A Question for Immigration Restrictionists
The current refugee surge into Europe has caused a lot of my friends who are immigration restrictionists to say this proves that I am naive.
During the Cold War, we (including most Conservatives) considered it immoral that Communist countries would not let their people leave (Berlin Wall, etc.). Now, however, it is argued by many of these same folks that it is imperative that the Western democracies build walls to keep people out.
So here is a question -- not of practical consequences, but of pure morality. Consider this picture of people being prevented from crossing the border.
Explain to me why this scene is immoral if the wall and police forces were put there by the country at the right (the leaving country) but suddenly moral if the same wall with the same police force were put there by the country on the left (the receiving country). Don't they have exactly the same effect? Same wall -- How are they different?
So you're saying, if immigrants arrange for permission to enter the property where they will live and work before coming here, and only travel to work, home, and stores open to the public (i.e. if they promise not to trespass on private property), then you're okay with open borders?
Because I don't see why you're concerned about any place that migrants visit with permission. If they lease an apartment, they have permission to enter that property. If they are hired for a job, they have permission to enter that property. If they visit a store open to the public, they have permission to enter that property. It's pretty easy to be an immigrant without trespassing. If you want less migrants trespassing, then make it legal for them to use public highways to get here.
Note that saying "condo association" is accepting my argument that the government is claiming a property right in your property. Property rights are a bundle of different rights - the right to use, to exploit, to exclude, to build, to deconstruct, and otherwise enjoy. If the government claims rights over the power to use property (i.e. the power to invite people onto your land), then they are taking a property right out of your bundle.
Condo associations and HOAs also claim some of your property rights, which is part of the transaction when you buy. And landlords reserve some property rights to themselves, like the power to enter and inspect after giving notice, or the power to make or approve changes. So when you say the government is like a condo association, you agree that the government is taking a property right from property owners.
I don't actually agree with the argument as a legal one. The government never uses the property rights argument itself. They make the royal argument that sovereigns control borders as their royal imperative. The property analogy is just a ham-fisted way for closed-borders libertarians to justify their inconsistency.
Well, I suppose if you lock your doors to keep me OUT of your house, that's no different from me padlocking the doors to keep you IN the house?
Actually, it's not parallel at all because in one situation, there is no victim because a person who locks himself in has made the choice.
If you want it to be parallel, then you have to compare "Albert is inside the house and locks Bob inside against Bob's will" against "Charlie is outside the house and locks Bob inside against Bob's will." That way there is a third party preventing an unwilling victim from going where he wants to go. Provided that Albert and Charlie are equally able to enforce the house locking (i.e. assuming that Bob can't make Albert unlock the doors even though both are inside), then there is no difference. Bob is locked inside the house against his will, and it's unimportant whether it's inside Albert or outside Charlie who's done it. Either way, Bob is imprisoned.
This is non-responsive. You've already assumed that the condition of being locked out makes you wolves, i.e. dangerous, which is assuming the conclusion you want to prove. If you get to assume that the people outside a fence ethically deserve to be locked out, then it's not the same argument.
We need two situations where the people who want to cross the border in both cases are morally equal and both blameless refugees (for argument's sake, not as empirical fact).
In this scenario, refugees want to cross a border to make their lives better. So if we assume for the sake of argument that the Syrian refugees are as morally justified as the East Berliners, then why would any fence be justified?
Most of the country is empty and even most of our Rust Belt cities suffer from severe underpopulation. Lots of small towns are dying because all the young people are leaving.
Immigrants clearly provide economic benefits from their production, consumption, and entrepreneurialism. The most pessimistic scholarly estimates are that decades of immigration have caused a few percentage points drop in the wages of high school dropouts, but net wage gains to all others. This is especially because more goods are produced at lower cost, making each dollar more valuable. It's widely accepted by economists that immigration improves the economy of the recipient country, and that the difference is more than the sum of the parts.
In many poor countries, and even middle income countries, workers are not very valuable. If an American were sent to live in a poor part of Chad or Kiribati, then odds are the American would not be worth the average American salary (with no American employers around, you'd have to be employed in the local economy). So the value of a worker is not intrinsic to the worker, it's context-dependent. And it works the other direction: if you move somebody from a poor country like Haiti to a rich country like the US, their productive value can increase many times over. The world's workers are severely underutilized because too many people are living in terrible economies instead of going where their labor is more valuable.
So we'd be a much richer country with more workers from abroad, and the world economy would be richer too.
You're conflating immigration controls and private property exclusion. The government is not the property owner of the entire country.
By making that comparison, you're assuming the answer. You've changed the terms to one where your answer is the presumed winner. Nobody has a right to enter somebody else's house, so you've changed the analogy to assume the answer you're supposed to prove.
Instead, assume a very hungry person wants to walk from the train station to the grocery store (i.e. two public places via a public thoroughfare), but there is a fence that stops him from crossing to the grocery store. Does it matter whether a gang of train station employees or a mob of grocery store employees is manning the fence and denying him access? Either way, he wants to go eat. If it's wrong to keep him away from food, then it's wrong whether the perpetrators are on one side of the fence or the other.
So no specific country is obligated to let refugees come in, but at least one country must? That's bizarre. Which country has to let them in, the last one to build a fence?
What does any of that have to do with Syrians traveling through Serbia and Hungary to find shelter in Germany?
In the cases we are considering, the citizens of a country do effectively own it: and the government is their agent.
Your very hungry person has, in the stated case, no right to cross the fence, but must find a legitimate route into the store. If the store is closed, or declines to serve them for non-discriminatory (eg not racial) reason (legitimate in the UK), they will have to find some other way to sate their hunger.
Best regards
No country has an obligation to let them in. I said that even if the result is the same, the difference in motivations and paths does make a sufficiently large difference that they're morally different.
Basically, in case A it's house arrest writ large, whereas case B is preventing people from trespassing. If you're persona non grata with a sufficiently large number of people, the results may be practically the same (you stay in your house all the time), but that doesn't mean that people then have an obligation to let you into their house/ onto their property simply because you find your own distasteful.
Did any of those past groups have organizations like MEChA, with the express goal of refusing to assimilate?
I'd be all in favor of the purist libertarian position (let the people in and worry about the welfare state separately) if there was any realistic possibility that the welfare state would end, even if only by collapsing. But the Left are determined that the welfare state will continue even if it destroys the whole economy, turning us into a banana republic. (This is exactly the process that made every country in South America poor.)
Being less homogeneous ethnically, linguistically, and culturally might weaken support for a welfare state.
I see a whole bunch of spineless men that won't fight for their country or families or freedom. Bunch of pussies.
I would think the only thing that really weakens support for a welfare state is economic success. And in our country, there is still a strong correlation between some ethnic groups and success or failure. It's not just whites that succeed -- Chinese and other Asians seem to do quite well -- but most blacks and Mexicans have not, and they are unlikely to see their own actions as the reason, whether it's true or not.
Are you talking about the migrants, or those who would let them in, or some other group?
The migrants
Wow, seems like both of you manage to miss the point, but different points.
For NL7, the point is that the government is acting on the behalf of its citizens, and yes, they do have a COLLECTIVE "private property" right over the land of their nation. Anyone external to that nation has no claim to the use of that land, without permission of the citizens of that land. No, not even in the case of personal distress. Just because there is a hurricane outside does not give you the right to break into my home to seek shelter. Yes, that MITIGATES your action, but that only suggests different "punishment", not innocence. You still did the breaking and entering.
And yes, that does nominally grant Aboriginals rights over the land they initially occupied, but was "stolen" by earlier peoples operating from different moral principles -- though it would take a series of greater wrongs to restore those rights (so, IF any reparations would be called for, it needs to be done by some other means).
}}} As an analogy, if I shoot someone and he dies, does it matter whether he was trying to kill other people or not? The net outcome is that the person is dead.
Of course it does. When you shot them, did you know they were trying to kill others? You don't bother to clarify this. In the case of "Yes, you know", then, yes, of course you do. You can kill to protect yourself and you can kill to protect others.
And yes, this IS another application of what was noted above -- you aren't innocent of the shooting and killing, the punishment is simply negated fully, in the instance of protecting yourself and others.
So [ do you / how do you ] prevent the hopefully small number of terrorists from entering the country? Certainly many of the previous immigrants were criminals or turned to crime. Is this wave different?
Are the millions of past american immigrants different from this wave?
If they were predominately Christians instead of Muslims, would we feel different?
[ Can we / Should we ] afford to support them if they are unable to find work?
}}}Note that saying "condo association" is accepting my argument that the government is claiming a property right in your property.
No it's not, that's a flat-out retarded interpretation. There is private property, and jointly owned property. A condo association doesn't generally limit visitors, but it can, though it does so by controlling the jointly owned property. It doesn't do it by telling you you can't have guests at all on YOUR property. You just can't have 27 of them at 3am in the morning with a party that interferes with the rights of OTHERS.
And it's definitely possible you can't have guests on the property unless they are escorted by you. And it's definitely possible you can't bring guests onto the JOINT property after midnight. If you bring them to your condo at 11:50pm and they stay there from midnight to 8am (when the curfew on guests is lifted), then you aren't doing anything to violate the rules set forth by your tenant agreements. In most places, we call these tenant agreements "state, local, and federal laws". They control your private property only as it affects other peoples' rights to THEIR property and/or the jointly owned property.
}}} You've already assumed that the condition of being locked out makes you wolves, i.e. dangerous, which is assuming the conclusion you want to prove.
No, that's simply the analogy he chose. My fence can be there to keep out the neighbor's cattle, to keep it from foraging on my resources... Which is a much better analogy, actually. I don't have to let the neighbor's cattle in, why the hell would I be required to do that?
}}} In this scenario, refugees want to cross a border to make their lives better. So if we assume for the sake of argument that the Syrian refugees are as morally justified as the East Berliners, then why would any fence be justified?
See above, because, well, that would be stupid... which pretty much sums up both Warren's and your arguments.
Just because I chose to give strangers charity this week -- I let in the East Berliners -- does not obligate me to give them charity next week, by letting in Syrians.
I repeat -- that would be stupid. An extra special kind of stupid.
Charity would cease to exist, and rightly so.
"We the people own the doors"
Kind of like how the people of the USSR owned all the farms? Or the people of Venezuela own the oil fields? Or the postwar people of the UK owned the coal industry? Or how the American people in WW1 owned the railroad industry?
And yet, because of this collective "ownership", I apparently don't own my house when I want to invite a non-citizen, an entrepreneur doesn't own his business when he wants to hire, an airline doesn't own its airplanes when it want to fly them, a landlord doesn't own his buildings when he wants to rent, etc.
At some point, you are going to have to decide if you believe in individual rights, or collective rights, since you can't have the latter without violating the former.
"Why should immigration EVER be "easy"?"
1. To reduce government violating the rights of Americans, and non-Americans.
2. To allow people to prosper.
"Particularly when the country is not sparsely populated any more."
Now that is a "ridiculous statement".
"The only people we should be welcoming are people who will NOT be a social burden."
How about you decide who you are going to welcome, and I will decide who I am going to welcome? Let's at least try to get back to a time when everyone wasn't salivating to impose their views upon everyone else, and when referring to the US as a "free country" didn't incite chuckles.
"I made no argument one way or 'other with respect to where one might place "blame" for the existence of the TSA law."
Then what did you mean when you said:
"Muslims are truly dangerous and look what they did to air travel. They gave us the TSA."
That sentence is, after all, the only reason I ever bothered to reply to you.
"Not everyone is arguing with you"
Actually, I thought I was arguing with you. It turns out, instead, that I just can't figure out what you're talking about.
That is an invading horde hell-bent on taking everything the Europeans have, including their religious liberty.
The very first responsibility of a government is to keep invading armies out. Fail and nothing else matters.
I did not write that. You want to Reply to CW.
:-)
Scandinavian countries with high levels of homogeneity have robust welfare states. Only recently, due to immigration, have they expressed some dissatisfaction with it.
For better or worse, the United States has always been more reluctant about its welfare state, and when people complain about welfare, they usually center around those people who take advantage of our generosity.
Most welfare goes to the elderly, not the poor, so I don't think economic success is or can be the whole story.
No, it's saying that there's no moral difference based on the enforcer's location. If it's fine to force people to stay on one side of the line, then it doesn't matter whether you are inside or outside the line.
It's fine to keep people out of your private property, and it's fine for neighbors standing outside your property to keep intruders off your property. The location of the enforcer is not the issue; the issue is permission to enter private property.
If it's wrong for East Berlin to contain people inside a fence, then it'd be wrong for West Berlin to contain people inside that fence. So if you want a morally consistent position, and you are unwilling to accept open borders, then you must admit that a government that can close its borders to entrance can also close its borders to exit.
How is the property both private and owned by millions? That's just communist window dressing. You want the government to enforce a law over the wishes of private property owners. There's nothing private about that.
Note that your explanation of the common law is not correct. "Any port in a storm" is actually an old part of the common law. Generally, the common law and also modern law allows people to seek shelter even on the property of others, where it is necessary to protect themselves. They are responsible for any damages caused by their use of the property, but they are usually excused from the trespassing charge. But if you are chased onto an open field owned by somebody else, and you hide there until the chasers leave, your entry was permitted (by necessity) and there are no damages to reimburse. So trespassing does in fact get excused in those situations.
If it's wrong to keep people inside a country, because it's imprisonment, then it doesn't become non-imprisonment just because you're outside the borders.
It's not an issue of trespassing. Trespassing is private property without license. If the refugees were permitted to travel on a public road to public facilities, and then paid to rent housing, there'd be no entrance onto private property without license. You are making an analogy to trespassing, but the government is not the private owner of the entire country.
Yes, of course there were plenty of people who didn't want to assimilate. Radicals, cultists, nationalists, terrorists, criminals. And just plain cranky old people who refused to ever learn much English. Eventually their kids and grandkids assimilate, even if they don't.
There are still German separatists, who today we call Amish.
To the extent anyone can identify terrorists among Syrian refugees, they should be easier to find if they are coming through open and legal channels rather than smuggling in through an underground method.
I'll leave to others the question of welfare and charity. I'm inclined to the latter, when voluntary. But the targets of my ire are discrimination, prejudice, and hypocrisy.
Sure, there are going to be criminals and maybe even some terrorists among Muslims and Arabs - just as there were in all previous waves. Rightly or wrongly, previous waves were accused of heresy, violence and terror - socialists, communists, anarchists, radicals, fascists, organized crime, etc. I think heresy is what bothers most people, who are less bothered by mere criminality than by a heterodox worldview. Which is why the FBI started monitoring Russian Jews for socialist/communist sympathies before it really spent much time on monitoring Italians for organized crime.
Is anyone going to volunteer that Irish and Italians should have been mostly excluded due to the perception of rank criminality among their number? I don't think it's any more justified to exclude Syrians, fleeing war, based on the fear that some tiny number could be hidden wolves. That argument could be used to exclude every other wave of immigrants, especially those fleeing oppressive regimes or wars.
Cattle don't have rights, so it's fine to exclude them or isolate them. But if it's wrong to lock people in from the inside, then why wouldn't it be wrong to lock them in from the outside?
The restrictionists should just admit there's no moral problem with the Berlin Wall, in their view, and the only problem is that communism is bad. But if the state has the right to control the border, then it has the right to control the border both directions.
And I respect your opinion. Under what theory, you ask? Under the theory of pragmatism. When conditions and circumstances change so too (potentially) should the response.
The truth is none of us know the long term positive and negative effects of a major influx. At best we can try various things and see how they meet our expectations and values. Thus my recommendation is subsidiarity and family sponsorship. A pragmatic approach which gets the federal government out of individual cases and which provides feedback on how our responses go.
Agreed. Most of us are immigrants here. My grandparents may have experienced discrimination but were not turned back when they immigrated from Europe.
Most of these refugees are in exactly the same position as our ancestors.
The difference is that my grandparents didn't come to Canada expecting welfare and housing. There was an active community and relatives who helped them out when they got off the boat.
in the quoted analogy, I was attempting to demonstrate the fallacy of the other argument via reductio ad absurdum. OF COURSE it makes a difference. Sadly, that was a Poe's law fail.
"Pragmatism" really just means "because I want it." That's not a sufficient justification for using the state to force other people to live their lives in ways you approve. So this is really just might makes right.
Your arguments could easily be used to justify a return to "whites only" immigration laws, or to "Protestants only" or anything else. You aren't saying there's anything to recommend it besides pure preference. You can't overcome the human right to control our own lives and make our own choices based on naked preference.
If you told the world today that the borders are open if only they pay their own way, millions of people will start saving. And in fact, most US welfare programs are either closed or restricted to immigrants.
You are assuming your conclusion in your last sentence, and have been calling those who disagree with your argument (such as it is) Communists (or engaging in communist thinking). Warren's assertion is that there is no moral difference. I and many others are saying "of course there is," and offering analogies as to why there is a moral difference.
To be more concrete, the US Constitution derives its authority from :"We the People", and in article 1 section 8, says that the Congress has the authority to create rules of Naturalization. Section 9 uses the phrase "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit", which clearly implies that the states are not under an obligation to admit every person, but rather only those they "think proper to".
There is a commonsense difference between entry and exit, and to conflate the two is to either make the cognitive error that Warren did, or to willfully dissemble on the idea of whether borders have any legitimate moral standing.
Coyote, really?
If a group of people (let's say the local "committee on keeping libertarian bloggers in line") came to your home to invade it you would want the police to protect your home and keep the people out.
If the same police came to keep the people living in the house (aka your family) in, you would probably not be so happy, right?
Comparing walls meant to protect from outside forces to the Berlin Wall is really bad taste. But then you are an American and maybe you just don't care for those details...
Or maybe I do you injustice and you are in favor of demolishing all walls and fences? Like those around the White House, your home, prisons and military bases? It's all the same, right, since they all hinder people's free movement from point A to point B. Do your camping grounds have fences and walls? If so, why don't you set a great example and demolish them all? Take the locks off of the doors while you're at it...
Jeez!
So it's not that I don't know what you're talking about. It's that I don't know who I'm talking to!
My apologies. Have a good one!
Or at least, only when the country on the left surrounds the one on the right (so that preventing people from crossing THAT border is the same thing as preventing them from leaving the country on the right AT ALL).
They're not members of an army. You may not like them, but it's disingenuous to call them an army.
If this were true, then there wouldn't be any private property. We'd all own property in common and simply be extending to each other some sort of equivalent of leaseholder status.
If it's collective, then it's not private. Those two concepts are mutually exclusive in terms of property.
Charity is an affirmative moral act. Failure to give charity doesn't mean you are harming and/or aggressing against another person.
Non-interference is a passive moral act. It doesn't require you to do anything.
You should not conflate them. That would be stupid if you did.
https://reason.com/archives/2015/08/12/immigration-is-great
Moreover, this doesn't account for the fact that immigrants create a positive economic impact even when they consume more-than-you-think-is-fair amounts of welfare.
We also know immigrants tend to be young, and as a result don't qualify for most of our biggest welfare schemes: Social Security and Medicare. Most welfare goes to the old, not the poor.
Illegal immigrants are an even better deal because they do pay into the federal budget, but rarely collect. What's more, much federal spending is non-rival. For example, we don't need to build a thousand nukes for every million immigrants who enter the country. As a result, all the money they pay in without being able to withdraw is a huge gain for the American taxpayer, especially the elderly.
Chain immigration is as old as immigration. Sponsorship rules just formalized the process.
If you're American and most of your ancestors immigrated from somewhere else, then I guarantee you're here because they were a bunch of pussies who didn't fight wars or battle corrupt systems or endure hardship in their home countries.
Your first analogy assumes private property and the private property owner's right to exclude. I don't see how that's comparable to a country.