[ExI] dead weight

Dan TheBookMan danust2012 at gmail.com
Wed May 15 17:11:24 UTC 2019


On May 15, 2019, at 9:52 AM, <spike at rainier66.com> <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> 
>>  
> > Another issue:  98 countries according to Google have birth rates below replacement.  Result:  fewer people working to support the retired and to pay off debts. 
>  
>  
> Eh, not necessarily.  Birth isn’t the only way for a country to get new citizens, and really isn’t even the best way.  If a country allows in and naturalizes only those that country chooses, then that country gets people who are capable of contributing to pay those debts, rather than those who contribute to creating more debt.
>  
> That’s the difference between legal and illegal immigration.

No, it isn’t. Legal immigration is simply immigration that’s allowed by law. Illegal immigration is that immigration which is not allowed by law.

As for what contributes to US public debts, immigrants, legal or not, actually take less from the public fund per capita than non-immigrants. (This should painfully obvious for illegal immigrants, since the law limits what they can get and the risk of being arrested and deported typically makes them not want to interface with welfare agencies, schools, or any place where they might come under scrutiny by the government or snitches.)

Also, you speak as if everyone can easily determine what’s best for a nation. That’s not only very hard to determine, but it’s naive to think that’s what guides public immigration policy (or national politics in general). It’s not the nation (or in your usage “country”) that allows this or that. It’s whoever’s in charge of the state. You might fancifully believe that the state represents the nation, embodies the desires and opinions of 320 or so million people, but that’s not the reality.

Since others have raised it here too, the libertarian position on immigration is open borders or, rather, no borders. People should be free to peacefully migrate wherever they please rather than wherever some ruling elite decides (whether that decision involves a voting majority or whatnot). 

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20190515/c56107cf/attachment-0001.htm>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list