Sweden’s government on Tuesday said it would put forward a bill introducing a requirement for migrants to adhere to an “honest living” or face deportation.
In theory, yes, in practice any government that seriously suggested it would likely not last long enough to enact the policy.
Yes, and there will come a day when governments attempting to reintroduce citizenship laws will be viewed in a similar way.
Seems a bit of a jump from any conversation we’ve had here. Given it fundamentally governs the relationship between government and people it’s hard to get away from.
In fact, citizenship as we know it today has only been around for a little over a century. Moreover, we already have a template for how to get rid of it: within the EU, governments must grant equal rights to each EU citizen with only a few exceptions.
Comparing citizenship to hair colour is indeed radical, foolish would perhaps be a better word.
Then you now understand how foolish you would have sounded to the ears of Ferdinand and Isabella if you had dared to suggest Jews and Muslims should have equal rights to Gentiles.
Yes, and there will come a day when governments attempting to reintroduce citizenship laws will be viewed in a similar way.
Maybe, maybe not, none of us can predict the future.
In fact, citizenship as we know it today has only been around for a little over a century. Moreover, we already have a template for how to get rid of it: within the EU, governments must grant equal rights to each EU citizen with only a few exceptions.
So it’s not actually gotten rid of it any way? In fact expulsion is still permissible within the EU. I’m not sure you’re correct about citizenship as we know it only existing for around a century, but maybe our ideas about it are different. Certainly it’s changed, most things do, but it’s always been about the conference of certain rights and responsibilities on individuals.
Then you now understand how foolish you would have sounded to the ears of Ferdinand and Isabella if you had dared to suggest Jews and Muslims should have equal rights to Gentiles.
Do I? I’d imagine a great many modern things would sound foolish to a 1400s monarch. We are, however, living in the present.
Maybe, maybe not, none of us can predict the future.
That is true. However, the overall trend across history, with some interruptions, has been one of decreasing bigotry and narrow-mindedness. With this in mind, it is plausible that insidious discrimination based on citizenship will one day not be as accepted as it is today.
So it’s not actually gotten rid of it any way?
It has, in fact, gotten rid of it in most ways (within the EU).
I’m not sure you’re correct about citizenship as we know it only existing for around a century, but maybe our ideas about it are different. Certainly it’s changed, most things do, but it’s always been about the conference of certain rights and responsibilities on individuals.
My advice to you would be to investigate to what extent you may be incorrect in this matter. For example, did you know that the UK introduced its first limitations to migration (meaning: completely open borders beforehand) in 1905 (bonus points if you can guess which ethnic group the restrictions were primarily targeted at)? Or that, prior to WW1, Europeans could freely travel across borders without border checks or identity documents, which originally were carried only by diplomats, envoys and the like?
Of course, it is true that citizenship did not come out of the blue. Other kinds of caste systems preceded and inspired it. But nationalism itself emerged only in the 19th Century - how could there have been nationalist-based restrictions before the concept even existed? To be sure, there were campaigns of genocide, pogroms and discrimination - but they were often based on informal cultural, tribal, feudal and religious ties, not formal national citizenship.
Do I? I’d imagine a great many modern things would sound foolish to a 1400s monarch. We are, however, living in the present.
Yes, I am aware I am quite far ahead of the primitive mindset of today’s plebeians.
That is true. However, the overall trend across history, with some interruptions, has been one of decreasing bigotry and narrow-mindedness. With this in mind, it is plausible that insidious discrimination based on citizenship will one day not be as accepted as it is today.
Has it? And here’s us talking about how immigration is more restrictive now than it’s ever been.
It has, in fact, gotten rid of it in most ways (within the EU).
So it hasn’t been gotten rid of in any meaningful way, if you except everything that contradicts the point you’re trying to make you can make anything sound true.
My advice to you would be to investigate to what extent you may be incorrect in this matter. For example, did you know that the UK introduced its first limitations to migration (meaning: completely open borders beforehand) in 1905 (bonus points if you can guess which ethnic group the restrictions were primarily targeted at)? Or that, prior to WW1, Europeans could freely travel across borders without border checks or identity documents, which originally were carried only by diplomats, envoys and the like?
Yeah, I thought that was what you were getting at - that would be immigration policy, not the fundamental role of citizenship.
Of course, it is true that citizenship did not come out of the blue. Other kinds of caste systems preceded and inspired it. But nationalism itself emerged only in the 19th Century - how could there have been nationalist-based restrictions before the concept even existed?
You’re right, citizenship has been around for thousands of years. Again you appear to be confusing immigration policy with citizenship.
To be sure, there were campaigns of genocide, pogroms and discrimination - but they were often based on informal cultural, tribal, feudal and religious ties, not formal national citizenship.
Just getting into hyperbole now, deporting an individual criminal is not the same as a genocide or a pogrom. Tell me this, at what time in history were individuals free to join a social grouping and benefit from the shared collective without the assent of the group?
Yes, I am aware I am quite far ahead of the primitive mindset of today’s plebeians
You’re certainly conceited, much more than that I can’t say.
So it hasn’t been gotten rid of in any meaningful way
You don’t have to take my word for it, you can just look up in which ways citizenship still matters. This might be an instructive exercise.
You’re right, citizenship has been around for thousands of years.
Is your claim really that a medieval French peasant living in the countryside near Paris (and thus a subject of the King of France) was a “French citizen”? Again, citizenship associated with nation states could not exist, because nation states didn’t!
Again you appear to be confusing immigration policy with citizenship.
I am not “confusing” anything. However, immigration laws are obviously one of the main vehicles of citizenship-based discrimination.
Tell me this, at what time in history were individuals free to join a social grouping and benefit from the shared collective without the assent of the group?
Well, in the UK prior to 1905. Of course there were informal ways in which “groups” of various kinds would not “assent.” The antisemitism of those days became the driving force to formalize the bigotry that until then had only been informally expressed.
You don’t have to take my word for it, you can just look up in which ways citizenship still matters. This might be an instructive exercise.
Non-citizens can be expelled
Non-citizens don’t have the right to vote in national elections
Non-citizens don’t always have access to welfare
These all seem fairly major to me.
Is your claim really that a medieval French peasant living in the countryside near Paris (and thus a subject of the King of France) was a “French citizen”? Again, citizenship associated with nation states could not exist, because nation states didn’t!
No, I didn’t say anything about medieval French citizens.
I am not “confusing” anything. However, immigration laws are obviously one of the main vehicles of citizenship-based discrimination.
Okay, it’s just because you keep talking about immigration policy and then saying it’s citizenship.
Well, in the UK prior to 1905. Of course there were informal ways in which “groups” of various kinds would not “assent.” The antisemitism of those days became the driving force to formalize the bigotry that until then had only been informally expressed.
Why are we bringing bigotry and anti-Semitism into it? If me and my mates go to play a game of football and a random guy appears and starts playing and hoofing the ball every which way so we go get security to remove him it’s got nothing to do with anti-Semitism. I’m not saying there haven’t been exclusions based on religion, but it’s entirely irrelevant to the point I was making.
Non-citizens can be expelled Non-citizens don’t have the right to vote in national elections Non-citizens don’t always have access to welfare
EU citizens have the same rights to welfare as citizens do in EU countries. They also have partial voting rights. EU citizens can be expelled only under exceptional circumstances.
It would be trivial - and desirable - to eliminate these restrictions.
No, I didn’t say anything about medieval French citizens.
So, of which nation state was said peasant a “citizen”?
Why are we bringing bigotry and anti-Semitism into it?
Because, in this specific example, antisemitism was the reason immigration laws were created in the first place. In other cases, other types of bigotry and xenophobia might have played a role.
EU citizens have the same rights to welfare as citizens do in EU countries.
As far as I know in Germany at least you need 5 years residence before fully qualifying for welfare if you’re not a German citizen.
They also have partial voting rights. EU citizens can be expelled only under exceptional circumstances.
So they can’t vote in national elections as I said. You can be expelled or denied residence on health grounds or public policy grounds. Regardless, you can be expelled, as I said. Some government jobs are also not available to non-citizens.
It would be trivial - and desirable - to eliminate these restrictions.
You just state stuff as if it’s true and must be accepted. This is just an opinion. Presumably if it were both desirable and trivial it would already be the case, no?
So, of which nation state was said peasant a “citizen”?
You can probably trace citizenship back to the ancient Greeks in one form or another, but you’ll likely try and change the definition to have to be about nation states or some other narrow definition to suit your point again, so there’s not really much point in trying to discuss it.
Because, in this specific example, antisemitism was the reason immigration laws were created in the first place. In other cases, other types of bigotry and xenophobia might have played a role.
This specific example was chosen by you, presumably because it was an example of antisemitism. I was thinking more like Ug and his gang in the stone age, but it doesn’t really matter. Tribes\social groupings have existed as far back as we have history, who, how and when people are excluded is varied and nuanced but not everything is a racist or bigoted action.
As far as I know in Germany at least you need 5 years residence before fully qualifying for welfare if you’re not a German citizen.
A residency requirement is not a citizenship requirement. A practical example, of some relevance to my personal situation. In the Netherlands, part of the retirement system is a basic income for the elderly. The requirement for receiving this basic income is having been a resident as an adult. So a Dutch citizen who lived part of their adult life outside of the Netherlands and moves back when retiring will only receive some part of the basic income. However, a Belgian citizen (for example) who spent their adult life in the Netherlands will receive the full amount.
Anyway, the only point I wanted to make is that it is possible for EU citizenship to entirely replace national citizenship - as it already does to a large degree. And if that can be done for a continent, it can be done globally.
You just state stuff as if it’s true and must be accepted. This is just an opinion. Presumably if it were both desirable and trivial it would already be the case, no?
What an odd argument. Was it not desirable and trivial to abolish antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany?
You can probably trace citizenship back to the ancient Greeks
Instead of guessing what origin citizenship might have, why not simply look up its actual history? I can sympathize with the plight of someone who has been inundated with a bukkake of nationalist propaganda throughout their lifetime, so let me give the synopsis. Citizenship gradually emerged in the modern period in Europe and during that time replaced the previous system, which included four castes (estates): the nobility, the clergy, the burghers (from which the word “citizen” derives - citizen, city, get it?) and the peasants/serfs. Some remnants of these castes remain, but for the most part the modern citizen grew from what used to be the burgher class. Indeed, in many proto-democracies, voting rights were initially restricted to the landowning class (i.e. burghers), while peasants remained formally discriminated against. The distinction, at least formally and legally, faded away roughly around the time of WW1 (around which time many European governments also abolished the nobility, or reduced them to ceremonial roles only), and from this point we can say there is something resembling modern citizenship, and a system with just two castes: citizens and non-citizens. (Next step: a system with just one caste: people.)
This specific example was chosen by you, presumably because it was an example of antisemitism. I was thinking more like Ug and his gang in the stone age, but it doesn’t really matter. Tribes\social groupings have existed as far back as we have history, who, how and when people are excluded is varied and nuanced but not everything is a racist or bigoted action.
Yes, tribalism is as old as mankind. Yet, while you can seemingly recognize there is something wrong with Ug and his gang being bigoted against the next tribe, the nobility and clergy being bigoted against the peasantry, and Adolf and his gang being bigoted against Jews, you can’t quite seem to grasp how citizenship-based discrimination is equally problematic and equally rooted in bigotry.
Some day, even someone as enlightened as myself (by today’s rather unimpressive standards) will likely be viewed as backward and narrow-minded. Will we live to see it? Unlikely. The brown winds are gathering; fascism is now the most popular ideology in the West by far, and the last time this was the case things did not end well. Even so, I have some optimism that the aftermath of WW3 will induce some self-reflection on the side of humanity, and a reassessment of citizenship as a concept.
Yes, and there will come a day when governments attempting to reintroduce citizenship laws will be viewed in a similar way.
In fact, citizenship as we know it today has only been around for a little over a century. Moreover, we already have a template for how to get rid of it: within the EU, governments must grant equal rights to each EU citizen with only a few exceptions.
Then you now understand how foolish you would have sounded to the ears of Ferdinand and Isabella if you had dared to suggest Jews and Muslims should have equal rights to Gentiles.
Maybe, maybe not, none of us can predict the future.
So it’s not actually gotten rid of it any way? In fact expulsion is still permissible within the EU. I’m not sure you’re correct about citizenship as we know it only existing for around a century, but maybe our ideas about it are different. Certainly it’s changed, most things do, but it’s always been about the conference of certain rights and responsibilities on individuals.
Do I? I’d imagine a great many modern things would sound foolish to a 1400s monarch. We are, however, living in the present.
That is true. However, the overall trend across history, with some interruptions, has been one of decreasing bigotry and narrow-mindedness. With this in mind, it is plausible that insidious discrimination based on citizenship will one day not be as accepted as it is today.
It has, in fact, gotten rid of it in most ways (within the EU).
My advice to you would be to investigate to what extent you may be incorrect in this matter. For example, did you know that the UK introduced its first limitations to migration (meaning: completely open borders beforehand) in 1905 (bonus points if you can guess which ethnic group the restrictions were primarily targeted at)? Or that, prior to WW1, Europeans could freely travel across borders without border checks or identity documents, which originally were carried only by diplomats, envoys and the like?
Of course, it is true that citizenship did not come out of the blue. Other kinds of caste systems preceded and inspired it. But nationalism itself emerged only in the 19th Century - how could there have been nationalist-based restrictions before the concept even existed? To be sure, there were campaigns of genocide, pogroms and discrimination - but they were often based on informal cultural, tribal, feudal and religious ties, not formal national citizenship.
Yes, I am aware I am quite far ahead of the primitive mindset of today’s plebeians.
Has it? And here’s us talking about how immigration is more restrictive now than it’s ever been.
So it hasn’t been gotten rid of in any meaningful way, if you except everything that contradicts the point you’re trying to make you can make anything sound true.
Yeah, I thought that was what you were getting at - that would be immigration policy, not the fundamental role of citizenship.
You’re right, citizenship has been around for thousands of years. Again you appear to be confusing immigration policy with citizenship.
Just getting into hyperbole now, deporting an individual criminal is not the same as a genocide or a pogrom. Tell me this, at what time in history were individuals free to join a social grouping and benefit from the shared collective without the assent of the group?
You’re certainly conceited, much more than that I can’t say.
You don’t have to take my word for it, you can just look up in which ways citizenship still matters. This might be an instructive exercise.
Is your claim really that a medieval French peasant living in the countryside near Paris (and thus a subject of the King of France) was a “French citizen”? Again, citizenship associated with nation states could not exist, because nation states didn’t!
I am not “confusing” anything. However, immigration laws are obviously one of the main vehicles of citizenship-based discrimination.
Well, in the UK prior to 1905. Of course there were informal ways in which “groups” of various kinds would not “assent.” The antisemitism of those days became the driving force to formalize the bigotry that until then had only been informally expressed.
Non-citizens can be expelled Non-citizens don’t have the right to vote in national elections Non-citizens don’t always have access to welfare
These all seem fairly major to me.
No, I didn’t say anything about medieval French citizens.
Okay, it’s just because you keep talking about immigration policy and then saying it’s citizenship.
Why are we bringing bigotry and anti-Semitism into it? If me and my mates go to play a game of football and a random guy appears and starts playing and hoofing the ball every which way so we go get security to remove him it’s got nothing to do with anti-Semitism. I’m not saying there haven’t been exclusions based on religion, but it’s entirely irrelevant to the point I was making.
EU citizens have the same rights to welfare as citizens do in EU countries. They also have partial voting rights. EU citizens can be expelled only under exceptional circumstances.
It would be trivial - and desirable - to eliminate these restrictions.
So, of which nation state was said peasant a “citizen”?
Because, in this specific example, antisemitism was the reason immigration laws were created in the first place. In other cases, other types of bigotry and xenophobia might have played a role.
As far as I know in Germany at least you need 5 years residence before fully qualifying for welfare if you’re not a German citizen.
So they can’t vote in national elections as I said. You can be expelled or denied residence on health grounds or public policy grounds. Regardless, you can be expelled, as I said. Some government jobs are also not available to non-citizens.
You just state stuff as if it’s true and must be accepted. This is just an opinion. Presumably if it were both desirable and trivial it would already be the case, no?
You can probably trace citizenship back to the ancient Greeks in one form or another, but you’ll likely try and change the definition to have to be about nation states or some other narrow definition to suit your point again, so there’s not really much point in trying to discuss it.
This specific example was chosen by you, presumably because it was an example of antisemitism. I was thinking more like Ug and his gang in the stone age, but it doesn’t really matter. Tribes\social groupings have existed as far back as we have history, who, how and when people are excluded is varied and nuanced but not everything is a racist or bigoted action.
A residency requirement is not a citizenship requirement. A practical example, of some relevance to my personal situation. In the Netherlands, part of the retirement system is a basic income for the elderly. The requirement for receiving this basic income is having been a resident as an adult. So a Dutch citizen who lived part of their adult life outside of the Netherlands and moves back when retiring will only receive some part of the basic income. However, a Belgian citizen (for example) who spent their adult life in the Netherlands will receive the full amount.
Anyway, the only point I wanted to make is that it is possible for EU citizenship to entirely replace national citizenship - as it already does to a large degree. And if that can be done for a continent, it can be done globally.
What an odd argument. Was it not desirable and trivial to abolish antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany?
Instead of guessing what origin citizenship might have, why not simply look up its actual history? I can sympathize with the plight of someone who has been inundated with a bukkake of nationalist propaganda throughout their lifetime, so let me give the synopsis. Citizenship gradually emerged in the modern period in Europe and during that time replaced the previous system, which included four castes (estates): the nobility, the clergy, the burghers (from which the word “citizen” derives - citizen, city, get it?) and the peasants/serfs. Some remnants of these castes remain, but for the most part the modern citizen grew from what used to be the burgher class. Indeed, in many proto-democracies, voting rights were initially restricted to the landowning class (i.e. burghers), while peasants remained formally discriminated against. The distinction, at least formally and legally, faded away roughly around the time of WW1 (around which time many European governments also abolished the nobility, or reduced them to ceremonial roles only), and from this point we can say there is something resembling modern citizenship, and a system with just two castes: citizens and non-citizens. (Next step: a system with just one caste: people.)
Yes, tribalism is as old as mankind. Yet, while you can seemingly recognize there is something wrong with Ug and his gang being bigoted against the next tribe, the nobility and clergy being bigoted against the peasantry, and Adolf and his gang being bigoted against Jews, you can’t quite seem to grasp how citizenship-based discrimination is equally problematic and equally rooted in bigotry.
Some day, even someone as enlightened as myself (by today’s rather unimpressive standards) will likely be viewed as backward and narrow-minded. Will we live to see it? Unlikely. The brown winds are gathering; fascism is now the most popular ideology in the West by far, and the last time this was the case things did not end well. Even so, I have some optimism that the aftermath of WW3 will induce some self-reflection on the side of humanity, and a reassessment of citizenship as a concept.