All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Celgress]

Some of that stuff is greatly exaggerated. Serial killers and child molesters are not waiting in droves to enter the US.

Drug cartels can be dealt with without turning people away. Legalizing drugs alone would deal a huge blow to them.

Enforcing borders is already an act of violence, and it has given rise to even more violence. Whatever violence is caused by having open borders or no borders, it'll be nothing compared to the violence going on right now.

I don't believe what you are advocating will work in the real world. I'm sorry but I can't support your position or vote for anyone who does, it is simply too extreme. I have a duty to keep my family safe as does the government to keep the country safe. We can't risk letting everyone into the country all the time without any sort of screening process, such a position is simply too risky from the standpoint of violence, crime, and illness.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

How did the US screw up Mexico?

Look up US imperialism in Mexico, and then read up on the war on drugs.

That'll keep you busy for a while.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

I don't believe what you are advocating will work in the real world. I'm sorry but I can't support your position or vote for anyone who does, it is simply too extreme. I have a duty to keep my family safe as does the government to keep the country safe. We can't risk letting everyone into the country all the time without any sort of screening process, such a position is simply too risky from the standpoint of violence, crime, and illness.

It literally isn't.

Immigrants and refugees actually commit crimes at a lower rate. You're just giving into the right-wing's fear mongering.

[Mister Mets]

I'm not going to waste time with your biased hypotheticals regarding "open borders" while you openly defend a white nationalist Republican administration with "whataboutalism" and the same deflective arguments you give every time this discussion comes up.

I don't expect any better of you -- or your party -- at this point, but don't pretend as if your party isn't directly promoting white nationalism under Trump and immigration architect Stephen Miller, just as they did before he came into office.

You are actively turning a blind eye to white nationalists running American immigration policy in America because you claim that's the "cost" of preventing "open borders" in America -- your bias against Democratic leadership does not justify white nationalist policies being enacted in the White House, nor your support for them.

How is there more evidence for Republican support of white nationalism than Democratic support of open borders?

[Celgress]

It literally isn't.

Immigrants and refugees actually commit crimes at a lower rate. You're just giving into the right-wing's fear mongering.

No, I'm not. The fact is you can't commit a crime in a place (except maybe wire fraud) or spread contagious illness if you aren't allowed into said place. You are being wantonly ignorant by advocating 100% open borders. There needs to be a screening process to keep out the 20% of people or so (higher in certain instances) who pose a risk to others.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

No, I'm not. The fact is you can't commit a crime in a place (except maybe wire fraud) if you aren't allowed into said place. You are being wantonly ignorant by advocating 100% open borders.

Uh, they would still be committing whatever violent acts you fear, just in a different place.

What you're saying is, those violent acts and the violence committed by those enforcing the border can keep happening, as long as they aren't happening in your vicinity.

[Celgress]

Uh, they would still be committing whatever violent acts you fear, just in a different place.

What you're saying is, those violent acts and the violence committed by those enforcing the border can keep happening, as long as they aren't happening in your vicinity.

You're missing my point. If you know there is a dog kennel in which say 30% of dogs have been exposed to rabies and could be infected you don't bring all the dogs there to your kennel. Doing so without testing or screening the dogs puts your dogs at risk and does not help the poor dogs infected it only ensures the danger spreads to a new population.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

You're missing my point. If you know there is a dog kennel in which say 30% of dogs have been exposed to rabies and could be infected you don't bring all the dogs there to your kennel. Doing so without testing or screening the dogs puts your dogs at risk and does not help the poor dogs infected it only ensures the danger spreads to a new population.

Ok, so let's not use an analogy where immigrants and refugees are dogs.

Concerns about danger can be dealt with without having a border. Take away the threat of rejecting people if they are sick, and instead aim to treat them for whatever illness they have.

Borders cause more violence than they prevent. Any system that seeks to criminalize human movement is unjust.

[Celgress]

Ok, so let's not use an analogy where immigrants and refugees are dogs.

Concerns about danger can be dealt with without having a border. Take away the threat of rejecting people if they are sick, and instead aim to treat them for whatever illness they have.

Borders cause more violence than they prevent. Any system that seeks to criminalize human movement is unjust.

You're just wrong. Highly infectious illnesses can't always be easily contained while you treat the people if they are just wondering around under their own power wherever they want to go. Another thing without screenings, which you are against, how do you know who has any given illness or is a violent criminal? We need a border of some sort, sorry but we do. You'll never convince me we don't need to regulate who comes into the country.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

You're just wrong. Highly infectious illnesses can't always be easily contained while you treat the people if they are just wondering around under their own power wherever they want to go. Another thing without screenings, which you are against, how do you know who has any given illness or is a violent criminal? We need a border of some sort, sorry but we do. You'll never convince me we don't need to regulate who comes into the country.

Here's the thing.

We already know people make it into the country undocumented.

Now, do you think it's more likely a person that's seriously ill will seek help if they have the threat of getting kicked out of the country hanging over them?

Borders aren't going to protect you from what you've worried about. They will only give you a false sense of security.

I would also point out, that what many would call open borders is what the US used to have for white immigrants in the past.

For most of U.S. history, all immigrants were undocumented. It's a fact Democrats should embrace.

For nearly three decades, American immigration policies have reenforced the false notion that undocumented immigrants are dangerous criminals. From Bill Clinton’s militarization of the southern border in 1993 to the creation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the September 11, 2001 attacks—and now to Donald Trump’s detention of asylum seekers in concentration camps—Washington has normalized the view that undocumented immigrants are a threat to America. A threat to be policed, detained, and deported. Though time and again proven untrue, this rhetoric—echoed in society as a whole—has only become more pervasive in recent years. Most horrifically, it was on display in the “manifesto” allegedly posted by the gunman who murdered 22 people at an El Paso Walmart last weekend.

In recent years, Democrats have tried to respond to the tightening noose around undocumented immigrants’ necks with tepid measures, but even those—such as a 2013 bill to offer a pathway to citizenship while increasing border militarization—have failed to shift perceptions. The latest proposal in vogue among Democrats, to try undocumented immigrants in the civil legal system, does nothing to stem the mass deportations that have surged over three administrations in the last two decades.

The only way to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of undocumented immigrants is to fundamentally change the narrative that views them as criminals and so, views them as a threat.

To this end, Democrats and immigration advocates should remind skeptical white voters that undocumented immigrants have long made America great. In fact, many of their own ancestors were undocumented immigrants, beneficiaries of an era of open borders.

While “my grandparents came here legally” is a common refrain among white opponents of immigration reform, it misses the flip side of American history: For most of its history, the United States has had open borders for white people. Many of our forebearers, including my great-grandfather, were undocumented immigrants, no different from Central American migrants today.

For the first century of its existence, the United States had completely open borders. Though it is now derided as a far-left fantasy, in the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth century, the idea of someone simply coming into a new country and starting a life there, without any papers whatsoever, was eminently normal.

In fact, it was desirable. While early American politicians hotly debated how and when immigrants could become U.S. citizens, there were no serious attempts to limit migration itself for decades. Even George Mason, a supporter of greater restrictions on naturalization, declared that he was “for opening a wide door for emigrants.”

And wide that door was. In 1850, the first year that information on native birth was collected by the U.S. Census, America had 2.2 million immigrants—roughly 10 percent of the overall population. These undocumented immigrants, taking advantage of an open border, became essential to the fabric of American society, and even the presidency—among them was the English, immigrant mother of Woodrow Wilson.

Open borders for people of color came to an end in 1875, with the passage of the Page Act, effectively prohibiting the entry of Chinese women, followed by 1882’s Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned men as well. Passed amid racist fearmongering, the limits on Chinese immigration set the precedent for the restrictive, abusive, and dehumanizing way all nonwhite immigrants have be treated by the U.S. ever since.

[numberthirty]

How did the US screw up Mexico?

You have got to be kidding me...

[numberthirty]

No, I'm not. The fact is you can't commit a crime in a place (except maybe wire fraud) or spread contagious illness if you aren't allowed into said place. You are being wantonly ignorant by advocating 100% open borders. There needs to be a screening process to keep out the 20% of people or so (higher in certain instances) who pose a risk to others.

Or...

Stop screwing up their countries, and see if that knock the number of them crossing the US border down...

[Steel Inquisitor]

When push comes to shove, you're either with the left or the right.

Democrats are on the left, leftists don't own the word.

When the left wants to get rid of concentration camps, stop climate change, protect reproductive rights, and stop US imperialism, but you don't want to side with them because they want to abolish borders or whatever, then you were never really on the side of the left. It was only a matter of time before you solidly became part of the right-wing.

The Dems have been trying to do all that, and due to how the system is and how strong the GOP are they haven't been able to. Now Im going to ask you a question: why haven't the left had better luck at doing this? I side with the left on many subjects, I'm not a leftist since they're incapable of doing things and this is not about disagreeing with open borders. I don't agree with that, but that's not why Democrats don't agree with leftists. When someone tilts to the left too strongly everyone else looks right wing.

The Democratic party is a right-wing party, and as the weaker right-wing party, it'll be the first to go.

Wrong on both counts.

That buffer is the reason the GOP is still a thing. An actual leftist movement in America wouldn't bother working with the GOP or trying to compromise with it. The GOP would be recognized as the enemy and leftists would act to completetly destroy it.

Now it all comes into focus, you think the Democrats are the bigger threat then the GOP. The Democrats have nothing to do with why the GOP exist, they're more than capable of flexing with another left leaning party replacing the Democrats. The Democrats have tried to get rid of the GOP for years and they've done a better job than the left in this.

You have an actual leftist movement in America, they were there for Occupy and they're there for the Justice Democrats and the Greens. The Democrats have nothing to do with why they haven't been to fulfil their goals. They were there before those movements, too.

The Greens are a non-entity.

Precisely. Connect the dots on why that is.

This angle wasn't convincing when Susan Sarandon said it in '16 and isn't convincing now. Bernie Sanders certainly isn't going to make it happen when he becomes president.

[aja_christopher]

How is there more evidence for Republican support of white nationalism than Democratic support of open borders?

They are literally running Republican immigration policy, Mets.

With the support of yourself and the vast majority of Republicans who give Trump record approval.

Interesting how you can see imaginary open borders but can't see the white nationalists operating openly right at the heart of your party.

-----
"Leaked emails from White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller from 2015-2016 reveal an obsession with white nationalism, the Confederacy and the denigration of black and Hispanic communities.

More than 900 private emails between Miller and Breitbart News were examined by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch section, revealing that 80 percent of the messages pertained to race or immigration. The emails sent between March 2015 and June 2016 straddle Miller's time as an aide to then-Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions and his later role on as a senior adviser for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign. Miller's emails tout eugenics and white nationalist conspiracy theories and offer news tips to Breitbart on how to cover immigration and amplify stories about black and Hispanic crime.

Katie McHugh, the former Breitbart editor who leaked the emails to Hatewatch, told the SPLC that "what Stephen Miller sent to me in those emails has become policy at the Trump administration." McHugh, who publicly renounced her alt-right ties and beliefs in an interview with Buzzfeed News, was fired from Breitbart in 2017 for an anti-Muslim tweet.

Miller's conversations with McHugh and the Breitbart editors show him suggesting story ideas as well as directing the right-wing publication on how to report anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim news narratives.

The now-senior Trump administration adviser who has been instrumental in crafting the president's immigration policies delves into topics ranging from Central American refugees to Nazi literature."

https://www.newsweek.com/leaked-step...n-splc-1471279

[numberthirty]

Democrats are on the left, leftists don't own the word.

This has not actually been the case in decades.

The Democratic Party has been "Actually Where The 'Left' Edge Of 'Right' Leaves Off..." for a really, really long time.

You've got to be kidding yourself to think anything but that.