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On October 01 2024 22:10 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 18:39 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I mean, that's just part of it?
If we accept that there's a problem that there are a lot of illegal immigrants in the US, and we agree that they should, especially if they commit crime, be deported, then that must be coupled with securing the border for it to have any effect. Otherwise, the people deported can rather easily return. At least it seems like that's the case for some people who live in areas where there's 'smuggle people to the US'-infrastructure in place (which seems to be the case for some of the fentanyl dealing).
There are a lot of complex issues relating to immigration and how to deal with illegal immigration. For example we can assume that serious attempts at finding all the illegal immigrants in the US will inevitably result in a lot of profiling and overzealous cops harassing citizens who happen to look like they might originate from central america. I also think there's an issue with what to do with illegal immigrants who have established themselves and built a life for themselves and their families - I think if there's a 10 year old boy who was born in the US then deporting him to a country he's never been in because his parents lied 12 years ago is inhumane, and I feel much the same way about sending back just the parents while letting the kid stay. At the same time - giving an excemption for illegals who have children born in the US gives a somewhat perverse incentive to have children, and establishing at what point a child is too integrated in the US to no longer be deportable seems rather tricky.
But neither of these arguments are really arguments against 'deport immigrants who overstay their visa status' 'deport immigrants who commit serious crime' or 'try to hinder people who have been deported from reentering the country through making the border harder to cross'. There might be other arguments against the latter (it's too costly compared to the benefit?), but I don't really see a principled reason why more focus on securing the border wouldnt/shouldn't be part of an effort to combat illegal immigration. And even if there's no real effort made at finding and uprooting all the illegals in the US (because of aforementioned issues) then finding some could still be considered preferable to none, or more could be preferable to some. There's also no intrinsic conflict between this, and between making legal immigration easier and more accessible to more people, or between this and working to improve living standards in areas where people migrate from. The problem is there is a political party that swings wildly between "the border is secure" and "it's cruel to turn anyone away." You would think that in a sane country what's happened at the border over the last 3 years would be grounds for bipartisan condemnation, but it's not. Instead of fixing it as a prerequisite to "immigration reform" Democrats see the security of our border as a bargaining chip for their preferred policies. It's abhorrent and I really so loath them for it.
Meanwhile the party that torpedoed the bill that would do something about the border is the Republican party. And they did it, not because it was a bad bill that they disagreed with, but because they wanted to keep heckling the Democrats about not fixing the border during election season without giving them any kind of "win".
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On October 01 2024 22:10 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 18:39 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I mean, that's just part of it?
If we accept that there's a problem that there are a lot of illegal immigrants in the US, and we agree that they should, especially if they commit crime, be deported, then that must be coupled with securing the border for it to have any effect. Otherwise, the people deported can rather easily return. At least it seems like that's the case for some people who live in areas where there's 'smuggle people to the US'-infrastructure in place (which seems to be the case for some of the fentanyl dealing).
There are a lot of complex issues relating to immigration and how to deal with illegal immigration. For example we can assume that serious attempts at finding all the illegal immigrants in the US will inevitably result in a lot of profiling and overzealous cops harassing citizens who happen to look like they might originate from central america. I also think there's an issue with what to do with illegal immigrants who have established themselves and built a life for themselves and their families - I think if there's a 10 year old boy who was born in the US then deporting him to a country he's never been in because his parents lied 12 years ago is inhumane, and I feel much the same way about sending back just the parents while letting the kid stay. At the same time - giving an excemption for illegals who have children born in the US gives a somewhat perverse incentive to have children, and establishing at what point a child is too integrated in the US to no longer be deportable seems rather tricky.
But neither of these arguments are really arguments against 'deport immigrants who overstay their visa status' 'deport immigrants who commit serious crime' or 'try to hinder people who have been deported from reentering the country through making the border harder to cross'. There might be other arguments against the latter (it's too costly compared to the benefit?), but I don't really see a principled reason why more focus on securing the border wouldnt/shouldn't be part of an effort to combat illegal immigration. And even if there's no real effort made at finding and uprooting all the illegals in the US (because of aforementioned issues) then finding some could still be considered preferable to none, or more could be preferable to some. There's also no intrinsic conflict between this, and between making legal immigration easier and more accessible to more people, or between this and working to improve living standards in areas where people migrate from. The problem is there is a political party that swings wildly between "the border is secure" and "it's cruel to turn anyone away."
I'm not saying that the border is currently secure, but those two opinions you've listed are not antithetical. Whether or not the border is secure, someone could still believe (or not believe) that it's cruel to turn away people wishing to enter into our country.
You would think that in a sane country what's happened at the border over the last 3 years would be grounds for bipartisan condemnation, but it's not. Instead of fixing it as a prerequisite to "immigration reform" Democrats see the security of our border as a bargaining chip for their preferred policies. It's abhorrent and I really so loath them for it.
LITERALLY TRUMP. Seriously, what are you thinking, blaming this on Democrats? Trump just blew up the "bipartisan condemnation" and used "the security of our border as a bargaining chip for their preferred policies".
Edit: Ninja'd (twice lol).
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It actually was a bad bill with so many holes it was almost as porous as the border itself. The whole point of it was so that dems and their allies could do exactly what you are doing now. Besides, if it were serious Lankford would not have been the one sent to negotiate it. So no, it was mainly for propaganda purposes with a willing Republican mark (there's always at least one)
Edit:to put a fine point on it, the crisis during the Biden administration is his own fault. Existing federal law, if followed as written, would have dealt with much of the problem. Biden proved himself untrustworthy, bowing to the radicals in his party with his "reinterpretations" of immigration law. I don't want this to take away from my main point. Dems view the security of our border as something to be negotiated over. It really is awful.
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United States41538 Posts
On October 01 2024 16:40 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:On September 30 2024 23:03 oBlade wrote:Yet the House Budget Committee just announced the US spends at least $150 or as much as $400 billion on illegal immigrants per year. FEMA's #1 strategic coal is "Instill equity (communism) as a foundation of emergency management." recruitment has plummeted because nobody wants to sign up to an incompetent military whose goals are diversity and inclusion instead of defense and invasion. These are the DoD's explicit goals, of this administration. Competence and readiness have been forced so far in the backseat that they would be liable to cause a civil rights protest. I don’t have the number to hand but I can confidently say the US does not spend $400b/year on illegal immigration. I know that because I know that a billion is a lot and $400b is 400 of them. At $100k/year you could put about 4,000,000 men on the southern border. After excluding males over 50 or under 18 l, plus immigrants of course, that’s about 1 in 10 of us. 1) Okay, then only the small pittance of $150 billion. 2) Your confidence is that it's impossible for the US government to spend/waste a lot of money, when they spent $10 trillion in 2023, while idealist, is misguided. Doesn't seem like a sound basis to go off of. $100k per year for 4 million men sounds exactly in a ballpark of plausibility to spread over 12 million alleged illegals which works out to roughly $33k per year per person of expenditures. Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
FEMA is not trying to implement communism. That’s some weird Jade Helm remix conspiracy theory. You never realized equity was a dog whistle? Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
The idea that nobody wants to join an organization because it’s too inclusive is something you should have said out loud to yourself before hitting post. Consider what you’re proposing here. Goodness me, I've got it all wrong. The DPRK is actually democratic. Saying you're inclusive, or purporting to be inclusive, makes you actually inclusive. You didn't miss the point at all. Recruitment is not at an all time low because this administration, the Secretary of Defense, the DoD, and the military are too good at bringing people into the fold. It's not a national security crisis because they're so good at recruiting people that they've already snatched up anyone who would possibly join, and there's nobody left to recruit. They have miserably failed, despite making it an explicit goal, which means either they suck at their job, or it's deliberately obfuscating something other than actual inclusion, or both. Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
You want to increase membership by making the organization more exclusionary. Yeah I remember proposing that on Nevertember Neverteenth.
If you think that 1 in 10 adult US young to middle aged men could plausibly be working on the border then you're delusional. The number was simply too high in a way that should have been apparent to anyone familiar with the idea of numbers.
Equity isn't a dog whistle for communism. Again, FEMA is not trying to implement communism. I know this doesn't come naturally to you but stop for a second and think about what you're proposing. Some kind of weird hidden Hail Hydra style bullshit where legacy Bolsheviks infiltrated the US and are continuing their war in secret after the fall of the Soviet Union, secretly infiltrating the government and seizing control of its most powerful agency, FEMA. But they gave it all away when they accidentally put their super secret code word for communism, equity, in their mission statement.
Isn't it more likely that FEMA does not have a secret mission to implement communism? That when they say they care about equity they're just trying to say that they care about equity in the traditional non brain worms definition?
If you're arguing the DPRK defence, that while the military says it cares about being inclusive it's not really doing it, then what on earth are you complaining about? You opened with a complaint that the military claims to be inclusive which I took to mean that you thought the military was inclusive and that this was a bad thing. But now when I call you out on that you're saying that the thing you're complaining about isn't actually happening at all so what the fuck are you even talking about?
You said that the military is having trouble filling its numbers and that the problem is the policy of inclusiveness. It's not a stretch to infer that your solution is the removal of the problem you identified. That's how words work. So yes, you did propose that. You said they can't fill their numbers because they're inclusive. Therefore you said that they could meet their numbers if they were less inclusive.
Fucking brain worms man. You literally don't know what you're angry about anymore, it's years of conservative media exposure have created this weird pavlovian trigger response in you where they say keywords like "equity" or "inclusive" and you get your fix of anger. Normally when an organization claims to be inclusive but fails to live up to its goals then the issue normal people have is that they think that it should do more than mere lip service towards being inclusive. Somehow what you're upset about is the word itself, you care that no action is taken, and no action is being taken, so you have what you want, but you're still angry.
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On October 01 2024 22:40 Introvert wrote:
It actually was a bad bill with so many holes it was almost as porous as the border itself.
You missed the point that was explained multiple times.
Trump's issue with the bill wasn't that it was a bad or ineffective bill. Trump's issue with the bill was that it would have made it harder for him to campaign on the border issue, since bipartisan legislation during Biden's term would have been perceived as progress. Some Republicans were psyched to pass that legislation - they even helped to create it - until Trump told them to vote against their own bill. And then Republicans started scolding each other because the Trump loyalists were merely virtue signaling about the border, rather than actually wanting to make something happen.
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Usually something has to pass before it's considered bipartisan, right? It's rare for a bill to be so bipartisan that it fails to pass.
On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 16:40 oBlade wrote:On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:On September 30 2024 23:03 oBlade wrote:Yet the House Budget Committee just announced the US spends at least $150 or as much as $400 billion on illegal immigrants per year. FEMA's #1 strategic coal is "Instill equity (communism) as a foundation of emergency management." recruitment has plummeted because nobody wants to sign up to an incompetent military whose goals are diversity and inclusion instead of defense and invasion. These are the DoD's explicit goals, of this administration. Competence and readiness have been forced so far in the backseat that they would be liable to cause a civil rights protest. I don’t have the number to hand but I can confidently say the US does not spend $400b/year on illegal immigration. I know that because I know that a billion is a lot and $400b is 400 of them. At $100k/year you could put about 4,000,000 men on the southern border. After excluding males over 50 or under 18 l, plus immigrants of course, that’s about 1 in 10 of us. 1) Okay, then only the small pittance of $150 billion. 2) Your confidence is that it's impossible for the US government to spend/waste a lot of money, when they spent $10 trillion in 2023, while idealist, is misguided. Doesn't seem like a sound basis to go off of. $100k per year for 4 million men sounds exactly in a ballpark of plausibility to spread over 12 million alleged illegals which works out to roughly $33k per year per person of expenditures. On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
FEMA is not trying to implement communism. That’s some weird Jade Helm remix conspiracy theory. You never realized equity was a dog whistle? On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
The idea that nobody wants to join an organization because it’s too inclusive is something you should have said out loud to yourself before hitting post. Consider what you’re proposing here. Goodness me, I've got it all wrong. The DPRK is actually democratic. Saying you're inclusive, or purporting to be inclusive, makes you actually inclusive. You didn't miss the point at all. Recruitment is not at an all time low because this administration, the Secretary of Defense, the DoD, and the military are too good at bringing people into the fold. It's not a national security crisis because they're so good at recruiting people that they've already snatched up anyone who would possibly join, and there's nobody left to recruit. They have miserably failed, despite making it an explicit goal, which means either they suck at their job, or it's deliberately obfuscating something other than actual inclusion, or both. On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
You want to increase membership by making the organization more exclusionary. Yeah I remember proposing that on Nevertember Neverteenth. If you think that 1 in 10 adult US young to middle aged men could plausibly be working on the border then you're delusional. The number was simply too high in a way that should have been apparent to anyone familiar with the idea of numbers.
That's not what "cost" means.
It means the cost to local, state, and federal government, for services, to accommodate illegal immigrants and deal with the consequences of their presence, is that number ($150 billion, allegedly $400 billion).
I assumed your example was just you doing mental exercise to try to come to grips with how to approach a large number and make it seem more concrete. I didn't realize you actually thought the report was talking about the cost to employ people to guard the border when it says the "cost of illegal immigrants," because that interpretation is so absurd as to preclude consideration.
However, to also give your example further context: The Defense Department employs about 3 million people and has a budget of $900 billion.
On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:
Isn't it more likely that FEMA does not have a secret mission to implement communism? That when they say they care about equity they're just trying to say that they care about equity in the traditional non brain worms definition?
I didn't know equity had such a definition. The Vice President is on video saying essentially communities deserve disaster relief based on skin color. Now ~3 states are in the wake of a disaster, and as usual, the government is doing a bang-up job, which Harris excels at.
On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:
If you're arguing the DPRK defence, that while the military says it cares about being inclusive it's not really doing it, then what on earth are you complaining about? You opened with a complaint that the military claims to be inclusive which I took to mean that you thought the military was inclusive and that this was a bad thing. But now when I call you out on that you're saying that the thing you're complaining about isn't actually happening at all so what the fuck are you even talking about?
Feigning ignorance. You've heard of DEI before.
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I'm not the one missing the point lol
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On October 01 2024 23:12 oBlade wrote:
Usually something has to pass before it's considered bipartisan, right? It's rare for a bill to be so bipartisan that it fails to pass.
No. A bill can have bipartisan support even if it fails to pass, if some Democrats and some Republicans voted for the bill. Additionally, a bill can be considered bipartisan if Congresspeople on both sides worked together to create it in the first place.
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United States41538 Posts
On October 01 2024 23:12 oBlade wrote:Usually something has to pass before it's considered bipartisan, right? It's rare for a bill to be so bipartisan that it fails to pass. Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:On October 01 2024 16:40 oBlade wrote:On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:On September 30 2024 23:03 oBlade wrote:Yet the House Budget Committee just announced the US spends at least $150 or as much as $400 billion on illegal immigrants per year. FEMA's #1 strategic coal is "Instill equity (communism) as a foundation of emergency management." recruitment has plummeted because nobody wants to sign up to an incompetent military whose goals are diversity and inclusion instead of defense and invasion. These are the DoD's explicit goals, of this administration. Competence and readiness have been forced so far in the backseat that they would be liable to cause a civil rights protest. I don’t have the number to hand but I can confidently say the US does not spend $400b/year on illegal immigration. I know that because I know that a billion is a lot and $400b is 400 of them. At $100k/year you could put about 4,000,000 men on the southern border. After excluding males over 50 or under 18 l, plus immigrants of course, that’s about 1 in 10 of us. 1) Okay, then only the small pittance of $150 billion. 2) Your confidence is that it's impossible for the US government to spend/waste a lot of money, when they spent $10 trillion in 2023, while idealist, is misguided. Doesn't seem like a sound basis to go off of. $100k per year for 4 million men sounds exactly in a ballpark of plausibility to spread over 12 million alleged illegals which works out to roughly $33k per year per person of expenditures. On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
FEMA is not trying to implement communism. That’s some weird Jade Helm remix conspiracy theory. You never realized equity was a dog whistle? On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
The idea that nobody wants to join an organization because it’s too inclusive is something you should have said out loud to yourself before hitting post. Consider what you’re proposing here. Goodness me, I've got it all wrong. The DPRK is actually democratic. Saying you're inclusive, or purporting to be inclusive, makes you actually inclusive. You didn't miss the point at all. Recruitment is not at an all time low because this administration, the Secretary of Defense, the DoD, and the military are too good at bringing people into the fold. It's not a national security crisis because they're so good at recruiting people that they've already snatched up anyone who would possibly join, and there's nobody left to recruit. They have miserably failed, despite making it an explicit goal, which means either they suck at their job, or it's deliberately obfuscating something other than actual inclusion, or both. On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
You want to increase membership by making the organization more exclusionary. Yeah I remember proposing that on Nevertember Neverteenth. If you think that 1 in 10 adult US young to middle aged men could plausibly be working on the border then you're delusional. The number was simply too high in a way that should have been apparent to anyone familiar with the idea of numbers. That's not what "cost" means. It means the cost to local, state, and federal government, for services, to accommodate illegal immigrants and deal with the consequences of their presence, is that number ($150 billion, allegedly $400 billion). I assumed your example was just you doing mental exercise to try to come to grips with how to approach a large number and make it seem more concrete. I didn't realize you actually thought the report was talking about the cost to employ people to guard the border when it says the "cost of illegal immigrants," because that interpretation is so absurd as to preclude consideration. However, to also give your example further context: The Defense Department employs about 3 million people and has a budget of $900 billion. Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:
Isn't it more likely that FEMA does not have a secret mission to implement communism? That when they say they care about equity they're just trying to say that they care about equity in the traditional non brain worms definition? I didn't know equity had such a definition. The Vice President is on video saying essentially communities deserve disaster relief based on skin color. Now ~3 states are in the wake of a disaster, and as usual, the government is doing a bang-up job, which Harris excels at. Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:
If you're arguing the DPRK defence, that while the military says it cares about being inclusive it's not really doing it, then what on earth are you complaining about? You opened with a complaint that the military claims to be inclusive which I took to mean that you thought the military was inclusive and that this was a bad thing. But now when I call you out on that you're saying that the thing you're complaining about isn't actually happening at all so what the fuck are you even talking about? Feigning ignorance. You've heard of DEI before.
If you're using a definition of cost that doesn't involve spending money then you're using numbers misleadingly. Once we get into that territory then everything becomes weird because of course the value of any labour provided by the illegal immigrants is positive and so reduces the cost and you quickly find that illegal immigrants actually cost the US negative money.
The DoD indirectly employs far more people than that. When you buy a tank you're buying the labour that went into the tank. You intentionally picked the example of the agency that spends the most on capital equipment purchases and then pretended that we can ignore the people employed producing that equipment.
The disasters were caused by hurricanes. You're now drawing a link between FEMA stating that they care about equity and hurricanes. Is it now your argument that equity causes hurricanes? If not please could you walk me through how we got from FEMA putting equity (communism) in their mission statement to the states in the wake of a disaster.
Now you're just saying your buzzwords madlib style. I've heard of DEI. Don't see what it has to do with the military being inclusive, by which you mean not being inclusive, which is a problem, because it shouldn't be?
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On October 01 2024 23:17 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 23:12 oBlade wrote:
Usually something has to pass before it's considered bipartisan, right? It's rare for a bill to be so bipartisan that it fails to pass. No. A bill can have bipartisan support even if it fails to pass, if some Democrats and some Republicans voted for the bill. Additionally, a bill can be considered bipartisan if Congresspeople on both sides worked together to create it in the first place.
Sounds like bipartisanship per se isn't worth much, then.
For example, the House managed to pass HR2 which is an exquisite border security bill, and that was monopartisan, and it even specified which border - the US, not Ukraine/Israel. And it would have even made progress, not just been "perceived" as progress as you explain. Completely ignored by Democrats. (Border bill you say? Don't forget to vote for the Patriot Act unless you aren't a patriot!) But the biggest issue underlying all this is that one guy can't pass an apartisan order for the government to follow and enforce the law, and in fact undid the orders, that do what he now claims to need new laws for, to begin with.
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On October 01 2024 23:25 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 23:17 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 01 2024 23:12 oBlade wrote:
Usually something has to pass before it's considered bipartisan, right? It's rare for a bill to be so bipartisan that it fails to pass. No. A bill can have bipartisan support even if it fails to pass, if some Democrats and some Republicans voted for the bill. Additionally, a bill can be considered bipartisan if Congresspeople on both sides worked together to create it in the first place. Sounds like bipartisanship per se isn't worth much, then.
Of course it's worth much; that's how a lot of legislation actually gets passed, but we saw that most Republicans were more loyal to Trump than to the American people who wanted something to be done about the border.
And also, the fact still remains that Trump - not Democrats - blew up the Congressional border bill.
On October 01 2024 23:25 oBlade wrote:
But the biggest issue underlying all this is that one guy can't pass an apartisan order for the government to follow and enforce the law, and in fact undid the orders, that do what he now claims to need new laws for, to begin with.
I reject the premise that this is a coherent sentence.
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The vice presidential debate - Walz vs. Vance - is tonight. Starts at 9 PM Eastern time. I'll eventually post my summary and thoughts on it.
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On October 01 2024 23:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
The vice presidential debate - Walz vs. Vance - is tonight. Starts at 9 PM Eastern time. I'll eventually post my summary and thoughts on it.
Looking forward to yoiur summary.
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On October 01 2024 23:22 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 23:12 oBlade wrote:Usually something has to pass before it's considered bipartisan, right? It's rare for a bill to be so bipartisan that it fails to pass. On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:On October 01 2024 16:40 oBlade wrote:On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:On September 30 2024 23:03 oBlade wrote:Yet the House Budget Committee just announced the US spends at least $150 or as much as $400 billion on illegal immigrants per year. FEMA's #1 strategic coal is "Instill equity (communism) as a foundation of emergency management." recruitment has plummeted because nobody wants to sign up to an incompetent military whose goals are diversity and inclusion instead of defense and invasion. These are the DoD's explicit goals, of this administration. Competence and readiness have been forced so far in the backseat that they would be liable to cause a civil rights protest. I don’t have the number to hand but I can confidently say the US does not spend $400b/year on illegal immigration. I know that because I know that a billion is a lot and $400b is 400 of them. At $100k/year you could put about 4,000,000 men on the southern border. After excluding males over 50 or under 18 l, plus immigrants of course, that’s about 1 in 10 of us. 1) Okay, then only the small pittance of $150 billion. 2) Your confidence is that it's impossible for the US government to spend/waste a lot of money, when they spent $10 trillion in 2023, while idealist, is misguided. Doesn't seem like a sound basis to go off of. $100k per year for 4 million men sounds exactly in a ballpark of plausibility to spread over 12 million alleged illegals which works out to roughly $33k per year per person of expenditures. On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
FEMA is not trying to implement communism. That’s some weird Jade Helm remix conspiracy theory. You never realized equity was a dog whistle? On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
The idea that nobody wants to join an organization because it’s too inclusive is something you should have said out loud to yourself before hitting post. Consider what you’re proposing here. Goodness me, I've got it all wrong. The DPRK is actually democratic. Saying you're inclusive, or purporting to be inclusive, makes you actually inclusive. You didn't miss the point at all. Recruitment is not at an all time low because this administration, the Secretary of Defense, the DoD, and the military are too good at bringing people into the fold. It's not a national security crisis because they're so good at recruiting people that they've already snatched up anyone who would possibly join, and there's nobody left to recruit. They have miserably failed, despite making it an explicit goal, which means either they suck at their job, or it's deliberately obfuscating something other than actual inclusion, or both. On October 01 2024 15:51 KwarK wrote:
You want to increase membership by making the organization more exclusionary. Yeah I remember proposing that on Nevertember Neverteenth. If you think that 1 in 10 adult US young to middle aged men could plausibly be working on the border then you're delusional. The number was simply too high in a way that should have been apparent to anyone familiar with the idea of numbers. That's not what "cost" means. It means the cost to local, state, and federal government, for services, to accommodate illegal immigrants and deal with the consequences of their presence, is that number ($150 billion, allegedly $400 billion). I assumed your example was just you doing mental exercise to try to come to grips with how to approach a large number and make it seem more concrete. I didn't realize you actually thought the report was talking about the cost to employ people to guard the border when it says the "cost of illegal immigrants," because that interpretation is so absurd as to preclude consideration. However, to also give your example further context: The Defense Department employs about 3 million people and has a budget of $900 billion. On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:
Isn't it more likely that FEMA does not have a secret mission to implement communism? That when they say they care about equity they're just trying to say that they care about equity in the traditional non brain worms definition? I didn't know equity had such a definition. The Vice President is on video saying essentially communities deserve disaster relief based on skin color. Now ~3 states are in the wake of a disaster, and as usual, the government is doing a bang-up job, which Harris excels at. On October 01 2024 22:51 KwarK wrote:
If you're arguing the DPRK defence, that while the military says it cares about being inclusive it's not really doing it, then what on earth are you complaining about? You opened with a complaint that the military claims to be inclusive which I took to mean that you thought the military was inclusive and that this was a bad thing. But now when I call you out on that you're saying that the thing you're complaining about isn't actually happening at all so what the fuck are you even talking about? Feigning ignorance. You've heard of DEI before. If you're using a definition of cost that doesn't involve spending money then you're using numbers misleadingly. Once we get into that territory then everything becomes weird because of course the value of any labour provided by the illegal immigrants is positive and so reduces the cost and you quickly find that illegal immigrants actually cost the US negative money.
This may be your dogma, but if you actually engaged with source material and read the report that you embarrassingly thought referred to the cost of paying people to stand in a line at the border, you would see...
At the start of 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration for the United States – at the federal, state, and local levels – was at least $150.7 billion.
net
On October 01 2024 23:22 KwarK wrote:
The DoD indirectly employs far more people than that. When you buy a tank you're buying the labour that went into the tank. You intentionally picked the example of the agency that spends the most on capital equipment purchases and then pretended that we can ignore the people employed producing that equipment.
Why would you have been trying to calculate $400 billion purely as a payroll figure as though you thought border security involved no capital equipment purchases?
Also, aerospace and defense employs another (probably overlap but) 2 million. Half of DoD contracts are goods and half are services. Adjust the numerator or denominator as you like. This is just the scale of numbers we're dealing with. 150 and 400 aren't even an order of magnitude apart to make one palatable and one apocalyptically incomprehensible.
On October 01 2024 23:22 KwarK wrote:
The disasters were caused by hurricanes. You're now drawing a link between FEMA stating that they care about equity and hurricanes. Is it now your argument that equity causes hurricanes? If not please could you walk me through how we got from FEMA putting equity (communism) in their mission statement to the states in the wake of a disaster.
The first goal of their 2022-2026 strategic plan is to instill equity as a foundation of emergency management. They are now failing to manage an emergency (their actual charter) and being blasted with 0% of what Bush faced during Katrina. The VP of the administration they report to has spoken to the importance of "equity" in natural disasters. I can't distill this in a way that's any simpler if you still haven't seen the link.
On October 01 2024 23:22 KwarK wrote:
Now you're just saying your buzzwords madlib style. I've heard of DEI. Don't see what it has to do with the military being inclusive, by which you mean not being inclusive, which is a problem, because it shouldn't be?
Because if you had read two words before "inclusion" you would've seen I said "diversity." The military should be focused on its own competence, which makes people who want to be competent in the military be a part of it. Kind of like taking kids' favorite fictional media. If you try to make it "for kids," they will think it's shit. They like it because of whether it's cool or not, whether it's any good. Not because they get "inclusion"ed into it.
On October 01 2024 23:38 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
And also, the fact still remains that Trump - not Democrats - blew up the Congressional border bill.
"the bill" - Yeah, there's more than one bill.
Do you believe if you put your fingers in your ears it will erase the fact that Democrats tabled HR2 in the Senate, never considering or debating it? Have you even figured out what HR2 is yet?
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United States41538 Posts
On October 01 2024 23:55 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 23:22 KwarK wrote:
The disasters were caused by hurricanes. You're now drawing a link between FEMA stating that they care about equity and hurricanes. Is it now your argument that equity causes hurricanes? If not please could you walk me through how we got from FEMA putting equity (communism) in their mission statement to the states in the wake of a disaster. The first goal of their 2022-2026 strategic plan is to instill equity as a foundation of emergency management. They are now failing to manage an emergency (their actual charter) and being blasted with 0% of what Bush faced during Katrina. The VP of the administration they report to has spoken to the importance of "equity" in natural disasters. I can't distill this in a way that's any simpler if you still haven't seen the link. Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 23:22 KwarK wrote:
Now you're just saying your buzzwords madlib style. I've heard of DEI. Don't see what it has to do with the military being inclusive, by which you mean not being inclusive, which is a problem, because it shouldn't be? Because if you had read two words before "inclusion" you would've seen I said "diversity." The military should be focused on its own competence, which makes people who want to be competent in the military be a part of it. Kind of like taking kids' favorite fictional media. If you try to make it "for kids," they will think it's shit. They like it because of whether it's cool or not, whether it's any good. Not because they get "inclusion"ed into it.
So if the mission statement had not included a dedication to implementing communism (your words) would there have been fewer hurricanes, the same number of hurricanes but less damage done by hurricanes, or would FEMA have been more capable of dealing with the same number of hurricanes doing the same amount of damage? Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that FEMA are struggling with natural disasters because they're too focused on communism? Perhaps they were more capable of dealing with natural disasters before the pivot to communism. You could explain this more simply because what you're asserting is intrinsically pretty weird. Perhaps a line graph showing measurable communism over time vs measurable competence over time with an inverse relationship that proves that as FEMA's communism increased their competence decreased. Do you have one of those?
If I'm understanding your problem with the military it's that it's too inclusive, by which you mean it's not at all inclusive, but by saying that it's trying to be inclusive it's not cool enough and if it dropped the whole inclusiveness message then it would be cooler and therefore get more recruits. Again, do you have any evidence to support this? Perhaps a line graph, although it would need three axis. One to show inclusiveness over time which would actually be a flat line per your DPRK explanation. Another showing coolness over time. And a third which would be inversely correlated with the second showing recruitment rates. Do you have one of those?
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(I didn't say "implement communism," they said "instill equity as a foundation of emergency management," and I said equity is a dog whistle for communism.)
If your point is words are mere words, it's true. There could very well be some mavericks behind the scenes, streamlining disaster response, readying disaster preparedness, and so on, and then when it comes time for a press release, they say, let's not tout those leaps we've made, instead, let's produce some progressive sounding word salad to cover up all our secret competence. Only the problem is a hurricane comes and surprise, they aren't competent. (If it's word salad you're into, try this https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_equitable-recovery-post-disaster-guide-local-officials-leaders.pdf - absolute drivel)
So using old Occam's Razor I wonder if the explicit management goals stated and made by the FEMA Director might have an effect on the performance of FEMA.
You know, unfortunately I haven't gotten a time machine and done double blind randomized trials on how to run FEMA. It's absolutely true they could have been on a total incompetent streak since Bush, or even since their inception. However, I postulate, again without evidence, that in the case that they were already incompetent to begin with, perhaps should have focused less on equity and social sciences graduate school nonsense, and more on their mission. Couldn't hurt to try.
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oBlade... What the actual fuck are you talking about? That you're not saying FEMA wants to implement communism, but that they want to instill equity, only you think equity is a dogwhistle for communism? You're saying FEMA wants to instill communism then, my dude. I know you have a hard time with words having a consistent meaning and concepts being applicable in more than one place, but holy fuck. You're doing the mental gymnastics equivalent of turning 360 degrees, and walking away. The only one who thinks you accomplish anything with your nonsense is you.
On October 01 2024 23:12 Introvert wrote:
I'm not the one missing the point lol
No, clearly that's our dude oBlade, who's convinced that exclusivity is the only path to inclusivity and who thinks FEMA is a sleeper agency for the end of communism but doesn't agree they're a sleeper agency for the end of communism, even though that's exactly what he's saying.
I look forward to the VP debate tonight. At least then I can expect at least 2 people to speak in coherent sentences. Fuck me.
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Northern Ireland22945 Posts
On October 01 2024 23:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
The vice presidential debate - Walz vs. Vance - is tonight. Starts at 9 PM Eastern time. I'll eventually post my summary and thoughts on it.
Appreciated as ever bro!
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Northern Ireland22945 Posts
On October 02 2024 00:31 NewSunshine wrote:oBlade... What the actual fuck are you talking about? That you're not saying FEMA wants to implement communism, but that they want to instill equity, only you think equity is a dogwhistle for communism? You're saying FEMA wants to instill communism then, my dude. I know you have a hard time with words having a consistent meaning and concepts being applicable in more than one place, but holy fuck. You're doing the mental gymnastics equivalent of turning 360 degrees, and walking away. The only one who thinks you accomplish anything with your nonsense is you. Show nested quote +On October 01 2024 23:12 Introvert wrote:
I'm not the one missing the point lol No, clearly that's our dude oBlade, who's convinced that exclusivity is the only path to inclusivity and who thinks FEMA is a sleeper agency for the end of communism but doesn't agree they're a sleeper agency for the end of communism, even though that's exactly what he's saying. I look forward to the VP debate tonight. At least then I can expect at least 2 people to speak in coherent sentences. Fuck me.
Ah it’s not just me that’s confused then? I’d put it down to my hangover initially
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On October 02 2024 00:42 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2024 00:31 NewSunshine wrote:oBlade... What the actual fuck are you talking about? That you're not saying FEMA wants to implement communism, but that they want to instill equity, only you think equity is a dogwhistle for communism? You're saying FEMA wants to instill communism then, my dude. I know you have a hard time with words having a consistent meaning and concepts being applicable in more than one place, but holy fuck. You're doing the mental gymnastics equivalent of turning 360 degrees, and walking away. The only one who thinks you accomplish anything with your nonsense is you. On October 01 2024 23:12 Introvert wrote:
I'm not the one missing the point lol No, clearly that's our dude oBlade, who's convinced that exclusivity is the only path to inclusivity and who thinks FEMA is a sleeper agency for the end of communism but doesn't agree they're a sleeper agency for the end of communism, even though that's exactly what he's saying. I look forward to the VP debate tonight. At least then I can expect at least 2 people to speak in coherent sentences. Fuck me. Ah it’s not just me that’s confused then? I’d put it down to my hangover initially
No indeed. What a sweet salve it'll be to watch Tim Walz give straightforward answers to actual questions that make sense.
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