I have a hard time believing someone who voted for Obama would really switch their vote for Trump so easily. Unless of course they thought voting for Obama was a mistake, in which case they weren’t going to vote Dem again anyway.
I confess, it’s boggling my mind that somebody could be a single-issue voter on this border legalization thing enough to disregard the unending torrent of criminality and deliberate destruction of government institutions that Trump has been engaging in.
It’s like hiring a security guard who will do a great job of keeping tramps out of your property, while burning the property down.
This. Sure, I can see having differences of opinion on whether illegal border crossing should be a crime (although AFAICT the impossibility of charging offenders with it consistently and fairly under our current system is not a matter of opinion).
But to believe that having an opposing opinion on the issue of decriminalizing illegal border crossing literally makes a Democratic candidate worse than Trump as a potential President? In what alternate reality does that make any sense?
Except that in this analogy the security guard isn’t even accomplishing much in the way of keeping out tramps, since the criminal prosecutions for illegal border crossing are inconsistent, expensive, ineffectual, and waste money without providing an effective deterrent. It’s as if your hypothetical security guard spent a lot of money on expensive cages to keep a few of the tramps in while most of them go on trespassing on the property anyway. Oh yeah, and the property’s still burning down.
It’s good that we can come to an understanding on some things. But here, I’m sorry, you have just made quite a leap from 1325(a) to family separations.
1325(a) defines a crime. Aliens who enter or attempt to enter the United States outside of designated border crossings commit a crime against the United States. But the penalty for 1325(a) is a fine or jail time - not deportation. You would need a conviction before sentencing an alien for violating 1325(a). Pretrial detention is a problem, but it shouldn’t be a problem here any more than in the general case.
The family separations thing, as I understand it, is based off a different part of immigration law. When an immigration officer encounters an alien who has not been admitted to the U.S. and can’t convince the officer they have been physically present in the U.S. for the last two years, that officer “shall” order the alien removed from the United States, without further review unless the alien indicates an intention to apply for asylum or a fear of persecution. If such a claim is made, you get the asylum interview and credible fear determination. If there is a credible fear of persecution, the alien “shall be detained for further consideration of the application for asylum.” If there is not a credible fear determination, the Attorney General is required to issue regulations allowing the alien to request a prompt review of the determination by an immigration judge. Any alien subject to such a review “shall be detained pending a final determination of credible fear of persecution”. 8 U.S.C. 1125(b)(1).
~Max
Specify; what, exactly, is getting burned down in this analogy? You say that it’s government institutions; I take it it’s not about the Patent and Trademark Office? Presumably not the Small Business Administration? Possibly not the Coast Guard? Everything going okay at the Bureau of Engraving? If you want me to swap in a security guard who won’t keep folks out, tell me what’s getting burned down.
Fear of The Great Replacement is a powerful force.
Nope, it is you who is not following, the line of the law TOWP was pointing at was referring to the position politicians were alleged to have regarding how criminality was applied to likely refugee families. Indeed, not as what the right wing propaganda was implying all along.
IOW: It is clear that right wing media never bothered to explain precisely how nuanced the position Democratic politicians really had. TOWP and others just ignore how misleading their sources were and are.
Democrats were accused to have extreme positions regarding how criminality was applied in general terms, when in reality was about the appalling draconian way a part of the rule was applied to likely refugee families.
How do you figure? I was watching the Democratic debate when they got asked the following: “Raise your hand if you think it should be a civil offense, rather than a crime, to cross the border without documentation.” I didn’t get that from some other source at a later date, and I didn’t extrapolate a particular specific to the general case; I just watched their hands fly up in response, is all.
Well, assuming you’ve been more or less keeping up with the more highly visible disasters in foreign policy, emergency management, environmental policy, health care and the like, here are some reports from the trenches in lower-profile areas:
Science Under Attack: How Trump Is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work
The Trump Administration Is Launching Stealth Attacks on Veterans
The Trump administration is waging a quiet war on education
The Trump Administration Has a Huge Number of Federal Agency Vacancies
Oh, you asked about the Coast Guard?
There are hundreds of similar reports on the way the Trump administration’s combination of incompetence and deliberate “malign neglect” is damaging the ability of agencies and departments across the federal government to do their jobs. For someone who’s not (yet) a Trump supporter, TOWP, I’m astonished at your apparent lack of awareness that this is what his administration has been fundamentally about from the get-go. I mean, have you just not been paying attention?
We’ve already pointed out to you several times that criminalizing illegal border crossings doesn’t actually have a useful effect in “keeping folks out”. You’re getting the property set on fire without even any significant improvement in anti-trespasser security to show for it. :rolleyes:
Well, we can agree on that point too. :S
~Max
Well thanks for showing that Democrats did remember how the civil law is. Again, the link you presented was about how far Trump changed priorities so as to justify separating families.
And that goes once again to the item that is the issue: Why do you support that?
Take it up with begbert2, who described it as being “like hiring a security guard who will do a great job of keeping tramps out of your property, while burning the property down.” I was — in good faith — replying to that, not bringing it up.
And while you’re taking issue with someone analogizing one part to “a security guard who will do a great job of keeping tramps out of your property,” I’m not seeing how the rest of what you posted makes for a terrific analogy to “burning the property down.” Do you figure I should disregard that as mere hyperbole, or do you think the stuff you’re on about is — in actual fact — the equivalent of burning it down? Or is it to be analogized to a functional thing? Some kind of thing where there’s, like, a side analogy to be made to Dow Jones performance reflecting confidence? Something about what’d be in store, instead, if folks who’d decriminalize illegal border crossings applied that approach to a bunch of other stuff?
Why do I support what? I’m against decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and I’ve pointed out that various presidential candidates shot their hands up when they got asked a remarkably straightforward question about it.
And the link you mention leads off with a quick mention of the following: “Several Democratic candidates support the elimination of criminal penalties for entering the country illegally.” Granted, it then goes on to mention Trump’s priorities — but that’s my point, that a Democratic candidate who’s willing to keep it criminal can get my vote by differing from Trump’s priorities inside that context. But a candidate who, as per that link, declares for decriminalization isn’t merely proposing different priorities inside that context.
If you vote for Trump you will support it. (and all the unscientific efforts of him and other crimes Trump will continue to do)
As for keeping it criminal, it was usually just a civil crime, the criminal statute was for… well, criminals and it was employed against repeated offenders that crossed the border who did not get the hint, the problem I see you have is that you are still falling for the twisted version of events coming from misleading right wing sources.
What is this weird obsession you have with right wing sources? You clearly disagree with my position; why isn’t it enough to simply point out why you disagree with it, instead of adding in this bizarre claim of falling for a version that comes from those sources, when I happen to know that, er, no, that’s not it? It just makes me stop thinking you might have a point, because I’m busy thinking, oh, wait; does he just make things up? Just tosses stuff out there, willy-nilly?
BTW TOWP, It is clear that you have not figured out yet that even looking at your cites there is no intention by the Democrats to get rid of the criminal law, only that under some circumstances, like the immigrants showing real danger for their lives, should be taken into account as reasons why not to apply the criminal rules against immigrants, to not separate families, and for the administration to follow the law. Apparently that is too much to ask.
Because I wanted to think you were human… 
. And as many I have found with many like you, you are not special when you claim that you figured this all by yourself. Fie to that, all humans do get their information from somewhere, it just so happens that some are aware of where it comes, while some are still telling themselves that they are an island.
Just you thinking ignorantly, that is clear.
I already did, in post #63.
Why not? Do you feel that only literal destruction of the US physical infrastructure is an appropriate outcome to warrant such a simile? If not, could you kindly clarify exactly what degree of non-literalness you’re willing to accept in an analogy?
And I must say it’s a little bit…hmmm…that you’re taking exception to “burning the property down” as a metaphorical representation of the Trump administration’s frontal assault on governance, but have apparently no problem with “tramps” as a metaphorical representation of border-crossing immigrants and refugees. :dubious:
I mean, seriously, TOWP. You read a mass of extensive cites about the various abnormally corrupt and venal ways that the Trump administration is sabotaging and exploiting the workings of the federal government for the benefit of grifting cronies and anti-democracy ideologues, and your reaction is merely to complain that the phrase “burning the property down” is too hyperbolic?
You seriously still feel that all that shit—besides all the foreign policy, impeachable offenses, environmental, healthcare etc. major issues that I only mentioned in passing—is minor enough to warrant your picking Trump over any Democrat who advocates not continuing to waste federal time and money on arbitrary, ineffective criminal prosecutions of unauthorized border crossers?
Because if so, then you have an extremely peculiar definition of “minor”. What, in fact, would you consider non-minor misconduct on Trump’s part? What sort of further atrocity would Trump have to commit in order for you to consider him a worse choice for President than somebody who holds this perfectly reasonable and practical view (even if it doesn’t entirely align with your own view) on decriminalizing illegal border crossing?
FFS. We’re told all the time that we’re not supposed to call Trump supporters “stupid” because it alienates them and hurts their feelings. But what are we supposed to say when they’re deliberately advocating positions that are stupid?
“Hmm, yes, I see your very good point about Trump’s massive corruption and incompetence and dismantling of governance structures being less undesirable in a President than the reasonable opinion about immigration law held by a far more intelligent, informed and ethical politician. But have you considered…” :rolleyes: WTF fuck that noise. This is the Straight Dope, and this is the Pit, and your position is glaringly, monumentally, blatantly stupid.
No, that’s — wait, do you literally not get this? That a number of the presidential candidates do, in fact, support the elimination of criminal penalties for entering the country illegally, and think it should be a civil offense rather than a crime to cross the border without documentation? Is that what we’re arguing over?
(And, again: why is the argument taking place here, and not in another forum?)
I’m telling you, I was watching the debate; I heard the question get asked, and I then saw the hands go up in real time. Fie to that?