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Notes -
The meaning of naturalization in Article I of the US Constitution
The US Constitution provides that Congress has the power "to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization". The Courts have generally pointed to this as evidence of legislative authority here, going so far as to say "Whatever the procedure authorized by Congress is, it is due process as far as an alien denied entry is concerned".
There is much discussed about what it means and what are the rules around excluding or removing non-citizens, but missing (for me, maybe I'm reading the wrong sources) is the flip side of the question: what does it mean to admit or naturalize one.
Back to Blackstone
Blackstone is usually the baseline for founding-era American legal thought, so let's peruse through his treatise on the matter and "the first and most obvious division of the people is into aliens and natural-born subjects."
Foremost for Blackstone is allegiance (weirdly shortened to ligeance in a few places) -- those born within the realm owe "natural allegiance" immediately on their birth. Indeed, Blackstone doesn't even believe you have the right to renounce this, stating that it is "a debt of gratitude; which cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered, by any change of time, place, or circumstance, nor by any thing but the united concurrence of the legislature". Visitors, on the other hand, owe "local allegiance" for so long as they are around and not a moment longer. There is also a middle state, "denizens", akin to a lawful resident, that owes allegiance and is permitted to reside but is not granted the duties of natural born citizens.
The more interesting piece to me is what it means to naturalize. Blackstone here says that parliament gets that power, by which "an alien is put in exactly the same state as if he had been born in the king's ligeance; except only that he is incapable ... of being a member of the privy council, or parliament".
Vattel's Natural Law
Vattel likewise starts with the core distinction between natives and aliens. He surveys though, that England is relatively unique in requiring the consent of the legislature (and not just the ruler) to naturalize. Like Blackstone, he also refers to a half state of those allowed to inhabit but not granted citizenship that he calls "inhabitants".
[ As an aside, Vattel also saw that no citizen with a useful skill be allowed to leave: "Every citizen owes his personal services to his country; and a mechanic, in particular, who has been reared, educated, and instructed in its bosom, cannot lawfully leave it, and carry to a foreign land that industry which he acquired at home, unless his country has no occasion for him, or he cannot there obtain the just fruit of his labour and abilities." -- I didn't set out to read about bars to emigration here but it's interesting that it comes up on a repeated sense. Maybe that's worth another post. ]
Federalist #42
Madison looks more to alignment between the States, looking at the unworkability of individual states both being required to protect the privileges of all Americans. To him, subsuming the authority in the United States was as essential to harmony between the States having a uniform rule of bankruptcy, uniform rules on weights/measures and the like. This flows again from the above -- citizenship is singular and indelible.
My Take
Really for my own curiosity, I think I understand a lot better the intent. On a meta note, I reiterate that it's weird to have so much discourse on exclusion/removal without anyone talking about the inverse operation.
OT side notice:
While I get that Blackstone was an Englishmen, I find it a bit rich that US legal thought should be based on him.
The US was founded by people who defected from what Blackstone would consider their rightful king. In fact, eight of the signers of the declaration of independence appear to have been born in the Old World. One might perhaps weasel around how the declaration of independence was not a defection for the people born in the colonies, because they remained loyal to the government of their colony or some such, but someone born in England coming to the New World and renouncing the king has pretty much rejected the natural allegiance thing. As did any immigrants who came later.
Not that I have a problem with any of that, I firmly believe one's allegiance to one's country of birth is a useful default but certainly not unconditional. If one's country is fucked up enough, an utilitarian has a duty to defect.
I think this misses something very crucial. To borrow from another revolutionary, they came not to abolish English Law but to fulfill it.
Moreover, there is significant verbiage in the Declaration of Independence first, on not renouncing one's due allegiance for trivial or transient causes, and second on claiming that it was the King that had violated his duties first and foremost.
It was certainly quite different than revolutionary France that swept away the Ancien Regime and replaced it root and stem with their own devising. Of course, England had a centuries long tradition that, at least imperfectly, matched their ideology.
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Good morning, my fellow patriarchs, my AIPAC fellows, my Thielite dudebros and gainsmaxxing vrilchads. We gather here in memory of the dearly departed: of the progressives no longer in our midst. Of those who unironically use low human capital as an insult. They who have flounced (and who may yet remain amogus with their alts) with long, boring wordcel essays on how we're all racists, or not participating in their personal armies against Trump, or what have you. Sometimes they even delete their posts, leaving only the scathing retorts to their shaming screeds.
But why do I bring the subject up, you ask?
The reason why I bring the unpleasant topic is because it's become a distinct genre of post on the Motte. Since I am a pattern-noticer of much skill, I thought it useful to put in the effort to make a F.E.C (Frequently Expressed Crashouts) as future reference, and to hopefully save time and effort in the future to what is otherwise a pretty repetitive subject. Feel free to add onto this list, if you feel I've missed anything. I admit that I am making rote argument and there may be gaps of which clever people can argue around it.
A) I'm not comfortable with witches/HBDers/misogynists/actual racists in the Motte. That's why I'm leaving!
First of all, so long, farewell!
Secondly, why are you even here? It's not like there's a shortage of places which moderate against such people. The whole point of the Motte is to talk to weirdos and freaks such as myself with as much politeness and decorum as can be managed. If the subject matter makes you uncomfortable, tough titties. You're an adult. You can decline to participate in conversations you have no interest in. Or you can make an argument that stands on its own merits. If you can remember how to make one!
B) The moderators are terrible at their jobs! They won't ban [X] or [Y]. Here's my evidence-
@Amadan is the embodiment of the Platonic philosopher-king, and their judgement is infallible, like the pope speaking ex cathedra.
The jannies of the Motte are of a different breed than the soft, nepotistic babies of Reddit. They are veterans of forum warfare. The Navy Seals of the mop force. If you take a look at Amadan's profile and sort by top rated, you will see a long list of people they've dunked. Their rage is truly a sight to behold. The only reason they haven't torn you apart yet with their immense verbal IQ is because the other moderators have to physically restrain them from the keyboard. The fact the moderators aren't handholding every little personal spat and argument is a sign of enlightened restraint, not weakness.
C) I'm just so exhausted by the witches/HBDers/misogynists/actual racists. It's emotionally draining. For my own mental health, I have to step away.
That was always allowed. Why are you telling us this? This isn't your blog.
One of the most insidious things in internet communities is passive-aggression. Oh, if only this space wasn't so toxic, I'd participate more! This is a favorite tactic of flouncers who want to use shame but aren't aggressive enough to argue with individuals or demand change from the mods. Using therapyspeak in any other context other than therapy itself is annoying and manipulative! If you want to leave, just leave. Don't make a melodramatic show about it. No one cares.
D) I'm being oppressed because I'm going against the consensus! You guys are hypocrites!
Is the consensus in the room with us right now?
I'm not going to disagree that there is an element of groupthink to all communities. But if you come to a community with the greatest concentration of witches, contrarians, and satirical trolls per capita and you're getting pushback - maybe you should rethink things. If you feel that your position is fundamentally correct, then the number of people disagreeing with you shouldn't matter to you. So as long as you present the best version of your argument for your position, all the downvotes in the world won't change the content of your post. But if you come into the conversation expecting special treatment for being an iconoclast or going against the grain - tough luck!
Perhaps your words aren't as convincing to others as you thought it was. Get gud. Skill issue.
I am neither lefty nor progressive, but I too have flounced off in my time (and then got dragged back in again). Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
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Judging by the reports, this is not going over well. It does kind of read like a bit of trolling and dunking on your outgroup.
First of all, as much as I appreciate the (no doubt totally sincere and not at all tongue-in-cheek) flattery, I do not "rage" and I am not sure why you are they/theming me. My pronouns are "He" and "Go away."
More seriously, we have seen some of the rage-quitters and "I can't even" flouncers you mention, but really, not that many. And not all of them have been outraged leftists. For the most part, the leftists who can't stand to share space with HBDers and misogynists have already left. We do have a couple of very persistent mentally ill obsessives who keep screeching at us in filtered comments you never see, but again... not all of those are leftists.
Unfortunately, I do think evaporative cooling is leaving us with fewer and fewer posters who aren't one-note culture warriors, and very heavily skewed towards the right. I wish there was a way to recruit more people of diverse viewpoints, but even the SSC/LessWrong forums now think the Motte is a hive of scum and villainy because of who we don't ban. There really is a longer point to be made here, about how rightists have become the more ideologically "tolerant" faction. Not to say I don't get the sense that a lot of rightists are very eager to put leftists (and moderates) up against the wall - but they will at least talk to the other side while it's mostly liberals who now act like even engaging in dialog with a MAGA is starting down the dangerous path of seeing them as human beings.
The Motte regularly disheartens me and there still isn't any other place like it.
I don’t know what the ideological leanings of this place even here except that on occasion it’s a decent place for me to express an opinion and get feedback on it. People that are highly invested in any topic or community will typically overanalyze and read with much greater intensity every letter in the words someone writes. Some of my comments draw in consensus, others get blasted, but that’s part of any community.
I also agree with him somewhat about the way you ‘seem’ to moderate, Amadan. I’ve replied in kind to other posters in the past where logic has clearly left the building and ran out of gas on their part, obliged them and been every bit as much the condescending prick they come across. Strangely the finger wagging did seem to be somewhat one-sided in my case when the abuse of the rules were far more concentrated on the other side. On my last ban I didn’t even know I’d been banned at all, let alone for several months. I just voluntarily went on an extended hiatus and miraculously chose to visit the site on the exact same day the ban had been lifted.
Posters on the regular need to keep their emotions in check and ask themselves what they’re looking to get out of these conversations. And if you get little to no value out of them, then it’s better to leave the platform. Moderators on the other hand need to be someone charitable when someone comes along and sarcastically delivers a counter argument against someone else’s point. It’s difficult to interpret where someone is coming from through text when that’s all you have to go off of, but either be strict and apply it consistently across the board, of it there’s ambiguity, step in to clarify or otherwise let it slide.
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I don’t think HBD can be considered witches anymore. It’s crossed the Yglesias/Noah Smith rubicon if not explicitly than implicitly. What else can it mean when Yglesias says American Muslims (filtered historically) are not like European Muslims.
The top 3-5% tend to seem to agree on it. The PMC potentially do too but for career reasons would be afraid to say things explicitly. And the rest are too dumb to have ever bought into intellectually arguments that they shouldn’t just trust their eyes (and what they see watching football on Sundays). HBD is something I knew as a 5 year old.
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To be fair to the, uhm, contra-contrarians, there is a noticeable issue here of voting- for-agreement (as opposed to quality of argument) and dogpiling. Even if both are far better than reddit. It's human nature I suppose, I regularly catch myself wanting to downvote only to control myself since the poster is clearly arguing in good faith, I just disagree hard.
I've never understood this, updoots and downdoots have always been retarded to me, but maybe that's my 4chan background talking. If anything, downvotes are a sign I pissed off the right people, but w/e.
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If you can identify easily what kind of persona won't do well here and summarize it in your points 1 and 3, that in itself is a consensus. Do you not see the contradiction? Not to mention the other consensus of opinions here. And with every crashout, it only gets stronger. Why you're being smug about it is beyond me.
It's like showing up to a zoo, which advertises itself with animals, and then complaining to the zookeepers: "I think animal-keeping is unethical. Why don't you get rid of them?" A Motte without the chuds and the HBDers and the holocaust deniers already exists: it's called the SCC reddit/comment page.
Admittedly, 1 and 3 are quite similar, but one is more emotionally manipulative than the other which I found annoying enough to warrant its own entry.
I guess it depends which action you're criticizing. I don't ask for anybody to be banned for instance. It's quite easy to simply not respond to the people I find odious.
But it is easy to notice that bad comments that agree with the Motte consensus end up fairly highly upvoted even as they get a modhat response, and if you go against said consensus you will often end up in the negative regardless of the evidence you bring. I would be pleasantly surprised if I changed even one person's mind, but usually you either get downvotes and no response or some response that boils down to belief that a nebulous outgroup is evil and acting out of malice. Not exactly intellectually stimulating debate.
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I'm a socially libertarian, economically moderate, tough-on-street-crime, race realist, pro-choice, don't-care-about-abortion, moderate-on-immigration classical liberal.
I don't post here as much as I used to because it gets boring to argue with the same few conservatives about the same few topics over and over again.
Not only that, but many of my disagreements with conservatives boil down to matters of preference that can't really be argued about on rational grounds. For example, take the matter of whether drugs should be legal. This topic can often boil down to a question of whether individual liberty is or is not more important than the government taking steps to keep society physically and mentally healthy. But that is not an answerable question. It really is just a matter of taste, odd as that might seem.
I do still find interesting ideas here pretty regularly though.
I notice that my comments often get upvoted much more than the actual written replies to them would make it seem. Which indicates that either people here are actually pretty good at upvoting for reasons other than agreeing with the material and/or that the people who post the most on the site are not actually a representative sample of all the people who vote on the site.
While I do get and agree with this, there is some useful discourse around the implications of those vibe-driven policies.
For example, I'm relatively OK with laxity on drugs, but I wish those folks would either ge% behind efforts to exclude the indigent from libraries/parks or else admit that this laxity has a real consequence in the destruction of those places and the deprivation of those that would usually benefit from them.
One doesn't have to confront the unsolvable issues to have that conversation. And maybe it helps not to talk about it directly but to work on how to accommodate it and what tradeoffs are needed.
Oh, I agree with all that. I think that drugs should be legal but that society should strongly police things like antisocial use of public spaces. And I agree that it is good to have a conversation about the tradeoffs that both the lax or the strict approach to drugs have. I just think that the fundamental issue of individual liberty to consume substances vs. use of government force to limit individual consumption of substances is not rationally arguable.
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But that's a perfectly valid reason though. It's not like the Motte is homework.
Agreed. I just saw your post as an opportunity to share some related thoughts.
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The motte doesn’t have a ‘consensus’, we’re all witches and wrong thinkers of course, but different kinds of wrong thinkers, a wide variation and one which is instructive to watch, as while we do exhibit blind spots and patterns, we truly cover a variety of politically incorrect opinions.
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Funny post, tell Grok thank you for us.
I wasted the good part of an hour writing this up, so to have the authorship attributed to Grok makes me the big sad.
Ugh, I know the feeling.
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The Amadan part was the main section giving me strong AI vibes - if I'm wrong, mea culpa! My thanks was not sarcastic, I did enjoy it whatever the provenance.
Ahah, that's fine.
It's kind of sad that I ping people's AI suspicions, when I've always been longwinded and rambly.
I love run-on sentences with tons of parentheticals, asides, etc., and I've found that that makes my writing less likely to get pegged as AI slop. So join the bad grammar gang (or maybe start writing like Cormac McCarthy) and you won't have to worry about it.
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That part, and only that part, did seem a bit LLMy.
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This doesn’t feel AI generated to me. I liked it.
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Some various thoughts about the whole thing with Iran. My apologies if much of this was already discussed before by others in previous Culture War threads.
This is me! I've been making that joke every time I talk politics with someone I meet out on the trail or the park. (I let them bring it up first, I'm not that autistic.)
It's a real winner; the libs get to laugh at how stupid cons are and the cons get to laugh at the absurdist nature of reality. Brings us all together!
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This cuts both says. What would we all say if Biden unilaterally raised the price of oil to $100 in some (dubious?) climate crusade.
Maybe it's for a worthy cause, but then we're just negotiating on the price.
Pretty much. I've always been very convinced by number 5 in this NPR article on "Six Policies Economists Love (And Politicians Hate)"
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Trump: warrior for climate justice
There is a half decent case that Rockefeller and Standard Oil were responsible for a huge drop in whale oil consumption, which was good (not perfect) for whales.
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Unless China uses a few percent more coal.
Definitely good for Russia, but I don't think cash is that big a bottleneck for Russia, so only mildly bad news for Ukraine.
Yes. Iranian oil is a double-edged sword; exporting it helps Iran, but also keeps oil prices and supply worries within reason. Also if Iran's oil is cut off, they can retailiae by throwing whatever is remaining at Gulf oil.
For Trump to have this improve GOP chances, he needs to win outright -- new regime in Iran, doesn't matter how much they such as long as they'll play ball with the US and "Death to America" is off the playlist. I give this maybe a 5% chance; there just doesn't seem to be anyone in Iran capable of creating such a regime.
Has it? Many of the earlier polls excluded special operations troops.
Or possibly all of them.
The big win would be regime change. No mullahs, no IRGC, no "Death to America". Doesn't matter to the US if it's a military dictatorship, a democracy (LOL) or a restoration of the monarchy (double LOL), as long as they play ball.
Lacking that, the existing regime playing ball. Stop attacking Hormuz, stop supplying the Houthis (Hezbollah and Hamas matter to Israel but not the US), hand over the enriched uranium and allow US inspections.
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In the case of #2, are the sanctions fully removed or is it just the restrictions/effective embargo on their energy and oil that’s been removed? American foreign policy is so schizophrenic and the administration changes its policy directives so much I’ve quit bothering to even follow it.
source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2871wyz9ko
just oil.
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Betting against Trump being lucky as fuck so far has bad track record. The guy can fuck up the surest thing ever and can win any doom situation.
"Ah well. Nevertheless."
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So on a lighter note the Trump ballroom is continually in the new. The two most interesting questions about it aren't addressed often enough.
Why isn't there a Presidential ball room already? Also why is there so much opposition?
What you need to understand about DC is that there are multiple power structures. Many of which aren't connected to directly to the President or WH.
The ballroom creates an issue because it will immediately become the most prestigious ballroom in the area, and arguably the US.
Right now rooms used for prestigious events are also commonly used for much less prestigious events. There's no cachet in just being at an event in any of them.
The WH ballroom changes things. There are a lot of powerful connected people who aren't going to get an invite to the WH ballroom anytime soon, even under a future Democratic presidency. So it's a blow to their egos, and they are very upset about it.
There are DC judges evaluating suits trying to find a justification to block it, and their motivation is primarily that their wives aren't going to be invited and they're going to hear about it for the next 10 years.
Of course the second reason is that by naming traditions of DC, it should be referred to as the "Trump Ballroom" for the next 100 years. And that is clearly no bueno.
I'm sure you can come up with a better model of your opponents' thoughts that this.
You really shouldn't underestimate how socially petty people in politics can be. Of course, one also shouldn't forget that goes for plenty of people on your side, whatever side that is.
I'm sure they are, but I'm also relatively sure they are entitled to their own view on separation of powers. As noted below by another poster, it's historical precedent that Congress & The President cooperate on it.
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The social status games in DC are actually incredibly important to understanding what happens and doesn't happen there.
I phrased that as a bit of a fun jab, but for a verifiable example some of the injunctions against the USAID defunding / merging with State Department were granted by judges with wives who were active in NGOs receiving USAID money. With all of the lawsuits its a jumble mess to sort through, but I believe they were eventually overturned. So that does give some evidence that the legal reasoning was motivated to begin with.
I mean, it's a verifiable truth that many people are on average more politically aligned with their spouse than a median American.
I don't support the injunctions, but I can see a fairly clear causal pathways where the judge and their spouse both believe in a set of axioms and vibes about the republic that lead them to where they were. And yes, they were all overturned (as they should be).
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My old company would do holiday parties in DC. We've been to a few different locations.
They have done it at the peace institute, the natural history museum (my personal favorite), the building museum, the art and technology institute (not sure if that is the right name, this was my least favorite venue), and the African American history museum.
It did feel like a lot of the places were ridiculously prestigious for a run of the mill SaaS tech company. But yeah basically all the venues have some level of prestige. I agree with your assessment that a white house ballroom will be a step ahead of all those other DC venues.
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I suppose Presidents have largely not felt a need for it. I don't think it's a crazy position that the White House should have a larger permanent structure for holding events than the previous ~200 person seating in the East Wing.
How about because it will be ugly? My understanding is the proposed size for the new East Wing is somewhere between 50% and 200% larger than the White House depending on whether you count square footage or three dimensional area. Should the White House be dominated by one of its wings in height and size?
I suspect a lot of people are also disturbed by the process by which this was conducted. Previous significant renovations (construction of the East and West wings, Truman's renovation) were done in conjunction with Congress, paid for by the government. In this case a bunch of private individuals and businesses donated money to Trump (very specifically, not the US government) and the whole thing is being paid for privately. This is conceptually in opposition to the notion that the White House belongs to the government, to We The People, rather than being a possession of whomever happens to be President.
I think opposition being motivated by exclusivity is a weird take. The ballroom is much larger than the building it is replacing. Surely many more people will be invited, not fewer. That's the point of building a larger space to host events.
The thing is that's clearly not true. Right now it's common to set up tents on the lawn to host large events.
It's counterintuitive, but that's why I wanted to post it. Right now the East wing isn't suitable for a large event so it isn't an option. Once there is a larger venue people will have to face the reality that there is a more prestigious option, but they don't qualify.
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