site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26736 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The US feds seem to be backing down, apparently they're not going to clear away the barbed wire. Is this a tactical retreat or an operational pause?

On the one hand, they might try again in a couple of weeks when everyone has forgotten and the media's moved on. Or they could use other methods to facilitate illegal immigration that divert around barbed wire.

Alternately, it is a bad look in an election year, it might make sense to slow down now. As far as demographics are concerned, time is on their side - well over half of Under-15s are non-white and that number is still rising. Reducing inflow doesn't matter so much, as long as Republicans aren't able to execute a huge expulsion and re-emigration operation, Democrats/Progressives will enjoy permanent electoral/demographic dominance. In terms of voting, the key thing is race - whites tend to vote Republican, non-whites hugely favour Democrats. This is a perfectly rational strategic decision, Dems favour the expansion of social welfare, redistribution, multiculturalism and affirmative action, which usually favour non-whites over whites. Either the Republicans will move to join them, or they'll become irrelevant.

As far as demographics are concerned, time is on their side - well over half of Under-15s are non-white and that number is still rising. Reducing inflow doesn't matter so much, as long as Republicans aren't able to execute a huge expulsion and re-emigration operation, Democrats/Progressives will enjoy permanent electoral/demographic dominance. In terms of voting, the key thing is race - whites tend to vote Republican, non-whites hugely favour Democrats. This is a perfectly rational strategic decision, Dems favour the expansion of social welfare, redistribution, multiculturalism and affirmative action, which usually favour non-whites over whites. Either the Republicans will move to join them, or they'll become irrelevant.

Is the idea here that the migrant flows at the border are a result of a deliberate strategy to stack the electoral deck in favor of the Democrats? Illegal immigrants can't vote. Hell, legal residents can't vote. I know lack of voter ID laws would make some amount of illegal voting possible, but the implication here that this is a big coordinated effort to gain and maintain federal power via illegal immigrants' votes strikes me as a bit far-fetched.

Probably what's more likely is the usual sclerosis of the federal administrative apparatus (favoring the status quo, whatever it may be), combined with the very strong negative political polarization we have (that leads to legislative deadlock - don't want to give the other guys a win on an important issue), plus a bit of an influence from the true believers, the multiculturalism and open borders people who probably do see the firm securing of the border as a moral failure. Is this not enough to explain what is happening?

Is this not enough to explain what is happening?

I used to hang around a highly-SJ forum. I do recall at least some gloating over the possibility of Texas turning purple due to mass immigration and immigrants' children. Necessary or not, that's direct evidence that at least some SJers do recognise the "demographically-significant immigration flow -> Democratic electoral victory" causation and cheer it on.

You are correct that there are other reasons for them to favour the policies they do, but this isn't exactly a fully-unintended side-effect either.

  1. Places are moving to allow illegals.

  2. You can’t ask for pretty much any info. It would be relatively easy for illegals to vote.

  3. Illegals kids will vote.

Illegals’ kids voting is something that can only be stopped by constitutional amendment re. birthright citizenship.

In general it seems unlikely that illegals vote. The American citizen underclass already very rarely votes, and illegal immigrants often believe enforcement is much, much harsher than it actually is. Why would a penniless Guatemalan illegal vote? To their mind it’s a risk for zero real benefit, they don’t know much or anything about American politics, and their sole goal is to stay under the radar to not get deported. They don’t conceive of any kind of civic duty, and their knowledge of American politics will be very minimal, they don’t know where their local polling place is, and they probably have neither the time nor the inclination to visit it.

Like most Americans I’ve met my fair share of likely-to-certainly illegal immigrants, and I find the suggestion they’d vote in elections pretty ridiculous, not out of principle but for many more practical reasons. There are maybe 15 million of them, so surely a few have, but I find it hard to believe it was many.

Illegals’ kids voting is something that can only be stopped by constitutional amendment re. birthright citizenship.

So, crazy legal position alert, but I'm not sure that's entirely true. Yes, I'm aware of the standard view that Wong Kim Ark declared birthright citizenship as inviolable Constitutional law, but I actually don't think it's that clear.

One can start with Elk v. Wilkins. John Elk was born on a reservation, but the case had approximately nothing to do with physical location. I’m not sure that anyone would think that it would have come out differently if his parents had left the reservation briefly to, say, have his birth in a particular hospital. Instead, it was entirely about political allegiance - his political allegiance was to the tribe, not the United States, even though he had left the reservation as an adult and spent much of his life in the US "proper". Much of Wong Kim Ark discusses political allegiance, as well. AFAICT, the rule they embraced was, “Political allegiance has something to do with it, but we think that the only cases that are clear are foreign ministers (not consuls, though, for complicated weird reasons) and invaders (huh, that word again)... oh, and Indians are weird, yo.” Were there reasons for the court to think that the case in front of them should not be excepted? They cite The Schooner Exchange v. M’Faddon:

The reasons for not allowing to other aliens exemption “from the jurisdiction of the country in which they are found” were stated as follows:

When private individuals of one nation spread themselves through another as business or caprice may direct, mingling indiscriminately with the inhabitants of that other, or when merchant vessels enter for the purposes of trade, it would be obviously inconvenient and dangerous to society, and would subject the laws to continual infraction and the government to degradation, if such individuals or merchants did not owe temporary and local allegiance, and were not amenable to the jurisdiction of the country. Nor can the foreign sovereign have any motive for wishing such exemption. His subjects thus passing into foreign counties are not employed by him, nor are they engaged in national pursuits. Consequently there are powerful motives for not exempting persons of this description from the jurisdiction of the country in which they are found, and no one motive for requiring it. The implied license, therefore, under which they enter can never be construed to grant such exemption.

In short, the judgment in the case of The Exchange declared, as incontrovertible principles, that the jurisdiction of every nation within its own territory is exclusive and absolute, and is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by the nation itself; that all exceptions to its full and absolute territorial jurisdiction must be traced up to its own consent, express or implied; that, upon its consent to cede, or to waive the exercise of, a part of its territorial jurisdiction rest the exemptions from that jurisdiction of foreign sovereigns or their armies entering its territory with its permission, and of their foreign ministers and public ships of war, and that the implied license under which private individuals of another nation enter the territory and mingle indiscriminately with its inhabitants for purposes of business or pleasure can never be construed to grant to them an exemption from the jurisdiction of the country in which they are found.

You can start to see how there might be room here. There’s still a linkage between jurisdiction and allegiance, but it’s not entirely clear how it operates in all cases. They’re imputing a temporary allegiance to common travelers, but even this stems from “the implied license under which they enter”. It’s squishy. There are indicators that go the other way, too.

Further, I should note that the majority opinion was clear about the fact that they were engaging in a common law approach to this question (while taking some guidance from the above-quoted statute using the language “not subject to any foreign power”). There’s a lot of squishy room here, which is why the same folks who would call it an invasion for purposes of A4S4 would want to call it an invasion for the question of birthright citizenship – they're essentially saying, “We recognized two cases that were clearly problematic from the perspective of political allegiance; I think this a third.” And I’m not sure that there’s any super knockdown legal argument against that. In fact, if faced with a statute saying, “Illegal aliens are on this side of the political allegiance line; we clearly and obviously have not given them any implied license to be here whatsoever,” rather than engaging purely in a common law exercise, I’m not sure how the Wong Kim Ark Court goes. (They had a statute saying that he couldn’t be naturalized, but that’s clearly different.)

I've heard similar arguments before. Trump promised to end birthright citizenship in 2016 and again in 2018 by executive order (which would presumably lead to the inevitable SCOTUS challenge), but never did. He promised to do it again last year and the year before, but again, it seems that even the Trumpist wing is resigned to the fact that it's unlikely anyone but Thomas and maybe Alito would support the repeal.

I think it would definitely be a heavy lift with SCOTUS. I then have an unfortunate thought, that if it's just an EO, SCOTUS probably shuts it down... but if it were an actual, no bullshit statute passed by the full Congress, it might have a legit chance. Of course, I doubt that will happen anytime soon, but in this same thread, I also tried considering the legality of Congress just passing a statute declaring that the borders must be open, so I am a sucker for these sorts of, "What is the actual limiting principle," questions.

I agree that I think there’s a chance a conservative SCOTUS majority accepts a law that passes congress abolishing birthright citizenship, but I think that’s the only way it happens (short of constitutional amendment).

Enter VBM and activists getting illegals to sign things they don’t understand because the activist is…otherwise helpful

If you’re running an operation in which people show up at polling stations, declare they’re citizens under false identities and vote under false pretenses then you have no need for illegals and are in fact best served by using ideologically committed fellow activists who definitely won’t sell their story or give you up for nothing if caught.

If you’re running an operation in which people show up at polling stations,

If you wanted to use illegal migrants in a voting scheme, why would you ever bring them to a polling station?

Ballot harvesting has far fewer oversight and procedural control mechanisms.

If you're ballot harvesting the votes of illegal migrants, what's the difference between doing so and just making up names? Why do you need a real life illegal immigrant to register to vote illegally when, by definition, the illegal alien won't have a legitimate SSN, won't have a legitimate birth certificate and so won't have a legitimate (non AB60 or equivalent) license? Of course many have fakes of the above, but if you're just registering fake voters for such a ballot harvesting scheme the illegals themselves are unnecessary in that case. You might as well have your own citizen activists register or vote as dead people, vote multiple times, impersonate others etc. which hugely minimizes the risk of the plot getting out.

If you're ballot harvesting the votes of illegal migrants, what's the difference between doing so and just making up names?

Aside from noting that you're changing the basis of your objection, facilitating a political machine coalition. Illegal voters can still be engaged and mobilized in mass politics; fake voters can't.

Why do you need a real life illegal immigrant to register to vote illegally when, by definition, the illegal alien won't have a legitimate SSN, won't have a legitimate birth certificate and so won't have a legitimate (non AB60 or equivalent) license?

Why do you think you need a legitimate SSN, legitimate birth certificate, or legitimate license, to vote remotely in the sort of localities which have facilitated mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting?

Especially when you note that good-enough fakes are available to many?

Of course many have fakes of the above, but if you're just registering fake voters

If an illegal migrant has fake documentation that enables them to vote, you're not registering fake voters, you're registering real voters. After all, they have real-fake documentation- and who are you to say otherwise? Or that the vote-registering person knew otherwise?

Separating the steps of fraud between different actors is a pretty basic way to facilitate fraud. In the same way that you don't have to know the criminal source of money to launder money, and thus the main money launderers are notoriously incurious about verifying income sources, you don't need to know that a voter is invalid to register/facilitate an illegal voter. As long as root systems exist to facilitate the documentation that enables legal voting, the presumption by the persons interfacing with the illegal voters can simply be that anyone with the nominal documentation is a legal voter. At which point, it largely falls on the voter to identify themselves as illegal, or else the presumption can be that they are legal.

(In fact, if you want to get very cynical, the illegal migrant registering that they are NOT a legal voter is putting themselves at risk by openly identifying why they can't vote, and the fraudulent nature of any documentation that says otherwise. At which point, it's in their own interest to go ahead and lie that they're totally legal, they're totally willing to do what they're allowed to do, and thus keep their heads down.)

This, in turn, creates yet more barriers against positively identifying any crime, as even if you identified that a particular ballot was tied to a particular individual (which is almost impossible, because that's rather the point of anonymous voting), it's also going to be nearly impossible to prove that the person facilitating the vote knew they were illegal (because they don't need to know that).

for such a ballot harvesting scheme the illegals themselves are unnecessary in that case.

Unnecessary to conduct fraud in general =/= not beneficial to facilitate fraud in a specific way.

A significant point of ballot harvesting is to shape and influence the vote (nominally to just have the vote occur and be delivered, but also potentially to shape the decision and delivery in partisan favor), while leading people to actively vote builds buy-in for the system and the party that facilitates the harvesting (voting as a ritual, familial party affiliation, and so on). Moreover, a common point of complicity-collaboration schemes is that mutual effort / complicity creates coalitions that stick together. On the legal side this includes things like hazing rituals, while on blatantly illegal sides this can include things like 'force someone to cross a line of no return' so that they can't back out.

And that's when there are meaningful risks. In credible forms of illegal migrant voter fraud, as the risks of detection are incredibly minute, the risk of mutual incrimination are virtually non-existent (because the harvestor doesn't need to know that the illegal voter was voting illegally), and the partisan faction most able to establish a system enabling illegal voting is also the least likely to acknowledge or prosecute the avenue.

From a partisan perspective, facilitating illegal voter fraud from the illegal migrant population is a way to draw them into the political machine. Political machines aren't just voting block devices, but jobs programs, friends in high places, and bodies-on-streets mobilizers. The relevance of a political machine to immigrant communities is a matter of historical records, as much as the familial/tribal nature of dependent voting blocks.

A non-existent voter doesn't do nearly as much for a political machine as a real voter, even- or especially- illegal voters. The voters will identify their interests with the machine that is most likely to benefit them/least likely to expose them, there is complicity that pressures them against defecting, and best of all said complicity doesn't have to be mutual for mutual incrimination, because the political machine aparatus can be willfully (and genuinely) ignorant of the legal-status of the voters that the machine facilitate.

You might as well have your own citizen activists register or vote as dead people, vote multiple times, impersonate others etc. which hugely minimizes the risk of the plot getting out.

I disagree that there is a risk to hugely minimize, because the risk is already hugely minimal to nonexistent, and there doesn't need to be plot, just structural enabling and incentives.

More comments

Illegal immigrants can't vote. Hell, legal residents can't vote.

They can increase the votes of people living in the neighborhood.

The idea is that illegals have children at a higher rate than natives, and that 95% of those children vote D, so the democrats are intentionally engineering the electorate 20+ years out.

I get that but the idea that the Democratic Party, an organization so weak and disorganized that it's allowing a uniquely unpopular incumbent who is widely seen as a doddering old fool even by many of his would-be supporters to run against a uniquely weak candidate (Trump) who could be easily defeated if the Democrats got it together and tapped almost anyone else to run against him... the idea that this organization is able to not only look this far down the game tree, but also set this long and complex chain of events into motion so that if all goes well, in 20 years they will finally win all of the elections ... that idea, seems unrealistic.

That's because it wasn't the current Democratic Party who set this up and got the program started. The roots of the immigration crisis that America is in right now go back to Hart-Celler at least.

If you want unlimited migration from Central America then Texas is unnecessary while deep blue California and New Mexico exist.

What Abbott does may - if extremely successful - have a minor impact on where some migrants initially settle in the US. But it will have no impact on the long term demographic trajectory.

This case is mainly interesting because it provides a glimpse into how grandstanding blue state governors like Newsom will treat a second Trump presidency: they’ll ignore it and defy it without consequence.

What Abbott does may - if extremely successful - have a minor impact on where some migrants initially settle in the US. But it will have no impact on the long term demographic trajectory.

...Are you operating off the assumption that Abbott's goal in this general offensive is to fix illegal immigration? [EDIT] - to be more specific, that Abbott's goal is to fix illegal immigration by controlling the border of Texas?

The US feds seem to be backing down, apparently they're not going to clear away the barbed wire. Is this a tactical retreat or an operational pause?

Biden needs feds he can trust, and CBP (based on that union letter) isn't it. He'll probably send another group.

Other than assuming command of the national guard, what other federal entity would have a statutory mandate in this circumstance?

I know the obvious retort is "it doesn't matter and he'll just invent a legal fig leaf", but I'm interested in what existing options might exist that don't require novel legal theories.

He could send US Marshalls, to enforce the Supreme Court order. He could federalize and send any state national guard (not necessarily Texas's) in under 10 U.S. Code § 12406(3) (execute the laws of the United States), or more aggressively 10 U.S. Code § 12406(2) (rebellion or danger of rebellion). He could use the literal Army under 10 USC 332 (unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States). There's really no barrier here. I expect he could probably use the DEA or FBI or ATF on some pretext too.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats