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Elephants and Jackasses...

Discussion in 'Permanent Threads' started by Nettdata, Oct 14, 2016.

  1. GTE

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    I'm fairly certain that the wifey can get dual citizenship in Spain but it's one thing to talk about it, another thing completely to move away from friends, family, kids and grandkid(s).
     
  2. NatCH

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    Booker’s trying to pass the Thurmond line!
     
  3. Aetius

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    Dude was a D1 football player. He's been doing two-a-days since he was a child. This filibuster ain't no thing.
     
  4. Misanthropic

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    Booker has been largely invisible since he was elected to the Senate. About time he actually did something, even if it was symbolic.
     
  5. Aetius

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  6. Binary

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    I'm not really targeting you with this comment because I know you're not a Trump supporter or anything, but I think this particular line is a favorite right wing straw man.

    Basically nobody I've ever talked to thinks that the United States should have wide open borders over which anyone can pass and become a permanent resident. Not even the hardcore liberals (and believe me, I am a pretty hardcore liberal).

    But it's perfectly reasonable to say that:
    • immigration reforms need to account for people who are already here without mass deportations or other draconian measures
    • we have legal and humanitarian obligations to asylum which basically every developed nation has, and we can't and shouldn't ignore that
    • the fucking 14th amendment says what it says, so if someone wants to change that they need to amend the constitution
    If people want stronger border policies? More clear legal frameworks on what constitutes asylum? Better infrastructure for handling refugees? Stronger border protecting technologies and agents? Enforcement on businesses that hire employees without verification of their legal status? All reasonable things.

    But an immigration "problem" (if one exists) is not fixed by clogging up the court systems from processing legal immigration, or sending ICE agents into communities for mass deportations, or stripping rights away from people, or stupid ideas like a border wall. It starts with the hard work of establishing better policy and practices moving forward, and some kind of humanitarian way to deal with those who are already here.

    Nobody thinks you should be able to just walk into the US and get a passport.
     
  7. SouthernIdiot

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    Aww, poor Elon couldn't buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court vote. Eat shit asshole.
     
  8. greybeard

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    There has to be a degree of hypocrisy over concerns about immigration given most countries are populated by migrants. Just a matter of arguing about if it's the current generation or their ancestors who are the migrants.
     
  9. Binary

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    I agree.

    Generally speaking, I am not against strong borders. I think it's reasonable to be able to legally define the people you are allowing into the country, and enforce that.

    The problem I have with a lot of these discussions is that they're always centered on the wrong things. Aside from the fact that many people have opinions on immigration that are simply veiled (or not-so-veiled) racism, most of them are not focused on actually solving problems but rather punishing the immigrants.

    Mass deportations are dehumanizing for entire communities, have an incredibly error rate, and often result in the family breadwinner being deported leaving whoever else behind, which isn't a great outcome for the communities. All that and it doesn't even begin to stop the actual problem of illegal immigration.

    We have a legal framework for asylum, just like nearly every other wealthy country. Ensnaring the gears of the legal processing for asylum seekers is not fixing illegal immigration. Even if you believe that many asylum seekers are abusing the system, that doesn't mean you can ignore our legal obligations.

    And all of this needs to be contextualized. Are we getting actual economic harm? How much? Immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the average population. Even if we accept that the current situation is undesirable, should we spend the money and time and manpower to fix this when there are so many other places to spend it? That last question isn't rhetorical - I am not sure what the answer is, but the existence of illegal immigrants does not prove that we should shovel unlimited resources at stopping it. What I do know is that the GOP doesn't have an actual plan here, outside of the presumption that anyone undocumented is less than human and should be treated as such.
     
  10. Nettdata

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    In our case, we didn't do any mass deportations. Our problem was that we opened up the borders too much for a while, and a shit-ton of people came in that needed help, and ended up stressing our social services to the breaking point. Major cities had up to a 40% increase in socialized services use, without having the same increase of taxation to help pay for it, or planning to support it. It resulted in them really reducing the amount of immigrants we allowed in.
     
  11. Binary

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    Sure. There's nothing wrong with making decisions about the amount or type of permitted immigration, especially when it's a data driven decision based on economics or measurable outcomes. It just has to be done with the tacit acknowledgement that immigrants are still humans, their documentation status does not entitle them to free beatings, and that structural failings in border security or immigration processing need to be fixed at the structural level.

    The democrats introduced the biggest border security reform bill in history and it was killed by the republicans strictly because the current GOP doesn't want a functional government - they want problems they can point at and scream.
     
  12. jdoogie

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    Clearly you've never met a Florida Cuban.
     
  13. SouthernIdiot

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    Pervert Hoover seems intent on crashing the global economy. The overnight session may be spicy tonight.
     
  14. SouthernIdiot

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    And we're off, down 200 points on the open. Buckle up ladies and gents.
     
  15. Nettdata

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    I listened to about 3 minutes of his announcement about the tariffs... calling them the best thing ever done in the US... and I threw up a bit in my mouth and turned it off.
     
  16. Nettdata

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    He even called them The Flexible Tariffs of Kindness.
     
  17. Nettdata

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    And he's starting to sell off his $2.3b stake in Truth Social.
     
  18. Aetius

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    Trump literally tariffed the Heard and McDonald Islands, an Australian territory near Antarctica that exists as a UNESCO world heritage site and has a population of 0.
     
  19. SouthernIdiot

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    "Stable Genius"
     
  20. dixiebandit69

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    I thought he couldn't sell those for the next five years, or something like that.