Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

Krisken

Krisken

I think what bothers me is how you equate the whims of this president with the whims of all the previous. This administration is unprecedented, to the point where George W. Bush, the most WTF president of our time, said during inauguration "That was some weird shit".

All things aren't equal. Previous presidents respected tradition and respected the press, at the very least attempted to play 'the game'. This isn't normal. It isn't something which has happened time and again due to an extreme overuse of power. Today is different. I have no idea how you can think this is what we've already seen.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Last I checked, every Democrat in the Senate stated they're against this and zero Republicans in the Senate have stated they're against this.

The power to do something is in the Republicans' hands. I'm sure several of them take issue with this, but Trump's coercion point is that stupid wall, meaning any Republican who stands in the way of the wall again is going to be seen as Trump's enemy.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

stienman said:
So are you in agreement with me that this level of decision making shouldn’t be left to the president?

Congress shouldn’t allow such leeway to any president. And if there’s a problem with immigration congress should take the blame and take action.

One of the things I hate is that the president has so much control over things that there is a lot of whipping back and forth every time we swap parties.

As bad as congress is, usually the worst case scenario is that it does nothing.

Congressional elections might actually be interesting if they take away some of the president’s toys.
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Amazingly, I agree with this. It's Congress' fault for letting Cheeto-In-Charge to get away with this crap.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Krisken said:
I think what bothers me is how you equate the whims of this president with the whims of all the previous. This administration is unprecedented, to the point where George W. Bush, the most WTF president of our time, said during inauguration "That was some weird shit".

All things aren't equal. Previous presidents respected tradition and respected the press, at the very least attempted to play 'the game'. This isn't normal. It isn't something which has happened time and again due to an extreme overuse of power. Today is different. I have no idea how you can think this is what we've already seen.
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In before the "I'm rubber, you're glue" defense. :facepalm:
 
strawman

strawman

Krisken said:
I think what bothers me is how you equate the whims of this president with the whims of all the previous. This administration is unprecedented...
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It helps me to compare and contrast with history. I can see how such comparisons are irrelevant and unhelpful for you since you see them as comparing apples and oranges.

DarkAudit said:
In before the "I'm rubber, you're glue" defense. :facepalm:
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OH SHOOT NINJA’D
 
ScytheRexx

ScytheRexx

This is what I hate most about this shit. Congress should do something. They won't though, because it's majority republican, and all the republicans are too fucking scared to challenge Trump. They know a decent chunk of the republican voter base are Trumpers and will see the sleight to the president as "political suicide" come midterms, so they dance around his bullshit, suger it up best they can, or just ignore it entirely. They don't serve the people, they serve themselves, even if they know what Trump is doing is likely going to hurt their own constituents (whether they realize it or not).
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
stienman said:
It helps me to compare and contrast with history. I can see how such comparisons are irrelevant and unhelpful for you since you see them as comparing apples and oranges.
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More like comparing a couple of orders of magnitude difference. It's not that Trump is doing wholly new things, he's doing abhorrent things at a rate much greater, and in some cases doing things more severely, than any other president. There hasn't been a president who blatantly lies as much as Trump does. Not even Reagan (who lied, and blatantly, but the audacious lies weren't nearly as often).

I saw someone criticizing Laura Bush's denouncement of current immigration policies, because her husband had questionable human rights policies in regards to terrorists and terrorism suspects. While leveling such criticism towards Bush himself is fair, it's not fair to try to silence his wife because of his actions. Moreover, Trump is perpetrating his actions against children.

So, yes, of course if you look through history you'll be able to find precedent. It's not surprising that if you look back you can find someone who did something similar. That's like looking at each individual hurricane in a season and saying "well, we've had hurricanes before". The flooding from Harvey was unprecedented "but we've had flooding before". The average number of hurricanes is rising, "but we had 12 hurricanes back in 1969"... Golly, weather has happened in the past. Doesn't make the current weather normal.

Trump is an abnormality. There hasn't been a president in recent memory who has done as much, as often, and in as many ways, to attempt to silence the press, to violate human rights (especially those of children and the poor), to promote racism, to promote violence, to blatantly lie in the face of recorded evidence of his own words to the contrary. To compare the whole of his actions to single instances from the past is meaningless. The man is a spoiled toddler throwing tantrums, and the sheer scope of how much he has abused his power is not comparable to anything in the era of the modern news media.
 
mikerc

mikerc

figmentPez said:
More like comparing a couple of orders of magnitude difference. It's not that Trump is doing wholly new things, he's doing abhorrent things at a rate much greater, and in some cases doing things more severely, than any other president. There hasn't been a president who blatantly lies as much as Trump does. Not even Reagan (who lied, and blatantly, but the audacious lies weren't nearly as often).

I saw someone criticizing Laura Bush's denouncement of current immigration policies, because her husband had questionable human rights policies in regards to terrorists and terrorism suspects. While leveling such criticism towards Bush himself is fair, it's not fair to try to silence his wife because of his actions. Moreover, Trump is perpetrating his actions against children.

So, yes, of course if you look through history you'll be able to find precedent. It's not surprising that if you look back you can find someone who did something similar. That's like looking at each individual hurricane in a season and saying "well, we've had hurricanes before". The flooding from Harvey was unprecedented "but we've had flooding before". The average number of hurricanes is rising, "but we had 12 hurricanes back in 1969"... Golly, weather has happened in the past. Doesn't make the current weather normal.

Trump is an abnormality. There hasn't been a president in recent memory who has done as much, as often, and in as many ways, to attempt to silence the press, to violate human rights (especially those of children and the poor), to promote racism, to promote violence, to blatantly lie in the face of recorded evidence of his own words to the contrary. To compare the whole of his actions to single instances from the past is meaningless. The man is a spoiled toddler throwing tantrums, and the sheer scope of how much he has abused his power is not comparable to anything in the era of the modern news media.
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The other danger in treating what Trump does as just another President is that you normalise his actions. I sincerely hope that the 46th President - regardless of which party they come from - will be very much different to Trump. No more attempts to silence the press. No more unilateral withdrawal from, and refusal to acknowledge, the international obligations the US has signed up to. No more actual kidnapping of children from their parents arms. No more blatant lying to the press & the American people even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. No more cosying up to dictators while insulting long standing allies.

But if you normalise what he's doing, if you say this isn't anything we haven't seen before and will see again, then the danger is that you *will* see it again. That this will become the new normal in American politics. That every succeeding President will follow the path Trump blazed.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Trump was a failure as a husband, a father, and a human before most of us were even born. To defend him to such lengths is morally repugnant. To defend such actions against children is downright sickening.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

stienman said:
So are you in agreement with me that this level of decision making shouldn’t be left to the president?

Congress shouldn’t allow such leeway to any president. And if there’s a problem with immigration congress should take the blame and take action.
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You underestimate my ability to blame both...
Post automatically merged:

jwhouk said:
Howzabout this, Steiny: the actions that this administration is undertaking is unprecedented.
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I think you mean UNPRESIDENTED!
 
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blotsfan

blotsfan

Given that 49 democratic senators (technically 47 dems and two independents) have supported a bill to end this, we need exactly one republican to support this in order to get this out of the senate, assuming McCain abstains.

Anyone?

Bueller?

Bueller?
 
strawman

strawman

I posted an article with the legislative history that shows why the president has this power and I suggested the president shouldn’t have this power.

I’m not sure why anyone here is under the impression that I side with trump on this.

If you don’t like history, if you don’t like to understand how we got here, you’re going to be incessantly miserable, tilting at windmills.

But it’s obvious some here prefer impotent misery.

The people who asked congress to give the president power and discretion are the root cause. Oh sure, it’s great when they have a president in power who uses it appropriately, but man it sure sucks, doesn’t it, when we have a toddler at the wheel.

Maybe make the car so it isn’t so easy to crash?

Or keep on complaining when it rains, do nothing when it’s sunny, and keep reaping what is sown.

And if you think for one second that once trump’s gone we will never have as bad a president again, you’re more an optimist than I am.

Yes, Congress is impotent.

Change that.
 
Eriol

Eriol

mikerc said:
No more actual kidnapping of children from their parents arms.
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blotsfan said:
Given that 49 democratic senators (technically 47 dems and two independents) have supported a bill to end this
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What does this look like to you two? @stienman 's post that he linked showed pretty clearly what happens when somebody crossing illegally is caught (or at a border, in the case of somebody claiming asylum there).

So what do you two propose to do instead?

House the families together? What issues do you think could happen with co-ed prisons along with children? You don't have to think hard to see how horrific this could become quickly.

Release them? Good luck finding them again. You're saying at that point "all illegals welcome, we don't have immigration control anymore, effectively."

Summarily deport anyone claiming asylum? Well that might cause less issues than above, but anybody actually fleeing war/persecution is screwed.

Please propose a 4th (5th, whatever) option without BAD side-effects.


This problem is caused by people wanting to live in the USA (and some of this is happening in Canada, see the Quebec border) but don't want to go through the legal process to immigrate. Again, as @stienman 's article said, if they were caught, they were deported. "Asylum" is just code-word for "now you can't deport me until a LONG legal process is gone through" and if they bring children then it's even harder. The children suffering are suffering because their parents are doing illegal things. Yes they could be treated better, but the cause of this is their parents trying to break laws. Their parents are the ones most at fault here. Is there other fault in what the various border agencies are doing? Probably, appears so, but the "root cause" is those wanting to live in countries without permission and the suffering that they and their families go through as a result.
 
mikerc

mikerc

@Eriol maybe build refugee centers to put them instead of prisons? Yes that'll require a lot of time, money and manpower to build them and then you'll still have that long legal process to go through, but that'll happen anyway. Maybe go back to what they were doing before the Trump administration unilaterally decided to do something no other country in the world does? Not even the EU (I know, not actually a country) during the height of the worst refugee crisis in history.

And I know these have BAD side effects which you don't want. But no matter what solution you do, there'll be bad side effects. There is no perfect solution to this problem. And consider this - even if you're OK with the moral questions of separating children form their parents, or even if you're not OK with it but consider it the least bad of the options available, do you want these asylum seekers to go through the legal process to get into America, or do you want them to try and sneak in?

Because if it's a choice between sneaking in or going through legal channels & having your children taken away, you're going to see a lot more refugees attempting illegal entry.
 
Eriol

Eriol

mikerc said:
Because if it's a choice between sneaking in or going through legal channels & having your children taken away, you're going to see a lot more refugees attempting illegal entry.
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I'm going to copy from the article @stienman linked, since you apparently didn't read this section:
2) There’s a better way to claim asylum. Every indication is that the migrant flow to the United States is discretionary. It nearly dried up at the beginning of the Trump administration when migrants believed that they had no chance of getting into the United States. Now, it is going in earnest again because the message got out that, despite the rhetoric, the policy at the border hasn’t changed. This strongly suggests that the flow overwhelmingly consists of economic migrants who would prefer to live in the United States, rather than victims of persecution in their home country who have no option but to get out.

Even if a migrant does have a credible fear of persecution, there is a legitimate way to pursue that claim, and it does not involve entering the United States illegally. First, such people should make their asylum claim in the first country where they feel safe, i.e., Mexico or some other country they are traversing to get here. Second, if for some reason they are threatened everywhere but the United States, they should show up at a port of entry and make their claim there rather than crossing the border illegally.
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You're making a false choice comparison here. IMO the real situation is, "Do I try and sneak in, and then live illegally, or do I make a refugee claim at an embassy that will be (rightly) denied? Oh hey, if I take my children with me, I have a higher chance of getting processed faster. Win!"

This is ultimately making it MUCH harder for REAL asylum seekers, like those who would have been killed by war and/or their governments if they stayed where they were. "Your country isn't in the G7 or G20, but isn't inherently unsafe" isn't a reason to claim asylum. A guy I went through school with who's family fled Yugoslavia when it was breaking up was a refugee. The VAST majority of people involved illegal immigration to the USA and Canada are not. And because of the backlog, some people like him will be lumped together with the legions who don't want to immigrate legally.
 
Dei

Dei

These aren't criminals being caught. These are people stopping at ports of entry to request asylum. You can dislike the process of requesting asylum all you want, but a good chunk of these people aren't sneaking in and getting caught, they are declaring themselves as they are required to. Which is not illegal, people just don't like that they are doing it. Yes it clogs up the system and is a disaster, but the shit going on now is a terrible non solution that is just there so Trump can put on a show to get what he wants.
 
ScytheRexx

ScytheRexx

Dei said:
These aren't criminals being caught. These are people stopping at ports of entry to request asylum. You can dislike the process of requesting asylum all you want, but a good chunk of these people aren't sneaking in and getting caught, they are declaring themselves as they are required to. Which is not illegal, people just don't like that they are doing it. Yes it clogs up the system and is a disaster, but the shit going on now is a terrible non solution that is just there so Trump can put on a show to get what he wants.
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It also just feels like throwing out the baby with the bath water. It's the same shit I hear all the time about things like welfare.

"Did you know this person over here purchased LOBSTER with their food stamps!? I am paying someone else not to work! WELFARE needs to end." "Okay, but how many people on welfare actually need it compared to those abusing it?" "Does it matter? The fact this person abused the system means all of them are abusing the system." "That isn't how this works." "Whatever, I gotta go pick up my public assistance check, get out of my face libtard."

People are always going to abuse systems. That is a sad fact of life, but one we just have to work on by a case to case basis. Some will succeed, but if someone said I had to choose between allowing asylum with some possible abuses or just get rid of it entirely (or start ripping kids from their parents as a deterrent) I wouldn't hesitate on the option I would pick.
 
Gruebeard

Gruebeard

blotsfan said:
If we can get rid of the fascists, the next president is gonna have to go on a hell of an apology tour.
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Y'all should elect Trudeau. Even by Canadian standards, he's an expert at saying Sorry.

(He's apologized for a few atrocious, historical acts by previous governments, is what I'm saying. He could put that experience to good work for y'all)
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Eriol said:
You're making a false choice comparison here. IMO the real situation is, "Do I try and sneak in, and then live illegally, or do I make a refugee claim at an embassy that will be (rightly) denied? Oh hey, if I take my children with me, I have a higher chance of getting processed faster. Win!"

This is ultimately making it MUCH harder for REAL asylum seekers, like those who would have been killed by war and/or their governments if they stayed where they were.
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Ah yes, because obviously, real asylum seekers are much better off requesting it at an embassy and staying put in the country that wants to kill them while the claim is being processed.

Also: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/affirmative-asylum-process

"To apply for asylum in the U.S., you must be physically present in the U.S. or seeking entry into the U.S. at a port of entry. "

And: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum/obtaining-asylum-united-states

"Affirmative Asylum Processing With USCIS:
To obtain asylum through the affirmative asylum process you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status."
 
strawman

strawman

See also: Julian Assange, Roman Polanski.

I think what we need to understand better is what asylum means and what it should and shouldn’t be used for.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

stienman said:
I think what we need to understand better is what asylum means and what it should and shouldn’t be used for.
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I was more getting at the fact that they are applying for asylum in the recommended way.

Hell, since Embassies usually are considered sovereign territory, applying there is basically the same as applying after crossing the border.
 
Tress

Tress

blotsfan said:
If we can get rid of the fascists, the next president is gonna have to go on a hell of an apology tour.

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To be fair, Ambassador Haley has a certain point about why she wants the US to withdraw from that council. It’s not that the US wants to ignore its human rights obligations; it’s more that the council has horrific violators on its roster. It’s like electing foxes to a council for overseeing henhouse abuses.
 
Dei

Dei

Tress said:
To be fair, Ambassador Haley has a certain point about why she wants the US to withdraw from that council. It’s not that the US wants to ignore its human rights obligations; it’s more that the council has horrific violators on its roster. It’s like electing foxes to a council for overseeing henhouse abuses.
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Yeah the human rights council is a joke.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Private detention facilities - for immigrants, prisoners or other detainees - are a horrible blight and begged to be abolished yesterday. No other country in the world thinks it's acceptable, ascends for good reason.
 
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