal representation is fixed over time. A self-fixing function, if you will.
- remarkEon 3mo agoI think what you mean to say is that as a result of this ruling the voice of Americans can be diluted over time so that your preferred political outcomes can happen. Not everyone in my country believes that the concept of the nation state is stupid and should be done away with. I understand that there are many who do think this, and I have to live amicably among them, but it doesn't mean that I need to pretend that your ideas are good for me and my kin.
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoIt does mean you need to pretend that. Reagan has a famous quote about it. I mean, it's a free country, nobody can make you accept an idea you don't want to. But the nativist ideas you've adopted are not considered by most Americans to be acceptable. If you go around telling people that immigrants aren't real Americans, you will not be accepted even in many conservative circles. Even much of the Trump movement views nativists as useful dupes; the Vice President and Secretary of State, for example, clearly would not welcome your theories that their kin are diluting "the voice of Americans".
- remarkEon 3mo agoYou are wrong. My ideas aren't "nativist", they are the mean feeling on this subject for 250 years in this country. It has taken a tremendous amount of effort to convince people that things like "borders", "state sovereignty", and "being discerning about who you let into the country" is bad, evil even. That's why you think you can throw around the word "nativist" as a pejorative. I don't like Ronald Reagan for many reasons, and I don't know which quote you are referring to (though I can venture a guess), so I'm not sure what the point of that appeal is. Like I said, if you think that it's good to dilute the voice of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations by pretending that people who got here 15 minutes ago have the same values that's fine. But you won't get me to agree with you. If you want the country to be more left wing and increasing immigration gets you closer to that goal, just say that, it's cleaner.
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoThere simply does not exist a substantial political movement of people whose families have been here for a dozen generations. It can't, because the vast majority of Americans do not satisfy this criterion. My own family is homegrown by any conceivable standard, but we've "only" been here for six generations, although perhaps we might go around telling people it's twelve if we didn't have the records. And again, I'd really like you to consider the honesty of the people who've told you this is a thing. In your readings about this movement to protect the voices of people who've been here for a dozen generations, did they ever mention to you that the current President is a third-generation immigrant and the Secretary of State is second-generation? If not, why do you think they didn't?
- remarkEon 3mo agoI don’t understand your point. Is it that because Marco Rubio is Cuban I need to accept unlimited immigration, forever? This isn’t a position held by anyone in this administration, recent immigration history or not. My point is actually really narrow. The actual political movement with power and influence wishes to increase immigration to dilute the voice of the people already here, because the people already here do not vote in the way that the movement prefers and the immigrants do. Your condescending tone aside, I think it’s very easy to observe that my observation is correct because I can do things like “drive around my hometown” or “visit a major city” and the difference between today and, say, 1999 would make the conclusion obvious.
- SpicyLemonZest 3mo agoBecause Marco Rubio is Cuban, you have to accept that dichotomy between "unlimited immigration forever" and "voice of a dozen generations" is false. The people in charge who you think agree with you do not agree; they're manipulating you for political convenience, and it's convenient for them for you to believe absolute nonsense so that nobody can reason with you. Nostalgia is a powerful force, so nobody will be able to make your hometown feel like it’s 1999 again no matter what immigration policy they enact. Another thing I'd encourage you to think about: why do you think that the party in control of the White House and Congress wants you to believe that "the actual political movement with power and influence" is their opponents? Normally one would say that controlling the government makes you powerful and influential. Perhaps they're just very humble and self-effacing, or perhaps they don't want you asking too many questions about why their power and influence hasn't achieved what they told you it would.
- danny_codes 3mo agoSounds like you want to have unequal representation. Or rather, you want to keep your privilege by preventing other people from gaining equal footing. You are right that this is a pretty central element of American society. However, I think we're at our best when we concede that this sort of thinking is counter-productive in the end. Cooperation is really the core mechanism for societal growth, so any efforts to prevent cooperation (in this case, by creating a subclass) is eventually self-defeating
- remarkEon 3mo agoSo, again, America seems to be the only country where everyone else claims a positive right to enter and dictate what we do. You do not have this right. It never existed. You were convinced that it existed by a combination of overly generous federal spending and the center-left boomer generation winning a few elections here. >Cooperation is really the core mechanism for societal growth This is an interesting claim to make when almost all of the leaps forward in technology advancement came either during a war, as part of the lead up to one, or within the context of a cold war. Similar to the entryist problem, everyone demands cooperation from the United States, no one asks for partnership. >in this case, by creating a subclass This is literally the point of the concept of the Citizen. A Citizen is prioritized in their own country. A non-Citizen is not. Something happened with education because it feels like we have to go back to deriving the point of the nation-state from first principles.