I don’t get why you’re mentioning that; you quoted me as saying it’d be nonzero, and you’re replying that — it was not free?
Yeah, that’s — wasn’t that my point? Like, if you’d brought that up in response to me flatly saying it’d be zero, then, sure, I’d get why you said it; but in response to me saying nonzero? Didn’t I already build that into the hypothetical?
Well, look, clearly if you put Trump up against a candidate who aligns even closer to me on caring about this point — and, ideally, about yet others — then, by all means, figure I’d be glad to vote for that other candidate. But if he doesn’t care as much as I’d like, and he’s up against someone who cares less?
Read it again, I did not say that you said that, it was only my comment.
Not if he uses big lies and then smaller lies. BTW, concentrating on the wall and not in funding other ways to deal with the issue is a monumental waste tat in the end just give all the opposite of what you want.
As to the first, I would have to do some research on polls that speak to numbers I can cite. But my guess based on my observational understanding of the subject, it’s not polling well at all because there are no serious policies/platforms being put forward for open borders. Certainly not by any of the leading candidates in the Democratic party who are likely to face off against Trump in the 2020 election. So again, I believe your fears are unfounded and irrational in that respect.
As to the second, would you be opposed to Obama era immigration policies and practices? I assume not since you supported him with your vote. What is your evidence, not fear or conjecture, actual evidence that the leading democrats intend to implement anything significantly different? And even if you have your reasons for doubt given their ill-considered response in a debate, are you willing to vote for someone who has demonstrated such callousness and willingness to continue with more of the same? If you are up for more of the same, because ‘that is how important immigration is to you’, can you demonstrate how such harsh policies are good for American society?
As many others notice, besides Trump lying about many aspects of the issue, the big picture shows just waste and disregard for the well-being of Americans. Because you will be glad to vote for Trump it also means that you are glad that even less funding will be available for (ironically what he claims to support) military families and other projects sacrificed on an item that Trump had to lie and continue to lie about how effective it is when dealing with the issue.
Well, look, until we’ve got poll numbers to mull, let me start with this: 51% is a pretty big number, but 51% of 51% isn’t; it maybe doesn’t have to be that high a number to get elected, especially if (a) you’re running against a guy with Trump’s negatives and (b) a good-sized chunk of the voters who are against open borders don’t care as much about that issue as they do about other issues.
That said, to the very extent that you’re right about it not polling well, I’d expect candidates who favor it to stay quiet and pitch mere decriminalization. By analogy, any candidate who actually shares Beto O’Rourke’s ideas about guns presumably realized in short order what happens if you actually say hell yes.
As you hint, the debate response is of course what got my attention and gave me cause to think their policies would be different than Obama’s (because, as far as I know, Obama didn’t actually sign on for decriminalization. But, at that, as far as I know it’s not just an “ill-considered response in a debate”: isn’t decriminalization also what various of them have slowly and patiently explained since?
Again, compared to what? If someone wants to run against Trump by proposing less harsh policies — but without preemptively taking the option of prosecution off the table by saying you don’t even see it as being the least of misdemeanors; after all, it’s only someone entering our country without our permission, it’s not as serious as someone entering a guy’s yard without permission — then, yeah, talk about how many millions of illegal aliens we can reasonably expect to be removed from the country, and I’ll maybe nod approvingly like in the Obama days. But the closer you get to ‘compared to open borders’, the more skeptical I get.
(Which, again, is why I figure it makes less sense for us to go into detail now, and more sense to hash this out once there’s an actual candidate.)
Having said that, though: isn’t this, implicitly, the whole point of screening border crossers at all? Isn’t it built on us saying ‘yes’ to some, and ‘no’ to others, and the reason we sometimes say ‘no’ is because, hey, we considered the pros and cons and, well, on reflection, we don’t believe it’d be a good idea for American society to let this person in? And then they decide to come in anyway?
Again, what the Democrats and I explained many times is that their replies to decriminalization were made under the context of Trump separating families, threatening to deport dreamers and breaking laws about refugees.
You do not like that answer so you go back to illogical binary positions.
A binary position that in this case it is based in a lie also, the criminal law statutes were specifically used then for those that were found out already that should not be here and passed the border still, unless you can point to any candidate that specifically was telling us that all criminal law should be removed, you are still willfully ignoring that Democrats are not in favor of not deporting the ones that were found already to not have any evidence for asking for asylum, not a dreamer or not a person fearing for his/her life that still crosses the border regardless.
My read on your thought process is that you feel Democrats can’t be trusted not to implement an open border policy because you believe this to be their un-official agenda. This in the face of actual evidence of how they have handled illegal immigration issues to date (i.e. Obama era policies and actions), which are in stark contrast to open borders and decriminalization actions.
Meanwhile, you feel Trump’s policies are more in line with your values despite an abundance of evidence that his actions have been demonstrably cruel, arguably unsuccessful/detrimental, and finally, outright lies (i.e. Wall).
But you reject the former and endorse the latter.
I get the emotional visceral response to illegal immigration. I don’t understand the illogical decision process of choosing the latter over the former. It’s counter-intuitive based on the preponderance of evidence as to which has been more effective in achieving your stated goals.
I was reading about Tobin Smith (former Fox presenter) and his big reveal that everything on Fox is staged and that they actively choose the dopiest, most twit-like libruls to bring on, to argue their positions. It’s good for ratings and plays great into a face/heel dynamic that people naturally eat up.
I feel no need to follow the model.
If there are no good Trump supporters, then let that be that. We don’t need mosquitoes to pull the wings off of.
But, again, it’s not quite right to say I’m saying Democrats can’t be trusted.
After all, the point is that I gave Obama, who to the best of my knowledge never called for decriminalization, the benefit of the doubt; and then I gave Clinton, who to the best of my knowledge never called for decriminalization, the benefit of the doubt. And if this year’s Democratic candidate takes the same approach, why, I’m open to giving them the benefit of the doubt likewise.
In what way? Again, if the eventual Dem nominee says “hey, I figure on taking the same approach that Obama did on this issue,” then I’m of course willing to say “oh, well, then, sure, looking at how that went, the evidence seems to be on your side; so, yeah, benefit of the doubt; I’ll trust you; don’t let me down.”
Fair enough. I still consider your single issue stance to be very strange. That you would jeopardize so many other key (progressive) issues that you claim to support, just to ensure a very narrow and specific course of action on immigration is puzzling to me. It would be easy to comprehend if it could be fairly said that, all other things being equal, Trump’s immigration policy is more in line with your values. But that is not at all the case. None of his policies and actions appear to align with those you claim to support, except those on immigration. And the latter has been shown to be problematic, to say the least. Thus, I remain completely baffled by your world views.
I’m beginning to not be surprised, just look at his pathetic dodge of my question if he considers guys like me to be criminals. People that were war refugees, who entered illegally, and then Reagan and other Republican presidents were forced to be human and offer amnesty to people like me.
What is your weird obsession with this? I said that I don’t know enough to weigh in about your situation, because, well, I don’t; you call that a “pathetic dodge”, but what the heck is the alternative? Give you a flat “yes” or “no” when I don’t know? Why would you even want a “yes” or a “no” from me in that case?
(It doesn’t strike me as especially reasonable to ask for a yes-or-no answer in such a scenario, but it also doesn’t even strike me as interesting: once you’ve heard me say that I don’t know, why would it even matter whether I then say “no” or “yes”? What would either answer even mean, apart from being a lie?)
Well, you have very strong feelings about who should or should not be allowed to stay and what laws should be in place to help guide those decisions. It doesn’t seem all that strange for GIGObuster to want to know your thoughts on the criteria you use to draw those conclusions. A few hypothetical scenarios would suffice as an illustration without getting into the specifics of his situation. Or, who knows, perhaps he can persuade you to reconsider based on insight/information you lack.
Well, flip that around for a bit: you said, a little while ago, that you are “not aware of a significant voting base that would support that kind of policy even if it was put forward. So to a large extent, I believe your fears are unfounded, and I would go even so far as to call them irrational.”
Since you mentioned that you’re not aware of a significant voting base before you then talked of unfoundedness and irrationality, which seemed pretty “strong”, I of course asked you how well you think it’s polling — thinking that maybe you were saying you were aware of the numbers, but didn’t find them significant.
You replied that you would have to do some research; and so I shrugged, because, hey, I figured that was true as well as satisfactory: if you don’t actually happen to know, then (a) okay; and (b) I wouldn’t characterize your reply as some kind of, uh, “pathetic dodge”: if you do feel like looking into it and then saying more, why, then, fine by me; but until and unless you bother, then I’m genuinely okay with what struck me as an honest answer.
I gave GIGObuster an honest answer: I don’t feel that I happen to know enough to weigh in on that question; and I don’t ask more of you — or him — than I give in return, by which I mean I don’t insist on getting or giving a binary yes-or-no answer whenever “I don’t know” happens to be the truth.
If Trump had been president then, not only he would have run afoul even more regarding international law, but I could have been then be separated from my family, maybe forever.
It is not an obsession, it is just empathy to other Salvadorans and other groups that are in a very similar situation now. And empathy is indeed a human quality.
Your still pathetic defense for not answering is because you are appealing to your ignorance, just saying here that it is a very underwhelming reason to use as a justification to vote for Trump.
Indeed, you are ignoring a lot to assume your position. That ignorance is crucial because it would indeed undermine your binary position that you think Democrats have; as the evidence already showed, it is only under some exceptions on not using criminal statutes as many past administrations (including Republicans) did before is that the Democrats are basing their protest and demand of specific decriminalizations that the current administration should look at.
Just because of that ignorance that you reported there you should already reconsider your position or study more about the history and how extreme and unnecessarily vindictive the current administration is. (Not to mention racist when considering against who they are concentrating their efforts and how Trump’s anti science that he will ramp up if he wins again will make the refugee crisis worse than it is now.)
On Edit:
Well, TOWP, as I noted, yours is not really much of an honest answer, it is really a very ignorant answer.
Say I go study more and come back and declare either that (a) okay, having looked into it, I now do happen to consider you to be a criminal; or that (b) having looked into it, I can now say that I don’t happen to consider you to be a criminal. What would either shift from an honest “I don’t know” mean for my position?
This is still whining, and ignoring the point, yes by conceding that you do not know the evidence then it shows that you are honestly going to support your ignorance, that is an acknowledgment that one should withdraw from a discussion, unless the point is to show to others the dismal ignorance that they are attempting to use as justification for adopting a bad position. By educating yourself you may still reach for option (a), but that of course then would lead to point out that not even during Arpaio’s rule I was found to be a criminal, so you would be wrong.
You asked whether I consider you a criminal; I said I don’t know. I’ve asked you what either shift from an honest “I don’t know” — to a “yes” or a “no” — would mean for my position; you refuse to answer. I’m answering in good faith; are you?
