Cruelty, for the sake of Cruelty
Jun. 21st, 2018 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marjaerwinI don’t understand anti-immigrant politics.
To begin with, it’s cruel to decide that people can’t live the lives they want because *those* people were born on the other side of *that* line. And unjust.
By the way, the 1924 law kept the Franks from becoming refugees in America, so they could only get refuge in the Netherlands, and that didn't last long enough.
In America, these policies were introduced for white supremacism, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act, and for eugenicism, both partly motivated by the idea that the target populations were less intelligent and more fertile. While they have been changed, they haven’t been abolished due to institutional inertia. Of course many people insist that they support these policies because they’re the law rather than because of white supremacism or because of eugenicism, but now many of these people want to tighten/worsen the law– because what?
To continue, if you believe different countries represent different values, and if you also want to restrict immigration, then you’re saying that people can’t choose a country that represents their values, and you’re saying that this country should represent your cruelty, and not my rejection of this cruelty. I’m disabled and can’t travel, and would be turned away because of my disabilities if I could travel.
Now many insist that “each nation” “has a right” “to restrict immigration”. I think rights are something which protect people from arbitrary power, including state power, so these restrictions are the opposite of rights.
So right now the rulers impose these restrictions, and then they have a growing police state to enforce the restrictions, and concentration camps to enforce the restrictions, and disappearing children, and mass graves on the border.
Now some insist that the mass graves justify further restrictions, because “people smugglers,” but there wouldn’t be any people smugglers without the original restrictions.
So it looks like cruelty, for the sake of cruelty, or for some other evil end.
To begin with, it’s cruel to decide that people can’t live the lives they want because *those* people were born on the other side of *that* line. And unjust.
By the way, the 1924 law kept the Franks from becoming refugees in America, so they could only get refuge in the Netherlands, and that didn't last long enough.
In America, these policies were introduced for white supremacism, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act, and for eugenicism, both partly motivated by the idea that the target populations were less intelligent and more fertile. While they have been changed, they haven’t been abolished due to institutional inertia. Of course many people insist that they support these policies because they’re the law rather than because of white supremacism or because of eugenicism, but now many of these people want to tighten/worsen the law– because what?
To continue, if you believe different countries represent different values, and if you also want to restrict immigration, then you’re saying that people can’t choose a country that represents their values, and you’re saying that this country should represent your cruelty, and not my rejection of this cruelty. I’m disabled and can’t travel, and would be turned away because of my disabilities if I could travel.
Now many insist that “each nation” “has a right” “to restrict immigration”. I think rights are something which protect people from arbitrary power, including state power, so these restrictions are the opposite of rights.
So right now the rulers impose these restrictions, and then they have a growing police state to enforce the restrictions, and concentration camps to enforce the restrictions, and disappearing children, and mass graves on the border.
Now some insist that the mass graves justify further restrictions, because “people smugglers,” but there wouldn’t be any people smugglers without the original restrictions.
So it looks like cruelty, for the sake of cruelty, or for some other evil end.
