I’m not aware of any moral difference between the groups, aside from one having permission to be here and the other not having permission to be here, which I suppose helps explain why the policy was ended.
I’ve looked into it.
Warning for @The_Other_Waldo_Pepper (this thread was pulled from a P&E thread he hijacked)
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-candidates-positions-on-pardoning-trump/988942/5
Reviewing your record you have a habit of major hijacks in P&E/GD. You have to stop this.
If you strongly object to something written, spin-off your objection to a new thread, don’t hijack a thread.
If you think another poster is off-topic so it is OK to respond to them in the thread, IT IS NOT! You can flag the post for being off-topic but you do not use it as an excuse to take the thread way off-topic.
Moderating:
There’s a saying that your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. It not only defines when your rights end, but also defines when I have a right to complain about your actions.
The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants don’t hurt ANYBODY by coming here. They come here to work, to raise their children, to make a life for themselves in America. They pay taxes, they do important work, they provide a basis for growth and help form the next generation of Americans. Just for reference, our unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in over 50 years, we need people to come here and work.
They broke a rule, but they didn’t hurt anyone by breaking that rule, and our response to their actions should reflect that.
The outrageous cruelty shown by Republican leaders in border states does NOT reflect the victimless “crime” perpetrated by these human beings.
Right? Like, if our racist shitheel poster were posting similar screeds about people who smoke weed in states where it’s illegal, or were hijacking threads to express his disgust for those who don’t renew their vehicle registrations in a timely fashion, or were sealioning about those who take tax deductions that they’re not entitled to, I might believe that it wasn’t motivated by a psychotic hatred of brown foreigners. But the lawbreaking he obsesses over is very specific, despite all his prevaricating; and there’s a real obvious reason for the obsession.
But, to use another oft-mentioned talking point, I’d say it’s less like fists and noses and more like trespassing on my property. If someone enters my house without my permission — with or without hurting anyone — they’re to be removed, first off, and we can also discuss some additional response to their actions beyond that. I do have, as you put it, a right to complain about their actions even if they’re not hurting me.
You say we need people to come here and work? I say: let’s do it via legal immigration. But let’s keep exercising our right to complain about — and to remove, and to make an additional response to — those who are here without that all-important permission. To me, permission is an incredibly big deal: again, whether it’s a matter of entering my house or this country or half-a-hundred other scenarios.
I do believe all of those acts of lawbreaking should be punished according to the laws on the books as it comes to the attention of the relevant authorities; I just haven’t noticed anyone sticking up for those acts of lawbreaking, is all. If, as you say, it’ll help you reach the correct conclusion, I’ll start posting to that effect.
Nah dog, I’m not the one with the incorrect conclusion here. You’re the one posting insane rants about brown foreigners but who can’t wrap his stupid fuckin head around how racist you’re being. Don’t figure out how to help me reach the correct conclusion, figure out how to get there yourself–and then change your shitty self into something less shitty.
Where is this stuff about “brown foreigners” coming from? I’m just as much against white illegal immigrants as I am brown ones, and just as keen on brown legal immigrants as I am on white ones. It’s the lawbreaking I object to — not the color of the lawbreaker.
Oh, fuck off.
You know where immigrants are coming from, and so does everyone else reading this thread (hint: 4% of undocumented immigrants come from Europe, Oceania, and Canada combined).
I’ll believe that you’re deluding yourself, but nobody else is fooled. Do some fuckin work on yourself so you can be less of a shitty person.
So do you believe people are guilty of a crime prior to being convicted in a court of law? It sounds to me like you believe being referred to as “undocumented” means someone has committed a crime, regardless of whether they’ve been convicted in a court of law. Otherwise, why would you refer to them as “illegal”?
I believe they’re doing something “illegal”. I believe the term “undocumented” is swapped in — to replace “illegal” — when referring to the same people who are of course still engaging in the same illegal activity. I believe the cite made that clear. I believe the phrase “euphemism treadmill” could get pressed into service here.
So you’re making a purely positivist argument?
All right then, is it your contention that people fleeing East Germany prior to 1989 deserved to be shot?
What a nonsense analogy. There is nobody, anywhere who would say that having a person breaking into their house is a scenario where they are unharmed. It is an exceptionally frightening and disturbing event on a personal level, undermining one’s sense of security and safety.
When I say not harmed, I mean not fucking harmed. You can’t even tell when someone immigrates to the country, legally or illegally. If a paper pusher somewhere made some family’s immigration legal do you breathe a sigh of relief that this act wasn’t a violation of law?
These people are not breaking into your house, they’re not harming you, stop supporting having them brutalized by racist xenophobes.
Exactly. Consider the following three scenarios:
- Someone enters your house without your permission.
- Someone crosses your lawn without your permission.
- Someone goes foraging for blackberries on the corner of your thousand-acre lot without your permission.
All of them involve “trespassing on your property,” but if your emotional response to the third is anywhere near your emotional response to the first, you’re a goddamned psychopath; and if you try to analogize the third to the first, you’re a garbage person.
And yet someone foraging blackberries on your thousand-acre lot is many orders of magnitude worse than someone entering the country you live in.
Saying you’re “open to suggestions” for punishments for asylum seekers is just wild. Leaving it wide open, Waldo.
But crucially, the country is not an individual. I’m part of this country, & I think the present immigration quotas are impractically, cruelly low. So your xenophobia isn’t multiplied by me.
Yeah, but they’re brown and they talk funny, so they deserve to be tangled in razor wire and drowned.
How about we kill some of them? Maybe not perfect, but certainly a lesser evil than letting them into America.
OK.
But a lot of the outcry about treatment of migrants come from us not doing that. “Illegals” are not actually criminals under present law. But the Texas executive, who have sworn to uphold the law, are trying to kill them anyway, in contravention of the law. That’s not legalism. It’s something else. Executive policy is out of line with positive law, and law-abiding US citizens are upset about it.
As for what I prefer the law to be: I think the present quota system should be abolished & requirements to enter changed radically, toward a mostly open border with some screening for disease and maybe things like language proficiency. Maybe that’s naïve. We can disagree. But we should be able to agree that deathtraps are a disproportionate response to non-criminal infractions.
Law on the books and law as enforced can differ heavily. ICE doesn’t seem to go after undocumented white Europeans, for example.
Philosophy Tube’s recent video on “How Police Make Up the Law” may be of interest if you have an hour to chew on it.