anti_dan
12hr ago
Isn't doing things in your own financial self interest > doing things for the "common good" a part of traditional American customs and values? Capitalism > socialism, individualism > collectivism, libertarian hands off government > nanny state, and similar concepts are a strong part of the American cultural core historically in my eye. The "American Dream" is precisely this idea of an opportunity to work hard and be rewarded for your own success in a free market. So I'd contest that coming to the US "because they see dollar signs" is in opposition to American values, because I believe seeking personal economic success is an American value.
Within a social construct, yes. But when you steal bricks from your neighbor's brick road/driveway because you know you aren't going to be caught, or that you wont be punished, this breaks down.
When you make these kind of arguments, people dont simply understand that a civilization that can establish capitalism and can maintain it is the rarity. A lot of Alex Norwasteh types are like this, and as questions like, "if your culture is so good why wont it just win out?" And the answer is that it is good foor cooperation, and Cooperate-Cooperate wins out over Defect-Defect. And most places are Defect. But what happens when a lot of Defectors enter is they make a lot of local gains, enriching themselves and impoverishing the rest. And often they are able to jump from place to place so long as they are a minority. And realistically, over time they cause the place they defect in to become a defection economy, which just doesn't work.
What people who grew up in Cooperate societies want is Cooperate societies, they don't want to have to send police to every park to ensure there isn't shit and needles where their kids want to play. They don't want their son to compete against a guy using steroids in boxing or using meth during standardized tests. But the things they dont want are what they are getting.
anti_dan
13hr ago
This is silly. Nazis borrowed heavily from American Eugencists and FDR borrowed heavily from Mussolini. Modern leftism derives a lot of its roots and ideas from 1920s American Progressives, 1920s Eugenicists, Facists, and the USSR Communists. One of their most major arguments with Fascism, for instance, is its aesthetics (see the newest, or one of the newer Ezra Klein podcasts where he and his "fascism expert" guest malign how fascists deride fat people and ugly art/architecture). I'd agree with the idea that there is a very fine line between a modern progressive and a person who thinks we should re-start mass sterilization, and most of that fine line is IQ denialism.
Other types of ideology can weather the storm. The anti-slavery folks of the 1850s didn't think blacks were equal in talent to whites, they derived their views in other ways. So could the modern Christian conservative.
anti_dan
14hr ago
That's just a metric problem. Ivies in the 1920s had very hard entrance exams, and also forced the gals to be pretty and the guys to be strapping jocks.
anti_dan
1d ago
I mean, prior to the new ownership CBS faced several high profile scandals wherein the fabricated sources, deceptively edited videos, etc. Probably anyone in the news division thats been there since before Weiss is lucky to have a job, based purely on performance.
anti_dan
2d ago
They could train their agents better, conduct themselves in a less escalatory fashion, stop attacking protestors, stop trying to intimidate people for mouthing off to them, not wear masks, prioritize targeted operations over open-ended sweeps, not racially profile people or violate the civil rights of citizens by detaining them on no grounds beyond their skin color...
All those are just kinda naked assertions without support. Appeals to better training don't have a schelling point. No one has made a concrete argument that the ICE training academy has any specific failures. The officer in question had 10+ years on the job with no major incidents until someone hit him with their car. As to escalation, they are just doing their job and people are harassing them and obstruction them with cars, and often putting their own bodies in the street. That is naturally escalatory. If you did the same thing to state police en masse, people would also end up in officer involved fatalities. We know why ICE wears masks, its because of multiple credible threats to their families after they have been doxxed online.
Like, the conceit of Millerites is that illegal immigration constitutes this overwhelming problem that justifies extreme, unconstitutional measures and massive expense, but it just... doesn't. These sweeps are not preventing some dire outcome. They're satisfying the anxieties and appetites of thuggish nativists.
Disagree that illegal immigration is not a large problem that requires a large response. Regardless, the set of ICE actions currently being undertaken is not unconstitutional. They are arresting people who have detention holds and/or removal orders, and then from time to time they also pick up people who are in the vicinity that they have probable cause to believe are also illegal.
It's predictable in the sense that they're bottom of the barrel recruits with limited training working for an administration that tacitly endorses police brutality.
More assertions not in evidence. Where is your evidence pertaining to some entrance exam or the like that the new ICE hires are akin to "Project 100000"?
anti_dan
2d ago
But Amadan's retort is we can't look at who benefits from tyranny (allegedly the wealthy entitled people) and ignore those who it oppresses (the poor). But that assertion is just untrue.
anti_dan
2d ago
If that is the genuine reason for the shoot it is wholly unjustifiable under the law. For lethal force to be deployed you need to reasonably fear that the person is imminently going to kill or cause great bodily harm to yourself or others. Defense of others based on a convoluted (and frankly unreasonable) speculation about Babbitt et al's evil mens rea causing bad results 30+seconds after you are contemplating deadly force is completely unjustifiable.
anti_dan
3d ago
Pinochet was pretty objectively good for the lower class in Chile though, so this critique, in in context, makes no sense. If you were complaining about the fates of egghead professors, then perhaps it makes more sense.
anti_dan
3d ago
All the things that happen in tyranny to the lower classes can also happen in anarchy. In fact, they happen more. Just compare the murder stats for the underclass in Chicago vs. a rich suburb thereof. Everyone is better off empirically as law and order is implemented until a tipping point where the upperclass start being worse off.
anti_dan
3d ago
Not really. The reason ICE is visibly present in blue states but not in red states is because of sanctuary laws. In Texas or Florida, once an illegal immigrant fails to show up for a deportation proceeding, or receives a final order of removal police departments across the state receive notice. When they then pull that fellow over for expired plates or DUI or speeding, they then arrest the illegal. That illegal is held for a statutory amount of time, typically 5 business days, for ICE to pick them up. Then ICE takes them to the judge that issued the warrant/order and then puts them on a plane home.
In Minnesota or California, that does not happen. If the illegal gets a DUI, the police just let him go with a court notice to show up in a month. Then ICE has to somehow find out on its own about that court date and arrest him on the courthouse steps, causing a scene. Or they have to go to his home, work, or school, causing a scene. Or they have to do a raid of an apartment complex they have probable cause has many illegals in it, causing a scene. The lack of cooperation causes extra work for ICE per deportee, and also requires more ICE agents.
anti_dan
4d ago
With regards to enforcement, yes. When evaluating the likelihood of imminent threat of death or great bodily harm slow breaches of weak barriers that your fellow officers are giving her free access to while perceiving no threat....
anti_dan
4d ago
Not really relevant as to her threat level to officers because she has just been next to a bunch of them and they suffered no harm and calmly let her do her thing.
anti_dan
4d ago
I've never stood next to a police officer as other people damaged property, no.
But if that was the case and the officers approved of such conduct, as they did, I would think further similar actions are also sanctioned.
anti_dan
4d ago
Nah. People shouldn't be charged so much. The guy should have lost a large civil lawsuit meaning his future earnings to eternity go to Babbitt's children if she has them. Its better to let things lie in the middle.
anti_dan
4d ago
Babbitt was standing next to several other Capital police officers with no barriers between them and her for several minutes. They were unmolested by her. It is, indeed, hard to imagine a reverse situation given the history with people like Rittenhouse having to gun down multiple convicted criminals just to stay alive in a similar situation.
anti_dan
4d ago
What would the purpose of suffering in silence be?
Not having something like a meme, "this is what happened last time Democrats tried nullifying federal law" spoken into existence?
anti_dan
4d ago
The Babbitt situation involved someone breaking a window and then Babbitt attempting to climb through the window. Breaking and entering is not usually part of nonviolent protest.
Babbitt was already in the building with Capitol Police standing next to her as the window portion of the door was broken, doing nothing.
anti_dan
4d ago
While it may feel good to play enlightened centrist and do some both sides’ing, there is a major area where Babbitt differed from Good: Babbitt posed no imminent threat to the officer who shot.
The other major confounder for Babbitt is she had just passed other officers who provided no resistance at all, thereby giving her a contextual clue that her presence was authorized. It is similar to if the other ICE officer, not her wife, was yelling at Good to "floor it".
anti_dan
4d ago
Great, when you get your new scheme implemented WRT tax and welfare and the like you can ping me to get my help with the paring back of immigration enforcement.
anti_dan
4d ago
Its also insane entitlement by Democrats. Imagine any other form of law being basically declared null by some red states during a Democrat administration and just letting people riot around an EPA or IRS facility for months. We know what Merrick Garland would have done. Warrants, Arrests, Frogmarches. And not just on the rioters, we'd be talking about governors and AGs and police chiefs in federal custody.
anti_dan
4d ago
I dont think states should be able to opt out of immigration law because they make them feel bad anymore than I can opt out of tax law because I dont like coughing up 45% of my check to DC.
Unless you disagree with that notion there is no case for this being federal overreach or a police state action.
anti_dan
5d ago
Right, and then the other ICE employee started charging at her, and she feared for her life. I would be scared too if some guy dressed like a muslim terrorist started trying to drag me out of my car. For all she knew, these were just a group of Trump supporters pretending to be ICE.
Now you are inventing Jussie-Smollet like conspiracy theories to explain this woman's conduct. Just why? Its pretty simple what happened. A lady got in her car with the intent to disrupt ICE activity. She was so doing so. She then made a fatal error by accelerating her car and hitting a federal agent who was seemingly a bit trigger happy given his previous hostile experiences with vehicles hitting him.
There's no need to go into good/bad shoot, it was a meh shoot onto a person who created the situation with their intentional lawless activity.
anti_dan
5d ago
It's common in the American conciousness to assume that Iran = bad, but I get the impression that a lot of Iran's badness is exaggerated by Western media.
American media, which is still enthralled with the Obama administration, which wanted to empower Iran, is constantly churning out pro-Iran propaganda. That the average American still thinks Iran is pretty bad is an example of reality winning out over forced media narratives.
The actual question is akin to the one in that HBO Show with the Dumb and Dumber guy. If you cant answer it while referencing people who have been here longer than your ancestors, they better have been here a long time ago and you better agree with them.
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