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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   21700 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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This is kind of what I’m getting at though- right now the status quo is that illegal immigrants have to traverse across Mexico, cross the border, and work jobs where they are paid under the table in shittier conditions than the government allows for its citizens. I and many others have problems with this, but this selects for these hardworking young people you’re referring to. I’m not sure if they end up paying into social security, but I know they don’t draw on it. So point taken there. The legal immigrants are often very smart and conscientious people who largely are a net financial benefit to the government.

But if we were to have de jure open borders, where the rights of citizenship are given to anyone who can scrounge up money for a plane ticket from around the world, you’re going to get a billion people and their old parents following them which would immediately cripple every social program and lead to massive crime and housing shortages. Do you disagree with this? If you’re suggesting some sort of permanent residency program where the immigrants are not ever given a path to citizenship or any entitlements like they have in the Middle East, I actually agree this could potentially work but I don’t consider that open borders, and I rarely see that proposal made explicit.

Regarding your last point about diversity decreasing support for welfare states, I would guess this is because the data is coming from western countries that went from being largely homogenous to having an immigrant underclass very quickly. The data also overwhelmingly shows that second-gen immigrants in the US and Europe vote for pro-welfare parties. This causes a larger share of the majority population to oppose welfare states, but if the previous majority becomes a minority I don’t know why we should expect the immigrants to stop voting for gibs

In general I think people should have the right to work and live anywhere they want. I don't believe voting, receiving government welfare, being a citizen etc is a right. So that is my conception of open borders. I don't really think of open borders as open citizenship for anyone or open welfare.

  1. Yes definitely. As long as membership is voluntary.
  2. It could theoretically exist. Getting voluntary joining from that massive number of people seems a bit prohibitive.

Does it count as voluntary as long as you're allowed to leave the club and its premises at any time for any reason?

With all of your stuff, sure.

What's stopping you from doing that now?

Lets cut the back and forth. Make your point, and I'll respond one last time. This is an old and very dead thread, and its not like I haven't heard a similar line of argument before.

I don't really think of open borders as open citizenship for anyone or open welfare.

So would you only support open borders if we got rid of open welfare (and birthright citizenship) first?

It would be nice to have a 3-tier citizenship that looked something like:

  1. Full citizen.
  2. Full resident.
  3. Foreigner trying to become citizen.

Technically we have that now. But birthright citizenshp and amnesties mess up how well it works (of course with open borders there's no need for amnesties).

And that doesn't really answer the open welfare question. Would you support open borders before we get rid of open welfare, or would you willing to wait first because of the consequences of getting open borders without getting rid of it first? (And the same question for birthright citizenship).

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