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Comment by BowBun | Hacker News Reader

GC holder of 25 years with citizen parents. I agree with you and I stress about this daily. It's always been a shitty deal though - we are taxed with no representation in government.

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>we are taxed with no representation in government.

In which country can you emigrate to and be allowed votes in government representation just because you pay taxes? I'm an EU citizen and living in another EU country and am not allowed to vote in that country's government elections, just local ones. If you want to vote at government level then you need to apply and get citizenship which also comes with the responsibility(or obligation more accurately) of military draft.

Everything about this seems pretty fair to me. I'm not sure why not to you. If you're not a citizen you shouldn't be allowed to vote at gov level since you're not subject to a draft, because in case the shit hits the fan militarily, unlike citizens, you can just pack your bags and go back to your home country and avoid dying in the front lines. So why would any country let people who aren't subject to draft vote? Makes no sense. You don't have the same skin in the game as citizens who are draftable just because you pay some taxes.

Now if you're paying taxes in a foreign country where you can't vote, it means you're there voluntarily because you're getting a much better deal than being in your own country where you can vote. Probably you're in the US because you make orders of magnitude more money than in your own country, but nobody in the US dragged you there against your will to work and pay them taxes, you agreed to this situation voluntarily because it also benefits you personally, and you would just as easily leave if it stopped benefiting you.

> In which country can you emigrate to and be allowed votes in government representation just because you pay taxes?

There are a few, with varying degrees of residency time (and possibly other conditions) required. New Zealand requires being a resident for a year.

The UK is particularly interesting, if you're a citizen of a common wealth nation you can vote in national UK elections if you're a resident.

Personally, I agree with you though. I didn't vote in the UK despite being able too. Let the citizens decide the future of their nation, I have the privilege to leave (and have done so already). Feels wrong for me to influence the nation when I'm not fully invested in the outcome.

Indeed. Entitlement on immigration issues is through the roof here.

As a person, why should you not have a say in how things are governed where you live?

The idea that you should be required to swear some loyalty to a government before you get a say in how the place you live is governed is the position that’s actually absurd.

(Yes, I do think there should be a global republic and that there should be full freedom of movement. It’s way past time for that.)

Because as a non-citizen, you are technically still a guest?

If you love the place you're living in and want to actively participate in its governance, including implementing any changes, you should obtain citizenship.

And even if you do, your stake would still be less than those who've been living there all their lives, across many generations. Maybe the natives actually don't want the changes that the immigrants want to see implemented.

(not going to argue the finer details of ethics like racism or xenophobia, etc. which I acknowledge can often come up in cases like this).

It make sense, you don't want to give voting rights to someone who might decide not to continue living in your country anymore. If they are serious about it, then they must go through the process of obtaining citizenship. I have same issue with dual citizenships, it is absurd that someone holding foreign passport can have major decision making roles in your government.

Genuinely curious why didn't you pursue citizenship though? (No pressure to answer of course, that might be a deeply personal thing.)

We did not meet continuous residency requirements for 10-15 years due to travel for my dad's work. Afterwards, it took me nearly 5 years to meet that requirement due to the fact that I lived and graduated abroad for highschool. I tried around COVID, was denied based on truthfully admitting I had smoked some weed in the previous 5 years while I lived in Colorado. That reset my clock for another five years. I constantly wrestle with whether I even want to be associated with this country for the rest of my life. I'm prideful and a high earner, there's only so much I'll accept before moving my family and assets somewhere else.

Hope that provides some color. To all the fans of the current immigration policies - you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

    > we are taxed with no representation in government

This is true in most highly-developed democratic nations. If it is so important to you, then you should become a citizen, or return to your home country (so that you may vote). And curiously, does your home country not have the same rule? Do you find that position hypocritical?

It's certainly possible to make different arrangements. Some European countries do that for local elections, for example.

The choice is not so binary, as anyone seriously discussing this topic should immediately recognize. There are indeed ways for foreigners to participate in local politics in many countries, here is some data if you're interested in learning - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-citizen_suffrage

My country does in fact provide this right to foreign residents who live a certain amount of time in the country. Even if it didn't, it would not be a hypocritical position to state something is bad. Do you think I wrote the laws? Hardly seems like a good-faith argument or even a sound one!

>we are taxed with no representation in government

You have representation. Perhaps you mean suffrage.

Perhaps they live in DC?

Or perhaps they mean the same thing as was meant by the slogan when it was first coined, around the time of the American Revolution, and the same thing as was meant by the women's suffragists who used it in the late 19th century.

Maybe in some sense "no taxation without suffrage" would be more accurate, but it would be a worse slogan. In any case, "no taxation without representation" is a well known phrase, it's been around for over 250 years, and I don't think much is achieved by nitpicking its wording.

You do have congressional representatives and senators who represent you and your interests and can take action on your behalf just as they would if you were a citizen. I have had decent luck in getting assistance from them despite not being a citizen.

The person you're replying to knows this. You're missing their point.

To exist is to be taxed. If you exist at all in the US, you will be taxed. You may even be taxed even if you are not in the US. So saying that taxation somehow implies voting ability would be quite absurd. This doesn't hold true anywhere in the world.

When someone says "No taxation without representation!" they don't mean "As a matter of fact, no one ever gets taxed by a government they don't have the power to vote for or against". (If that were true, there'd be no need to demand it.)

They mean "I would like our government to stop taxing people who don't get to vote for it" or "It is unjust for a government to tax people who don't get to vote for it" or something of that sort.

The fact that things aren't already the way you want them to be doesn't make it absurd to demand that they change to be that way.

(You might argument that governments don't give a damn what anyone demands and for that reason it is absurd to demand change. But I think that in fact governments do take notice of what people want, if they fear what the people might do if they don't get it. Whether that's voting them out of office or putting their heads on pikes or anything in between. And they will take more notice if more people are demanding whatever it is, and a large part of the point of saying things like "No taxation without representation!" is to get other people who aren't in the government to sympathize with your cause and maybe start demanding the same thing. So I think it's manifestly not absurd to make such demands, as such. Some particular demands -- "No taxation without $1M/year universal basic income!" -- would be absurd, but this one seems obviously not to be in that category.)

There is a typical ladder here though of non-immigrant/temp visitor, legal permanent resident, and citizen. The main practical distinction bw the last two is the ability to vote and hold office. What concretely is the demand here? That the last two should effectively merge into one? Or is it that everybody along this ladder should get to vote and that citizenship is a separate axis?

The demand is that there shouldn't be anywhere on that ladder where you are expected to pay taxes and aren't given the right to vote.

Is it a sensible demand? I dunno. Some people have thought so. Some other people have thought not. I'm not trying to settle that question; just trying to bring some clarity as to what the issue is.

I don't know man, I'm just telling you what I see in the conversation:

OP: Complaint about taxation without representation

A: Acktually it's called suffrage not representation

B: This phrase has been in use forever and people use it interchangeably when they mean the other. It's a slogan, chill

A: I've had great representation without suffrage!

C: You're missing their point

A: Taxation without representation isn't an issue

I feel like I'm chatting with an LLM with a broken input box.

Yes and colonial Americans had personages they didn't choose representing their interests at court so clearly that was not what they meant by it, let alone as members of the British empire their interests were represented by the king the highest position in the land...

This is probably the most embarrassing comment I've ever seen on HN.

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