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On January 13 2026 02:17 Falling wrote:@GH Show nested quote +You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. I read through the book a month or two ago, and this quote has to be one the most significant/ eerie observations from it.
Basically being "non-Nazi" isn't enough. If you don't find yourself actively doing anti-Nazi things (which will endanger you), it's only a matter of time before you realize you're actually a Nazi (while rationalizing it) too.
I think this bit about "surprise" is important and applies beyond the US.
“I think," says Professor Carl Hermann, who never left his homeland, "that even now the outside world does not realize how surprised we non-Nazis were in 1933. When mass dictatorship occurred in Russia, then in Italy, we said to one another, 'That is what happens in backward countries. We are fortunate, for all our troubles, that it cannot happen here.' But it did, worse even than elsewhere, and I think that all the explanations leave some mystery. When I think of it at all, I still say, with unbelief, 'Germany—no, not Germany.
I got a small chuckle out of one of his friends comparing social democrats and Bolsheviks saying that he could appreciate that at least Bolsheviks' noes weren't three-quarter a yes.
The book has a pretty rough start imo, but it does have some valuable insights I didn't expect.
EDIT: Forgot to mention it unexpectedly specifically mentions Minneapolis too
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On January 13 2026 03:07 Doublemint wrote:+ Show Spoiler +now let's add the fact that Gen Z are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence—professors warn it could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates@Fortune we really need a revolution, just not a Socialist or Libertarian/Trumpian/Chinese/Fascist whatever one. if we wanna keep those freedoms generations died for across different eras, through different conflicts, against the state in one... and then against corporate overlords in another... some things are more important than a label disingenuously assigned. people need the cultural tool of reading, and the ability to think for themselves - and act on it when push comes to shove. peacefully is always preferable just to not enable a vicious circle that's incredibly hard to break. if the top 15-30+%(*cough*degree inflation*cough*) of a society struggles hard/fails at that, the others are ripe for the picking and that whole social justice in a free world experiment of ours is over. the wet dream of whoever thinks is in charge. people never having experienced it or read about it will never miss it in the first place. @Kwark. not just Americans, it's just their turn yet it seems. @WaPo that to me, and I am certainly not alone in this estimation, is the crucial part. will he hit a wall or finish what Jan.06 was meant to accomplish? will the center hold? if no all cards are on the table I am afraid. GH gets his wet dream/soaked in blood nightmare... Show nested quote + They include unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots. The administration has gutted the role of the nation’s cybersecurity agency in protecting elections; stocked the Justice Department, Homeland Security Department and FBI from top to bottom with officials + Show Spoiler + Pam Bondi, attorney general. As a lawyer for Trump in 2020, Bondi claimed Trump had won Pennsylvania before about 1 million absentee ballots had been counted. During her confirmation hearings as attorney general, she sidestepped answering whether Biden won in 2020.
Kash Patel, FBI director. Patel, who has used his power to pursue Trump’s opponents, has leaned into the president’s false election claims, saying in 2023 that if Trump won the election, he would go after journalists who “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”
Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant attorney general. As a lawyer, Dhillon challenged state voting policies and baselessly claimed before the 2024 election that bureaucrats “change the outcomes of the election in a few counties and that changes the outcome of the national election — that’s what happened in 2020.” She now leads the Justice Department’s civil rights division, which oversees voting issues.
Ed Martin, pardon attorney. Martin has called the 2020 election rigged, falsely claiming Trump won that year. Martin, who also serves as the director of the “weaponization working group” that is reviewing past actions of the Justice Department, has promoted the pardons of dozens of people involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 results, including former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Andrew “Mac” Warner, senior counsel at the Justice Department. Warner is a former secretary of state of West Virginia who baselessly claimed the CIA stole the 2020 election from Trump. In 2025, he asked county election officials in Missouri if they would give him access to their voting equipment. They declined his highly unusual request.
Heather Honey, deputy assistant secretary at the Homeland Security Department. Honey worked on a Republican effort to reexamine Arizona’s 2020 election and has led a group challenging the eligibility of voters in Pennsylvania. She now helps oversee the nation’s election infrastructure.
Kurt Olsen, attorney. Olsen tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election and has worked closely with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and failed Arizona gubernatorial and Senate candidate Kari Lake, who have spread false election conspiracy theories.
Eric Neff, acting chief of the Justice Department’s voting rights section. As a prosecutor in Los Angeles County, Neff filed flawed charges against the head of an election software company that were quickly dropped. Neff was placed on administrative leave and the county reached a $5 million settlement with the man who had been criminally charged, according to Democracy Docket.
Gregg Phillips, head of response and recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Phillips has promoted election conspiracy theories, including those at the heart of the debunked film “2000 Mules” that alleged ballot drop boxes were used to commit fraud in 2020. FEMA can play a role in elections when it responds to disasters that affect voting, such as when Hurricane Helene struck North Carolina three weeks before early voting began in 2024. who have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election; given a White House audience to people who, like the president, promote the lie that he won the 2020 election; sued over state and local election policies that Trump opposes; and called for a new census that excludes noncitizens. The wide-ranging efforts seek to expand on some of the strategies he and his advisers and allies used to try to reverse the 2020 results that culminated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.@WaPo that alone should tell you what you need to know. and I think Democrats, but not just them, need to channel their inner state's rights to mount a defense worthy of calling it that against an overreaching, unaccountable federal bureaucracy.
Just because I saw the need for revolution before others (and after many), doesn't mean I want capitalists/fascists to violently insist on continuing their exploitation of people and resources despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it promises to destroy us as a species.
My "dream" would be bloodless (mind you the status quo is already a blood-soaked nightmare), but we have to deal with reality.
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On January 13 2026 03:05 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2026 02:58 KwarK wrote:On January 13 2026 02:56 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2026 00:51 Jankisa wrote:https://v.redd.it/80p28r1g5xcg1Fucking vile. ICE kidnaps a 17 year old kid from his job at Target, he's a US citizen, for no fucking reason, they slam him on the ground, cause him injuries and then dump him 2 blocks down at Walmart crying his eyes out. To fix what? I hope that ghouls like the ones who keep justifying this shit around here get picked up like this and roughed up, maybe, just maybe it dawns on them that enabling violent and unaccountable thugs to do this is not an appropriate reaction to anything, let alone an uptick of immigrants coming in. You are the first person to post about this and nobody has said they support it. This is like uploading videos of DUI accidents while going "Wow anyone who hasn't publicly told me they support banning alcohol is just a killer." But you do support it. No buddy, I have the self control to be able to not support roughing up Target teenagers without believing police shouldn't exist and wishing someone would assassinate the president of the country I acquired citizenship in or throw a grenade in its highest court. I just believe the thing. I don't warp the whole rest of my brain and world around it.
Do you think that the agents who did this should be prosecuted? If so, what charges would you expect to be pressed against them? Does this meant that you disagree with JD Vance that ICE agents should have absolute immunity?
Do you think that ICE in general should go into businesses and drag anyone who doesn't look sufficiently "American" out in order to "process" them?
Do you think that this kind of behavior, which you obviously vehemently disagree with was made less or more likely with the shooting of Renee Good and the subsequent reaction to it?
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On January 13 2026 05:28 Jankisa wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2026 03:05 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2026 02:58 KwarK wrote:On January 13 2026 02:56 oBlade wrote:On January 13 2026 00:51 Jankisa wrote:https://v.redd.it/80p28r1g5xcg1Fucking vile. ICE kidnaps a 17 year old kid from his job at Target, he's a US citizen, for no fucking reason, they slam him on the ground, cause him injuries and then dump him 2 blocks down at Walmart crying his eyes out. To fix what? I hope that ghouls like the ones who keep justifying this shit around here get picked up like this and roughed up, maybe, just maybe it dawns on them that enabling violent and unaccountable thugs to do this is not an appropriate reaction to anything, let alone an uptick of immigrants coming in. You are the first person to post about this and nobody has said they support it. This is like uploading videos of DUI accidents while going "Wow anyone who hasn't publicly told me they support banning alcohol is just a killer." But you do support it. No buddy, I have the self control to be able to not support roughing up Target teenagers without believing police shouldn't exist and wishing someone would assassinate the president of the country I acquired citizenship in or throw a grenade in its highest court. I just believe the thing. I don't warp the whole rest of my brain and world around it. Do you think that the agents who did this should be prosecuted? If so, what charges would you expect to be pressed against them? Does this meant that you disagree with JD Vance that ICE agents should have absolute immunity? Do you think that ICE in general should go into businesses and drag anyone who doesn't look sufficiently "American" out in order to "process" them? Do you think that this kind of behavior, which you obviously vehemently disagree with was made less or more likely with the shooting of Renee Good and the subsequent reaction to it?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/X5FrnEdiJmA
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United States43444 Posts
GH I think your conservative colonial vs ethical anticolonial analysis from a few pages back is, while true, insufficient to capture the pure stupidity of what is going on today. It worked at the time it was written because it described a zero sum transfer of wealth and power. Conservatives benefited from the transfer of wealth and power from their colonial subjects and so they fought to preserve it, despite it being exploitative. That somewhat makes sense. You harm the other side because harming them benefits you, there's a logic to it.
But as a theory it doesn't work today because what conservatives are doing today is attacking a positive sum international system.
Throughout history human progress and wellbeing has had to drag an extremely heavy anchor composed of chaos and violence. If two groups disagree about how to use a resource then they'll just start killing each other. Tribes use huge amounts of their surplus resources to create administrative and social systems for the simple purpose of organized violence, either to preserve what they have or to expand it. Tribes have to give birth to, raise, educate, and train surplus sons to be spent in the violence necessary to keep it all together. Resources must be spent rebuilding the destroyed houses, replacing the torched granaries, rearing the decimated livestock.
For a very large proportion of the human population that rule has changed in the years since 1950. China has been internally at peace. The Indian subcontinent has avoided large scale destructive warfare (hundreds of thousands in the 1971 Bangladesh war are, by the standards of the Indian subcontinent, actually not so bad, not when compared with partition and in any case it hasn't been repeated). Global peace would be overselling it but the percentage of the human population that lived under a legalistic and diplomatic framework of peace was far higher than it had ever been. Suddenly all of that surplus value that had routinely been destroyed was available for human progress and the exponential growth in wealth and living standards was staggering. Billions of people lived out of poverty. Countries going from serfdom to modern economies in a generation.
That is positive sum. When two people have a disagreement and they hire lawyers and then accept the judge's ruling they might think of it as a zero sum situation but that's because they've forgotten about the alternative. The alternative was that if they were fighting over $10 they would each spend $50 on violence and then the loser might take $100 of damage while the winner only took $50. The ordered framework is incredibly valuable because even when you lose you're a winner.
That's what makes this current zero sum approach to geopolitics so fucking stupid. It's not two sides arguing over how to split up the wealth where one wants to benefit by harming the other. Old colonial style rule would actually be much smarter because at least then there would be agreement that wealth should be created. What we have here is an attack on the whole framework of order, of cooperation, of compromise, the system itself. The system that says that if I fill a shipping container with goods that you need and put it on a boat then I have a reasonable expectation that you'll respect my ownership of them when they arrive. The system that says that I can sue you. The system that says that we don't need rival protection racket gangs routinely burning down things "protected" by the other gang to increase their own market share.
It’s the business model of cartels which generally lack access to the framework of order. If rival cartels were barred from using force and had to decide things with lawyers they would be obscenely wealthy. If they could enforce their agreements with contracts, protect their holdings with the concept of property rights, collaborate and compromise with each other etc. that’d be so much better for them. Even though they couldn’t murder their way to new territory. When two cartels go to war it’s not zero sum, it’s negative sum, the winner still had to build their army, compensate their members for risk, replace the dead. But they don’t use the framework that creates prosperity.
I would be much happier if we had a group of oligarchs who were, at least, trying to enrich themselves. But we don't even have that. Take Musk, a man completely devoid of social skills. Let's say he gets what he wants, a world of deeply propagandized, violent, hateful people who believe that the only power is that which you take. Does he do well in that world which also contains unjammable fiberoptic guided drones? Or the Supreme Court, who we indulge and allow to make decisions because we choose to believe in the idea of justice. When they openly start taking bribes to rule how their benefactors wish they're sawing off the branch that they're sitting upon.
It's no longer between two groups arguing about how best to divide surplus value. Those two groups have now coalesced into a single coalition for order which is arguing against a new group that advocates for disorder. The colonizers want to keep the oil wells, the colonized think they should belong to them, and the fascists think they should be destroyed in the forging of a new world. I’ve been arguing that there’s an unavoidable slide into either internal instability (if Americans stop MAGA) or global instability. There are no winners there.
Greenland is a good example of this because the US already has everything it could want out of Greenland. They can extract resources, they can build bases, they've already won under the current rules. But they don't want to win, they want others to lose more than they do. It's a regression to an era of stupidity that we've not seen in generations.
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Lmao
Any regulation, especially a new regulation, will likely have at least some cost. Be it invesment or maintenence. Does this mean there will no additional regulations or regulations entirely eliminated? Id suspect dumping polution into rivers or in the air to be theoretically cheaper for the business. Wtf.
Its like the worst of everything all at once.
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At that point those people would blow up the planet to own the libs. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised.
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On January 13 2026 05:14 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2026 02:17 Falling wrote:@GH You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. I read through the book a month or two ago, and this quote has to be one the most significant/ eerie observations from it. Basically being "non-Nazi" isn't enough. If you don't find yourself actively doing anti-Nazi things (which will endanger you), it's only a matter of time before you realize you're actually a Nazi (while rationalizing it) too. I think this bit about "surprise" is important and applies beyond the US. Show nested quote +“I think," says Professor Carl Hermann, who never left his homeland, "that even now the outside world does not realize how surprised we non-Nazis were in 1933. When mass dictatorship occurred in Russia, then in Italy, we said to one another, 'That is what happens in backward countries. We are fortunate, for all our troubles, that it cannot happen here.' But it did, worse even than elsewhere, and I think that all the explanations leave some mystery. When I think of it at all, I still say, with unbelief, 'Germany—no, not Germany. I got a small chuckle out of one of his friends comparing social democrats and Bolsheviks saying that he could appreciate that at least Bolsheviks' noes weren't three-quarter a yes. The book has a pretty rough start imo, but it does have some valuable insights I didn't expect. EDIT: Forgot to mention it unexpectedly specifically mentions Minneapolis too
Americans projecting their expectations onto Europe, and Austria especially when it comes to Nazis is always amusing.
Maybe you‘ll get cheered on for being radical antifa in the US and assaulting people you believe to be right wing extremists but the best you‘ll get trying to do that here is spending time in a holding cell. And that goes the other way too.
Meanwhile there‘s countries supposedly against nazis actively acting like nazis and nobody gives a fuck.
If I gave you a flight ticket to Austria and tell you where the nazis are hiding you could walk up to them and punch them, it might earn you a crocodile tear or two on facebook somewhere and a meeting with the local cops.
As someone who‘s both been physically assaulted by a nazi skin AND had his friends assaulted too (I smelled trouble and went home, they decided to stick around in that bar), the best prevention is avoidance. Cause heroism isn‘t part of my paycheck and I had to deal with both extremes quite consistently.
With America like it is now, it‘s even worse. At least we don‘t get randomly shot around here as often.
Soon you might need a MAGA membership card, a medical card and a certificate of sexual orientation.
As if the self proclaimed antifa were doing jack shit about that when ICE seems to have a low trigger tolerance.
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On January 12 2026 15:56 ChristianS wrote:@GH: about halfway I think? I paused reading it for a while but this is reminding me to pick it back up. Show nested quote +On January 12 2026 13:22 Introvert wrote:On January 12 2026 13:10 ChristianS wrote:On January 12 2026 10:50 Introvert wrote:On January 12 2026 06:09 ChristianS wrote:On January 12 2026 04:35 Introvert wrote:On January 12 2026 04:00 ChristianS wrote:On January 12 2026 03:22 Introvert wrote:On January 12 2026 02:15 ChristianS wrote:
I probably agree with GH that oBlade is a waste of time to engage with. He’s not dumb, I even kind of admire the willingness to do some pretty tedious nitpicky argumentation. But it’s just so clear that he treats politics like a speech and debate club where he’s been assigned the Republican position and is supposed to defend it vigorously by any means necessary. I never did speech and debate, it doesn’t interest me that much, if I just wanted an mentally engaging competition I’d go play chess or Starcraft or something.
Intro I’m less certain about. He’s got some of that speech and debate tendency (he’ll even kind of say this himself, talking about how if he has anti-Trump opinions he doesn’t see the point in posting them here). But I do think an important thing to understand in all this is what the fans of all this actually want, and why they’re supportive of it. oBlade’s perspective is probably too fabricated to give much insight there, but Intro is a bit more mixed.
Like, there’s a subtext to everything happening in MN (currently, although previously and still somewhat currently it was LA or Chicago or DC or etc.). It’s a pretty obvious subtext, I don’t think anyone is actually missing it, although oBlade or Intro might pretend to. But like, what is the actual purpose of these massive military-like “enforcement operations” they’re doing? They’re run by ICE so nominally they’re immigration enforcement, and I don’t doubt that they’re paying special attention to anybody they think is deportable. But why the focus on blue cities? And why are these guys they’re deploying to blue cities wearing camo fatigues and wielding assault rifles?
It’s obvious this is a punishment of liberal areas. It’s obvious Trump likes the idea of bands of street fighters loyal to his cause parading through “enemy territory” and cracking skulls (why else would he pardon everybody involved in J6?). And it’s obvious that these masked gunmen in these videos view their job primarily to be intimidating the population into submission.
But the question is, why do regular people like it? Or do they? When those masked gunmen break into every room of a 40-floor apartment building, no due process in sight, and drag a bunch of people off into the night with no oversight or accountability of any kind, am I honestly supposed to believe a guy like Intro thinks “yes, good, I like this because of my firm commitment to rule of law”? Weird analysis of my sincerity put to the side, the answer "why target blue jurisdictions" is obvious. It's where a great many illegal immigrants are and it is where the local and state authorities are least helpful. They won't even coordinate to help deport convicted criminals. If you have a state government willing to cooperate to remove the worst of the worst it relieves pressure. In response to what was happening over the weekend DHS was posting on social media pictures and I think some bios of all the felons they were rounding up. Is everyone is a violent felon? No, but as i said before this is what happens when rules are ignores and then enforced. I've seen this dynamic even in my own workplace. Rules can be bent, even broken along the edges but if pushed too far the crackdown feels unfair and it hits eveyone. The hard truth is, if Biden hadn't let in literally millions of people on dubious or just ridiculous pretenses we might see a Trump policy more like his previous term. When I look at polls they are the classic American dichotomy, they like the idea of the thing but always wince at it implementation. Most voters disapprove of his current, uh, harshness. But they also favor deporting lots and lots of people lol. It's like the polls we used to see with climate change: "is climate change something very important that the government should act on?" Yes: 40% "Would you be willing to pay an extra 10$ in taxes if thst would solve the problem?" Yes:14% I'm not 100% sure but I think part of the problem is that Americans are so rich that they aren't used to making tradeoffs. It's why American politicians will always default to "spend more money" when trying to fix any problem. It's why they like the idea of deporting people but think it looks mean when they see it. Kinda feels like I’m taking the bait here but I called a bunch of stuff “obvious” and you are insisting it’s not, so let’s talk about it. I’ll start small. Why camo? In the 20th century soldiers started wearing camouflage fatigues because they were expecting to be shot at on sight, and the wars were happening in natural environments where those irregular green and brown patterns made you harder to spot. It’s a strategic choice premised on helping your soldiers blend into the natural environment so they won’t get shot. In a domestic law enforcement operation there’s no particular reason they should expect to be shot at on sight, and even if they did, those irregular greens and browns don’t help you blend into a MN suburb. So why? Maybe they inherited them from army surplus or something, but God knows they’ve got the budget to be able to afford uniforms for their people. The only reason I can come up with is that they want a soldier aesthetic – they know citizens associate those irregular greens and browns with soldiers occupying, say, Fallujah, and they’re hoping that will be intimidating. Why, if this is just a law enforcement operation, do they want to look like an occupying army? But that’s superficial. Here’s a more central one: do these ICE guys need to follow the law? And what oversight or accountability is there ensuring they do? It is the law of the land, for instance, that law enforcement needs probable cause to arrest or search someone, and that person is entitled to due process. Now, I’ve seen ample evidence that ICE has detained people, forced entry into homes, and hauled off dozens of prisoners at a time without the faintest whiff of a warrant. Citizens have been detained for days or weeks despite having proof of their identity and citizenship readily available; green card holders and other legal residents have had the same or worse. All of this is being done by masked officers who refuse to provide identification of any kind, and I’ve seen no evidence that anybody inside their agency is tracking these abuses, let alone trying to stop them. It’s also the law of the land that ICE detention facilities are subject to surprise (no notice) audits and inspections by members of Congress. Multiple times members of Congress have attempted to perform these audits and inspections, and been refused entry by the men with guns. That appears to be a straightforward violation of black letter law. What recourse do we have as citizens when these supposed “law enforcement officers” dress up as an occupying army, arm themselves to the teeth, and brazenly flaunt any legal restrictions to which they are nominally subject? More directly targeted at you, though: how can you assign any moral authority to “law enforcement“ that acts in such lawless fashion? Supposedly you’re supportive because regardless of propriety or decency or morality, damnit, the law says those people are supposed to be deported and we have to enforce the law. But you’ve expressed no concern that I’ve seen for any of the violation of law being performed in pursuit of that goal, which implies that you only selectively apply this zealous insistence that the law must be enforced. You must have some criterion for deciding which laws must be enforced, no matter how impractical or cruel, and which are apparently violable without any pearl-clutching or notable concern of any kind. What is it? I could try to infer it as charitably as I can, but I’ll be honest, all the explanations I can come up with are still pretty damning. So hopefully you can enlighten me about a possibility I missed? You said it was obvious ICE was targeting blue jurisdictions and I agreed with you. What I tried to do was answer your question "why?" I don't know why they wear camo, I don't know what they should wear, besides that they should be identifiable as federal law enforcement. You are right, it's superficial imo. I'm all for real oversight of every government agency, not just ICE/DHS. As well as accountability. If citizens are unduly detained they should be remunerated. As always mistakes will happen, but they should be corrected. I have no doubt that within DHS, as again, within every organization of any size, there is a instinct to defend their own even when they shouldn't. The long established immigration laws have a lot of provisions and rules that have been very underused, but to put it simply the suite of constitutional processes don't apply to people about whom there is no doubt to their status. It's why Kilmar Abrego Garcia doesn't need to have a trial to be deported, despite what some people here seem to think. What rights he does have come from federal law as passed by Congress, not the Constitution. The "right" of members of Congress to enter CBP facilities is large but still less expansive than you think. Members of Congress do not, in general, have the ability to show up at any federal facility just walk in and "inspect." Such rights as there do not come from some Constitutional rule, which is what they seem to claim, but from specific laws which are currently in dispute. Nonetheless, it wouldn't bother me. What does bother me is pretending that these objections are what matters. Is anyone who is upset at ICE mad because of these particulars you have laid out? Not really so far as I read. They are more mad that people are being deported at all. I say again what I said above. This is an excellent lesson in why we don't so flagrantly violate the rules we have in the first place. If the population of illegal immigrants was small or very old with no new arrivals, the political calculations would be different. As it stands now, a lot of people are going to have a hard time, even innocent people. And they should be fully recompensed. The difference is that I am not a utopian and also I have memory better than that of a goldfish. I know what happens when rules are ignored more and more. Everyone who enters illegally knows they could be deported at any time. It is a calculated risk, and sometimes you lose. There was an ICE action in Chicago where, if I recall correctly, they went through every room of an apartment building. Knock knock, open up, bash the door down as necessary, shout and wave guns around and intimidate and grab who they want to and drag them out into the night. I’m going off memory here, we can try to look up specifics if you want but that’s the gist. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you and I agree that is not consistent with the 4th Amendment. So what do you think should happen here? For starters, what does “remuneration” look like? Are these people supposed to sue the federal government for the cost of replacing their front door or whatever? The 4th Amendment says no search and seizure without probable cause, not “you can do it but you have to cut them a check after.” And if they did find any undocumented immigrants, do they get any protection because they were found in an illegal way? Or is it, well, we don’t love how they got the job done but we’re not gonna undo it either? Because if it’s the latter, surely they’ll just keep doing that kind of thing, no? I haven’t heard a single ICE official acknowledge that operations of this sort are an overreach or talk about ceasing them, let alone compensating the victims of their past mistakes. You come extremely close here to just coming out and saying that you don’t believe it’s possible to enforce the law while generally complying with the law on this issue. In which case, again I ask: why the zeal for absolute compliance with the law when it comes to, say, deporting dreamers, while shrugging “yeah, well, I’m not a utopian” when an agency appears completely unwilling to abide by legal restraints of any kind on their operations? Trump, for his part, has been remarkably honest and consistent on this. Going back to the 2016 campaign, he promised to pay the legal bills of anybody who assaulted reporters on his behalf, because he thinks street fighters doing mundane violence in his name is a good thing, and he’ll shield them from consequences for that behavior any way he can. That’s why he pardoned the J6ers, that’s why ICE hide their faces and refuse to give identification or badge numbers, that’s why the administration makes up “domestic terrorist” bullshit when an officer panics and shoots a suburban mom. He’s been as explicit and detailed as he could possibly be on this point: no consequences of any kind, no legal constraints apply, he advertised this operation as such and he’s delivering. So when their leaders are insisting it’s unaccountable and not subject to legal constraint, and their agents are acting like they’re unaccountable and not subject to legal constraint, how can you possibly salvage a position that you support all this on grounds that we need to have laws and follow them, no matter what? I'm out and about so sorry if I don’t cover everything. If the government doesn't willing make things up to them then that's what the courts are for. Again, lots of different rules but the fourth amendment talks about "unreasonable". I don't know about the specifics of every action except that as I said, what the government is allowed to do re:people in the country unlawfully is far more expansive. For all the resistance judging we've seen so far, I dont think most courts have challenged the aggressive enforcement the administration has adopted except in specific circumstances. You don't need a warrant to detain and deport an illegal immigrant, it's just that internal deportation has been so rare before this that we didn't hear about it much (the vast majority of Obama's "deportations" as they counted them were removals of people who recently entered). I think a lot of your confusion is displayed in You come extremely close here to just coming out and saying that you don’t believe it’s possible to enforce the law while generally complying with the law on this issue. The law is actually where most of your problems are. Just like people who say "ICE can't arrest citizens!" Like yes, yes they can. They just don’t normally *need* to. The people not complying with the law are of course those here unlawfully, but also those trying to interfere. The way I have described ICE to people when I talk IRL is that they are a little overzealous at times. But things like sanctuary cities existed before 2025. The real opposition is not to ICE going a step over the line, it's the existence of the line. So you can ask me a million examples and I can say that if it is not what the law allows, then ICE shouldn't do it. But I always emphasize that we are in a position where laws have been ignored and when they are ignored we get worse and worse behavior. The worst thing that ever happened to the illegal immigrant mother of US citizens who has been here for 20 years with no criminal record is letting so many people in over the past 4 years. It's what I said earlier. Meanwhile, you and others seem to think that personally interfering is just fine, that there are no consequences, and that if someone feels justified then they can't do anything wrong. I guess the Tldr is that very many people are simply mistaken on the law as it pertains to immigration enforcement, and their objections are not really to, say, raiding every apartment in a building, but actually do the very idea of deporting people. This does a lot to color how people interpret the events that they see. I wouldn't want the mother I referred to earlier to be deported necessarily. But if I have to pick between that or no one gets deported, then that's how it has to be. And that appears to be the position of most Americans, based on previous election results. See, the fact that your only response to this scenario was to obliquely reference it at the end as “not people’s real objection” is the kind of thing that makes me question your sincerity. I went out on a limb assuming you’d agree that’s not consistent with the 4th amendment, and you haven’t even said whether I was wrong! You’re gesturing generally at stuff other people have apparently said (e.g. “ICE can’t arrest citizens”) as proof that I’m probably wrong about the law, but the operation I described is about as explicit a violation of the 4th Amendment as I could conjure in my imagination, it’s not especially subtle. It’s so unambiguous it would have to have been conceived by people who simply did not believe those rules applied to them. Then you’re reiterating that illegal immigrants aren’t entitled to due process anyway. They are though! You need a court order to deport someone! And it’s trivially demonstrable that the principles which due process is supposed to protect would have to apply to deportation of noncitizens, most obviously because how do you even know they’re noncitizens if you don’t make the government prove it? If they already had proof the people in that apartment building were illegal immigrants, 1) they could show that proof to a judge and get a warrant, and 2) they wouldn’t need to go door to door like that! It’s a fishing expedition, plain and simple! In a sense you’re right, though, in that I do think these actions are deeply and fundamentally immoral, and that would be true even if they were being undertaken in full compliance with the law. But I don’t need you to tell me what I think, I’m asking what you think, and it’s hard not to read this as evasive. “Oh, are they not following the law? Hmm, maybe, who’s to say, I’m a pragmatist not a utopian anyway. But also these operations are Very Important because regardless of morality we must always, everywhere, no matter what, Enforce The Law.” Without know exactly i would assume you need to a warrant or obviously some explicit legal authority to search apartments. I am agreeing with you. I'm basically granting all your particulars. The "due process" due to illegal immigrants is different. It isn't non existent, but a great deal of it is set by federal law and it isn't as expansive as it is for citizens. I keep repeating this because I recall earlier in the year many posters were absolutely convinced this was not the case. Meanwhile I told you what I think. You, I think, want me to have no conflicting feelings or worries. I told you, it some sense it is "mean" to deport someone who hasn't done anything besides cross the border. But I will accept it (not cheer, but accept) if it means A) or deters future law breaking B) removes less sympathetic characters. This is a tradeoffs eveyone makes depending on the topic. Presumably the people who were sympathetic to "defund the police" but didn't actually want to defund it, understand that having bad cops is bad, but having no cops is worse. For someone who do often likes to use a great many words trying to work your way through something I am somewhat surprised you seem to want easy, short answers. “Granting all my particulars” (whether only for the sake of argument, or because you actually agree they’re true) would seem to imply you’re also granting that this enforcement is being conducted with flagrant disregard for any legal constraints whatsoever. Indeed, hiding identities and badge numbers means that even if we as a society decided we wanted to punish some particularly egregious violation, we may or may not ever be able to do it – the agency or fellow agents might have to give up their identity if the OSINT types aren’t able to identify them. You’re also acknowledging that the enforcement has significant human cost, and in many cases is unnecessarily cruel (“mean”) in ways you personally would prefer not to happen. But you’re still supportive of the enforcement because you think having laws and not enforcing them is just such a problem we need to do it anyway. You see why I’m emphasizing the conflict here, right? If the enforcement is lawless and unaccountable – pretty explicitly advertised and celebrated as such by the President enacting it, by the way – then someone who believes it’s important to have laws and enforce them, even if it’s difficult or cruel, shouldn’t be a fan of it. But if you don’t actually believe a bit of noncompliance with the law is such a problem that must be rectified immediately, then why do we need to do all these cruel deportations? This commitment to law-abidingness seems to be one you pick up or set down depending on whether it serves some other, deeper commitment you apparently have. My (some say misguided) purpose here was to determine what that deeper commitment is, and why you hold to it. I can form my own guesses, and maybe somewhat more informed ones based on this conversation, but is there a reason you can’t just tell me why you’ve decided the one version of law-breaking must be rectified, while the other is, meh, not ideal but we’re not utopians here?
Well we can see why they are hiding exact names and faces, it's to prevent doxxing. So that's an arguable matter with pros and cons. And it shouldn't really matter is cases like Ms. Good, who almost certainly did not know exactly who or what she was interfering with besides ICE is general.
Well "mean" doesn't mean "unnecessary." I think almost all laws are for a purpose? And hopefully good ones have good purposes. I think the *purposes* of these laws are good ones. And so far as I can tell, execution of the law as written would be fine as well. It is the deviations I would be worried about. So the commitment to law-abidingness, as you put it, is not even the primary reason for supporting any enforcement of law (though i think there is virtue in following a law once passed, if not obviously immoral). And of course we can all think of laws in American history in which that commitment was far outweighed by other considerations. And so, with the proviso I made multiple times already, I'm willing to accept some mistakes. Again, this is an idea familiar to literally eveyone, including utopian leftists I think in some cases. I think having a border, preventing illegal immigration, being able to vet who is coming in sufficiently well, are all important enough that mistakes are not enough reason to throw the whole thing out.
Further in, I think what I just said is granting your argument quite a bit, because as you said you don't seem to want much enforcement. You aren't really a fan of the *purposes* of these laws. So that's where you have to evaluate the value in supporting the execution of the law despite your disdain for it. And of course the question is about how to change it. Which, coming full circle, is another where I think these people interfering with ICE are wrong: morally, legally, and politically. But none of that means I cheer at eveyone deported or cheer when, imo, the officer acts in self-defense. I also see the human cost of what happens as a result of the failure to secure the border in the first place. It is simply untenable that one administration gets to dump that many people in the country and then the next democratically elected administration can't even enforce federal law to fix it. The one way rachet needs to finally be destroyed. And one of the core rights of a polity is deciding who gets to join it.
So if you look at the nyt article I posted yesterday, you ought to be furious at the Biden administration for directly leading us here, their failure, due in part to their ideological commitments and their obsession to just be anti-everything Trump, helped lead directly to his re-election.
I don't think it is impossible or wrong in principle or in reality to enforce immigration law for its good purposes in a good way. You wanted what I think, I hope you feel as though you really have it.
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