Birthright. Parents, grandparents, etc. fought for their wealth, freedoms, rights, etc.

None of which you did anything to earn.

My ancestors earned it and they chose to give it to their descendance.

Yes they earned their society because they worked on it, no it wasn't a selfish choice because the society was and is theirs, and yes you can own progress, a society, and freedom. Which is why half the world is monkeys flinging feces and some would kill to enter the first world.

Uh they didn’t work alone on it, and they left a ton of people out, ripping freedom and progress from their hands without a second thought.

Your ancestors were thieves and oppressors, and took things that didn’t belong to them, which means the resulting better society isn’t yours or theirs to give or take. It’s free for whoever comes and helps grow it.

Honestly I wish we had some mechanism to cast out the entitled and let in the hopeful. People who believe as you do don’t deserve the gift of a progressive society.

>Your ancestors were thieves and oppressors

You are a self-loathing, little person.

That strikes me as a very unnecessary ad hominem.

I personally think their statement has a high likelihood of being valid, at least in part, and only on a probabilistic basis.

Your response indicates they hit a nerve.

He insulted my ancestors, which includes direct family members, some of which went through a civil war to build my country the way it is, and they are still alive today. I have a right to reply.

If facts insult you, your problem is with the facts.

You don’t get to decide who is free.

Maybe, but that doesn’t change anything I said. You have no right over foreigners to the benefits of living in your society.

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People used to be free to go anywhere in the world, up until states commanded enough force to exclude foreigners.

Funny though how money is still allowed to go anywhere in the world, while people are trapped in their own countries (for better or worse). Those with money can make more money, taking advantage of labor and other resources that can't move, often to the detriment of labor at home and the environment abroad.

> People used to be free to go anywhere in the world...

Except that ~zero prehistoric people had access to the resources / skills / knowledge / etc. to actually travel really long distances.

And if they tried moving, at scale, into an already-inhabited area - well, whether or not the people in the destination qualified as a "state", I suspect that pretty universally resulted in violent push-back.

Passports for individuals didn't exist in the 19th century [0]. People were free to go to other countries whenever they wanted, and they did. There were migrations all over the place. Many cultures have traditions going back millennia of showing travellers generous hospitality.

Merchants activity was often regulated, with passports for commercial activity and other customs controls. But not people. The opposite of today.

I acknowledge that there would be concerns like you mention, like violent push-back from the natives, same as there are today. Some peoples are raised in insular cultures, some are welcoming, sometimes migrations cause understandable problems, etc.

I don't think the way we do things today is optimal. We've changed things so that money is given more freedom than people. And too many people are taught that foreigners are scary.

[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/a-history-...

Why care about my parents or family? They are just people, I don't even like them as much as others. Why can't anyone be part of my family and why can't I jump to another one?

Society is a sacred part of what makes human beings human, it is why we are such a successful species. It requires cultural indoctrination and nationalism and things that definitely have an ugly side, but are also important to our function.

Your viewpoint basically assumes people have no loyalty, nationalism or responsibility to their society so they can be freely swapped with anybody.

> Why can't anyone be part of my family

Because you won't let them.

> and why can't I jump to another one?

You can. People do sometimes, if their birth family is bad enough.

Immigrants are, by definition, people with more loyalty to another country than to the one they were born in. Why deny them that?

So if some random person wants to force himself into your family and come live in your home, you'll allow it?

Yea, if someone wants to, they can and should be able to freely swap which society they participate in.

We are successful as a species because we socialize, and there is no reason to limit that only to people who were born in specific geographic areas; that doesn’t make any sense.

It would make a lot more sense to group by shared goals and beliefs, with free movement as your goals and beliefs change.

Blind nationalistic loyalty is in no way a requirement for a successful human society.

You don't think it is easier to socialize with people with similar upbringings and culture to you? You don't think a group of people indoctrinated into a society from birth are more likely to share goals and beliefs than someone born into a different one?

Blind nationalism is bad, but absolutely no responsibility towards the society and the people that raised and support you is a crazy take. You're ideal would only work if we had 0 social programs and people were 100% responsible for providing for themselves and their loved ones, including education.

Of course you have a responsibility towards the society and the people who raised and support you.

That just doesn't involve excluding others from that society. They deserve, just as much as you, to participate (and improve!) in your society as you do.

My country only exists because people came from many other societies and brought the best parts of those societies together to create my country and its culture. I want that for everyone, if they want it for themselves.

I doubt your country was the result of a bunch of people from a bunch of different countries coming together to create a new nation. It was almost certainly a group of like minded people who all came from the same place creating an offshoot that is influenced by the original.

Especially given that the ability for global communication is newer than most existing countries.

I’ll be sure to tell all American history books that Alexander Hamilton and Lafayette (two off the top of my head because I listened to Hamilton recently, there absolutely were many many more) were actually from England and not the Caribbean and France respectively.

Are there any societies that have not exerted, or at least claimed the right to exert, control over who is and is not part of that society? The reasons for exercising that control may vary, but I can't think of or even imagine one that doesn't have this control.

The key is which things you exclude people over. A society can have values, but if those values discriminate based on aspects of a person that are outside of the person's control, that society is not operating ethically.

Western societies all value liberty, and liberty is incompatible with exclusion based on geographic origin.

All countries discriminate based on things you can never change like birth place. All countries. If they didn't they do not exist anymore. That's a poor strategy for western nation or any nation. Even the poorest countries don't allow that.

So? Nearly all countries at one point allowed slavery, refused to let women vote, and a ton of countries were ruled by an authoritarian monarchy, that doesn't mean it was a good idea.

If you let everyone in all at once then the place becomes exactly where they are fleeing from then there is no point in moving. Trying it would be the end of society. We hasn't tried killing every third baby but it is probably not a good idea regardless.

When women couldn't vote most men couldn't either. Just landholders. Slavery was an improvement on killing entire populations and authoritarian monarchy were better than savages like Genghis Khan. Whatever trouble you have with recent history go back.. things were worse.

What would happen if Canada decided to do this. Couldn't China send in 15 million people who vote to join Canada.

Huge red flags.

“Slavery was an improvement” ok, so honestly I find this insanely offensive and uncomfortably in line with some “white savior” arguments racists make, but I don’t want to be rude to you.

I guess all I can say is that I just don’t see how you can be so cruel to others like this.

Crueller was killing entire populations and removing any trace of their existence. Would you rather your family be slaves with the hope of rebellion or political issues changing or have your family be killed and body part spread all over?

Slavery is not a white/black issue although it might be for your location but the Arab slave trade was so massive and went on for so long it overshadows the trans Atlantic slave in size/scope and present day effects.

Things are not perfect today but they replaced things that were worse. That keeps happening. Why we vote for someone when we could introduce direct voting to me seems like a relic of the past that future generations will look negativity at.

What entitles you to the resources in your home anymore than someone outside of your home? They can't control that they were born outside of your home, so why should that be used to determine whether they can freely enter your home and make use of your resources or not?

This is not the compelling argument you think it is; in this analogy I:

* didn't buy my house, I inherited it,

* the people I inherited it from stole it from other people who

* also still live in the house somehow but just in the not-as-nice parts, and

* the house is gigantic and can easily fit literally billions more people without even coming close to exhausting the resources of the house, in fact

* bringing more people into the house would in fact substantially increase the house's shared ability to operate and provide for the members of the house.

So yeah, if we want to use this analogy in a meaningful way, nothing at all entitles me to my house!

All very compelling. I guess I wonder when you plan on permanently hosting as many refugees inside of your home as is physically possible (say 18 or if we're being charitable 9), how many would that be and when would you plan to start? After all, comrade, I'm sure we both agree that direct action would be a more material form of achieving justice through solidarity than the ultimately petit bourgeoisie activity of internet comment squabbling.

Of course, one could be motivated to make such impassioned outpourings by a guilt regarding an ultimately comfortable existence, a fear of lacking virtue, and a thrill of proselytizing the nonbelievers, rather than a compulsion to achieve material socioeconomic outcomes for the postcolonial working class of the world. But I'm sure, dear interlocutor, you are motivated by nothing of the sort, and your intentions are of course, impregnable and wholly pure.

I feel like you ignored the part where I absolutely would house as many refugees as I can in my home, were it as bountiful and spacious as the US is.

But it’s not, and I did buy this home with money rather than inherit it through theft, so instead of my home I will continue to vote and donate in ways that return the US to a pre-eugenics immigration policy.

This would give those refugees a much fairer chance at their own American dream, the one I was given because my ancestors oppressed and stole from the people who didn’t look like them.

There's nothing innate to the universe that defines things this way. But they, as a society, have defined things that way. They, as a society, worked together to build up the infrastructure and the resources that are on top of that infrastructure. And then, as a society, decided what the rules are to participate in that society. So no, there's no universal law that says "the people born here have the rights of this society"; but the people of that society have decreed it so.

It's the same way every other right exists. Property rights don't exist as a law of the universe. Rather, "the people" decided they like the stability of having "permanent" control over things so, as a group, decided to enforce those rights.