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And how should I react in a way that would satisfy them? Donate money or time to organizations that provide aid to illegal immigrants?
I doubt I'm knowledgeable enough to give you a list of policy prescriptions that will solve the problem overnight, nor does this seem to be the place for that. I'm too lazy to dig up my previous comments on it, but I believe there's room for compromise on immigration and most other issues. The response I got from that was angry conservatives claiming they compromised in the 70s and 80s and why should they listen to me now when they know I'll be back in 20-30 years asking for more compromises?
For lack of a better word, always this: less culture war, please. We're all humans, not moral monsters, let's not cheer the people trying to stoke partisan division for political gain. You and I aren't so different and largely want the same things, yet in some perverse reversal, we spend 80% of our time arguing about the 20% of things we disagree on rather than finding solidarity in the 80% of things we do agree on.
You could admit that you don't want illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities because they are a burden, and then you could go on to admit that they're a burden in red states for similar reasons.
If you say "we can send as many as we want to red states, but send a few to a city of rich blues and it's a crisis", people will laugh at you, because you just did something laughable.
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House them in your apartment to start. Immediately advocate for their deportation once their asylum claim is shown to be nonsense.
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Enforcing immigration law by turning away in a prompt and timely manner migrants not entitled to enter the country. Deporting those who manage to evade law enforcement and make it into the interior of the country. Cooperating with federal authorities to do so, particularly in the case of illegal migrants who abuse the host country's generosity by committing further crimes such as driving while intoxicated or battery. Improving migration-control infrastructure on the border, such as via the construction of walls or other significant barriers. Cracking down on NGOs acting to subvert U.S. immigration law. etc.
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It’s this kind of ultra-smarmy response that makes people laugh at you and dismiss you. You’re openly advocating and voting for policies that many of believe are existentially disastrous for this country - that will literally lead to the financial, cultural and generic dispossession of our people and a disappearance of our posterity from the earth - and when people get angry about it you retreat to “we all want the same things, what about the high road and civility, can’t we just all have a calm and reasonable debate, why all the hate, etc.”
No, Chris, we DON’T all want the same things and just disagree on the little details. Our worldviews genuinely are irreconcilable, and no amount of holier-than-thou ostentatious displays of false empathy - the secular liberal equivalent of “I’ll pray for you” - will bridge those gaps. An uncharitable interpretation of your post is that your main goal here was to “trigger the Cons” and to push OUR buttons, using a conversational tactic that was guaranteed to provoke a hostile response that you could pre-emptively forecast to make yourself look virtuous and us look unreasonable.
It's not smarmy, it's genuine. I'm genuinely sorry that my ethos, policy preferences, whatever it is, infuriate you. I'm sorry that you believe our worldviews are irreconcilable, and we're headed towards whatever conclusion you think that leads us to.
I can't vote.
Alright. How could I rewrite my post in such a way that wouldn't provoke such a response from you, while keeping the same general point intact?
What is your point, exactly? You originally seemed mostly upset that people are picking on Martha's Vineyard, or that some people got used in a political stunt, but now it seems like you're just generally sad that people are upset about this. If your point is that obvious grounds for compromise are getting torpedoed by political stunts, I think it's on you to demonstrate that this is actually the case.
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Okay. I'll award you -1 bad point for not personally voting for this stuff, but +1 for each time you've advocated in its favor and helped push even one other person toward supporting it.
I can't vote so I'm not an activist is a really goofy take, my man.
That wasn't my take, and I'm not sure whether you'd count me as an activist or not. But if you're going to tally up my score, I may as well set the record straight, no?
Not to mention I can see someone accusing me of voting illegally down the line or something if I'm unclear about it.
So, to be clear, you do or do not advocate for either explicit open borders or more broadly permissive attitudes toward economic migrants?
For one, I actively advocate for little beyond treating each other better and sometimes I wade into debates on COVID. It's quite rare that I write about culture war topics. I don't consider myself particularly knowledgeable about the border or immigration.
If you're just asking what policy I would support, then no, I don't agree with letting anyone into the country. It seems like there was some agreement that border security was necessary as recently as the Clinton years, and I suspect that if you pressed the median democratic voter rather than the serially online or activist class most would say as much. While expressing some sympathy for the plight of migrants. I'd personally support increased efforts towards developing and stabilizing the countries these people are coming from, but this could either have been shown to be ineffective or is already happening and I'm ignorant of it.
I have a more favorable view towards skilled immigrants legally applying for citizenship, as well as refugee programs.
Let's pretend for a moment that we respect the sovereignty of other nations, and aren't going to colonize them for their own sake. What are some domestic policies you'd put forth to deal with the migrant issues?
I accept you're not pro-open borders. I'd love to hear what you're cool with us doing to remove these people and keep them out.
Economic aid and whatnot may be helpful. Illegal immigration is less and less appealing to Mexicans as their country has developed. Complicated by obvious problems, corruption, unwilling local governments, etc.
That's difficult for me to answer without knowing the efficacy of any given policy relative to the harm/brutality involved. For example, you want ICE agents to hunt down and smash open the doors of every illegal immigrant in America. Well:
With 20,000 ICE agents they'd have to deport 550 illegal immigrants each, not counting the time to track them down, not counting another 0.5-2 million per year. Yes, you could hire more agents, deputize other enforcement agencies, etc, although that all costs money. At a certain point, would it just be cheaper to pay people living on the border a stipend?
After apprehending them, do you just drop them off across the border only to have them walk across it again? I assume this would be paired with other policies.
Would this harm the economy, and particularly the food supply (I assume you'll forgive me stereotyping) if they're integral to harvesting produce? Would this drive inflation, and/or would you have a plan in place to give them more legal, temporary work visas? If you gave out those visas, would the same people be in the same border-ish towns making you angry? Would red tribers approve of this policy if it meant their produce bill doubled?
Probably other externalities I'm not even thinking of at the moment, not to mention the suffering imposed on the people being apprehended, the ICE agents/illegal immigrants that would inevitably get shot, etc.
I'm strongly against anything that explicitly causes bodily harm or deprivation to migrants; i.e. anything with border agents shooting them on sight or something, however effective at Bringing Number Down that may be.
If you could make a case for the efficacy of any given policy, or show me someone who has done this kind of data-driven analysis, I could probably be persuaded one way or the other.
I'd apologize for giving a potentially unsatisfactory answer, but I suppose I'd be accused of feminine concern trolling so.../shrug. That's the best I've got for you at the moment my man. I should also warn you that that's my answer for most things outside of the niche subjects I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about.
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For immigrants to only go to the places that talk about welcoming them.
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It's a noble sentiment. Sadly both sides are pushing hard to force their view of the 20% on the other, and the side that stops pushing will quickly see more and more such 20% slices being force-fed to them.
It's a culture war, not a culture friendly disagreement. Not fighting a war that already started isn't peace but defeat.
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No, get your local government to build adequate amount of shelter in your community, for a random, representative, and proportionally-sized group of immigrants to live with you, and go to the same school as your kids.
Yes, that would be one of those trust issues I asked to set aside. But you're right, any realistic solution would need to address them.
You misunderstood, I don't care about policy at this point. We can have open borders for all I care (especially if you sign up for the kind of buy in, that I described above). It's this where I want hear specifics:
Like, what are you selling, and at what price? I go to the Breitbart comment section and tell them to chill out, and in return you try to get the FBI to not designate parents, pushing against CRT, as domestic terrorists?
I'll do you one better: let's nuke the school system that ties property value/geography to school funding and mix everyone together regardless of class. Bussing but for SES rather than race. No more private schools while we're at it. Let's have the poor kids, immigrants, rich kids and my kids all in the same class and see what happens.
I'll point out that I can't vote at the local or federal level, but sure. I'd be fine with spreading them out as evenly as possible in the country and/or bussing towards that end. There are some thorny issues of consent where they may want to form their own communities but that's above my pay grade and maybe not worth arguing over for a hypothetical.
Sure, although my pull with the FBI is more or less nonexistent so we'd be better off focusing our efforts elsewhere. You want to co-author a substack? Collaborate here? Run a presidential unity ticket?
Based.
Potentially based? I'd like a better plan than "let's find out what happens". I'd like that parents have better oversight and control over what's going on in the schools, and I'm happy to nuke private schools, but I think homeschooling needs to stay.
Hey, I was offering Breitbart comments, so don't think I can ask for more than an angry letter to the FBI.
Political campaigning sounds like a bit much, but you have me intrigued with the collab idea, if you were serious. What do you have in mind? What would the substack be about?
If you want a better plan you'd need to hire me; at the moment I'm but a poor scientist spouting ignorant ideas outside of their field.
I like: Small families who want more control over their child's education and decide to homeschool them a certain way. Talented individuals receiving tutoring from experts.
Dislike: Rich families paying money to tutor undeserving children.
Partisan hackery. The substack was a bit of a joke since I don't have the requisite time to really focus on it, but I do have lots of questions I'd be open to doing the old adversarial collaboration style for questions like: What happened to the Obamacare death spiral we were panicking about, and what's happening to it now? What were the ultimate effects of the Trump tax cuts (I heard apocalyptic warnings from the left about rich oligarchs raking in billions and excitement from the right about worker's wages)? In short, revisiting policy items from years ago that the media was hyping as apocalyptic and seem to...not have done a whole lot in the end, or at least not that overtly.
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If you're serious about all this, it's hard to see why you would object to sending immigrants to Martha's Vineyard in the first place. I mean, you advocate arranging things so that everyone has to live with illegal immigrants. And by your implied standards, people in MV who don't want illegal immigrants around are acting badly, and when MV kicks immigrants out, MV is acting in ways that are harmful to society. So by those standards, you should be applauding the whole thing.
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I don't like this debate tactic. You substituted your interlocutor's request, which was basically reasonable and at least somewhat within your power to achieve, for a radical solution that is self-evidently monstrous to most people and completely unachievable, leaving you with no responsibility. It's very easy to make the perfect the enemy of the good when you benefit from the status quo.
You don't like using relatively powerless people in a political stunt, okay. I can accept that. I don't see how that translates into it being unreasonable to expect Martha's Vineyard to bear some of the costs that they enthusiastically impose on other people, especially when those other people they impose on are almost universally lower status than they are.
On the contrary. I'm fine with his proposal, and given free rein, I'd go a step further. I absolutely disagree that it's 'self-evidently monstrous' to mix students together regardless of their class and I'm baffled why you would think so. You might disagree, but it seems absurd to call someone monstrous for suggesting that a wealthy student may have to rub shoulders with an impoverished one.
It's also absolutely not within my power to achieve as I'm not a citizen and currently have no children. The only realistic way I can see to take personal responsibility is either volunteering my time or money, which I suggested. I suppose I could run for office, but either way, we're not talking about realistic proposals, yeah?
Oh, I absolutely support taxing the fuck out of the people who live on Martha's Vineyard and breaking up their elitist private schools. Crank that marginal tax rate, baby. Send their kids to public schools. No more private jets, no more helicopters, no more yachts. No more generational wealth and trust fund kiddies. Raise my tax bracket too, although I'm light years away from buying a house in Martha's Vineyard. What else do you want to do?
The history of using forced bussing in the United States is that it basically destroyed the cities. People with means simply moved as far as necessary to make bussing impractical, and at the same time tight-knit minority communities were broken up for the sake of forcing minorities to go to school as minorities in their school. Most people would find it self-evidently monstrous to use government power to force people to work in a certain office or attend a certain church, so it's baffling to me why you think using this power on peoples' children - notably, using those children as means for the end of a social benefit, rather than for the benefit of those same children - would be positively viewed.
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