Cool story, bro.
Is that why you pretended that’s what I’d said, even though I said nothing like it? So you could trot this narrative out?
I heard a news anchor refer to Nelson Mandela as an African American once. I think you’re right, they were just using the word as a replacement for black. Although now we capitalize Black when referring to African Americans.
I apologise for thinking you might admit it was happening, rather than going with ‘that’s not border security, it’s sparkling deterring entry’.
I repeat:
And all the snark in the world will not make them so.
So let me also add: please stop accusing me of doing the very thing you have repeatedly done - playing word games to avoid admitting that you’re wrong.
Stones, glass houses, and all that. Maybe this snarky energy would be better directed towards resolving this conflict very simply, by explaining to Demontree why you don’t consider the things she listed to be examples of reducing border enforcement.
(I assume what you mean is along the lines of, “these things aren’t effective ways to enforce the border anyways, they are just needlessly cruel acts by Trump, and Biden removing them doesn’t make the border less secure”, but I won’t presume to speak for you).
Or you guys can keep snarking at each other while accusing the other of being overly snarky. It makes for amusing reading, at least.
No, you pretty much nailed it. Biden’s approach to enforcement of the southern border was different from Trump’s but not only was it not a “reduction”, in many ways it was far more effective. Even dropping Title 42 wasn’t a “reduction”; in fact border enforcement improved after that.
The whole “Biden opened the border and doesn’t care about illegal immigrants in America” narrative has always been bullshit.
Several of the links in that article don’t work for me without creating an X account (which I refuse to do), but I note that one of the central claims is that Matt Walsh just posted about the procedures being done at a transgender clinic and then just out of the blue was accused of “stochastic terrorism”. The thought police, amirite?
But in fact Walsh’s article was titled “The trans militants must be stopped” and doxxes the full organization chart of the people who work at that clinic.
Whether or not you agree with the point of Walsh’s argument / observations, it not some crazy hysterics from nowhere that saw it as trying to put people at risk.
Also, the linked article about “top surgery” (not genital surgery) is a lot more positive than the Modern Conservative article portrays it as, with a high satisfaction rate. It also mentions that late teens are also getting breast enhancement and reduction surgeries for cosmetic reasons only, something which the right have been weirdly silent on.
As someone said above,
That construction is standard English adjective-noun sequence. It does not imply anything except “homeless” is a condition applying to “people”. Think “gay people”, “hairy people”, “French people”, “stupid people”, etc. The only reason it’s somewhat masked is that English has words with common suffixes for older common groups, e.g. “farmers” and “doctors”. Or else words that describe that role directly, e.g. “nurse”.
“The homeless” is nouning of an adjective, frequently a way of shortening a common description.
“People without homes” is equivalent in meaning, but much more cumbersome.
Any derogatory connotations of “homeless people” or “the homeless” comes from negative characteristics and stereotypes of the condition, not the term used.
This whole discussion of “gay culture” is a distraction.
Bump’s comment here was the impetus. It’s a vague statement that implies something but isn’t clear what it means.
@DocCathode wanted clarification for what bump meant. What is it that bump thinks is being forced versus natural over time in the gay culture issue?
I would argue that backlash over “gay culture” issues is backlash against society accepting gay status instead of continuing to shun it. Backlash over gay culture is backlash over being forced to accept gay people being openly gay. That means doing all the things hets do in public. But when gays do it, it’s “being confrontational” and “putting it in our faces” and “forcing your views on others”.
“Oh no, every TV show has to have gay characters showing their relationships. Commercials all now show gay couples doing things. It’s too ‘in your face’.”
The same way “TV commercials all seem to have mixed-race couples in them.”
Yes, those are comments I’ve heard.
This is exactly the sort of priggish nonsense people get irritated with that we’re discussing in this thread.
That’s part of the point I was trying to make. Many people aren’t against equal rights for gay people or for gay marriage or whatever, but draw the line at some of the more… interesting behavior at Pride parades or don’t approve of the gay hookup culture or whatever. It’s a step too far for them, and when it’s pushed, they bristle and react negatively. I personally am fine with it, but I do know that a lot of people (the overwhelming majority, I suspect) are somewhere in the middle between outright hateful and absolutely celebrating it. And a lot of them react negatively when they’re told they’re wrong if they don’t absolutely celebrate it, versus tolerate it, disapprove but agree that the legal status should be the same, or whatever.
There should be recognition of these middle statuses as something laudable and admirable, rather than basically telling people that they’ve changed for the better, but are still wrong, and need to get better. Nobody likes that, and it’s not surprising when they react badly when that’s what they’re told/what they hear.
But “Woke” seems to be an all-or-nothing sort of thing from my vantage point, and I think that’s a large part of what annoys people so much about it. You’re either all-in or you’re not at all, if you’re not a friend, you’re an enemy, and so forth.
They need to get over themselves. I don’t approve of Myrtle Beach Spring Break culture, or old rich dudes having young mistresses culture, or dudebros saying gross shit about girls in locker rooms culture, but you don’t see me trying to pass legislation against it. The only time I ever bring up my disdain for these cultures is in exactly this context, because people get to live their lives without my vapors.
No, “lots of people believe a thing” is not a reason to make it laudable. It’s absolutely none of my business who hooks up with who (and incidentally, the data on whether gay men have more partners than straight men is inconsistent / inconclusive).
Well “woke” is almost entirely used by RW media now, for demonization purposes. It’s a giant snowball of exaggerations of reality, disinformation and myths. Nobody accepts almost anything in that BS snowball.
So who is the enemy here?
Who is not getting better, but worse?
Thank you. I realise my replies were overly snarky, it’s just really frustrating when someone flatly denies a fact with no explanation - especially when it’s something well known, and widely agreed to have contributed to Trump winning the election.
Here’s an article from the Washington Post that illustrates just how effective Biden’s policies were. First paragraph:
Here it is in chart form, showing illegal crossings were lower for all years under Trump and higher all years under Biden, so it wasn’t simply an artifact of Covid.
On dropping Title 42:
Who could have predicted that dropping enforcement against unaccompanied minors would lead to a surge in numbers?
Additionally, Biden assigning this responsibility to Harris came back to haunt her in her own campaign, as Republicans used it to tie her to his unpopular handling of immigration.
But it wasn’t just unaccompanied minors:
And the result: 3.3 million border crossers released into the US in 3 years:
By the time their asylum cases are finally heard, they’ll have jobs, families etc, and people on the left will say “we can’t deport them now, it would be cruel, it would crash the economy”. It’s the opposite of a planned immigration policy where you get to choose who comes, with consideration towards benefitting the receiving country.
It was a very smart move by certain Republican governors to bus asylum seekers to liberal cities that had promised to welcome them, without previously having to act on those promises. It’s much easier to be generous with other people’s money, and much easier to welcome immigrants when the burdens and disruption fall on distant border states.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/02/11/trump-biden-immigration-border-compared/
On the other side, it’s true that Trump influenced the Republicans to block a bipartisan bill of border reforms, a deeply cynical move. But Biden could have acted without that - in June 2024 he issued an executive order significantly limiting numbers of people allowed to enter and apply for asylum, which greatly reduced the inflow. He could have done that 2 or 3 years ago, once it was clear the rise in numbers was not simply due to the end of Covid restrictions - but he chose not to.
This is one of those topics where there are arguments on both sides. I agree publishing the org chart plausibly puts those people at risk, it was bad, and Walsh shouldn’t have done it. But ‘stochastic terrorism’ is one of those terms that tends to be applied in a very one-sided way by the supposedly neutral media. Most obviously when in comes to media treatment of Trump himself: AFAIK the motives of the shooter were never identified, but no honest person could deny that the frequent accusations that Trump was a fascist, was going to end democracy, etc etc, could plausibly motivate an attempt to kill him.
The ultimate issue is that criticism and accusations can be justified and in the public interest to publish, but still put a person or people at risk. How do we handle that?
I don’t think @bump is talking about people who want to pass legislation against something. The difference is that there isn’t a festival to celebrate dudebros, at which they publicly say gross shit about girls; Netflix does not have a policy to include more old rich dudes with young mistresses in their workforce and programming; and there is no social pressure to approve of and even celebrate Spring Break culture in order not to be seen as a bigot.
If there was, you too might feel a tad resentful.
Not really smart.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/migrant-asylum-seeker-busing
The transports might also yield unexpected benefits for migrants, with a free ride bringing new arrivals closer to family and friends and moving asylum seekers to locations where immigration courts have had far higher asylum grant rates. Service providers in border cities, which have been struggling to receive the rising number of migrants and support transportation for those who cannot afford bus or plane tickets, may also benefit from the state-sponsored relocations.
There is also the criticism by many that what the government in Texas and others did was just more of the asleep type of behabior.
The very unacountable (and more so nowadays thanks to the currently ongoing reshaping of the justice system by the right in the US) rich dudes don’t need tv shows to promote their truly reprehensible behavior.