Around the world, governments act like abusive parents. If people could migrate freely (creating a competition for residents), much more people would live without the abuse of authoritarian governments.
When we in the United States try to claim that immigration would hurt our sovereignty as a people, we're referring to an almost fictional nation that's supposedly being overrun—we have always been an eclectic group of immigrants from many places, and the people who have deep ancestral ties to the land are generally marginalized already.
But when people in a true nation state express the same concerns, we in the US should understand that the context is very different. This isn't the case of third generation Americans trying to claim that this land is theirs and no one else should be able to come here—instead we're talking about people whose families have been there literally since time immemorial.
I'm not writing this to take a stand on immigration in Europe or anywhere else, but it's important for us in the US to not project our own sensibilities into a completely different context.
A good article on this topic: https://acoup.blog/2021/07/02/collections-my-country-isnt-a-...
1. There's such a thing as a true nation 2. That how long a person's family has lived in a region should entitle them to keep others out
The first one is bound to wander into circuitous philosophical debate, but I'm curious what the rationale is for the second.
> I'm not writing this to take a stand on immigration in Europe or anywhere else, but it's important for us in the US to not project our own sensibilities into a completely different context.
As for the first assumption, I'll grant you I was making that. Whether or not the concept of a nation exists in reality, it undeniably exists in people's heads, and it's less obviously artificial in Europe and elsewhere than it is in the United States.
That seems muddled. A nation-state is a state whose population are dominantly formed out of a single "nation." Generally the nation implies some kind ethnic or ancestral ties (and granted the definition can be fuzzy) - but if concept of a nation is in doubt ... then so in the concept of a nation state. They are necessarily coupled.
I think the key thing is that for a nation state, anything that can significantly impact the composition of the citizenry to change the scope of what the nation means is effectively an existential consideration. The US is explicitly not a nation-state, though americans have mixed opinion on the matter. Europe is comprised of nation states, but may of them these days seem to consider that a bit of an historical embarrassment and want to transition to be some form of multicultural state, especially as part of the multinational confederation of the EU.
That said, I think in the long run people see through propaganda and correctly perceive their own self interest. Knowledge workers in NYC and SV are following their own self interest in aligning themselves with global capital on the immigration issue—they benefit from a globalized economy with free movement of labor—while plumbers in Iowa are acting in their self interest to opposite it.
It’s hard for a minority of Americans, who happen to control the media and institutions, to understand. That minority is freaking out because Trump voters in Idaho have a similar understanding of nation and nationality to ordinary people in Bangladesh or India or China.
You’re correct that it’s important for Americans not to project their sensibilities onto others. But it’s also important for cosmopolitan urban Americans not to project their sensibilities onto other Americans. A significant chunk of America is populated by the immigrant groups that developed the region in the first place. The Midwest is very much still a product of the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian settlers who immigrated there 200 years ago. My wife’s family were among the first white settlers in Oregon. Maybe the native Americans have a legitimate beef against them, but the Oregon that exists today is the product of her people and it’s entirely legitimate for them to think of their society as theirs in the same way as my family in Bangladesh thinks of our country as theirs.
For the record, I'm not a cosmopolitan urban American. I'm in a deep red state in flyover country. My ancestors (and my wife's) were the first settlers here. I'm proud of my ancestry, and I feel a deep connection with that past. I know exactly what it's like to be living in a place that your ancestors settled and to feel like it's changing.
However, I also take great issue with the Republican rhetoric surrounding immigration. I'm not talking about stereotyped rhetoric imagined in the left-wing media, I'm talking about conversations I regularly have over dinner or around the water cooler. I'm talking about growing up under the impression that Hispanic people were either lazy or drug dealers and that if we let too many of them in they'd ruin the country for "real" Americans.
I'm opposed to American nationalism because when I finally had the chance to interact with large numbers of immigrants, they not only didn't match the stereotypes, they were exactly the opposite in every way. I'm opposed to American nationalism because my ancestors left their homes and moved out West looking to get away from prejudice and hate—because they built a new world out here in collaboration with a lot of people who were very different than they were—and I owe it to their memories to be willing to do the same. They were no strangers to change, so I don't know why I should expect to be.
Your comparison to the country’s past is mistaken on two levels. First, most previous waves of immigrants came to a much more sparsely populated country with a much weaker national government. Folks created settlements and kept to themselves. My wife’s family came here before the revolutionary war and went west to Oregon, and she’s still has almost entirely British ancestry.
Second, immigrants are almost by definition unusual people who are highly tolerant of change and honestly a little anti-social. My parents were willing to leave Bangladesh where all their family is and come to America. I would never do that, and most Bangladeshis wouldn’t either. Just because our ancestors are immigrants doesn’t mean we have any obligation to like change any more than anyone anywhere else. That’s a matter of personal temperament.
And immigrants do change the culture. My family came to Northern Virginia along with a wave of other Asians. And guess what? We changed it. We changed the politics, we changed the culture, we changed the education levels. The place I grew up doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t begrudge anyone who misses the still somewhat southern WASP culture of the place—I certainly do.
Nowhere have I argued for any particular immigration policy. Immigration law is complicated and I get that. I have only taken a stance against nationalism. We can have a rational discussion about immigration without resorting to nationalist stereotypes and rhetoric.
> Italian immigrants brought the Mafia with them—the turn of the 20th century was a peak in the country’s foreign born population and also its homicide rate.
https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent...
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm...
Not the stats I'm finding. Foreign-born population as a percentage is pretty constant from 1870 to 1910, while murder peaks between 1920 and 1930, after the foreign-born population has already started to decline a bit. Murder then begins a dramatic increase in the 1970s, a decade in which the foreign-born population is at an all time low. Between 1990 and 2020 the murder rate has dropped dramatically even as the foreign-born population has grown to levels not seen since 1920.
This is exactly the kind of nationalistic rhetoric I object to. People spout "facts" that they heard from other people that would at best amount to a correlation if the numbers were true—and the numbers rarely are true—and use those "facts" as justification for stereotypes.
> Folks created settlements and kept to themselves.
Not really. The early settlers in my area fought wars with and displaced the natives—there are place names around here that still reflect those battles. The same is true in Oregon, as anywhere else in the Americas.
> And immigrants do change the culture.
Agreed! I'm observing it right now in my area.
I think that's something the left is increasingly uncomfortable with; the idea that some countries aren't as developed as others because of its people and that simply transplanting people across countries won't change anything to it.
And to swing elections. Notice the completely different treatment of "Dreamers" (illegal immigrants) to that of legal children of immigrants (especially Indians). The former are given special status and can stay in America forever, the later are to be deported on their 21st birthday unless they manage to secure a visa. So much for following the rules...
And although I'm sure this is not a popular sentiment, I think governments are too biased towards people already living in their jurisdiction, even if those people are there by mere coincidence (i.e. they happened to be born there). People shouldn't be held to higher standards simply because they were born somewhere else, which is something they don't control.
An ideal immigration policy would be to allow anyone making above the median income, or otherwise anyone who would be an "above average" resident to become a citizen instantly, and the government should work hard to attract these people. Conversely, they should encourage "below average" residents to relocate to more affordable/lower tier areas, and not give them any special privileges just because they are "legacy residents."
It is just a statement of fact that the geographic location a person is born is coincidence.
I disagree with nhchris’s response of
> It is their inheritance, their birthright, the fruit of their ancestors' labors.
Because there is no natural law that something is “your” inheritance, birthright, or that you have claim to the fruit of your ancestors’ labor. Might makes right is how nature works, and it just so happens that you were born in a time and place where certain “rights” are being upheld, and there is not a stronger party that wants and is able to take them from you.
You can even go further and replace place X and Y with parents X and Y.
and still: for the person born to "deserve" living with these benefits nebulously assumes the person, and the "deserving", were there first, and THEN you are born and by sheer chance, you got it - or not. Again, when you stop thinking this way, sort of "thinking of an abstract person" first, but rather realize that there are no abstract people, just real ones, this starts to feel weird.
The answer is: yes, people returned to many places after they were totally demolished, suffered from systematic resource drainage and were background of inhumane genocides. TLDR: massive scale war is nothing new.
Sadly
This is, in my view, one of the reasons america is so culturally weird. It’s generation after generation of the most antisocial families from other countries.
That's a direct result of democratic government: people choose those who promise to work in their best interest.
If you dislike this, who would you vote for? Someone who'd look to "expel" you from your local community?
> ...making above the median income...
Ok, so instead of having diversity, you believe it's best if there is no intermingling of classes?
But then, why stop at above/below median? Why would the top 1% want you in their area? Or the top 5% in theirs? Or...
And why have the buck stop at income? I am sure an area would be proud to be home to an adult population that's 95% PhDs. And then they can split up between tenured professors or not.
Not to mention disallowing people from having a long term home as their circumstances bearably change.
This is so fundamentally not thought through.
Let me pick at specifically Russia/Ukraine. A short time ago, these countries economic ties were vast. There were many Ukrainians whose personal wealth stemmed from e.g. the country's ties to Russian petrochemical industry.
Others, seeing that, said "You are accruing personal wealth by strengthening a foreign power's hold on our nation." To which the response was occasionally "Are you racist? Are you nationalist?" We see now how this turned out.
The dirty secret is that history vindicates all forms of identity group tribalism, in principal. That includes racism. There is no shortage in history of examples like the above, nor of examples of destroyed nations.
If anything, I feel the problem is that contemporary countries do not represent the nations the purport to.
That’s entirely unrelated to “racism” or “xenophobia,” which is stereotyping or prejudice based on superficial rather than substantive differences.
There's a benign version of the argument you're making here, the one that protects cultural and religious tolerance while establishing some set of core values (pluralism, the rule of law, representative government, separation of church and state) set above all other concerns. But you're making, and re-making, a case for excluding people because their differences of religion (your example) and culture make native-born people unhappy. That's not OK, and I'm pretty sure I've got the founders on my side of this argument.
It’s not “racism” at all because it has nothing to do with “race,” which is a superficial construct. It’s about substantive differences in people’s worldview, beliefs, values, etc., which are relevant to living with people in communities and sharing a government with people.
> But you're making, and re-making, a case for excluding people because their differences of religion (your example) and culture make native-born people unhappy. That's not OK, and I'm pretty sure I've got the founders on my side of this argument.
Whether the founders envisioned it or not has nothing to do with whether it’s “racism.”
Besides that, the founders were not multiculturalists. America at the time was a collection of mostly monocultural communities. Massachusetts and several other states still had an established church. The founders created a framework where those disparate groups could cooperate in a limited fashion through a federal government of limited and enumerated powers.
That ship, however, said long ago. If a federal Department of Education exists and the federal government says that 99.9% Protestant communities in Iowa can’t have prayer in schools you can’t invoke what the framers thought about how pluralism should work.
"[T]he door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith."
There may be countries in the world that don't have a moral obligation to allow people from different cultures and religions (I'm avoiding "values" here, since it's a squiggly concept). But we're not one of them.
Show me where it says there is a moral obligation to accept immigrants who will move into your community and change its culture? You’re reading all that into a single sentence:
“A representative of the United States must be of the age of twenty-five years; must have been seven years a citizen of the United States; must, at the time of his election, be an inhabitant of the State he is to represent; and, during the time of his service, must be in no office under the United States. Under these reasonable limitations, the door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith.”
The sentence is saying that elected office should be broadly available to all citizens, which is a point nobody is disputing.
> The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants,” lead supporter Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy (D-Mass.) told the Senate during debate. “It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”
The limit citizenship to "free White persons of good character" founding fathers [1]? Or Thomas Jefferson, who considered that, when freed, Blacks should be "removed beyond the reach of mixture" [2]? James Madison, who wrote "To be consistent with existing and probably unalterable prejudices in the U. S. the freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by or allotted to a White population." [3]? Or Benjamin Franklin, writing "the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small [..] I could wish their Numbers were increased [..] But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind." [4]?
As an American you were probably exposed to much propaganda about how the US is a "nation founded on an idea", or similar nonsense. But as a foreign observer, let me assure you nothing could be further from the truth.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/03/what-je...
[3] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s65...
[4] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-00...
Sure, I'll try to be clearer. You wrote "I'm making a simple positive argument about the clearly stated goal of the founders."
Which goal, and where was it stated?
I like how Republicans act as master and judge and issue the judgement "incorrect" and go on to adopt a blatantly racist stance under the currently fashionable republican sound bite of "unacceptable cultural differences", while immediately switching to the directly opposite sound bite "diversity of ideas" without flinching. Republicans have a reputation for being racist for very good reasons.
Ironically, nearly all the people immigrating to the US come from countries that believe the same thing as republicans: one cultural group has no moral obligation to invite another cultural group over the border to share democratic governance of their country with them. Indians believe that, Chinese people believe that. Japanese people, Koreans, everyone in the Middle East. Mexicans would flip out if mass immigration from Guatemala was flipping elections in their country.
In reality, American democrats and a handful of liberals in European countries are the odd ones out in elevating immigration to a moral issue. Ironically, it’s because they have the least respect for culture. Religious and cultural differences don’t matter to them because they’ll teach their culture in schools anyway.
If Hispanics and Muslims were coming here and voting their social values instead of their economic ones you can bet the narrative would be different.
Dude, stop bringing up Bangladesh as context for anything and everything. What you are calling "cultural differences" in 1971, was simply called genocide because of racism by everyone else.
But you are going for the racism and genocide is A-ok, as it's just an expression of "cultural differences". You can continue with your word play in your replies again.
Liberals reading into this and seeing racism is itself an example of this phenomenon. They hear something like "diversity of ideas" and instantly a big red moral stop sign shows up in their head. It's an example of how when everyone has fundamentally different values, and everyone's different set of moral landmines are overlaid on the same map, it becomes basically impossible to walk through the space of ideas without stepping on one sooner or later.
You absolutely have the right to improve your lot, if by lot you mean the portion of land you were born in. I would even go as far as to say you have the duty to care for it. However, you don't have the right to take other peoples lot, their identity and society from them just because you were born unlucky and they were in your opinion born unfairly lucky. What you are advocating in practice is the destruction of all smaller ethnic groups, local traditions and cultural diversity of the world by overriding everything with unstable and internally conflicting pseudo-culture (or maybe a bit more politely worded pop-culture) and identity policies promoted by the wokeist Americans. This modern, woke American imperialism hiding behind the cover of liberty and personal freedoms is in practice almost as evil and destructive as the reactionary imperialism of Russia.
The solution to emigration for a polity shouldn't be keeping their citizenry prisoner or forcing others to treat their residents more poorly because of some imagined 'race to the bottom', but to instead make their own land more attractive to stay and live in.
That I agree with. While it is entirely up to a country's discretion whether they permit immigration, leaving a country must not be prevented.
They are representatives of their nations, and their duty is to their people, to whom they are guardians, of said people and their homelands. They should not be 'competing' for more residents just as families shouldn't compete to attract other's children.