William asks, in a comment below, …
Since this has now been recognized as a humanitarian disaster by some conservatives, I wonder if they’d be willing to allow Afghanis to immigrate to the US? Or will they merely criticize Biden and complain about how bad it is for political advantage?
The only thing I am certain conservatives will do is rush to surrender their principles and/or dilly dally while the Left gets its way, so I don’t particularly care what “conservatives” think or do — even though I consider myself a conservative.
I do not think we should allow Afghans into the U.S. Certainly not in large numbers.
Everything I’ve seen and heard for the last 20 years, and everything I’ve read about Afghanistan before that time, shows they are not a good cultural fit. They don’t believe in a Republican form of government, their family structure / practice is atrocious, and I don’t want more Muslims in this country.
While there is room for some charity in our immigration policies, the vast bulk of it should be based on American self interest. I.e., what people will fit in and contribute. Afghans score very low on both of those counts.
Probably the best thing the U.S. could do is help resettle Afghans fleeing the Taliban into neighboring countries.
In the case of Canada, I think large-scale immigration from Afghanistan is not a good idea. I also think we have an obligation to look after the people who have helped Canada there and who are likely to be executed. This is a much smaller number of people, and a reasonable risk. Finally, I think the fall of Afghanistan is indeed a terrible outcome.
Possibly I’m some kind of wizard, but I seem to be able to hold all these positions at once without contradiction.
Is the argument that if you think a humanitarian disaster is occurring somewhere, then you have to be in favour of accepting all people touched by the situation into your country permanently lest you be a hypocrite only bemoaning the situation for political gain? By that standard I don’t think there can be many humanitarian disasters.
The case of Canada is very different from the USA, as the latter is actually causing the humanitarian crisis. The vexing question here is: Is it really ethically acceptable for the country that left those people in the lurch to turn them away? And to snub them because they have the “wrong religion” on top of that would seem all the more degrading. Such a criterion will no doubt be at work for a good many in their personal evaluation of the situation, but it simply cannot be implemented as public policy.
“Causing the humanitarian crisis” seems strong to me.
It seems clear to me that the Taliban would not be in charge today but for recent American actions, and so in that sense the Americans are indeed a cause of the troubles.
But it can’t be ethically mandatory for the Americans to run an empire and be forever responsible for Afghanistan, so I don’t think the consequences of a departure per se are their responsibility. If they want to leave after several decades of effort, it seems hard to insist that they stay.
I am afraid that the USA simply has responsibilities above and beyond any other country today, which force on it an obligation either to stay there (not only for the sake of the Afghans, but for other geo-political reasons, as we mustn’t forget that Afghanistan was of great interest to the Soviet Union) or at least to accept Afghan en masse, especially women who have reached high levels of accomplishment during the American occupation.
*accept Afghan immigrants
I don’t see why the Americans should share your views of their responsibilities, or why several decades’ worth of blood and treasure would not more than satisfy any obligation to the countrymen of their attackers (!).
Hence my position that I can and will criticize Canadians, Americans, etc. for making a hash of departure, and failing obligations to individual people (e.g. Afghans who served as translators for Canadians), but I can’t see where the obligation to accept anyone en masse comes from.
This would also set up a very perverse incentive structure, which in my case at least would *decrease* the degree to which I think we should help the worse off. That seems unfortunate.
At least there should be some special sort of immigration policy pertaining to Afghans in light of the fact that the USA set up a situation lasting for 20 years in which they could enjoy opportunities that they could not and will not enjoy under Taliban rule. For a lot of them that oasis of freedom and opportunity is the only thing that they have ever known. The salient case, as I have pointed out, is that of women who pursued careers which would be unthinkable from the standpoint of Islamic fundamentalism. Surely, the country that created a situation in which such individuals could pursue happiness has a special obligation to them, which is not shared by Canada and European countries. We can’t just give them the American Dream and then turn them over to a horribly misogynistic regime. That of course is not the only case, but it is the most outstanding one to mind. One might also think of people who have adopted a milder form of Islam, converted to Christianity, or have become atheistic or agnostic. We can’t just turn them over to a theocracy that is clearly on the Wrong Side of History. The term term “en masse” here means “in large numbers,” not necessarily “without restriction.”
I’m not sure how it’s proper to say we “set up the situation” by intervening, when our intervention really just caused a pause in the existing situation that has now reverted, it didn’t make anything worse than it was before. While my point is not to make a case for refusing to help the Afghan people, it seems odd that “trying to help and succeeding for a while but not forever” makes us more responsible for people who are in the same situation that would have existed had we not tried at all. It seems like an action that reduces people’s misery but not indefinitely makes us responsible for any remaining misery in way that we would not be had we not acted in that way at all, and I don’t get that as a moral argument.
Please note: We are talking about 20 years. If it were just a year or a little more, it would be different. But in that span of time whole lives and whole careers have been developed. That plainly allows us to speak with the utmost propriety of “setting up a situation.”
Sexual orientation is another factor. Gay people won’t stand a chance under an intolerant theocracy.
I’m still having trouble seeing what principle you’re appealing to.
The USA spent a lot of money and a lot of lives to try to make things better for the Afghan people. If I understand it, your argument appears to be that *because they succeeded* in helping some people, they have a permanent obligation to the recipients of their past generosity because now they know that life can be better. Meanwhile, precisely because Canadians and Europeans gave less and achieved less, they have no such special obligation.
I don’t see any reason why Americans (or anyone else) should share that view. To repeat myself, it seems downright perverse, with terribly perverse incentives.
“Give a hungry man a fish and then he knows how great fish taste, so you have to hire him to work on your boat” is not a workable principle.
I do a simple thought experiment to show the rationality of my position. Although I did not grow up in an ideal world, it was pretty good compared with the conditions in which many people live. I got to pursue happiness and managed to obtain my goals in very important respects. Now I imagine that suddenly, at the age of about 20, the American government (under which I had been living) withdraws and hands me over to an authoritarian theocracy (let’s say the Kentucky Bible Thumping Snake Handlers, like that old pentecostal woman who told me atheists “oughta be hung” when I was that age – true story!). As someone who has openly espoused atheism, I will probably suffer horrible consequences, perhaps imprisonment and even death (by hanging, beheading, or whatnot). Surely the American government is doing something horribly wrong by leaving me and many at the mercy of such monsters. The least it can do is provide me with safe passage to a place where I can continue to pursue happiness. Canada and European countries did not hand me over. While it would be kind of them to help me, America is pulling the rug from under my feet and has an obligation here. This is what the individual experiences, not some guy sitting in his comfy chair looking at the grand spectacle of history.
It would be something like the American government suddenly granting the Confederacy a right to exist, say 20 years after the Civil War, and not allowing the consequently enslaved African Americans free passage to the north. It would be ludicrous to argue that America gave them 20 good years “so what are they complaining about?”
Your problem is that you are formulating the issue a very tendentious and impersonal way, devoid of all empathy. It is hard to empathize regarding foreigners. I realize that. And the more alien they are, the harder it is. That is why I try to look at things from a very concrete and individualized perspective, because that is how things are really experienced. America as such and Afghanistan as such do not really experience anything. Our empathy must accordingly go to those entities that do, and then construct our views on the larger social units (nations and such) on that basis.
BTW, that old pentecostal woman who told me that atheists (and “queers” also) ought to be hung was the mother of a state representative. I come from a very backward state, but PTL that I was living in the USA. When I think of the Taliban, that image of that old grotesquely bigoted woman comes to mind. That helps me to keep it real.
“Your problem is that you are formulating the issue a very tendentious and impersonal way, devoid of all empathy. It is hard to empathize regarding foreigners. I realize that.”
That one is lacking empathy doesn’t make one wrong. That one focuses on realistic policy and sustainable principle doesn’t make one devoid of empathy. That someone claims that other people should sacrifice is not empathy. Condescending attribution of disagreement to someone else’s emotional insufficiency is not a good method of argumentation, and usually a sign that someone’s lost the plot. Et cetera.
I hated The Last Jedi in more ways than I can count, but I did kind of like the line “every word of what you just said was wrong”. Oddly satisfying to find a use for it myself.
“It would be something like the American government suddenly granting the Confederacy a right to exist, say 20 years after the Civil War, and not allowing the consequently enslaved African Americans free passage to the north. It would be ludicrous to argue that America gave them 20 good years “so what are they complaining about?””
Your argument seems less persuasive to me the more you explain it.
“Granting the Confederacy a right to exist” seems a rather strained analogy for ending an expensive and bloody military occupation half a world away; the distinction between Americans who didn’t maintain an empire indefinitely having “handed them over” while German philosophers who sit around feeling things while doing nothing at all didn’t hand them over and so are more ethically situated is unconvincing (although somehow familiar..); and your emphasis on a “very concrete and individualized perspective” seems to forget that Americans are individuals too, who get to decide for what they’re going to work, fight, and die. For you, and to be fair for many Canadians and Europeans, they appear to be NPCs whose role is to sacrifice in different ways and in different times based upon your emotional attachments and your idiosyncratic “better nothing than a non-everything something” inclination.
Obviously I don’t think we’re going to persuade each other, but I had wondered if there was an underlying principle here I was missing which didn’t seem like complete special pleading. Some kind of de facto moral promissory estoppel argument or something. You’ve helped me come to a conclusion on that, so I appreciate the time.
Just a quick note here to point out a couple of instances of reasoning gone terribly awry in the above post.
Here we see yet another fallacy that is spreading like wildfire throughout the internet, namely that an analogy must be precise point-by-point affair. The end result is a rejection of analogy altogether. Every situation is, after all, unique. One cries out for principles, and yet there can be no principles if all you get are unique facts.
The presupposition that a realistic standpoint is somehow incompatible with empathy is again utter nonsense. But then, all of the sudden, we hear a cry for empathy for Americans. Absolutely! I am, after all, one of them. I also have lots of family in America. I totally love them. But there is absolutely no reason why empathy for Americans and empathy for Afghans exclude each other. There is plainly room enough for both.
I totally don’t get the reference to German philosophers. Really, WTF!!!??? Kant was a German philosopher who thought that you could rigorously apply a principle, the so-called categorical imperative, to decide what is right and wrong. But it didn’t keep him from coming to the most atrocious racist and sexist conclusion.. Nietzsche might well have been right in saying that there is too much beer in German philosophy. Maybe so, since so many of the big ones believe in their abstract “principles.” Be that as it may, there seems to be a whole lot of beer (or something to destabilize rational thinking) in the most recent rantings and ravings we get from DSM.
QUOTE:I do not think we should allow Afghans into the U.S. Certainly not in large numbers.
I suspect a fair number of people would agree with your opinion. Seems these are the people who harshly criticize the Biden administration for creating what they acknowledge as a humanitarian crisis. Yet, they don’t feel the US should allow people in that have been negatively impacted by our actions. It’s like saying…“yeah, I know we screwed up and it might cost you dearly…but sorry you can’t come here. Besides, it’s someone else’s turn to help anyway. Have a nice life.”
QUOTE: Everything I’ve seen and heard for the last 20 years, and everything I’ve read about Afghanistan before that time, shows they are not a good cultural fit.
Haven’t we seen similar attitudes with the immigration of the Chinese, Japanese, Irish, and Italians? As well, with the irony of how the “immigrants” treated Native Americans…Trail of Tears?
QUOTE: They don’t believe in a Republican form of government, their family structure / practice is atrocious, and I don’t want more Muslims in this country.
If this is true…what should happen to current Muslims within the US? If the US allowed more of them in, wouldn’t they have to abide by our laws and form of government?
QUOTE: The only thing I am certain conservatives will do is rush to surrender their principles and/or dilly dally while the Left gets its way…
Who’s fault is that?
What is wrong with helping them settle in another country that is more culturally similar to Afghanistan? I.e., not the U.S.? It’s silly to think that helping them means we have to bring them here.
In terms of cultural fit and immigration, we can only allow so many people in per year. (That is, in a sane world where we actually control our borders.) Like every other nation in the world, we should set limits and prefer people who are likely to be a good fit and contribute to our society. That is all. (And it’s ridiculously obvious.)
Nothing is wrong with helping them settle in another country. As well, there’s nothing wrong with having them come to the US (as long as they abide by our laws and form of government). In fact, why does it have to be one or the other, can’t it be all of the above?
BTW, who gets to determine what’s a “good” cultural fit and what’s not?
“Don’t believe in a Republican form of government.” I think we saw in January that there is a large swath of people calling themselves Republican that don’t believe in a republican form of government. They want orange bozo and are willing to break the law to put their idol in power. Even after orange bozo tried to get Pence to not follow the law, who is the biggest guy in the Republican party? Orange bozo. In 1975, Nixon was a has-been. In 2021, Trump is as popular as he ever was. It is interesting that you wrote “Republican form of government” and not “republican form of government”. From what I know of Afghanis/Muslims…. they’d probably be more sympathetic to a Republican form of government over a republican form.
“Their family structure/practice is atrocious.” What do you mean by that? Can it be worse than Lakeshia who has one child from baby daddy #1, another child from baby daddy #2, two children from baby daddy #3, another from baby daddy #4, and none from the guy she’s living with? And, many times it’s not much better in the holler than it is in Compton. From what I know of most Muslim families, they’d probably fit in better with traditional christians with nuclear families. Heck, they might fit in better than me…I’m divorced…two kids with the ex.
“I don’t want more Muslims in this country.” You’re clear on that.
About “family structure,” I was mostly thinking about marrying off young girls without their consent, and the deeply ingrained pedophilia in Afghan men.
The RCC has a priest shortage. Maybe …. jk
Or maybe they could open pizza joints in DC?
QUOTE: About “family structure,” I was mostly thinking about marrying off young girls without their consent, and the deeply ingrained pedophilia in Afghan men.
Well, if that’s the case, then we might want to consider what happens to those that are members of polygamist camps in Utah/Colorado and kissin’ cousins in West Virginia. Oh, we can’t forget citizens who are proud members of NAMBLA. Sad to say, we might even have to consider Catholic priests too.
Wow! Maryland Governor Hogan seems to be a reasonable Republican. I enjoyed listening to his interview relative to Covid and Afghanistan. He seemed to believe in principles. He supports standing by the Afghans and if need requires, allowing them into the US (with screening and standards). In fact, he’s already allowed some refugees to relocate to Maryland. As well, common sense measures to protect and fight against Covid. Seems his state’s numbers reflect some level of success in managing the virus to date. He was even circumspect in his criticism of Biden and Trump…rightly pointing out issues but respectful, dignified and direct…no lies and cheap shots. How refreshing! That said, given his perspectives, it’s likely he’s not greatly liked by some conservatives. If so, too bad, we need more like him.