Anonymous #2 3w

Legality is not morality. Didn’t they teach you this in elementary school?

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Anonymous #3 3w

Even if I were to grant that that’s true (and it isn’t, the poverty of LatAm/MENA has much more to do with Spain/Britain/their own failed economic policies before anything else) why does that mean we HAVE to take all these people in? Are we morally obligated to? I’d say as a sovereign nation we have the right to regulate immigration according to how we see fit

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Anonymous OP 3w

Ok, fair. But one of the catalysts for the Refugee Act is from a moral obligation: we needed to standardize the process for refugee admissions. We didn’t realize that until hundreds of thousands of people from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fled to the US. Many had been allies during the war. We have a similar program (they weren’t called refugees though) for people who helped us in Afghanistan

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Anonymous #2 3w

If we’re going to call communism oppressive, we should probably allow some people fleeing it into the country. Otherwise it doesn’t seem like it’s as big of a deal as we make it seem

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Anonymous #2 3w

This is why I think we should pull out of most foreign conflicts in general. We earmarked those people for death once they allied with us during those wars and had nowhere to go as a result. But people fleeing other wars or conflicts? Or worse yet people who wouldn’t even qualify for asylum and are just seeing a “better life” to make more money? We’re not morally wrong to turn them at the door or deport them if they sneak past

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Anonymous OP 3w

Weren’t most people who migrated to the US 70+ years ago just seeking a better life?

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Anonymous OP 3w

I think we do have a moral obligation. Is it not a base moral principle to help the desperate and poor if you are able? That’s a pretty basic moral imperative in many major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism) and in major secular moral systems. I think it’s a moral imperative to alleviate suffering and promote flourishing by helping others.

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Anonymous #4 3w

The global system is multipolar; things like charity from countries that usually prioritize diplomacy, foreign aid, and promote/support republics forces the hand of countries generally less interested (china, russia) in diplomatic efforts and interdependence into participation. We're seeing a reversion into illogical foreign policy that often turns to emphasizing military strength over diplomatic relations. This puts everyone on edge (think arms race). You never want to be "underprepared"

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Anonymous OP 3w

I think it’s laughable to claim the poverty of all these nations has nothing to do with the USA. The USA created banana republics and dictators and civil wars throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. That is much more present than old colonial woes. And the civil wars we created in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan are modern problems, not old colonial ones.

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Anonymous #3 3w

Our wealth, like that of Europe, is a result of resource accumulation from across the world. If there are two kids playing in a room, and one kid takes all the toys to his side, he doesn’t have a right to exclude the other kid from coming over to play, even if that’s his side of the room.

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Anonymous #4 3w

TLDR can't have your cake and eat it too. The US can't be a global superpower if it's not a part of the global system. Also we import more than we export and we evidently saw that that’s not good for corporations and citizens (we r also a military industrial complex 😜)

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Anonymous #3 3w

7.5 bullion people in the world today are poorer than the average American. Are we morally obligated to take all of them in, or can we have a limit?

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Anonymous OP 3w

If we could help them all I think we should. However we are not able to. A country cannot let in unlimited refugees, because they will eventually overrun the ability for that country’s social safety net and economy to accommodate them. However, we can let in many. AND, we can alleviate their need to come here by funding aid programs and promoting government stability in other countries. If there is opportunity in their homeland, they won’t need to come here. But now we defunded USAID.

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Anonymous #2 3w

And? Eventually we restricted that immigration heavily as well. Were we wrong to do that?

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Anonymous #3 3w

At one time, much Latin America was of equal economic development to the United States. Americans actively moved there for opportunity. That is not the case now. Some of that is the USA pulling ahead, some is local economic failures (ex, Chile guano industry collapse), but much of it is from the USA creating coups and civil wars.

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Anonymous OP 3w

Seems a bit hypocritical to pull the ladder up once you come here

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Anonymous #3 3w

The structural factors dating back centuries or millennia in these countries have far more to do with their current economic status than US intervention. Why Nations Fail lays this out really well. That’s why virtually every country in MENA/LatAm/sub Saharan Africa is impoverished, not just the ones the US intervened in. In fact through USAID/PEPFAR/US development agencies we’ve done more good than harm in some (keyword some, not all) of these countries.

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Anonymous #3 3w

It’s mostly Europe’s fault; the US didn’t even become a great power until 1898. Why should America suffer for the decisions of European kings and emperors? It seems like you’re arguing for mass immigration as a form of generational reparations, to which I’d say that’s a big Pandora’s Box to open when it comes to who is entitled to what

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Anonymous OP 3w

Come on man. I’m pretty sure the civil wars we made in Guatemala and El Salvador which decimated their countries have a lot more to do with their current situation than ancient structural factors. Like… Iraq dude. Are you really gonna claim that the refugee crisis from *iraq* isn’t because of the USA? And as I said, USAID is good. It’s a good way to help other countries develop and save hundreds of thousands of lives. But now we have defunded it.

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Anonymous #2 3w

This is the same argument people make when they’re arguing against abortion btw. “Isn’t it a bit hypocritical to support abortion rights if you yourself weren’t aborted? You can’t pull up the ladder!”

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Anonymous OP 3w

You seem to be going circularly. I’ve pointed out so many instances in which the USA is directly responsible for modern refugee crises, and you are just blowing right past them. But in the end that’s not why I feel the way we do. We, as humans, have a responsibility to help other humans. That includes through international humanitarian aid (which republicans just gutted), and also by not going “nah fuck you I got mine” when someone understandably wants a better life.

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Anonymous #3 3w

So you didn’t read what I wrote. I said “keyword some”. Obviously I recognize the US destroyed Iraq. Why are you putting words in my mouth? Come on man, I don’t write that much, it can’t be that hard to read it all. The reasons why Morocco or Algeria or Peru are poorer than us have far more to do with their own economic policies or even colonialism by other powers, not the US. We didn’t invade and destroy these countries.

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Anonymous OP 3w

Institutions didn’t rise from people agreeing for peace and bureaucracy. When early agrarian societies have a limited amount of useable land, they fight over it. Throughout empires and national states, leaders who are able to harness the means of coercion and centralize power eventually become managers of securing/maintaining the means of coercion, power, capital, and war. This is what caused bureaucracies to rise. If you’re going to fight/industrialize/expand, you need the means to do so

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Anonymous #3 3w

If we’re gonna play this game, plenty of countries owe reparations to the US. Britain funded the Confederacy. Mexico raided our border in the 1910s, killing US citizens. Are we seriously gonna play this game and argue Germany, Italy, and Japan have a moral obligation to allow unlimited American immigrants as reparations for killing our people in WW2?

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Anonymous #3 3w

There are a few crises I’d argue we have a direct hand in. There are many more in which I don’t. A huge chunk of our immigrants come from China and India, neither of which are primarily poor because of the US. So why are we morally obligated to take them in? I think it’s natural to want to help your own before you help strangers. And as an American I only want immigrants that benefit Americans on net, not refugees we have to help from the goodness of our hearts

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Anonymous OP 3w

I’m saying when we are actively extracting and accumulating wealth from poorer nations, we can’t exactly get pissy when people from those nations see this as a desirable place to live. Frankly this is a tangent, but you aren’t understanding the basic concept of reparations at all either. It’s not about “bad thing happened in the past so you owe me” it’s “I am still being harmed by this thing, can you help remedy that”

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Anonymous #3 3w

Like bruh, this quibbling about who did what is so beside why I care. Yeah, some countries have refugees not because of us. Many refugees are from the Congo, the USA didn’t do that, even if it is partly responsible for a dozen different countries. But I think we have a responsibility to help the needy. That moral obligation trumps artificial constructs like borders. If you want to just do tons and tons of USAID to make up for closed borders, please do. That’s better than nothing.

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Anonymous OP 3w

I don’t value the lives of some people over the lives of others just because they were lucky enough to be born in my country. I am a humanist.

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Anonymous #3 3w

Do you want to help your family or friends before you help random strangers? Is it really such a wrong thing for someone to think that way?

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Anonymous #3 3w

We have a responsibility to help the needy in our country first. There are plenty of homeless starving Americans. If international development pays dividends that benefit us, I’m for it. If certain world-class immigrants benefit us through their skills, I’m for it. Otherwise we are not obligated to give them shit.

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Anonymous OP 3w

I would help my family and friends before I help strangers. I recognize that is not ethnically sound but it’s what I do. But not everyone in the USA is a friend or family. I have friends who are not in the USA. I have a very close friend who is an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. Being American is not a determiner of whether I care about someone. I do not base my worldview on tribalism.

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Anonymous OP 3w

Well, good thing the politicians opposed to immigration aren’t gonna help poor Americans either 👍 more money for billionaires.

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Anonymous #3 3w

Dude if you straight up admit you would help your family and friends before strangers then you are a tribalist. You’re not above tribalism, you just don’t value the same kind of tribalism most Americans do. Fine. But we don’t see it that way. We wanna put America and Americans first. Big deal

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Anonymous #3 3w

Nah we’re still being harmed because we’re missing the contributions of those Americans killed by the British, the Mexicans, the Germans, the Japanese, and the Italians after they attacked us. Those dead Americans could have been great scientists or engineers or artists. We need reparations from Germany now

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Anonymous OP 3w

Having a personal connection to someone is completely different from deciding if someone matters based on whether they meet a specific label. In a practical sense, I see why countries prioritize their own citizens. That’s kind of the modern purpose of countries, even if I hope it’s eventually an outdated concept. But that’s very different from “fuck all y’all I hoard all the resources.” Selfishness and greed and lack of charity is usually recognized as a bad attribute.

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Anonymous #3 3w

But like, in the end, it doesn’t matter that much. The politicians who claim we have to ban immigration to help Americans are the same ones hurting the poorest Americans. They’re the same ones who are cutting USAID so people are even more desperate to immigrate. It’s a talking point, not a philosophy. They only care about the billionaires.

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