The News Thread

[Dak]

"In" and "from" aren't mutually exclusive. The insidiousness lies in thinking we can easily separate them.

Correct, they aren't. But progressives almost exclusively use "from", which carries the connotation that people are in some sort of distinct space from their physical place, ie "the world". Notice this doesn't apply to being from "the world" though. Other countries have governments and peoples which must needs see to their own affairs.

Are you accusing me of being ignorant to the fact that an influx of immigrants drive down property values? Because I'm well aware of that, but it doesn't strike me as an argument against immigration.

As far as crowding schools and depressing wages go, maybe what we need is an overhaul of the education system and rethinking of how we allocate wages. One of the greatest lies we've been told by economists over the past several centuries is that the market works out to everyone's benefit; but that's not true. The market just works. That doesn't mean it's unfeasible to adapt market policy in directions it wouldn't go "naturally."

"How we allocate wages". We don't allocate wages. Supply and demand pressures sort money. Adding to the supply of workers in a particular area reduces relative demand. The market absolutely has worked to everyone's benefit. Just not equally....which was never promised. Even the poor in the US have items the rich didn't have 100 years ago, or in the case of smartphones, even little more than ten years ago.

I'm all for overhauling the education system. It's based on a 200+ year old model. But it would require the state ceding control and funding, which won't happen. Inertia is a powerful force.

When a person breaks into your house, every conceivable action is unlawful. When they sleep on your couch, they're sleeping on your couch; when they eat your food, they're eating your food; when they watch your TV, they're watching your TV. It's not merely the act of breaking in that's illegal, but all contact with your possessions--every step they take.

Not exactly. There's no additional laws about "sleeping on the couch". Eating food is stealing, separate law broken. Maybe they could even conduct legal business out of my house, which is not some new infraction either to my knowledge.

When immigrants enter this country illegally, their occupancy doesn't violate your private property rights. They're not taking unfair advantage of what's yours. They're not unlawfully using your shit.

The broader, systemic effects of unchecked immigration are of crucial importance for discussion; but this isn't what's happening now, and no one is saying the U.S. needs to sustain unchecked immigration indefinitely. From the very beginning, I've been objecting to your simplistic and problematic analogy between the United States and a person's private house. These aren't comparable institutions and comparing them invites nasty and unnecessarily hostile attitudes towards illegal immigrants.

Stop attacking a strawman argument. The private property analogy is an analogy. Now, I will point out that in many cases, at least along the Texas border, there is trespassing that occurs due to illegal immigration, but that's not the broader point. When immigrants enter illegally, every step is constantly illegal, whether additional actions are violating additional laws or not. The problem here is that you (and others of a similar opinion) see illegal immigrants and legal immigrants as different in degree, not in kind. Myself and others of more similar opinions see them as different in kind, and different in degree from armed invading forces. This is the source of the differences in levels of "hostility".

 

[Einherjar86]

Correct, they aren't. But progressives almost exclusively use "from", which carries the connotation that people are in some sort of distinct space from their physical place, ie "the world". Notice this doesn't apply to being from "the world" though. Other countries have governments and peoples which must needs see to their own affairs.

And you wanted to exclusively use “in.”

"How we allocate wages". We don't allocate wages. Supply and demand pressures sort money.

Yes, I understand that. A poor choice of words, but what I meant is that we can rethink how supply and demand distributes money. For market fundamentalists, this is always automatically off the table. Any poses discussion of alternatives seems one a commie bullshitter from the outset.

Stop attacking a strawman argument. The private property analogy is an analogy.

It’s a bad analogy. Locking one’s doors implies you don’t want someone coming in and either a) using your property, or b) stealing from you or otherwise committing some crime against you or your property. The assumption is that such people entering your home have ill intent to either use what’s yours or mistreat what’s yours. You must extend this assumption to immigrants (illegal ones, yes); but it doesn’t hold up. As the property owner of your house, you have the right to determine what’s done to your property; this doesn’t describe a citizenry’s relationship to its nation, which is a) collective, and b) not privately owned.

Your analogy contains assumptions that don’t carry over (or if they do, then we’re talking about another problem).

 

[Dak]

And you wanted to exclusively use “in.”

........................

The assumption is that such people entering your home have ill intent to either use what’s yours or mistreat what’s yours. You must extend this assumption to immigrants (illegal ones, yes); but it doesn’t hold up. As the property owner of your house, you have the right to determine what’s done to your property; this doesn’t describe a citizenry’s relationship to its nation, which is a) collective, and b) not privately owned.

Because unless we are talking about US citizens in another country, the "in" is the fact that matters for reasons of national policy. The wellbeing of the existing citizenry and their descendents are the only legitimate interests of a nation/national government. And that goes for the US and other nations. The wellbeing of the citizenry of other countries are those countries' concern. This moral imperialism, if you will, sees the US as responsible for all other persons in the world. It's a sentiment which has buoyed military "adventurism", and also seeks to destroy the native citizenry with the import of more hungry mouths, teeming with diseases, and lacking basic literacy.

As the US has no magic dirt to solve these problems, their presence is a drain on resources produced by others and a depressing of markets they move into - illegally - which means that their intent is ill; they want what they have no right to. In the cases where illegals are not of the abject poor (like tech sector H1B overstays), they instead are part of a brain drain operation on countries which are trying to develop, and yet still depress respective markets. A single citizen has no right to determine what happens to the nation, but the nation does and in a republic or democracy this does involve the wishes of a plurality of the citizenry.

A poor choice of words, but what I meant is that we can rethink how supply and demand distributes money. For market fundamentalists, this is always automatically off the table. Any poses discussion of alternatives seems one a commie bullshitter from the outset.

We already attempt to do that through the fractional reserve banking system, progressive taxation, transfer payments, federal and state grants, tax incentives, etc. Each of these creates different supply and demand pressures but rarely "neatly" as intended. Except maybe the banking system benefiting banks and bankers, primarily, and the state education system benefits the state.

 

[Einherjar86]

Because unless we are talking about US citizens in another country, the "in" is the fact that matters for reasons of national policy. The wellbeing of the existing citizenry and their descendents are the only legitimate interests of a nation/national government. And that goes for the US and other nations. The wellbeing of the citizenry of other countries are those countries' concern.

And then we encounter the problem of countries for whom the well-being of their citizens matters little--and citizens who no longer wish to remain in that country. Mobility is largely a matter of privilege, but it shouldn't be (that's a personal opinion, not a statement of fact).

The rights of human beings extend beyond what individual countries grant their citizens, and when dealing with human rights we can't default to each country's obligations to its citizens. There needs to be a larger conversation, and slamming the door (literally and figuratively) on immigration--even those who attempt to enter illegally--obstructs the global picture. Whether or not immigrants have pursued their citizenship legally should not be the be-all end-all of whether they're allowed to stay.

This moral imperialism, if you will, sees the US as responsible for all other persons in the world. It's a sentiment which has buoyed military "adventurism", and also seeks to destroy the native citizenry with the import of more hungry mouths, teeming with diseases, and lacking basic literacy.

As the US has no magic dirt to solve these problems, their presence is a drain on resources produced by others and a depressing of markets they move into - illegally - which means that their intent is ill; they want what they have no right to. In the cases where illegals are not of the abject poor (like tech sector H1B overstays), they instead are part of a brain drain operation on countries which are trying to develop, and yet still depress respective markets. A single citizen has no right to determine what happens to the nation, but the nation does and in a republic or democracy this does involve the wishes of a plurality of the citizenry.

I don't think the U.S. has magic dirt that can solve the entire global migration and displacement crisis; but it has means it chooses not to use, in part because of rather uninformed opinions among a very large percentage of Americans. I think part of the solution needs to be changing people's minds about who immigrants actually are. And I think the house analogy perpetuates that kind of misinformation.

We already attempt to do that through the fractional reserve banking system, progressive taxation, transfer payments, federal and state grants, tax incentives, etc. Each of these creates different supply and demand pressures but rarely "neatly" as intended. Except maybe the banking system benefiting banks and bankers, primarily, and the state education system benefits the state.

We do, I agree.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Yeah good riddance.

so apparently the guys who killed him tried to gouge his eyes out and cut his tongue off.

 

[Krow]

so apparently the guys who killed him tried to gouge his eyes out and cut his tongue off.

Hazelton is a rough spot. It’s definitely the worst place to get locked up in WV. My uncle has worked there for like 15 years. The gang higher ups basically keep the peace there. (When they want it)

 

[Dak]

My snipping of your post isn't meant to suggest I didn't read it all or don't think it's not a coherent piece, but I want to zero in on, what I think, are the key pieces undergirding the disagreement.

The rights of human beings extend beyond what individual countries grant their citizens

It appears that we've switched positions on this, or maybe your devil's advocating has assisted me in shifting off this position when you really believed this all along; I don't know which is the case. But rights are a particular ideal which require force to enforce. How does one enforce rights inside, or outside the borders of a nation? With force. There's no magic aura of rights inhering in anyone.

And then we encounter the problem of countries for whom the well-being of their citizens matters little--and citizens who no longer wish to remain in that country. Mobility is largely a matter of privilege, but it shouldn't be (that's a personal opinion, not a statement of fact)......The rights of human beings extend beyond what individual countries grant their citizens, and when dealing with human rights we can't default to each country's obligations to its citizens.

Why? How? These are completely unsubstantiated assertions (potentially the "privilege of mobility" aside - it appears that migrants and refugees are quite mobile) which beg much force, blood, and treasure on their behalf.

There needs to be a larger conversation, and slamming the door (literally and figuratively) on immigration--even those who attempt to enter illegally--obstructs the global picture. Whether or not immigrants have pursued their citizenship legally should not be the be-all end-all of whether they're allowed to stay........I don't think the U.S. has magic dirt that can solve the entire global migration and displacement crisis; but it has means it chooses not to use, in part because of rather uninformed opinions among a very large percentage of Americans. I think part of the solution needs to be changing people's minds about who immigrants actually are. And I think the house analogy perpetuates that kind of misinformation.

Just because many Americans don't share your opinions doesn't make them uninformed. You're attempting to make a moral argument, and various "facts" don't change the calculations. The disagreement, along moral lines, can be represented by this social psychology graph from Haidt's research:

 

[CiG]

Don Lemon in hot water over him saying that white men are the biggest terror threat.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

oh the irony in one of these new school "passive aggressive" racists calling others racist. But hey, we need more people like him to just keep burying the left deeper and deeper. I'm so happy this country has woken in recent years and started to see these scumbags for what they truly are.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[CiG]

They try to attribute literally anything to Trump, it's so hysterical.

 

[Dak]

Stats don't back up Lemon. Whole numbers absent any relative context (eg proportional statistics, etc.) only make the argument that white nationalists are an equivalent threat with the ever present since 9/11 caveat and ignoring foiled plots. And of course other minority gang violence is left out for comparison completely. Whether hack or shill, Lemon is a racist fake newser, aka a journalist.

 

[CiG]

It's my favourite thing how they always frame their race-baiting contrarianist argument with "since [insert massive atrocity here]" haha. And of course it's always as a reaction to criticism of Islam, as if "white" is an ideology one can join or leave.

 

[arg]

Beto o rourke staff using campaign funds to feed and transport central american migrants

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

Beto O'Rourke for President

 

[The Ozzman]

Beto O'Rourke for President

Fuck off, cuck

 

[The Ozzman]

http://mwf.mb.ca/2018/11/01/firearm-ban-input/

Canada being cucks again. This is the key passage that no one ever understands in ty he great gun debate:

Further into the document Blair identifies theft, straw purchasing and firearms smuggling as significantly contributing to illicit firearms on the streets. In a nutshell, illegal activities by criminals are causing illegal firearms to become illegally available to other criminals… illegally

 

[Dak]

Unfortunately there are some who can't interpret this in a way that doesn't implicate my proverbial gun gathering proverbial dust in the proverbial closet.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

A bummer for Canada's legal pot market: Weed shortages - CBS News

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Disgusting Details Emerge About MANOWAR Guitarist Being Charged With Possessing Child Pornography