It’s not problematic if we’re only discussing policy dispassionately. For example, gays should be allowed to serve in the military. So the right thing for a President to do would be to let gays serve in the military. But that’s politically hard, so instead you split the baby. The problem with split babies though is that it’s tough to defend a moral case for the split baby position. And so it was in that example. I’d argue that while the Clinton years were very good for gay rights progress, I’d say that DODT and DOMA also took a lot of the moral steam out of the movement because who could really defend those policies as moral rather than just practical?
And how will they get that. By provoking western powers. How will they provoke them? Attacks on their soil. How can they get attacks on western soil? By radicalizing their native Muslim populations. And how would they do that? By scaring them into othering Muslims, and build an us-versus-them narrative.
That’s about the stupidest goddamn excluded-middle proposition that I ever heard of. Refugee crises are not an all-or-nothing situation. Sure, the rest of the world never helps as much as we should, but that doesn’t mean it would be better not to help at all.
THat’s already happened in Europe. That’s kinda the problem. And bringing in refugees does not make them welcome. Which is why as a practical matter, the PResident is going to have to send them to states that are willing to take them. Congress won’t appropriate the money, the states won’t help, so that leaves the states that will, which are also presumably more enlightened about receiving Syrian refugees.
Europe has tended to be less democratically accountable about asylum policy, which might make the elite feel good about themselves, but has also created the problem Europe has now, which is hostility to immigrants and the rise of right wing anti-immigrant parties. You’ll notice that even on our hardest right in the US, we pay tribute to immigration and actually support letting a LOT of people into this country. The real fault line in US politics is illegal immigration, whereas in Europe it’s immigration period.
In other words, you’re tired of getting your ass deservedly kicked here. Fine, but you know, you can just leave the thread at any time.
You support ISIL’s goals. You are doing what you can to help ISIL achieve their goals of preventing the west from accepting refugees and isolating the vast number of moderate muslims.
You might as well just carry around an ISIL flag. You support their goals, dreams and aspirations of dividing the world into “us” and “them” until there is an all out world war.
I am getting really fucking sick of terrorist supporters in our midst, doing the work of ISIL for them. I’ve had it. I"m going to call a spade a fucking shovel.
The only thing I hate worse are the actual terrorists in our countries, who ACTIVELY do the work of ISIL for them. Fucking scum. They should be convicted of committing terrorism on behalf of ISIL and locked away.
And the worst of the worst are the ISIL assholes themselves.
There is an excluded middle, sure, but 10,000 refugees ain’t it. I never suggested taking in all 4 million. This is not an “admit them all or none” situation. It’s a “take as many as we can vs. take none” situation. Taking a token amount is just politics.
If you’re referring to numbers, you’re right. If you’re referring to merits of the argument, we’re not having a real argument. I’m a shit, you’re morally upright, I lose.
But outside this board, where the real debate is taking place, my argument is winning. You’re actually getting your ass kicked.
Bullshit. What has created the problem that Europe has now is decades of receiving immigrants who were intended to serve as a temporary cheap labor force before returning to their own countries, and whose coalescence as a marginalized underclass instead wasn’t seriously addressed by their governments until fairly recently.
If you’re referring to numbers, you might be right. If you’re referring to merits of the argument, we’re not having a real argument.
Yeah, there was some cheap labor, but Europe has also had a generous asylum policy, and the publics have never been adequately consulted on whether they want that.
Not according to the merits of the argument, though. Funny how you suddenly think that the numbers are the important part when you believe that the numbers are on your side.
Seems like an argument to me: compassion vs. safety. Both sides have a legitimate point.
In the end, the few refugees we take will be where they are tolerated, so in the end it’ll probably work out for the best anyway. I hope. At least those willing to take the risk will themselves be taking the risk. There is no practical way for the administration to resettle large numbers of refugees in states that won’t help.
The numbers do matter, because outside a discussion board, policy actually gets made based on those numbers. No one polls the Straight Dope to figure out what to do.
No. There is no safety argument. It’s been pointed out several times in this thread (and you’ve refused to deal with it) that it does not help our safety to reject refugees based on their religion. That argument isn’t being made in the public either. In the public, we largely have baseless fear-mongering winning over the right.
It’s not baseless fearmongering. ISIS has said they are doing this, and it’s very easy to do. Besides, listen to your own side’s dumb arguments: we’re bombing Syria, so at least some of those people have lost family members to US bombs. There’s also teenagers, who could already be radicalized but their families still control them. For now. That’s how we ended up with the Boston Marathon bombings.
There’s just no way you can say with a straight face that this is a low risk group. And denial only makes it much more likely that you’ll be on the losing side in public opinion. Democrats sure seem to have a problem with acknowledging the tradeoffs of their preferred policies. Saying that accepting Syrian refugees presents no safety risks is absurd on its face.
There is no such debate in this thread. This is you trying to change the topic. The topic is about how fucking immoral your position is. This thread is about how accepting no one is obviously the most immoral action, yet you keep defending it. The only debate in this thread is about YOU.
And because you know you can’t defend yourself against the allegations, you’re trying to twist the thread to be about something else. That is the definition of moving the goalposts.
And it’s not even a good move. You fucking well know that many Democrats are actually pushing for accepting lot more people (65,000 is the number I’ve heard). But that’s a discussion we can have–how many people can we accept? How many people can we process (including background checks), and how quickly? How many is “as many as we can handle”?
The discussion we can’t have is “should we accept any at all?” because there’s literally no reason to not accept any unless you are a bigoted sack of shit. And that is what you are being pitted for.
No amount of tu quoque will change that. You are choosing to let the terrorists win.
I accept that there is some risk: screening could miss people, or some could be radicalized after entering the US for some reason. But - and here’s the part where your silence is pretty deafening so far - there is substantial risk with rejecting refugees based on their religion. That will have an impact on Muslims already in America. It will make them feel less American, have less stake in America. That is not good. See, you know, the Paris attacks committed largely by Europeans. Or the London 7/7 attacks, committed largely by Europeans.
ISIS has said they are doing this, so you believe them and help them spread their lies and fear.
You’re a fucking terrorist supporter, who blindly repeats what the terrorists want you to. Your only excuse would be that you’re gullible and stupid, so you don’t know what you’re doing.
So you’re not a malicious ISIL supporter – you’re merely a stupid one.
Well, I accepted the premise that my position involved bigotry and discrimination pretty much from the beginning. So if there’s no argument there I won’t engage here anymore. I accept your pitting as far as that goes.
But while I’m here, I would like to point out a) hypocrisy, and b) rational reasons to support my view, which is not exactly a fringe view.