This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Not exactly. The idea of 'parents distributing citizenship' is an odd way to frame it. States issue citizenship. I reject the idea that any non-citizen is entitled to citizenship at all. In my ideal world, children could only inherit citizenship from their parents and nobody could have dual citizenship.
Whether you frame it as states rewarding criminals by giving their children citizenship, or as states rewarding the children of criminals (thereby incentivising crime) is immaterial. The key issue is that we have a thing we want to reduce (illegal immigration) and instead of disincentivising it, states provide massive incentives for it.
"States issue citizenship" is a good enough framing that I won't dispute it. But there a particular bullet I'm interested to see if you're willing to bite: "children could only inherit citizenship from their parents" does not imply "children should inherit citizenship from their parents." You've done away with any entitlement noncitizen babies have to citizenship, but in the process also removed any entitlement citizen babies have to citizenship. Would you agree that if the state is to give out citizenship on exclusively a rational basis, presumably to reward pro-social behavior, there are plenty of reasons why it should also exclude a particular citizen's baby from also having citizenship? That doesn't violate the citizen's rights-- nowhere in the constitution is it enumerated that citizens have a right to have citizen babies. All the relevant text is about the born or naturalized individual's rights.
No I haven't.
I reject the idea that states could or should give out citizenship to reward prosocial behaviour, as least as the primary mechanism. It's not practical. Every nation has its indigenous underclass, and they need to have citizenship somewhere.
I think that the citizen body should reflect the nation (typically, an ethnic group that shares a landmass, although there are of course immigrant nations like those in the Americas which have to use fuzzier definitions). My ideal citizenship laws would be those practiced by the Gulf states, where citizenship can only be inherited from citizen parents and never given out to the children of non-citizens. Dual nationality isn't allowed. Failing that, simply getting rid of birth right citizenship would be good.
I'm not suggesting anything radical. I'm suggesting that the countries of the Americas abandon a system which produces an obvious moral hazard and do what the rest of the world does.
You explicitly said that the right to citizenship is a quality issued by a state. That excludes it from being a quality intrinsic to any individual.
There are self-consistent worldviews that include this statement and the idea that citizenship is wholly the province of the state to administer, but you can't then also imply "citizen children have a right to citizenship" without introducing new ideas that break self-consistently. For example, you said "and they need to have citizenship somewhere" but this is only true in the practical sense-- we've signed international agreements that in effect guarantee this, but if we're talking about changing how things are done in the first place, why not re-examine all the assumptions? If we don't have to extend citizenship to the children of noncitizens, we don't have to extend citizenship to the children of citizens. In the vast majority of cases we would, obviously but why take that for granted? With respect to your position about "reflecting the nation", we-- we are in effect deciding what the nation should look like. Why not decide that it shouldn't include this "indigenous underclass?"
The rest of the world is obviously terrible though. This should be self-evident from the fact that they're not america. Why would anyone want to make america less like america and more like... saudi arabia???
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link