That’s it, VPM, justify the terrorizing of children. It’s your boy doing, so you gotta make it ok in your mind.
Trump is holding children hostage
- Thread starter Rockfish1
- Start date
That’s it, VPM, justify the terrorizing of children. It’s your boy doing, so you gotta make it ok in your mind.
Spot on, sir.
I'm so radically exhausted of partisan rhetoric devoid of concrete research that I've begun retracting from debate....as it's a waste of time. I think the US body politic is lost, in general. Nobody really cares.
Live your life, focus on your family and career. Don't vote for dumb people. It should work out.
In a normal world, I would accuse you of being too cynical, but unfortunately, in the world we actually live in, I think you are being too optimistic.
I kind of hate George Takei as a sellout capitalist asshole, but this is worth a read: http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/19...ever-utter-family-separation-children-border/
@Bruce1 @IUCrazy2
You have both asked me a similar question in the past week, which I haven't answered in full, because I didn't have an answer. The question from each of you was essentially, "What would you do, then?"
I now have an answer.
When these families from Central America trying to escape violence and death showed up at our southern border, I would do this: I would say, "Congratulations on surviving the journey. Welcome to the promised land. Welcome to America. America welcomes you."
That would come first. Making it all work would come second. But welcoming them would come first.
Call that open borders if you want, but I say screw you, I call it having a soul.
After long and hard thought, that's my answer.
Matt 25.35
You have both asked me a similar question in the past week, which I haven't answered in full, because I didn't have an answer. The question from each of you was essentially, "What would you do, then?"
I now have an answer.
When these families from Central America trying to escape violence and death showed up at our southern border, I would do this: I would say, "Congratulations on surviving the journey. Welcome to the promised land. Welcome to America. America welcomes you."
That would come first. Making it all work would come second. But welcoming them would come first.
Call that open borders if you want, but I say screw you, I call it having a soul.
After long and hard thought, that's my answer.
Matt 25.35
As we know....history shows that all forms of human organizational structures eventually fall...and then reformat and rebuild into their next permutation. So this idea of "America" will eventually fall apart, as well. I'm certain of that.
But we have people that want to argue about a made up line in the middle of a desert somewhere.
Virtue signaling is gratifying. But it doesn't solve anything.
Your policy is limited to those "families" trying to escape "violence and death". You presumably would deny entry the purveyors of violence and death; so you also need border control.
Congratulations for not responding to what I actually said. I will presume it's because you don't want to admit publicly that your response to these families fleeing violence and death would be to tell them to go f*** themselves.
The politics are similar. The goals aren't. Trump is an extreme isolationist/protectionist. Wants to spend a lot of military money to do absolutely nothing other than create domestic jobs and juice the domestic economy. But I don't see a guy that wants any part of starting military conflict using US forces.
It's Pat Buchanan as President..with Orange hair. His ideology is known, and isn't really new
...it's just a big moment of retread politics in America.
It'll be short lived. 4 years is a blip. This guy was President for 4 years too...another Buchanan. It was a lot worse then...
Last edited:
The goals are different - Trump is no Hitler - but the motivation behind the support is the same - Us vs. Them. Trump is the ultimate Us-ist.
Its inevitable that the USA will fall into a less dominant nation -- but not in our lifetime. The next two 'Great powers' possibilities are China and India.
I don't see China as a dominant global force like the US -- they are generally too inward looking as a culture. Sure you see the expansion of its soft influence across Asia, Africa and now in southern Europe. But its inherent in the Chinese political and cultural system to do it first to survive (ie to ensure the social harmony/fabric of the society due to the crap that happened in the past century or so.
Metaphorically speaking, it s a bit like their military -- lots of build up but its never fought a full-on war for centuries. It has also never had a permanent sphere of influence or the governing on a large swath of land outside mainland China for centuries (ie Korea, parts of Vietnam etc.) This is at the DNA level.
Instability in China is also bad for everyone due to its economic impact on the world.
That's why as irritating as them having bases in the South China Sea, illegally I might add, I still don't see them expanding their influence beyond commercial, pride or survival purposes.
India on the other hand, if they get their acts together internally, they would be there to dominate globally for a long time. There are approximately 25-30million non-resident Indians (NRIs) around the world -- ie Indian expats. Just look at the number of Indian NRI CEOs right now. They have a very go-getter culture, highly educated and extremely smart ones at that. Like China, its also a very, very old culture and therefore will play the long game. Their biggest hurdle is the federal governmental system they have internally, caste system and corruption. With the right leader in Delhi, they could take off and dominate, globally.
They will be the next-in-line after China peaks.
One can look at study after study, conservatives value law and social order while liberals value fairness and empathy. This border topic shows the gulf more clearly than almost any other issue.
To a liberal, conservatives are telling people inside a burning building they cannot break the glass to exit through the windows. To a conservative we have Crazy's sugar theft analogy.
And we just cannot make sense of why the other side sees what they see.
And eventually you will have yourself a poverty and violence infested country that you will have to flee. In your world, hopefully Canada will be just as naive.
I think you are basically labeling my stance as heartless. I think that any stance that thinks borders are just arbitrary lines in the desert to be ignored is brainless. If you are a billionaire who would like to help the world with your wealth and you advertise that everyone who shows up at your door will get $1,000 on Saturday. Well 3 million people show up so your $1,000 promise becomes a $333.33 promise. On Sunday you are broke, those people have only received enough money to maybe buy groceries for a few weeks and then they are broke too. Now you are all in the same boat. You did not help anything, you just put one more person in poverty.
That is your "solution". sglowrider speaks of all nations eventually falling. I say this, importing the problems of the world will hasten that demise. None of you must have children with the flippancy that you treat this.
Because one thing all of us who have kids know is that it's totally a good idea to rip migrants' children away from their moms and dads and put them in cages. That's the sort of thing that all good parents know to be flippant about. The Bible tells us so.
Do you remember Stripes, "Our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country"? How is what you are describing any different than who came here from Ireland, Germany, Italy all through the 1800s? We like to think the best of those countries came to America, I doubt seriously reality matches that.
Personally, we need to get those countries reformed somehow. While working on that, some sort of temporary sanctuary reviewed every 3 years or so.
I value law and order because you need it in order to have any legitimate shot at your fairness and empathy. Without law and social order, we are the places those people are fleeing from.
I value fairness and empathy because without those you have the countries we fought in WW2. The truth is, we have to balance.
I don't believe America is so weak that a few refugees could destroy it.
On the contrary....having children greatly changed my outlook on this issue.
I'm not an open border advocate, I would continue to deport all those apprehended at the border...just as the prior 2 admins did.
As to borders....yes they are arbitrary in the philosophical sense. Countries are nothing more than modern day tribal groups.....when looked at in a long-term sense they are rather ridiculous. But humans are inherently tribal...so they must feel part of some bigger group...and requiring the sense of protection that tribe provides.
But that's a much larger philosophical discussion for another topic.
Last edited:
I can't believe you call yourself a Christian, VPM. You just made three posts about this topic and you didn't have a single ounce of empathy for the children. You don't care. Deflect, deflect, deflect, blame. (R) (D).
Simple. All of those people came before FDR and LBJ were President. They came before the nanny state. They came before modern medicine extended lifespans. They came before a time when 50% (give or take) of our populace thought universal healthcare is a right. You cannot have all of the social programs that liberals champion on one hand and unfettered immigration on the other. Eventually those in need will overwhelm those with the means to provide assistance.
When all those people came over in the 1800's, they did not get a government check to assist them in the transition. They were dumped into the country and told to sink or swim. Many of them sank. Do you want to go back to that?
And before you say, "well these people are not allowed to get that assistance...", I will agree that now they are not supposed to or are supposed to be blocked from doing so. That is because they reside in an illegal status. What you propose would change their status. Denying them benefits would immediately create a large and ever growing group of second class citizens. That would not stand in the long term and we all know it.
States provide order. All of the things that you poo-poo as being arbitrary are the building blocks of civilization. Your property line and your home are just arbitrary things in the philosophical sense too. I guarantee you would pitch a fit if I set up a tent in your back yard and stole food from your house to feed my family though. And if your neighbor claimed part of your back yard to extend his pink flamingo display, you would remind him of the arbitrary property lines that were set up to delineate what was yours and what is his. Why? Because you and your family (tribe) spent resources to purchase that land and use it how you saw fit. You are not bound to let some asshole just take it without asking. If he asked, you might be willing to share but that still denotes your rights to your property to decide what you will do with it.
Now you may be longing for some Star Trek future where all of humankind is living together as one big unit, but we are a long ways from that. Philosophically that may be interesting but it has no relevance to the actual current state of things.
You are making a great argument for much higher levels of immigration.
If we don't get more people of working age....working legit jobs.....our entire social safety net of SS/Medicare will collapse.
This came up in another thread. Our birthrate is very low. We are heading toward Japan if we don't get younger blood from somewhere.
Hm. Is it virtue signaling to impute to somebody you disagree with an unvirtuous position?
No. That is not my position.
Yes I have a great deal of sympathy for those fleeing death and violence.
No, I don’t believe all the illegal immigrants are fleeing death and violence. I don’t think you and other leftists give two shits about death and violence anyway. A couple of dozen people were shot at an event in New Jersey last week and not a peep. Dozens of people, and many kids, are shot in Chicago and not a peep. You only speak of death and violence when you can leverage it for political gain, like bashing the NRA or Trump.
Yes, I think parents who drag their kids across a remote desert border barrier are not looking out for the best interests of their kids. If they are really fleeing violence and death, and seeking asylum, they need to go to a port of entry and state that case. Filing asylum applications after apprehension and custody from an illegal crossing is gaming our system. That is what they have learned from our previously corrupt enforcement including catch and release.
Listen, last post in the thread as I think I will finalize my position.
I do feel bad for these people and I am not 100% comfortable with separating kids from parents, but I also know that we are not capable of taking on every sad story in the world and fixing it. For every Honduran with a terrible story about their life and country of origin, there is an African, an Indian, someone from the Middle East, someone from Asia, etc. who has an equally bad and in many cases worse story. And some of those people have followed the rules and been waiting for years to get in here. What makes the people walking across the border more worthy than they are?
We need to decide what level of immigration we want, what our aims are with that immigration, and then implement it. In my mind, those aims will constantly be changing to match the current needs. What we absolutely must end is this nonsense where our lack of rules encourages people to make a dangerous trip to this country, increase crime, and increase the chance that they will be exploited before and after they arrive here. You do that by setting rules and strictly enforcing them.
Kids being separated from their parents is terrible. So are kids being involved in sexual trafficking or dying in a dangerous trek through the desert. Those things occur because of our lack of a policy that is coherent and enforced. Letting them all in also places pressure on the most vulnerable of our current citizens. Open borders and mass immigration are not a viable option either.
I am not arguing to shut the door. I am arguing that we open the door to whom we choose. For those we do not choose, perhaps there is something we can do to begin helping them clean up their own yard.
I do feel bad for these people and I am not 100% comfortable with separating kids from parents, but I also know that we are not capable of taking on every sad story in the world and fixing it. For every Honduran with a terrible story about their life and country of origin, there is an African, an Indian, someone from the Middle East, someone from Asia, etc. who has an equally bad and in many cases worse story. And some of those people have followed the rules and been waiting for years to get in here. What makes the people walking across the border more worthy than they are?
We need to decide what level of immigration we want, what our aims are with that immigration, and then implement it. In my mind, those aims will constantly be changing to match the current needs. What we absolutely must end is this nonsense where our lack of rules encourages people to make a dangerous trip to this country, increase crime, and increase the chance that they will be exploited before and after they arrive here. You do that by setting rules and strictly enforcing them.
Kids being separated from their parents is terrible. So are kids being involved in sexual trafficking or dying in a dangerous trek through the desert. Those things occur because of our lack of a policy that is coherent and enforced. Letting them all in also places pressure on the most vulnerable of our current citizens. Open borders and mass immigration are not a viable option either.
I am not arguing to shut the door. I am arguing that we open the door to whom we choose. For those we do not choose, perhaps there is something we can do to begin helping them clean up their own yard.
Trump is steadily turning all of his supporters into deplorables:
The president and his team know exactly how evil this policy is: If they didn’t, myriad officials wouldn’t be blaming it, dishonestly, on the Democrats; or pretending that Congress can solve the problem when it has actually been created by the Trump administration; or ludicrously arguing, as the Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham has done, that the child jails resemble “boarding schools.”
At the same time, the president and his team persist in pursuing it. Why? Because it signals to their base that they are really serious about stopping immigration — so serious that they will abuse children, damage families, and shock anybody who cares about civil rights or human rights in the United States or elsewhere. It’s not an accident that this policy has been attributed to Stephen Miller, the Trump adviser who has made a career out of using scandalous language and creating “happenings” designed to shock his peers. This kind of trolling is often a form of vice-signaling too. “Look,” it tells supporters, “here’s how nasty I am prepared to be.”
Will Trump’s base respond to it? Right now, nearly 30 percent of Americans say they support the policy — and, it seems, a majority of Republicans. It’s easy enough to find approving comments, even enthusiastically approving comments, on Breitbart or Twitter. Those who like it argue, more or less, that this is a hard-nosed policy, a reflection of how tough and strong we are, proof that we are willing to risk the good opinion of the nation and the world — and, of course, a demonstration of how little we care about the children of would-be immigrants.
Trump’s admirers see no moral case: Morality is for losers, apparently. Cruelty is for winners. And this will be the long-term effect of vice-signaling: it makes its proponents, and its audiences, vicious themselves.
You can claim all you want that Democrats would behave the same way if they elected Trump, but we didn't elect Trump, and we aren't behaving the same way. I don't understand how decent people can continue to be Republicans. Those who support this reprehensible policy are not decent people.At the same time, the president and his team persist in pursuing it. Why? Because it signals to their base that they are really serious about stopping immigration — so serious that they will abuse children, damage families, and shock anybody who cares about civil rights or human rights in the United States or elsewhere. It’s not an accident that this policy has been attributed to Stephen Miller, the Trump adviser who has made a career out of using scandalous language and creating “happenings” designed to shock his peers. This kind of trolling is often a form of vice-signaling too. “Look,” it tells supporters, “here’s how nasty I am prepared to be.”
Will Trump’s base respond to it? Right now, nearly 30 percent of Americans say they support the policy — and, it seems, a majority of Republicans. It’s easy enough to find approving comments, even enthusiastically approving comments, on Breitbart or Twitter. Those who like it argue, more or less, that this is a hard-nosed policy, a reflection of how tough and strong we are, proof that we are willing to risk the good opinion of the nation and the world — and, of course, a demonstration of how little we care about the children of would-be immigrants.
Trump’s admirers see no moral case: Morality is for losers, apparently. Cruelty is for winners. And this will be the long-term effect of vice-signaling: it makes its proponents, and its audiences, vicious themselves.
I agree. Also our economy is being held back in many sectors now because of labor shortages. But we need to be smart about immigration. Illegal immigration doesn’t necessarily help labor shortages because they are not processed into our system and usually land only menial jobs. We also need to recognize that big employers will use legal immigration to replace high paid resident workers with low paid immigrants. Remember what Big Mouse did a couple years ago? They aren’t the only ones.
A
anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
Guest
Your post sorta makes sense except for this complete nonsense. Using your moronic term “leftist” notwithstanding, shame on you for allowing such stupidity to escape your lips. Who’s not making a peep about Chicago? Who doesn’t care about the gangs violence in NJ? Your bogeymen “Leftists” are investing millions of dollars in trying to improve education in Chicago. Who’s going to fix it? “Rightists”? You’re a caricature of a person - a grumpy out of touch cloud shouter that no longer adds any sense of value to conversations here. I said good day.
ps The New Jersey shooting, put on top of the Noblesville shooting, is yet another example of what happens when high powered semi auto rifles are NOT involved in mass shootings. The death to injury ratio is far lower.
I think this mostly is pure bullshit. The small part that isn’t BS is a gross oversimplification. I’m going back to Burke here and his comparison of the French and American revolutions. As a matter of fact, classical liberalism lies at the core of many conservative ideals. You ought start a new thread about this with links to these so-called studies. Unfortunately I won’t be able to give it the response I’d like to, I’m leaving for a week on the western slope today.
I’m on my phone and must speak in shorthand.
I don’t think there is any question that the Democrats/leftists/liberals/whomever use death and violence in a highly situational fashion to make political points. Totally agree with your point about the AR 15.I’m on my phone and must speak in shorthand.
Except it’s republicans ripping children from their mothers and fathers and putting them in kiddie prisons. You’re ok with this because damn illegals.
A
anon_mlxxvlbug9dpa
Guest
That’s a sociopathic statement in that it’s cloud shouting that cannot either be proven or disproven. What is the proper response to violence? What would your heralded “rightists” have the bogeymen “Leftists” do or say after senseless violence?
I don’t know what “sociopathic” or “cloud shouting” means in this context. I guess the best example of my point is goat’s post that prompted my response. His bringing death and violence into the general discussion about immigration or a particular discussion about kids, paints the issue with an emotional gloss. He mentioned that to impute indifference to me. An intelligent discussion about immigration really won’t involve death and violence because we already have general agreement about that. The issues are much more complicated. But I agree that I think we have some disagreement about the level of death and violence that is relevant. I heard one immigration advocate claim that domestic violence qualified for asylum. I don’t agree. Taken literally, it appears to me that a Chicago resident in some neighborhoods could claim asylum in Canada.
I don't disagree with this but I think you are missing the biggest factor and that is China. China has been more than willing to accept our horrible trade policies that gave them a huge advantage in attracting our jobs and at the same time allowed them to export products to us at very favorable rates. In turn American companies, trying to compete, sent even more jobs offshore snowballing the situation to where we are today. Both Rep and Dem administrations support this for 40 years. The China problem is part of what stimulated NAFTA which took more Union, high paying jobs. EU protected their workers, we did not.
To clarify: the DACA kids are a product of illegals who broke the law to come here. The people being deported are the illegals. The kids can stay. That is how this policy separates families I didn’t say the policy was the same. I said it resulted in the same issue, families being separated.
I do realize
Good compassionate answer. A couple more questions. How many are you prepared to take under these conditions and how would you process them? This is an important question. Why? For example, today there are 500,000 people living in extreme poverty...in Juarez! I’d allowed they could walk across the river in a matter of days.
Last edited:
I said the parents and child should be reunited. The President said this too. His spokeswoman the other said it. The problem is the Law. The parents are asking for Asylum. Under law this has to be investigated. This means the kids have to be separated.
Are you saying the parents have no responsibility in this? You are looney if you think that. By the way Obama did this too as I said before. Here is just one article.
https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/201...resident-obama-government-for-wrongful-death/
