What happens without the western practices of the scientific method, debate, and evidence? Consider the case of agricultural processes in the 20th century Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin promoted the pseudo-scientific principles of Trofim Lysenko, who rejected the 'bourgeouis' genetics science of Gregory Mendel.

Scientists who defended Mendel's genetics based on the evidence lost their jobs. The geneticist Nikolai Vavilov, the most distinguished of them, was arrested, imprisoned, and ultimately died in a prison in Saratov, Russia, in 1943.

Agriculture built on the approved "science" failed in the 2 communist states, Soviet Union and China, where it was used, causing widespread famine and loss of life.

Political ideology had overruled open inquiry and led to widespread famines in two countries.

Shown: Nikolai Vavilov — World Telegram staff photographer, 1933. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Mibalu.

Every society decides who belongs to it. The West decides that question through written law, contested in public, and revised when the argument changes. The United States extends most constitutional protections to every person on its soil, citizen or not, while reserving voting, jury service and certain benefits to citizens. The line between citizen, lawful immigrant and unlawful entrant is drawn and redrawn in courts and in elections.

One side argues that a country which cannot define its own membership cannot govern itself, and that the distinction is what makes citizenship mean anything. The other argues that protections held only by members are privileges rather than rights, and that a person's claim on decent treatment does not depend on paperwork.

Both sides reason from the same pillar and reach different places, which is what makes this topic an ongoing argument.

Shown: applicants taking the Oath of Allegiance at a naturalization ceremony, 2017. Photograph by the National Park Service. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons, uploaded by Ser Amantio di Nicolao.