And if the winner of the most votes actually won the presidency in 2016, 2/3 of our elected federal government would be controlled by Democrats. How does this democracy thing work again?
The “Muslim ban” - covers maybe 12.5% of Muslims. Pretty innefectual, and interestingly came from a list of countries the Obama Administration listed as high terrorism risks. If we’re going for a “muslim ban”, surely we can do better than that?
It targets “brown people”? Most of the world is “brown” or at least non-white (at least 5 billion people), and the ban covers a pretty tiny amount of “brown” people out there. Again, pretty ineffectual, if the aim is to go after “brown” people.
You think Kennedy’s reason to retire during the Trump administration, is because he was disgusted by Trump policy? Are you high? You do realize he was in the* majority opinion* on the travel ban ruling, right? So, he “threw up his hands” and retired because he didn’t want to continue making decisions* he thought were correct*? This is most nonsensical thing I’ve seen in a while.
Trump “rescinded” zero tolerance after hearing outcry? And something is wrong with that? Yeah, totally Hitleresque. Was zero tolerance policy a good decision? No. Did he listen to the dissent? Yes. Dictators don’t do that.
On the enlisted front. They came up with a grand total of* fourty* people that were discharged. Out of* thousands* of immigrant enlistees. Yeah, endemic problem there. I’m sure Trump himself hand combed through the enlistees and ordered them out for no reason whatsoever. I’m sure zero immigrants were ever discharged under Obama. Jesus, what a non-story.
Oh, and just you we’re clear on the naturalization front: You want people here who committed fraud to get here? Just checking.
Look, I don’t like Trump. And I will concede that in his heart he probably isn’t a fan of “brown people.” But there’s a difference between that and wanting to put them in death camps. Seriously, these comparisons to Nazi Germany are just friggin ridiculous and makes the leftist that espouse that look like drama queens. It’s like people that compare the US with A Handmaid’s Tale. Get real. Look, when they round up US citizens en masse and put them in internment camps, I’ll compare Trump to FDR, and I’ll do more than protest. But I still won’t compare him to Hitler. But that isn’t going to happen, I know it, you know it too. And if you really don’t, seriously, you need to check yourself.
First they came for the illegal immigrants, and I said nothing, because I was not an illegal immigrant.
Then they came for those who obtained their citizenship under false pretenses, and I said nothing, because I had not obtained my citizenship under false pretenses.
Then everything was fine.
Regards,
Shodan
I think you misspelled, “first they came for persons legally seeking asylum, took their children away from them, and inflicted lifelong trauma on the children, and I said nothing.” :mad:
I’m a little fuzzy on the details. How many of those separated from their children came through a designated border crossing vs the Rio Grande or the desert?
The spelling is OK - I just forgot to add “then there was a huge load of exaggeration, hysteria, and weeping and the gnashing of teeth, and I didn’t say nothing - I just snickered”.
Regards,
Shodan
The majority of those who were arrested were seeking asylum? A large minority were? Do you have a cite for this? How many, exactly, were arrested while legally seeking asylum? My own recollection was it was a handful, and they weren’t the target, but rather undocumented illegals were.
Is the ratio that important? Why is it acceptable to treat *any *legal asylum seekers the same as illegal entrants? What due process was followed that allowed legal asylum seekers to have their children removed?
First they came for the illegal immigrants, and I said nothing, because I was not an illegal immigrant.
Then they came for the asylum seekers, and I said nothing because I was not an asylum seeker.
Then they came for the Innocents, but I said nothing, for I was not a child and speaking out would be uncivil and I didn’t want to appear divisive.
Yeah, fuck that.
Is the ratio important? Certainly. If you tell me that people and their families are being detained at the border and force ably separated despite legally seeking asylum, then that is a major issue and cuts to the very heart of the US and I might start to buy into the Niemöller-esque slippery slope the OP and you are trying to paint. If you tell me that people who have illegally crossed over to the US are being detained, and that a policy has been put in that makes this a criminal act, and due to that the families are being separated and that some folks have been caught up in that despite being here legally, then it’s just a series of fuckups, but clearly legal asylum seekers weren’t being targeted. There is still an issue with this, but it’s a deeper issue than the recent Trump administration series of fuckups.
So, do you have evidence that they are directly going after asylum seekers who are legally crossing and seeking asylum? It’s a simple question and should have a simple answer. I don’t know the answer, just my impression, thus the question.
That was before the 2010 census which was the first time there was the ability to use computer models to tailor districts with laser like precision.
Given that we don’t have a proportional slate election, one would expect that the vote margin wouldn’t match the representational margin. For example, supposing that all districts were equally competitive with that 53% spread perfectly evenly across the country, the Dems would have won 100% of congress. However if we allow some clumpiness of the vote symetrically affecting both sides, with relatively few highly competitive districts we can get this down to 59%
What is harder to explain is a situation like we had, in 2012 (the first election after the 2010 precision gerimander) , in which the Dems won more than 1 million more congressional votes than the Republcnas but had 33 fewer seats. There is no way to achieve that result without an asymmetric distribution of likely voters.
In that election
Are the asylum seekers being deliberately targeted? Probably not, but it doesn’t matter. They are applying their “zero tolerance” policy without regards for such distinctions, and as such, the innocent are swept up in the wake. The travesty is not that they are targeting asylum seekers, but that they are doing near nothing to exclude them.
As for the objections to the “Niemöller-esque slippery slope”, I can appreciate the high level of resistance to comparing anything to the Holocaust, even the early days. The Holocaust has burned its place into the human psyche illustrating just how depraved state actors can be when power uses fear to rule. I mean no disrespect and mean no intent to belittle or diminish this memory.
All along the paths of the rise of authoritarian states are the detritus of small atrocities. Not all of these paths led to authoritarian states, nor did they all lead to great atrocities, but I have always believed that America is nobler and wiser to even set one foot on such a road.
Those legally seeking asylum were easy to identify and separate out: they presented themselves at border crossings and requested asylum. If this policy wasn’t aimed at them, regardless of who else it was aimed at, it would have been easy enough to exclude them from this treatment.
No such attempt was made. They didn’t care about the legal niceties. This was aimed at all the wetbacks.
OK, then, HD’s “which side got more votes?” is similarly meaningless. It’s just about who’s better at manipulating the rules to get and maintain power, regardless of whether they’re supported by a majority.
It’s always been possible to denaturalize people who gained their citizenship through fraud; it’s just a colossal PITA. Until now it’s mostly been done in cases of, say, human rights violators such as Nazi war criminals who lied about their military service when applying for admission to the U.S. as displaced persons after WWII, not run-of-the-mill fraud or omissions. There’s even an entire DOJ office devoted to ferreting out people like that. But it means that they need to be denatualized in District Court first and then put in deportation proceedings.
Back when I worked at Immigration Court, we had a case or two like that. Usually they never went to hearing because the people in proceedings knew they were going to lose; after all, they’d already lost in Federal Court on crates and crates of derogatory evidence. So they would cut a deal with the Feds to leave voluntarily and never return, and go to Germany or wherever and collect their German military pension.
Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal and former interpreter/court clerk, Executive Office for Immigration Review, Office of the Immigration Judge
Well, you know, the term ‘wetback’ refers to those who came to the US illegally, right? I know this because, well, that’s how my family got here. So, they aren’t actually coming after ALL ‘wetbacks’. Be a bit tough, since there are estimated to be something like 12 million here.
I actually don’t know the details of how or why people legally seeking asylum were caught up in this thing. Kind of what I was asking. Based on this, I don’t know that you know the details either. Are you sure no such attempt was made? Are you sure that ‘legal niceties’ were ignored? In how many cases? Over 50,000 people are granted asylum each year, on average, to the US after all…and I have no idea the number requesting such asylum. Are we talking about 20 asylum seekers being detained by accident…or 200…or 2000…or 20000?
I think it’s important to cut through the hyperbole and horseshit on this subject, however. It’s also important to note that this has been an issue that has remained unresolved for literally decades. This latest cluster fuck is part of a long line of swings at this problem that don’t address the core issues or offer any direction on trying to resolve them.
Well, I took HD to be saying ‘seats’ instead of ‘votes’, but if he meant votes then he was equally wrong. How’s that? 
Don’t use racial slurs in this fashion.
[/moderating]
Technically true, but it’s been used as a generally derogatory term for a hell of a long time now.
No, you were asking about numbers, and your line of argument was that because there weren’t many of them compared to those who’d crossed the border illegally, my response to Shodan was out of line:
Any attempt would have been practically self-executing.
One-year-olds separated from their parents are getting asylum hearings.
You know, this was all in the news weeks ago. I’m too fucking tired of this crap to dig up stories that were at my fingertips a month ago. We’ve already had this discussion, yes this stuff happened, and if you were Ripvanwinkling your way through June, you’re on your own AFAIAC.
And somehow we got through all those decades without a massive separation of kids from parents, regardless of the legality of their border crossing.
This latest cluster fuck is not part of a long line of anything we’ve been part of in the post-WWII era. This is a massive departure. Even the children of persons illegally entering the U.S. don’t deserve to be punished for their parents’ choices with this sort of trauma.
We’ve got a blatantly racist and nativist Administration doing blatantly racist and nativist things. It’s that simple.
The asylum seekers should go to the US consulate in the first country they enter and apply for asylum there. Those that arrive at the border and claim asylum are detained until a hearing can be scheduled. There is no way to know if they are legal asylum seekers until the hearing. Once their asylum status is determined they are no longer held. So it is incorrect to say they are treating legal asylum seekers the same as illegal immigrants.
Since I can’t cut and paste (how are you parsing things?), I’ll just try and go down the list.
I assumed you didn’t mean it in a derogatory way, and probably that you are at least vaguely aware that my family is from Mexico, so I didn’t take that as you trying to be deliberately insulting or racist.
Second point, I’m asking for a cite. None has been forthcoming. I guess because it happened a month ago and everyone is tired of finding such obvious data. Except a quick google search doesn’t yield anything solid. So, I’ll take it that it was a very small though non-zero number and just move on.
To the point about the separation and it being a departure. That’s true enough…it wasn’t considered a felony in the past. It was the re-categorization of it that brought about the separation, as felons in the US are routinely separated from their kids by the state. It’s a long standing issue, however, as we haven’t dealt with the root of the issue, which is illegals entering the country and what we should do about it, if anything. That’s the can that’s been kicked down the road by every administration since, IIRC, Eisenhower. Other than re-categorizing it a felony, however, Trump hasn’t really changed things substantially from previous administrations. And I actually think that this was a unintended fuckup on Trump’s part…though I’d say that some of his henchmen probably saw this coming with some anticipation.
I agree that we have a racist, ‘nativist’ president and that he’s pretty blatantly doing racist, ‘nativist’ things. But it’s not that simple, nor is this anything new. The root issue, IMHO, is to ask the question…why are so many illegals trying to come to the US? And the root causes are…poverty, lack of opportunity, drug cartels (often to provide for the drug habits of our own citizens), and, of course, the convoluted and throttled immigration system we have which puts up so many barriers to legal immigration. And none of this stuff is new, nor did it just spring into being with Trump. It’s all stuff that we, the people have chosen not to deal with for decades…and now we have a bull in the china shop idiot who is pandering to the worst aspects of our society trying to ‘fix’ the issues in a ham handed and clumsy way that appeals to his base.