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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 12:31 AM |
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Xerox:
Demographic problems are a concern. If the population of retired people is large and the working population is small, then there are more retired people per worker, meaning each worker has to support more retired people. This means that either the worker will have to pay more in taxes, retirees will have to receive less in benefits, or some combination of the two. This is partially solved by gradually abolishing government benefits programs for the retired, and transitioning to a system under which the retired support themselves on their savings (and are supported by their children, when necessary).
In any case, increased populations aren't homogenous - that is, not every newborn will be equally good at supporting retirees. If they are themselves collecting welfare as adults, they're a net drain on the social safety net. If they're working at low-paying jobs, they're not taxed much, so they're not contributing much to retirees' benefits. Thus, if a sub-population won't have much of a positive impact on production and government revenue, preventing its existence won't have much of a negative effect. True, we want doctors, engineers, etc. to have more children - but they don't want to because it's too expensive for them. But we don't want people who are already on welfare to have more children.
Salamandre:
Quote:
From a strictly patriotic point of view, I would say it is better that a non native one is starving instead of a native.
Why? What's the difference between a Frenchman you don't know and an African you don't know? Both of them are strangers. Why do you support letting your tax money go to help the former but not the latter?
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Eccentric Opinion
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Salamandre
Admirable
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Wog refugee
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posted May 16, 2012 12:34 AM |
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Because at some point in my life, I took the choice to move to France and not to Africa. Thus France is my country now. I realize how shocking it sounds to say "I don't care about" but money does not fall from sky. If two can't be feed, one has to starve. Up to you to propose alternative solutions, if any.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 12:41 AM |
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France is the country the laws of which you follow and the government's taxes you pay. It does not mean that Frenchmen you don't know are any less strangers than Africans you don't know. It's not shocking at all to hear someone say "I don't care", but it is troubling to hear someone say, "I care about people in my country and about no one else." Since you asked, the other answers were: "I want my taxes to feed the African and Frenchman equally", or "I don't support the use of my taxes to feed anyone." Anything else is nationalism.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Salamandre
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Wog refugee
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posted May 16, 2012 12:44 AM |
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You choose to replace patriotism with nationalism, it wasn't me.
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Baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted May 16, 2012 12:47 AM |
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If you tried to enact what Salamandre suggested, you would be met with cries of "Racism!" It's an improvement over the status quo, but many people would see it as discriminatory against immigrants. If an immigrant is starving, how is that any better than a native-born citizen starving?
That's why you throw in a few public services such as public kitchens, shelters, and basic healthcare. Of course that requires people to stop reasoning that introducing these is equivalent to Stalin getting elected as overlord of space. Besides, they're already around in most places. Administer those efficiently, perhaps upgrade them or create several more, and it'll pay off far better than welfare and satisfy principles of essential solidarity. It'd still be messy administration-wise, but could be done.
Welfare essentially gives people free money to spend how they like and allows for a level of "luxury" (in the wider sense), so it's not wrong to reason that it should be earned in some way. But it's generally not a great idea to leave people completely on their own if they're in whatever way prevented from earning it. Services, on the other hand, provide those folks with the very basics so that no one's starving or dying from pneumonia due to not being able to pay for basic medical care.
So essentially, you'd have:
Services - available to pretty much anyone, allow people to survive no matter what
Insurance - available to anyone who can afford it and/or has a job but didn't get the nationality yet
Welfare - available to anyone that fulfills criteria based on, for example, Salamandre's suggestion.
I'm more or less just thinking aloud here. Of course this is far from a definite solution. Just trying to figure out how things'd turn out with this as a start.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 16, 2012 12:58 AM |
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France is the country the laws of which you follow and the government's taxes you pay. It does not mean that Frenchmen you don't know are any less strangers than Africans you don't know.
You can't discount cultural similarities. Familiarity is more than identity. A stranger from Sierra Leone is more a stranger to me - in custom, dress, culture, language, etc. - than a stranger from the next town over.
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Doomforge
Admirable
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Retired Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 12:58 AM |
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I don't believe in "tiers" of people. Our artificially created borders, nations and all other frontiers do not make any sort of difference - objectively.
Personally, I think that one of the worst aspects of humanity is dividing people into privileged and less-then-privileged groups and trying to rationalize it by some sort of "valid" emotion, be it patriotism, nationalism, racism or xenophobia. The world would be a much better place if humans were capable of seeing past their little radius of acceptance. What's the difference if the radius covers up a little village or a whole country? The border-induced "difference" of people is extremely artificial and highly pointless to me.
Then again, I'm highly cosmopolitan, and I highly dislike patriotism and consider it dangerous at times.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Salamandre
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Wog refugee
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posted May 16, 2012 01:00 AM |
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The problem with services, as you call them, is the basic wealthcare you include in. In capitalist countries, there is no existing law regulating medics costs, thus such basic wealth care can't exist. With the high medicine costs, the basic free wealth care will turn into free insurance and become very costly for the tax payer.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 02:04 AM |
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Salamandre:
Patriotism is nothing more than nationalism you like. If you have a better distinction between the two, I'd like to hear it.
Bak:
If welfare is "free" money, why does it have to be earned by citizenship? (Isn't "free" the opposite of "earned"?) And is citizenship really earned if those who are born in the country have it automatically? And isn't the goal of all these programs to prevent people from starving - and if your soup kitchens accomplish that, then why is there the need for anything else? And even with your suggested "basic medical care", if health care is that much better in a first-world country and is provided free of charge (or at a subsidized cost), immigrants will flock to the country just for better health care.
Corribus:
A stranger from the US may be more similar to you than one from Sierra Leone, but they're equally strangers - you don't know them and they don't know you. Whatever the case, I don't see why spending taxes on people who are culturally similar to you but still strangers is any better than spending it on those who are culturally different.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Salamandre
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Wog refugee
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posted May 16, 2012 02:34 AM |
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It is simple: nationalism is about power. Nationalists want to acquire as much power and prestige as possible for their nation, in which they submerge their individuality. Patriotism is defensive: it is a devotion to a particular place and a way of life one thinks best, but has no wish to impose on others. And this is all about immigration issues, people have to raise defensive shields.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 16, 2012 02:48 AM |
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Because we've evolved to care about the welfare of people in our geographical vicinity. It's a survival instinct.
More than that, people in your own country are more likely to invest assets in your country, which means if you help strangers in your country, you are more likely to reap indirect benefits from your charity than strangers half a world a way, who are more likely to invest assets (time, labor, money, whatever) in their local area.
Besides, if people did NOT care more about strangers from their own country more than strangers from another country, wars would be different, wouldn't they be?
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 03:57 AM |
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Salamandre:
Nationalism and patriotism are both about "People of my nation are better than people of other nations." There are more and less active versions, but the fundamental idea is the same: people do not have equal worth and the law should recognize it, and people from my nation are better.
Corribus:
Yes, I know that's why people do it, but "they've evolved to do it" is not an answer to the question of whether they should do it. I don't think people receiving welfare are going to be doing much investing in your country, so that can't be a reason. And if people cared equally about strangers from their country and from other countries, there'd be fewer wars - which is an improvement.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Doomforge
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posted May 16, 2012 10:34 AM |
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Because we've evolved to care about the welfare of people in our geographical vicinity. It's a survival instinct.
Seems as outdated in its role as pubic hair in modern world. 
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted May 16, 2012 03:19 PM |
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@Doom
Nationality, place of birth etc. don't hold any inherent meaning when speaking of abstract notions of worth or value, of course. Nor should they. Migrations, mixed marriages and other similar common occurrences of today underline that. But there are evidently some very practical issues tied to the whole thing. Nations aren't a purely hypothetical concept, they've been a part of the administrative system for a long time now, and things will probably stay that way for a while. They're not the problem here, anyway - if we didn't have nations we'd have counties or cities or provinces or Soviet republics or whatever, and pretty much however you split up the world, people are expected to play by some rules to keep the economy rolling.
@Salamandre
I never did like an entirely laissez-faire approach on pharmaceutical industry, but it can be aranged even then. How does the military, for instance, get small arms from private companies? The lowest bidder principle.
@MVass
I meant "free" as in "free to spend however the owner likes". A public kitchen pass, for example, is essentially money that you can't use for anything other than food, whereas you can use welfare money to get a bit beyond bare food. Welfare wouldn't be about bare survival (it isn't now either). It'd be a temporary measure for people suddenly out of a job, mothers suddenly losing their husbands, and whatnot. It wouldn't be a fortune, far from it, but it'd certainly be about enough to alleviate the shock and keep the recipient going until the situation stabilizes.
And you forget certain prerequisites we mentioned about receiving welfare, such as speaking the language etcetera - it'd certainly encourage a healthy level of fitting in. Not assimilation, just fitting in. Every nation has a duty to help those with its citizenship, and any taxpayer who grumbles about investing in welfare would get the same treatment if he got impoverished tomorrow. I understand solidarity of that kind is one of the main tenets of nationhood, whether we like it or not. When a lot of very different folks try to live under the same roof, everyone has to make some concessions.
As for your point about people flocking to get the better treatment, if an illegal immigrant goes ill and uses the hospital, it becomes obvious that he's an illegal immigrant. So anyone counting on prolonged healthcare would have to immigrate legally, as far as I imagine it. It'd be ethically optimal to provide healthcare to every citizen of the world that wants it, of course, but I can hardly think of a country that can finance that, even if some of them DID take kajillions off of weapon research, so I had to learn to live with that.
Thirdly, of course it doesn't matter if someone is from Africa or France. But though I support first-world countries sending aid to impoverished places around the globe and believe it's actually imperative to do that (even for the hardcore right-wingers, the better someone else's country is, the less they'll feel the need to massively move to yours), you still can't physically provide for everyone. So a government's priority is its own territory and people inhabiting it. In the end, it's those people that are electing it.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted May 16, 2012 05:28 PM |
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Doomforge: Your also a Pole, and with your current climate its easy to be sceptibal of your multi national view.
We don't blame you from wanting to flee, we just blame the lot of you who do not intigrate when you flee. Nevermind the braindrain a lot of nations suffer when almost the entire intellectual class leaves, and then almost ruins the nation due lack of expertise. Yes, I do blame your for wanting to leave at times. Perhaps not you, but a entire social group. And usually it is the middleclass and the lucky that leaves, because they have the resources to do that.
Nevermind that cultural is one of those odd real concepts which greatly affects a persons view of things, and allows a "common ground". With the rise of internationalism there is more common ground, but its still a issue. Why is common ground important? Well, to have a nation in the first place you need to have some sort of common ground, be it 800 years of monarchic tyrants, or that you simpely hate the Muslims in the Northeren part of the country enough to split up. Even inside Europa we have issues like Basque(wiki keyword: Northern Basque Country), which is a example of a nation wanting to not be a part of a larger nation because of ethnically.
Just inside homogenic neighbor countries there is large differences in general ideas and behavior. Nations are a bit like neighborhoods: If they exist unaltered for long enough, some form of culture starts to manifest, and people want to keep it that way. Be it elitism and loathing of those who do not try hard enough, hatred of those oppressing peasants which the media gave a loudspeaker, or anything else.
Quote:
Bak:
If welfare is "free" money, why does it have to be earned by citizenship? (Isn't "free" the opposite of "earned"?) And is citizenship really earned if those who are born in the country have it automatically? And isn't the goal of all these programs to prevent people from starving - and if your soup kitchens accomplish that, then why is there the need for anything else? And even with your suggested "basic medical care", if health care is that much better in a first-world country and is provided free of charge (or at a subsidized cost), immigrants will have and is flocking to the countries just for better health care.
Do not use future tense for a continual event. Journalist flee to get greater press freedom, anarchists emigrate to some countries to evade tax, some people migrate inside EU to acquire health benefits for their crippled children, Intellectuals some times leaves at random regime/government shifts, etc.
The only ethnical dilemma to talk about is the view of of the individual versus the collective. Which gets rather silly after some looks.
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Doomforge
Admirable
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Retired Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 06:16 PM |
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Nevermind that cultural is one of those odd real concepts which greatly affects a persons view of things, and allows a "common ground".
Maybe I'm weird, but I firmly believe that with the development of education and awareness, culture - understood by "common customs" - will become redundant. I don't want to sound arrogant here but it's mostly the uneducated mass that needs the "common customs" to feel "integrated". As opposed to, say, students of a good college. If they are open minded, they get along well despite of being from different parts of the world.
Also, I sincerely hope that the slow rise of individualism will effectively remove the backwater need of "common features" of humanity, such as similar religion, skin color, clothing, attitude towards capitalism or whatever thing you people need to feel "integrated", effectively allowing people to become more open minded, tolerant, and clinging less to ideals that hold absolutely no objective value and are 100% relative to your birth place, something you have no control of.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted May 16, 2012 06:18 PM |
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Well, its perhaps slowly getting there. Still, what if you enter a nation that has a "better idea" than the common western human rights?
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Doomforge
Admirable
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Retired Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 06:28 PM |
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I wouldn't migrate to such a country 
So, what's the problem with immigrants, again? They do what, take free cash? It reminds me of Johnny Rebel's funny (and extremely racist) songs about Blacks - there's always a scapegoat, immigrants, blacks, people from small villages migrating to big towns - whatever. And the easiest question is: why not to dump the whole socialism stuff instead of lashing out at people that do exactly what they should given the opportunity? Also, why to limit yourself to immigrants when many other groups, social or ethic, do exactly the same under the banner of "being natives"?
Immigrants, even the most lazy, are OK when the system is actually exploitable enough to allow this.
Imagine now yourself as a starving guy somewhere in Somalia. Good luck thinking you would "refuse to exploit the Europe" if such a chance occured.
The "anti-immigrant" attitude is nonsense. I think it would be much better to focus on those ridiculous socialistic laws that allow being a leech instead of taking a dump on the head of mostly uneducated people who took the best chance life has given them. I don't blame them.
That's my problem with anti-immigration guys.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 09:36 PM |
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I'm against further immigration from countries such as Somalia because it IS creating growing social and economical problems that is slowly tearing society apart. I believe that kind of failed immigration is actually creates racism and xenophobia. I do however think that out of solidarity, rich countries have a responsibility to help poorer ones. Because of that, foreign aid to Somalia etc should increase. The foreign aid should primarly go to education and democratic groups rather than to counter starvation (because of overpopulation).
To me, it has nothing to do with nationalism or anything like that.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted May 16, 2012 09:40 PM |
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What "social and economic" problems the immigrants can cause if you dump socialism and focus on improving the Police?
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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