33 Comments

Chinese cities are allowed to limit public services and social benefits (especially schools) through the hukou system. It certainly incentivizes people to achieve the things (mainly job and/or education) that will get them those benefits.

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I understand that in Switzerland it's the cantons, not the confederation, that grants citizenship. And some of them have delegated that decision downwards to the commune. Switzerland is, however, probably the most decentralized country in the world.

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Historically, old world cities often had defensive walls .. they were known as burgs ... and only the select few, the burgers or bourgeois, had the right of residence. Others could enter for trade, but had to leave at sundown, when the gates were closed.

Of course, the problem is that if you limit a city physically, you also limit it economically.

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You have got to be kidding. And you call me arrogant.

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If you apologize for your conduct, I'll tell you several relevant statistics. It's very hard to gain US citizenship via an EB-3, and the numbers support this.

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Not an issue of "I think I'm right'. It is literally right there in the green card requirements.

Do you have some evidence that a skilled trade or professional is so far above average to be unreasonable?

You start out with something easily disprovable, don't (won't?) read the the actual law on the matter, and throw an accusation of racism, basically insulting the country as a whole and wasting everyone's time. You get some snark back, and I'm the one who's behaving badly?

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You continue to be arrogantly wrong - for reasons I won't explain to you because of your poor conduct. There's no excuse for acting like that. "I think I'm right therefore I'm going to attack the other person." No. That leads to the most dysfunctional atmosphere for discussion.

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There was snark, not an insult. Yes, you got downvoted and snark for wasting mine and everyone else's time with something that clearly isn't the case.

You still fail to read. Extraordinary gets highest priority, but the lowest tier is any kind of skilled worker.

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Because joining a club or a firm isn't an inherent right of being a citizen. If it was a right, you would see the state involve itself.

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"For example, we don’t usually let distant family members veto who individuals marry,"

Um ... hello? Incest bans? Limits on marriages to just two people?

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"then we should be admitting any applicant who is merely above the US average,"

To the extent that their descendants will not be below average due to regression towards the mean, Yes.

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Because firms or clubs aren't threatening to overthrow the state?

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It can crack down on them when they threaten the state's power, such as with Solidarity in Poland in the 1980s.

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The thing is, though, that average national IQ differences aren't just going to magically disappear. And denying voting rights and social safety net access to immigrants and their descendants for an indefinite number of generations is either not possible (due to birthright citizenship) or would create a hereditary caste system which would likely not be sustainable for any country that claims to be democratic.

As a side note, you're mistaken if you think that there were no immigration restrictions at all before WWI. The US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, for instance. And the US Congress passed a literacy test requirement for immigrants to the US with almost two-thirds support in both houses of the US Congress in 1913, before it got vetoed by President Taft.

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Human societies don’t tend to organize themselves by following things to their logical conclusions.

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Exactly. People are afraid to follow this to its logical conclusion. But the conclusion is not bad, and they should not be afraid of it.

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