I think that weird feeling OP is talking about is the cognitive dissonance from recognizing in person the need to keep from being overrun by outsiders, yet having a blind spot over the solution because its negation has already been accepted as a given due to social conformity.
I agree, it seems to have become a fundamental axiomatic belief. My impression is that this change in thinking has spread very broadly (at least among vocal social media users) in a very short period of time, and it seems to be held in a very non-negotiable way, not subject to logical discussion.
If we're going to start stack-ranking people based on how much harm they do where they live, quite a lot of locals in any particular area ought to be shown the boot.
This is why anti-immigration rhetoric tends to explicitly avoid trying to quantify the harm caused by immigrants. Much of the time, such a utilitarian calculus doesn't look great for the locals. Most immigrants tend to work harder, be more educated, do less crime, etc, etc...
(PS. If you tell me that it is morally wrong to let newcomers displace existing residents, I will point out that our society thinks it's perfectly reasonable for internal migrants to displace locals, when it comes to things like housing... Odd, that.)
> without recognizing the harm caused by the existence of problematic current residents
To be fair, this is a presumption though isn't it, whereas the matter of the harm caused by immigrants/visitors already exists within the context of this discussion.
> quite a lot of locals in any particular area ought to be shown the boot
If you have the option of booting people out, but how might that be done in the real world? It would be a violation of UN conventions would it not?
> This is why anti-immigration rhetoric tends to explicitly avoid trying to quantify the harm caused by immigrants
This seems a bit presumptuous as well. Speaking for myself, I hold the exact opposite view, what bothers me is a lack of quantification of the full effects of immigration. In my experience, anything that is quantified by governments or advocates is heavily slanted towards a pro-immigration conclusion.
> Most immigrants tend to work harder, be more educated, do less crime, etc, etc...
Indeed they do. As a result, if you live in a laid back country where people typically have a certain balance between leisure and work, and you have high immigration from cultures that optimize more towards the work end of the spectrum, it could have significant negative impacts on your quality of life and ability to afford your prior standard of living.
> If you tell me that it is morally wrong to let newcomers displace existing residents, I will point out that our society thinks it's perfectly reasonable for internal migrants to displace locals, when it comes to things like housing... Odd, that.
Again, it's presumptuous to assume that an individual holds the same belief as overall society, if overall society even holds that belief (how would we even know such a thing with any certainty?). There is certainly widespread negative sentiment of internal migrants displacing locals throughout the world, and I'd wager the people who hold this belief would also tend to be the ones who are most opposed to immigration, if so it would actually be logically consistent, so not really that odd after all. But once again, we have no way of knowing that with any certainty, as long as we continue to refuse to seriously study such things. If one looks closely, you might notice that all such arguments, on both sides, are largely based on people's imaginations, not facts.
Is that what it "boils down to"? Nothing more and nothing less than "borders are artificially constructed"? It happens to be a technically true statement, but are you saying something along the lines of because borders are artificially constructed then therefore it logically follows that they should be removed? If not, what are you saying, exactly?
That's a wonderful thought, but do you truly believe that's how most people think? I see few signs of it even on relatively intelligent forums.
> Why must I be given access and others excluded merely because of an accident of birth?
Framing it as "must" is a big part of my complaint. Immigration and similar issues are extremely complex, the idea that there is a knowable "correct" answer seems absurd to me. Taking your theoretical approach for example, to where shall we export the domestic people who fail the test? We can't even remotely agree on how to handle the existing system that has essentially been in place for generations, getting other countries to agree to accept people from other countries who've failed a test is just one of many complications in that approach.
I think if we go all the way into dystopian solutions, a fair one would be to run a lottery for every baby and send them to a random family in a random part of the world.
Wait...
(that's an honest "wait...", I set out to write a fair but very dystopian example and got to where we are now :))
This is kind of an interesting comment if you overthink it, as I enjoy doing.
By my reading, "then the natural next step is being hard on immigration" is a rather boldly axiomatic statement, as if being hard on immigration is _Wrong_, full stop. If others hold the opinion that ~open borders are a Good Thing, that's fine with me because it's an opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own. But when reading forums and the news I constantly get a strong sense that in the last 5 years this subject has rapidly progressed from "matter of opinion" status and deeply into "matter of fact".
> The ability to control who goes in and who goes out usually falls on the hand of those that shouldn't have that kind of power.
Like democratically elected politicians? Or is there someone else who should decide who gets to hold what power?