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Comment by neetdeth | Hacker News Reader

The "birth lottery" is a metaphysical construct. There is no such lottery, in which souls are assigned at random to bodies. Each human being is a rooted thing with a multigenerational history which is (in the typical case) deliberately created. Some stochastic variability is at work in this process, but it is by no means random.

Every nation must have the right to choose the people it wishes to assimilate and those it doesn't. I should not be allowed to go kicking in doors and demanding acceptance. This is the fundamental basis of sovereignty.

The only exception is that a nation must accept those born to its own members, as stateless persons create a potential burden to others.

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Try to think in terms of individuals, not nations. As for your sovereignty - it ends outside of your condo - you can't restrict someone from Oklahoma to move to SF.

I prefer to think in terms of nations.

There is no such thing as a sovereign individual. Unless you refer to the Libertarian cranks hassling cops on YouTube.

In practice, nations can restrict people from moving if they choose to. Perhaps mine won't, but China certainly will.

The reason, by the way, that Oklahoma and California can't restrict migration between them is that US states are not sovereign. The original colonies ceded essential parts of their sovereignty to form a national federal government. This is US history 101.

>>> As for your sovereignty - it ends outside of your condo

Why do you have sovereignty over your condo? Why can't I express my right to sleep on your couch, regardless of your consent? If you can express access control rights over a particular piece of territory or property that you consider your own, then why can't a collective group of people also express access control rights over their common, government-managed and administered property/territory?

To eliminate the birth lottery. Remember, we are talking about the reasons - restricting the movement of someone only because he/she was born in the "wrong" coordinates on the map (and in the "wrong" time) is simply inhuman.

I'm slightly confused regarding your position, are you seeking open borders, or solely the elimination of birthright citizenship?

I think there's enough responses in the thread regarding open borders that I won't belabor that point again. To the question of birthright citizenship, I'd probably be ok with eliminating it if we replaced it with service-based citizenship a la Starship Troopers (to include volunteering in the Peace Corps, volunteer firefighting, and maybe law enforcement). But it leads to the question of: if people (including native-born ones) don't meet the citizenship requirements, do they become stateless persons? Do we deport them? To where?

There are many angles/perspectives. Lets consider two categories for whom it is declared that we need them or they are allowed to enter: high-skilled workforce and refugees. We all know (here at HN) about the huge bureaucracy and obstacles when it comes to work permits. As for the refugees - everyone declares that they are allowed to enter, but in order to qualify for such status they need to be [almost] drown in the sea or [almost] killed at the border.

https://www.liberties.eu/en/news/why-refugees-do-not-take-th...

https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2016/02/11/why-dont-refugees-fly/

So....all of the problems you've mentioned, and they ARE legitimate issues....can be resolved via means other than eliminating birthright citizenship, or adopting open borders. So can we agree to attempt implementing other measures and policies first before jumping to a drastic and likely highly-disruptive policy shift?

>>>but in order to qualify for such status they need to be [almost] drown in the sea or [almost] killed at the border.

There's not much we can do about natural geography. I'm not sure what alternative course of action is suggested in the case of, say, Cuban or Haitian refugees attempting access by boat. Secondly, no one is "almost killing" refugees that show up at designated legal points of entry to the country. Finally, anyone other than Mexican citizens attempting to seek asylum/refugee status by crossing the US-Mexico border is probably in error (I wouldn't go so far as to say "not acting in good faith").

Consider this from: [1] "Once refugees or asylum seekers have found a safe place and protection of a state or territory outside their territory of origin they are discouraged from leaving again and seeking protection in another country."

In other words, Hondurans/Guatamalans/etc... should not be transiting Mexico to seek refugee status in the US to begin with.[2]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugee#Restriction_of_onward_...

[2]https://www.unhcr.org/3c064aab4.html

But in the physical reality that we live in, individuals don't exist "on their own", they don't exist as completely separate entities. They have a lot of personal thoughts and experiences, but they also have a lot of traits that are predetermined by their culture, family, education, nation, society values of their immediate surrounding etc. It is just not honest to only treat people as individuals when there are obviously parts of them which are decided by the nation. So that's why people think in nations.

> Every nation must have the right to choose the people it wishes to assimilate and those it doesn't. I should not be allowed to go kicking in doors and demanding acceptance. This is the fundamental basis of sovereignty.

I don't necessarily disagree with this notion, but it has its limits. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, Sodomy laws, and voting restrictions on females have all been reflections of sovereignty...and they were all fucking terrible decisions. And they were eventually overthrown not by a peaceful process of deliberative change, but through massive grassroots dissent that was absolutely illegal in every respect.

If our sovereign decision is to decide that we don't want rapists and terrorists in our country, I don't have a problem with that. But if terrorist or rapist becomes conflated with brown people, restricting all of their entry regardless of their individual merits, that's gonna be a big fucking no from me dawg. I will gladly and willingly help subvert those laws, because they are unjust laws motivated by pure racism. They deserve to be subverted.

What if it were "we don't want poor, unskilled people"? Is that really anyone's fault either?

> There is no such lottery, in which souls are assigned at random to bodies.

citation needed. Are you claiming that some invisible hand assigned me to this planet and this time in history for reason specifically tied to myself?

> it is by no means random

Please provide evidence.

I am only claiming that you are an organism that was created by sexual reproduction, and that your current state of being is a result of genetics and environment. Surely this does not require evidence.

We don't seem to get wrapped up in questions of why a particular tree is "that" tree and not some other tree. It seems to me, as an atheist, that once you start carving out a special metaphysical nature for humans you're dabbling in the religious.

What requires evidence is this spiritual "you" that was "assigned" to this planet. If we admit that, whether the mechanism is a spiritual hand or a spiritual lottery machine is purely a theological question.

This isn't some mere abstract debate - the meme you're expressing is a radical egalitarian (Protestant) system of ethics being smuggled in under a secular guise.

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