Mosul is in Iraq.
Sure, this week.
Well played. 
No, it wasn’t your exact idea, and let me illustrate why. Read this story.
I’m pretty sure Clinton’s reaction to that story would be, “Our refugee system should not break up families.” I’m pretty sure that your policy would mean that only two people on the couch plus the baby would be in the picture.
And her policy might mean that none of the people would be in the picture, because none of them would be let in if she’s not willing to break up families. So her proposal might actually be more stringent than mine when it comes to women and children who are not windows or orphans. And, yes, less stringent concerning elderly men. But to dismiss it as utterly unlike what I proposed is pretty silly. The underlying logic of keeping out young or middle-aged men, as a political countering play against Republican proposals to keep all Syrian refugees out, is the main point here.
Linked in the WaPo’s annotated debate transcript:
Sure looks to me like it’s pretty hard to dismiss the concerns as the exclusive province of idiots or bigots.
It’s called bait and switch.
I’m familiar with bait and switch in advertising, but I’m not sure how the analogy works here.
We advertise this thorough vetting process, but actually sell you an expensive, long, bureaucratic process that doesn’t really accomplish much.
But that’s how government works. Is there a problem? Spend more money on it. Is there a security concern? Make the bureaucratic process longer. Then act as if things are working whether they are or not. And if the media gets wind that things aren’t working, spend more money and make the bureaucratic process even longer.
Not going down that road with you. You, as a conservative, think the answer is less government. I as a progressive believe the answer is to stay on top of government to make it work as effectively and as efficiently as possible.
Besides, the people I quoted are senior members of government and are not acting as though the process works just fine.
What would the alternative be?
Outsource to a private, for-profit corporation, which has a huge incentive to cut expensive corners in order to make the process cheaper, and zero liability if something goes wrong?
Declare the whole thing impossible, and let other countries pick up the burden?
I agree that bureaucracy fairly easily spins out of control, but I think it’s a human thing rather than a government thing. I’m curious as to what you think would be a better process.
There’s no alternative to the current vetting process, just don’t claim that it’s effective just because it’s long and arduous. It’s a lie.
I just realized today that nearly every adaher commentary on government breaks down to the punchline from the joke about the old married couple that complains about everything: “The food in the restaurant is terrible. And the portions are too small!”
Nah. We just have to acknowledge the fact that government tends to do things rather poorly. I don’t think many Americans take the vetting assurances seriously, and frankly I think that by making such a promise the President actually hurt his case.
Of course, he won’t take any responsibility at all should someone slip through his vaunted vetting process and mount an attack. “I was as angered as you were to find out that some bureaucrat failed!”
I agree with that. And I call liberals to account when I see dishonesty, as anyone here paying attention can surely attest.
Now, how about the Laffer Curve, that has been shown again and again not to work? The interpretation of the Second Amendment that ignores “a well regulated militia”? The anti-intellectual insistence on privileging local school boards, no matter how ignorant the backwater, over national standards? The reflexive resistance to government oversight of industry, even to guarantee workers’ health and safety, to protect the environment, or to prevent economic collapse?
Speaking of economic policy, how about the gold standard? Cutting deficits during recessions?
Conservatives have more lies and bad ideas than I have time to count. Government is not the problem; misdirected or inefficient government is.
I agree with you on much of that. I’ve never accepted supply side, I think the gold standard is outmoded. I also agree that the Republican Party is pretty much the know nothing party and the Democratic Party the intellectual party at this point.
However, Democrats have a big blind spot when it comes to government and part of that is that they are too close to the unions. It’s hard to run an effective government when people can’t be fired for poor performance and when promotion has more to do with seniority than merit. I recognize that past corruption is why we have these rules, but neither option results in an effective government.
The government can’t vet these refugees effectively, and our own government has already said as much. It’s our political leaders who haven’t gotten the memo, or else they are just plain lying, which seems more likely.
Much of the blame for that IMO lies at the feet of the kind of voters and activists we have heard from in this thread. Members of the base acting on their ideology rather than on rational, hardheaded analysis of the world around them. Most politicians in either party cannot afford to get the base against them, especially in this era when going off the reservation can get you excoriated on social media.
True, but not everything is really a base issue. Republican voters have no particular allegiance to supply side theory. That’s a 1980s era elite idea. Most people also support reasonable regulation of economic activity. The big problem is that there is a large gap between the donor class and the base. The Democrats have that gap as well, but it’s more about priorities than issues. On some issues I side with the donor class, on others the base, but we need more open debate on party direction, rather than what we have now, base candidates feeding us what we want to hear while the establishment candidates feed us a little less while planning not to do anything we want once they get power.
My main reference there was to the Democratic base and the issue of refugees as per this thread. But Republicans will never support even the most moderate gun regulations, and they get burned if they flirt with any kind of immigration plan that is not completely xenophobic. A lot of them can’t even support routine increases in the debt ceiling or any sort of compromise in government spending on social programs and such without getting in big hot water.
Well, those are all different things. The gun issue is one in which the problem is that Democrats actually would like to disarm civilians to some extent, so you fight every step along that path on the theory that even if you lose on the reasonable regulations, the fight will be so exhausting that they won’t have the will to fight for further restrictions. The pro-choice organizations use the same strategy to fight any and all abortion restrictions.
On immigration, most Americans want our laws enforced and for immigration levels to go down, not up. Democrats have shot themselves in the foot on this issue by attacking outsourcing, yet any American can do basic math and realize that an outsourced job is exactly the same as hiring immigrants to replace American workers from the perspective of a worker. Republicans should avoid xenophobic rhetoric, but they are essentially right that we could do a better job of enforcing our laws. We don’t have enough resources to deport everyone, but we sure have enough to deport a lot more than we are. The Obama administration actually stopped successful programs because they worked too well.