[tgb]

I find the situation where we grant rights to our citizens without granting them to foreigners (particularly citizens of our close allies, but also foreigners in general) bizarre and backwards. While I'm sure that there are some rights that cannot be extended to non-citizens, it seems that the default should be to treat all people independently of their country of origin unless there are strong arguments why we cannot.

[jeremysmyth]

Rights (as they exist today) are based in legislation. Legislation is fundamentally political. Politics is glorified tribalism.

While the people who formulate and enforce our rights are put there by geographic tribes, you won't see rights that stretch far beyond your borders. It's only when a community that is no longer geographic in nature forms tribes that we see the geographic tribes pay attention to the rights of "foreigners", and not because they're foreign, but because they're important to their own voters.

[mkempe]

We've gone from the assertion that absolute rights are inherent in human nature and inalienable, to the post-modern world where nations supposedly grant "rights" to the populace -- and subject them to massive surveillance.

The two visions are incompatible. If you believe rights are granted by government, then you don't believe in the universality of individual rights -- which take precedence over governments and nation-states.

[wtbob]

> I find the situation where we grant rights to our citizens without granting them to foreigners (particularly citizens of our close allies, but also foreigners in general) bizarre and backwards.

I find the idea that subjects of a foreign state have any rights not arranged by agreement between our state and theirs fundamentally bizarre. That's what states are for, in a post-Westphalian world.