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purerandomnessyesterday at 1:55 AM3 repliesview on HN

> immigration should be slow enough that they can be thoroughly assimilated before they change American culture

I support your idea. Would you agree that all immigrants that arrived in America after, let's say, 1493, have to leave America and apply for citizenship?

If you don't agree, can you propose another immigration year after which you'd have to leave America again? Would you agree on 1783?


Replies

rayineryesterday at 2:30 AM

Your joke inadvertently shows the error in your logic. “America” (in the sense of the nation) didn’t exist in 1493. Various Indian nations existed in this land. British people didn’t “immigrate” to those Indian societies. They created a new society on the land. They were settler colonizers, as the kids say these days.

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remarkEonyesterday at 5:55 AM

I like how you think you’re dunking on immigration restrictionists but in your hypothetical you implicitly admit there’s a hierarchy of belonging and claim to a nation, and temporal proximity to its discovery and founding is quite obviously one of the most important.

baggy_troughyesterday at 2:28 AM

Certainly not, but it would have been natural for the American Indians to desire this. They lacked the means to carry it out of course.

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