US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8650

On September 06 2017 05:28 Gorsameth wrote:

Could this possible be why my post included the opinion that we should first allow these needed workers a clear and attainable path to citizenship so we can then get rid of all the 'bad' illegal immigration?

Nah, that would be silly....

On September 06 2017 05:41 xDaunt wrote:

How does it hurt?

On September 06 2017 05:28 Danglars wrote:

I'm happy to at least have it down to the three possibilities. Either there is a modest amount of sense and substance to the right to be so dominant politically at every level, or the American population is factually largely right-wing across the country, or the Democrats are blind and stupid to not beat such an easily defeated "absurd" opponent with no "coherent arguments."

On September 06 2017 05:42 xDaunt wrote:

You can write it, but it doesn't address my question. The proper answer would be "Yes, xDaunt, you are correct. Illegal immigration is bad. You are quite handsome, too. Instead of allowing illegal immigration, we should ...."

On September 06 2017 05:47 Nevuk wrote:
Left and right is a poor framing of the question anyways. Socialist/union based leftists are against illegal immigration because it drives down the value of labor, while libertarian/ancaps are totally for it because it increases the amount of capital in the hands of the ruling elite.

On September 06 2017 05:31 Danglars wrote:

Then don't waste everyone's time responding only to say you won't respond with an argument but that one "actually" exists, "is logical," and at a "cursory glance ... is factually substantiated." You become the parody everyone makes xDaunt out to be. Unless that's your goal.

On September 06 2017 05:28 Danglars wrote:

I'm happy to at least have it down to the three possibilities. Either there is a modest amount of sense and substance to the right to be so dominant politically at every level, or the American population is factually largely right-wing across the country, or the Democrats are blind and stupid to not beat such an easily defeated "absurd" opponent with no "coherent arguments."

On September 06 2017 05:45 KwarK wrote:

Except, as you apparently need reminding, your question didn't allow for any of that kind of nuance.

You demanded that people say it is either bad or good, and insisted that anything beyond that kind of answer is due to a lack of integrity.

You framed a stupid fucking question, got surprisingly good answers, attacked those answers for not being simplistic enough, and are now saying the answers are fine and are actually what you thought all along.

Do you think the destruction of the agriculture industry is bad? Yes/no? Obviously you can see where I'm going with this but you have to answer in only yes or no because those are the rules we're apparently playing by.

On September 06 2017 06:00 ChristianS wrote:
What sucks is I'd love to have an actual discussion about illegal immigration. It's a difficult and important problem that I don't know that much about. I'm a bit busy at work atm to go too in-depth, but if we didn't try to reduce the issue to the 1-bit resolution "is it good or bad?" it could be a pretty interesting discussion.

On September 06 2017 05:36 GreenHorizons wrote:



But you can, I'm not referring to burying the hatchet (a somewhat culturally insensitive phrase, but not nearly as bad as "Off the reservation"), which I agree with, but with your specific comparison.

Also ironic to call for a burying of hatchets when she literally is out promoting a book blaming Bernie more than herself, while Bernie is looking forward.

The only reason it's an issue is she and many of her supporters refuse to take responsibility for their errors and want to act as if they weren't errors at all, it's not personal, it's practical to point out how/why they still don't get it.

On September 06 2017 06:08 xDaunt wrote:

Correct, my question didn't ask for the nuance. That's the whole point of a yes/no question. What I wanted to do very specifically was to force the advocates and apologists for illegal immigration to really think about what they were arguing for. If someone wants to provide the nuance after answering the question, that's fine with me. However, anything short of directly answering the question is a dodge and intellectually dishonest.

HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. government carefully designed a path of least resistance to building a border wall in Texas, picking a wildlife refuge and other places it already owns or controls to quickly begin construction. All it needed was Congress to approve the money.

Then came Harvey.

President Donald Trump’s administration must now grapple with a storm that devastated the Texas Gulf Coast, with some areas still underwater and tens of thousands of people forced from their homes. Rebuilding will require billions of dollars to start — and may come at the expense of what is perhaps Trump’s best-known policy priority.

The White House wanted $1.6 billion for 74 miles (120 kilometers) of initial wall, including 60 miles (95 kilometers) in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

While a fraction of what the overall Harvey recovery effort will cost, funding for the wall already faced strong opposition from Senate Democrats. Three days before the storm made landfall, Trump threatened a government shutdown unless Congress provides funding. That threat now appears to be off the table, as is any potential maneuver to tie the wall to providing disaster relief.

“If Trump is saying, ‘Listen, you’re only going to get your disaster funding if I get my wall,’ that is a total political loser,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican consultant. “That’s just not tenable.”

Another potential way to get the wall started would be tying initial funding to the program shielding young immigrants from deportation, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which the Trump administration announced Tuesday it would seek to phase out.

The White House and Republican congressional leadership are discussing a larger package of legislation to address DACA, money for the border wall and other elements. Democrats have ruled out any trade off of DACA legislation with the border wall, though, casting doubt on such an approach.

Before the storm hit, the U.S. government had spent months quietly preparing to begin new construction in Texas. The first construction site would be the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, a verdant forest with butterflies and rare bird species next to the Rio Grande — that wasn’t affected by Harvey.

Those preparations are still underway. At Santa Ana, crews were seen as recently as Friday drilling holes for testing the soil on the river levee built to withhold high waters from the Rio Grande. The head of the National Butterfly Center, also next to the border, recently caught workers chopping trees and mowing vegetation on her property without her permission. And contractors have been spotted at a courthouse in a neighboring county examining land ownership records.

The government wants to build on the 3 miles (5 kilometers) of river levee cutting through the northern edge of the refuge, separating the visitor center from the rest of the park. A gate in the wall would open and close for visitors. Vegetation in front of the wall would be cleared for an access road and open land to give agents better visibility.

Under current plans, another 25 miles (40 kilometers) would go on other parts of the levee, where government agencies are believed to control land rights and have previously built sections of fencing. The remaining construction would go through river towns further west, taking a route the government examined the last time it built a border barrier, under the 2006 Secure Fence Act.

Scott Nicol, co-chair of the Sierra Club’s Borderlands campaign and a longtime opponent of the plan, said that the storm “should stop them from trying to build a wall.”

“If we had an administration that was acting responsibly, that was acting in the best interest of the United States, they would say, ‘We have a much more important thing to do right now,'” Nicol said.

Law enforcement officials in the Rio Grande Valley say the wall is part of their strategy to slow the entry of drugs and illegal immigration. And they want to avoid the issues that stymied the U.S. government after the Secure Fence Act. That resulted in hundreds of lawsuits and years of delays in Texas, and yielded just 100 miles (160 kilometers) of fencing in the state.

That’s why they want to start in Santa Ana.

“That is government property already,” Manuel Padilla, the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector chief, told The Associated Press last month. “So we don’t have to deal with the landowner because that’s a process and it takes time.”

The Valley is the nation’s busiest place for illegal border crossings. Agents routinely catch human and drug smugglers along the state’s 800-mile (1,290-kilometer) border with Mexico, most of which is not fenced.

“Smugglers exploit the refuge because it has limited access to law enforcement,” Padilla said.

Opponents say Padilla is overstating the threat in the refuge. The Border Patrol says its agents have intercepted just eight human smuggling cases in Santa Ana since October. By comparison, during that same period, agents intercepted more than 2,000 human smuggling cases in the Rio Grande Valley overall.

Environmentalists say cutting through Santa Ana’s forests would irreparably damage the area and endanger animals in the event of floods. Several endangered wildcats and 400-plus species of birds live at the refuge.

Still, the Department of Homeland Security can waive environmental and other reviews to expedite construction, as it’s already done in San Diego, where the remaining 14 miles (22 kilometers) of border wall is currently planned. Even if Congress doesn’t approve funding, the department might still be able to build in the refuge by reallocating money already in its budget.

It’s a plan that would be hard for opponents of a wall to stop. But after Harvey, the state faces a rebuilding effort that will draw not just on government money, but the efforts of construction companies and natural resources that might have otherwise gone to a wall.

So far, Texas Republicans won’t rule out a wall but say it shouldn’t jeopardize Harvey recovery funding.

Sen. John Cornyn has filed a $15 billion border security bill that would build some new portions of border wall, though he opposes fencing off the entire, nearly 2,000-mile (3,220-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border. He said the message from the White House so far has been to offer immediate storm aid without political strings.

“Asked if he was concerned the border wall fight could tie up federal disaster spending, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said simply, “No.”

On September 06 2017 06:08 xDaunt wrote:
Correct, my question didn't ask for the nuance. That's the whole point of a yes/no question.

On September 06 2017 06:14 Plansix wrote:

Here is the thing: Clinton will burn herself out all on her own. Just let the sour grapes work their magic and people will turn on her without any help from Bernie or progressive wing.

On September 06 2017 05:43 GreenHorizons wrote:


It demands that we keep them in the United States as their punishment for immigrating illegally.

On September 06 2017 05:43 GreenHorizons wrote:


It demands that we keep them in the United States as their punishment for immigrating illegally.

On September 06 2017 06:15 KwarK wrote:

There are no illegal immigration advocates here (except possibly Wegandi? we'd have to ask him). There are only "lesser of two evils" arguments coming from the left. Which, as the name implies, accepts that the thing is an evil. And yet somehow you read all of those and concluded that illegal immigration is a sacred cow to the left and that the left supports slavery.

On September 06 2017 06:34 xDaunt wrote:


It's pretty easy to draw these conclusions when the people in question refuse to directly answer the question and acknowledge the evil. Like I said before, that's on them, not me. It's not like I didn't give them a chance.

On September 05 2017 22:10 Plansix wrote:
If anyone is wondering, this is exactly why there is no debate on immigration with conservatives. They set up their straw men, knock them down and then declare that it’s the Left’s fault that immigration is an issue. They don’t want solutions, it would take away their ability to blame the left(and win elections).

On September 06 2017 05:49 Nebuchad wrote:


1) Your parties are absurdly rightwing. You have already agreed to that. There are a bunch of facts that caused that to happen, I imagine some really historical facts like the Republicans moving to the right of the Democrats to execute the Southern Strategy or the fact that if you were even slightly left you could be a COMMUNIST during the Cold War did not help, but my guess is the biggest factors are closer to us, with Reagan worshipping and the Tea Party on your side, and the espousal of neoliberalism on the other. We can go into details if you want.

2) This doesn't say much about the actual people within the United States. A country that is that rightwing wouldn't have Bernie Sanders as their most liked politician, and wouldn't have all of the (actual) leftwing talking points at over 50% approval (no matter how much weight you put in those polls, it just wouldn't happen). You also wouldn't get Trump parroting a whole bunch of leftwing talking points to win if the people of the US were actually that rightwing, that would be a moronic strategy and that wouldn't have resulted in him winning some democratic states.

3) The democratic party IS a joke for losing to you guys. Like, not in that I personally think it's a joke (I do), but in that it is treated as such everywhere, even in your own entertainment media. Their losing can be explained strategically though. Their strategy on the state level was incredibly poor. It doesn't help that they're actually mostly playing by the rules, while you gerrymander and "anti voting fraud" your way into a more favourable electorate. They are also much more threatened by losing to their left than they are by losing to their right. If you want to see a strong democratic party, look no further than how they deal with us, and look as far away as you can from how they deal with you.

4) It's telling that you go to these circumstancial notions to defend that your party has sense and substance. Normally you would go to the issues and demonstrate that your party's positions make sense, rather than this convoluted copout. I'm pretty sure I remember xDaunt agreeing that the republican party was intellectually bankrupt not long ago.