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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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No, people are following the rules and politely asking for a renewal in a different country.

The issue here is that they're not being denied, the government is basically refusing to make a decision for an indefinite amount of time.

I'm assuming most normal cases will get their visas eventually, the question is when. In the meantime the applicant can pay rent in the US, find some place to live abroad and maybe continue working from overseas? All so the state department can retrain a few people?

They are being denied. That's the default state when your visa expires and you have not been granted a new one. What the government is doing is telling people to not bother asking right now because everyone will be denied.

That is not what's happening here.

They're not making decisions. No one is being denied as a result of this.

Also, there are many cases in which a visa can expire and you're still allowed to be in the US and even work. As long as the reason why you got one is still there (there's a legal term for this but IANAL). It's just that when you leave you cannot come back without getting a new one.

> The moral issue is the same in both cases: there’s a big sign that says “temporary.” People have chosen to ignore the sign.

No. Your analogy works well solely for the concept of temporary authorization.

If you're offering up 2h parking as proof that the moral stakes are equivalent...

The moral issue is defined by the nature of the rule, not the stakes for someone who has transgressed. Enforcing the rule doesn’t become less legitimate just because someone has invested more in breaking it.

> Enforcing the rule doesn’t become less legitimate just because someone has invested more in breaking it.

Nobody broke any rules here. These are the people folowwing the rules for the legal immigration system.

You just want to break the law as it stands today and not have an immigration system at all. That's a view you can hold and just as valid as any other. Just stop talking about people breaking rules, that's not what this is about, this has nothing to do with illegal immigration.

Why is that how the moral issue is defined? Seems to me the moral issue is the stakes, and I have no idea why I would cede that judgement to you. What's your basis for claiming moral authority? If you don't, please show your homework: what strange anticonsequentialism underlies your claims, and why should I agree with it?

Consequentialism in general is a third-world mindset. But in this particular context it leads to the absurd result that someone who breaks the rules more egregiously is rewarded for doing so.

> Consequentialism in general is a third-world mindset.

Ah, this must be why so many utilitarian philosophers are European and American.

Those sure are words. Can you relate them to the question in some way?

In first world countries, we focus on rules over consequences. If you build a dwelling on my property, the rule doesn't reward you for making a house rather than a tent. The moral analysis is based on the nature of the rule, not the consequences to those who break the rule.

Hogwash. You're trying to slide from claiming moral high ground to pointing at rules, as though the American lexicon didn't have whole classes of words denoting the "virtuous rulebreaker" (maverick, renegade, etc). And, do you think all the rules you live under have moral weight? What if those rules changed, as they did here-- would you still think that?

Not to mention that it's still incorrect even if you're just pointing at the rules themselves-- the entire concept of standing to sue requires that you were harmed (ie, suffered consequences) to engage the courts in the first place. On the other side, results are the difference between attempted homicide and homicide.

Which rules are being broken? It seems to me it is the State department that has suddenly and capriciously begun violating immigration law, rather than processing Visa applications according to the laws of this country. Is it because this administration knows it could never hope to pass a law this terrible?

The principle is the same; the magnitude is different. I don't see why adjusting the magnitude should affect the principle.

Then you don't see why stealing $10 is a misdemeanor and stealing $1000 is a felony (depending on jurisdiction, but whatever you get the point). Not saying you should see why, just that many clearly do for it to be public policy.

But it makes me wonder: do you think the $10 theft should be punished more heavily (minimum 1 year in prison), or the $1000 theft punished more lightly (maximum 1 year in prison)?

>you don't see why stealing $10 is a misdemeanor and stealing $1000 is a felony (depending on jurisdiction, but whatever you get the point).

A shift in magnitude follows a shift in magnitude, as expected.

I see what you're saying but it strikes me as naive to suggest that a felony and misdemeanor are different merely in magnitude. I suppose that was my mistake given my initial examples. In practical terms, one is a means of voter disenfranchisement, among many other life complications like "failing" employer and landlord background checks. One thing being a felony and the other being a misdemeanor can be seen as a difference in magnitude and as a difference in kind, and I was talking about the latter.

Do you think the moral issue is the same if someone fails to hold a door for you, or if they shoot you? It’s rude either way, right?

I don’t have words for it, but the US has been infected with some kind of hybrid reductionism / nihilism where people think that vicious bad behavior can be enjoyed and justified, even righteously glorified, if a disingenuous analogy can somehow be crafted to something banal and comparatively harmless.

Nobody actually believes it, but it’s become a game of sorts. I don’t like it.

Thank the pseudo intellectual billionaire patron club masquerading as serious thinkers.

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