Biden only committed to picking a woman, not necessarily a Black woman. Two of the four on the shortlist were white. I know it's a punchier line to say, but it's not true.
I don't know that they committed in advance that "it must be a Black Woman" but I do know that during the Summer of George they picked a Black Woman, and that they absolutely thought about her status as a Black Woman when doing so. I don't think it makes any difference. Passing over the Black Woman who was his natural successor would have been a bad look with significant IdPol portions of the Democratic base, in a way that passing over Joe Biden wasn't.
Biden in particular had bad personal feelings about not getting Obama's full support in the primary for 2016, so it seems extra unlikely that Biden would actually backstab Kamala in the same way, even on just a purely personal level (even if he was tempted).
It wasn't really Joe's call to make, once he had dropped out. The Democratic party circa July of last year isn't beholden to him on this.
As loathe as I am to generally recommend an anime, Serial Experiments Lain had me milling over this question a lot as well. My main objection to it is that the people who do this tend (not always, but there is a general pattern) to become the mask rather than taking the mask off, and usually in a self-destructive way.
Who is this person, really? How much of their being is dictated by their immediate environment?
My impression is that hardened criminals have a wider range of interactions with the police than pretty much anyone else. So the only way to convince a hardened criminal that you're trigger-happy and unaccountable is to actually be so.
You sneak, you edited your post! Two days or two weeks, that's a question of economics to me
Sorry! I have a recurring issue of looking at what I've just posted and suddenly getting a new idea. For what it's worth the duration isn't a crux for me, "two weeks" was a shot-in-the-dark example. I would still consider two days a massive improvement over "get in the van now".
As to the second half of your comment: I don't really have a problem with police officers "leaning in" to the image that they're trigger-happy and unaccountable. I have a problem with them actually being trigger-happy and unaccountable. If police officers aren't trigger-happy and unaccountable, but hardened criminals think they are, that might motivate criminals to behave better when the police show up. A great deal of effective police work involves strategic deception of this type: polygraph tests do not actually detect when someone's lying, but police officers are in no hurry to disabuse the widespread misconception that they do, as it demonstrably makes people more honest if they believe they'll be caught out if they lie. Likewise, there's a widespread misconception that undercover cops are legally required to identify themselves if directly asked if they are police officers: there is no such legal requirement, but it can only help the police if criminals think there is.
I understand the point you're making, that if a criminal thinks that the police will gun him down even if he drops his weapon and agrees to come quietly, then there's no incentive for him to surrender, so he might as well go out guns blazing. I agree that conveying that impression would be counterproductive. But on the margin, if criminals think that police officers can punch them in the face or Tase them (but not kill them) and face no professional repercussions, that might well incentivise them to be on their best behaviour when the police do show up. Even if, in point of fact, police officers will face repercussions for unwarranted use of force.
Sure. Alright. I can agree to that much.
But for the love of basic sanity, don't let them loose! Give them the bare minimum of time to do those things - maybe a day or two - and keep them under constant watch by at least one law enforcement officer at all times!
Edit: You sneak, you edited your post! Two days or two weeks, that's a question of economics to me - can the relevant law enforcement agencies afford to commit manpower for that long without neglecting their duties elsewhere? But in any event, I have alarm bells going off in my mind when immigrants are just let off the hook, even if just temporarily.
I mean I think they’re already on some level suicidal and they decide to kill as a way to bring attention to their biggest grievance.
Three political attempts at violence in a decade is much lower than the current baseline which is at least 5-6 within the last 6 months. You can’t really reach absolute zero, but having those events be rare is a much better thing. The 1970s were more radical mostly because of Vietnam and the draft and mostly calmed down once the war and draft ended.
Butler I regard as at least semi political simply because I don’t think you can non-politically shoot a presidential candidate during a campaign rally. He was also disturbed as I understand it, so mental illness plays a role.
No offense, but I get the feeling that you effectively want more immigration.
No, I want human beings to be as happy and comfortable as humanly possible. Open borders in a society that is not yet post-scarcity does not lead to that, therefore excess immigration must be stopped, but if we're going to regretfully turn people away we should try to be decent about it, because in an ideal world they should be able to stay if they want. Giving people time to collect their belongings and say goodbye to any acquaintances they might have made during their stay seems like basic decency.
I think of this in Rawlsian and golden-rule terms - were I in the position of an illegal immigrant who's been discovered, I would acknowledge that exiling me is within the rights, and in the best interests, of the body politic, but I would still regard a few weeks' grace period to put my affairs in order as something to which I would feel entitled regardless as a human being, being that two weeks more or less are not imposing a meaningful economic burden on the country the way my continued lifelong presence might (while they make a great difference to my own happiness). If defectors abusing that grace period to escape make it impossible to extend this basic kindness to arrestees who cooperate, then we need a system to crack down and disincentivize such abuse, so as to be able to once again extend that basic kindness to people who cooperate.
That's not a policy goal I have so I haven't thought deeply about this, but probably something like "require employers to actually use the e-verify system we built 30 years ago to solve this problem, then do some high profile prosecutions of employers who failed to do so". Economic migrants are generally here for economic reasons. If the jobs go away the people who came here because there was work will leave.
I don't expect that'd fix any of the problems that the red tribe currently blames on immigrants but I bet it would lead to a bunch of undocumented workers leaving the US.
This all sounds overcomplicated for something that is essentially a very simple issue.
They already broke the law by coming in illegally, and the right thing to do is to make them go away. Letting them go free, monitored or not, especially after they've already been picked up by law enforcement, is just plain wrong. Your proposal would simply create more busywork and more opportunities for law enforcement failures and more incentives to immigrate illegally compared to holding on to them and shipping them off at the first opportunity.
No offense, but I get the feeling that you effectively want more immigration.
As I said elsewhere in the thread my ideal mode of policing would involve a lot more low-scale police presence. The way I imagine it, as soon as something screwy is detected with someone's monitor, the nearest beat cop gets an alert and takes a look at the last known coordinates. Very different from "if you miss a court date then maybe possibly something gets done within seven business days".
I don't claim this system is foolproof, this isn't my job and it's only a sketch of an idea that I've kicked around in the back of my mind. But I'd be surprised if cleverer minds than me couldn't expand it into a functional system. I think there's a lot of untapped potential in this sort of system, due to the stigma associated with putting tags on minorities' bodies.
the monitor mysteriously turns off - then you get detained.
I'm missing some details, I'm sure, but this sounds flawed. Attempting to detain them after they made themselves significantly harder to track...I dunno, smells like self-sabotage to me.
So, what's your plan for getting 4-5 self-deportations for every forcible deportation?
And what penalty gets assigned when leftist rhetoric against ICE becomes even more extreme in response?
Can't say I'm surprised to find out that Hasan Piker is a federal agent.
How much of a hand did the Russians have in bringing about WW1?
Apparently there are only 6500 ICE agents in the entire country. Even paying them $200k / year would be $1.3B / year. That's $4 / year / US citizen. I would happily pay 10x, maybe even 50x that amount to live in an alternate reality where everything is the same except ICE does their job in a boring, effective, and professional manner.
I doubt Ferdinand's life would have prevented the great war but his death was an immediate disaster for the serbs that caused many more of them to die
Yes. WW1 was not inevitable, in fact it was not inevitable even after the assassination. Even before the WW1 there was Agadin crisis of 1911 or Balkan wars of 1912-1913 and those were resolved peacefully. There was also constant shift in alliances and circumstances - such as Germany basically admitting that they lost the naval arms race with Britain which worked to lower the tensions.
The world before WW1 was highly complex and multipolar one, where each great power had multiple goals often with different opponents. In fact the tragedy of WW1 is that most nations stumbled into it due to various factors, especially the momentum of mobilization that made the clash inevitable. The events got out of hand and all sides of the conflict ended up with a situation that they did not want to see. If there was some other reason - even something in Balkans - that set out the conflict, it could end up with completely different results.
I think this is an unreasonable standard. Cleaning house is never going to involve the same enthusiasm as fighting the outgroup, even if it's a sincere effort.
Or the enforcement can also be ineffective, because grabbing them and putting them in a holding facility is Stormtrooper-ish, so letting them out with a court date gives them more opportunity to disappear again.
I think if I were Immigration Czar I would try a scheme with ankle monitors. ICE agents identify you as illegal, you get tagged and a reasonable timeline to put your affairs in order and leave the country. If that time elapses, or the monitor mysteriously turns off - then you get detained.
And also, there's the problem that ICE is also opposed to organized criminal elements, like human smugglers, that are aligned with cartels. Cartels are be perfectly willing and able to terrorize ICE agents and their families.
This is true but seems like a very good argument for separating ICE into two different corps, one that fights organized crime and one that enforces immigration laws. Outside of Trump's rhetorical interest in acting like all illegals are violent gang members, it doesn't seem especially rational for them to have both jobs, precisely because very different approaches and MOs are proportionate when dealing with one group vs the other.
Different vibe, but Madeline Albright introducing Clinton at a campaign event with "There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!" was also pretty disastrous, the less talked-about cousin to "basket of deplorables" in my eyes. It wasn't limited to single demographics, so hit broader.
I actually think the worst part of that ad (other than the bits that sound like an SNL skit) was casting a fat guy in a "I'm a man" ad, so it doesn't even work. Literally no man ever considers being that overweight to be particularly manly. If you're gonna pick a big dude, you have to pick at least a dude who has some muscles underneath. No offense intended to anyone, of course, I'm just talking about what people want to see in ads - obviously we have different standards for those, it's quite literally marketing 101. The poses are all wrong too, the gaunt old guy is very out of left field, and there's no suburban dad anywhere here, poor usage of beard stubble, and just guys giving off super-single vibes. It's just incompetent, holy yikes, even on top of the content.
Personally I think putting out cringey content is not as bad as actively alienating people. The I'm a Man ad is desperate, not aggressively shaming.
“write Anti-ICE messages”
Haha, this reminded me of the story where somebody was in charge of creating some company gift with print order of something like Microsoft in font Segoe UI. Needless to say, this was literally what got printed on the gift :D It ended up as highly sought after memorabilia for company veterans.
I agree with most of this, yes.
As I said elsewhere in the thread, I am leery of the "other tactics (even stochastically)" bit, which I think can too easily be used as a bludgeon against free speech expressing what the bludgeon-wielding side deems to be wrongthink. If it is appropriate for non-violent pro-life activists to refer to abortion doctors as murderers - and it must be appropriate, because that is their legitimate moral belief and freedom of speech means nothing if they cannot express it - then it must remain appropriate for non-violent pro-immigration extremists to refer to ICE agents as Nazis.
But that's only one part of your post, and really a whole other conversation from the core issue here.
That's a fair spin. I think some of my remaining discomfort with this state of affairs goes back to the sense that ICE's scary-goons stylings are escalating tensions - I feel like playing these sorts of games is how you get a low-trust, high-crime society where even people who obey the law don't really respect it. The word among the populace being "If you commit crimes you'll fall into the hands of a bunch of violent bastards" works as a brute-force way to deter crime if nothing else does, but it seems strictly inferior in terms of social stability and well-being, when compared to a society where the police are genuinely viewed as admirable, aspirational, pro-social figures the way firefighters are. Fight fire with fire and the world goes up in smoke, etc. etc. Building a climate of fear is inferior to building an actually orderly society.
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