Swiss town denies women citizenship because She is Annoying
The Swiss immigration policy is not like the cheese.
I selected humor as a category because of the smile on my face from this story.
I selected humor as a category because of the smile on my face from this story.
The resident’s committee argued that if she does not accept Swiss traditions and the Swiss way of life, she should not be able to become an official national.
That should be the basis for ANY immigration policy, with their utility to the nation being the next consideration.
UN welcome behavior or meddling.
She has been telling residents to put animal rights ahead of the individual. Anti hunting , anti meat eating. They were not requiring her to engage those behaviors but she was telling them not to.
A country or a town "community" is not a private association. It has no moral right to reject citizenship or a passport by the standards of tribalist demands to shut up and submit to its "tradition" or in accordance with what a majority finds "too annoying". That is crude collectivism and subjectivism, not protecting private property. Such communitarianism is anti-reason and anti-individualism. It is the same principle you see in communist and religious societies.
She is not a "guest" other than being a guest of any individual owner who invites her to stay where she has been living, rents to her, or whatever other voluntary arrangement they have. Being a "guest" of a country is an entirely different concept. It has no bearing on rights to immigrate or become a citizen and obtain a passport as a long term resident, let alone freedom of thought and speech.
If there is a legitimate reason to deny her citizenship or a passport the article does not mention it.
I never said governments are morally entitled to do "anything they choose."
Human beings have rights because of the their nature as human beings no matter where they are or where they came from, not from government as the source. Civil rights are supposed to be implementation of rights in law, not arbitrary. When someone comes here from another country he is subject to and protected by our laws, including immigration law. Non-citizens do not lose their rights, which can only be abrogated by injustice. The qualifications for attaining citizenship should be objective, not someone's notion of enforcing "tradition" under the whims of "any reason or no reason".
Declining to turn a non-citizen into a citizen does not meet either of these criteria. Citizenship is not a natural right, and nothing in Objectivism suggests that it should be.
Emotionally I like that story and have a good belly laugh.
But emotion should not have preference over thinking.
Now in my country, migrant traditions of cutting off heads of unbelievers,
abuse of women, and a host of other obscenities, are put aside in the
name of fighting racism. (!)
To my mind, the Swiss error is preferable.
She on the other hand protested to the owners of private property about how they should care for their property.
Where are you from Lucky? You said your country.
This theme has been repeated in several other news articles. This one https://www.theatlantic.com/internati... concludes:
"If things don’t go her way for the third time, however, perhaps she should consider seeking residency instead in a country that rewards brashness, and idiosyncrasy, and above all media savvy—a country that makes a political virtue out of rankling one’s peers. Holten, after all, who is Dutch by birth, Swiss by choice, but, it seems, very much American by temperament, is already at work on a book..."
Better to debate with a vegan than be oppressed by a tribe that suppresses debate.
Disagree? Your opinion is noted, but not substantiated. Tell me why I should adopt your reasoning.
"Don't bother to examine a folly. Ask yourself only what it accomplishes."
I hold that nations verily are associations and have given numerous examples to underpin those assertions - none of which you have refuted. States are associations. Communities and towns are associations. Show me what definition of "association" does not conform to any of the examples listed above. Are not towns incorporated with bylaws and rules of conduct? Yes. Can someone who violates those rules of conduct be ostracized and even evicted? Yes. And the same applies to States and Nations. Citizenship in a nation is an example of a specifically recognized and important form of membership in an association.
Get your definitions in order and re-examine your premises - if you have the personal integrity to do so. Put away the malice and envy and meaningless attacks on those who differ in opinion with you.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor...
This article is from last May, so the news has been out for a while.
If there were a large horde of foreigners seeking to move in and change the country farther from individualism it would be a matter of invasion and conquer, not immigration. That is a big topic in Switzerland and there is a big movement properly resisting such invasion, especially by Muslims, in the name of immigration.
There are no tribal rights and government must not act arbitrarily. The woman who was denied citizenship by a local "vote" for speaking out contrary to local "traditions" was deprived of her civil rights by government action, which the government eventually recognized when it overruled the local clique. It was mob "democracy" at its worst, based on conservative tribal "tradition" as a primary.
Tribal "traditions" are not an argument for government policy or the injustices they promote by individuals, yet that irrationalism is being cheered by conservatives and libertarians both as grounds for motivation and government action. It is not Objectivism and it is appalling.
Immigration and freedom of movement is a natural right, but natural rights do not imply anarchy. Ayn Rand supported objective standards for all laws. She supported natural rights as philosophical principles, codified in the form of law. That is what valid civil rights do. Ayn Rand was a strong supporter of immigration, based on individualism. She rejected all forms of tribalism and arguments from "tradition". She immigrated and became a citizen of this country, and became an outspoken defender of individualism contrary to widespread collectivist, altruist traditions she abhorred. Under your standards she would have been deported back to the Soviet Union for a mindless "any reason or no reason", with no protection.
Your advocacy of government arbitrariness "for any reason or no reason" in denying citizenship in support of the Swiss tribalists is not an "Objectivist argument". You can believe whatever you want to but please stop promoting it as Objectivism.
Ayn Rand's principles are clear and so is the context; she did not have to apply them to every detail on every topic and often deferred further elaboration as a specialized topic, such as philosophy of law, outside the realm of general philosophy. Countries around the world provide for citizenship so that permanent residents have the same role in government. People do become citizens under law, which must not be arbitrary. Ayn Rand became a citizen and obviously supported it. She did not have to spell out every detail for you in order to head off your rationalizations.
Your wandering off into citizenship versus immigration again dodges the central topic of the abuse of a woman who has legally lived in Switzerland since the age of eight, who supports the country, applied for citizenship under normal Swiss law, and was denied by a clique of local tribalists who found her exercise of free speech in opposition to "tradition" to be "annoying". That is not a model for this country and flatly contradicts Ayn Rand's philosophy in several ways.
A person’s behavior is an objective fact that can properly be considered when that person applies for citizenship. “Normal Swiss law” allows local residents to vote whether to approve or disapprove individual applications for citizenship, so it is no more “arbitrary” than any other law permitting a public vote. Are you objecting to the process or to the outcome?
You are still evading that an arbitrary government choice and action to "not act" is a government action with legal consequences.
"Allowing" a local mob to vote to deny someone citizenship because it is "annoyed" at someone for speaking out against "tradition" is horrendous on several grounds, including the subjectivism and its imposition in law.
The entrenchment of subjectivism (and worse with the explicit tribalist, "traditionalist" premise) in law does not make their motives, choices and the law itself anything other than subjective. A legal standard that a mob can decide whatever it wants is not objective. Representative government in which leaders are selected and occasionally laws are accepted or rejected in referenda is not the same principle as allowing a mob to "vote" on the fate of an individual by any criteria it feels like. The fact that they have an entrenched power to get away with it does not make it "objective".
If you don't understand by now that the whole affair -- from the mob-rule law, to the motives of the crowd, to the intended outcome for this woman -- is "objectionable" then nothing else is likely to help.
"Your evasive, context dropping misrepresentation is not a defense of the indefensible government action 'for any reason or no reason' or the tribalist mentality of that Swiss local clique oppressing someone over her 'annoying' freedom of speech disagreeing with their 'traditions'". That does not mean I "have no response".
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Swiss law "permitting" the tribalism is not self-justifying. "She should have known" is not an argument or an excuse for the abuse. Libertarian pandering to multi-culturalism also contradicts Ayn Rand's principles.
Her freedom of speech most certainly is an issue. She was punished for exercising it. You are an apologist for the abuse.
And your arguments appear to endorse the very multiculturalism you claim to oppose, since her expressed values supposedly should not be a factor in evaluating her application for citizenship.
There are no group rights. Individualism does not endorse multiculturalism and neither do I. Your latest excursion claiming otherwise makes no sense. You grasp for yet another rationalization in yet another diversion pretending to be logical refutation while we are supposed to ignore the central point of the tribalist mentality in that Swiss town. You dodge and wander with misconstruals, misrepresentations, strained analogies and rationalizations around the edges as you evade the obvious contradiction in the central topic.
That Swiss law allowed them to do it is not self-justifying and is no justification for the drive to make it a "model" here. A-philosophical libertarian multiculturalism and endless rationalizations are irrelevant, and not an "Objectivist argument" for something that is fundamentally contradictory to Ayn Rand's principles.
but that is not really a good reason to deny citizen-
ship. Has she been asked if she would accept the Swiss constitution? (Or do they have one? Or is it
written?) I believe people who take American citizenship are asked that; and have to pass a test on American government.
Your labeling of The people as tribalist is bs they are natural citizens. You might not agree with them and you are not a Swiss citizen but they never demanded conformity of thought. They did not want to grant her citizenship at the local level be cause they knew her and did not think she would be an asset.
Of course at the Swiss federal level they knew better?
I don't think traditions are good or bad. Forcing those traditions on others is another story.
I have a tradition on Thanksgiving Day
I cook a feast of turkey for my family and we share thanks for the year just passed. We don't expect or tell anyone else to celebrate. By the same token
I won't accept any person that would deny my right to stuff and eat a turkey no matter how they revere a bird.
The clique who tried to oppress her are tribalists because they employed as a standard their "annoyance" that she dared to speak out in opposition to their "traditions". That is not "bs"; it is what they said as reported internationally in the mob-bites-dog news articles. Following that article it has also been embraced by conservatives seeking to duplicate it as a "model" for us.
Trying to explain away their actions and motives as the target "not being an asset" is not what they said, but even that conservative slogan would be indefensible, as Ayn Rand explained when she emphatically supported the right of immigration against a conservative protectionism argument.
People immigrate in pursuit of personal values for their own lives. No one immigrates or becomes a citizen to "be an asset" to a group, which requirement is collectivism. Individuals who are productive (and otherwise honest, etc.) become an asset to others as a consequence, but that is not their purpose nor a standard superseding the rights and goals of the individual. An individual who is not considered an "asset" is still legitimate as long as he is not a burden on those unwilling to support him. That the Swiss who oppressed the woman were already citizens does not justify their tribalist mentality and does not justify the equally anti-immigration agenda of conservatives in this country. Being a citizen does not imply arbitrary power over others.
Of course traditions can be good or bad. The good is defended for what makes it good and the bad rejected accordingly. Nothing is good because it is tradition and no good can be defended because it is a tradition. You can accept or reject any one you please at your holidays; the nation and other people's rights are not a private dining table celebration to dictate to.
You don't have to like the reasons they have for rejecting her application. It's irrelevant. Only members of an association, in this case citizens of the nation of Switzerland - have any say on who they decide to allow into their association. They created their association based on shared values and culture and they expect those who want to join their little "clique" to share those same values. And if they don't share those values, they are welcome to go elsewhere.
Or to put it another way - claiming membership in an association in which you have not been formally recognized is theft. It is theft of intellectual property and identity which you have not earned. Care to dispute that?
Here's another example: should Americans demand that potential immigrants abandon Sharia Law because it conflicts with the Constitution and American values? Absolutely. Just as anyone wanting to become British accepts the Monarchy. Just as anyone who wants to become Venezuelan adopts Communism.
Your premise that a nation is and should be regarded as an "association" controlling its members is as false now as the other times you repeated it. You are a collectivist. The Swiss woman was not "applying for membership" in a club; she is a legal long-time permanent resident who wants to be recognized as having the same rights as other permanent residents.
Anyone can criticize or denounce tribalism anywhere. The principles are not "irrelevant" and neither are the thoughts of individuals not in the tribe who reject it. Your claim that they are irrelevant reveals you as an anti-intellectual tribalist yourself.
Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth, eh Goebbels? I also love the insinuation you add in there
If you had given one shred of proof to support your statement (repetition doesn't count), you might have a leg to stand on. But you don't. All you can do is rant and try to introduce red herrings and ad hominem and misrepresent my statements.
The broader significance here is how conservatives on this forum so stridently support that as a model for the mentality and policy they want to impose on this country.
The broader significance to this case is the mentality of the people who support what happened to that woman in Switzerland and want to impose it here as a "model", based on the same oppressive tribalist premise and whatever their "tradition" is as self-justifying. It is thoroughly incompatible with Objectivism on several grounds.
Philosophical premises matter. A-philosophical libertarians see only neighbors who didn't get that far. Don't be concrete bound. You know better than that. During the 1930s people were already treated worse than denial of citizenship. Ayn Rand would have been killed for expressing her views in Soviet Russia and would not have fared much better here if people could be legally oppressed for being "annoying" with views that challenged the prevailing "tradition" of a pack of subjectivist collectivists.
Procedures for attaining citizenship are already in law as a civil right. You want them to be violated by arbitrarily ignoring them "for any reason or no reason".
Here in America, hey, let's not allow livestock because they pass gas and make it cold in January.
Regarding livestock I enjoyed a bowl of homemade Chilli tonight with plenty of ground beef. I should put a few Pennies aside for a very near future emissions tax , sorry for the cold .
https://www.google.com/search?q=chick...
Must be the bandit.
Some slap down lessons I pay no attention to.
Francisco speech should it be denied? (by an Objectivist)
I posted earlier to say that I find that type of person really annoying just as the locals did,
but that hardly qualifies for denying something presumably important such as citizenship.
If the state allows driving only with a driving license, then by what philosophy
are annoying people denied that license, even if they otherwise qualify, and
even if a majority vote has given the state that right?
I reckon, under an Objectivist constitution, passing a driving test could be a requirement
for a driving license, but, a rule on not-being annoying could not have effect.
governments are not swamped in debt, the streets are clean and all the rest of it.
Wait a mo- there are annoying people complaining about cows forced to wear heavy bells.
How do we here in the Gulch respond to this (micro) catastroscope?
Here in Australia there are what we call the serial whingers, it is a national sport.
So I was pleased to see the Swiss suitably putting one down.
Interesting tho' how so many responses are from the conservative side, almost only ewv refers to
Objectivist principles. This case appears to be one where the problem is due to 'the sanction of the
victim', we allow ourselves to be unduly bothered by trivia.
First world problems.
To get a different kind of feel in the gut, not a belly laugh but sickening retch, look at-
http://www.americanthinker.com/articl...
what_i_learned_in_peace_corps_in_africa_trump_is_right.html
(all one line)
Senegal. Africa. Peace Corps. Jan 1 2018.
and the paper-
http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/14...
'Why Foreign Aid Fails'
which is referenced in the above.
The topic goes to the core of what this site is about, it should have its own thread.
Not by me today anyway, it is Sunday, places to go, people see, cans to demolish... See you later.
Yes, anyone who knows anything about Ayn Rand can see that "rationalizing arbitrary government decisions 'for any reason or no reason' in defense of this example of the tribalist mentality denying a person citizenship on the grounds that a small clique finds freedom of speech contrary to their 'traditions' to be 'annoying'" is not an Objectivist argument.
"Anyone can see" the clash between what they did and Ayn Rand's principles emphasizes the difference between you and anyone else reading this on this forum who has any understanding of Ayn Rand. In repeatedly fixating on the common phrase "anyone can see" while ignoring the context you keep leaving out what it is that is contrary to Ayn Rand that we see while you pretend that nothing has been said other than a meaningless "anyone can see" regardless of context.
You keep leaving out the central point of what it is that is contrary to Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason and individualism: "rationalizing arbitrary government decisions 'for any reason or no reason' in defense of this example of the tribalist mentality denying a person citizenship on the grounds that a small clique finds freedom of speech contrary to their 'traditions' to be 'annoying'".
Observing that clash is not to "defend Objectivist principles" against your assertions. It presupposes very basic knowledge. If you don't understand the clash, it is too late to go back to the beginning and explain the whole philosophy to you. The clash involves much more than politics or a specific 'here now government act'.
Your repetitious "question" about "initiation of force" -- which has already been addressed -- is a pseudo-question because it is anti-conceptual. It is an attempt to deflect and reduce the discussion to the standards of libertarian psychology, evading the topic. Everything about government concerns force, directly or indirectly. Reducing everything to "thump, here now initiation of force" at the perceptual level is not a requirement or possible. We have concepts to achieve understanding beyond the perceptual level, including the entire hierarchical and interconnected actions of government and their consequences. Every single event is not reduced to an immediate instance of physical force. A-philosophical libertarians who treat "initiation of force" as a floating abstraction reifying a percept as the basis of everything are missing that.
You do not "have a conceptual understanding of the issues involved in this topic". Those who understand the original article and the significance of the outcome to the woman abused by the tribalists know very well that it was an atrocious abuse of government power through mob action and the horribly tribalist mentality of "traditionalist" mental stagnation employed as the basic standard that was behind it.
The headline of the article is "Swiss town denies passport to Dutch vegan because she is ‘too annoying’". The headline of this thread is "Swiss town denies women citizenship because She is Annoying". That is what we are discussing, except for you who will not address the motives and actions described and which obviously contradict individualism.
The number of people voting is not relevant to what they did and why. It is another tangent to avoid confronting the contradiction between the tribal mentality and individualism.
Have a great day!
As for Trump's remark on African shole countries (is that like the Shihara Desert?) -- that is exactly what they are. Why does anyone think their residents are so desperate to get out if they have any ambition for their own lives at all? Their "foreign aid" is only welfare statism further entrenching their national mentality while doing nothing to improve the ideas of the people there. "The solution is not to bring Africans here" is true about the problem of sholeness there in Africa, but it is a solution for any individual who wants to make something of his life (as opposed to seeking better welfare here)..
Your argument is simply that you don't like the culture of the Swiss - not that it violates some Objectivist rule. Nations are the epitome of Associations and to respect the right of Association is to respect the rules under which that Association chooses to operate - whether you like them or not. Why? Because you can always choose another Association - or create one yourself.
The Valley was not a country. A nation is not a private association and unlike theocracy may not arbitrarily impose rules. You have no understanding of and are a crude collectivist antagonist to Ayn Rand's philosophy of individualism.
My opposition to the Swiss tribe imposing it's "traditions" punishing freedom of speech are not "just don't like their culture" because of "some Objectivist rule". You are ignorant of Ayn Rand and her philosophy that you are so hostile to and you don't understand and misrepresent what you read here. This is not a religious conservative forum.
Which is precisely what a nation is. Citizenship is a notation of ownership, rights, duties, and obligations.
And no, I didn't at all misrepresent why Dagny was told she couldn't stay. Galt made it very clear that until she was willing to say the Oath and live by it, she was there as a temporary guest but not a community member. That was the prime condition of membership in the Gulch. She had to agree to live by a moral code that everyone in the valley shared and had committed to - had associated with.
"You have no understanding of and are a crude collectivist antagonist..."
Blah, blah, blah. Flagged for ridiculous ad hominem and marked down. You can't offer a better argument, just your disagreement.
You did not even understand the plot in the novel. Dagny did not leave the Valley because "she hadn't accepted the cultural norms of the society living in the Gulch". It was not about conservative rhetoric of "cultural norms". She fully accepted and lived their philosophy, which is why she was invited and wanted there, but had to leave because she could not abandon her fight for her values in the outer world. You have misrepresented the novel as you try to twist it into a confirmation of your own conservative ideology. The novel and the story of the Valley are not a confirmation of your conservative anti-immigration agenda.
You are in fact antagonistic to Ayn Rand and you do not understand her ideas, as you demonstrate repeatedly. You admitted that you won't read the non-fiction because you find it "boring", while you announce that Islam is a "beautiful religion" that you can't immerse yourself in only because you "can only serve one Master".
That is not "blah blah blah ridiculous ad hominem". It is your own record here. You don't know what "ad hominem" means either. You try to dismiss the ideas you reject but do not understand or want to understand as meaningless "blah blah blah". That does not belong here.
That desire to build up communities of their own was what prompted so many groups to leave Old Europe and travel to the New World. Take the American Revolution - was that not a revolt against the culture of the monarchy and the foundation of a new nation built on individual rights - a specific culture? Yes, it was. Why do you think the Founding Fathers ensconced Association as one of the prime Rights of Citizens of the United States? It was because they, too, wanted to build and preserve not just a community, but a nation with a core set of values including hard work, individuality, respect for law, respect for conscience, and the freedom to associate with those of like mind.
Here's a news flash: if you can't cite Rand to support your ideas, you know less of her than you think. If you can't support your ideas with anything more than repeated assertions of your own opinions and diatribes full of false statements, innuendo, and personal attacks on others (ad hominem), it's because it's an idea with no logical foundation or support! It's a losing argument - just like this one.
And I never said Islam is a beautiful religion. Quite the contrary, I find it abhorrent and deviant, denying human rights and antithetical to Constitutional government. Your attribution to me of things I have never said is just more of your personal crusade - or should I say jihad - with all the dishonesty and vitriol that comes from a person enslaved to hatred. Again, flagged and sent to the Admin.
I suppose, that too, would get out of control eventually.