Ambiguous meaning for the foreigners question.

[JakeLaCombe]

I understand this was looked at in #81, but I feel the following question is a little hard to understand.

"Governments should be as concerned about foreigners as they are about their own citizens."

It's hard to say if it means the police should take a more proactive role in detaining them, or if the united states should care for the foreigners by providing them with an appropriate safety net.

[Genora51]

So this is definitely intended as something like the latter interpretation: that governments should care for foreigners (foreign aid etc.).

This question definitely isn't suggesting an aggressive policing and detention policy.

[JakeLaCombe]

Perhaps the words "be as concerned" could be changed to "Governments should care about foreigners"?

[edelstone]

@JakeLaCombe That kind of retains the same problem in a way. I'd go with something more specific like "Governments should be as concerned about the well-being of foreigners as they are about their own citizens" or similar.

[m1omg]

That is still ambiguous. What if I think permanent resident foreigners in my country without citizenship should be treated like citizens but don't think people living elsewhere that I didn't harm are my responsibility?

[edelstone]

I'm not sure the question as written is ambiguous, it's just that what you're proposing isn't precisely the information being asked for. It's not attempting to make the distinction between citizens and residents who happen to not be citizens. For the purposes of this question, the answerer would be forced to disregard opinions about residents of your own country who aren't citizens, or to consider them citizens or foreigners for simplicity. Would that produce noise in the results? Not sure, but totally possible.

[ten7ei]

Maybe to keep the intentional meaning here a new suggestion for the question, maybe still not in a very nice language but maybe someone can improve it:

"Governments should help their own citizens as much as any other human in the world."