These arguments are already lost as soon as the bloodless pall of rationality takes over.
Classical economists, their heads filled with Adam Smith's nice ruminations on village 'butchers' and 'bakers', never imagine the flithy band of thieving gypsys squatting on the village green.
I would be all for open borders for people of all IQ's as long as no one tried to divert resources, privilege, etc. toward them and their dysfunction. The good ones can integrate, and the bad ones can do menial labor in segregated places where they can only hurt one another with their criminality and poor judgment. As someone who has studied plenty of economics, I know the economic advantages are there in theory and could be realized in practice, with enough fences, segregation, policing, etc.
That said, it seems to me that the modern Western world doesn't have the balls to pull this off. For example, immigrant Hispanics are privileged in the diversity racket like any other poor-performing group, and use their voting powers to help expand the diversity/welfare/immigration trifecta of doom. It's too unfashionable to suggest letting people in only if they will exist in a state that benefits us (even if their living conditions are far worse than those of natives), so I take a pragmatic position and insist we don't let them in instead. (Of course, bear in mind I am speaking here of voluntary migration to find work. They can come and go if they wish; they just aren't entitled to everything the nation has to offer).
Unfortunately, even the idea of not letting in low-value immigrants at all has become increasingly unfashionable. As attitudes toward what constitutes "acceptable discourse" continue to shift, I might have to shift my pragmatic approach even further away from what would be ideal.
"Leaving alone for the moment the argument that natives do in fact benefit from migrants" - But how can we morally justify depriving their home countries of the benefit they'd get by turning around and going back? Can't we in the first world Sacrifice to make the third world a little better?
Yan Shen: And who do we want? The cognitive elite!
No, we don't! If Switzerland gets all the cognitive elites from China, it will simply cease to be Switzerland and will become just another China instead. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with USA not wanting to expand its Chinatowns to the entire country (they are all invariably very filthy to begin with - just like Chinatowns back in China).
Dear Chinese cognitive elitists: Please stay home. You have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home - why should we believe you that you will manage to do it at our home???
And now for a more serious response. Your shareholder-citizenship model actually has more validity than anyone gives it credit for, Though I would say that nations are more privately held than publicly traded. The immigration system you hypothetically describe in the comments over there has been done, that was replacement rate immigration, and from 1925 to 1965 America did not burn down. An interesting point brought up was that having children is in effect inviting new people. This is not true, having children at greater than replacement rates is what does this, thanks to older holders dieing off. "Nor are a parent’s citizenship benefits diluted by the number of kids." - But it does seem to be strongly correlated with it, considering that bad places to live are the ones that had skyhigh birthrates, and the good places to live where everyone wants to come didn't.
"Finally, what makes you think the US isn’t sparsely populated now?" - Our water supplies, definitely the declining amount of water that spells the end of civilization in a few decades in the southwest, the area currently hardest hit by immigration. For other examples see the participation rate, the youth participation rate, wages, and other useful indicators that following your plan is making life worse for (almost)everyone.
We could use our uranium reserves, and sacrifice our environment to temporarily solve some of these issues, but I'd rather reserve those incredibly useful minerals of ours for more practical things, like space travel, strategic deterance, and so forth. Also the environment is nice, we shouldn't totally wreck it, just one of those quality of life things.
"And beyond that what if an employer just wants a janitor" - Why can't they just permenantly have a favorable arbitrage? Why *can't* they just permenantly have a favorable arbitrage?
"watch the libs shit." - themselves in joy? those groups vote overwhelmingly democrat.
Perhaps we could only let in immigrants who would be ineligible for any affirmative action program. After all, affirmative action was to “right historical wrongs” to existing peoples, and as such should not apply to those who recently arrived voluntarily.
At least the howls of protest against such a proposal (“Gasp! But that would only allow for White immigration”) would lay bare the actual intent of affirmative action.
The first response to Steve Sailer is from Vipul Naik. It's quite funny how many immigrants spend their time complaining about the country they've migrated to. Or was it their parents? They can go home.
It is very interesting how far the US has moved left. In Germany we abolished double-citizenship ten years ago (Turks like to stay Turks) under a center-left government and made it more difficult to have your (Turkish) wife move here unless she speaks German (big showstopper). The US is still going full power in the other direction.
Interesting that super duper high iq asians who move to usa vote dem
Fun fact: There were more asians and blacks on Romney's campaign team.
the genetic latticework and polymer bonds of a culture are more than its average IQ.
Ack.
I would be all for open borders for people of all IQ's as long as no one tried to divert resources, privilege, etc. toward them and their dysfunction.
Does not work. What about all the journalists with immigrant parents that complain about the Western country they're living in? You know, they couldn't do that where they come from but they can do it here - and get money for it! They don't show up as big fat minusses in any economic statistic.
Why even bother trying to argue with people who ask you to explain why your own child should mean more to you than an immigrant? Their arguments, even if correct, are those of a machine. Utterly souless, and devoid of any belief beyond avoiding logical contradictions. But to avoid such contradictions, their only hope is to ignore reality, and base all their arguments on their own previous arguments. They can never be wrong, because they can never be right. Their realm is an intellectual ether, entirely of their own creation. It's actually a bit surprising that they would allow a physical worlder to debate with them. But understand that the debate is entirely limited to rules of their created world. Concepts from this world will get you nowhere with them.
The "3am dorm room" debate (to borrow Steve's phrase) about the morality of immigration seems almost beside the point. What about the economics of it? How does a welfare state survive by importing millions of new citizens who will consume more in its resources than they will pay in taxes?
These sort of discussions are always meaningless because of inherent conflicts of interest - everyone has a dog in the race. Someone like Vipul Naik will never go in for limiting immigration. Why should he?
Only overly trusting white people can look at a discussion like this and think it's anything other than very flowery words overlaying base desire for their own and ethnic interest.
This is comparable to the Ancient Greeks inviting Trojans to their political forums and expecting honest debate that will lead to better outcomes for Greeks. I guess in the Internet age it's the way things work, but nothing will be achieved from the perspective of any non-suicidal white person from a European majority country.
Young Americans were fooled into paying tens of thousands of dollars for worthless liberal arts degrees and now they have a 50% un/underemployment rate.
If we bring in cognitive elites, they'll be lording over these young Americans, permanently. Is that desirable?
If we didn't have a lot of immigrants coming in there would be a need for educated workers and it would be useful to retrain some of those people with useless degrees for useful occupations.
Cognitive elitism might bring in more money but it would have numerous other costs, especially in the current situation where our country is overwhelmed with immigrant labor already.
Tell you what. Lets split up the US into the current red and blue states, and the blue state, big gov, big tax, open borders, welfare, unions, affirmative action crowd can go ahead and run their little experiment and the red states can go back to a sane system of government like what existed in the 50s- small gov, low tax, tight borders, fewer social safety nets to pay for and others to exploit, etc. Yes, I know Unions were around then- we can learn from the mistakes of the left and not allow them in the Rational States of America.
Tell you what, Yan Shen. You're in favor of letting people in, telling us who to allow in- When China allows Tibet, Taiwan, and Turkmenistan to call their own shots, even to be free of mainland China, and Israel allows open borders, then I will be more accepting of the idea. Otherwise, why should we be when others are not reciprocating what I would have them do?
You don't like that idea, don't like US citizens meddling in how they China runs their country? Now you know how I feel.
Dear Chinese cognitive elitists: Please stay home. You have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home - why should we believe you that you will manage to do it at our home???
The Chinese cognitive elitists had a innovative and prosperous country before the Mongols, missionaries, and Marxists ruined it. Think of cognitive elitists as reverse missionaries coming to extract some revenge by taking away your beer, football, and Jesus.
Having watched this evening's telecast of CBS's '60 Minutes,' and hearing historian David McCullough remark that today's American young are historically illiterate - a fact I with which I have abundant personal experience - it strikes me, from reading the notions and contentions at the Open Borders: The Case website, that the individuals who hold these notions and make those contentions are historically illiterate. Thus would they, in their ignorance, condemn us and our heirs to repeat some of history's worst suffering.
If the United States is in decline, it's not because of economics or politics, or because of social change or deficit spending. Our country is in decline because we let the Howard Zinns write our children's history textbooks, because we let the Bill Ayerses and Bernardine Dohrns "reform" our schools. Everything that those twisted America-hating, White-people-hating, ethnomasochistic bastards wrote and proselytized you can read for yourself, all of it is regurgitated in the vacant, suicidal notions and contentions at the Open Borders: The Case website.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” - George Orwell, '1984'
It looks like the firm/shareholders analogy at this point too distracting for the excessively literal-minded participants of the discussion. It's probably doing more harm than good in terms of moving the conversation forward.
"Gop should be for open borders and call for 100 mil chinese and 100 mil hindus to come right away."
i've made this argument many times. force california to accept ONE THOUSAND new chinese people washing up on their shore every single day. they can't just walk across the border like mexicans, so they have to be allowed to get there by any means necessary. that's the liberal way isn't it? fairness?
no objections or negative comments, please, that's racist. you MUST allow them to land.
in fact, i've wanted to start a blue collar labor company staffed exclusively by chinese peasants, who undercut and outwork at every turn, the mexicans employed by my competitors. they're smarter, work harder, for longer, for less money. i'll put the firms who use mexicans out of business in 3 to 5 years.
if i'm not allowed, it's racist. so, what do you say libs?
You have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home - why should we believe you that you will manage to do it at our home???
Although the comment above was directed at the Chinese, I don't understand why it is not more often used against Latin American immigrants.
When European settlers and later immigrant came to the USA, they were leaving the Old World and its old customs and structures that had prevented them from living their lives they way they wanted. So even though I don't support immigration today, I can see the reason why people from the Old World still head here.
However, Latin Americans are New Worlders like us. Like us, their countries have only been around for two hundred years. They had every opportunity to establish new nations, with new systems and abandon the bad ways of the Old World. Yet they evidently failed to do so and now are coming here. Why are we taking them? They have already proven that in the same amount of time it took us to create the greatest nation ever, they screwed up nations blessed equally with ours in climate and resources. Do we really want them in numbers so large as to constitute anything close to a plurality?
Finally, I hear all this talk about Indians and Chinese wanting to immigrate here. Do these guys also plan on immigrating to Latin America? I mean Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are large New World economies. Is anyone immgrating there? If not, why not?
The government may say there are 11 million illegals but other estimates go as high as 25 million which is probably more accurate. After all, the government doesn't want to scare us, right?
I wouldn't have any problem with open borders if we got back our gun, property, and freedom of association rights in very real, if ugly senses - restrictive convenants, discrimination in businesses/hiring, and the arms to back it up, all that stuff that was legal for a long time, before the government decided it was going to force us to like everyone.
Here's a longer quote to give context to Anonymous's comment above referring to me as a "libertarian numbskull":
"Getting to the issue of births, future children are not yet things that “people have” — so denying people the right to have children in the future is not “taking something of value” from them in a literal sense. It is so only in a metaphorical sense — once we concede that people have a right to make their own reproductive choices, with any constraint placed on such rights requiring strong justification. What open borders advocates argue is that the right to migrate is similar — it is a presumptive right and overriding it requires overcoming a strong presumption."
Obviously, I expect commenters on this blog to disagree with the idea of a presumption in favor of a right to migrate, but it would be helpful to give context to comments so that people can judge what I actually said, rather than get an impression that is contrary to the spirit of what I said. Here's the original comment.
Also, for the record, neither I nor any of the other Open Borders bloggers get paid for blogging on the site.
Citizenism is an obviously incoherent theory. And the corporate analogy is a bad analogy - not just imperfect, as all analogies are, but bad.
I didn't read Hendrix's post through carefully, but he's right about at least one point that I think I've made myself. There's no good reason to throw in the "interests" of descendants into citizenism. In fact, wasn't that even an ad hoc later addition to the theory? (I don't remember.) Hendrix goes into more detail than I have - more detail than is necessary to refute the theory.
He also mentions another obvious, practical, objection: immigrationists argue that immigration is in the "interest" of current citizens and their descendants. So even if citizenism were theoretically sound, which it isn't, it would in practice be irrelevant to any real argument.
There are other objections, just as strong, that he didn't mention. The whole concept of "interest," for one. The concept is pretty clear, and applicable to a financial setting; not so much in the lives of our countrymen and descendants. There are more objections, but I think it would be beating a dead horse.
This kind of confusion is why it is so damaging that the phrase "citizen's dividend" has been relegated to a natural resources aspect of political economy, and the phrase "basic income" is used where "citizen's dividend" should be used.
So let me use "citizen's dividend" the way it should be used:
Federal public goods should be delivered exclusively to citizens through a citizen's dividend paid equally to every adult citizen. No means-testing. No pork-barrel politics. No special interests. General welfare only from the Federal level.
At the State level there might be all sorts of games played but then people can vote with their feet and take their citizen's dividend stream elsewhere.
The fact that Republican leadership is not all over this idea is proof positive that they are mongoloid idiots. The fact that Democrat leadership is not all over this idea is proof positive that they are evil.
> No, we don't! If Switzerland gets all the cognitive elites from China, it will simply cease to be Switzerland and will become just another China instead.
As stated, yes, but if everyone with a >130 IQ in China moved to the US it would add <54 million people to the population. It would be a huge influx, but it wouldn't cause the US to cease to be the US.
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Citizenism is abstract and artificial, in a sense like the Proposition Nation.
It might have worked 50 years ago. But now, I believe it has no power to advance over the Proposition Nation. And there is nothing in it for Jews or the White elite, whose support would almost certainly be needed.
I suspect we see a return to actual nations based on ethnicity before Citizenism.
The reason Sailer includes descendants is not given in that article, but immigration advocates have noted the parallels between population expansion through child-birth and immigration. With his focus on current citizens, there appears to be no reason why posterity should not also be ignored.
Those guys are out of their minds. Obviously, the primary determinant of the welfare of current citizens is the welfare of their descendants. It is impossible to consider the welfare of citizens without taking into account the welfare of their children.
The incessant gloating from the leftists after this election is quite illuminating. Both journalists and commenters are boldly cheering the coming onslaught of legislation that will really stick to the White guys.
“Amnesty to 11+ million illegals is coming Steve and you know it.”
11+million more on welfare. If all these proponents of amnesty beleve that these new citizens are interested to keep working for peanuts, I have a nice bridge to sell them.
"11+million more on welfare. If all these proponents of amnesty beleve that these new citizens are interested to keep working for peanuts, I have a nice bridge to sell them."
The only issue I care about is freedom of speech. As for big government, we should let Democrats spend more and more until it all goes bust. Don't worry. We are not gonna pay for it. It will have to be written off, and our creditors will take the hit. And if there's a major depression, hurrah as it will mean REVOLUTION IN THE STREETS. It's time for the American Republic to come to an end and a new order was formed.
"The incessant gloating from the leftists after this election is quite illuminating. Both journalists and commenters are boldly cheering the coming onslaught of legislation that will really stick to the White guys."
Personally, I find it very amusing. They just don't know what they'll be missing. They won't have the Evil White Guy to kick around anymore. So, who is the PRIVILEGED WHITE GUY now? Uh.... white liberals. Haha.
"Citizenism is abstract and artificial, in a sense like the Proposition Nation."
Citizenism is a good idea but the problem isn't the idea but the lack of power behind it.
No matter how good an idea, it remains small unless it is hyped and discussed. 'Homophobia' and 'gay marriage' are stupid ideas, but it's on everyone's lips because big media, big entertainment, big education, big politics, and big money spread them all over.
It's like there are excellent little art films but few people know of them. But 100s of millions know of TRANSFORMERS. Why? Hype and media backing with advertising and etc.
The reason citizenism has failed is not due to lack of merits but due to lack of funding and hype. 'Diverity' otoh has become a national religion, what with even Gingrich saying stuff like 'diversity is our strength' and Clinton using all his charms to encourage white elites to welcome a browning nation.
That's how it works. But bad ideas lead to bad results, and liberal bad ideas are gonna lead to one mess after another.
Civilizations go through these cycles. Romans were once mighty and disciplined. Too much wealth and power made them decadent. America was made by hard men and women of Anglo stock and ethnics who had virtues of their own and also learned from Anglos. But with the vast wealth of post WWII yrs, Americans got softer and softer-headed generation after generation. Now, our great national moral issue is... 'gay marriage'. The other great cause is feminists saying chubby college girls in elite colleges should get free birth control pills. I mean just think about it! Such nonsense can't last.
I wish Obama would offer free college tuition for all. That will really destroy higher ed in no time. Just like the French revolution devoured its children and Mao's cultural revolution actually weakened red china(and oddly enough paved the way for rise of capitalism), just watch where idiot liberalism takes America.
What cons can do is play YOJIMBO-like and tell blacks/browns that white/Jewish/gay urban libs got the real big money and privilege. And please call for Jews to be counted as a separate category and call for affirmative action for white gentiles of lower classes.
"Dear Chinese cognitive elitists: Please stay home. You have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home "
They've built innovative and prosperous countries in Singapore and Taiwan. Hong Kong's pretty prosperous too, although the British deserve some credit there, and, as a special admin region of China, it's not an independent country.
Aaron Gross,
"Citizenism is an obviously incoherent theory. And the corporate analogy is a bad analogy - not just imperfect, as all analogies are, but bad."
Why is the corporate analogy particularly bad? If anything, it seems especially apt, given that the founders of this country came from colonies that were founded by companies (e.g., the Massachusetts Bay Company).
"There's no good reason to throw in the "interests" of descendants into citizenism."
This is another reason why Sailer's corporate analogy is apt: the interests of the descendants (heirs) of shareholders are taken into account. When a shareholder dies, his shares don't die with him, they go to his heirs.
One aspect where Sailer's analogy and citizenship diverge, though, is that shareholder's ownership stake is diluted on per capita basis when his heirs inherit the shares.
"He also mentions another obvious, practical, objection: immigrationists argue that immigration is in the "interest" of current citizens and their descendants."
If that were true, than advocates of expanded immigration would make the case on its merits, most of us would agree, and this wouldn't be a big issue. But most advocates of expanded immigration use other arguments to advocate for it (global utilitarianism, opponents are nativists, etc.), most of us don't agree, and it is a big issue.
I think all this focus on immigrants and illegals is somewhat misplaced. All those illegals and immigrants will never gain control of the nation. They may vote Democratic and give the Dems a decisive edge, but who controls and owns the Dem party? Jews and gays. So, if we want to fight this thing, we should really focus on Jewish and gay power.
In ANIMAL FARM, the horses and other animals take on the man, but the real winners are the smart pigs who led the revolt and kept all the power for themselves.
In a boxing match, you aim for the head. Hitting the body isn't as effective. Go for the headshot in this fight. Call out on the Jewish strategy of 'divide and rule'. THAT is what this is all about. Why is Bill Maher the Jew saying GOP is reacting like a black guy fuc*ed a white guy's wife? Jews have this burning hatred for whites.
Hispanics without Jewish backing of media and money wouldn't be all radicalized and aggressive. Without Jewish media and money to rile up the Hispanics, most Mexicans would be like Guillermo.
British moved Hindus to Africa. British used Malaysian troops to fire on Hindus in India. British used Chinese in Singapore. It was very clever. That way, the hostility of the natives would be diverted to people other than the British imperialists. If Brits used Hindu middlemen in Africa, blacks would hate Hindus more than they hated Brits. If Brits used Malaysian soldiers to shoot Hindus, Hindus would hate Malaysians. If Brits used Sikh soldiers in China, Chinese would hate the Sikhs.
In America, Jews increase diversity and use Asians and Mexicans against whites. Whites, in their stupidity, take out their anger on Mexicans, Asians, and Muslims when Jews are behind it all.
Wake up please. Have the courage to call out on this bullshit. Jews had the courage in the 50s to take on McCarthy and bring him down. We need the courage to take on Jewish power and bring down Foxmanism.
Unless Jewish power is called out and confronted, NOTHING is possible. If we fixate on Mexers and illegals, Jews will play us against them and them against us. Some Jews like Michael Savage will rile us up against illegal aliens, and some Jews will rile up illegal aliens against us. Enough of this shit. The real problem is the Jews and their machinations.
Our country is in decline because we let the Howard Zinns write our children's history textbooks, because we let the Bill Ayerses and Bernardine Dohrns "reform" our schools. Everything that those twisted America-hating, White-people-hating, ethnomasochistic bastards
Would you rather turn the clock back to 1950 and have twisted child-hating, brain-hating christomasochistic bastards near your children, teaching them to hate themselves for god and country?
Or like me, do you want your kids learn to love themselves, AND their race, AND their country?
'Would you rather turn the clock back to 1950 and have twisted child-hating, brain-hating christomasochistic bastards near your children, teaching them to hate themselves for god and country?'
I get fairly sick of people trying to make arguments based on what they term 'morality' (ie their own opinions), or even analogies with hard the hard cas markets of the stock exchange when they pontificate about 'citizenship' and imigration policy. The word 'nation', of course is derived from the Latin 'natio' and means 'birth'. That in itelf says it all, all nations were originally defined, through the centuries of recorded history, by dint of birth - and therefore blood. A remnant of this ancient idea persists in Grman law to this day in which persons of German blood resident in Romania or wherever, who they or their ancestors have never set foot in Germany for 700 years are automatically given full Grman citizenship, and all the trimmings, by sheer dint of setting foot on German soil. Another ancient idea was that, as an act of kindness, selected persons who were not of the nation, were, if they proved worthy enough, accepted as a 'natural' part of the nation, and were confined citizenship along with the natural born. Hence the term 'naturalization' and the formal process of the individual concerned proving his worth to be accepted as a natural son or daughter. I'm sorry but this distinction between 'insiders' and 'outsiders' always existed and was always essentially tribalistic and based on blood, as Stve said before 'family' is the right analogy. I just wish the rhetorical sophistry merchants out there would stop trying to bullshit out of it with crap 'arguments' involving what they call morals, 'free trade', 'libertarianism' and he rest of that shit.
Hong Kong and Singapore are tiny strategically located countries and, being settled by traders from Fujian and Guandong, not really representatitve of China as a whole.
The economists start with an individual with his property--both lacking a context.
Alternatively, we can start with a Nation or a tribe with its territory.
This is the proper context in which private property (in land) exists or is meaningful even.
A Right is a conclusion of a series of Arguments. Thus a Right makes sense only in a state of laws.
Nations exist in a state of nature (Locke). They occupy territory (they do not "own" territory) by Force and not by Argument.
The individuals exist in states of laws. A particular state of laws, we may add. Thus an American exists in an American state of laws, a Frenchman exists in a French state of laws.
The libertarian error here is simply the logical end of the liberal stream of thought.
Since no one has said it yet on this thread: who-whom.
Anyone who thinks that the 'Uhn' (per Idiocracy) abolished war in 1945 has another thing coming. This thread, even here in the urbane world of Steve, is a foot-throat jujitsu dojo.
Hunsdon is all in favor of neologisms, but he prefers for them to be, in some sense, tethered to reality. When I saw Xiite, I wondered if Xochitl finally had a child. Or if it was some kind of Shiite thing. Ah, no, at last Hunsdon sees, and chastened, realizes that some people just cant stand Christianity.
The issue which will destroy the GOP is when a critical mass of evangelicals capiche that Christian-Zionism is a heresy. Apparently that consciousness is growing at grass-roots levels. I think it will also seriously dent the evangelical churches; many will turn their backs on the faith in disgust. That's when the political system will radically change, since all the current PC shackles will come off the cons.
I just wish the rhetorical sophistry merchants out there would stop trying to bullshit out of it with crap 'arguments' involving what they call morals, 'free trade', 'libertarianism' and he rest of that shit.
There are those who consciously manipulate the terminology an meaning of words for their selfish and evil political agendas, and then there are those who are not bold enough to make the obvious conclusions and hope for a settlement on middle ground, which of course never occurs, because the evil ones keep pushing until they get the cake.
Vipal, let's hear you argue for open borders for India. Why let the white West have all the fun? I don't see anything on your site arguing for open borders anywhere except the comfy, developed, First World West?
Surely 200 million Chinese, 100 million Pakistanis/Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans have the "right" to benefit from India's booming economy?
OPEN THE BORDERS OF INDIA NOW! Let's hear you make The Case for that on your site.
The issue which will destroy the GOP is when a critical mass of evangelicals capiche that Christian-Zionism is a heresy. Apparently that consciousness is growing at grass-roots levels.
I'd like to think you're right, but what evidence are you relying on?
Amnesty to 11+ million illegals is coming Steve and you know it.
You know, defeatism is not helpful. I think we can stop this amnesty, at which point we need to strategize as to how to get rid of the administrative amnesty.
But even if we cannot, organizing to stop this amnesty will provide a base for further organizing, which is going to be necessary if these demographic changes continue.
I didn't read Hendrix's post through carefully, but he's right about at least one point that I think I've made myself. There's no good reason to throw in the "interests" of descendants into citizenism.
Other than the fact that the interests of descendants constitute a huge part of the interests of current citizens.
He also mentions another obvious, practical, objection: immigrationists argue that immigration is in the "interest" of current citizens and their descendants. So even if citizenism were theoretically sound, which it isn't, it would in practice be irrelevant to any real argument.
No, it's not irrelevant. Immigration is wrong unless EVERY citizen agrees to it. Democracy is government by UNANIMOUS consent of the people.
For the purpose of efficiency, the people may UNANIMOUSLY agree to a system of voting and representation that allows decisions to be made without unanimous approval in each case, but that system still must be set up by unanimous consent.
We do not have such a system.
Read Buchanan & Tullock's "Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy".
Opening the borders of India is pointless because a) few people would want to live there since it is a terrible place b) it's not a nation anyway, so there isn't much to lose (It's a bunch of nations captured under a single government) and c) it's not as much of a welfare state.
Opening the borders of Israel is a better example.
Why even bother trying to argue with people who ask you to explain why your own child should mean more to you than an immigrant? Their arguments, even if correct, are those of a machine.
But there arguments can't be correct because ultimately they have to define the interests whose maximization would justify their prescriptions to the people in question.
The selection of any interest other than those people's LIFE (which, of course, continues through their descendants) is utterly arbitrary.
future children are not yet things that “people have” — so denying people the right to have children in the future is not “taking something of value” from them in a literal sense. It is so only in a metaphorical sense — once we concede that people have a right to make their own reproductive choices, with any constraint placed on such rights requiring strong justification. What open borders advocates argue is that the right to migrate is similar — it is a presumptive right and overriding it requires overcoming a strong presumption.
Sorry, but you still sound like a numbskull.
You simply state that something which you want to be a right but which has never been a right - the "right to invite" - should be treated in exactly the same fashion as something which has always been a right - the right to procreate.
That does not even rise to the level where it can be called "argument". It's just an assertion of your own desires.
DaveInHackensack asks, "Why is the corporate analogy particularly bad?"
Well, it's bad for lots of reasons, but to take the most glaringly obvious way in which it's wrong: corporations are supposed to benefit their current shareholders, but the government, according to citizenism, is supposed to benefit current and future citizens (some of them). Isn't it obvious, as soon as citizenism declares, "I'm considering the interests of future citizens as well as present ones," that the whole corporate analogy is kind of silly?
Then there are all the usual reasons the corporation/state analogy is bad. We hear them every time some CEO runs for president, so I won't repeat them. But the citizenist analogy fails immediately on its own terms. Come on, who can take this citizenism stuff seriously?
P.S. Thanks Mr. Sailer for your free-speech comment policy. Much appreciated and exploited!
immigration advocates have noted the parallels between population expansion through child-birth and immigration.
Both result in more people. That's the only parallel. Population expansion thought child-birth is analogous to economic expansion via people opening their own businesses. Population expansion though immigration is analogous to economic expansion via a government "five year plan".
They're trying to dress it up and make it sound thoughtful and intellectual and moral, but all they are really saying is the same old disingenuous libertarian claptrap about how "I should be able to do whatever I want as long as it does not cause immediate physical harm to someone else". There's no "there" there.
Their arguments, even if correct, are those of a machine. Utterly souless...
Ah, but are they? Just because spergs would be the last people on earth to have any insight into, or interest in uncovering, their own unconscious biases and motivations, they surely have them. Some of our most sperg-o-matic posters may have a machine style, but the highly emotional, pre-rational, and perfectly human foundations of their views, that are flamingly apparent to everyone but themselves, are anything but heart-and-soul-less. (That's what makes them so loveable.)
Is sperginess in the service of good old fashioned primal drives (ethnocentrism, greed, status) really sperginess? Or just cryptic coloration?
DaveinH: The "3am dorm room" debate (to borrow Steve's phrase) about the morality of immigration seems almost beside the point. What about the economics of it? How does a welfare state survive by importing millions of new citizens who will consume more in its resources than they will pay in taxes?
I guess you're just not subtle enough to understand what Steve calls "triple bank shots". Mastuh plans. The evil Bond genius mojo of the libertarian economist. The conditions you have just described will destroy the welfare state!
I know to your ilk this all sounds an awful lot like "destroying the village to save it", or "we're going to burn your village and everyone in it to the ground to save your immortal souls", but it's not their fault you're thick.
I don't really care if India has closed or open borders. It isn't a country that has a great amount of appeal to many people. The argument that it's all fair if impoverished, overcrowded shitholes open their borders in return for wealthy, orderly Western countries doing the same is not a winner. It's basically the case of a beggar settling for an equal division of your and his assets.
Aliens like Vipul and Yan would no doubt like to live an America with a white minority and with a lot more of their ethnic type let in. The fact that they brazenly promote solvents to social cohesion should be enough to dismiss their arugments.
But also, someone who seeks to emigrate to a country with a very different culture evidently does not feel strongly the appeal of tradition and interconnectedness--which makes him suitable to neither his old home nor his adopted one. Vipul and Yan will make poor Americans, regardless of their stance on immigration--although conservatives of a curious rootlessness seem eager to pretend otherwise.
"Will"? Don't you mean "did"? (Like, nigh onto 50 years ago now?)
...is when a critical mass of evangelicals capiche that Christian-Zionism is a heresy.[...]That's when the political system will radically change, since all the current PC shackles will come off the cons.
Nah. They'll just go all-in for something even stupider.
"Vipal, let's hear you argue for open borders for India. Why let the white West have all the fun? I don't see anything on your site arguing for open borders anywhere except the comfy, developed, First World West?"
I still say we should undermine immigrationists by outdoing them. I say GOP call for immediate arrival of 100 million Hindus and 100 million Chinese. Of course it won't happen but it will make libs shit. And Hispanics will object. Haha.
I can see it now:
Gingrich: "We now agree with Democrats and realize the wrongfulness of our ways. So, the GOP is now not only for open borders for radical open borders. We want 100 million Hindus and 100 million Chinese to come to US in the next year."
Watch the blacks, browns, and even white libs shit.
I just wish the rhetorical sophistry merchants out there would stop trying to bullshit out of it with crap 'arguments' involving what they call morals, 'free trade', 'libertarianism' and he rest of that shit.
Why on earth would they do a stupid thing like that? Crap arguments work. Crap arguments go down easy; good arguments require time and effort to understand. And that's as true for the speaker as for the listener, at least in politics and policy fields. Having a level of philosophical sophistication much beyond shyster-level sophistry is unnecessary and probably a handicap. Don't want to get distracted by a curiosity about the truth when there pre-selected conclusions to be reached, do you?
"Vipal, let's hear you argue for open borders for India."
Vipal will go for this because even with open borders, NO ONE will go to India. Every friend of mine who've been to India--even liberal ones--called it a nation of beggars. No matter where you go, beggars of all ages follow you around. And the money is dirty. Not in the figurative sense but in the stinking filthy literal sense. They said it's like handling soiled toilet paper.
"Opening the borders of India is pointless because a) few people would want to live there since it is a terrible place b) it's not a nation anyway, so there isn't much to lose (It's a bunch of nations captured under a single government) and c) it's not as much of a welfare state."
The whole reason the original poster brought up the issue of India is that Vipal Naik is likely from India. If he isn't, just substitute where he is actually from - the only idiots stupid enough to have our immigration policies are European countries.
Even so, Africans would probably still immigrate there, and still manage to ethnically cleanse the inhabitants by being their usual selves.
corporations are supposed to benefit their current shareholders
I don't think that's really the case. if it were then corporations ought to liquidate themselves today and distribute all their assets among their shareholders. But virtually no corporations are run that way - the well run corporation promises that its shares will appreciate in value over time - that the shareholder of the future will be richer than the shareholder of today.
Of course the great majority of shareholders five years from now will be the same physical people as those of today - but they are also the "shareholders of the future". And in a lot of cases (think 401k's) people are buying shares with the future specifically in mind - with their children specifically in mind.
Steven, I have already explained to you why your analogy of citizenism to shareholders of a corporation is a flawed one.
A shareholder has to BUY stocks to become a shareholder. That money comes from his work and represents VALUE ADDED to the corporation. Conversely, in citizenism, a citizen enjoys special priviledges in a country just because he was born there. He has not added any value to the country's competitiveness to merit a higher salary than that of a citizen of another country that works at the same job that he does. In a World where workers' wages are determined by the value of their production, giving a higher salary to your country's workers than workers of other countries get for the same productivity means that the good produced in your country will have a higher cost than those produced in another country. Meaning that the consumers of your own country will choose the foreign product, meaning that the companies of your country will go out of business resulting in massive unemployment. Teh only wany you can have higher wages for workers for equal productivity is by closing the economyto foreign goods, forcing the consumers of your own country to pay more for their good, decreasing their quality of life. Economic citizenism results in improved quality of life and wages for a section of the population by decreasing the standard of living of another section of the population. This is simple logic. There is not economic free lunch. The only way to have higher wages is by gaining in productivity.
A better analogy is the think of citizens as employees of a corporation rather than shareholders. Why? Because a citizen is not adding value to a country by his mere existance, unlike a shareholder, who is putting his money(value) into a corporation, allowing it to purchase better equipment and better train it's workforce for improved productivity. A citizen by his mere existence does not add value to the quality and quantity of the goods and services produced by his country, and if he were to be rewarded beyond what he adds of value to the country's economic efficiency, this cost will be repassed on to the value of the goods and services produced in his country, meaning no consumers for these goods and general bankruptcy, or, if you choose to eliminate foreign competition altogether to protect the higher-cost products produced in your country, an entitled workforce that takes value from all of society, and enjoys a higher standard of living than it othrwise woudl by decreasing the standard of living of the rest of the population. Price is one of the two most important economic indicators, and fixing prices ALWAYS results in disaster everywhere it has been tried.
Also, as a libertarian I cannot agree with prices being set by politics rather than the much fairer rule of supply and demand.
A better analogy is the think of citizens as employees of a corporation rather than shareholders
Libertarians may be insufferably stupid, but at least they're honest! Citizens are to be seen as "employees" of the state. Joe Stalin and Hitler would both have agreed wholeheartedly.
Behind the libertarian twaddle about "freedom", as behind the communist twaddle about "equality", stands the same totalitarian impulse.
"Libertarians may be insufferably stupid, but at least they're honest! Citizens are to be seen as "employees" of the state. Joe Stalin and Hitler would both have agreed wholeheartedly.
Behind the libertarian twaddle about "freedom", as behind the communist twaddle about "equality", stands the same totalitarian impulse."
Actually, libertarians often are the absolute peak of the intellectual scale as far as political leanings are concerned, as demonstrated by IQ tests and academic achievements. The highest proportions of libertarians are found among those with post-graduate degrees and Mensa members. Conversely, social conservatives often score the lowest of all groups in political prefrences.
And you missed the analogy entirely. My point is that a country's workers are to be seen as employees of a corporation(country) rather than stockholders because, unlike shareholders, they do not receive value(salary/revenues) only if the corporation profits, but regardless if it does. Hence, you cannot pay them a higher salary than the value of what they produce because then the corporation(country) goes bankrupt. A shareholder only makes money of the company profits. If it doesen't, he loses money.
What Sailer advocates is paying workers more than what they are worthy just for being citizens, something that NEVER occurs with shareholders of a company. A shareholder only receives more money than what he put in the company(shares of the corporation becoming more valubale) if the gains in productivity that his investment im stok of the corporation allowed to were greater than the value of what he put. What Sailer advocates is giving workers of his country a free lunch compared to workers elsewhere just for being Americans. Free lunch. He wants them to receive more value(money) for their work than what they produce in value, which NEVER happens in the case of someone who buys stock. A shareholder only makes a profit if his investment resulted in more value than what his investment represented. If not, the value of his stock goes down and he LOSES money.
You attacked a strawman with this ridiculous argument about Marxism and the government which had NOTHING to do with the point that I was making. Who is insufferably stupid again?
I don't really care if India has closed or open borders. It isn't a country that has a great amount of appeal to many people. The argument that it's all fair if impoverished, overcrowded shitholes open their borders in return for wealthy, orderly Western countries doing the same is not a winner. It's basically the case of a beggar settling for an equal division of your and his assets.
You're looking at it the wrong way. First, reciprocity involves an exchange of equal value; India letting in 100m racial aliens is equivalent to America letting in 10k of same.
Second, India isn't going to do any such thing, thus waiting for them to go first (since they have so much less to lose and so far to go to catch up anyway) is a good rhetorical device.
Actually, libertarians often are the absolute peak of the intellectual scale as far as political leanings are concerned
You are the same cretinous Anonymous moron who has written comment after comment here over the past several months all asserting that conservatives be dum, while liberals and libertarians are the essence of Sweet Reason.
What Sailer advocates is paying workers more than what they are worthy just for being citizens
For a person who is convinced of his own towering intellect, you're remarkably stupid. Sailer has not advocated anything of the sort.
(Sailer) wants them (America workers) to receive more value(money) for their work than what they produce in value
I want to see you cite Steve Sailer saying "I want American workers to receive more money for their work than what they produce in value". I want a link and the actual words.
you missed the analogy entirely. My point is that a country's workers are to be seen as employees of a corporation(country)
I understood what you said perfectly. You view people as "employees" of the state, while I view the state as an employee of the people.
In your view of things the employer (the state) can hire any workers (import any immigrants) it wants, and the workers (formerly called citizens) don't get a say in the matter.
Although you may not have thought this through it's also the case that employers can fire employees. That would translate to stripping people of citizenship and/or kicking them out of the country. And of course the employer (aka the state) decides what pay and benefits to give its "workers".
You're more honest and logically consistent than Caplan, I'll give you that. He's saying essentially the same thing you are, but he is also trying to cloak his statism in the traditional libertarian garb of anti-statism.
Does that blog (unlike Caplan's) allow people to post their opinions? Because it's a rare open borders proponent which allows the free flow of ideas.
ReplyDeleteGimme a c, gimme an o, gimme a g, gimme a n, gimme an i, gimme a t, gimme an i, gimme a v, gimme an e.
ReplyDeleteGimme an e, gimme a l, gimme an i, gimme a t, gimme an i, gimme a s, gimme a m.
What does that spell?
Cognitive elitism!
And who do we want?
The cognitive elite!
These arguments are already lost as soon as the bloodless pall of rationality takes over.
ReplyDeleteClassical economists, their heads filled with Adam Smith's nice ruminations on village 'butchers' and 'bakers', never imagine the flithy band of thieving gypsys squatting on the village green.
Gilbert P.
i like how they have separate tabs for each case. as if there was even a single case. because there isn't.
ReplyDelete"This is far and away the spergiest discussion among the usual libertarian spergmeisters."
ReplyDelete5/5 stars comment of the year
Gop should be for open borders and call for 100 mil chinese and 100 mil hindus to come right away.
ReplyDeletewatch the libs shit.
Amnesty to 11+ million illegals is coming Steve and you know it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that super duper high iq asians who move to usa vote dem
ReplyDeleteIf we want immigrants who will vote republican we need to invite every single white rhodesian and every single boer to move here. They vote republican
troll entity:
ReplyDelete"And who do we want?
The cognitive elite!"
the genetic latticework and polymer bonds of a culture are more than its average IQ. a non-borg would intuitively understand that.
I would be all for open borders for people of all IQ's as long as no one tried to divert resources, privilege, etc. toward them and their dysfunction. The good ones can integrate, and the bad ones can do menial labor in segregated places where they can only hurt one another with their criminality and poor judgment. As someone who has studied plenty of economics, I know the economic advantages are there in theory and could be realized in practice, with enough fences, segregation, policing, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it seems to me that the modern Western world doesn't have the balls to pull this off. For example, immigrant Hispanics are privileged in the diversity racket like any other poor-performing group, and use their voting powers to help expand the diversity/welfare/immigration trifecta of doom. It's too unfashionable to suggest letting people in only if they will exist in a state that benefits us (even if their living conditions are far worse than those of natives), so I take a pragmatic position and insist we don't let them in instead. (Of course, bear in mind I am speaking here of voluntary migration to find work. They can come and go if they wish; they just aren't entitled to everything the nation has to offer).
Unfortunately, even the idea of not letting in low-value immigrants at all has become increasingly unfashionable. As attitudes toward what constitutes "acceptable discourse" continue to shift, I might have to shift my pragmatic approach even further away from what would be ideal.
"Leaving alone for the moment the argument that natives do in fact benefit from migrants" - But how can we morally justify depriving their home countries of the benefit they'd get by turning around and going back? Can't we in the first world Sacrifice to make the third world a little better?
ReplyDelete'Amnesty to 11+ million illegals is coming Steve and you know it.'
ReplyDeleteLet it come. Libs are digging their own graves.
Yan Shen:
ReplyDeleteAnd who do we want?
The cognitive elite!
No, we don't! If Switzerland gets all the cognitive elites from China, it will simply cease to be Switzerland and will become just another China instead. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with USA not wanting to expand its Chinatowns to the entire country (they are all invariably very filthy to begin with - just like Chinatowns back in China).
Dear Chinese cognitive elitists: Please stay home. You have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home - why should we believe you that you will manage to do it at our home???
And now for a more serious response. Your shareholder-citizenship model actually has more validity than anyone gives it credit for, Though I would say that nations are more privately held than publicly traded. The immigration system you hypothetically describe in the comments over there has been done, that was replacement rate immigration, and from 1925 to 1965 America did not burn down. An interesting point brought up was that having children is in effect inviting new people. This is not true, having children at greater than replacement rates is what does this, thanks to older holders dieing off. "Nor are a parent’s citizenship benefits diluted by the number of kids." - But it does seem to be strongly correlated with it, considering that bad places to live are the ones that had skyhigh birthrates, and the good places to live where everyone wants to come didn't.
ReplyDelete"Finally, what makes you think the US isn’t sparsely populated now?" - Our water supplies, definitely the declining amount of water that spells the end of civilization in a few decades in the southwest, the area currently hardest hit by immigration. For other examples see the participation rate, the youth participation rate, wages, and other useful indicators that following your plan is making life worse for (almost)everyone.
We could use our uranium reserves, and sacrifice our environment to temporarily solve some of these issues, but I'd rather reserve those incredibly useful minerals of ours for more practical things, like space travel, strategic deterance, and so forth. Also the environment is nice, we shouldn't totally wreck it, just one of those quality of life things.
"And beyond that what if an employer just wants a janitor" - Why can't they just permenantly have a favorable arbitrage? Why *can't* they just permenantly have a favorable arbitrage?
"watch the libs shit." - themselves in joy? those groups vote overwhelmingly democrat.
According to the libertarian numbskull, denying people the right to have children is not “taking something of value” from them in a literal sense.
ReplyDeleteSo there!
The depressing thing is, the numbskull in question probably gets paid a lot more for his thoughts than any of us.
Let it come. Libs are digging their own graves.
ReplyDeleteMaybe so. Problem is, they're digging mine at the same time.
Openborders.info = Autism Central
ReplyDeleteThose guys have so little idea of how normal people think or what people appreciate in life that engaging them is futile.
Perhaps we could only let in immigrants who would be ineligible for any affirmative action program. After all, affirmative action was to “right historical wrongs” to existing peoples, and as such should not apply to those who recently arrived voluntarily.
ReplyDeleteAt least the howls of protest against such a proposal (“Gasp! But that would only allow for White immigration”) would lay bare the actual intent of affirmative action.
The first response to Steve Sailer is from Vipul Naik. It's quite funny how many immigrants spend their time complaining about the country they've migrated to. Or was it their parents? They can go home.
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting how far the US has moved left. In Germany we abolished double-citizenship ten years ago (Turks like to stay Turks) under a center-left government and made it more difficult to have your (Turkish) wife move here unless she speaks German (big showstopper). The US is still going full power in the other direction.
Interesting that super duper high iq asians who move to usa vote dem
Fun fact: There were more asians and blacks on Romney's campaign team.
Obama: http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/obama-campaign-staff.jpg
Romney: http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/theticket/romney-ryan-class-photo.jpg
heartiste
O_O
the genetic latticework and polymer bonds of a culture are more than its average IQ.
Ack.
I would be all for open borders for people of all IQ's as long as no one tried to divert resources, privilege, etc. toward them and their dysfunction.
Does not work. What about all the journalists with immigrant parents that complain about the Western country they're living in? You know, they couldn't do that where they come from but they can do it here - and get money for it! They don't show up as big fat minusses in any economic statistic.
- from Germany
Steve-
ReplyDeleteWhy even bother trying to argue with people who ask you to explain why your own child should mean more to you than an immigrant? Their arguments, even if correct, are those of a machine. Utterly souless, and devoid of any belief beyond avoiding logical contradictions. But to avoid such contradictions, their only hope is to ignore reality, and base all their arguments on their own previous arguments. They can never be wrong, because they can never be right. Their realm is an intellectual ether, entirely of their own creation. It's actually a bit surprising that they would allow a physical worlder to debate with them. But understand that the debate is entirely limited to rules of their created world. Concepts from this world will get you nowhere with them.
The "3am dorm room" debate (to borrow Steve's phrase) about the morality of immigration seems almost beside the point. What about the economics of it? How does a welfare state survive by importing millions of new citizens who will consume more in its resources than they will pay in taxes?
ReplyDeleteThese sort of discussions are always meaningless because of inherent conflicts of interest - everyone has a dog in the race. Someone like Vipul Naik will never go in for limiting immigration. Why should he?
ReplyDeleteOnly overly trusting white people can look at a discussion like this and think it's anything other than very flowery words overlaying base desire for their own and ethnic interest.
This is comparable to the Ancient Greeks inviting Trojans to their political forums and expecting honest debate that will lead to better outcomes for Greeks. I guess in the Internet age it's the way things work, but nothing will be achieved from the perspective of any non-suicidal white person from a European majority country.
Young Americans were fooled into paying tens of thousands of dollars for worthless liberal arts degrees and now they have a 50% un/underemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteIf we bring in cognitive elites, they'll be lording over these young Americans, permanently. Is that desirable?
If we didn't have a lot of immigrants coming in there would be a need for educated workers and it would be useful to retrain some of those people with useless degrees for useful occupations.
Cognitive elitism might bring in more money but it would have numerous other costs, especially in the current situation where our country is overwhelmed with immigrant labor already.
Tell you what. Lets split up the US into the current red and blue states, and the blue state, big gov, big tax, open borders, welfare, unions, affirmative action crowd can go ahead and run their little experiment and the red states can go back to a sane system of government like what existed in the 50s- small gov, low tax, tight borders, fewer social safety nets to pay for and others to exploit, etc. Yes, I know Unions were around then- we can learn from the mistakes of the left and not allow them in the Rational States of America.
ReplyDeleteTell you what, Yan Shen. You're in favor of letting people in, telling us who to allow in- When China allows Tibet, Taiwan, and Turkmenistan to call their own shots, even to be free of mainland China, and Israel allows open borders, then I will be more accepting of the idea. Otherwise, why should we be when others are not reciprocating what I would have them do?
ReplyDeleteYou don't like that idea, don't like US citizens meddling in how they China runs their country? Now you know how I feel.
Dear Chinese cognitive elitists: Please stay home. You have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home - why should we believe you that you will manage to do it at our home???
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese cognitive elitists had a innovative and prosperous country before the Mongols, missionaries, and Marxists ruined it. Think of cognitive elitists as reverse missionaries coming to extract some revenge by taking away your beer, football, and Jesus.
Having watched this evening's telecast of CBS's '60 Minutes,' and hearing historian David McCullough remark that today's American young are historically illiterate - a fact I with which I have abundant personal experience - it strikes me, from reading the notions and contentions at the Open Borders: The Case website, that the individuals who hold these notions and make those contentions are historically illiterate. Thus would they, in their ignorance, condemn us and our heirs to repeat some of history's worst suffering.
ReplyDeleteIf the United States is in decline, it's not because of economics or politics, or because of social change or deficit spending. Our country is in decline because we let the Howard Zinns write our children's history textbooks, because we let the Bill Ayerses and Bernardine Dohrns "reform" our schools. Everything that those twisted America-hating, White-people-hating, ethnomasochistic bastards wrote and proselytized you can read for yourself, all of it is regurgitated in the vacant, suicidal notions and contentions at the Open Borders: The Case website.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” - George Orwell, '1984'
It looks like the firm/shareholders analogy at this point too distracting for the excessively literal-minded participants of the discussion. It's probably doing more harm than good in terms of moving the conversation forward.
ReplyDelete"Gop should be for open borders and call for 100 mil chinese and 100 mil hindus to come right away."
ReplyDeletei've made this argument many times. force california to accept ONE THOUSAND new chinese people washing up on their shore every single day. they can't just walk across the border like mexicans, so they have to be allowed to get there by any means necessary. that's the liberal way isn't it? fairness?
no objections or negative comments, please, that's racist. you MUST allow them to land.
in fact, i've wanted to start a blue collar labor company staffed exclusively by chinese peasants, who undercut and outwork at every turn, the mexicans employed by my competitors. they're smarter, work harder, for longer, for less money. i'll put the firms who use mexicans out of business in 3 to 5 years.
if i'm not allowed, it's racist. so, what do you say libs?
Mr. Sailer, I got news for you. The country is lost, so what does your citizenism model mean? Not much. Go read Chris Roach.
ReplyDeleteYou have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home - why should we believe you that you will manage to do it at our home???
ReplyDeleteAlthough the comment above was directed at the Chinese, I don't understand why it is not more often used against Latin American immigrants.
When European settlers and later immigrant came to the USA, they were leaving the Old World and its old customs and structures that had prevented them from living their lives they way they wanted. So even though I don't support immigration today, I can see the reason why people from the Old World still head here.
However, Latin Americans are New Worlders like us. Like us, their countries have only been around for two hundred years. They had every opportunity to establish new nations, with new systems and abandon the bad ways of the Old World. Yet they evidently failed to do so and now are coming here. Why are we taking them? They have already proven that in the same amount of time it took us to create the greatest nation ever, they screwed up nations blessed equally with ours in climate and resources. Do we really want them in numbers so large as to constitute anything close to a plurality?
Finally, I hear all this talk about Indians and Chinese wanting to immigrate here. Do these guys also plan on immigrating to Latin America? I mean Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are large New World economies. Is anyone immgrating there? If not, why not?
The government may say there are 11 million illegals but other estimates go as high as 25 million which is probably more accurate. After all, the government doesn't want to scare us, right?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have any problem with open borders if we got back our gun, property, and freedom of association rights in very real, if ugly senses - restrictive convenants, discrimination in businesses/hiring, and the arms to back it up, all that stuff that was legal for a long time, before the government decided it was going to force us to like everyone.
ReplyDeleteHere's a longer quote to give context to Anonymous's comment above referring to me as a "libertarian numbskull":
ReplyDelete"Getting to the issue of births, future children are not yet things that “people have” — so denying people the right to have children in the future is not “taking something of value” from them in a literal sense. It is so only in a metaphorical sense — once we concede that people have a right to make their own reproductive choices, with any constraint placed on such rights requiring strong justification. What open borders advocates argue is that the right to migrate is similar — it is a presumptive right and overriding it requires overcoming a strong presumption."
Obviously, I expect commenters on this blog to disagree with the idea of a presumption in favor of a right to migrate, but it would be helpful to give context to comments so that people can judge what I actually said, rather than get an impression that is contrary to the spirit of what I said. Here's the original comment.
Also, for the record, neither I nor any of the other Open Borders bloggers get paid for blogging on the site.
Citizenism is an obviously incoherent theory. And the corporate analogy is a bad analogy - not just imperfect, as all analogies are, but bad.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read Hendrix's post through carefully, but he's right about at least one point that I think I've made myself. There's no good reason to throw in the "interests" of descendants into citizenism. In fact, wasn't that even an ad hoc later addition to the theory? (I don't remember.) Hendrix goes into more detail than I have - more detail than is necessary to refute the theory.
He also mentions another obvious, practical, objection: immigrationists argue that immigration is in the "interest" of current citizens and their descendants. So even if citizenism were theoretically sound, which it isn't, it would in practice be irrelevant to any real argument.
There are other objections, just as strong, that he didn't mention. The whole concept of "interest," for one. The concept is pretty clear, and applicable to a financial setting; not so much in the lives of our countrymen and descendants. There are more objections, but I think it would be beating a dead horse.
This kind of confusion is why it is so damaging that the phrase "citizen's dividend" has been relegated to a natural resources aspect of political economy, and the phrase "basic income" is used where "citizen's dividend" should be used.
ReplyDeleteSo let me use "citizen's dividend" the way it should be used:
Federal public goods should be delivered exclusively to citizens through a citizen's dividend paid equally to every adult citizen. No means-testing. No pork-barrel politics. No special interests. General welfare only from the Federal level.
At the State level there might be all sorts of games played but then people can vote with their feet and take their citizen's dividend stream elsewhere.
The fact that Republican leadership is not all over this idea is proof positive that they are mongoloid idiots. The fact that Democrat leadership is not all over this idea is proof positive that they are evil.
>> The cognitive elite!
ReplyDelete> No, we don't! If Switzerland gets all the cognitive elites from China, it will simply cease to be Switzerland and will become just another China instead.
As stated, yes, but if everyone with a >130 IQ in China moved to the US it would add <54 million people to the population. It would be a huge influx, but it wouldn't cause the US to cease to be the US.
"Lindsay Graham"
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apparently there are two famous lindsay grahams.
Citizenism is abstract and artificial, in a sense like the Proposition Nation.
ReplyDeleteIt might have worked 50 years ago. But now, I believe it has no power to advance over the Proposition Nation. And there is nothing in it for Jews or the White elite, whose support would almost certainly be needed.
I suspect we see a return to actual nations based on ethnicity before Citizenism.
The reason Sailer includes descendants is not given in that article, but immigration advocates have noted the parallels between population expansion through child-birth and immigration. With his focus on current citizens, there appears to be no reason why posterity should not also be ignored.
ReplyDeleteThose guys are out of their minds. Obviously, the primary determinant of the welfare of current citizens is the welfare of their descendants. It is impossible to consider the welfare of citizens without taking into account the welfare of their children.
The incessant gloating from the leftists after this election is quite illuminating. Both journalists and commenters are boldly cheering the coming onslaught of legislation that will really stick to the White guys.
ReplyDelete“Amnesty to 11+ million illegals is coming Steve and you know it.”
ReplyDelete11+million more on welfare. If all these proponents of amnesty beleve that these new citizens are interested to keep working for peanuts, I have a nice bridge to sell them.
"11+million more on welfare. If all these proponents of amnesty beleve that these new citizens are interested to keep working for peanuts, I have a nice bridge to sell them."
ReplyDeleteThe only issue I care about is freedom of speech.
As for big government, we should let Democrats spend more and more until it all goes bust. Don't worry. We are not gonna pay for it. It will have to be written off, and our creditors will take the hit.
And if there's a major depression, hurrah as it will mean REVOLUTION IN THE STREETS. It's time for the American Republic to come to an end and a new order was formed.
"The incessant gloating from the leftists after this election is quite illuminating. Both journalists and commenters are boldly cheering the coming onslaught of legislation that will really stick to the White guys."
ReplyDeletePersonally, I find it very amusing. They just don't know what they'll be missing. They won't have the Evil White Guy to kick around anymore.
So, who is the PRIVILEGED WHITE GUY now? Uh.... white liberals. Haha.
"Citizenism is abstract and artificial, in a sense like the Proposition Nation."
ReplyDeleteCitizenism is a good idea but the problem isn't the idea but the lack of power behind it.
No matter how good an idea, it remains small unless it is hyped and discussed. 'Homophobia' and 'gay marriage' are stupid ideas, but it's on everyone's lips because big media, big entertainment, big education, big politics, and big money spread them all over.
It's like there are excellent little art films but few people know of them. But 100s of millions know of TRANSFORMERS. Why? Hype and media backing with advertising and etc.
The reason citizenism has failed is not due to lack of merits but due to lack of funding and hype.
'Diverity' otoh has become a national religion, what with even Gingrich saying stuff like 'diversity is our strength' and Clinton using all his charms to encourage white elites to welcome a browning nation.
That's how it works. But bad ideas lead to bad results, and liberal bad ideas are gonna lead to one mess after another.
Civilizations go through these cycles. Romans were once mighty and disciplined. Too much wealth and power made them decadent.
America was made by hard men and women of Anglo stock and ethnics who had virtues of their own and also learned from Anglos. But with the vast wealth of post WWII yrs, Americans got softer and softer-headed generation after generation. Now, our great national moral issue is... 'gay marriage'. The other great cause is feminists saying chubby college girls in elite colleges should get free birth control pills.
I mean just think about it!
Such nonsense can't last.
I wish Obama would offer free college tuition for all. That will really destroy higher ed in no time.
Just like the French revolution devoured its children and Mao's cultural revolution actually weakened red china(and oddly enough paved the way for rise of capitalism), just watch where idiot liberalism takes America.
What cons can do is play YOJIMBO-like and tell blacks/browns that white/Jewish/gay urban libs got the real big money and privilege.
And please call for Jews to be counted as a separate category and call for affirmative action for white gentiles of lower classes.
"Mr. Sailer, I got news for you. The country is lost, so what does your citizenism model mean? Not much. Go read Chris Roach."
ReplyDeleteActually, what with the illegal amnesty battle looming, this may be the ideal moment for the citizenist argument... that is someone wants to make it.
The problem with 'citizen-ism'... too bland sounding.
ReplyDeleteTake terms like 'affirmative action', 'dream act', etc.
So, citizenism needs to be called something more inspiring:
'American Dream Act' as opposed to the Dream of Conquest(by illegals).
Anon,
ReplyDelete"Dear Chinese cognitive elitists: Please stay home. You have already failed to build an innovative and prosperous country at your home "
They've built innovative and prosperous countries in Singapore and Taiwan. Hong Kong's pretty prosperous too, although the British deserve some credit there, and, as a special admin region of China, it's not an independent country.
Aaron Gross,
"Citizenism is an obviously incoherent theory. And the corporate analogy is a bad analogy - not just imperfect, as all analogies are, but bad."
Why is the corporate analogy particularly bad? If anything, it seems especially apt, given that the founders of this country came from colonies that were founded by companies (e.g., the Massachusetts Bay Company).
"There's no good reason to throw in the "interests" of descendants into citizenism."
This is another reason why Sailer's corporate analogy is apt: the interests of the descendants (heirs) of shareholders are taken into account. When a shareholder dies, his shares don't die with him, they go to his heirs.
One aspect where Sailer's analogy and citizenship diverge, though, is that shareholder's ownership stake is diluted on per capita basis when his heirs inherit the shares.
"He also mentions another obvious, practical, objection: immigrationists argue that immigration is in the "interest" of current citizens and their descendants."
If that were true, than advocates of expanded immigration would make the case on its merits, most of us would agree, and this wouldn't be a big issue. But most advocates of expanded immigration use other arguments to advocate for it (global utilitarianism, opponents are nativists, etc.), most of us don't agree, and it is a big issue.
I think all this focus on immigrants and illegals is somewhat misplaced. All those illegals and immigrants will never gain control of the nation. They may vote Democratic and give the Dems a decisive edge, but who controls and owns the Dem party? Jews and gays. So, if we want to fight this thing, we should really focus on Jewish and gay power.
ReplyDeleteIn ANIMAL FARM, the horses and other animals take on the man, but the real winners are the smart pigs who led the revolt and kept all the power for themselves.
In a boxing match, you aim for the head. Hitting the body isn't as effective. Go for the headshot in this fight. Call out on the Jewish strategy of 'divide and rule'. THAT is what this is all about. Why is Bill Maher the Jew saying GOP is reacting like a black guy fuc*ed a white guy's wife? Jews have this burning hatred for whites.
Hispanics without Jewish backing of media and money wouldn't be all radicalized and aggressive.
Without Jewish media and money to rile up the Hispanics, most Mexicans would be like Guillermo.
Hostile alien elites love to move people around.
ReplyDeleteBritish moved Hindus to Africa. British used Malaysian troops to fire on Hindus in India. British used Chinese in Singapore.
It was very clever. That way, the hostility of the natives would be diverted to people other than the British imperialists. If Brits used Hindu middlemen in Africa, blacks would hate Hindus more than they hated Brits. If Brits used Malaysian soldiers to shoot Hindus, Hindus would hate Malaysians. If Brits used Sikh soldiers in China, Chinese would hate the Sikhs.
In America, Jews increase diversity and use Asians and Mexicans against whites. Whites, in their stupidity, take out their anger on Mexicans, Asians, and Muslims when Jews are behind it all.
Wake up please. Have the courage to call out on this bullshit. Jews had the courage in the 50s to take on McCarthy and bring him down. We need the courage to take on Jewish power and bring down Foxmanism.
Unless Jewish power is called out and confronted, NOTHING is possible. If we fixate on Mexers and illegals, Jews will play us against them and them against us. Some Jews like Michael Savage will rile us up against illegal aliens, and some Jews will rile up illegal aliens against us. Enough of this shit. The real problem is the Jews and their machinations.
We need baby-boom-ism.
ReplyDeleteOur country is in decline because we let the Howard Zinns write our children's history textbooks, because we let the Bill Ayerses and Bernardine Dohrns "reform" our schools. Everything that those twisted America-hating, White-people-hating, ethnomasochistic bastards
ReplyDeleteWould you rather turn the clock back to 1950 and have twisted child-hating, brain-hating christomasochistic bastards near your children, teaching them to hate themselves for god and country?
Or like me, do you want your kids learn to love themselves, AND their race, AND their country?
'Would you rather turn the clock back to 1950 and have twisted child-hating, brain-hating christomasochistic bastards near your children, teaching them to hate themselves for god and country?'
ReplyDeleteOzzie and Harriet done that?
I get fairly sick of people trying to make arguments based on what they term 'morality' (ie their own opinions), or even analogies with hard the hard cas markets of the stock exchange when they pontificate about 'citizenship' and imigration policy.
ReplyDeleteThe word 'nation', of course is derived from the Latin 'natio' and means 'birth'. That in itelf says it all, all nations were originally defined, through the centuries of recorded history, by dint of birth - and therefore blood. A remnant of this ancient idea persists in Grman law to this day in which persons of German blood resident in Romania or wherever, who they or their ancestors have never set foot in Germany for 700 years are automatically given full Grman citizenship, and all the trimmings, by sheer dint of setting foot on German soil.
Another ancient idea was that, as an act of kindness, selected persons who were not of the nation, were, if they proved worthy enough, accepted as a 'natural' part of the nation, and were confined citizenship along with the natural born. Hence the term 'naturalization' and the formal process of the individual concerned proving his worth to be accepted as a natural son or daughter.
I'm sorry but this distinction between 'insiders' and 'outsiders' always existed and was always essentially tribalistic and based on blood, as Stve said before 'family' is the right analogy.
I just wish the rhetorical sophistry merchants out there would stop trying to bullshit out of it with crap 'arguments' involving what they call morals, 'free trade', 'libertarianism' and he rest of that shit.
Hong Kong and Singapore are tiny strategically located countries and, being settled by traders from Fujian and Guandong, not really representatitve of China as a whole.
ReplyDeleteThe economists start with an individual with his property--both lacking a context.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, we can start with a Nation or a tribe with its territory.
This is the proper context in which private property (in land) exists or is meaningful even.
A Right is a conclusion of a series of Arguments. Thus a Right makes sense only in a state of laws.
Nations exist in a state of nature (Locke). They occupy territory (they do not "own" territory) by Force and not by Argument.
The individuals exist in states of laws. A particular state of laws, we may add. Thus an American exists in an American state of laws, a Frenchman exists in a French state of laws.
The libertarian error here is simply the logical end of the liberal stream of thought.
Since no one has said it yet on this thread: who-whom.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks that the 'Uhn' (per Idiocracy) abolished war in 1945 has another thing coming. This thread, even here in the urbane world of Steve, is a foot-throat jujitsu dojo.
Gilbert P.
christomasochistic? Xiite?
ReplyDeleteHunsdon is all in favor of neologisms, but he prefers for them to be, in some sense, tethered to reality. When I saw Xiite, I wondered if Xochitl finally had a child. Or if it was some kind of Shiite thing. Ah, no, at last Hunsdon sees, and chastened, realizes that some people just cant stand Christianity.
The issue which will destroy the GOP is when a critical mass of evangelicals capiche that Christian-Zionism is a heresy. Apparently that consciousness is growing at grass-roots levels. I think it will also seriously dent the evangelical churches; many will turn their backs on the faith in disgust. That's when the political system will radically change, since all the current PC shackles will come off the cons.
ReplyDeleteI just wish the rhetorical sophistry merchants out there would stop trying to bullshit out of it with crap 'arguments' involving what they call morals, 'free trade', 'libertarianism' and he rest of that shit.
ReplyDeleteThere are those who consciously manipulate the terminology an meaning of words for their selfish and evil political agendas, and then there are those who are not bold enough to make the obvious conclusions and hope for a settlement on middle ground, which of course never occurs, because the evil ones keep pushing until they get the cake.
Vipal, let's hear you argue for open borders for India. Why let the white West have all the fun? I don't see anything on your site arguing for open borders anywhere except the comfy, developed, First World West?
ReplyDeleteSurely 200 million Chinese, 100 million Pakistanis/Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans have the "right" to benefit from India's booming economy?
OPEN THE BORDERS OF INDIA NOW! Let's hear you make The Case for that on your site.
I double dare you.
The issue which will destroy the GOP is when a critical mass of evangelicals capiche that Christian-Zionism is a heresy. Apparently that consciousness is growing at grass-roots levels.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think you're right, but what evidence are you relying on?
Amnesty to 11+ million illegals is coming Steve and you know it.
ReplyDeleteYou know, defeatism is not helpful. I think we can stop this amnesty, at which point we need to strategize as to how to get rid of the administrative amnesty.
But even if we cannot, organizing to stop this amnesty will provide a base for further organizing, which is going to be necessary if these demographic changes continue.
Never, ever, ever, give up.
I didn't read Hendrix's post through carefully, but he's right about at least one point that I think I've made myself. There's no good reason to throw in the "interests" of descendants into citizenism.
ReplyDeleteOther than the fact that the interests of descendants constitute a huge part of the interests of current citizens.
Ah, no, at last Hunsdon sees, and chastened, realizes that some people just cant stand Christianity.
ReplyDeleteIt's not for everyone.
He also mentions another obvious, practical, objection: immigrationists argue that immigration is in the "interest" of current citizens and their descendants. So even if citizenism were theoretically sound, which it isn't, it would in practice be irrelevant to any real argument.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not irrelevant. Immigration is wrong unless EVERY citizen agrees to it. Democracy is government by UNANIMOUS consent of the people.
For the purpose of efficiency, the people may UNANIMOUSLY agree to a system of voting and representation that allows decisions to be made without unanimous approval in each case, but that system still must be set up by unanimous consent.
We do not have such a system.
Read Buchanan & Tullock's "Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy".
Opening the borders of India is pointless because a) few people would want to live there since it is a terrible place b) it's not a nation anyway, so there isn't much to lose (It's a bunch of nations captured under a single government) and c) it's not as much of a welfare state.
ReplyDeleteOpening the borders of Israel is a better example.
Why even bother trying to argue with people who ask you to explain why your own child should mean more to you than an immigrant? Their arguments, even if correct, are those of a machine.
ReplyDeleteBut there arguments can't be correct because ultimately they have to define the interests whose maximization would justify their prescriptions to the people in question.
The selection of any interest other than those people's LIFE (which, of course, continues through their descendants) is utterly arbitrary.
future children are not yet things that “people have” — so denying people the right to have children in the future is not “taking something of value” from them in a literal sense. It is so only in a metaphorical sense — once we concede that people have a right to make their own reproductive choices, with any constraint placed on such rights requiring strong justification. What open borders advocates argue is that the right to migrate is similar — it is a presumptive right and overriding it requires overcoming a strong presumption.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but you still sound like a numbskull.
You simply state that something which you want to be a right but which has never been a right - the "right to invite" - should be treated in exactly the same fashion as something which has always been a right - the right to procreate.
That does not even rise to the level where it can be called "argument". It's just an assertion of your own desires.
DaveInHackensack asks, "Why is the corporate analogy particularly bad?"
ReplyDeleteWell, it's bad for lots of reasons, but to take the most glaringly obvious way in which it's wrong: corporations are supposed to benefit their current shareholders, but the government, according to citizenism, is supposed to benefit current and future citizens (some of them). Isn't it obvious, as soon as citizenism declares, "I'm considering the interests of future citizens as well as present ones," that the whole corporate analogy is kind of silly?
Then there are all the usual reasons the corporation/state analogy is bad. We hear them every time some CEO runs for president, so I won't repeat them. But the citizenist analogy fails immediately on its own terms. Come on, who can take this citizenism stuff seriously?
P.S. Thanks Mr. Sailer for your free-speech comment policy. Much appreciated and exploited!
Openborders.info = Autism Central
ReplyDeleteThose guys have so little idea of how normal people think or what people appreciate in life that engaging them is futile.
They're more childish than autistic. Everything they say boils down to "I want what I want, because I want it."
It's like arguing with a toddler: "I want ice-cream! It's my right to have ice-cream! Give me ice-cream now!"
They recognize no higher moral authority than their own desires.
immigration advocates have noted the parallels between population expansion through child-birth and immigration.
ReplyDeleteBoth result in more people. That's the only parallel. Population expansion thought child-birth is analogous to economic expansion via people opening their own businesses. Population expansion though immigration is analogous to economic expansion via a government "five year plan".
They're trying to dress it up and make it sound thoughtful and intellectual and moral, but all they are really saying is the same old disingenuous libertarian claptrap about how "I should be able to do whatever I want as long as it does not cause immediate physical harm to someone else". There's no "there" there.
ReplyDeleteTheir arguments, even if correct, are those of a machine. Utterly souless...
ReplyDeleteAh, but are they? Just because spergs would be the last people on earth to have any insight into, or interest in uncovering, their own unconscious biases and motivations, they surely have them. Some of our most sperg-o-matic posters may have a machine style, but the highly emotional, pre-rational, and perfectly human
foundations of their views, that are flamingly apparent to everyone but themselves, are anything but heart-and-soul-less. (That's what makes them so loveable.)
Is sperginess in the service of good old fashioned primal drives (ethnocentrism, greed, status) really sperginess? Or just cryptic coloration?
DaveinH: The "3am dorm room" debate (to borrow Steve's phrase) about the morality of immigration seems almost beside the point. What about the economics of it? How does a welfare state survive by importing millions of new citizens who will consume more in its resources than they will pay in taxes?
ReplyDeleteI guess you're just not subtle enough to understand what Steve calls "triple bank shots". Mastuh plans. The evil Bond genius mojo of the libertarian economist. The conditions you have just described will destroy the welfare state!
I know to your ilk this all sounds an awful lot like "destroying the village to save it", or "we're going to burn your village and everyone in it to the ground to save your immortal souls", but it's not their fault you're thick.
I don't really care if India has closed or open borders. It isn't a country that has a great amount of appeal to many people. The argument that it's all fair if impoverished, overcrowded shitholes open their borders in return for wealthy, orderly Western countries doing the same is not a winner. It's basically the case of a beggar settling for an equal division of your and his assets.
ReplyDeleteAliens like Vipul and Yan would no doubt like to live an America with a white minority and with a lot more of their ethnic type let in. The fact that they brazenly promote solvents to social cohesion should be enough to dismiss their arugments.
But also, someone who seeks to emigrate to a country with a very different culture evidently does not feel strongly the appeal of tradition and interconnectedness--which makes him suitable to neither his old home nor his adopted one. Vipul and Yan will make poor Americans, regardless of their stance on immigration--although conservatives of a curious rootlessness seem eager to pretend otherwise.
dingo: The issue which will destroy the GOP...
ReplyDelete"Will"? Don't you mean "did"? (Like, nigh onto 50 years ago now?)
...is when a critical mass of evangelicals capiche that Christian-Zionism is a heresy.[...]That's when the political system will radically change, since all the current PC shackles will come off the cons.
Nah. They'll just go all-in for something even stupider.
"Vipal, let's hear you argue for open borders for India. Why let the white West have all the fun? I don't see anything on your site arguing for open borders anywhere except the comfy, developed, First World West?"
ReplyDeleteI still say we should undermine immigrationists by outdoing them. I say GOP call for immediate arrival of 100 million Hindus and 100 million Chinese. Of course it won't happen but it will make libs shit. And Hispanics will object. Haha.
I can see it now:
Gingrich: "We now agree with Democrats and realize the wrongfulness of our ways. So, the GOP is now not only for open borders for radical open borders. We want 100 million Hindus and 100 million Chinese to come to US in the next year."
Watch the blacks, browns, and even white libs shit.
I just wish the rhetorical sophistry merchants out there would stop trying to bullshit out of it with crap 'arguments' involving what they call morals, 'free trade', 'libertarianism' and he rest of that shit.
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth would they do a stupid thing like that? Crap arguments work. Crap arguments go down easy; good arguments require time and effort to understand. And that's as true for the speaker as for the listener, at least in politics and policy fields. Having a level of philosophical sophistication much beyond shyster-level sophistry is unnecessary and probably a handicap. Don't want to get distracted by a curiosity about the truth when there pre-selected conclusions to be reached, do you?
"Vipal, let's hear you argue for open borders for India."
ReplyDeleteVipal will go for this because even with open borders, NO ONE will go to India. Every friend of mine who've been to India--even liberal ones--called it a nation of beggars. No matter where you go, beggars of all ages follow you around. And the money is dirty. Not in the figurative sense but in the stinking filthy literal sense. They said it's like handling soiled toilet paper.
Sailer should go into business and set up a white conservative dating baby boom service site. He'll make a quick million.
ReplyDelete"Opening the borders of India is pointless because a) few people would want to live there since it is a terrible place b) it's not a nation anyway, so there isn't much to lose (It's a bunch of nations captured under a single government) and c) it's not as much of a welfare state."
ReplyDeleteThe whole reason the original poster brought up the issue of India is that Vipal Naik is likely from India. If he isn't, just substitute where he is actually from - the only idiots stupid enough to have our immigration policies are European countries.
Even so, Africans would probably still immigrate there, and still manage to ethnically cleanse the inhabitants by being their usual selves.
corporations are supposed to benefit their current shareholders
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's really the case. if it were then corporations ought to liquidate themselves today and distribute all their assets among their shareholders. But virtually no corporations are run that way - the well run corporation promises that its shares will appreciate in value over time - that the shareholder of the future will be richer than the shareholder of today.
Of course the great majority of shareholders five years from now will be the same physical people as those of today - but they are also the "shareholders of the future". And in a lot of cases (think 401k's) people are buying shares with the future specifically in mind - with their children specifically in mind.
Steven, I have already explained to you why your analogy of citizenism to shareholders of a corporation is a flawed one.
ReplyDeleteA shareholder has to BUY stocks to become a shareholder. That money comes from his work and represents VALUE ADDED to the corporation. Conversely, in citizenism, a citizen enjoys special priviledges in a country just because he was born there. He has not added any value to the country's competitiveness to merit a higher salary than that of a citizen of another country that works at the same job that he does. In a World where workers' wages are determined by the value of their production, giving a higher salary to your country's workers than workers of other countries get for the same productivity means that the good produced in your country will have a higher cost than those produced in another country. Meaning that the consumers of your own country will choose the foreign product, meaning that the companies of your country will go out of business resulting in massive unemployment. Teh only wany you can have higher wages for workers for equal productivity is by closing the economyto foreign goods, forcing the consumers of your own country to pay more for their good, decreasing their quality of life. Economic citizenism results in improved quality of life and wages for a section of the population by decreasing the standard of living of another section of the population. This is simple logic. There is not economic free lunch. The only way to have higher wages is by gaining in productivity.
A better analogy is the think of citizens as employees of a corporation rather than shareholders. Why? Because a citizen is not adding value to a country by his mere existance, unlike a shareholder, who is putting his money(value) into a corporation, allowing it to purchase better equipment and better train it's workforce for improved productivity. A citizen by his mere existence does not add value to the quality and quantity of the goods and services produced by his country, and if he were to be rewarded beyond what he adds of value to the country's economic efficiency, this cost will be repassed on to the value of the goods and services produced in his country, meaning no consumers for these goods and general bankruptcy, or, if you choose to eliminate foreign competition altogether to protect the higher-cost products produced in your country, an entitled workforce that takes value from all of society, and enjoys a higher standard of living than it othrwise woudl by decreasing the standard of living of the rest of the population. Price is one of the two most important economic indicators, and fixing prices ALWAYS results in disaster everywhere it has been tried.
Also, as a libertarian I cannot agree with prices being set by politics rather than the much fairer rule of supply and demand.
Here's a longer quote to give context to Anonymous's comment above referring to me as a "libertarian numbskull"
ReplyDeleteTL;DR. I'd rather talk about how we can move a few hundred million cognitively elite Han Chinese into India.
Let's talk about that first.
Then we can talk about improving Israel with a few million cognitively elite Indians and Chinese.
Then we can talk about how much better Beijing would be with a Jewish ruling class.
A better analogy is the think of citizens as employees of a corporation rather than shareholders
ReplyDeleteLibertarians may be insufferably stupid, but at least they're honest! Citizens are to be seen as "employees" of the state. Joe Stalin and Hitler would both have agreed wholeheartedly.
Behind the libertarian twaddle about "freedom", as behind the communist twaddle about "equality", stands the same totalitarian impulse.
@Svigor
ReplyDelete"Here's a longer quote to give context to Anonymous's comment above referring to me as a "libertarian numbskull"
Nothing intelligent to refute anything I wrote. What else is new? Cry more...
@Severn
ReplyDelete"Libertarians may be insufferably stupid, but at least they're honest! Citizens are to be seen as "employees" of the state. Joe Stalin and Hitler would both have agreed wholeheartedly.
Behind the libertarian twaddle about "freedom", as behind the communist twaddle about "equality", stands the same totalitarian impulse."
Actually, libertarians often are the absolute peak of the intellectual scale as far as political leanings are concerned, as demonstrated by IQ tests and academic achievements. The highest proportions of libertarians are found among those with post-graduate degrees and Mensa members. Conversely, social conservatives often score the lowest of all groups in political prefrences.
And you missed the analogy entirely. My point is that a country's workers are to be seen as employees of a corporation(country) rather than stockholders because, unlike shareholders, they do not receive value(salary/revenues) only if the corporation profits, but regardless if it does. Hence, you cannot pay them a higher salary than the value of what they produce because then the corporation(country) goes bankrupt. A shareholder only makes money of the company profits. If it doesen't, he loses money.
What Sailer advocates is paying workers more than what they are worthy just for being citizens, something that NEVER occurs with shareholders of a company. A shareholder only receives more money than what he put in the company(shares of the corporation becoming more valubale) if the gains in productivity that his investment im stok of the corporation allowed to were greater than the value of what he put. What Sailer advocates is giving workers of his country a free lunch compared to workers elsewhere just for being Americans. Free lunch. He wants them to receive more value(money) for their work than what they produce in value, which NEVER happens in the case of someone who buys stock. A shareholder only makes a profit if his investment resulted in more value than what his investment represented. If not, the value of his stock goes down and he LOSES money.
You attacked a strawman with this ridiculous argument about Marxism and the government which had NOTHING to do with the point that I was making. Who is insufferably stupid again?
@Svigor
ReplyDelete"Here's a longer quote to give context to Anonymous's comment above referring to me as a "libertarian numbskull"
Nothing intelligent to refute anything I wrote. What else is new? Cry more...
Quoting the wrong guy, numbskull.
I don't really care if India has closed or open borders. It isn't a country that has a great amount of appeal to many people. The argument that it's all fair if impoverished, overcrowded shitholes open their borders in return for wealthy, orderly Western countries doing the same is not a winner. It's basically the case of a beggar settling for an equal division of your and his assets.
ReplyDeleteYou're looking at it the wrong way. First, reciprocity involves an exchange of equal value; India letting in 100m racial aliens is equivalent to America letting in 10k of same.
Second, India isn't going to do any such thing, thus waiting for them to go first (since they have so much less to lose and so far to go to catch up anyway) is a good rhetorical device.
the government, according to citizenism, is supposed to benefit current and future citizens (some of them).
ReplyDeleteNo, citizenism is concerned only with citizens. Future citizens are not citizens.
Actually, libertarians often are the absolute peak of the intellectual scale as far as political leanings are concerned
ReplyDeleteYou are the same cretinous Anonymous moron who has written comment after comment here over the past several months all asserting that conservatives be dum, while liberals and libertarians are the essence of Sweet Reason.
What Sailer advocates is paying workers more than what they are worthy just for being citizens
For a person who is convinced of his own towering intellect, you're remarkably stupid. Sailer has not advocated anything of the sort.
(Sailer) wants them (America workers) to receive more value(money) for their work than what they produce in value
I want to see you cite Steve Sailer saying "I want American workers to receive more money for their work than what they produce in value". I want a link and the actual words.
Get to it, you illiterate nitwit.
you missed the analogy entirely. My point is that a country's workers are to be seen as employees of a corporation(country)
ReplyDeleteI understood what you said perfectly. You view people as "employees" of the state, while I view the state as an employee of the people.
In your view of things the employer (the state) can hire any workers (import any immigrants) it wants, and the workers (formerly called citizens) don't get a say in the matter.
Although you may not have thought this through it's also the case that employers can fire employees. That would translate to stripping people of citizenship and/or kicking them out of the country. And of course the employer (aka the state) decides what pay and benefits to give its "workers".
You're more honest and logically consistent than Caplan, I'll give you that. He's saying essentially the same thing you are, but he is also trying to cloak his statism in the traditional libertarian garb of anti-statism.