Comment by mjburgess
3 months ago
So suppose there's a large group of people arriving into your country en mass, you poll them about eg., women's rights and you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views that were rare and fringe in even in the last 100+ years of your own country. Indeed, women would be warned about them even in the antebellum south. Now suppose they're a different colour than the present inhabitants.
Which fact is most salient in your analysis of whether to retain their presence, or admit more?
If its the latter, then I think there's racism in play here, but not of the kind you imagine. Namely, it seems you'd think feminism is only for white people. Or perhaps that human rights are a white things. Others, of course, disagree.
Assuming you have an accurate individual level test, and the policy action you suggest is to not administer the test to each applicant and instead treat them all as homogeneous group and reject them based on older test results?
Yeah that's a racist idea.
Right, so what's the state policy you advocate here?
Import 1 million people, 800,000 of which are racist, sexist, homophobic and militantly conservative -- and you'll do that because the policy to prevent it is, as you say, "Racist" ?
You may think these imports are on your side for now, because of the cross you've nailed yourself to -- but be assured, as you see today in the US, their cultural conservatism comes out when their social position is safe.
You are importing the very people you claim to despise : racists, sexists, misoginsits, and the like. And you're doing it why?
I said it was "discriminatory" (which it is), I never said "racist" (but that case could easily be made).
How are you determining this group that holds these views? What criteria? Because I don't know any group that matches that description exactly. Could you be specific?
I think a human is a human and is deserving of the same rights as any other person. I don't believe this position is radical in any way; it is what most doctrines of fairness are based upon.
Again, who are these people? How are you lumping them together (their views or their religion or their race?) because no large group is a hegemony of exactly the same ideas or views; all groups have a diverse set of individuals and ideas among them (both progressive and regressive).
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I think judging any group of individuals as if they are all a single entity (be it through the lens of a particular majority view or a particular race) is discriminatory to the individual (hence discriminatory overall).
In your example (with made up numbers), if 20% are being denied citizenship and opportunity simply because they once resided in the same geographic region as another 80% (with different views), then that is discriminatory because they are not being viewed as individuals but are guilty by simply existing as part of a larger group that they have no choice over.
This is why we screen individual applicants, view each person as a single human with their own thoughts and needs, and judge everyone as an individual and not as a group; to avoid the wrong of discriminating against entire classes of people.
State policies do not operate in this fashion. See, for example, the reality of importing 1 million people.
The existence of a state pressuposes two "classes" of people: citizens and non-citizens.
Citizens are those who have lived and died, who have laboured and been taxed, and have made the very state which is constituted by them -- and they are owed, by that state, a society they wish to live in.
Non-citizens are everyone else. They are owed very little, at best, not to be killed elsewhere; but certaintly, not even to be aided. Unless you want to divide the wealth of every nation by 8bn and watch all of it disappear.
In any case, to non-citizens nothing is owed. Certainly not being carefully scruitnized under a microscope to see if a border agent can detect a lack of cultural or ethical fit.
And in any case, such a fit can be determined by citizens themsevles. And polled, overwhelming, citizens of western nations have spoken. And they have seen your dice rolling at the border, and havent appreciated its concequences.
THe presumption you have on the consent of your fellow citizens to give what you eblieve is owed to other citizens of other states -- this presumption is extraordinary, obniouxous, and short-lived. And much of your attitue here is shortening it.
What state policies are you referring to? Laws/rights should apply equally to all people or else they are not really rights (are they?).
No, Enlightenment principles come from the idea that rights and laws belong to all people (citizen or otherwise) and the founders believed that to be "self-evident" and "unalienable" to all humans. The US Supreme Court has ruled as such again and again (non-citizens have protections of the US Constitution), and Enlightenment thinkers (and any decent person) would agree.
Your entire argument (and everything after) can be ignored because your premise is not just flawed, it is entirely incorrect (false) and goes against any principle of human rights that I'm aware of.
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Immigration in the US remains popular.
But it reached a level where voters thought the rate was too high and uncontrolled and wanted more controls.
Far too many progressives support unlimited migration with no screening.
Conservatives and Libertarians seem more comfortable talking about treating everyone as an individual.
I know of no progressive that supports unlimited immigration with no screenings, that is a right wing talking point based on nothing factual.
I do see a lot of people on the right, some conservatives, and some libertarians calling for blanket bans on entire groups of people based on dubious claims and hypotheticals.
It's a hard argument to make that banning an entire country from opportunities/immigration is "treating everyone as an individual".
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"you find that 80%+ of them hold highly regressive views"
Question is, does this info come from reputable pollsters? Or is it just a factoid propagated by right-wing media?
Also, impossible to square with a conservative white base *also* holding similarly regressive views. (Speaking from a US perspective, not a Euro one, but the same people yelling about regressive immigrants are also genuinely trying to disenfranchise women in favor of male-headed family units, and other things in this vein.)
It's not right-wing propaganda. Surveys from reputable sources like Pew Research have consistently shown that people from many countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa hold significantly more conservative views on women's rights, gender roles, and related issues than the European average.
so... when individuals from those regions migrate to Europe, they often bring those "attitudes" with them. Without meaningful assimilation, those views tend to persist in the next generation as well, this is literal y documented.
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My posteriors are based not on some perceived virtue of brown immigrants (wat) but my experience with nativist parties: they are, to the last, full of despicable, immoral hucksters who will stop at nothing to accrue and consolidate power, including blasting out endless streams of vile propaganda that eventually takes hold on a population level. So forgive me for demanding some fact-checking before considering any action based on this sort of nebulous "polling."
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I'd point out that pointing at those largely powerless people is a tactic used by domestic power centres that have their own regressive views and policies which they want to draw discourse away from.
I'd ask for a comparison of how these arrivals have led to worse policy outcomes in terms of women's rights, and how that compares to the policy behaviour and outcomes of domestic groups.
I'd close out with a pointed question about which group it is that should be treated as a greater threat.