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[Telgin]

A surprising amount of gray on the map, but the answer appears to be, yes, it is conceivable that someone could be born here and suddenly have no citizenship anywhere.  What would the US even do with those people?  It has nowhere to deport them to.

I can already hear some people I know saying it's not our problem to deal with them, and it elicits a number of strong negative emotions.

[Kagus]

A surprising amount of gray on the map, but the answer appears to be, yes, it is conceivable that someone could be born here and suddenly have no citizenship anywhere.  What would the US even do with those people?  It has nowhere to deport them to.

I can already hear some people I know saying it's not our problem to deal with them, and it elicits a number of strong negative emotions.

You can do what Norway did a while back: Make the claim that they came from and are a citizen of [some country], and deport them there despite the person saying they are not a citizen nor have ever lived there and the government of said country saying that the person is not and never was a citizen.

Put 'em on a plane, ship 'em over, now it's their problem!


EDIT: Actually, the case I'm thinking of, the fellow was a naturalized Norwegian citizen... So it's not the same kind of "stateless citizen" case, it was just a newly-appointed bureaucratic watchdog that claimed his asylum application 18 years hence was invalid, so they needed to deport him somewhere.

[Max™]

A nation is a large and powerful entity which exerts control over everything within it's borders to various degrees, is there some sort of global watchdog which sets out to guarantee that this new stateless class being discussed won't be abused or killed?

US cannot accept responsibility for the abuses and killings that happen outside of it's borders, mainly for logistical reasons. There's just an absolutely crazy amount of messed up shit going on out there, and US can't even really keep things in proper order within their borders. Once people are non-citizens outside their borders, it's no longer their problem.

I mean... it feels weird even having to say it, but weren't we supposed to be better than that?

Are we the baddies, Folly?

[redwallzyl]

We are in fact the baddies.

[Trekkin]

We are in fact the baddies.

Clearly your lack of allegiance to the republic means your parents were foreigners, per Rolan7.

[sluissa]

We already hit Starship Troopers level memes, we're dangerously close to prequel memes now.

Let's back away from that cliff.

We have to cut the ties with all the lies we've been living in.

[Starver]

Notes from a small island. This is of course 'different' as the birthright is tied to lands now no longer considered British Territory, but it has caused much uproar when people who have for all but less than a decade of their life been living, working and taxpaying in the UK (and for the few years before were functionally British anyway) became subject to deportation to a place they are now a complete stranger to. Amongst other bureaucratically-indulged miscarriages of humanitarian justice.

It even looked, for a while, like it would bring the government down. (As opposed to now, when Northern Ireland's role in Brexit is now closest to taking on that particular burden.) General xenophobes/racists aside, opinion is mostly against punishing (now adult) children for the sins of their fathers, especially when it was no sin at the time and was even supposed to be a virtuously endorsed move.

It is different from 'pregnancy tourists', anchor babies and the like, but yet again it's manifestation of the insistence upon meddling (or actively backing off from providing 'normal' support and oversight) with those who have been born, in total contrast to attitudes to other states of being one could mention. Dressed up as "the right thing to do, for the good of all".

[redwallzyl]

We are in fact the baddies.

Clearly your lack of allegiance to the republic means your parents were foreigners, per Rolan7.

Well one of them is at least.

[SalmonGod]

Edit:  And many of the people you are denigrating for their aggressive stance on politics have literally faced danger physically on their doorstep in recent times.  Someone already mentioned the voter suppression of native americans in North Dakota.  This hot on the heels of facing blatant human rights violations and breaking of international treaties at Standing Rock.  This isn't some foreign policy issue.  This is inside our own country.  My state's police forces participated in that.  We are literally at that point, whether it's happening to you personally or not.

Armed occupiers were told to leave, and most did, and the ones that stayed had to be forceably removed. But not before they lit some fires. The way you posed this does not track with what has been reported. I don't doubt there was some violence, but you're making it out like it was state-sponsored pogrom that marched up to people's front doors. It wasn't. They were armed protestors claiming land and were told to leave for their own safety due to potential spring flooding.

Dear god, where did you get your information?

The protesters weren't occupying anything.  It was their own land that was being built on illegally.  Land that was recognized as theirs according to treaties.  The legal contests against the building of the pipeline were not resolved, and the corporations were doing it anyway.  This makes what happened a violation of both domestic and international law.  And it was done with state police forces.  Several state governments from thousands of miles around volunteered their police forces and shipped them in to suppress the protests.  This technically constituted an act of war and violent annexation carried out by domestic police in direct servitude of corporations in violation of their own federal government.

And to further emphasize how significant this was, a total 280 tribes from all over the country met and participated in this protest, making it the largest gathering and unified political effort by Native Americans in history.  U.S. handling of the issue was condemned by the U.N.

And the crackdown against the protest was very violent.  The protesters were uniformly peaceful.  As far as I'm aware, there were no harms inflicted on police by the protesters.  They mainly blocked paths and made noise.  The police used dogs to maul women and children.  Indiscriminately fired rubber bullets at people.  Targeted reporters.  Hampered medical care efforts.  Water hosed people in below zero freezing conditions.  And kept people naked for hours in dog kennels in the cold.

They pressed on through these conditions to protest, because they knew that this pipeline would result in poisoning of their local water supply.  And sure enough, there was already a significant leak within a year.

We've discussed all this stuff before several times in this very thread.

[WealthyRadish]

Something that I think is worth considering when thinking about citizenship is that these questions only really impact the poor, i.e. the people with no other social power than the minimum that a bureaucratized state will provide to everyone per their obligations. For the rich, the things that we would describe as the basic human rights associated with citizenship has for most of history been an irrelevant question, as practically anywhere that they go money and connections will go much further than the minimum protections that even the most restrained states will provide today.

For at least 200 years, the rich have been effectively citizens of the world unconstrained by their country of origin in any meaningful capacity while inside and out of it (and going back further, a similar but more capricious environment has existed for them as long as rich have existed). Middle-class professionals dependent on their own labor can still be ruined by bureaucratic questions of citizenship, but usually have mechanisms for recourse that are realistically available and processes that minimize the likelihood of this happening. It's the poor who can not only have their lives ruined by questions of citizenship but also almost always lack any means of recourse.

So when the organs of the rich start raising the question of who does and doesn't deserve citizenship, it's worth remembering that for them it's a matter of complete personal indifference, and that the results of these restrictions just happens to be one of the many mechanisms that divides working people politically and opens an arbitrary subset of them up for more exploitation.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is some sort of block on collective political organization in America, and i just don't know what or why.

Apathy, sheer disillusionment and a political machine that is entrenched. Just had a small talk with my boss about this the other day. The last 4 mayors in my town have all had the same Chief of Staff. He's been running the mayor's office essentially going on 30 years or so. You can't get anything done in this town without his approval. When my boss ran for the School Board, after he'd left a meeting, the chief of staff for the mayor's office turned to his campaign manager and said "It's not your turn. You haven't done your dues." And they're all democrats.

It's shit like that which contributes to the sense of disillusionment. Those in power have the war chests to buy the help they need, while pretty much everyone else has to sacrifice everything to the cause: time, money, personal reputation. It takes a truly grass roots movement to change the tide against the establishment, because that's the only way enough collective resources and political will can be pooled to oppose it.

There's a classic Carl von Clausewitz quote: "War is the continuation of politics by other means." This is why the current state of affairs is so concerning. Right now, we have a Republican-controlled legislative, judicial, and executive branch; why is it that they still feel like they're out of power and cannot do anything? The problems of today run so deep that even "winning" politically is no victory, and those truly in power (the wealthy) continue to rig the system in their favor. In short, the usual means of politics are rapidly becoming exhausted.

When you have people sending bombs to the political opposition (who they regard as stonewalling their side) or shooting up what they believe to be the house of those truly in control, we can write those off as one-off events as we normally do. To me, though, it's indicative of a trend- more and more people, no longer content with the usual methods, are now continuing their politics by other means. This is why Trump was elected. This is why things will only get worse because he can accomplish nothing, as horrible as the things he wants to accomplish would be. This why a blue wave in 2018 and another in 2020 will not leave Democrats happy.

When you look at the language of the left, you often see them lamenting the wealthy of the right who are controlling political discourse. When you look at the language of the right, you see them attacking "liberal elites", "globalists," and other such figures- the wealthy members of the left. We're so blinded by partisanship that we don't even see that we're fighting the same foe, and I can't help but feel that that's deliberate. It's no coincidence that so many of the prominent figures of the alt-right are wealthy, and are the one pushing less for "populism" and more for "social conservatism." I suppose we're lucky that the wealthy on the left haven't figured that strategy out yet.

Unfortunately for them, such a stance is unsustainable- people are well aware when their political strategies are not getting them where they want, and are more than willing to cannibalize their leaders in discontent. No matter how much money is poured into forcing populism away from populism, it's only a matter of time before the pendulum swings the other way- and we can finally unseat the very power that's forcing this upon us in the first place.

I thought this was an excellent post that articulated many points I couldn't have said better.

[Lord Shonus]

There is some sort of block on collective political organization in America, and i just don't know what or why.

Apathy, sheer disillusionment and a political machine that is entrenched. Just had a small talk with my boss about this the other day. The last 4 mayors in my town have all had the same Chief of Staff. He's been running the mayor's office essentially going on 30 years or so. You can't get anything done in this town without his approval. When my boss ran for the School Board, after he'd left a meeting, the chief of staff for the mayor's office turned to his campaign manager and said "It's not your turn. You haven't done your dues." And they're all democrats.

It's shit like that which contributes to the sense of disillusionment. Those in power have the war chests to buy the help they need, while pretty much everyone else has to sacrifice everything to the cause: time, money, personal reputation. It takes a truly grass roots movement to change the tide against the establishment, because that's the only way enough collective resources and political will can be pooled to oppose it.

There's a classic Carl von Clausewitz quote: "War is the continuation of politics by other means." This is why the current state of affairs is so concerning. Right now, we have a Republican-controlled legislative, judicial, and executive branch; why is it that they still feel like they're out of power and cannot do anything? The problems of today run so deep that even "winning" politically is no victory, and those truly in power (the wealthy) continue to rig the system in their favor. In short, the usual means of politics are rapidly becoming exhausted.

When you have people sending bombs to the political opposition (who they regard as stonewalling their side) or shooting up what they believe to be the house of those truly in control, we can write those off as one-off events as we normally do. To me, though, it's indicative of a trend- more and more people, no longer content with the usual methods, are now continuing their politics by other means. This is why Trump was elected. This is why things will only get worse because he can accomplish nothing, as horrible as the things he wants to accomplish would be. This why a blue wave in 2018 and another in 2020 will not leave Democrats happy.

I think you're missing one of the key reasons why the Republicans have been unable to accomplish much - not only is the party itself heavily fragmented, but the guy in the White House is only tenuously connected to the guys in Congress that are nominally of the same party. It is very likely that the Democrats won't suffer the same issues - even after 2010 brought a large amount of Republican control to Congress, there was still effective function of government except for the times when the right deliberately broke things.

[Doomblade187]

Voting is quite important.

[smjjames]

There is some sort of block on collective political organization in America, and i just don't know what or why.

Apathy, sheer disillusionment and a political machine that is entrenched. Just had a small talk with my boss about this the other day. The last 4 mayors in my town have all had the same Chief of Staff. He's been running the mayor's office essentially going on 30 years or so. You can't get anything done in this town without his approval. When my boss ran for the School Board, after he'd left a meeting, the chief of staff for the mayor's office turned to his campaign manager and said "It's not your turn. You haven't done your dues." And they're all democrats.

It's shit like that which contributes to the sense of disillusionment. Those in power have the war chests to buy the help they need, while pretty much everyone else has to sacrifice everything to the cause: time, money, personal reputation. It takes a truly grass roots movement to change the tide against the establishment, because that's the only way enough collective resources and political will can be pooled to oppose it.

There's a classic Carl von Clausewitz quote: "War is the continuation of politics by other means." This is why the current state of affairs is so concerning. Right now, we have a Republican-controlled legislative, judicial, and executive branch; why is it that they still feel like they're out of power and cannot do anything? The problems of today run so deep that even "winning" politically is no victory, and those truly in power (the wealthy) continue to rig the system in their favor. In short, the usual means of politics are rapidly becoming exhausted.

When you have people sending bombs to the political opposition (who they regard as stonewalling their side) or shooting up what they believe to be the house of those truly in control, we can write those off as one-off events as we normally do. To me, though, it's indicative of a trend- more and more people, no longer content with the usual methods, are now continuing their politics by other means. This is why Trump was elected. This is why things will only get worse because he can accomplish nothing, as horrible as the things he wants to accomplish would be. This why a blue wave in 2018 and another in 2020 will not leave Democrats happy.

I think you're missing one of the key reasons why the Republicans have been unable to accomplish much - not only is the party itself heavily fragmented, but the guy in the White House is only tenuously connected to the guys in Congress that are nominally of the same party. It is very likely that the Democrats won't suffer the same issues - even after 2010 brought a large amount of Republican control to Congress, there was still effective function of government except for the times when the right deliberately broke things.

Exactly, I think we all remember how Republicans and reporters were bemoaning the death of the Republican party. Those fractures didn't disappear overnight, they're still there, just plastered over.

The Democrats have been undergoing a search for direction, which is normal after something like 2016, so they seem equally fractured, if for different reasons. However, they're generally less cohesive than the Republicans and thus are probably more used to being able to bring different factions together.

Besides, the only major fracture of consequence for the Dems are the split between left-wing progressives and moderates/centrists/establishment, but unlike the Republicans, the two factions are trying to co-exist (for now anyway, things could change if a Democrat becomes President).

[nenjin]

Edit:  And many of the people you are denigrating for their aggressive stance on politics have literally faced danger physically on their doorstep in recent times.  Someone already mentioned the voter suppression of native americans in North Dakota.  This hot on the heels of facing blatant human rights violations and breaking of international treaties at Standing Rock.  This isn't some foreign policy issue.  This is inside our own country.  My state's police forces participated in that.  We are literally at that point, whether it's happening to you personally or not.

Armed occupiers were told to leave, and most did, and the ones that stayed had to be forceably removed. But not before they lit some fires. The way you posed this does not track with what has been reported. I don't doubt there was some violence, but you're making it out like it was state-sponsored pogrom that marched up to people's front doors. It wasn't. They were armed protestors claiming land and were told to leave for their own safety due to potential spring flooding.

Dear god, where did you get your information?

The protesters weren't occupying anything.  It was their own land that was being built on illegally.  Land that was recognized as theirs according to treaties.  The legal contests against the building of the pipeline were not resolved, and the corporations were doing it anyway.  This makes what happened a violation of both domestic and international law.  And it was done with state police forces.  Several state governments from thousands of miles around volunteered their police forces and shipped them in to suppress the protests.  This technically constituted an act of war and violent annexation carried out by domestic police in direct servitude of corporations in violation of their own federal government.

And to further emphasize how significant this was, a total 280 tribes from all over the country met and participated in this protest, making it the largest gathering and unified political effort by Native Americans in history.  U.S. handling of the issue was condemned by the U.N.

And the crackdown against the protest was very violent.  The protesters were uniformly peaceful.  As far as I'm aware, there were no harms inflicted on police by the protesters.  They mainly blocked paths and made noise.  The police used dogs to maul women and children.  Indiscriminately fired rubber bullets at people.  Targeted reporters.  Hampered medical care efforts.  Water hosed people in below zero freezing conditions.  And kept people naked for hours in dog kennels in the cold.

They pressed on through these conditions to protest, because they knew that this pipeline would result in poisoning of their local water supply.  And sure enough, there was already a significant leak within a year.

We've discussed all this stuff before several times in this very thread.

You're right. I've done more reading.

[RedKing]

I'm glad. I didn't respond to that because there was no way I could have done so in a non-incendiary fashion.