Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
What America Should Do on Hong Kong
Human capital is the most valuable form: money is a stand-in for real wealth, and all other forms of assets (real estate, securities, gold, etc.) need to be managed to even retain value. But human capital is what creates all other wealth, and best of all, if we leave it alone in a big petri dish, then it requires virtually no management to do its thing.
The most productive people in the world have a lot of practice creating wealth because they live in entrepreneurial places: the US, the UK, Singapore, the Netherlands, Israel, and Hong Kong. It is a big win when you can attract highly-productive resources. Which tells me that the United States should offer immigration/citizenship to every Hong Kong citizen who can pass a good English test, pledge to uphold American principles and not rely on public funds. Such a move would simultaneously bolster the United States and deeply wound China.
Published in General
It’s the humanitarian thing to do.
Is that not already the policy regarding immigration from Hong Kong? I’d be surprised to find out that the US imposes many restrictions currently on immigration from Hong Kong.
I think this proposal has merit as long as those accepted into the US:
I rather wish we could make such minimal demands of our own citizens.
You’re right, @iWe.
From basic economics, we know that the use of violence or the threat of violence in order to harm one particular set of individuals and benefit another in the present, tends to make the society as a whole worse off than it would have been, economically.
Therefore, eliminating that condition will tend to cause, relatively, an improvement in overall standards of living from the time it’s eliminated onward.
But in the short term, eliminating the violence or threat will likely make the formerly favored particular individuals worse off. It may also make some of them on balance worse off for the rest of their lives, especially if they are old or not adaptable to change.
That is why, even if Americans were not economically ignorant enough to believe the utopian economic promises of the statists, we would still be descending into socialism. Once the shared moral and political principles of the American founders have been abandoned, the country must gradually transform itself into a marketplace for raw violent power, driven by the unprincipled greed and envy of competing classes.
Every minority faction will concentrate on getting more and more political measures passed that allow it to grab visibly much more, per capita. But the factions will have little intensity of motivation to form a majority coalition to oppose the individual factional measures, because the harm it does them is diffuse and relatively invisible.
Of course we do. It is very, very hard to immigrate to the US.
No problem here – and I doubt any from HKRs (Hong Kong Refugees).
Only if you don’t have family in the USA. Over 1.2 million people immigrate to the US every year, but about 68% of them are relatives of US citizens.
Which is why China would never allow them to leave.
China needs Hong Kong (and its people) because it is an economic superengine. However, their efforts will be self-defeating in that putting this economic superengine under the yoke will make it cease to be such.
Sadly, this lesson about the evils of socialism will either be ignored, or explained away by the MSM or leftist professors in economic departments in universities across the nation . . .
Then we definitely make the offer, exposing the hypocrisy of the regime.
Actually, there is a great deal of espionage, especially economic espionage, that does not involve national security clearances. So, you can count on a flood of spies, even if they are not sent as spies.
I have a dearly beloved close relative who emigrated to the US from Hong Kong. I would have a problem with him being treated differently from any other American under the law.
So here’s the question: if opening up this kind of immigration path could ONLY be done by discriminating, would you oppose the immigration plan?
Is it your premise that in this case treating a person unfairly is necessary?
If so then I can’t answer your question because it contains a false implicit premise. I always oppose a strong person harming a weak person for his own benefit.
Is your premise that all refugees must be allowed to become citizens? Before they are a citizen, they can hold a Top Secret Clearance?
Because of Nixon going to China but especially with the Communist lover Carter, our China policy is a mess. The US Elite make too much money on the China trade and they hate our Deplorables. Like the Chinese Elite that hates a free HK, Christians, and Muslims.
I am asking whether you are making the perfect (everyone treated equally) the enemy of the good (oppressed people coming to a better situation).
If the weak person also benefits, and they make the choice themselves, then why oppose it?
How does this situation differ from a job where the boss may be stronger, but they reach a mutually-agreed relationship?
I believe the real mess started when we ditched Taiwan and sidled up to Red China . . .
No. I only say that this is not a true premise: that in this case treating a person unfairly is necessary.
Our dear daughter’s father-in-law, whom I would vote for over any of the dozen or two Democratic candidates for President, ought not to be treated as a lower-class citizen simply because he came here from Hong Kong.
I think that we may agree with each other across the board, and that we are simply are getting tangled up by my poor skills in dialectics. (By dialectics, I mean “the use of language to search for truth by logical, factual argument”.)
We should exchange the citizens of Hong Kong who want to come here and be free with our citizens who want to live under socialism.
Stad,
It sounds as though you are saying
Stad, for a Jester, sometimes you really make a lot of sense.