Funny how Columbia was cherry-picked for this display of strength. College campuses are places where vigorous debate is encouraged. They even challenge students to consider alternative opinions.
This is the exact opposite of how the military education system works - this is where Mr. Trump went to school. The lack of a distinct chain of command is what makes university/college campuses so effective.
Also worth noting is that Columbia is and has always been one of the leaders in the quaternary sciences.
As you correctly point out, the First Amendment also applies to green card holders, and for that reason Khalil has not been charged with a crime. His residency status was simply revoked. The reasons why this is in fact perfectly legal have been covered elsewhere. As for the idea that Trump or Rubio ought to be deported under the same grounds, this is obviously nonsensical trolling. They are American citizens, and so the law that allows revocation of Khalil's residency status does not apply to them, as you know perfectly well.
While I agree with the sentiments of this article, I'm a lot less comfortable with the general principle of foreign nationals being able to advocate for policy decisions, and especially international policy decisions within the US.
The first amendment protects freedom of speech, but foreign nationals and governments are still prohibited from purchasing ads that specifically advocate for a politician (although it's more of a grey are when it comes to policy, rather than individual politicians). It's clear that the protections of the first amendment are *generally* not applied equally between US citizens and foreign nationals.
In such a divided country, even a little nudge left or right due to the efforts of a protest can plausibly move the needle on foreign policy. I am equally uncomfortable with a green card holder advocating for the "Liberation of Palestine" (and specifically advocating a change in foreign policy in the US government), as I would be if the 5.5 Million Chinese citizens currently legally in the US started advocating for the Chinese annexation of Taiwan. There's a principle that when you're a guest in another's home, you shouldn't dictate how other people act or live. I guess that's what is meant by "When in Rome, do as the Roman's do?"
I don't know. This case is obviously a bad example since he's even married to a US citizen, so deportation should have an EXTREMELY high bar by any reasonable standard. However, there is the conflicting intuition that just because the US has decided to allow a foreign national to legally reside in the US, doesn't mean we should give them license to spend significant efforts changing national policy. If this wasn't the case, I think the nation would be a lot weaker to foreign influence, and I'd personally have a slightly less favorable view on immigration without considering the political opinions of those immigrating, which I don't like.
Should Russia have more influence over US aid to Ukraine since it affects them quite a bit? Should Israel be able to covertly advocate for increased direct cash transfers to them? Should China be able to influence US opinion on Taiwan through its many citizens living in the US?
Anything that meaningfully departs from the question "What policy is best for the United States and its people" inherently comes with opportunity cost, born by American citizens, usually for the benefit of some other interest. Hypothetically, if it was in US interests to support Gaza, but Israel spent a large amount of resources on swinging US opinion to opposing Gaza, then this would be bad for the United States, bad for Gaza, and good for Israel. Especially in something as zero-sum as a war, where one side's gain is pretty much the other side's loss, influence for one side is negative influence for the other.
Foreigners are affected by foreign policy, but they don't bare its direct costs, just its outcomes. I have nothing against people with their own interests advocating for those interests, but I can see a problem if the way it is done isn't explicit, like protesting at a US university, where people would assume the protests are representing the opinions of the American youth.
To be frank, I don’t care about the US national interest. I care about universalist humanitarian interests. It’s absurd to think “direct costs” borne by Americans are inherently more important than “outcomes” borne by foreigners when the direct costs are a few billion dollars and the outcomes are life or death for hundreds of thousands of people.
Now, you run into problems when actors have resources disproportionate to their moral interests (eg, Israel). But that doesn’t apply in the protest case.
I think this is a little too idealist of a position to be held by a Libertarian?
In economics, if I had a say with what you did with your money, I'd just say that you should give it to me. An explicit appeal wouldn't work for that though, so perhaps I psychologically manipulate you by promising a huge return on investment in a couple of years, or say it's for my sick mother, or otherwise covertly change your views to be more favorable to me through dishonest means.
A generalized principle of universalist interests doesn't actually work without a very carefully planned out centralized system for ensuring that people aren't able to abuse that system. The United States, in one way or another gives aid to much of the world. A universalist perspective would say this is good (I agree), since the US has so much, and the many other places so little. If we added on top of this aid "Also foreign countries get meaningful influence on how much aid they receive", the obvious answer the entire world will say in unison is: "MORE!"
Capitalism and free markets are great because they are efficient, and give us the most resources to increase the welfare of the whole. Regulating those markets is necessary, but departing from the principle of individual actors freely interacting with each other, and normalizing each player being able to manipulate the preferences of another (true for States, not so much for individuals) would, I think, break down the system entirely. The entire world sending advocates for more aid to their country, who are given license to covertly influence opinion, would eventually lead to serious backlash from the people who fund that increasing aid. I.E. You get a politician like Trump.
"Now, you run into problems when actors have resources disproportionate to their moral interests."
I think this is a fine belief in principle, just like "We should tax people who have so much money they couldn't possibly spend it all to the n'th generation so we have money to give homeless veterans housing." The problem with ideals like this, when that aren't balanced by a sense of practical consideration, is that they often have unintended consequences. Especially if they taken to their logical conclusion. Off the top of my head "Moral interests" are completely arbitrary and vary dramatically from person to person, while also being present in almost every side of every issue. Weighing these in proportion to the resources they are willing to spend on influencing US policy seems like a policy that will devolve to just "Whoever is most effective at covertly influencing policy will convince us they have the best moral interests." Considering it's covert as well, we might not even really have a good idea how many resources these actors are throwing into influencing things.
Essentially, if we accept Russia and Ukraine (for example) both covertly, or at least dishonestly influencing US policy, it won't matter what the actual moral considerations are, just who is better at convincing the US electorate that their particular moral position is superior. We'd have no sense of how much resources are being dedicated to either side, and really no sense of whether or not what we're hearing is true, complete propaganda, or somewhere in between. Without a mechanism for preventing this, I think defaulting to "Foreigners and foreign governments should not be able to advocate for US policy positions except in their capacity as foreigners and foreign governments." In my view, that wouldn't include staging protests at US universities.
Another ironic point is that the man being arrested by Trump gets in the crosshair because of instigation by Zionist lobbies and their apparatchiks in the US, who in my opinion excercise a much egregious violation of American strategic autonomy than any Palestinian campus protests.
But yes, pointing out hypocrisy is not a good rhetorical device, since no one in this world is free of hypocrisy! The fulcrum of the protest against American foreign policy has always been how horrid and monstrous it was in violation of other people's sovereignity for no apparent benefit whatsoever, and this has been the position of both right libertarians like the antiwar.com guys and guys like Glenn
This is such a dishonest framing of the situation. The guy getting arrested by Trump didn't advocate for the US to give Gazans Medicare, he advocated for the US to not fund the bombs killing his people. Of course, poor, poor widdle America, being influenced by foreigners to not kill children or cause WW3! Will somebody think of the poor Americans?
The fundamental problem with this analysis is that it presumes the US to be a rational individual engaging in a free exchange, but a more realistic comparison is a man with loaded firearms and zero trigger discipline coming to your workplace and start swinging his gun at random people. Of course in that situation other people who have a direct risk of catching stray bullets reserve the right to convince said man to either leave the room or stop behaving like a lunatic
The only time I mention this specific example in my comment is when I say "This case is obviously a bad". Otherwise I talk about the principle of foreign nationals advocating for their interests in a context where it's not explicit they are foreign nationals. I.E. The principle of covert advocacy for a view by a foreign national. I don't think it's dishonest to use this example to highlight a broader point on how the country should be run, rather than overly focussing in on the specifics, which aren't actually very interesting.
I'm not worried about WW3, or anything like that. I do not find it tasteful to accept covert manipulation of US public opinion, and I don't think discriminating based on the moral character of the view being advocated is possible without it being abused in exactly the opposite direction by this, the next, or a later administration.
We either suck it up and allow foreigners to directly influence US politics, restrict political advocacy to certain contexts, or have judicial rulings on how far free speech extends in cases of foreigners who may be advocating for their own selfish national/religious/tribal interests. Case in point would be Russian interference in the US election for a president they deemed would be more favorable to them. I don't think that's acceptable, and I don't think if it was Russian students organizing a protest composed of mostly US students, it would be any more acceptable.
FWIW, I *don't* support deporting terrorists sympathizers (as opposed to actual terrorists), though if we're going to start somewhere, how about starting by deporting the people who support murdering other people for engaging in "Islamophobic" speech?
"So the regime wants to deport student activists because it thinks they’re undermining U.S. foreign policy by engaging in speech and activities “aligned to” a foreign terrorist organization, including “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American” activity."
And the regime is doing this at the behest of some, ahem, 'Elite Human Capital' individuals who felt particularly threatened by a radical growth in anti-Semetic espoused by Palestinian supporters. This is a result of unchecked immigration of wealthy individuals: ethnic blocks being used to support the power of their ethnic block against others. Don't like it? Consider rethinking some of your principles.
"Ipso facto, since we believe in protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship (which apparently means no citizenship by birthright),"
In reality, if birthright citizenship is overturned, it would be based on some arbitrary cutoff date. This is how such legalities occur in real life rather than fantasyland.
I think it would be better if the administration just deported all green card holders instead of doing it selectively to pressure the Palestinian orgs. But actual citizens have little to fear, so whatever.
Ok, but why shouldn't we deport Donald Trump and Marco Rubio?
What do you mean "we"? Aren't you Dutch?
Funny how Columbia was cherry-picked for this display of strength. College campuses are places where vigorous debate is encouraged. They even challenge students to consider alternative opinions.
This is the exact opposite of how the military education system works - this is where Mr. Trump went to school. The lack of a distinct chain of command is what makes university/college campuses so effective.
Also worth noting is that Columbia is and has always been one of the leaders in the quaternary sciences.
Hopefully this teaches woke people why free speech is important.
As you correctly point out, the First Amendment also applies to green card holders, and for that reason Khalil has not been charged with a crime. His residency status was simply revoked. The reasons why this is in fact perfectly legal have been covered elsewhere. As for the idea that Trump or Rubio ought to be deported under the same grounds, this is obviously nonsensical trolling. They are American citizens, and so the law that allows revocation of Khalil's residency status does not apply to them, as you know perfectly well.
While I agree with the sentiments of this article, I'm a lot less comfortable with the general principle of foreign nationals being able to advocate for policy decisions, and especially international policy decisions within the US.
The first amendment protects freedom of speech, but foreign nationals and governments are still prohibited from purchasing ads that specifically advocate for a politician (although it's more of a grey are when it comes to policy, rather than individual politicians). It's clear that the protections of the first amendment are *generally* not applied equally between US citizens and foreign nationals.
In such a divided country, even a little nudge left or right due to the efforts of a protest can plausibly move the needle on foreign policy. I am equally uncomfortable with a green card holder advocating for the "Liberation of Palestine" (and specifically advocating a change in foreign policy in the US government), as I would be if the 5.5 Million Chinese citizens currently legally in the US started advocating for the Chinese annexation of Taiwan. There's a principle that when you're a guest in another's home, you shouldn't dictate how other people act or live. I guess that's what is meant by "When in Rome, do as the Roman's do?"
I don't know. This case is obviously a bad example since he's even married to a US citizen, so deportation should have an EXTREMELY high bar by any reasonable standard. However, there is the conflicting intuition that just because the US has decided to allow a foreign national to legally reside in the US, doesn't mean we should give them license to spend significant efforts changing national policy. If this wasn't the case, I think the nation would be a lot weaker to foreign influence, and I'd personally have a slightly less favorable view on immigration without considering the political opinions of those immigrating, which I don't like.
I think foreigners should have a lot more influence over US foreign policy. They’re the ones being affected by it, after all.
Should Russia have more influence over US aid to Ukraine since it affects them quite a bit? Should Israel be able to covertly advocate for increased direct cash transfers to them? Should China be able to influence US opinion on Taiwan through its many citizens living in the US?
Anything that meaningfully departs from the question "What policy is best for the United States and its people" inherently comes with opportunity cost, born by American citizens, usually for the benefit of some other interest. Hypothetically, if it was in US interests to support Gaza, but Israel spent a large amount of resources on swinging US opinion to opposing Gaza, then this would be bad for the United States, bad for Gaza, and good for Israel. Especially in something as zero-sum as a war, where one side's gain is pretty much the other side's loss, influence for one side is negative influence for the other.
Foreigners are affected by foreign policy, but they don't bare its direct costs, just its outcomes. I have nothing against people with their own interests advocating for those interests, but I can see a problem if the way it is done isn't explicit, like protesting at a US university, where people would assume the protests are representing the opinions of the American youth.
In principle, yes, yes, and yes. In practice, no.
To be frank, I don’t care about the US national interest. I care about universalist humanitarian interests. It’s absurd to think “direct costs” borne by Americans are inherently more important than “outcomes” borne by foreigners when the direct costs are a few billion dollars and the outcomes are life or death for hundreds of thousands of people.
Now, you run into problems when actors have resources disproportionate to their moral interests (eg, Israel). But that doesn’t apply in the protest case.
I think this is a little too idealist of a position to be held by a Libertarian?
In economics, if I had a say with what you did with your money, I'd just say that you should give it to me. An explicit appeal wouldn't work for that though, so perhaps I psychologically manipulate you by promising a huge return on investment in a couple of years, or say it's for my sick mother, or otherwise covertly change your views to be more favorable to me through dishonest means.
A generalized principle of universalist interests doesn't actually work without a very carefully planned out centralized system for ensuring that people aren't able to abuse that system. The United States, in one way or another gives aid to much of the world. A universalist perspective would say this is good (I agree), since the US has so much, and the many other places so little. If we added on top of this aid "Also foreign countries get meaningful influence on how much aid they receive", the obvious answer the entire world will say in unison is: "MORE!"
Capitalism and free markets are great because they are efficient, and give us the most resources to increase the welfare of the whole. Regulating those markets is necessary, but departing from the principle of individual actors freely interacting with each other, and normalizing each player being able to manipulate the preferences of another (true for States, not so much for individuals) would, I think, break down the system entirely. The entire world sending advocates for more aid to their country, who are given license to covertly influence opinion, would eventually lead to serious backlash from the people who fund that increasing aid. I.E. You get a politician like Trump.
"Now, you run into problems when actors have resources disproportionate to their moral interests."
I think this is a fine belief in principle, just like "We should tax people who have so much money they couldn't possibly spend it all to the n'th generation so we have money to give homeless veterans housing." The problem with ideals like this, when that aren't balanced by a sense of practical consideration, is that they often have unintended consequences. Especially if they taken to their logical conclusion. Off the top of my head "Moral interests" are completely arbitrary and vary dramatically from person to person, while also being present in almost every side of every issue. Weighing these in proportion to the resources they are willing to spend on influencing US policy seems like a policy that will devolve to just "Whoever is most effective at covertly influencing policy will convince us they have the best moral interests." Considering it's covert as well, we might not even really have a good idea how many resources these actors are throwing into influencing things.
Essentially, if we accept Russia and Ukraine (for example) both covertly, or at least dishonestly influencing US policy, it won't matter what the actual moral considerations are, just who is better at convincing the US electorate that their particular moral position is superior. We'd have no sense of how much resources are being dedicated to either side, and really no sense of whether or not what we're hearing is true, complete propaganda, or somewhere in between. Without a mechanism for preventing this, I think defaulting to "Foreigners and foreign governments should not be able to advocate for US policy positions except in their capacity as foreigners and foreign governments." In my view, that wouldn't include staging protests at US universities.
Another ironic point is that the man being arrested by Trump gets in the crosshair because of instigation by Zionist lobbies and their apparatchiks in the US, who in my opinion excercise a much egregious violation of American strategic autonomy than any Palestinian campus protests.
But yes, pointing out hypocrisy is not a good rhetorical device, since no one in this world is free of hypocrisy! The fulcrum of the protest against American foreign policy has always been how horrid and monstrous it was in violation of other people's sovereignity for no apparent benefit whatsoever, and this has been the position of both right libertarians like the antiwar.com guys and guys like Glenn
This is such a dishonest framing of the situation. The guy getting arrested by Trump didn't advocate for the US to give Gazans Medicare, he advocated for the US to not fund the bombs killing his people. Of course, poor, poor widdle America, being influenced by foreigners to not kill children or cause WW3! Will somebody think of the poor Americans?
The fundamental problem with this analysis is that it presumes the US to be a rational individual engaging in a free exchange, but a more realistic comparison is a man with loaded firearms and zero trigger discipline coming to your workplace and start swinging his gun at random people. Of course in that situation other people who have a direct risk of catching stray bullets reserve the right to convince said man to either leave the room or stop behaving like a lunatic
The only time I mention this specific example in my comment is when I say "This case is obviously a bad". Otherwise I talk about the principle of foreign nationals advocating for their interests in a context where it's not explicit they are foreign nationals. I.E. The principle of covert advocacy for a view by a foreign national. I don't think it's dishonest to use this example to highlight a broader point on how the country should be run, rather than overly focussing in on the specifics, which aren't actually very interesting.
I'm not worried about WW3, or anything like that. I do not find it tasteful to accept covert manipulation of US public opinion, and I don't think discriminating based on the moral character of the view being advocated is possible without it being abused in exactly the opposite direction by this, the next, or a later administration.
We either suck it up and allow foreigners to directly influence US politics, restrict political advocacy to certain contexts, or have judicial rulings on how far free speech extends in cases of foreigners who may be advocating for their own selfish national/religious/tribal interests. Case in point would be Russian interference in the US election for a president they deemed would be more favorable to them. I don't think that's acceptable, and I don't think if it was Russian students organizing a protest composed of mostly US students, it would be any more acceptable.
You can call for the death of White people, by criticizing a outside country is the one thing that gets you in trouble.
FWIW, I *don't* support deporting terrorists sympathizers (as opposed to actual terrorists), though if we're going to start somewhere, how about starting by deporting the people who support murdering other people for engaging in "Islamophobic" speech?
"So the regime wants to deport student activists because it thinks they’re undermining U.S. foreign policy by engaging in speech and activities “aligned to” a foreign terrorist organization, including “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American” activity."
And the regime is doing this at the behest of some, ahem, 'Elite Human Capital' individuals who felt particularly threatened by a radical growth in anti-Semetic espoused by Palestinian supporters. This is a result of unchecked immigration of wealthy individuals: ethnic blocks being used to support the power of their ethnic block against others. Don't like it? Consider rethinking some of your principles.
"Ipso facto, since we believe in protecting the meaning and value of American citizenship (which apparently means no citizenship by birthright),"
In reality, if birthright citizenship is overturned, it would be based on some arbitrary cutoff date. This is how such legalities occur in real life rather than fantasyland.
I think it would be better if the administration just deported all green card holders instead of doing it selectively to pressure the Palestinian orgs. But actual citizens have little to fear, so whatever.