# Can right and left agree on anything? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 19, 2017, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094 "2017-11-19T19:28:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 26
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/501 "2017-11-30T15:52:15Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > This is the exact same argument I use against giving money to beggars on the street - “What can you do with the $1 that will help ME? Whether or not it helps YOU is irrelevant!” Is it really so odd that I’d ask not what this country can do for them, but what they can do for this country? I’d _expect_ “the exact same argument” to come my way if I showed up at the border of Bhutan or Moldova or Liechtenstein and said “I want in; never mind whether it’d be a plus or a minus for you folks; it’d be great for me!” ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/502 "2017-11-30T16:13:06Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Is it really so odd that I’d ask not what this country can do for them, but what they can do for this country? I’d _expect_ “the exact same argument” to come my way if I showed up at the border of Bhutan or Moldova or Liechtenstein and said “I want in; never mind whether it’d be a plus or a minus for you folks; it’d be great for me!” What’s odd to me is that the richest country on the planet cannot offer poor people from around the globe ways to better their lives without expecting something in return. I imagine there is some sort of term for “Helping poor people without expectations” but it’s escaping me right now. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/503 "2017-11-30T16:13:43Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > (post shortened, underline added) > > After reading most of the posts in this thread I would have to say the answer is a resounding “NO”. Unanimity is far from certain, but I’m confident that both the left and a considerable portion of the right agree that you and **Clothahump** are inept, pitiful assclowns who are an ongoing embarrassment to your political allies and have never once contributed anything of value to this message board. Thank you both for helping us find a rare spot of common ground. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/504 "2017-11-30T16:15:02Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Is it really so odd that I’d ask not what this country can do for them, but what they can do for this country? I’d _expect_ “the exact same argument” to come my way if I showed up at the border of Bhutan or Moldova or Liechtenstein and said “I want in; never mind whether it’d be a plus or a minus for you folks; it’d be great for me!” I don’t ask what “they” can do for the country, I only ask what I can do for my country. And one thing I can do for my country is to make it easier for people of a wide variety of backgrounds to legally live here. The more viewpoints we have the more likely we are to find solutions to our problems. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/505 "2017-11-30T17:21:03Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Probably not, no. > > In my opinion, the benchmark for letting someone in isn’t whether they can make a better life for _themselves_ here; it’s whether they can make a better life for _us_. Whether they can make a better life for themselves strikes me as irrelevant. If you want to claim that that’s what you meant, then I think you picked an incredibly silly way of putting it; and if it’s not what you meant, then I don’t think you have an opinion worth considering. Well, if you look at the original post that you lifted that quote from, you would see that I did put other caveats and such in, and I am also stating, again, like I did in the post that you are now responding to, that that statement was simplified at its core, and is not meant to be used as a legal basis for immigration policy, but rather, an aspiration statement indicating the types of people that we would like to see in our country. If you want to quibble over what it means to “make a better life”, I’m not interested, I have stated what I consider that to mean, and how it should affect our immigration policy in further detail than the soundbite version. If you feel it means something else to you, that’s fine, but it still doesn’t change what I said. > [@](#): > > Because – like you quoted me as saying – the question isn’t just whether one place is slightly worse than another; but whether someone can, as it were, make a better life for themselves in that second location. Ask them not whether Alabama is worse than California, but whether they’d say they could make a better life in California. Okay, so if someone can make a better life for themselves in california, why doesn’t everyone move there? People don’t up and leave everything that they know, their families, their cultures, their way of life, for a slight increase in quality of life, they only go to such drastic measures when the conditions that they are in are not really tolerable to them anymore. Those are the people it is also the most humane to help. There are people out there that are suffering and dying, and they don’t need to, as we do have plenty of room and resources to prevent that suffering. In the process, we also help our own country, as we do need to grow our population. You ever notice China and India over there? They have more college students in STEM courses than we have college students. A stagnant or worse, a shrinking population is not going to help to grow our economy. There is work that needs to be done in this country, and we need people to do it. > [@](#): > > I’m referring to your statement: _“Possible, maybe, but it would be pretty hard. They’d have to hold no job, buy no products, and never fix up their house or mow the lawn.”_ I’m taking issue with how you said “no” and “never”, because I figure it doesn’t have to be a matter of “no” and “never” to qualify; I figure that “almost never” could be awful, and that “hardly ever” could be awful. > > It doesn’t need to be an absolute “hold no job,” is my point. In order to be actually negative to the country without breaking any laws, then yeah, an immigrant would need to be pretty damn lazy. Absolutes, maybe not, but he’d have to be pretty damn close to absolutely sedentary in order to be a negative. If he spends money, then that’s a boost to the economy. If he has a job, that’s a boost to productivity. If he performs any sort of maintenance on his house, then that is maintaining of the country’s housing infrastructure. Just saying, that it doesn’t take much in order to be a positive contributor to society, you almost have to try to be a negative. So, sure, if you want to quibble on semantics, and add in qualifiers of “almost never” to distinguish from literally never, then at a point, they become a negative, but that point is much closer to “never” than “not often”. > [@](#): > > How is that relevant? I suggested cracking down harder – and, the way I see it, if we started ‘cracking down harder’ on the ones who become known to the authorities upon getting caught doing something else, then that would qualify. I don’t need to propose a method for catching _all_ of them; just for doing _more_. Because the vast majority of undocumented immigrants do not break any other laws. If you want to catch any significant portion of them, then you are going to need to be actively looking for them, not just waiting for them to run afoul of the law. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure. What’s currently the responsibility of local police if, say, they realize a guy they have in custody happens to be wanted on federal _criminal_ charges? Is it their responsibility to keep him in custody? Or do they only have a responsibility to pass along info to federal law enforcement? Or is it not even that? Depends on jurisdiction. Here in my county, our sheriff is one of the few who has a working agreement with ICE, allowing him to use our county tax dollars to try to enforce federal immigration laws, but that is rare, most counties sheriffs do not have that authority. My understanding is that most of the time, the feds can ask for the police to hold a suspect, but that the local law enforcement has no obligation to, and under some state or city laws, it is illegal for them to do so. They certainly have every obligation to hand them over to federal authorities if those authorities show up upon the time of the release of the suspect, but beyond that, it would be up to local laws and regulations to determine. > [@](#): > > That’s not a rhetorical question; I’m genuinely curious. > > I’m probably not. But, again, the fact that I’m saying we should crack down harder doesn’t mean I need to have a plan for cracking down on all of them. > > (You get that, right? If I say we should crack down harder on shoplifters, that doesn’t imply the ability to catch every shoplifter.) Yeah, but if you say that we are going to crack down on shoplifters, then it doesn’t really do much unless you say _how_ you plan on cracking down on shoplifters. IMHO, this is like a shopkeeper saying that they are going to crack down on shoplifters by keeping a very close eye on all the black people that come into his store. It’s not just racist, but it’s ineffective as well. Anyway, this side discussion started because you feel that, if the red and blue states were to split up, then the blue states would be overridden by immigrants because you claim that we would just “open our borders”. At this point, you should be aware that it is far more nuanced than that, and that not only is my position much more nuanced and limited than the position that you ascribe to all those on the left, but my position is actually pretty far into the fringe of the left. If the left got its way on immigration, it is very doubtful that it would be as generous as _I_ would like it to be. There will probably be quotas that are more conservative than they need to be, but that’s a conversation that those of us on the left could have, without having the xenophobes on the right simply saying that we should not just keep anyone from coming in, but we should also seriously think about removing some of those who are already citizens. > [@](#): > > But, again, the analogy doesn’t strike me as _useful_. > > Say there’s someone who snuck into this country illegally – such that there’s no official record of him having done so, and there’s no documentation of him ever having crossed the border. And say there’s someone else who _was_ documented as having entered this country: official records exist of the date he crossed the border, just like he was given government-issued paperwork specifying the exact date on which he’d fall out of status and become deportable; possibly he still has that document on his person! > > You want to call both of those guys undocumented? You _could,_ of course; but I don’t see that as especially helpful. To be precise, I would prefer to refer to them as “undocumented immigrants”. Neither of them have documents that authorize them to reside or work in the country. Both are undocumented. You prefer to call both of them “illegal”, I don’t see how that is especially helpful. I see it as even less helpful as “illegal” is also a term that is used by racists to refer to people of perceived hispanic ethnicity who are full fledged citizens. Go out and tell the racists to knock it off, and maybe you can have the word back and not sound like one of them when you use it. > [@](#): > > But I’m just as happy to call a murderer “a killer” or “a felon”. And I’ll gladly refer to a particular murderer as “a capital offender” – and if he’s not “a fugitive” but is already locked up, I may well refer to him “a death-row inmate”. By analogy, I guess that’d be like unto referring to someone as – deportable? Or as a deportable? Deportable would be an accurate description. I would not use it, as it also indicates a desire for that action to be taken, but if you wanted to use it, I wouldn’t really find it offensive. Racists and bigots haven’t gotten ahold of it yet (that I am aware of), so you are not using the same language as them, so that’s a good way of not looking less like a racist. I would caution though, that if it were to become in common use, then the racists and bigots can easily pick it up, start using it against all the targets of their ire, and then you end up looking like a racist if you are using their language again. One of the reasons that I like “undocumented immigrant” is that it doesn’t really roll of the spit. It’s hard to use the language as an invective, so it is less likely to be absorbed and converted by people who hate others for no reason than they are other. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/506 "2017-11-30T17:30:02Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Is it really so odd that I’d ask not what this country can do for them, but what they can do for this country? I’d _expect_ “the exact same argument” to come my way if I showed up at the border of Bhutan or Moldova or Liechtenstein and said “I want in; never mind whether it’d be a plus or a minus for you folks; it’d be great for me!” Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about those who are born here? Do you expect “the exact same argument” to be used towards infants as they come from their mother’s womb? They want in, the don’t care if it’ll be a plus or a minus, but it’s great for them. That sounds flippant, (and in the above specific formulation, it kind of is) but the concept behind it is not, it really is a serious question. Do you think that citizens of the United States should be required to prove that their children will be a net benefit to the country before they are allowed to have them? (Not asking if it is politically feasible [which it is not], but if it is something that you would advocate for should the overton window ever approach that concept.) If so, well, at least that is consistent with your views on immigration. If not, then why do think that a child born here is superior to a child born on the other side of an arbitrary line? ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/507 "2017-11-30T18:33:34Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Unanimity is far from certain, but I’m confident that both the left and a considerable portion of the right agree that you and **Clothahump** are inept, pitiful assclowns who are an ongoing embarrassment to your political allies and have never once contributed anything of value to this message board. > > Thank you both for helping us find a rare spot of common ground. Hahahaha. Thanks for proving that haters gotta hate. I answered the OP’s question. You chose to make a personal attack. SSDD. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/508 "2017-11-30T18:35:00Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Hahahaha. Thanks for proving that haters gotta hate.\*\* I answered the OP’s question\*\*. You chose to make a personal attack. SSDD. Pretty late to the party, though. Took all that time to think up a response? Or was your first grader on vacation? ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/509 "2017-11-30T19:37:54Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Pretty late to the party, though. Took all that time to think up a response? Or was your first grader on vacation? I wasn’t aware that someone identifying themselves as **running coach** had established an acceptable timeline for replies on the SDMB. Does everyone know of your self-professed authority? Does anyone know? p.s. You have no business requesting the whereabouts of my first grader, or anyone else’s first grader. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/510 "2017-11-30T19:44:50Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > I wasn’t aware that someone identifying themselves as **running coach** had established an acceptable timeline for replies on the SDMB. Does everyone know of your self-professed authority? Does anyone know? > > p.s. You have no business requesting the whereabouts of my first grader, or anyone else’s first grader. Personal opinion, clown. You waded in where everyone else had left far behind. I wasn’t requesting the whereabouts, I just figured you let him out of the basement occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/511 "2017-11-30T21:07:05Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Personal opinion, clown. You waded in where everyone else had left far behind. > > I wasn’t requesting the whereabouts, I just figured you let him out of the basement occasionally. Hahahaha. Personal opinion vs personal opinion. :rolleyes: You’re hating on other people’s personal opinion because that seems to be what Democrats-like-you excel at. :rolleyes: And my first grader, as well as everyone else’s first grader, is still none of your concern. Capiche? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/512 "2017-11-30T21:59:13Z")
> [@federal government shutdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-government-shutdown/803079/64): > > Repairing infrastructure is a good idea, but I don’t see anyone making money from it except contractors and the illegals they hire. Watching the Broadway bridge being replaced last year, most of the guys I saw were Mexican. Perhaps some of them were citizens and not sending money to Mexico to support their families. Just wanted to throw this in as evidence for “illegal” being a slur. The fact that he sees people of hispanic ethnicity makes him decide to call them all illegals. His post was racist as fuck, is it really how you want to be perceived when you use the word “illegal”? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/513 "2017-11-30T22:14:26Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Just wanted to throw this in as evidence for “illegal” being a slur. > > The fact that he sees people of hispanic ethnicity makes him decide to call them all illegals. > > His post was racist as fuck, is it really how you want to be perceived when you use the word “illegal”? Yeah, that post is a pretty damn good example, i must say. At the university where i teach, over one-third of the students are Latino. So are about 30 percent of the guys at my gym. I guess that makes them all illegals, right? Some of them are, indeed, from Mexico, but have been in the US longer than me, and have citizenship. It may surprise some people to know this, but there were Mexicans in this part of the world before there were Anglos, and the early twentieth century also saw a large influx of Mexicans into the American southwest, often at the urging of American farmers and railroad companies that were desperate for labor. I’m also interested in how he knows that those people working on the Broadway Bridge were Mexican. Did he ask them? Or can he tell a Mexican from a Guatemalan from a Honduran from a Salvadoran as he drives by. Or, for that matter, from an American who happens to be of Latino descent. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/514 "2017-11-30T22:33:55Z")
And even if they ARE US citizens who ARE sending money to relatives in Mexico, what’s it to him? Aren’t American citizens allowed to help their families survive anymore if they live somewhere else? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/515 "2017-11-30T22:43:28Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > And even if they ARE US citizens who ARE sending money to relatives in Mexico, what’s it to him? Aren’t American citizens allowed to help their families survive anymore if they live somewhere else? Every dollar sent out of the country is a dollar that can’t be sent to the extremely rich. Why do you hate ultrawealthy America? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/516 "2017-12-01T00:08:10Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > (post shortened, underline added) > > After reading most of the posts in this thread I would have to say the answer is a resounding “NO”. meh The overwhelming majority of people who choose to post to this thread are not representative of “conservatives” or “liberals” in this country. most are already fired up about either political or message board issues. As such, while your premise (looking at the thread participants) provides a significantly negative answer, looking at actual conservative, liberal, and not-hard-line-aligned people would quite possibly provide a different answer. ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/517 "2017-12-01T03:20:38Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > meh > > The overwhelming majority of people who choose to post to this thread are not representative of “conservatives” or “liberals” in this country. most are already fired up about either political or message board issues. As such, while your premise (looking at the thread participants) provides a significantly negative answer, looking at actual conservative, liberal, and not-hard-line-aligned people would quite possibly provide a different answer. Hell, Trump voters from a coal-mining town in West Virginia gave Bernie Sanders a standing ovation. For advocating for Medicare-for-all. The media tries to polarize everyone to extremes and paint a very black-and-white liberal vs. conservative picture, but when you throw away the labels and just look at people as people, it’s surprising what happens. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/518 "2017-12-01T07:06:31Z")
Well, when you look at most people as people, almost everyone: a) doesn’t know squat b) knows some stuff and if anything it’s made them more impervious to facts or changing circumstances. c) is outright crazy In the aggregate, democracy works because of the wisdom of crowds effect. But individually, no one is qualified to make an informed choice. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/519 "2017-12-01T12:43:24Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about those who are born here? Do you expect “the exact same argument” to be used towards infants as they come from their mother’s womb? They want in, the don’t care if it’ll be a plus or a minus, but it’s great for them. > > That sounds flippant, (and in the above specific formulation, it kind of is) but the concept behind it is not, it really is a serious question. Do you think that citizens of the United States should be required to prove that their children will be a net benefit to the country before they are allowed to have them? (Not asking if it is politically feasible [which it is not], but if it is something that you would advocate for should the overton window ever approach that concept.) > > If so, well, at least that is consistent with your views on immigration. If not, then why do think that a child born here is superior to a child born on the other side of an arbitrary line? Well, I’m not sure that inconsistency is a problem for me in that formulation. After all, my whole point is that I’m okay with an arrangement where people born on the other side of that line get to live _there_ without showing they’ll provide a net benefit to _that_ society; and that people born on this side of the line, uh, don’t. The other aspect to that discussion, though, is that you of course know my position on letting anyone in; it’s the position that we, as a country, have apparently taken already: _that wouldn’t work_. And figuring that It Wouldn’t Work is _why_ my position is that we need to do something of the sort that we already do: insititute a process that lets us okay Guy #1 while choosing to (a) bar Guy #2, and (b) deport Guy #2 if we apprehend him and realize he’s here illegally. So, in that same context: could we have a system where folks born here get legal status as a result? Well, yes; near as I can tell, we could; near as I can tell, we _do_; near as I can tell, It Would Work; near as I can tell, we _don’t_ actually need to pick this or that review process – not the process you grant wouldn’t be feasible, and not any other one I’d dislike – and, near as I can tell, each country could get by with that policy: _“folks born here, or born to our citizens, get the benefit of the doubt; and folks who weren’t? Well, we’ll consider them; make a case.”_ Is it a plus to me to be able to have a kid who gets born with citizenship? Well, yes; and so I’d vote for that, if it were up for a vote, which it’s not. Is it a plus to me for other citizens of this country to do that? Well, maybe not; but I’d of course vote for that, in exchange for getting the same, if it were up for a vote – which, again, it’s _not,_ because we don’t want to live in a country where that’s up for discussion; it’s a plus to us to live in a country where that _isn’t_. But while a love of consistency may obligate me to okay each other country doing likewise _there_, I don’t see that it obligates me to go a step further and okay everyone else coming in _here_. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094/520 "2017-12-01T13:07:15Z")
I just thought of something we all agree on: The superiority of Western culture and philosophy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-right-and-left-agree-on-anything/802094.md?page=27)