Comment by willmarch
3 months ago
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.
States are not the creations of the enlightment
I'll await your grant of medicare to the population of africa
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Recent Supreme Court decisions are nowhere near your position. They have given the President a lot of leeway to deport non-citizens. If everyone geographically in the country had equal standing, this would not be possible.
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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".
“No person is illegal” is a very popular progressive slogan and lawn sign and if that doesn’t mean unlimited immigration it doesn’t mean anything.