Hacker News Reader

Comment by stego-tech | Hacker News Reader

I'm right there with you, and it's why I go to great pains to articulate the entirety of my position on immigration when I get into these sorts of debates. The simpler someone's position on immigration is, the less they understand it at length or the more extremist their viewpoints tend to be.

View on HN

It's wickedly complicated, isn't it? I'm distressed by anybody who doesn't change their position from time to time.

It's not that complicated, my immigration policy is "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Mine comes to the same conclusion via a different route. I don't want my government telling me where I can or cannot travel to or decide to live, and I want all other governments to do the same.

It's a romantic rhetorical cudgel in this context. And it's actually quite complicated, though easy to say.

I mean, I think that's a noble position to take; I share it, to a significant degree. The problem is when you start getting into the nuance of the modern world, where everywhere has a record of who you are, what you've done, where you've been, etcetera. The existence of that data means the masses will want to judge immigrants by said data before permitting entry, which means bad actors will leverage said data to persecute those they hate.

In principle, I am 100% with you. Pragmatically however, it's significantly more complex.

my position has been steady since the start of my political consciousness (maybe ~12 years?)

all laws, including immigration laws, should be enforced consistently and universally, and without bias. and the laws should be changed to make it much simpler and easier to immigrate especially if you are able to already secure employment, housing, and health insurance.

Threads like these make me realize how wrong people can be. I understand the complexity and can see how misinformed people are. Makes me wonder what happens in other threads where I know little and just take whatever at face value. Eesh.

You see the complexity, but still categorize a noteworthy number of people somewhere as (relatively) reasonable as HN as clearly "wrong"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com