Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Ichabod]

That refugees want help does not constitute a duty or obligation for any person or country to extend it.

This falls apart quite a bit if your country has its hands dirty in the cause of the refugee crisis to begin with.

I'd like some opinions on this point.

For example, it's widely accepted that the US played a major role in placing in power the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for 20 years, which had deep consequences to Brazil's economic and social development (pretty negatively, I'd say, but there are many sources that won't agree; but, for the sake of argument, let's consider it to be true). So, considering Gavagai's proposed immigration policy (just using it as an example), would brazilians trying to move to the US get a discount on the cost of their immigration fee due to harm caused by the US?

Obviously, there are a lot of other examples of foreign intervention leading to crisis in countries around the world.

So, more generally, what is the obligation that countries have to the people from foreign countries that were affected by their foreign policies? Does this question reach the everyday political discussion of countries like the US or UK?

[Krill]

What happened to the good old days of just killing people and taking their stuff. Times were much simpler then.

[TheHumanHydra]

What happened to the good old days of just killing people and taking their stuff. Times were much simpler then.

I think they all died. 

[Gavagai]

So, considering Gavagai's proposed immigration policy (just using it as an example), would brazilians trying to move to the US get a discount on the cost of their immigration fee due to harm caused by the US?

No. Any injury which the USA has caused to Brazilizn polity should be compensated by reparations paid by US government to the government of Brazil. Giving money to random people who decided to settle in the US is not a way to handle this issue at all.
On the topic of negative US interference into affairs of other countries - one needs to keep in mind that the United States has produced a massive amount of scientific, technological and institutional knowledge which proliferated to third world countries largely for free. It is an open question, therefore, whether their interference was a net benefit or a net loss for places like Brazil.
(This argument, of course, could be generalized to apply to interactions between the first and the third world in general.)

[Gavagai]

In respect to the factual side of Brazilian case. I know nothing about it but my general experience makes me view narratives which put the blame for internal problems on foreign enemies with extreme distrust.

[Ichabod]

So, considering Gavagai's proposed immigration policy (just using it as an example), would brazilians trying to move to the US get a discount on the cost of their immigration fee due to harm caused by the US?

No. Any injury which the USA has caused to Brazilizn polity should be compensated by reparations paid by US government to the government of Brazil. Giving money to random people who decided to settle in the US is not a way to handle this issue at all.
On the topic of negative US interference into affairs of other countries - one needs to keep in mind that the United States has produced a massive amount of scientific, technological and institutional knowledge which proliferated to third world countries largely for free. It is an open question, therefore, whether their interference was a net benefit or a net loss for places like Brazil.
(This argument, of course, could be generalized to apply to interactions between the first and the third world in general.)

That's fair.

About the second point, there's probably a difference to be made between active and passive actions/influences and also a question about it being "for free". Or we could start paying the agriculture tax to Mesopotamia. 

In respect to the factual side of Brazilian case. I know nothing about it but my general experience makes me view narratives which put the blame for internal problems on foreign enemies with extreme distrust.

I probably used too much emphasis on american influence when describing what happened in Brazil. I don't want to "put the blame", just point out that there was outside influence in what happened domestically. Again, it was just an example, not something I want to discuss.

[ipecac]

Finally, I understand it all.

Illegal immigrants—along with other noncitizens without the right to vote—may pick the 2016 presidential winner. Thanks to the unique math undergirding the Electoral College, the mere presence of 11-12 million illegal immigrants and other noncitizens here legally may enable them to swing the election from Republicans to Democrats.

The distribution of these 435 seats is not static: they are reapportioned every ten years to reflect the population changes found in the census. That reallocation math is based on the relative “whole number of persons in each state,” as the formulation in the 14th Amendment has it. When this language was inserted into the U.S. Constitution, the concept of an “illegal immigrant,” as the term is defined today, had no meaning. Thus the census counts illegal immigrants and other noncitizens equally with citizens. Since the census is used to determine the number of House seats apportioned to each state, those states with large populations of illegal immigrants and other noncitizens gain extra seats in the House at the expense of states with fewer such “whole number of persons.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/...ton-213216

Everything is clear now.

[Gavagai]

Finally, I understand it all.

Illegal immigrants—along with other noncitizens without the right to vote—may pick the 2016 presidential winner. Thanks to the unique math undergirding the Electoral College, the mere presence of 11-12 million illegal immigrants and other noncitizens here legally may enable them to swing the election from Republicans to Democrats.

The distribution of these 435 seats is not static: they are reapportioned every ten years to reflect the population changes found in the census. That reallocation math is based on the relative “whole number of persons in each state,” as the formulation in the 14th Amendment has it. When this language was inserted into the U.S. Constitution, the concept of an “illegal immigrant,” as the term is defined today, had no meaning. Thus the census counts illegal immigrants and other noncitizens equally with citizens. Since the census is used to determine the number of House seats apportioned to each state, those states with large populations of illegal immigrants and other noncitizens gain extra seats in the House at the expense of states with fewer such “whole number of persons.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/...ton-213216

Everything is clear now.

The actual situation is even worse. In many states people can vote without producing any document which would verify your identity. It allows all these illegal immigrants to participate in elections directly like they were citizens. Republicans try to bring some resemblance of order to this situation but Dems fight for voter fraud like lions.
(Interestingly enough, they would enthusiastically support all sorts of nightmarish bureaucracy in pretty much every other case.)

[Banzailizard]

Your question has been answered multiple times in general here.  The preferred alternative is to increase funding and personal for the immigration court system.

It is not an answer to my question. You say that you want more money and I ask what you want to be done with this money - specifically in respect to people illegally crossing the border with children.
(As a side point: these "asylum seekers" obviously and blatantly abuse the right to asylum which is very sad for me to observe, as a number of Russian dissenters, who were genuinely persecuted, asked and were granted political asylum in the USA. And now no difference is made between them and those who simply want to move from a place with a high crime rate to a place with a lower crime. I am not sure that those who call these people "asylum seekers" with a straight face understand much about the nature and history of the right to asylum. But this is unrelated to my question.)

I am late in responding to this, I am busy and clearly things have moved on.  However since this was specifically in response to me I feel obligated to comment.  

Re: money.  The money could be spent on tracking systems or other monitoring devises and additional court personal rather than detention centers and a wall.

Re use of the word asylum seekers.  I stand by my use of this noun phrase.  The people being detained currently are individuals who, after an initial interview with an officer of the DHS, have demonstrated a reasonable fear of death or torture if they return to their county of origin.  They are being held because they are awaiting a hearing to adjudicate the validity of their claim, in short they are seeking asylum.  In all other cases they would have been deported immediately under the zero tolerance policy. This term does not specify if they have either a valid or truthful claim, just that they are making one. They passed these initial interviews because there is case law in some of the more liberal circuits saying that domestic abuse victims can claim asylum if their own government will not protect them and if they cannot leave the relationship. The interviewers must consider all US case law not only those of the 5th circuit where most of these asylum seekers are entering. This also marks a distinction between these individuals and other forms of immigration.

Separately, the validity of an asylum claim is not comparative. The question is do they meet the requirements for asylum not if a given form of asylum is more or less worthy of being granted. Therefore the comparison to political asylum recipients is irrelevant.

I do not dispute any factual claims made by asylum seekers from Central America. In that sense, I am not claiming that they are "faking" anything. I say that even every single thing they claim about their circumstances is true, they are still engaged in abuse of the right to asylum, this is why I used qualifiers "obviously" and "blatantly". The right to asylum is meant to protect victims of oppressive political regimes, not victims of private criminals. For protection from private criminals, they need to appeal to governments of their home countries.
Consequently, I do not believe that they are "not worthy of being treated the way international law says they should be treated". I just have a different opinion of how they should be treated under international law.
I hope that this is clear. I really feel like I have wasted time on explaining the obvious.

It almost sounds here like you are referencing the exact sort of ruling from the first and ninth circuit courts that I referenced above.  They generally agree with you except that they note in situations where the government of the country of origin will not provide this protection, asylum can be given. Since the US is a common law country those court rulings are legally binding precedent for their circuits, and therefore must be taken into consideration when evaluating an initial asylum claim at the port of entry.

My general point, however, is that if one labels a policy as "racist" only because it has the disadvantage of a certain racial group as one of its consequences, one makes it possible to create racist policies without racist intent. More importantly, it is entirely possible for such policy to also have some beneficial consequences which may outweigh racial inequality it creates. These facts, taken together, strip the "racist" label of all moral power: it does not show that you have racist beliefs and it does not even show that what you are doing is bad.

Is it weird that I agree with all your deduction but not your conclusion? I realize this is the third post of yours I have quoted, and I would like to specific I have no personal animosity towards you.  Indeed quite the opposite.  I find the fact that we seem to have a relatively similar understanding of the facts but come to a different conclusion fascinating.

I would say a policy can be racist only because it disadvantages a certain racial group even if constructed without racist intent. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the effect matters more than the intent. If you constructed a voter suppression law with racist intent but it failed to work, that would not actually be a racist act only an attempted racist act. In short the problem with racism, to me anyways, is not some people dislike or hate others, but that it causes undue harm to specific groups with a characteristic, in this case specifically a racial phenotype, that they cannot help but have.

I tend to treat "racist" as a descriptive rather than a moral term and I would also agree that a policy could have "some beneficial consequences which may outweigh racial inequality it creates," as I tend towards utilitarianism.  If the undue harm negatively impacts total utility, then it is amoral. To use your subsequent example of asking if taxing rich individuals who mostly happen to be Jewish antisemitic? I would say yes. However "is it amoral?" would depend on how the money gained from the tax is used.

I'm an ignorant outsider. I'm sure there are reasons, but can someone explain the opposition to immigration to me? I can see three reasons to open the floodgates as widely as possible.

1. Population growth tends to bolster economies.
2. In 50 years, American will require population to fight compete with China.
3. It is more morally laudable and this feels good.

I gather that the opposition is (considered to be)

1. The belief that immigrants will deprive Americans of jobs (possibly true -- people with economics knowledge, how does this measure against the typical economic growth from immigration?).
2. Racist or simply callous disregard for others.

Its late so I am mostly just going to give a lot of links in reference to this, but the question of is immigration a net economic positive or negative is sort of complex.

Here is what the economics 101 version would say.  The immigrants arriving will do the work at a lower wage, and while that might hurt some of the people they are replacing in the short term it benefits society at large in the long term.  Cheaper inputs means that goods can be made at a cheaper price which will be passed on to consumers.  That means they will be able to purchase the same goods with less money and spend that saved money on other good and services growing the economy and employing more people overall. 

Of course this view requires some...unwarranted assumptions like perfectly or near perfectly competitive markets etc. This is a problem because in the absence of such competition firms have less intensive to lower prices and instead pocket most of the savings on inputs as profit redistributed to owners like shareholders.  That would not be a problem if redistribution policies were put in place to use that profit to offset the harm to affected individuals, but they are frequently not. Then again there is plenty of evidence like this paper and this paper that immigrants tend to form and own businesses at a higher rate than native born individuals which would tend to increase employment. 

Then there are also arguments for homogeneity on the basis of supporting social trust and social capital which is what ipecac was referring to.  Again there is some dispute but the general agreement is that diversity does, in the short term, negatively impact social trust. In the long run though, diversity seems to have advantages. Here is a freekenomics podcast on social trust and a blog post from Bloomberg colonist and former economics professor Noah Smith on the subject, though this is specifically about the alt-right's use of the notion of social trust from homogeneity, much of it is still relevant. Both of these have links for further reading.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

What happened to the good old days of just killing people and taking their stuff. Times were much simpler then.

Because you're a weakass bitch Krill, and would get crushed under such an ideology.

Some of the shoutiest advocates of dog-eat-dog supremacy are the feeblest participants.