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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8264 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 14, 2024

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The right to asylum has already been suspended in the EU, the catch is that it is suspended in favor of the refugees. They get all the protections of the asylum laws, they follow none of the obligations.

Governments are vastly more powerful than most humans. This is why we limit what governments can do to people, even in contexts where the individuals often don't play by the rules. For example, even if most criminal defendants are guilty, we still want trials to follow due process.

Of course a lot of people claiming asylum in European countries are in fact economic migrants. And of course many of them will not be swiftly deported. But none of that affects the rights of people with a legitimate claim to asylum.

If others can selectively apply the asylum laws why can't Poland? What justification does the EU have for enforcing this law when the EU itself doesn't follow it?

As an analogy, taxes are a legal way for a government to get funds from its citizens. Suppose that one European country refuses to collect taxes from someone. Should this give another EU country the licence to just confiscate property of some other party at gunpoint, because 'taxes are already suspended in the EU'? Clearly not.

This is a false dichotomy between "give migrants more money" and "shoot migrants". Might I humbly suggest a third option, which is to simply not offer rights and money to outsiders in the first place?

I was not saying 'give money to migrants'. I was saying 'spend money on migrants', which is different. At the end of the day, the migrants in Belarus were shipped there with the explicit goal of annoying the EU. Given the general regard for human rights in Belarus, it seems safe to assume that these migrants can be put under enough pressure that they believe that their lives will depend on reaching the EU, and risk their lives in the process. Under such circumstances, push-backs are ugly affairs.

As an analogy, taxes are a legal way for a government to get funds from its citizens. Suppose that one European country refuses to collect taxes from someone. Should this give another EU country the licence to just confiscate property of some other party at gunpoint, because 'taxes are already suspended in the EU'? Clearly not.

I think a better analogy would be if the EU agreed to set a minimum tax rate for the EU budget and all signed a treaty that said as much. What happens when, say, Germany decides to not enforce the minimum tax? What gave Germany license to suspend their treaty obligations to pay tax? Why should Poland listen to the EU when the EU tries to selectively enforce the tax treaty? Ok now what gives Germany the right to not ensure fair asylum claims (a fair asylum claim means actually getting them kicked out when they do not qualify)? What gives the EU the right to selectively enforce a migration treaty on Poland?

I will also point out that the EU, and every country, already has a license to just confiscate property at gunpoint. It is called taxes. What happens to those who do not pay taxes? Men with guns come to confiscate their property. Yes the payee generally gets a good deal (civilization) out of this. But force or threat of force is the driver behind the transfer. Confiscating property at gunpoint is what taxes are, EU countries already have this license.

I was not saying 'give money to migrants'. I was saying 'spend money on migrants', which is different. At the end of the day, the migrants in Belarus were shipped there with the explicit goal of annoying the EU. Given the general regard for human rights in Belarus, it seems safe to assume that these migrants can be put under enough pressure that they believe that their lives will depend on reaching the EU, and risk their lives in the process. Under such circumstances, push-backs are ugly affairs.

The migrants all made a conscious and free choice to go to Belarus, and then to either sneak in or lie to the EU about what danger they are in back in their origin country. If any danger to the migrants exists in Belarus it is because they choose to put themselves in danger. The migrants put themselves in this situation, if the EU wants to tell itself it has a legal obligation to fly them back then fine. But I think how it is now is a bad system because those that stand to benefit from abuse of the system (illegal migrants) do not currently pay the full costs for that abuse (getting back home), so they should change the law. It would seem ideal to me (and Poland) by scrapping the right of asylum entirely.

I figure that a lot of people on the anti-refugee side do not actually recognise any "rights of people with a legitimate claim to asylum", and think of asylum as a privilege rather than a right. An acceptance regime that produces false negatives is therefore not perceived as anything like robbing people of their rights.

I may be one of those people, but I do consider all rights as privileges. Right means entitlement absent of any duty, which means somebody else has duty providing you with said right. Even original US set of rights in American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man gives government duties through law to to enforce these rights privileges.

In this case right for asylum means nothing else other than duty of you fellow citizens to accommodate foreigners. If society as a whole refuses these duties, then said "right" is dead. Duties related to rights are not enforced by god who strikes you with lightning and they are not enshrined in trajectories of planets in Solar system. They are social conventions and they are direct results of what duties citizens are willing and capable to undertake - we have all seen what happened to human rights during COVID for example.

To be clear - I do recognize "rights of people with a legitimate claim to asylum". I just think that right is legitimate when applied to Olga and her kids from Ukraine, and illegitimate when applied to Mohamad and his cousin/wife from Pakistan.

That's not the issue. I recognize that some claims to asylum are legit, but I don't think these claims should enable mass population transfers. I also think such a mass-transfer is a greater violation of rights than a denial of a valid asylum claim.

Governments are vastly more powerful than most humans. This is why we limit what governments can do to people

Where? Governments assert broad rights to deploy mass surveillance, control speech, terrorize people with the police for political disagreement, even arrest people on completely arbitrary grounds if they're deemed to be enough trouble.

For example, even if most criminal defendants are guilty, we still want trials to follow due process.

Of course a lot of people claiming asylum in European countries are in fact economic migrants. And of course many of them will not be swiftly deported. But none of that affects the rights of people with a legitimate claim to asylum.

There's nothing in the constitutions and refugee conventions you keep citing, that would prevent a European government from refusing entry to African "refugees", while following due process.

Should this give another EU country the licence to just confiscate property of some other party at gunpoint, because 'taxes are already suspended in the EU'? Clearly not.

All taxes are "confiscating property at gunpoint", and countries clearly can decide their tax policy.

At the end of the day, the migrants in Belarus were shipped there with the explicit goal of annoying the EU.

This complaint seems a bit incoherent. I'm constantly being told that immigration is a benefit to the host country, how can that be annoying?

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