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You already stung the hornet's nest plenty so this is just me piling on but where if not here.
Man, are you just shitposting? The only reason I'm not 100% convinced is because I'm not bothering to read all the related comments. But in between the smiley faces, the isolated demand for not even rigor but some other ridiculously narrowly defined criterion that attempts to avoid what actually bothers people, the putting-the-conclusion-before-any-argument eh rationalists what do you call that again, the stubborn refusal to even acknowledge other people's points which you just dodge in order to re-route the discussion to your favorite talking points...
I mean, you are being civil, so the bare minimum standards are met, but I'm just reading Trolling Attempt all over this.
That said, let's argue.
Would integration be at all necessary without immigration? Is it wise to have immigration when integration is unreliable or just completely outpaced by the formation of parallel societies? Is it wise to have immigration when you know full well that there are influential forces at work in policymaking that actively aim to use immigration against you? Hell yes it's a consequence of immigration.
Drug dealers should be shot, hanged, and shot again, and illegal immigrants who enter a wealthy country without permission only to proceed to deal drugs should be hanged and shot once more for good measure. What the fuck is the argument here? The refugee one - they had to flee from violence and persecution, that's why we need to accept them in spite of their coming illegally, but as soon as they gain safety they turn into scum? Oh hey, wonder why they needed to GTFO of their home countries then. Or is it actually that immigration is always good regardless of the motivation, and obviously they have a right to expect gainful employment in their target country?
And pray tell, where are those young foreigners coming from?
You're just completely ignoring that to many people, old-fashioned bigots that we are, a country is more than an economic zone with one or two regional dishes as "culture". And I do mean you are actively choosing to ignore it because it makes your arguments go more smoothly. Your ideology is destroying my country, the actual society and culture that make the country what it is, and replacing it with the same easily influenced, easily marketed-to, easily controlled global slurry you can find everywhere else that the third world found a route to. What is our future now? Corrupt shithole, Brazil-style? Or just violent islamized shithole #78? Certainly no gleaming socialist utopia.
No, I'm serious. 😅 I mean, I know that I'm not going to convince anybody, but I want to learn what you think, because of my statement here:
"I do believe that he [Trump] will make the lives of almost everyone worse, including his own supporters, except for the direct beneficiaries of his authoritarian rule."
I genuinely think that Trump's policies are going to harm you, who seems to support him. That is why I can't quite make sense of why you're supporting him. As mentioned, I'm humanist, I do not want you to be harmed, because you are a human being, that's why I'm posting in the first place. Essentially, I'm asking myself "Why are you going to hurt yourself?" 😅 You're probably seeing this differently, and that's fine — all I can hope for here is to gain some more insight into your thoughts.
To pick on this point: The problem is that you can't voluntarily choose to not have immigration — people who are desperate enough will try to come and take very high risks. I mean, seriously, which human being in their right mind wants to risk being shot for walking over a border? You'd only risk that if your current live is worse than this risk. This means that if situation on the other side is terrible enough, you will have immigration — and then it's better policy to invest into integration, because that ameliorates follow-up problems later on. "Nah, I don't want to invest into integration because I don't want immigration in the first place" doesn't work out.
This goes against my core value, humanism. Do not inflict bodily harm other human beings, regardless of whom. (There is a subclause on what happens when other people want to inflict bodily harm on you, which I will not go into here). That is why leftists do not condone attempts at assassinating Trump and there was no Jan 6th equivalent. Do not inflict bodily harm.
Do they become "scum" voluntarily? Or is it because they are not allowed to work? If you can't work legally — you have to work illegally, because you have to buy food. The policy of not allowing immigrants to work is actually causing them to work illegally. Duh.
Genuine question: From this answer, I take it that you are not humanist? That's it's ok to inflict bodily harm on other human beings if they qualify for some criteria? Not sure I'm ok with that, but it seems to me that this a core value that I should check with you.
The thing is this: Whether "my ideology" is destroying your country or not is up to debate. But that's not what I'm really concerned about when posting here — the point that I'm genuinely concerned about that Trumps is destroying your country in a way that you don't realize.
Look, if I wanted to destroy your country, I would do it exactly like Trump — throw random nonsense at the internet, stick to the things that people believe in ("Huh, apparently they care about immigration, sure, let's go with that"), make up some policies that work or do not, I don't care, as long as they are flashy — while enriching myself and those most loyal to me. I would play the difference between what you think is a good idea ("restrict immigration") and what will improve your life in reality ("UBI", universal health care, … — I think so, up to debate), and you would never know the difference. I would use your own beliefs against you.
I'm sorry, are you saying that there is no criteria which justifies bodily harm on another human being?
OF COURSE it's OK to inflict bodily harm on other human beings if they qualify for it! That's what it means to qualify! That's what it means to have criteria!
There's a whole lot else I have problems with in your post, but that part stuck out the worst.
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How authoritarian that will be, as far as I know, remains to be seen. He certainly did not install himself as dictator for life the last time around, and life, for what I know, continued without death camps, monuments to the dictator, the construction of a new palace of Versailles, wars over petty slights, deadly purges or any of the other hallmarks of authoritarian rule. Of course he will work for the benefit of his cronies, he's a democratically elected politican after all and that's what they all do, but I don't see why one should decline to elect the crook who's likely to have desirable side-effects if all the alternatives are liable to get up to the same self-serving shenanigans while offering nothing beneficial in return.
Well, big caveat up front - I'm German, not American, and I favor Trump not as a voter and citizen but purely as a commentator, for his effects on the Culture War. So his negative impact on me is...tariffs? I'll take that. Go Trump. Every since he was elected non-leftist politicians in Germany seem to have found one or two extra vertebrae that were previously thought missing, much appreciated. Would I vote for him if he were running for Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany? Yes actually. He can't do more damage than the decades of leftst control of the narrative have already done, and if it shifts the overton window back towards a more reasonable place, then I'm happy to pay whatever price the Americans are currently about to pay for their electroal misdeed. Why am I going to hurt myself? It's a small sacrifice for a shot at a very necessary change in direction.
Should one stop to enforce the law if only because law-brakers are more persistent than the legally and politically hamstrung enforcers who are being actively sabotage by ideologically motivated agents who desire immigration at any cost? Are you in favor of private gun ownership because people will always find ways to arm themselves? The greedy and the duplicituous will always find ways to enrich themselves at the expensve of the gullible and the shortsighted, so should you make your peace with that? What if I see immigration as something that can absolutely be controlled, provided that there be a will to do it, and not a deeply entrenched culture of sabotage and subversion?
Great. Let's pick them up very gently and also very gently drop them off on the other side of a heavily fortified border. No need to do bodily harm. This is fine. Bodily harm is not my terminal value here. We can reach a practical compromise I'm sure.
There's a huge market for all kinds of under-the-table work that isn't dealing drugs. Someone who deals drugs in a first-world country isn't doing so because it's literally the only thing he can do to avoid starvation. Hell, good luck on managing to literally starve in America or Germany. I doubt you'll find anyone who succeeded at that, unless he's tooo drugged up to drag himself to the closest welfare service point.
Of course I'm not a "humanist". I'd say it's okay to inflict bodily harm for sufficiently good reasons, and outright stupid to bend yourself into a pretzel to avoid it at any cost. I'd say we can do fine without inflicting bodily harm very much most of the time, but a principled refusal to employ violence ist just an open invitation to abuse by others. See exactly what we are discussing - our refusal to enforce our own rules on the people who break them leads to the rules getting broken increasingly fragrantly, because we'd rather make excuses than risk being called "inhumane".
Is that...concern trolling, I think it's called? I strongly doubt that is actually your concern. Trump cannot possibly do more damage to Germany than progressive ideologues have done. There's not enough left by now - even were he to literally nuke it to the ground, he'd have only a small share in the country's demise. I realize very much what is going on in my country, even as I keep being told by media and many endlessly "humane" compatriots that my lying eyes deceive me.
Then you would be a smart self-serving politican and very uninspired and uneffective in destroying my country. My country is not a machine for handing out welfare.
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Be nice to the lefty. “stubbornly refusing to even acknowledge other people's points“ is an accusation leveled at every unpopular opinion on every circlejerk of the internet.
There is nothing troll-y about his counter-argument, it’s eminently sensible, I’ve made it myself many times against doomer/resource depletion types. It just happens to counter an immigration-restrictionist argument that this forum does not use, so it kind of falls flat here, but they can’t know that.
That may be. Maybe everyone does it. But honest-to-God, that's what I see here.
Fair. I say so myself when they're aren't pushing my buttons. Got off on the wrong foot here.
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Thanks for being nice to, uh, the lefty. :D I don't really want to argue about the pros and cons of immigration here, as my main point is about Trump and deception, but in order to argue that deception might be going on here, I can't avoid debating the policy issue.
It’s nothing, I have admiration for people who iceskate uphill.
Arguing Trump’s deception is easy, the man lies constantly, even his supporters will admit that.
As to why his supporters supposedly ‘vote against their interests’, that’s begging the question. Tariffs, climate mitigation, immigration, increasing minimum wage, decreasing taxes, what-have-you, each policy either makes people's lives worse, or better. Which one it is is not obvious to you, me, trump, or the voters. That’s why we discuss and vote on the stuff.
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