# Democrats need to get ahead of the Syrian refugee issue and triangulate **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 18, 2015, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865 "2015-11-18T03:30:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/81 "2015-11-18T23:15:01Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Meanwhile, **Slacker** , I’m so glad you’re concerned about people being patronizing. Now, remind me again about how men are scary dangerous, but little ol’ women cain’t hardly harm nobody, so we can pat their heads and let them in the country no problem? You may succeed in convincing me that we need to be more restrictive, if my compromise is unworkable. But I’m sure as hell not going to stand by while we cede power to the Republicans in order to take a quixotic and ineffectual stand on behalf of a few Syrians. And progressive parties across the West had better learn the same lesson, or they are going to get shitcanned while fascists rise to power. I don’t know how many ways to say it, but this is not just a binary choice between two positions on one issue. There are myriad other policies of much greater import that hang in the balance, for chrissakes. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/82 "2015-11-18T23:18:28Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But I’m sure as hell not going to stand by while we cede power to the Republicans in order to take a quixotic and ineffectual stand on behalf of a few Syrians… There are myriad other policies of much greater import that hang in the balance, for chrissakes. We’re not talking about “a few” Syrians here. We’re talking about _four million_. How many millions of lives is it worth sacrificing for the sake of appeasing the Know-Nothings? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/83 "2015-11-18T23:33:38Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > We’re not talking about “a few” Syrians here. We’re talking about _four million_. > > How many millions of lives is it worth sacrificing for the sake of appeasing the Know-Nothings? I didn’t realize anyone was proposing taking in four million Syrian refugees. :rolleyes: I did want us to more vigorously challenge Asad militarily, and I definitely would like us to go after ISIS in a big way. But those desires were previously constrained by a lack of public support (that may be changing now — we shall see). And unlike you, I know that it is foolish to insist on a policy platform that does not have the support of voters. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/84 "2015-11-19T00:02:53Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > And unlike you, I know that it is foolish to insist on a policy platform that does not have the support of voters. Was it “foolish” for Johnson to stand for civil rights in the '60s? Was it “foolish” for liberals to stand for gay rights in the '90s and 2000s? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/85 "2015-11-19T00:17:44Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Was it “foolish” for Johnson to stand for civil rights in the '60s? Was it “foolish” for liberals to stand for gay rights in the '90s and 2000s? LBJ had the support of voters (except for whites in the Deep South, but they were far outnumbered by the rest of the country). Your second question, I will answer in the reverse way: it was smart for Democrats like the Clintons, Obama, etc. to be cautious and stick to publicly supporting civil unions only (even though you can be fairly sure they supported full marriage equality in their heart of hearts) until public opinion had shifted enough to make it safe for them to “evolve” in their positions. Yes, I know that probably makes you nauseous. No, you don’t need to tell me all about the Overton Window. It’s fine to have a few liberal Dems in the vanguard on some of these issues (there’s your sop to Overton), as long as the party leaders stay more where public opinion lies so as not to freak voters out and make them bolt. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/86 "2015-11-19T00:23:42Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It’s fine to have a few liberal Dems in the vanguard on some of these issues (there’s your sop to Overton), as long as the party leaders stay more where public opinion lies so as not to freak voters out and make them bolt. If standing up for liberal values is going to cause voters to “bolt”, then the job of liberal politicians is do better educating and informing the people about what they stand for, not to abandon those positions in the name of winning. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/87 "2015-11-19T00:45:02Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > There you go: you illustrated my point beautifully with this “lowest common denominator” comment. > > It seems clear to me that what most liberals are saying, even if they don’t consciously realize it, is that they really wouldn’t want to live among a majority Muslim population. But they feel that as long as Muslims are a distinct minority in the West, they can be tolerated and patronizingly embraced while being expected to eventually join the modern civilized world. > > But Western Europeans are having babies at below replacement rates, while Muslim immigrants are hghi fertility reproducers and so far show little sign of embracing secular progressive values… > > I have seen liberals get concerned about the “quiverfull” evangelicals having far more children than liberals, children who will become future voters. But if the same concern is raised about conservative Muslims, that is taboo because it is seen as bigoted. Sigh. I think you have the wrong end of the stick. All I’m saying is that different countries have differing tolerance for minority religions. The US should not lower its tolerance for Muslims merely because some Muslim countries have little or no tolerance for Christians. It makes no difference if a religion is followed by 1% or 99% of the population. This nonsense about Muslims breeding themselves into a majority in Europe is nothing more than racist demagoguery. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/88 "2015-11-19T00:52:58Z")
It has nothing to do with race. I don’t care what color their skin is, the texture of their hair, or what genetic markers flow through their veins. It’s their _ideology_ I deeply dislike. One of my best friends recently said something very wise and gave me permission to quote him: “I’m religious but yet I think it’s absurd to describe criticism of religious thought as bigoted or hate-speech or phobic. Religion is a set of ideas. It isn’t a race, a gender, a skin color, or even a sexual orientation. It is a set of intellectual positions that one chooses to take. How is criticizing ideas bigoted?” And we see with conservative religions generally that the memes (not in the glib Internet sense, but in the original Dawkins sense of the word) they indoctrinate their children with are very sticky and hard to shake. Among the most religiously conservative Westerners, some are converts but the majority were raised and indoctrinated by severely conservative parents, who were raised by severely conservative parents…on back into the mists of time. Have you ever compared the “redness” of county voting patterns with the distribution of the Dutch Reform (Calvinist) religion in northwestern Iowa? It’s eye-opening. Those people are as white as it gets, and they have been there a long time, and their religion says that poor people are poor because they are not deserving of God’s favor, and boy do they love them some Steve King, maybe the worst of all the horrible House Republicans. So please stop with this oversimplistic analysis of “oh, some of the conservative religious people Slacker is talking about are not blue-eyed and light-skinned, so his complaints are racist”. It’s insulting bullshit, and I’m beyond sick of it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/89 "2015-11-19T01:13:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > And progressive parties across the West had better learn the same lesson, or they are going to get shitcanned while fascists rise to power. That’s harsh. I wouldn’t remotely call your views fascist. But they’re nonetheless completely unacceptable; your compromise is bizarre and fairly racist (or if you prefer to draw nice distinctions, ethnicist, inasmuch as you’re discriminating against people for their ethnicity and not for their race–but I don’t think this nice distinction is strictly speaking important). You’re correct that if progressives aren’t careful, we’ll get shitcanned while views like yours rise to power–although again, your views aren’t really fascist. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > It has nothing to do with race. This is a convenient thing for you to say; however, just recently you turned around and said: > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Well educated, mostly white liberals have been making the perfect the enemy of the good for forever and a day. So pardon me if I think it really is about race for you. You seem to analyze the entire situation through the lens of race, but not in a way that closely hews to actual sociological effects; rather, you are reducing people to a rough racial/ideological caricature, whether it’s Scary Brown Muslims or Naive White Liberals. If you drop those racial/ideological caricatures, you may find that your analysis is more on-point. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/90 "2015-11-19T01:47:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But what I’m proposing is that instead of the 10,000 refugees President Obama proposes to take, we open our doors to far more–maybe even ten times as many. But women and young children only. The men can stay and fight ISIS. I think it’s a little more likely that the men, after being literally rejected by the West and thrown anchorless into a hopeless situation, would stay and join ISIS. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/91 "2015-11-19T01:51:35Z")
**Dorkness** , that’s really kind of misdirection. I referenced race before about “mostly white liberals” because my point is that although I am from a highly educated white family myself (and my mother is a big Bernie Sanders supporter and would agree with you guys on all of this I’m sure), my political orientation tends to align closely with that of African-Americans and Latinos. I don’t purposely set out to say I will support whatever presidential candidate gets the most minority support, but it always tends to work out that way, even in the oddball case of 2008 when the candidate of educated and mostly white liberals and the candidate supported by African-Americans was the same guy. So if being closely aligned with African-Americans and having a deep antipathy for most Southern whites makes me a racist, that sounds like FOX News logic…but whatevs. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/92 "2015-11-19T01:52:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > It has nothing to do with race. I don’t care what color their skin is, the texture of their hair, or what genetic markers flow through their veins. It’s their _ideology_ I deeply dislike. Sounds to me like “making Democrats more electable in Middle America” isn’t the biggest reason you want to keep refugees out. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/93 "2015-11-19T02:01:41Z")
I do dislike the conservatively religious. If I had been around in the 19th century when the Dutch Reform Calvinists I referenced upthread were on the verge of immigrating, I would have looked for ways to keep them out too. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/94 "2015-11-19T02:30:47Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > This is what I (and Sam Harris, and Bill Maher, and clearly you as well) have been wondering for some time. It’s bizarre and frustrating to be sure. It is to me as well. This country is full of liberals who mock Christianity as woo and make fun of Christians’ “magic invisible friend in the sky”, who behave as though anyone who opposes gay marriage or uses the wrong pronoun in referring to Caitlyn Jenner are among the most evil and despicable people on the face of the planet, and who become outraged over feminist untruths such women being able to get checking accounts in the 50s without their husbands approval, will turn right around and defend Islam, where women and homosexuals are treated far worse than they’ve ever been treated in this country, and whose religion is far more unforgiving of mockery and prone toward violence against any who would belittle it in the same way liberals belittle Christianity. Bizarre and frustrating don’t begin to describe the disconnect. I can only chalk it up to liberals’ well-known dislike for the established order. If protecting Islam is a stick in the eye toward Christians and conservatives (and provides a faux-intellectual branch for them to perch upon to look down on everyone else from), then liberals are all for it despite the fact Islam encompasses in spades everything they’ve been fighting against for the last half century. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/95 "2015-11-19T02:32:51Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It is to me as well. This country is full of liberals who mock Christianity as woo and make fun of Christians’ “magic invisible friend in the sky”, who behave as though anyone who opposes gay marriage or uses the wrong pronoun in referring to Caitlyn Jenner are among the most evil and despicable people on the face of the planet, and who become outraged over feminist untruths such women being able to get checking accounts in the 50s without their husbands approval, will turn right around and defend Islam, where women and homosexuals are treated far worse than they’ve ever been treated in this country, and whose religion is far more unforgiving of mockery and prone toward violence against any who would belittle it in the same way liberals belittle Christianity. > > Bizarre and frustrating don’t begin to describe the disconnect. I can only chalk it up to liberals’ well-known dislike for the established order. If protecting Islam is a stick in the eye toward Christians and conservatives (and provides a faux-intellectual branch for them to perch upon to look down on everyone else from), then liberals are all for it despite the fact Islam encompasses in spades everything they’ve been fighting against for the last half century. This fantasy-world behavior of fantasy people would be frustrating and bizarre to me, too, if it occurred in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/96 "2015-11-19T02:34:58Z")
Okay then, _you_ explain it. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/97 "2015-11-19T02:40:07Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Okay then, _you_ explain it. You ate something funny and had a bad dream, maybe? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/98 "2015-11-19T02:40:33Z")
**Starving Artist** , nearly everything you say is spot on–but I wonder why you are not a frustrated Sam Harris/Bill Maher progressive like me, instead of a conservative? Anglo-American conservatism is not as bad as the conservatism in the Muslim world, but it’s not exactly good, either. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/99 "2015-11-19T02:43:22Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Okay then, _you_ explain it. It could not possibly be simpler: when there are Muslims **in our legislature** succeeding at turning their religion into laws that govern me, I’ll criticize them in exactly the same way I criticize Christians who do that. Similarly, when Christian criminals commit terrorist violence in the name of their religion, I criticize them in exactly the same way I criticize Muslim criminals who do that. What’s to understand? Edit: and you’ll find, if you go back to the mid-nineties, that the harshest American critics of the Taliban were on the left. And **Slacker** , I’m not misdirecting anyone. You persist in your reductivist attitudes toward race. It’s unacceptable applied to Syrians, it’s unacceptable applied to white Southerners. It’s a lazy excuse for not thinking critically about issues, relying instead on caricatures. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865/100 "2015-11-19T02:44:30Z")
The best way to defeat an ideology is to demonstrate the superiority of another. Harnessing the best of humanity is one part of the US’s success. Taking in limited amounts of refugees and other immigrants is not a net harm for the country. Complete open borders should be rejected but even a million refugees from war torn parts of the world could be assimilated. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/democrats-need-to-get-ahead-of-the-syrian-refugee-issue-and-triangulate/737865.md?page=6)