Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims from America
Reply #593 - January 29, 2017, 07:12 PM
I haven't posted here in awhile, but the recent issue with the ban, and a debate with some people on facebook interested me in checking out the forum again.
My take on this question is admittedly quite radical, and if my comments are not appropriate for the forum, I will not comment further. Here is what I wrote earlier on this subject.
The problem with the debate about borders is a really fundamental question.
The nationalists, whose argument is actually fundamentally racist (there's nothing that goes more to the core of racism the saying different people have different fundamental rights) have a consistent position.
The left, generally, does not. And this makes perfect sense, because they are torn apart by directly opposing instincts. One is the opposition to racism in general. The other is the idea that the solution to oppression must come from the state.
The existence of a nation-state itself is dependent on borders. It's dependent on those borders being protected with violence. But the left wing people who oppose the anti-immigration racists generally aren't quite willing to really grasp this contradiction. A few of them are, the international socialism types.
But for most, they both want the state to be protector and savior from social ills- and to stay in control of it's current territory.
But it's the state itself, the concept of the nation-state, that creates borders, and affords different statuses to different arbitrary groups of people. Intuitively, on an ethical gut level,people who oppose the nativists understand how absurd this is. But that absurdity underlies the very existence and claims to legitimacy of the nation state. And the solutions to this are quite radical, and quite contrary to way the world is. But without acknowledging the reality of the problem, the best people can muster is selective outrage without any consistent idea of what the solution should be, or even look like.
For the nativist faction, it's simple. Might makes right. There's often some absurd justification, like the idea that one is simultaneously entitled by the actions of one's ancestors, but not responsible for their crimes. And a complete and sudden myopia about the way western states and their clients are connected through the modern mercantilist global system, and the simplistic, absolute belief in the moral value of the law for the law's sake.
But these are, strange as it may sounds, contradictions that add up to a consistent position.
One can argue for the plight of some group, but can offer no better reason to exclude some other group other then simply choosing to think about the issue in selective partisan terms, That works ok for most, because politics is the mind killer. But there's no consistent principle. The contradictions don't add up to anything coherent.
The coherent position seems impossible. But that doesn't stop it from being the logical conclusion from the ethical principles on which it's based.
Furthermore, if you accept the premise of nation-states and borders, you actually can make a rational utilitarian argument for restricting immigration from certain countries. It would go something like this; only x amount of people are allowed to immigrate per year. The chances of letting in a violent terrorist if that number is filled in by oppressed people from certain countries is higher then the same number of people from some set of other countries. In order to minimize the risk, which constitutes a threat to people already there and those who immigrated, it's better to choose from countries with lower probabilities. There is no logical or ethical reason to prefer one set of people with a similar level of bad circumstances from another.
Again, if you accept the fundamental premise of borders and the nation state, all these arguments become valid and debateable. If you find this unreasonable or ethically troubling, you have to reject the premise on which these arguments can be made, i.e., that the nation state is an acceptable entity.
Topic: Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims from America