Friday Fun Thread for February 14, 2024
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Notes -
Open borders libertarianism is a modern instantiation of the adage "capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them".
Who wrote "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore" on the statue of Liberty? A jewish socialist. Democrats are keeping the border open for their own dark purposes, obviously not out of love for freedom.
Pretty much just paraphrasing our founder:
OG approved.
Why cut off the end of the quote?
There's a big laconic If there, one that doesn't apply to all nations or all religions equally, since they are not equally meritorious. At the time of that letter, the law of the land was this:
Yes, the infamous Free White Men of Good Character. That's who he was addressing, not Indians and Africans crossing half the world to be given free housing, food, communications, and travel, paid for by the sweat of the native American man.
That's the form I got the quote in. It doesn't change it though, this is the standard pro-immigration stance - ever hear people argue that we should prioritize indecent people known for their bad conduct?
Significantly, the 1790 Act placed no restrictions on immigration whatsoever, from white or nonwhite nations, which feels like the opportune chance to have done so if they wanted. Either way this is not a particular contrast with our late 19th century poet. A mostly white crowd is who Lazarus was addressing as well, writing during the era of mass European immigration. It is well known that Washington was himself a racial supremacist and I think it's good we've moved past his bad ideas (he himself felt that the slavery he profited from was immoral and hoped that it would be done away with). My point is that being welcoming to poor immigrants isn't some commie Jewish revisionism, it's been an attitude present in political tradition from the very start - many of our other founders expressed similar sentiments.
It absolutely does, especially since your source probably left it off deliberately to change the meaning, a meaning you repeated, a meaning not meant by G. Washington.
No, it placed no restrictions on immigration, just restrictions on citizenship, restrictions which I would like to see revived and reimplemented.
I mean no, not really, for the reason I described. If someone said "I want oppressed and persecuted people to immigrate here," which is a more natural interpretation?
"I want oppressed and persecuted people to immigrate here, and I want them to be moral people"
"I want oppressed and persecuted people to immigrate here, and I hope they're really bad"
Yes, that is what this conversation is about.
Sure I didn't ask.
"I want them to be immigrate and I want them to be moral" carries the connotation that enough of them aren't moral that you need to take that into consideration rather than just assuming the opposite. It doesn't just mean its literal words.
I mean, he could have made immigration law take morality into account but didn't, suggesting it wasn't really that important to him as a matter of policy. Is the claim "not everybody in the world is equally awesome" really relevant to anyone but Bryan Caplan? Few people genuinely imagine the entire earth should move into their country.
"I think by his actions he would have sympathized with the position in the misquote" is not an excuse for a misquote.
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