US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1574

On June 25 2019 15:14 Introvert wrote:


This argument is such garbage. I have quoted for you "experts" who have explained the problem. You reject them and supplant in place of their knowledge your own, now admittedly ignorant, opinion. You don't even know if they try to factor in and monitor everything you mentioned. Now you can say they have an interest in downplaying their role, but so far we can't find one person who actually knows about this issue who takes your line of argument. Moreover, you apparently think that money grows on trees and that DHS just needed more. What is the amount they need? You have no idea! But you are sure that such a number both exists and is reasonable. By definition, of course, if you were God Almighty you could have seen it. But even though you aren't, you are still very sure that such a thing is reasonably determinable to a useful accuracy.

And of course, finally, the big gorilla in the room, a Congress that would have ignored their warnings, as evidence by their current stubborn refusal to deal with the issue now.




If even this is defined as an admin failure then the term is reduced to meaninglessness, if only I had seen that before.

On June 25 2019 15:20 KwarK wrote:

This argument is not garbage. You just don't seem to understand that some people are employed to forecast the future. As I keep telling you, it's a real job. It's a job I have.

As for pleading poverty, I don't need to have an exact dollar amount to be confident that the United States can afford it. The numbers involved are of such differing orders of magnitude it is evident to any idiot that the US government could afford to properly fund DHS. I don't need to know exactly how much a gallon of milk costs to state with certainty that I can afford to buy one. I don't need to know how much a detention center costs to know that the US government could buy twenty.

The argument that absolutely nobody could have predicted asylum seekers seeking asylum is a monument to the limitations on your own thinking.

Of course failing to allocate sufficient funds to meet the needs is an admin failure. What else would it be? Imagine I was throwing a party. An individual such as myself can do some calculations and work out approximately how much food I'll need before the partygoers get there due to the aforementioned genius level IQ. But that's only half of the party planning. I also need to buy the food, otherwise there still won't be enough food. Both the working out how much food to buy and the working out how to pay for the food are part of the admin side of party planning.

On June 25 2019 14:28 Introvert wrote:

The use of the phrase "concentration camp" is just as detestable as it was last time it was in vogue.

The situation we found is unacceptable. US Border Patrol is holding many children, including some who are much too young to take care of themselves, in jail-like border facilities for weeks at a time without contact with family members, regular access to showers, clean clothes, toothbrushes, or proper beds. Many are sick. Many, including children as young as 2 or 3, have been separated from adult caretakers without any provisions for their care besides the unrelated older children also being held in detention.

We spoke with an 11-year-old caring for his toddler brother. Both were fending for themselves in a cell with dozens of other children. The little one was quiet with matted hair, a hacking cough, muddy pants and eyes that fluttered closed with fatigue. As we interviewed the two brothers, he fell asleep on two office chairs drawn together, probably the most comfortable bed he had used in weeks. They had been separated from an 18-year-old uncle and sent to the Clint Border Patrol Station. When we met them, they had been there three weeks and counting.

"Sometimes when we ask, we are told we will be here for months," said one 14-year-old who had also been at Clint for three weeks.
Some of the children we spoke with were sleeping on concrete floors and eating the same unpalatable and unhealthy food for close to a month: instant oatmeal, instant soup and a previously-frozen burrito. Children should spend no more than a few hours in short-term border jails to be processed and US-law limits their detention under typical circumstances to 72 hours.

The government has been unapologetic about conditions. A Department of Justice lawyer, Sarah Fabian, told judges in the Ninth Circuit last week that the government's obligation to provide "safe and sanitary" conditions for child migrants does not require it to provide children with hygiene items such as soap or toothbrushes and it can have them sleep on concrete floors in cold, overcrowded cells.

On June 25 2019 15:14 xDaunt wrote:
The problems with illegal immigration begin and end with Congress. Congress funds border security. Congress is in charge of asylum laws. What DHS can do by comparison is mere window dressing. And let's get real about why Congress won't do anything: most democrats and a sizable chunk of republicans are pro-open orders and illegal immigration. There's no mystery here as to what's going on.

On June 25 2019 15:28 Introvert wrote:


Did I say nothing was knowable, or that it was impossible to predict any event with some sort of reasonable confidence? For your argument to work you need to show that what you are positing is actually within the realm of the possible, until then it is just speculation. The fact you have to strawman an argument is evidence of the weakness of your own case. If no one thought people would seek asylum there would be no asylum process at all. Try again. But good on you, you know that DHS should have been able to see it coming. Because if some things things are predictable, then everything is.



Of course in this case, it's like you are a young child and you go tell your parents "10 people are here!" and they only give you enough to feed 5. It's the kid's fault, he wasn't persuasive enough.

On June 25 2019 17:41 Velr wrote:
Come in here now for idiots defending prison camps for children because of "funding/politics". Its plain disgusting. You would feel bad about it, if you would have any moral compass.

Whats next? Hitler wasn't all bad or what kind of bullshit do you guys need to pull of before no one talks to you assholes anymore?

On June 25 2019 15:38 KwarK wrote:

And then the kid locks the 10 people in the trunk of his car because that’s the only rational thing to do if you can’t feed all of them, right? It’d be wrong to just let them go.

This administration has decided to solve the problem of insufficient resources, which is their problem for the record, they are the government, administration is their responsibility, by cramming innocent people into camps.

The asylum seekers are not responsible for the failure of DHS to have adequate resources and yet they’re being made into the victims.

Working with Congress and the opposition party is also a part of good government by the way. If everything falls apart on your watch you can’t just blame the other side, you’re responsible for how your government governs. Perhaps the deal maker should try to make some kind of deal. But I don’t think he will because, as is obvious to everyone, the camps were the goal.

On June 25 2019 18:38 Acrofales wrote:
Or maybe we stop asking rhetorical loaded questions that we all already know the answer to and don't expect danglars to respond to them? It's phrased as a yes/no question, and you and I can see it as a yes/no question, but given danglars' posting, he obviously doesn't see it as a yes/no question, but one with subtleties that we just ignore. He's detailed them and we disagree with them. But ignoring them and making him answer a question he has already shown he doesn't see in the same black/white manner we do is just stupid.

On June 25 2019 18:55 Excludos wrote:


So we are living in a timeline where we can't expect people to answer straight forward yes and no questions because it will highlight their hypocrisy? Then why are we engaging with these people in the first place, if we're not expecting to get straight answers?

On June 25 2019 18:05 Danglars wrote:

You know it’s very productive to call people
“Idiots” “plain disgusting” “[lack] any moral compass” “Hitler wasn’t all that bad” “bullshit” “you assholes”
to discuss problems.

It sounds like you need more outlets for exasperation and the raw, emotional hatred exhibited here than a politics thread on the internet.

On June 25 2019 14:28 Introvert wrote:



The use of the phrase "concentration camp" is just as detestable as it was last time it was in vogue.

btw, DHS has been screaming for months that they need more resources, and told Congress what they thought they needed. Guess who hasn't given it to them, and guess who spent months telling them they didn't actually need it.

You look at the graph Danglars posted and think "yeah, someone should have had some idea that was coming!" based on...nothing. I will put this in the nicest possible way: your faith in the foreknowledge, power, and wisdom of the government, which includes Congress, is fascinating.

On June 25 2019 20:19 Velr wrote:



Why would anyone have a "productive" discussion with someone that is OK with jailing and treating Children like lifestock?
Sane people don't try to have "productive" discussion with facists.

“Idiots” “plain disgusting” “[lack] any moral compass” “Hitler wasn’t all that bad” “bullshit” “you assholes”

On June 25 2019 12:27 IgnE wrote:


So are all campaign finance laws unjust ?

And I suppose the same question goes for lying on tax returns (and whatever else comes out of this apparently fraudulent marriage).

On June 25 2019 20:00 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:


It is accurate.
They are overcrowding asylum seekers into facilities that cannot handle that many people. They are not being held on criminal charges, and the conditions are horrific.

To get a nice picture of how truly disgusting and inhumane the conditions are, here's an article:
Watchdog finds detainees 'standing on toilets' for breathing room at border facility holding 900 people in space meant for 125
If you don't like CNN, that's fine. There's a link to the inspector general report in the first paragraph. I don't think any choice quotes are needed, the title is more than sufficient.

Just to add:
You don't need to be stocking up the Zyklon and having the guards wear swastikas for it to be a concentration camp.
Here in SA, the British practically invented the bloody things to lock up Afrikaans people. I have a photo album in my own home filled with pictures from those camps (my great great grandmother was in one of them), and you know what? Despite the lack of execution apparatus and nazis and so on, no reasonable person will call those anything other than concentration camps.

It's not a detestable use of the phrase, it's just the truth of the situation. The Trump administration has concentration camps, and the country is so much less for having allowed it. There's at least one other major difference between the US camps and those in Germany: admission of guilt. I don't foresee many US conservatives ever having the kind of cultural reckoning that much of (at least Western) Germany had. There's historical revisionism happening before the history has even finished happening, and as long as people can tune into Fox News, 40% of your voting population is never going to consider that they played a role in the US being a place with active concentration camps.

On June 25 2019 20:56 korrekt wrote:

To follow this up, I'd like to add some sources to back up that "concentration camp" actually is an accurate description of the situation.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a concentration camp is
1. A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable.
2. A place or situation in which extremely harsh conditions are imposed by those in authority.

Here is also a link to an article containing the thoughts of a journalist on the same topic (she has written a book about concentration camps).

Got these ones off of Wikipedia, just to be clear.

On June 25 2019 21:01 GreenHorizons wrote:


"How did Germans let this happen?!?"

Look around, this is how. Domestic (and international for that matter) reports on German concentration camps weren't nearly as bad as the conditions/situation actually were. These US concentration camps have not only kept press out but the local politicians in charge of representing their constituents. We can be pretty sure US concentration camps are also worse than we know and will likely continue to deteriorate until a breaking point is reached.