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A comment on Governments Should Compete for Residents, Not Businesses. Parent comment

Re:Governments Should Compete for Residents, Not Businesses by nhchris on Thursday March 09, 2023 @05:36PM (#35087817)
> I've got the founders on my side of this argument.

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...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Governments Should Compete for Residents, Not Businesses by tptacek on Thursday March 09, 2023 @09:02PM (#35089545)
I honestly don't care what foreigners think about our fidelity to the ideas of the founders; I'm making a simple positive argument about the clearly stated goal of the founders.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Governments Should Compete for Residents, Not Businesses by nhchris on Thursday March 09, 2023 @10:39PM (#35090103)
I've sourced my claims, so could you likewise show me this clearly stated goal? You mention Federalist 52 in your other comment, but wikipedia's summary says nothing about racial egalitarianism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._52

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Governments Should Compete for Residents, Not Businesses by tptacek on Thursday March 09, 2023 @11:53PM (#35090536)
I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't care about the premise of your question, so there's not much for us to productively discuss here. I've been careful about the concepts I'm talking about ("culture" and "religion", both being Rayiner-provided examples of legitimate forms of discrimination). I'm not interested in doing comparative studies on this between different countries; that discussion will be a total mess.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Governments Should Compete for Residents, Not Businesses by nhchris on Friday March 10, 2023 @12:22AM (#35090695)
> I don't know what you're talking about

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?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Governments Should Compete for Residents, Not Businesses by tptacek on Friday March 10, 2023 @12:23AM (#35090707)
Again, I don't think you and I are having the same conversation Rayiner and I are, and I don't think it's worth the effort for us to sync up at this point.
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