SSCReader
2d ago
It is, but that means pro-immigration people have just as much right to try to set the figure arbitrarily high.
If we're not trying to base it on cost benefit or some kind of moral function, then each persons arbitrary figure is as valid as the next. Which isn't very helpful from a governence perspective.
SSCReader
2d ago
But if it is simply arbitrary then the people wanting to keep the doors open have just as much of an argument as those who want it closed.
Its both true and not very helpful in the broader sense.
SSCReader
2d ago
Ahem, we also have the Europa hotel, the "most bombed hotel in the world".
Well it was during the Troubles. I think some Bosnian hotel stole that accolade.
SSCReader
3d ago
But that also applies vice versa no? The American market is the wealthiest in the world. Lose it and all those factories making Iphones and Temu widgets collapse. There is no other market that can match it. And given China's upcoming population problem and their huge corruption problem, I don't see much incentive for them to pull the trigger on economic MAD. Especially because many of their elites are being enriched by it.
SSCReader
10d ago
Sure, declasse perhaps. But that is because we give special dispensations to kids and historically to women, though these have been eroding. But legally, if you were struck first by a woman then she assaulted you.
But none of these apply to nations anyway. The UK didn't have to allow Argentina to invade just because their GDP was less. We don't really have the concept of child countries where they are not accountable.
SSCReader
7d ago
It's interesting because the guy with the rifle was in some sense doing a right wing coded thing. Open carrying a rifle, which in Texas is legal. It's been a left wing talking point that this in and of itself should be considered a threatening act (see Rittenhouse, K). Which means in other circumstances it could quite well have been the case that the right was outraged by the shooting, as open carrying a rifle in and of itself should not be grounds to be seen as threat of violence, that justifies self-defence. In fact if Foster had shot and killed Perry as he was driving a car towards a protest he would have been in the Rittenhouse position! Arguing he brought a rifle to the protest to defend against just such an attack.
Which is why (as with Rittenhouse) the case hinged on whether the rifle was pointed at someone and if this itself constitutes a threat. Only without clear video in this case to show one way or another.
There is a narrative here where Rittenhouse was found not guilty (correctly) because he did not point his gun at someone and therefore was not threatening, and Foster also did not point his gun at someone so was not threatening and was thus murdered by Perry. In that case the left would have a case to argue that they did indeed play by the rules more than the right. Rittenhouse was acquitted. The jury set aside all the political stuff and acquitted him. Perry was found guilty then a political intervention happened. That's how I would contrast the two stories if I were still going to bat for the left in a political sense at least. The left left (hah) it up to the judicial system to decide the right (hah!) outcome, the right refused to do that and blatantly freed a convicted murderer. Might have some bad optics for squishy moderates. But of course plays well with those already convinced. Unlikely to make a difference in Texas, but might have some play if pushed nationally, perhaps.
I suppose to turn the discussion back to you, if you had clear video that Foster did not point his gun at Perry, and was just walking around, would you accept that he like Rittenhouse did not actually threaten someone and thus Perry shooting him was murder?
SSCReader
10d ago
The fact that the numbers are skewed can't be used to show escalation or deescalation because otherwise the less effective or less technological able will always look like they are de-escalating when they are actually just killing as many as they reasonably can and if their capabilities change, so will the numbers they kill.
If a weaker person punches you as hard as they can and you deck them as hard as you can in return and break their jaw, then you didn't escalate, you just retaliated proportionally. You aren't obligated to only match the level of your response to their weakness. If they shoot you with a .22 and you have a .45 you are not obligated to find a smaller gun to shoot back with. They should have considered that before attacking you. Don't poke the bear is advice for a reason.
Now I still agree Israel is far from blameless here. There is plenty of things they have done which are problematic. And so has Hamas. But just because one is weaker and therefore can't kill as many is not an issue, especially because Israel can argue the only reason Hamas kills fewer is because they heavily blockade them and prevent them getting more missiles etc.
SSCReader
11d ago
The pimp is contract enforcement in a transaction that is usually illegal so normal means can't be used.
Damage the goods or refuse to pay and the pimp steps in.
The author is making the mistake of assuming that without enforcement the transaction just happens 100% perfectly. And so the pimp is a parasite. Now 9 times out of 10 the very presence of the pimp is enough to enforce compliance, so it can look like they aren't doing anything but those positions exist for a reason. If you know an inspector might check your goods, then you are incentivized to not try and slip in shoddy merchandise.
In other words a pimp is just an unofficial judge, jury and leg breaker. And that explains why the official versions exist too, because transactions require oversight. Every society on earth creates these positions for a reason. They are crucially important to building the high trust you talk of. Someone has to enforce "good" behaviour, so that the transaction can be trusted to take place. So we mandate goods inspections, certificates of compliance, paperwork logs etc.
So its not that governments become lenocracies, its that pimps are a shadow of government. Just like gang enforcers are, they commit illegal acts yes, but in the service of maintaining a structure.
Pimping might be what contract resolution looks like in a libertarian world. The private contractor pays someone to enforce the contract if the client does not pay etc. Probably with less leg breaking, canes and hats though.
SSCReader
6d ago
But if you can't have your rifle pointed down, because that threatens a person seated below you, then that means the general freedom to open carry a rifle is severely circumscribed. In a city there will always be cars around.
In fact in the hours that Rittenhouse was walking around we have images him of gun angled down walking past an occupied car. If that is enough to trigger threat then the occupant could have shot him!
My point is that on its own should be ok. If it is ok to open carry a rifle then we must accept some people will have it angled towards them. Rittenhouse in the image has his gun pointed at the legs of the man next to him. Unless you are always pointing your gun directly vertically down, its just a statisical certainty. So if open carrying rifles is legal, then that cannot be the standard.
You can legally in Texas walk up to a car with a rifle open carried. The question is does that mean when doing the safe thing, and pointing it down, you are automatically threatening the occupant because you could shoot them in seconds? I say the answer logically has to be no, in order for the legal carry right to make any sense.
Now to be clear that does not mean Foster wasn't actually threatening Perry! He may well of been and certainly previous testimony might make that more likely. But it can't come solely from walking towards an occupied vehicle with your gun angled down. Because that is I am given to understand (and as Rittenhouse did!) the safer way to point it. Is he supposed to raise it? Because that seems more likely to trigger a response. If open carrying is legal you can walk towards people legally, you can walk past them, you can ealk up to their car window and knock on it. You can ask them for the time or pet their dog.
My point is not that Foster was not threatening Perry, but that the description of WHY it was a threat seems biased. If Perry was threatened it was not because the gun was simply angled down and he is lower, it has to be because it was actively pointed at him. That was the determination in the Rittenhouse trial, that merely turning with your gun angled down such that it is passing a trajectory where you could shoot someone can't count as being actively threatened so Rosenbaum could not have been defending himself. Whether the gun is pointing at your leg or your body because you are sitting down doesn't matter.
If we want to claim that Perry was legally threatened then it has to be because Foster was aiming at him. Not just holding the gun in his general direction. And the problem is, from the images we have we can't see that, which is why Nybbler has to fall back to the gun being angled down being a threat because that is all we can make out. He is inflating the level of evidence we have. Again to be clear it is entirely possible Foster was pointing his gun right at Perry. And if so Perry would be justified in seeing that as a threat. Likewise in a state where open carry of rifles is not permitted maybe the walking towards you carrying a rifle pointed close to you might be a threat. But if you are going to legalize open carry of long arms, they WILL be angled towards people at some point (seriously go watch the pre-shooting footage of Kenosha, particularly when some of the "militia" are standing and walking together, their barrels are angled down but pass trajectories of peoples legs all the time) and if that legally counts as a threat, there is a serious mismatch, that risks inciting incidents. (Assuming we are allowing open carry, I don't think it should count for the record.) That is true even if Foster was about to shoot Perry in cold blood (and he might have been!).
I'm not complaining that people are defending Perry. More that they are pitching certainties or potentially reasonable things as absolute proof. Such that there is no chance the jury was actually correct.
To be clear, just as I think it was dumb of Rittenhouse to be wandering around a protest with a rifle regardless of whether he did anything legally wrong, then Foster was just as stupid, possibly more so. I don't think its a huge loss he got shot. Though I am sure as it always is it is a loss to his family. Attending protests has risk, attending openly armed inflates the risk that someone will take exception. Possibly Rittenhouse is only alive because Rosenbaum was not armed. And in the US, that is not a good gamble, as Foster perhaps learned...well briefly.
Also I keep typing Genosha instead of Kenosha, so if any made it through, I apologise.
SSCReader
6d ago
Alot of this is what I was trying to get at and I agree. Guns are both a right to carry around and a cause to be shot. Should someone open carrying a rifle raise your alert level or not?
If it should then an open carry right is going to trigger some number of escalations. If it shouldn't then cops overeact to people who are legally armed all the time. See Castille et al.
SSCReader
6d ago
Blocking roads has been part of American discourse for a long time. Legalising just ploughing through the crowds seems a little over the top.
SSCReader
6d ago
Does it? Below someone said that because Foster had his gun angled down, but could have pointed it directly at Perry and fired in an instant that Perry was correct to have felt threatened. But we have video of Rittenhouse wandering around gun pointed low where he also could have brought it up and fired at any of the people around him.
If one of those is a threat then surely the other is, even if we removed them from protest situations and just had them standing on the street minding their own business.
Now i'd say neither should really be taken as a threat in and of themselves granted carrying the rifle around is legal. Because it would mean that we have a tension where a legal activity also grants enough of a threat to createthe right to legal lethal self-defence, which just seems problematicly circular.
SSCReader
6d ago
I accept the pardon is a legitimate outcome, elections do indeed have consequences! And expression of political power overriding the judicial system is part of those consequences. It's entirely within bounds as far as I am concerned.
I'll get back to you on the consensus part.
SSCReader
6d ago
Right, its quite possible Foster was threatening Perry. Or even he was about to shoot him. It's just nowhere near as clear as Rittenhouse and just angling your gun down as you would anyway can't be as clearly dispositive.
I think Foster was stupid for bring a rifle at all, but thats neither here nor there.
SSCReader
6d ago
As far as I understand it from our very long threads back in the day the law in Wisconsin doesn't specify you have to defend yourself in the smartest way. If someone points a gun at you, running may well be the smart play, but if you choose to fight, you still can claim self defense. That is why the prosecution were trying to establish Rosenbaum had the gun pointed at him prior to him charging.
IF Rittenhouse had openly threatened Rosenbaum, charging him would have been legally permissible, though stupid.
SSCReader
12d ago
That seems like a lot of side effects for something that doesn't happen that often.
Places with no cross walks? Places with no sidewalks so people have to walk on the road? Places where people have obstructed the sidewalk by parking on it? The fact people have to get out of cars onto the road when parking or when getting into their car?
Not to mention how it allows you to murder someone just by waiting nearby until they walk into the road to get into their car. Shoulda yielded to me! I was in a car, he wasn't! Sure he was about to get into a car, but he wasn't actually in one! Yeah I aimed for him, waited for him and accelerated to 80mph but so what?
SSCReader
5d ago
Eh, if being downvoted bothered me, I'd have been gone years ago. I'm content that most people here wouldn't actually be mowing down protestors.
SSCReader
11d ago
Because they are basically management in this scenario. I work for my boss, but that doesn't indicate my boss doesn't bring value. Now there are plenty of bad managers who do not bring value and do exploit their workers, but that doesn't mean that management in and of itself does not bring value when it comes to organizing workers efficiently. Given sex work is generally illegal it seems likely that many pimps do indeed lean towards the exploiting end but that doesn't mean the concept of pimping is invalidated.
SSCReader
6d ago
Its true that it is difficult for a nation to have a fully coherent philosophy, but I do think the US is more..inconsistent than other Western nations. Probably because Federalism is essentially the idea that you can have different philosophies of government co-existing within the same nation. Its deliberate that Texas and New York can make different decisions on what they teach or tax. Even if the Federal government has steadily expanded its reach over time.
That and sheer size and population compared to most other single nations means you're not really propagandizing one single philosophy.
This happens other places as well of course but i think it is more evident in the US. Whether this is a positive or negative is dependent on your POV I suppose.
SSCReader
6d ago
I completely agree protestors should not surround and attack vehicles. Those who do should certainly be arrested and charged.
SSCReader
6d ago
Blocking streets would be almost a textbook example of civil disobedience yes. Harassing motorists less so, but probably still covered, depending on the motorist and the level of harassment, particularly if they were trying to break the blockade. Whether civil disobedience needs to be peaceful is debated. Civil relates to citizens and their relationship with the state, not civil as in polite or peaceful necessarily.
Civil disobedience doesn't mean they are correct of course, it just means publicly breaking laws in service of some goal. Refusing to pay your taxes can be civil disobedience (a la Thoreau) and so can illegal marches and protests (a la Gandhi).
SSCReader
6d ago
Right, exactly my point. So essentially this is kind of baked in to your model. That you are going to have even more incoherence because it's like comparing Germany to France. But due to the 2 party nature of your politics it's not 50 separate nations, it's become kind of twoish with a bit of wriggle room.
SSCReader
6d ago
It is contradicted by what the video shows though. https://youtube.com/watch?v=BEbcLqBE-ts&t=14360
From 3:59:20 when they start, Rittenhouse is already running away. The bag gets thrown at 3:59:21. By 3:59:23 Rittenhouse has turned and raises his gun. The persecutor then asks at this point you have turned around and are pointing you weapon at Mr Rosenbaum. Rittenhouse says correct. Then they continue the video and we see Rittenhouse turn back around and continue to run. Then at 3:59:46 (because the pause the video they are watching for a bit) they reach the cars and Rittenhouse (presumably feeling boxed in) turns again as Rosenbaum lunges at him and fires.
The video is clear at this point. Rittenhouse points his gun at Rosenbaum twice. The second time is when he shoots him. Rittenhouse agrees with that series of events. The prosecution claims he pointed the gun at Rosenbaum THREE times, the first time being the movement he does with his arms after he puts down the fire extinguisher, the one that is extremely blurry and hard to see and happens before this part of the video. That one Rittenhouse claims is not correct. You can see that on the video starting at 3:55:14.
I'm not disputing here to say you are wrong about Rittenhouse in toto, but you are wrong about the specific series of events here. And that is why (referencing your other post) I am not sure Rittenhouse does give adequate notice of his withdrawal (assuming he did provoke the incident), he is running for about 10 seconds and in those 10 seconds he has the gun pointed at Rosenbaum twice. If Rittenhouse had actually threatened Rosenbaum, I think it is plausible the jury would not have felt this counted as a good faith retreat.
But I don't think the evidence did prove that he provoked the incident in the first place just to be clear. The reason the prosecution point to this is because at an earlier confrontation what set Rosenbaum off (where he yells "shoot me nigga") is he claims someone pointed their gun at him where Rittenhouse was there with another man.
30 years ago Bill Clinton was talking about how Americans were right to be concerned about illegal immigration, in his State of the Union address. 20 years ago Obama said people can't be allowed to pour over the border undocumented and unchecked. 18 months ago Biden talked about having to crack down on illegal immigration in a speech. Now you may question whether he means that, but he certainly didn't have any problems framing it as negative. And nor did his predecessors.
Now when Trump ralks about that do they frame that as racism? Of course, its a great attack vector. But "its racist when our enemies do it, but not when we do it" is a perfectly standard (albeit potentially immoral) political strategy. Which is targetted at what you might call squishy left leaning moderates.
It does alienate left-left people who will say things like Biden is just as bad as Trump etc. But thats not who is being aimed at.
In other words you are wrong that Democrats as a whole have been blasting concerns about illegal immigration being racist for 30 or 40 years. Only when their opponents have those concerns. Thats how they can pivot if required, on what they themselves say (or even do!) if polling indicates they should do so. When you (not you, you!) do it, its racist nonsense, when we do it, it's humanely targeted enforcement. When you say you are skeptical it will work...well it has been working. Not on everyone of course, but it doesn't need to. Just for those who are squeamish anout kids in cages, but also fear the stories of immigrant felons.
Will it work ENOUGH to win an election is the real question I suppose.
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