Topher remarks that "it's hard to explain America's current immigration policies without assuming a lot of quiet support" for citizenism.  But he actually establishes a broader point: it's hard to explain any country's policies on any important issue without assuming a lot of quiet support for citizenism.  Indeed, silent citizenism is baked into countries very perceptions about what issues are important.

Right. We live in a world of about 200 countries, a world that for all its flaws, is relatively peaceful and prosperous. And the basis of that order has been a set of assumptions about what the purpose of government is that both Caplan and myself call citizenism. This set of ideas have been almost forgotten among elites in 21st Century America, but it’s not hard to find it well stated:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The difference between Caplan and me is merely that he wants to take this order based on citizenism and blow it up, while I don’t.

That’s why I’m an extremist.