3 ms·

I think many (if not most) countries in the developed world should reduce immigration, and usa in particular should abolish birthright citizenship. The first b

by trgn 1mo ago

I think many (if not most) countries in the developed world should reduce immigration, and usa in particular should abolish birthright citizenship. The first because a lower supply of labor is going to create breathing space for an entire working population who will see tremendous job upheaval due to AI automation. A lower aggregate demand on houses, services will also be welcome to take the fuel out of inflation, and maybe we'll regain some of that experience of true affluence, where scarce things (e.g. access to cabin in the woods, a rowhome in a walkable city, ...) are in abundance. There is also the import of an idle, criminal element that has very clearly reduced quality of life and safety in many places. Birthright citizen should be abolished because birth tourism and illegally crossing the border to have anchor babies are a vector for foreigners to participate politically and claim imho undeserved welfare benefits. I think largely these are the stated reasons of the administration too.

anon84873628 1mo ago
The administration has never justified immigration policy on economic terms, only keeping out criminals. If it were really part of a coherent anti-inflation, pro-housing strategy, then, well, a lot of other policies would be different... (Including signing the ROAD act, not starting trade wars, or driving up the price of oil)
- zzrrt 1mo ago
  FWIW the Road ACT became law anyway without his signature, but yeah if he wanted to demonstrate he cared about such things he would have signed it promptly and proudly.
galleywest200 1mo ago
Birthright citizenship is a constitutional right in the US same as freedom of speech, religion, the press, and the right to sue the government. The change would require 2/3 of all states to approve a constitutional amendment. It won't ever pass. Most of us are only citizens because someone up the chain was born under this rule. My family came here in the early 1700s and fought in the revolution. It would be a disgrace for me to do anything other than support immigrants.
- richwater 1mo ago
  This doesn't stop our politicians from completely ignoring the 2nd amendment so whats the difference
- pfannkuchen 1mo ago
  Serious question - would your ancestors from the 1700s agree that you should support the immigrants you are supporting? Or have you been taught that your ancestors were wrong and evil and that you should honor them by doing the opposite of what they believed?
  - achenet 1mo ago
    Not the person you're answering to but the way I interpret their statement is "my ancestors came here as immigrants in search of a better life 300 years ago. I honor that by helping those doing the same today." Being American, especially back in 1776 (250 years ago!), was not about ethnicity, but about an ideal - a group of men on the North American continent decided that " that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." [0], and then literally put their lives on the line to protect that ideal. America is, and has always been, a nation of immigrants. What unites it are the common values - in theory, the idea that everyone there has the right to live free and pursue their happiness, as opposed to the idea that everyone should serve the king because that is the will of God, which was the dominant idea in Europe in the 1700s. With that view, I can see that supporting people who come to the US so they can be free as continuing what the original poster's ancestors started 300 years ago. [0] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip...
    - pfannkuchen 1mo ago
      Do you think you are telling me something I haven’t heard before? I don’t mean that with attitude, I’m actually asking. Because you are just telling me the standard mass schooling version of the story. I used to believe this version myself, until reality presented me with enough contradictory observations that I felt the need to justify it for myself, and not simply take it as received wisdom. Have you gone through and read the quotes from the well known figures that contradict the story? There are a lot. The standard explanation is that they had some weepy romantic morality deep at heart which they tragically were unable to live in their flawed time. Sure, that’s one possibility. Another possibility is that they did not anticipate people in the future so drastically taking what they said out of context, and so they weren’t sufficiently precise as to represent themselves in a way that made it through to today’s context with its meaning intact. To me, the latter just seems like it probably happens all the time in history and so why not here? And, to be clear, in this case what they would have meant in modern context is - all men are created equal does not refer to literally all humans on earth, it means that the born aristocrats are no better than anyone else and they shouldn’t get special privileges for it. That’s it. The duke’s son is no more deserving of government enforced privilege than the commoner’s son, because the commoner’s son may be more capable. That’s it. Not that all the races of the earth are the same. They just didn’t think that, men in the 1700s did not think that way. People in 1910 didn’t even think that way! The founders didn’t think they had to qualify “men”, they were just referring to the “men” of their group, one “man” of their group is not born higher than another “man” of their group, and this aligns with what we now know about population genetics, which is why it actually works better in some ways (I.e. if take a high performer, his sons are more likely to be high performers than the population, but you can only extend that so far, it doesn’t reliably persist past a couple generations and in some cases you get unlucky right away in the first generation). And I haven’t seen this framing refuted, despite it being so, so much less of a just so story than the mainstream framing, and being successfully non-contradictory with the other extremely racist by today’s standards views and actions of the founders and their contemporaries, unlike the mainstream framing. One big example of contradictory views that is not from the founding fathers era but is a good starting point. Did you know that Lincoln wanted to send them back? He didn’t want to free them and have them later integrate into our society. He wanted them gone, relocated, good luck see you later. He didn’t think that Africans and Europeans could live together, he didn’t think it could possibly work because they are too different by nature. But oddly that isn’t mentioned anywhere in the school curriculum. Lincoln is a hero, the man who freed the slaves. Well of course he was flawed, etc, but he had a good heart and he worked towards the good. Except what is good is defined by the current moral regime, which was entirely different from the one at that time. Lincoln would probably be shocked and appalled at how he is portrayed today. If he could only see what has become of New York City or Philadelphia, we could power the nation with his grave-spinning, which would surely be hypersonic in its rotational velocity.
wat10000 1mo ago
Just how many people are being born through birth tourism and end up claiming more in welfare than they pay in taxes?
- zzrrt 1mo ago
  I think birth tourism is an overblown fear, but I suppose their answer is that poor welfare sponges and rich-ish passport collectors are both threats, for different reasons.
- throwaway85825 1mo ago
  Many don't bother coming back but the ones the do are almost always very expensive.
  - wat10000 1mo ago
    How many, how expensive, and how much is this offset by others who come back and pay taxes? I have seen a lot of freakouts about birth tourism since the recent SCOTUS ruling and I haven’t seen anyone give even the most cursory overview of the actual scale of the supposed problem. It’s purely an emotional reaction.
    - throwaway85825 1mo ago
      Usually birth tourism is done by wealthier foreigners but that foreign wealth is not visible to the government so they end up qualifying for welfare.
      - wat10000 1mo ago
        That doesn’t answer my questions at all.
      - zzrrt 1mo ago
        What kind of welfare? Do you have stats or stories? I'm skeptical someone wealthy would slum it for the peanuts they could get from welfare fraud. Or if they do, surely there are ways wealthy "real Americans" could hide their money just as easily and defraud welfare, so this isn't really a problem specific to birth tourism.
ausbah 1mo ago
straight up lying and doomer boomer mentality, sad and gross. very consistent correlations between migrants being net positive economic providers, more law abiding then native citizens, and just straight up regurgitating racist myths mass deportations won’t solve anything economic when it’s the same admin hamstringing prices and rates with tariffs, war, and defacto support of the oligopoly i really wish basement dwellers like you though of something original now and then
- 3838484949 1mo ago
  its afraid
UncleOxidant 1mo ago
Our birthrate has been below replacement for several years now. We need immigrants to mitigate that.
- sensanaty 1mo ago
  Or, crazy idea, we make life livable for the locals and then we incentivize them to have kids of their own? And before you say it, I'm an immigrant from the 3rd world myself. I'm not anti-immigratiom, but the birth rate talking point is a very poor one. Not to mention how unsustainable it is anyways, what happens a few years down the line when the immigrants stop having kids? There isn't an infinite ocean of people you can import on a whim, and definitely not forever.
  - tuesdaynight 1mo ago
    I don't care about US immigration, but remember that people don't want to have more children. There's nothing related with costs or whatever. Norway have a lot of incentives and people still prefer to have less kids than USA. If these "livable conditions" were a true argument, rich countries would not need to incentivize people, because they would have more children willingly. Life is way more livable in a rich country than a poor country
- onetimeusename 1mo ago
  I don't get this argument. We skip over fixing the birthrate and instead rely on immigration. There's a whole bunch of reasons people give for why we can't fix it like costs, jobs, housing, etc. Ok, so then first wouldn't immigrants also have the same problem once they get here or do they have a way of bypassing our low birthrate somehow but then we were told we can't bypass it, it exists because of the costs, jobs. etc. So the immigrants end up with the same birth rate and then we have to bring in more immigrants. So there would have to be a constant source of excess people somewhere else for this to be sustainable. So it gets to a point where I wonder if this is really the plan.
  - UncleOxidant 1mo ago
vharuck 1mo ago
>The first because a lower supply of labor is going to create breathing space for an entire working population who will see tremendous job upheaval due to AI automation. A lower aggregate demand on houses, services will also be welcome to take the fuel out of inflation, and maybe we'll regain some of that experience of true affluence, where scarce things (e.g. access to cabin in the woods, a rowhome in a walkable city, ...) are in abundance. Many immigrants come to America to work and start businesses. That creates jobs. Even the day-laborers buy food, clothing, tools. If we cracked down on businesses that used illegally immigrated workers, that would be a much more targeted way to fight wage suppression. How could inflation come from illegal immigration? Are the immigrants bringing in crazy amounts of money? Does the existence of more workers competing for an open position drive up the going wage? If we want to reduce the price of housing, we need to build more houses. That's the key. The trouble is how to tackle the financial and regulatory hurdles that discourage building houses. Clamping down on immigration from poorer countries hurts the construction industry, which employs a lot of immigrants. >Birthright citizen should be abolished because birth tourism and illegally crossing the border to have anchor babies are a vector for foreigners to participate politically and claim imho undeserved welfare benefits. If we cared about people with foreign allegiances participating in our politics, we'd ban dual citizenship. If we cared enough about welfare costs to do unpopular things, we'd ban smoking and high-sugar foods. That would save a lot more in welfare costs, and our citizens would be healthier. On my list of priorities for reducing welfare costs, taking money from poor people who don't actually qualify ranks low. It's a mistake or crime that feeds people and gets money circulating in local economies. Not efficient, but not world-ending and probably not common. If you really want to find people receiving benefits despite not actually qualifying, look for senior citizens hiding their wealth as cash in their house. >I think largely these are the stated reasons of the administration too. Trump stated immigrants poison the blood of our nation. I'm going to accept that as his actual belief and reasoning.
zaptheimpaler 1mo ago
These arguments only ever look at one side of the ledger, as if the immigrants only ever take jobs and tax money and houses. But immigrants also buy things and create demand, pay taxes and build houses. Looking at only one side is just pure nonsense and looking at both sides basically disproves your claim.

by trgn 1mo ago

anon84873628 1mo ago

The administration has never justified immigration policy on economic terms, only keeping out criminals. If it were really part of a coherent anti-inflation, pro-housing strategy, then, well, a lot of other policies would be different... (Including signing the ROAD act, not starting trade wars, or driving up the price of oil)

zzrrt 1mo ago
FWIW the Road ACT became law anyway without his signature, but yeah if he wanted to demonstrate he cared about such things he would have signed it promptly and proudly.

galleywest200 1mo ago

Birthright citizenship is a constitutional right in the US same as freedom of speech, religion, the press, and the right to sue the government. The change would require 2/3 of all states to approve a constitutional amendment. It won't ever pass. Most of us are only citizens because someone up the chain was born under this rule. My family came here in the early 1700s and fought in the revolution. It would be a disgrace for me to do anything other than support immigrants.

richwater 1mo ago
This doesn't stop our politicians from completely ignoring the 2nd amendment so whats the difference
pfannkuchen 1mo ago
Serious question - would your ancestors from the 1700s agree that you should support the immigrants you are supporting? Or have you been taught that your ancestors were wrong and evil and that you should honor them by doing the opposite of what they believed?
- achenet 1mo ago
  Not the person you're answering to but the way I interpret their statement is "my ancestors came here as immigrants in search of a better life 300 years ago. I honor that by helping those doing the same today." Being American, especially back in 1776 (250 years ago!), was not about ethnicity, but about an ideal - a group of men on the North American continent decided that " that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." [0], and then literally put their lives on the line to protect that ideal. America is, and has always been, a nation of immigrants. What unites it are the common values - in theory, the idea that everyone there has the right to live free and pursue their happiness, as opposed to the idea that everyone should serve the king because that is the will of God, which was the dominant idea in Europe in the 1700s. With that view, I can see that supporting people who come to the US so they can be free as continuing what the original poster's ancestors started 300 years ago. [0] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip...
  - pfannkuchen 1mo ago
    Do you think you are telling me something I haven’t heard before? I don’t mean that with attitude, I’m actually asking. Because you are just telling me the standard mass schooling version of the story. I used to believe this version myself, until reality presented me with enough contradictory observations that I felt the need to justify it for myself, and not simply take it as received wisdom. Have you gone through and read the quotes from the well known figures that contradict the story? There are a lot. The standard explanation is that they had some weepy romantic morality deep at heart which they tragically were unable to live in their flawed time. Sure, that’s one possibility. Another possibility is that they did not anticipate people in the future so drastically taking what they said out of context, and so they weren’t sufficiently precise as to represent themselves in a way that made it through to today’s context with its meaning intact. To me, the latter just seems like it probably happens all the time in history and so why not here? And, to be clear, in this case what they would have meant in modern context is - all men are created equal does not refer to literally all humans on earth, it means that the born aristocrats are no better than anyone else and they shouldn’t get special privileges for it. That’s it. The duke’s son is no more deserving of government enforced privilege than the commoner’s son, because the commoner’s son may be more capable. That’s it. Not that all the races of the earth are the same. They just didn’t think that, men in the 1700s did not think that way. People in 1910 didn’t even think that way! The founders didn’t think they had to qualify “men”, they were just referring to the “men” of their group, one “man” of their group is not born higher than another “man” of their group, and this aligns with what we now know about population genetics, which is why it actually works better in some ways (I.e. if take a high performer, his sons are more likely to be high performers than the population, but you can only extend that so far, it doesn’t reliably persist past a couple generations and in some cases you get unlucky right away in the first generation). And I haven’t seen this framing refuted, despite it being so, so much less of a just so story than the mainstream framing, and being successfully non-contradictory with the other extremely racist by today’s standards views and actions of the founders and their contemporaries, unlike the mainstream framing. One big example of contradictory views that is not from the founding fathers era but is a good starting point. Did you know that Lincoln wanted to send them back? He didn’t want to free them and have them later integrate into our society. He wanted them gone, relocated, good luck see you later. He didn’t think that Africans and Europeans could live together, he didn’t think it could possibly work because they are too different by nature. But oddly that isn’t mentioned anywhere in the school curriculum. Lincoln is a hero, the man who freed the slaves. Well of course he was flawed, etc, but he had a good heart and he worked towards the good. Except what is good is defined by the current moral regime, which was entirely different from the one at that time. Lincoln would probably be shocked and appalled at how he is portrayed today. If he could only see what has become of New York City or Philadelphia, we could power the nation with his grave-spinning, which would surely be hypersonic in its rotational velocity.

wat10000 1mo ago

Just how many people are being born through birth tourism and end up claiming more in welfare than they pay in taxes?

zzrrt 1mo ago
I think birth tourism is an overblown fear, but I suppose their answer is that poor welfare sponges and rich-ish passport collectors are both threats, for different reasons.
throwaway85825 1mo ago
Many don't bother coming back but the ones the do are almost always very expensive.
- wat10000 1mo ago
  How many, how expensive, and how much is this offset by others who come back and pay taxes? I have seen a lot of freakouts about birth tourism since the recent SCOTUS ruling and I haven’t seen anyone give even the most cursory overview of the actual scale of the supposed problem. It’s purely an emotional reaction.
  - throwaway85825 1mo ago
    Usually birth tourism is done by wealthier foreigners but that foreign wealth is not visible to the government so they end up qualifying for welfare.
    - wat10000 1mo ago
      That doesn’t answer my questions at all.
    - zzrrt 1mo ago
      What kind of welfare? Do you have stats or stories? I'm skeptical someone wealthy would slum it for the peanuts they could get from welfare fraud. Or if they do, surely there are ways wealthy "real Americans" could hide their money just as easily and defraud welfare, so this isn't really a problem specific to birth tourism.

ausbah 1mo ago

straight up lying and doomer boomer mentality, sad and gross. very consistent correlations between migrants being net positive economic providers, more law abiding then native citizens, and just straight up regurgitating racist myths mass deportations won’t solve anything economic when it’s the same admin hamstringing prices and rates with tariffs, war, and defacto support of the oligopoly i really wish basement dwellers like you though of something original now and then

3838484949 1mo ago
its afraid

UncleOxidant 1mo ago

Our birthrate has been below replacement for several years now. We need immigrants to mitigate that.

sensanaty 1mo ago
Or, crazy idea, we make life livable for the locals and then we incentivize them to have kids of their own? And before you say it, I'm an immigrant from the 3rd world myself. I'm not anti-immigratiom, but the birth rate talking point is a very poor one. Not to mention how unsustainable it is anyways, what happens a few years down the line when the immigrants stop having kids? There isn't an infinite ocean of people you can import on a whim, and definitely not forever.
- tuesdaynight 1mo ago
  I don't care about US immigration, but remember that people don't want to have more children. There's nothing related with costs or whatever. Norway have a lot of incentives and people still prefer to have less kids than USA. If these "livable conditions" were a true argument, rich countries would not need to incentivize people, because they would have more children willingly. Life is way more livable in a rich country than a poor country
onetimeusename 1mo ago
I don't get this argument. We skip over fixing the birthrate and instead rely on immigration. There's a whole bunch of reasons people give for why we can't fix it like costs, jobs, housing, etc. Ok, so then first wouldn't immigrants also have the same problem once they get here or do they have a way of bypassing our low birthrate somehow but then we were told we can't bypass it, it exists because of the costs, jobs. etc. So the immigrants end up with the same birth rate and then we have to bring in more immigrants. So there would have to be a constant source of excess people somewhere else for this to be sustainable. So it gets to a point where I wonder if this is really the plan.
- UncleOxidant 1mo ago

vharuck 1mo ago

>The first because a lower supply of labor is going to create breathing space for an entire working population who will see tremendous job upheaval due to AI automation. A lower aggregate demand on houses, services will also be welcome to take the fuel out of inflation, and maybe we'll regain some of that experience of true affluence, where scarce things (e.g. access to cabin in the woods, a rowhome in a walkable city, ...) are in abundance. Many immigrants come to America to work and start businesses. That creates jobs. Even the day-laborers buy food, clothing, tools. If we cracked down on businesses that used illegally immigrated workers, that would be a much more targeted way to fight wage suppression. How could inflation come from illegal immigration? Are the immigrants bringing in crazy amounts of money? Does the existence of more workers competing for an open position drive up the going wage? If we want to reduce the price of housing, we need to build more houses. That's the key. The trouble is how to tackle the financial and regulatory hurdles that discourage building houses. Clamping down on immigration from poorer countries hurts the construction industry, which employs a lot of immigrants. >Birthright citizen should be abolished because birth tourism and illegally crossing the border to have anchor babies are a vector for foreigners to participate politically and claim imho undeserved welfare benefits. If we cared about people with foreign allegiances participating in our politics, we'd ban dual citizenship. If we cared enough about welfare costs to do unpopular things, we'd ban smoking and high-sugar foods. That would save a lot more in welfare costs, and our citizens would be healthier. On my list of priorities for reducing welfare costs, taking money from poor people who don't actually qualify ranks low. It's a mistake or crime that feeds people and gets money circulating in local economies. Not efficient, but not world-ending and probably not common. If you really want to find people receiving benefits despite not actually qualifying, look for senior citizens hiding their wealth as cash in their house. >I think largely these are the stated reasons of the administration too. Trump stated immigrants poison the blood of our nation. I'm going to accept that as his actual belief and reasoning.

zaptheimpaler 1mo ago

These arguments only ever look at one side of the ledger, as if the immigrants only ever take jobs and tax money and houses. But immigrants also buy things and create demand, pay taxes and build houses. Looking at only one side is just pure nonsense and looking at both sides basically disproves your claim.