Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[TheodoricFriede]

A sound mind doesn't return to the same place over and over again to do nothing but complain about how everyone else is wrong.

[Vol]

I only caught 4 hours of Fox while working, but they spent nearly the entire time talking about the packages. Towards the end they seemed to imply it was confirmed they weren't actually bombs though.

Any breakthroughs so far?

[Mobius_118]

I heard they were duds. Badly made.

It's still domestic terrorism by definition against people trump frequently pisses his pants about.

A sound mind doesn't return to the same place over and over again to do nothing but complain about how everyone else is wrong.

Well it's not like I can reach through the monitor and slap some sense into you. Because that's what you need.

[TheodoricFriede]

If your sole purpose here is to bitch about people not agreeing with you, what do you think that says about yourself?

[Mobius_118]

You'd be right if that's all I did.

Unfortunately for you I do way more outside of this backwater forum in terms of doing something about this current political problem, and it doesn't involve violence.

I can't say as much about trump supporters I encounter. The amount of hatred, misinformation, and outright ignorance I see is sad, to say the least. Good thing is they're also the biggest group of pussies I've ever met.

[TheodoricFriede]

And yet, you do not deny what your sole purpose HERE is.

[Mobius_118]

Again, I can't slap you through the monitor.

It is curious as to why you're so willing to excuse domestic terrorism just to spite me. Sounds pretty stupid according to anyone with a functioning brain.

[Mazder]

Now you're excusing domestic terrorism.

I really want to know why you're ok with it. That does not indicate a sound mind.

Where am I excusing it?
By not sating the extremely obvious that sending bombs in the mail to people is a bad thing. I'm sorry I didn't think this was the planet of the Elcor where we had to state our intentions and inflections while speaking!

Just because I am calling out your own bullshit with being okay with applying violence to one set of people yet can not seem to find the irony in the fact that when the exact same violence is applied to you it's suddenly not okay and evil.
You can't have one being okay and the other not being okay, either all the violence is reprehensible or none of it is, make your choice.

Well it's not like I can reach through the monitor and slap some sense into you. Because that's what you need.

There you go again, advocating more violence in the name of your own agenda and moral compass. You know who does that?
Fucking Fascists and Communists.
Stop doing what they do!

Again, I can't slap you through the monitor.

It is curious as to why you're so willing to excuse domestic terrorism just to spite me. Sounds pretty stupid according to anyone with a functioning brain.

Do...do you not know how to read?
No, seriously....did all that shit the military pump into you lose your comprehension skills?

Let's run through this point by point.

If your sole purpose here is to bitch about people not agreeing with you, what do you think that says about yourself?

Theo says this. It's pretty obvious but let's explain it for those who clearly didn't understand the question.
"If your sole purpose here is to bitch about people not agreeing with you, what do you think that says about yourself?"
How, the word bolded is the most important as it indicated that the forum is the subject of place, no others. That means no other actions of your life other than happens here is in question, or even being talked about.
So, you reply with;

You'd be right if that's all I did.

Unfortunately for you I do way more outside of this backwater forum in terms of doing something about this current political problem, and it doesn't involve violence.

I can't say as much about trump supporters I encounter. The amount of hatred, misinformation, and outright ignorance I see is sad, to say the least. Good thing is they're also the biggest group of pussies I've ever met.

Which makes no sense.
He never mentioned your outside life, or your opinions of other people you've met, and likely doesn't care as he's talking about your activity and behaviour in this, as you so put it, "backwater forum".
Which brings up a few more things.
One, being you obviously don't care about this place so the original question stands as to why you keep coming back and behaving as such? Clearly not for humour as you very obviously don't act like someone who is having a good time, it's painfully obvious no matter how much you say you find it funny, your actual speech/text says otherwise.
Two, being that if this place is such a backwater then thank you for calling it such and insulting every user on this forum at the same time by way of implying we're unimportant, uninteresting or insignificant enough to warrant being called as such. You wouldn't mind if you were banned then I'd presume?
Three, being bringing up your outside shit. It doesn't matter, in this we don't care as we're on about your behaviour here.

Which Theo re-iterates;

And yet, you do not deny what your sole purpose HERE is.

Clearly and obviously trying to get an answer to his first question.
To which you reply with;

Again, I can't slap you through the monitor.

It is curious as to why you're so willing to excuse domestic terrorism just to spite me. Sounds pretty stupid according to anyone with a functioning brain.

Implications of violence.
So because he wants to know why it appears that all you do is come in to the forum to have a bitch-fit every now and again and what your intentions actually are you've responded to "I wish I could use violence to beat my position into you, under the guise of calling it sense, because I feel I am right but don't want to spend the time actually convincing you, instead I'll attempt deplatforming, name calling, accusations of violence or advocating for violence just to make me seem the more morally sound one".


If you ask me the question of "If your sole purpose here is to bitch about people not agreeing with you, what do you think that says about yourself?" is pretty clear to me.

You appear to be a jaded thug who only knows violence as his way of communicating his position because he lost the ability to empathize with people over small points, blowing up the belief in your head they're also for the entirety of the large points. You have lost the ability to see nuance in anyone not aligned with your own beliefs and therefor can not fathom anyone not agreeing with your position. Having a cathartic joke to you is now seen as advocating for terrorism for crying out loud.
And no, this isn't a damned attack on you personally I am just responding to your behaviour you display in this thread alone.


I don't want to hear about how "i'm a military guy so you wouldn't know how to properly contain your emotions" or "I've lived in the deep south and had shit slung at me so it's okay to be a cunt back" because they do not excuse you or your behaviour.
If you're being called out for it then face it. Stop dodging it.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

That was beautiful tbh.

[Vol]

It is in fact terrorism.

They caught the guy, seems like. Top autists have looked into his past, he appears to have quite an arrest record, possibly for terrorist threats, and much more. Possibly mentally ill, which would also explain why the guy could only make fake bombs. Some pieces of the puzzle haven't fallen into place yet, but they found the guy in his van (that he may be living in) in the middle of a parking lot, windows plastered with Trump meme stickers.

[TheodoricFriede]

It is in fact terrorism.

Was there ever any doubt?

[Mazder]

It is in fact terrorism.

They caught the guy, seems like. Top autists have looked into his past, he appears to have quite an arrest record, possibly for terrorist threats, and much more. Possibly mentally ill, which would also explain why the guy could only make fake bombs. Some pieces of the puzzle haven't fallen into place yet, but they found the guy in his van (that he may be living in) in the middle of a parking lot, windows plastered with Trump meme stickers.

Well according to the BBC he was arrested in 2002 for a bomb threat in Miami.

And looking at the images of the van itself, in my opinion playing devil's advocate for the van alone it appears to be very, very, "fresh off the lot" clean, and those stickers are on the outside instead of on the inside facing out as you'd expect them to be.
A conspiracy theorist could say it's not the guy or at the very least not his van.


More likely it's a replica for the publicity shots as the real one is in the police impound/garages being picked over with a fine toothed comb.

Either way the van looks suspiciously clean and those stickers looks suspiciously professionally assembled and printed in the very least for these pictures.

[Vol]

And today we have an actual Nazi shooting up a synagogue. Called out Trump for being pro-Israel, didn't vote for him, hates the Jews with a passion. Gab has a nice history of him posting radical comments and pictures, then "I'm going in" after what he sees as inaction.

It was during a bris, which is a whole other topic of debate, but I'd like to think anyone short of an actual Nazi would agree murder isn't a good solution to the circumcision question.

So this is going to make for a thoughtful national debate on antisemitism, online speech, and blaming people.

[Mazder]

It was during a bris, which is a whole other topic of debate, but I'd like to think anyone short of an actual Nazi would agree murder isn't a good solution to the circumcision question.

Well duuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

So this is going to make for a thoughtful national debate on antisemitism, online speech, and blaming people.

Be careful, as this is how it started in my country.
You remove the ability to say some things about some people because "being mean just isn't nice and only those who are the mean ones would say it anyway". Then they start the blanket laws, then speech laws in general, then "tolerated speech", then monitoring speech online, then BOOM, you're like my country, one step away from being in an Orwell novel.

Also in other news;
Mexico finally offers the caravan asylum. They are refusing it because it's not the lap of luxury of American Benefits.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45999610

[TheodoricFriede]

And today we have an actual Nazi shooting up a synagogue. Called out Trump for being pro-Israel, didn't vote for him, hates the Jews with a passion. Gab has a nice history of him posting radical comments and pictures, then "I'm going in" after what he sees as inaction.

Nice to know that some things never change.

[Vol]

Be careful, as this is how it started in my country.
You remove the ability to say some things about some people because "being mean just isn't nice and only those who are the mean ones would say it anyway". Then they start the blanket laws, then speech laws in general, then "tolerated speech", then monitoring speech online, then BOOM, you're like my country, one step away from being in an Orwell novel.

Oh, I was being tongue in cheek. The result is going to be a lot of coffins and mourning, then Gab probably gets booted off a few more services, and the government turns the screws on civil liberties a bit more.

Yeah, we have codified free speech, but good fucking luck finding it on any large online site. Hence why Gab exists, but has been booted around from hosts and app stores for it. Meanwhile I heard from a non-reputable site that in the EU recently, they decided it's not considered free speech to point out that Muhammad marrying a 9 year old is pedophilia.

Nice to know that some things never change.

Been going on for well over 2 millennia at this point, no?

[Vol]

There we go, Paypal cut ties with Gab.

It really does seem like a parallel society has to be built if people want to fully indulge in free speech online. Banks, registars, server farms, whatever.

Edit: And now their hosting provider. For the crime of being the social media platform that an actual Nazi used.

[Mobius_118]

Considering that I have backed up my claims about law violations with the actual laws verbatim and you just ignore it, I can safely say that you, dear Mazder, have been playing devils advocate for completely the wrong reasons.

Remember when I said as trump continues to encourage violence, that his more fringe supporters would start to carry out what he wants?

Bomb threats and a literal Nazi shooting up a Synagogue. Meanwhile the fucking idiots here are complaining about someone who predicted it.

Can you see why I want to slap people upside the head? You don't listen to reason, to facts, to reality. It's pathetic to watch.

The fact that you debate someone who learned the laws when you don't know them, and don't even care when I lay them out in front of you means that you're the one with the problem.

Meanwhile the people that GAC supports wants to fuck us all over, which has created more problems for people like me. And it will get worse. The United States will not recover from this for a decade, and it is directly trump's fault.

Cue the "If the US can't survive this then you weren't strong from the start." and all the rest of the bullshit you people say.

Meanwhile, I'll be working to mitigate and contain this whole fucked up mess. Mazder, you get to watch. GAC, you're responsible for all of this chaos indirectly. Theo...Oh Theo. I actually stopped myself from saying that Jewish people were in the crosshairs of trump supporters.

Had I said it, you'd be bitching about it hard.

Welp. I haven't been wrong yet.

Cue more bullshit. I await with bated breath what fuckery you folks can come up with.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Orange Mad Bad.exe deployed

Virtue Status: Maximum

Good Boy Points: Awarded

[TheodoricFriede]

Most adorable is the fact that someone thinks antisemitism in America is new...

Or exclusively right leaning for that matter...

[TheodoricFriede]

Also can we stop using the term "Actual/Literal Nazi" please?

I understand what people are trying to get at, but an actual Nazi looks like this:


All Nazis are antisemitic, not all antisemitic people are Nazis.

Both, however, are dogshit.

[Mazder]

Considering that I have backed up my claims about law violations with the actual laws verbatim and you just ignore it, I can safely say that you, dear Mazder, have been playing devils advocate for completely the wrong reasons.

I'm playing Devil's Advocate for the sake of playing Devil's advocate, not out of some moral grandstanding.
It's what I do, I engage with both sides to find the common ground so that a compromise can be found. It's not about "reasons" or opinions. I'm doing it because no-one else is.

Bomb threats and a literal Nazi shooting up a Synagogue. Meanwhile the fucking idiots here are complaining about someone who predicted it.

You don't know the guy's reasons do you?
He was protesting Trump. The Nazi has never liked Trump, nor has had any alignment with him in any regard.
The fucker just hated Jews and wanted to kill some. He was fucked in the head.
Trump's existence and activities did nothing to encourage this violence.
Until we get the reasoning from the bomber we also can not claim the concrete reason of why he did it. We can make guesses at best, no matter how educated the guesses might be.

Meanwhile the people that GAC supports wants to fuck us all over, which has created more problems for people like me. And it will get worse. The United States will not recover from this for a decade, and it is directly trump's fault.

Cue the "If the US can't survive this then you weren't strong from the start." and all the rest of the bullshit you people say.

Well honestly...yes.
If you claim to be so strong you can take the hit.
I mean for fuck sake, even at your most hardcore for hate speech laws you're still a lightyear from reaching the UK's level. Or even the level of Canada, whom you share a border with.
If it's truly bullshit then you'd have fallen apart at the seams before the ink of the Declaration of Independence was dry.

And if you truly, truly wish to fix things you have got to drop the "with us or against us" politics. I'm sorry but that is killing you way more than Trump is. You have people in the center right now who would swing either way from one or two policies. One policy to the right and they're a Republican, so what do you do? Label them every evil label in the book as if they've been a Republican for all their lives, calling them racists and bigots for one policy that you might not have.
And this is nothing new. There is no right, center, left. It's a gradient, it always has been. Until not being left enough has been a death sentence to anyone's politics from the left.

Seriously, cut the riots, cut the accusations of everyone being a Nazi (because if everyone's accused of being a Nazi then no-one is able to tell the true ones from the false ones), cut the "Trump's gonna kill us all!!!" and work towards goals to get your views across to those that will listen.
Instead of giving Trump free press/free advertisment by reblogging/resharing/retweeting every time he does bad rereblog/reshare/retweet something good that your side AND the middle and even the middle-about-to-be-right are doing.
Even if it's here alone you do it, you'll find more people willing to listen if you bring more positivity than negativity.

And if your first thought is "yeah but other don't do it then why should I have to?" then stop. Because that's the very exact reason why you should. Because no-one else is doing it.
Even I don't do it and I am telling you that this is something you need to do as I think it'd help you and your position out the most.

If not, abandon this place, you clearly don't care about it anyway so leave.

Meanwhile, I'll be working to mitigate and contain this whole fucked up mess. Mazder, you get to watch. GAC, you're responsible for all of this chaos indirectly. Theo...Oh Theo. I actually stopped myself from saying that Jewish people were in the crosshairs of trump supporters.

The guy didn't even support Trump though...
So, dunno where you're getting that from.

Cue more bullshit. I await with bated breath what fuckery you folks can come up with.

This is probably where you're failing the most.
Even if you're being sarcastic (which I doubt as your behaviour in general doesn't support it), you act as if this place and it's arguments do not matter, and yet await it's response.
You write everything you just don't want to listen to as bullshit, calling it "fuckery" in your own words. If it's so unimportant, what are you waiting for? If this place, it's arguments, the very opinions of the people here and even the people here matter so little then what are you waiting for from this place and us?
To parrot Theo's earlier question, what is your purpose here?

No, seriously, what are you doing here?
By all accounts you should not be, by your own admission. So go.
Clearly it would not matter to us and clearly it'd not matter to you so just do it. Leave.

Unless there is a point. Unless you do have a purpose and are just very bad at going about it. Unless this place does hold meaning to you.

[Alienmorph]

And if you truly, truly wish to fix things you have got to drop the "with us or against us" politics.

This ^

Every form of extreme thinking that dehumanize indiscriminately your opponents, and make everyone who isn't 100% on your side authomatically one of said opponents, by definition denies any form of mediation and diplomacy, and can't accomplish diddly-dick.

You cannot heal a wounded nation by splitting it in half, and then attending only at the half you give a damn about. That's only going to validate your opponents and make them stronger.

It's one of the many reasons extremisms, wheter they're in politics, religion or even in less meaningful stuff are fucking worthless at best, and dangerous at worse. It's why thei're CALLED "extremisms", ffs.

[Vol]

Looks like Bolsonaro won in Brazil.

What interesting times we live in.

[TheodoricFriede]

I haven't been keeping up, whats his deal exactly?

[Alienmorph]

He's basically a wannabe dictator who blames all the problems of his country on indios and international interference, and who's also a religious nut. Oh, and he's also an open homophobe, and wants to trash every major accord to protect the Amazon rainforest to exploit the territory's resources, "for the good of his people". I'm simplifying, but... well... it's not good news. At all.

And of course my government is happy because "That's another country who told the left to fuck off... hooray!"

[Vol]

He's an actual right-winger who won on a Trumpian campaign as far as I'm aware. Anti-gay, dislikes blacks (Apparently in Brazil, "white" is far looser for obvious reasons), supports the old military dictatorship, pro gun rights, so on and so forth. Not sure what he can actually do as president, but it's a pretty stark reversal that he won.

[TheodoricFriede]

Well, given what I know about South America, I'm pretty sure this problem will solve itself in a few years.

[Alienmorph]

We shall see. Brazil has been relatively stable compared to other South America countries, but it has been knee deep into financial depression, and this asshole took advantage of it, much like Trump and the right-leaning people in Europe.

It's pretty disheartening seeying this kind of global resurgence of very dangerous politics, hopefully it's a trend that dies out sooner rather than later. But I get the feeling that's not gonna be the case.

[Alienmorph]

Oh, and for those who like to compare everyone to nazists and fascists...



This weekend a few thousands of "nostalgic" people marched on the city of Predappio, birthplace of Mussolini, all the way to his funerary monument (yes we have one of those... at least it's empty because back in the day we literally hung and gutted the bastard and left his body to the crows) wearing t-shirts like these and doing the salute once arrived on site. They also happily said in interviews that they support our actual government, as it's "finally" made of people that rapresents them and their ideals.

So next time you american snowflakes want to tell me that living under Trump is like living in a neo-fascist state GET FUCKED.

EDIT - Oh, and to further drive the point home... my government just approved a major cut to the retirement money funding destined to former politically persecuted people and jews victim of racial hate. Like, the news literally arrived this morning.

[TTTX]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtBmojr5dok

Well I thought we needed some good news.

[Raga]

Some rumblings that Trump might try to basically reinterpret birthright citizenship via executive order.

I have mixed feelings. If it was possible to unambiguously legally do it, I 100% support this. Birthright citizenship is a massive noose around the neck of the country and it's only going to get worse as migration almost certainly gets worse due to global warming, overpopulation, and the world economy basically automating low skill people out of the need to exist from a production standpoint.

I have two concerns. One is that is that such an order would inevitably be challenged by the courts and though I doubt even the current conservative Supreme Court would uphold it, it just might. In that case, it creates a precedent for a president to radically reinterpret any random chunk of the Constitution he doesn't like and for the court system, assuming it's a court sympathetic to his base politics, to just push it through. That would absolutely be used to undermine the 2nd amendment, free speech, and assorted other things at some future point.

The second concern is that it does strike me as unfair to engage this retroactively, to suddenly uncitizen people who have been going around as Americans for decades and have never lived anywhere else. It would be completely fair to make it effective as of the date it's implemented and for it to apply to all future births, however.

[Vol]

@Alien: To quote a meme, almost every human that has ever lived would be a violent, right-wing extremist by our standards. This last 80 or so years of relative peace and progressive social moments and effusive social welfare is a bold experiment. But the consequences of the world wars are fading. Way I see it, we've been living in a steep local maxima of change since our grandparents and we're heading back to equilibrium.

Though what we're heading to is going to be different. Too many structures and restraints have been destroyed, stem and root. So probably no putting women back in the kitchen, or kings, or colonizing Africa. But probably less international cooperation, more land skirmishes, and ethno-states.

@Raga: I would like to think he checked with his counsel before he spoke. So if he did, then he presumably can order agencies to stop issuing credentials that make birthright babies citizens, or something along those lines. Which then sets up the court challenge, which would swiftly head up to the Supreme Court for a final ruling. But then that would probably be more about presidential power, rather than the merit, since they're pussies like that.

But it does need to go. We replaced a third our population with Central and South Americans in 50 years, it's madness. However, given there appears to exist contemporary documents from the people who wrote the passages in question that make it clear it's explicitly not for foreign nationals, it might just work. Whereas the 2nd and 1st have already been encroached upon, but we can look at the contemporary documents around them and see they were not meant to be restricted as they are. That, and I would hope if some future president does try funny business, the Second will protect the rest.

It would never apply retroactively, our legal system doesn't do that in any case I can think of.

[Raga]

However, given there appears to exist contemporary documents from the people who wrote the passages in question that make it clear it's explicitly not for foreign nationals, it might just work.

It wasn't intended to apply to immigration. It was put in place to give slaves citizenship and to make it hard to impossible for Southern states to strip them of citizenship at the state or local level.

I don't know the roots of why it wasn't interpreted that way once the big immigration waves started about 20 years after the Civil War. There may be a detailed case history that establishes it, or it might just be administration taking it literally and nobody bothering to challenge it. The fact there was no welfare state to speak of back then and voter suppression of non-whites and white trash was so effective probably explains a lot of the apparent lack of protest about it.

However, the wonky interpretation has been in place for over 100 years now and it's a rampantly progressive interpretation. As such, there is more momentum to maintain it than to undermine it. It isn't some anachronism or overt historical injustice based on wonky interpretations of the Constitution (like, say, the ostensible justification for convict lease) that needs to be corrected both for reasons of maintaining a consistent and non-whim based legal system but also for moral reasons. It's a whim interpretation, but one progressives will insist fulfills a moral purpose.

So in summary: birthright citizenship applying to immigrants is a shite interpretation of the original intent. However, it's an interpretation that has a huge weight of historical precedent behind it now and an army willing to claim its moral necessity. Legally speaking Trump is correct. But strategically, I can't think of a much harder or bloodier nut to crack.

[Alienmorph]

@Alien: To quote a meme, almost every human that has ever lived would be a violent, right-wing extremist by our standards. This last 80 or so years of relative peace and progressive social moments and effusive social welfare is a bold experiment. But the consequences of the world wars are fading. Way I see it, we've been living in a steep local maxima of change since our grandparents and we're heading back to equilibrium.

Though what we're heading to is going to be different. Too many structures and restraints have been destroyed, stem and root. So probably no putting women back in the kitchen, or kings, or colonizing Africa. But probably less international cooperation, more land skirmishes, and ethno-states.

Personally, I'm starting to think western civilization is heading straight towards a crisis so bad, both cultural and economical, that is gonna make the Great Depression look like a bad Monday. And we're gonna be the unfortunate fuckers who have to live through it, rather than be the ones who'll see humanity clean up the planet and go to colonize space. Ain't that fucking nice.

[TTTX]

Personally, I'm starting to think western civilization is heading straight towards a crisis so bad, both cultural and economical, that is gonna make the Great Depression look like a bad Monday. And we're gonna be the unfortunate fuckers who have to live through it, rather than be the ones who'll see humanity clean up the planet and go to colonize space. Ain't that fucking nice.

either that or a world war either case is terrible.

[Alienmorph]

Well, a world war counts as a catastrophic crisis in my books. So it's not much of an either way.

[Vol]

However, the wonky interpretation has been in place for over 100 years now and it's a rampantly progressive interpretation. As such, there is more momentum to maintain it than to undermine it.

Presumably whoever he spoke to has some confidence in executive power to selectively refuse citizenship to the babies of illegals. Or at least force the issue to court where it can be appealed up to a proper ruling.

The real question is which judge gets to rule against it first. Hawaii Judge is quick on the trigger, but don't count out the coastals!

So in summary: birthright citizenship applying to immigrants is a shite interpretation of the original intent. However, it's an interpretation that has a huge weight of historical precedent behind it now and an army willing to claim its moral necessity. Legally speaking Trump is correct. But strategically, I can't think of a much harder or bloodier nut to crack.

I'd wager the army is smaller than we'd think. Far left, moderate authoritarian left, sure, but that's not most Americans, and Trump knows immigration is a winning issue for him, hence why his enemies don't harp on about it. Other than the optics of separating families for easy emotional manipulation.

Personally, I'm starting to think western civilization is heading straight towards a crisis so bad, both cultural and economical, that is gonna make the Great Depression look like a bad Monday. And we're gonna be the unfortunate fuckers who have to live through it, rather than be the ones who'll see humanity clean up the planet and go to colonize space. Ain't that fucking nice.

Well, to put on my swami hat, I think we're going to have a soft civil war in the west. Probably in America, but spreading to Europe and other places. Some actual violence, but isolated skirmishes. There won't be any national identity left, traditions will be diluted down to nothing more than secular exercises in consumption, and with the engineering of division along racial and gender lines, we'll retreat to the safety of our tribes.

The real question of tomorrow will be, "Are Italians white?"

Heh.

[Raga]

In that future China wins because they have their shit together and they're not afraid to defend their culture and homeland.

[Mobius_118]

Dipshit can't change the Constitution with an executive order, and he can't deploy Federal troopers on US soil in the extent that he wants. Posse Comitatus Act is what you want to look up.

Also they'd be sitting on the border for months, eating up taxpayer money for no reason. The Geneva Convention applies to every single one of the refugees seeking asylum.

[Mazder]

Also they'd be sitting on the border for months, eating up taxpayer money for no reason. The Geneva Convention applies to every single one of the refugees seeking asylum.

So why doesn't said Geneva convention apply to Mexico and their obligation to follow the rules placed down when the alleged refugees refuse asylum? Why does Mexico get to wash their hands of it?
Because Mexico has offered them asylum already and they've refused for the "better life" option of the USA.

Asylum isn't about picking and choosing where you want to go. You're not a refugee if you're choosing a destination, you're an economic migrant. A migrant that has to go through the proper immigration channels, which, these people are still refusing to do, yet want entry into the USA anyway. A refugee is just trying to get safe and will deal with immigration and citizenship as and when they're able to, it's not their primary focus, getting away alive and safe is.

Well, to put on my swami hat, I think we're going to have a soft civil war in the west. Probably in America, but spreading to Europe and other places. Some actual violence, but isolated skirmishes. There won't be any national identity left, traditions will be diluted down to nothing more than secular exercises in consumption, and with the engineering of division along racial and gender lines, we'll retreat to the safety of our tribes.

The real question of tomorrow will be, "Are Italians white?"

Heh.

Shit like that's already started in my country.
"Who says British Heritage means white British heritage?"
Urgh.
I'm sorry but the more recent (2000-2018) migrants are nothing like the ones from before. Ones from before came slowly and in not huge numbers and actually integrated into British society. Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian, Saudi Arabian, all of them and more, primarily Muslim and Sikh, integrated and became British, including some things from their cultures but ultimately adopting British Law, British lives and British traditions.

These newer ones, they're not doing that in the slightest.
The next generation cycle might, or maybe the one after, but the current ones are not.
They've not included their culture into the fabric to British life and culture but have begun transplanting their world into ours. By ours I mean the current native population. This includes the Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian, Saudi Arabian, etc, I mentioned before. The ones adoption more Western ideals and have put the hard work in are being erased by the current very different breed who wish to bring their world completely into the UK. Not integrate it, but to just pick it up and place it down in the lands of the UK.
And this is not the only area it's happening.
It's happening all over Europe. Germany, Sweden, France, tried in Poland but were ousted mostly. They're trying to cross through Italy and Spain to this very day.
These people aren't looking to become British, become German, become French. They want to stay exactly the same, only richer and better off, but ultimately unchanged.

I'm sorry but no matter who you are, where you come from in the world, if you're looking to live in another place you adopt their ways. If I was going to live in the USA I'd adopt US law and US living practices as much as possible. The exact same as if I'd go to Germany, or Japan, or Pakistan.
Also, learn the fucking language if you're going to try and live somewhere.
There are loads of people in the UK barely able to speak, or comprehend, English.
It's not just those from the Middle East. Polish, Italian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Croatian. I've met people, face to face, day to day at work. A lot barely able to utter a few words strung together.
If it were me I'd make sure I could speak the language on a rudimentary level before going anywhere. Or at least learn the phrase "I'm sorry I don't speak X very well". Even if it's a case of being an asylum seeker I'd imagine learning the language of the destination country is of utmost importance once there or on the way.


Phew, sorry for the rant.
It's just been frustrating me for a while and the only ones in this country listening to this stuff is UKIP...

[Mobius_118]

And the "safest" place in the region is the only country in the Americas that doesn't usually have gangland warfare. Just right wing fuckwits who think bombing people is a good way to send a message. We're the best equipped to handle the asylum seekers. Mexico, Guatemala, they can't handle it. Just like how you ignore laws for the sake of being a fence fucker.

And, as I apparently have to continuously remind you, the United States is responsible for the bullshit they're fleeing from. What would have them do, die? Because that's the only other option.

[TTTX]

And the "safest" place in the region is the only country in the Americas that doesn't usually have gangland warfare. Just right wing fuckwits who think bombing people is a good way to send a message. We're the best equipped to handle the asylum seekers. Mexico, Guatemala, they can't handle it. Just like how you ignore laws for the sake of being a fence fucker.

And, as I apparently have to continuously remind you, the United States is responsible for the bullshit they're fleeing from. What would have them do, die? Because that's the only other option.

The USA is responsible for a lot of things, you also going to take the refuges coming to Europe, since you are also responsible for that?

[Raga]

What would have them do, die?

Yes, to be blunt. This is the fundamental hang-up. There is some actual limit on how many of the desperate, hopeful, or whatever other criterion you wanted to use that can be accepted into a given place and that is based on a complicated mixture of resources, cultural tolerance, immediacy of the threat and so on. As you yourself said Mexico and Guatemala "can't handle it." If the ultimate imperative is "either they are allowed to leave Honduras or they die," why would "not being able to handle it" exempt any given country from the moral weight of the imperative? Because clearly, there is more going on than the moral weight of the imperative. As it turns out Mexico and Guatemala have their own issues to sort out and face and this is treated as legitimate. Why not so for the United States?

Simple. Because we are comparatively richer than they are. That is all. As if that magically undermines our sovereignty or our own actually quite high levels of societal dysfunction or our tremendous national debt or any number of other things.

"You are comparatively better off than X people" is a fine argument for something like a progressive income tax. It's a shit argument for forcing middle class people to house homeless people in their spare bedrooms because the homeless people claim they will freeze otherwise. But that is precisely what this attitude is proposing. It is claiming that we are not only obligated to be charitable, but that we are obligated to be charitable on the terms demanded by the people seeking charity, and if we don't we are singularly responsible for any misfortune that befalls them.

And don't be mistaken that even saving someone's life *is* charity.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

And the "safest" place in the region is the only country in the Americas that doesn't usually have gangland warfare. Just right wing fuckwits who think bombing people is a good way to send a message. We're the best equipped to handle the asylum seekers. Mexico, Guatemala, they can't handle it. Just like how you ignore laws for the sake of being a fence fucker.

And, as I apparently have to continuously remind you, the United States is responsible for the bullshit they're fleeing from. What would have them do, die? Because that's the only other option.

They should really try for Canada then.

After all we know Canada is a paradise of Progressivism and Left Wing thought.

[Mazder]

And the "safest" place in the region is the only country in the Americas that doesn't usually have gangland warfare. Just right wing fuckwits who think bombing people is a good way to send a message. We're the best equipped to handle the asylum seekers. Mexico, Guatemala, they can't handle it. Just like how you ignore laws for the sake of being a fence fucker.

And, as I apparently have to continuously remind you, the United States is responsible for the bullshit they're fleeing from. What would have them do, die? Because that's the only other option.

Doesn't usually have gangland warfare, lol. Yeah, right, there is no such thing as a gang war in America ever these days.

And honestly, bullshit on the safety aspect. Right now they're still safer than where they've come from and the Mexican government, which includes all of it's support structures that include military protection, have offered the olive branch only for it to be slapped away. You might be "best equipped" to deal with asylum seekers, Britain was too for Europe, that doesn't mean you have to take them in especially when they're trying to enter illegally and not go through the proper way.

Honestly you need some kind of enforcement of your border for those who wish to cross it illegally. Europe has already shown you that the Schengen type of open borders is incredibly flawed once illegal immigrants get into your country.

Even if it's responsible it still does not mean yu are obligated to take in people trying to illegally cross your border. They want in they have to enter legally like everyone else. If they put forth a claim for asylum and it's rejected they have to listen to that and know the way is shut.

Honestly I would. They've made an error in trying to abuse your humanitarian nature. Oh it's only a few thousand this time. A few thousand next time, and the next, and the next. Oh, where did this sudden uptick in population come from? That few thousand turning into tens of thousands. Tens of thousands that have no obligation to follow any of your laws, no obligation to pay taxes and who now are even given the possibility of voting in some states (looking at you California....) which means less and less of your native populace given their fair share in a country where you already have a MASSIVE issue with your younger generations feeling entitled enough to not do menial labour jobs.

[Raga]

I'm sorry but no matter who you are, where you come from in the world, if you're looking to live in another place you adopt their ways. If I was going to live in the USA I'd adopt US law and US living practices as much as possible. The exact same as if I'd go to Germany, or Japan, or Pakistan.
Also, learn the fucking language if you're going to try and live somewhere.
There are loads of people in the UK barely able to speak, or comprehend, English.
It's not just those from the Middle East. Polish, Italian, Ukrainian, Latvian, Croatian. I've met people, face to face, day to day at work. A lot barely able to utter a few words strung together.
If it were me I'd make sure I could speak the language on a rudimentary level before going anywhere. Or at least learn the phrase "I'm sorry I don't speak X very well". Even if it's a case of being an asylum seeker I'd imagine learning the language of the destination country is of utmost importance once there or on the way.

It's a little different in Europe, where a given country is literally the homeland of a particular language or culture. If say, Hungary, is actually radically multiculturalized, the realistic ultimate endpoint of that is the extinction of anything that could be meaningfully designated "Hungarian." The only people who successfully resist this trend do so by being highly insular and borderline retrograde by modern sensibilities (the Jews as one example) and many times they are aided in that by being actively cordoned off and ostracized by the societies they inhabit. When that pressure is removed, they disperse and disintegrate without intense personal effort. Compare the general fading quality of an Indian tribe which has no reservation with one which does have a reservation. Or the fading nebulousness of Reform Jewry compared to Hasidic Jewry.

For me, the issue in the United States genuinely isn't cultural or ethnic. Like if in 70 years we've evolved into a predominantly Spanish speaking, mocha colored people comprised of agnostics and assorted Catholics, I sincerely don't care. I don't care if white people become a plurality instead of a majority or even if we become a minority. We are *the* melting pot country. For people who think the melting pot concept is racist, I have no idea why they think white people are magically spared the heat of the melting pot. We all get pored into the cauldron and we come out something different, some fusion. My ancestors may be European, but I am not European.

The "assimilation" required to be American is twofold. 1) You must submit yourself to the melting pot along with everybody else. You must be willing to take what you came from and throw it on a fire to forge something new with it. The thing being made changes constantly. It's a moving target. But that is the fundamental nature of what being American means. We are always going *somewhere else.* We will never actually arrive at any specific spot or destination. 2) You must accept the legitimacy of the laws that allow that melting pot to happen: free speech, freedom of religion, property rights, etc.

But beyond that, we can become whatever culturally or ethnically speaking and I don't care.

The issue is a class issue and not a cultural one, but even that isn't grounded in some "I hate poor people" bigotry. It's a matter of economics. In an affluent society, poor people get ghettoized. Inevitably. Always. Without exception. This means they get segregated, and the above aspects of assimilation cannot happen. Long term with enough ghettoized populations of this sort, it can Balkanize the whole society. The only way to unghettoize people is to make them unpoor, which in a developed country means various welfare programs. But there is some limit on how quickly and effectively such programs can work, which is derived from a mix of available resources and public tolerance.

In summary: there is a limit to the number of poor people we can integrate into our society (culturally *and* economically) before the system breaks down. Given how crappy we've been at doing so with many of our "native" lower classes, I can't think of any realistic reason why we'd magically do better with immigrants.

I oppose large transfers of poor people to the United States because of this. I don't care where they are from: Asia, Europe, Africa, or Latin America. Likewise for people who can be integrated without exorbitant amounts of public aid, I don't care where they come from. Software engineers from India. Doctors from Namibia. Economists from Chile. Whatever. Let them in.

*Edit* For people who claim that the operational consequence of such a system would be racist, even if the system wasn't set up to be, I call foul for various reasons.

1) An operational effect that favors a given group of people is insufficient evidence of itself to claim the system is racist. Otherwise our current immigration system would be insanely racist because it overwhelmingly advantages people from Mexico and a handful of other Latin American countries to the detriment of similarly poor, nonwhite people in dozens of other countries around the world. I think our current system is stupid and unfair, but I don't claim that it's racist towards anybody who isn't Latin American.

2) The implicit reasoning of the racists who "want to let in Europeans only" that such critics claim underpins this system wouldn't work anyway because most Europeans don't *want* to come here. The ones that might are the supposedly "wrong" kinds, mostly Slavs, and so long as the EU is there it's infinitely easier for them to try Britain or Germany or Sweden first. The people who would get the operational favor are most likely to be Asians and that will include large numbers of less favorable "brown" South Asians from Indian and Pakistan and such. The only way this will change is if some catastrophe happens in Western and Northern Europe suddenly producing lots of educated refugees. At that point, on what grounds do you deny them? Simply because they are white? How is that *not* explicitly racist?

[Raga]

Disclaimer: I have not actually read this article. However, the headline and summary in a nutshell neatly sum up 99% of what's wrong with the way people talk about voter suppression and turnout and voter fraud and so on and why even the party who claims to stand for individual voting rights really doesn't. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ts/574441/

Headline: The Longterm Solution to Voter Suppression
Summary: Efforts to expand the franchise could ultimately counteract efforts to shrink it.

So the subtext here says: So what if certain people who can legally vote are kept from exercising their right to vote so long as we can go register enough new voters to vote as we expect the suppressed ones would have done. In other words, your individual right to vote isn't the issue and your stance on individual issues is irrelevant. What matters is how we expect you would vote in aggregate if your population wasn't suppressed and how we can make up for that in other key populations such that we get the overall political outcome we want. So what matters isn't really how people want the country to be run, but about the proper use of metrics and methodology to guarantee a "demographics=destiny" outcome, that is to say what we anticipate will be a liberal one. This is talking in terms of chess pieces and game-boards to achieve a political agenda. The moralizing about individual voting rights just provides moral rationalization after the fact for a strategy you had long since accepted.

[Raga]

One more and I'll cool the politics spam: https://www.theamericanconservative.com ... civil-war/

Basically saying that the Trump insurgency was successful because it was made up of a majority or at least plurality of the base revolting against an elite establishment that wasn't listening to it. The Democrat insurgency meanwhile is made up of a minority elite trying to wrest control away from a more moderate majority.

It's interesting.

[Mobius_118]

I hope none of you end up in their shoes. Because the hypocrisy here from all of you is staggering. I know for certain that if and when it does happen to any of you, you'll be whining and complaining about people not showing you any concern.