TK-421
2mo ago
Do you all trust your government so much that you just assume it has good reasons to do what it does, even if the immediate consequence is that in large parts of the world you may be picked off the street and justifiedly hauled off to be tortured and killed?
Emphasis mine.
Was this a typo? In what sense is it justifiable to take reprisal on the citizens of a belligerent power that aren't involved in hostilities?
The United States government is not friendly with the government of Iran. Both sides have killed individuals on the other side. Yet somehow I would not find it justified if someone on my street snatched up an Iranian tourist for torture / murder. I would not find it justified if the US government did it. And I would not find it justified if Iranians did it to random Americans.
If it's not a typo, can you please explain the line of government behavior beyond which the citizens of a country should expect to justifiably have their brains blown out if they wander down the wrong street on a foreign taco tour?
TK-421
2mo ago
My apologies. That is a significant difference; unspeakable pains have been inflicted, huge numbers of human lives have been cut short based around those identities. It is a legitimate horror that such things occur.
The great news is that for the mindset I'm describing those differences are washed away. These people, assuming they were raised right, will not piss on the Pakistani or Indian immigrant alike to put them out if they were on fire and they'd make absolutely sure the immigrant in question knew it. There is no Us without a Them and the details of whatever makes one of them Them are only meaningful to better craft insults. To do otherwise is trashy.
Lack of izzat is a massive problem among westerners if you ask me. The level of disrespect they show towards not only other people but also other things means a lot of the time I'm interacting with (especially lower class) people I'm subconsiously thinking "didn't your parents teach you any better?".
God in Heaven, the discourse is actually "oh rly? yur low class shitbags are scummy too, my low class shitbags aren't even that bad, lol".
I don't mean to pick on you BurdensomeCount. Many other posts in this thread are as bad or worse from the other direction. I'm not Indian (dot or feather), this thread is the first I've heard of this izzat concept. The gist I get is that it is an extremely broad and nebulous concept akin to prowess / craft / vigor / doing the needful. Indians being asked to comment on izzat as though their opinion means anything would be like me trying to provide an accurate, non-controversial definition of rizz.
To answer your rhetorical inner voice: no, of course their parents didn't teach them better, they are low class shitbags. Often their parents were also not taught better. Many such examples in every culture through every period of every time on every corner of this earth. Encountering a low class shitbag should produce zero units of Surprise. Low class shitbag is the human default, you should only be amazed that there exists anything better.
If I may now be part of the Problem, this entire line of inquiry is based around the lived experience of the individuals sharing their opinions. If I'm not mistaken, you are an Indian immigrant to the UK? It's possible that you are treated extra poorly across the spectrum, but especially by the low class shitbags, because many people in the UK sincerely believe that you - personally - are part of a serious problem straining their society. (If you began thinking of reasons they are wrong, please stop. You are only sabotaging yourself This is not a factual question. The actions of a human being are rooted in their beliefs, not something as abstract and fake as a "fact".)
I can only answer for my own experience and cultural milieu. Coming from a conservative part of the Southern United States, though born in the mid 80s and therefore only getting a watered down version by that time, I can tell you the expected response my culture would have for an individual encountering you in the context of your presence being part of a phenomenon widely believed to be harming my community's culture / prospects / lives / etc: to treat you poorly. That is what would be expected of someone raised correctly and making their parents proud.
Perhaps some of what you're encountering is good behavior within a society / context / culture / folkway of which you are not a member.
Edit: To clarify, I've heard my grandfather ask aloud your "but where were their parents?" question about people in his community who are kind and welcoming towards Yankees. The same behavior can be a signifier of low class, high class, or even completely class neutral contextually.
TK-421
3mo ago
Using a literal retard (IQ in the 50's) as a pawn in a sting operation and then pressing charges against him after: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/04/07/ATF-sting-nets-mentally-handicapped-man/58531365366967/
In fairness to the ATF, imagining the mentally disabled man cheerfully helping his new friends buy guns and drugs for their fake store is funny. And the prosecutors ended up only seeking probation. A guy with an IQ in the 50s might not even notice he's on it.
TK-421
3mo ago
This more or less aligns with my view. That gets me suspicious. I don't actually know that much about FBI counter-terrorism arrests, the specificity of our cynicism has me concerned that I may have ingested a meme. (You probably already knew more of the information below. I'm not assuming that you're a meme puppet. I might be because I did not have the data before forming the opinion.)
So let's break out the equipment and get me a diagnosis.
There doesn't seem to be easily accessible data about the number of FBI operations that result in arrests. The best sources GPT-5 has found for me so far are the United States Attorney Annual Statistical Reports. Here is FY2024 for an example.
Table 3B on Page 14 shows that in FY2024 there were 432 cases filed in the Terrorism/National Security Critical Infrastructure program category. That's tied for the most with FY2021 but ~200-400 cases a year has been the ballpark figure since FY2019.
The problem, as always, is aggregation. It's unclear how many of those cases were Terrorism-Terrorism, in the Whoopi Goldberg rape-rape sense, that involved an active plot (even if basically run by the Feds) versus crimes like providing material support to terrorists or trespassing on national security critical infrastructure.
You could scrape all the cases and have an AI categorize them but I'm not that worried about my health - I might be a moron talking nonsense but this isn't something where I'm going to suffer any real consequences for being mistaken. So I had GPT-5 summarize. It thinks - and I asked for very rough numbers - about 55-70% of them were Domestic Terrorism related with things like hoaxes, support, etc. not being particularly common.
However. More complications. The notes on Domestic Terrorism included this gem: "Since 2020, domestic-coded cases have far outnumbered international ones, driven heavily by 2020–2022 waves (e.g., Capitol-breach-related charges and civil-disorder/threats statutes appearing under the terrorism/internal-security program)."
I remain unsure of the prevalence of serious, imminent plots. But I am now convinced that the government should, as a public service, make available an AI equivalent to or better than GPT-5 Thinking that has easy access to all public information.
But this is also a checkup of how well I've integrated the information environment. So I asked GPT-5 for summaries of major news stories around similar plots. It found 8 from the last 5 years - interestingly, it did not include the Gretchen Whitmer case. Of those 8, it assessed that FBI undercover operation involvement in the planning was High in 5 cases, Unknown in 2 (including today's), and Low in 1. The Low one was a tip.
High involvement means things like "CHS + FBI “assets” sold two AK-47s in sting". See the table at the bottom of the GPT-5 conversation.
Final Diagnosis? I feel pretty good that my baseline assumptions, while not always being correct, are directionally accurate. Anyone who disagrees with The_Nybbler and I is either unaware of the data or the brainless meat puppet of an idea.
TK-421
3mo ago
Good News Citizens
The FBI has saved Halloween. A terrorist plot dramatically broken up just before Halloween really gets into full swing. Smoking guns averted. Guitar solos as sunglassed G-men arrest terrorists and confiscate AK-47s.
One tidbit does, however, stand out from the article: An FBI undercover person was introduced into the chatroom in the early stages of discussion, that official added.
Register your predictions now. Terrorists busted? Or FBI has created a new fake and gay "terrorist plot" so they can swoop in?
Mine is that some morons just ruined their lives for the greater glory of Kash Patel.
TK-421
3mo ago
I barely remember who this guy is, does it really mean anything if his project tanks?
I argue yes. This is the Culture War and who gets to make cultural artifacts with massive amounts of money involved is a major front.
It's my assertion that Ansari is a good measuring stick precisely because his offense was relatively trivial. If the film succeeds, MeToo in the mainstream narrative is effectively dead. If it fails, at a minimum Ansari is the new line. The film itself is allegedly around average, underperformance is likely a strong signal from the distributed voting mechanism that is ticket sales that doing as Aziz does is still verboten. Doing better than bad would also be a signal. Producers and distributors react accordingly. The media environment changes.
TK-421
3mo ago
Good Fortune? Or Bad Omens
The next great survey is about to begin. As with all meaningful social opinions, it will be measured in money. The film Good Fortune will be on us tomorrow and soon we shall know if America is ready to be willing to be seen with Aziz Ansari publicly after finding out how bad he is at sex.
My leaning was weak financial performance but decent enough, even at a net loss to the studio, to let Ansari continue awkwardly sidling back into our homes. After the Riyadh Comedy Festival, I've downgraded my forecast to a bomb.
I also predict that Ansari is going to be the last of the non-incarcerated tranche of MeToo celebrities to be fully acceptable in far blue society. People involved in worse will do better. Women won't like getting close enough to risk touching the ick field Ansari is coated in and, while funny and obviously well connected, he can't make something essential enough to overcome that reaction.
What say you, entertainment industry financial forecast specialists?
TK-421
3mo ago
If this sounds a lot like a religion, then that's because it should. Marxism undoubtedly shares many structural features with traditional religions in its fundamentals.
Are there many other mass political / economic systems that don't share structural features with traditional religions like offering meaning and purpose to varying degrees? Is Marxism a significant outlier?
TK-421
3mo ago
This is the political angle that Trump can show to his base. It's not actually going to him - well, some might slosh off - it's a demonstration of his reinvigorating of the American economy. Bringing in the bacon. The same triumphal vibe as DOGE or the tariffs. It's a win, a smart deal, and it's going to lead to years of bigger negotiations as the distribution networks reconfigure.
(Also years of lawsuits. That's the same thing as a negotiation.)
TK-421
3mo ago
I strongly encourage you take a dive with the AI of your choice on the subject. Every layer has deep complexity and I now understand why networks, stations, affiliates, even the bigger entertainment conglomerates are structured the way they are. The technical implementation details are interesting for their own sake but you can really start to see how they dictate a big sector of the economy.
TK-421
3mo ago
You're ignoring the fact that, according to Neilsen, about 20% of people in the US rely on OTA TV to receive local stations, myself included, and that number is in excess of 30% in some markets.
My apologies, I wasn't trying to ignore you. I considered calling out that many people who rely on OTA for TV and analyzing their alternatives but the original post was already getting long.
The short answer is that I don't care about you and I think others shouldn't either. It's a cost benefit analysis. I acknowledge that many people will lose access to OTA TV. My expectation is that most, 90%+, will be able to substitute the entertainment they get from local TV from any of the others in our modern grab-bag of entertainment distribution. Many are elderly people who will barely notice if the TV at the nursing home is repurposed for streaming. But even if more people are affected than I think I still don't think it's enough to overcome the benefits. I am sorry grandma, your stories are using a common resource that we need for growth.
There are emergency and public notification functions that OTA TV also serves. I think in many cases that information can be disseminated through other means but if there's a very low cost way to keep that or if the buyer of the spectrum can easily provide the service then sure, but it's these kinds of little carve outs and extra requirements for tiny populations that leads to the administrative and contracting bloat we are fighting. Sometimes maintaining backwards compatibility really is too expensive and we should make the change and let market forces solve for the edge cases.
TK-421
3mo ago
The FCC, Trump, and Healing a Divided Nation Through Handouts
Here is the FCC Broadcast License for WCBS in New York. Broadcast Licenses were talked around a great deal during the Jimmy Kimmel situation but they weren't not talked about very much. This eventually became confusing for me. A lot of the rhetoric implied, and it makes intuitive sense, that removing a station's broadcast license is equivalent to stopping them from displaying their content. You had a license to speak, now you don't, so you don't get to speak.
But what actually happens when a broadcast license is revoked?
The answer eventually leads one to discover a fine distinction: the license permits the station to broadcast according to its specifications but that doesn't mean it's the only way the station has to broadcast. The license is covering the station as transmitter not the station as speaker. The license is really about spectrum allocation, not content. If WCBS loses their license there's no reason the station has to shut down and it's very likely that no one would even notice.
Broadcast stations have certain rights to be carried by distributors like a cable company or YouTube TV. Every 3 years they can chose to be either must-carry or retransmission: Must-carry means that all distributors must include the channel's content in their offerings but the broadcaster isn't allowed to be paid for it. This is common with public television channels or smaller market broadcasters. Retransmission is for broadcasters who have a product that distributors actually want. Local stations in big markets like WCBS-NY. This means distributors have to negotiate a contract with the broadcaster to carry the channel.
This is where we start to enter ground truth: money. Retransmission fees are a major source of revenue for these over the air (OTA) broadcasters. How much of their revenue? This is surprisingly hard to answer because all contracts in this distribution network make the numbers private. Redacted during lawsuits private. For a rough estimate, think 40-55% of their revenue.
There is one more technical aspect that it's important to understand: the distributors do not use the OTA broadcast signal for the retransmission. The OTA studios are sending their signal to the distributors digitally. At the technical level there is no difference for the distributor between an OTA channel and a cable one.
But there's a big difference in how much the distributor pays. Lots of variation but retransmission of a local channel is about 2-3x the cost of a non-sports or major cable channel. The delta is driven by two things: sports and regulatory arbitrage. Take out sports and local channels are essentially a low tier cable channel.
The details of the sports contracts are also proprietary but there are almost certainly reach clauses that a network like Fox would be in breach of if, for example, all of their stations simultaneously lost their FCC broadcast licenses. This would cause a healthy reshuffling across the entire media distribution system.
How
The FCC has the power to change or revoke licenses at any time for, among other reasons, "...if in the judgment of the Commission such action will promote the public interest, convenience, and necessity, or the provisions of this chapter or of any treaty ratified by the United States will be more fully complied with". The FCC currently has enough commissioners to form a quorum once the government reopens.
The public interest / good is a standard used throughout FCC regulations. It is also not a statutorily defined standard, it is meant to be interpreted by the Commission. The public good for allocating the spectrum has included technical and other non-content related considerations. The spectrum is a public good and there may be a better use for it even if there's nothing at all objectionable about how you're using it.
Which is how the FCC Commission will phrase it. And we know it is true because in 2017 an auction of OTA broadcaster frequencies brought in around 19 billion. Very imprecise but a rough value of auctioning off the spectrum used by current license holders would be the 25-50 billion range. This is a valuable natural resource and economically we are not being good stewards of it given technological advances.
Who Gets What
Trump: 25-50 billion, Drains The Swamp.
Democrats: No more fear of government censorship. Maybe kick some of the auction money their way.
Humble Citizens: lower cable bills, technological marvels from higher value spectrum uses, better access to the sports they desperately crave.
Economy: Redistribution of long standing revenue flows, creative destruction.
The best part - no legislative change necessary. The FCC can do this the moment they convene again following the shutdown using their existing statutory authority. The Administrative State's tools shall dismantle the Administrative State's house.
TK-421
3mo ago
I am American and understand how it works...
Then I notice that I'm confused. In your original post you said: "How do you know they’re not US citizens if, as ICE has been doing, the people being detained are not given a chance to prove their citizenship?". But that means you know that ICE can't deprive you of a chance to prove your citizenship because a claim of citizenship (or legal status generally) can only be legally adjudicated by a court. They cannot deprive you of a chance to prove your citizenship. If you know of any cases where it seems they have been doing that I would be extremely interested to learn more - that would be, to me, an actual scandal.
Citizens shouldn’t have to worry about being detained for even a few hours by federal agents just because those agents randomly decide your license is fake...
Yes, but also no. Yes because I agree that citizens shouldn't have to worry about that in the same way I think citizens shouldn't have to worry about being the victim of a crime or (if running for office) citizens shouldn't have to worry about how they're going to put food on the table. Ideals we should strive towards but which are not achievable in our current - maybe any - civilization.
I have no idea about the situation you're describing so I'm not making any judgment about the details. I will admit that there have been enough "ICE Agents Did A Bad" stories that turn out to mean "ICE Agents Enforced Immigration Law" or "Complete Fabrication, ICE Agents Not Involved" that my skepticism level of an ICE related story is at the level of Jussie Smollett reporting a new hate crime. But that's my bias talking and it's absolutely possible that it happened exactly as presented, so let's stipulate that this was a Bad Encounter.
Bad Encounters are bad and we should work to minimize them. Bad Encounters are also inevitable and there are feedback mechanisms to do their best to correct the damage - I truly do hope that if this guy has some sort of case against ICE he gets anything he's entitled to - afterwards.
Maybe, though, this type of Bad Encounter is more widespread than I believe and citizens are being routinely detained in large numbers. I have not seen any evidence from reporting that this is true, I haven't personally seen it or known anyone who has despite having friends who have illegal immigrant family members, and given the number of Hispanic citizens and the intensity of press coverage on the issue I'd expect it to be clearer. If in my bias I have missed it or if this happens in the future (because I think it very improbable) I give you permission to say about me "man, what a maroon". This would also be a large scandal to me.
...especially in a country like this where limiting government overreach was a core value of our constitution...
Skepticism towards authority is pro-American and healthy, but like all virtues it can be taken too far. Don't forget that the same George Washington who freedom fought against British tyranny turned around and personally led troops as President during the Whiskey Rebellion - which was partially a dispute over Federal authority.
TK-421
3mo ago
Fact of the matter is, policing in Democrat controlled areas is fucked. When they aren't being ambushed and murdered, politicians are throwing them under the bus, or to the wolves, and recruitment has completely collapsed.
TLDR: recruitment in one local Democrat city police department does seem to be suffering from poor candidates but the department itself makes recruitment difficult and is likely to make it harder.
Personal story time. I live in a very blue city in a very blue state. You have seen my city in the news many a time regarding its police.
I am also in about month six of the hiring process for my city's police department. The below is only applicable to my experiences with a single department but from what I've heard it's broadly similar to other comparable departments*.
It's not fair to say that the process is broken necessarily because I think it's heavily constrained by the stakeholders as explained below, but it is awful. As I said, I'm in month six. Month six of how many? Haha haha, there is absolutely no way to know but I'd guess at least three more months before I would start the academy (if selected). This means that with the academy and field training it's around 18-24 months from application to a usable police officer.
This department is also about 10% below its previously approved staffing targets. One would assume that with the current numbers and the known recruitment issues, the department would at least keep standards the same if not be forced to lower them. Haha, haha. The physical standards - already way, way beyond the state's requirements - are changing to remove age/gender norming and adding another upper body event. They fully expect that the change will cause large numbers of candidates - I'd guess around 50% - who are currently well above passing to fail in the new system.
My interaction with the other candidates comes via boot camp style workouts that are technically optional but anyone not attending regularly (1-3 times a week for all those months you're in the process) will not have their application moved forward when it hits a certain point. They're better about communicating this now, previously they just silently let you wait. And wait. In a part where it's normal to wait two+ months before you're contacted to start the processing. There are probably people still expecting a call that is never going to come**.
Some of these are relatively relaxed. Others are extremely militaristic and difficult, much worse than anything I remember from actual boot camp from my prior service. 4-6 mile runs with other exercises sprinkled in are not uncommon.
But they do allow a good opportunity to meet and evaluate the other candidates. Now, I'm not a great one myself so I do not brag when I say that I'm probably in the top 25%. I don't know the quality of the people who applied in the past. I would not rate the average highly now.
So the obvious question: why? Why is it like this? Again, some of this is may be specific to my city but my impression is that it's because it benefits no one to fix it. The ACAB / Defund the Police chatter has quieted down nationally but is still very strong at the local level and they fight to reduce the budget for officers - and even previously budgeted spots that aren't filled represent money that can eventually be clawed back. The existing officers aren't really impacted yet outside of opportunities for additional overtime. Why not push for the highest standards possible? Don't we want the best of the best? The city has limited upside but massive downside possibilities when hiring. The benefits of a supercop are real but diffuse and difficult to measure. The price of a bad cop can be calculated in lawsuits - and this is a very litigant friendly state. Plus the more combustible risks. A couple of cops who set their mind to it could probably bankrupt the city and get part of it burned down in riots. Be as methodical and restrictive as you possibly can because the pain felt by residents through underpolicing is also more diffuse and the public will at least partially blame the cops anyway. Win/win.
My prediction is that things will not change unless there's a sufficiently horrifying event that gets recorded and can be directly blamed on understaffing (unlikely) or enough of a crime wave to elect a city government focused on the issue (possible but ACAB).
- This will likely be remedial for Americans but for the benefit of any non-US barbarians reading: Things vary so much because in the US there is no such entity as The Police. There's a marvelous constellation of departments at all kinds of levels of jurisdiction who are granted police powers by various authorities. We do not have something like the Garda in Ireland or Sweden's Police Authority. There are advantages and disadvantages to that model - data collection would be dramatically easier - but there's no chance that the US will be moving towards it any time soon so they don't really matter.
** Each step is like dealing with the DMV if the DMV was able to tell you to go away and they'll get back to you whenever. One regular at the workouts was rejected near the very end of his process and filed an appeal. In January. The appeal contains all the necessary information because all the relevant investigations have been completed, it's just waiting on yes/no.
TK-421
4mo ago
| I am not a politician; I have no charisma nor political skills, nor the skills required to hire such people, nor the money it would take to successfully lobby against even one law (and there are many bad ones). In practice, I cannot get a law changed. My choices are obey or not.
Bummer. I think you're being a little bit of a negative Nancy and you are able to meaningfully participate in the political process more than you believe, but it's true that people can have diminished capacity to engage with or even understand some laws / politics. There are many unfair disabilities that nature inflicts. I hope that in the future we will have the material, technological, social, etc. ability to have much finer instruments than current legal systems for structuring behavior. That is not currently possible. Your impairment, though, doesn't result in an outcome substantially different than someone who must live under a law they dislike but is enacted through the existing legitimate processes.
| No, of course not. If I'm breaking the law I'm doing what I want because I want to do it, and I don't much care if The Man doesn't like it.
That's chill. Just don't shoot the cop that pulls you over for speeding and if you lose the court case pay your fine.
| I don’t know what defense I’d have in the moment if ICE decided to detain me after making the determination that a.) I’m undocumented and b.) the license I gave them is fake.
I guess it would go the same way as the guy from your story, you're detained for a couple hours and released when they discover that you aren't the right person. That's supposed to be kidnapping?
Edit: I just realized that your "...Americans are right to sour..." statement might mean that you aren't American and don't know how ICE fits into the deportation flow, so my comment may have been excessively harsh.
From reporting, it may seem reasonable to think that ICE is rounding people up and choosing who to deport based on what they determine about the person's citizenship status. That could produce a situation where someone goes to the grocery store without their passport, gets caught up in a sweep, and finds themselves on the next flight to CECOT.
This is false. ICE does not make deportation determinations. The deportation decision has already been made by an immigration judge and ICE then needs to positively establish a person's identity to know whether they are the correct Jose Gonzalez who has a removal order. If yes, process them for deportation. If no, they can still detain you and refer you to an immigration court, but they can't deport you and you will have the ability to plead your case to the immigration court. (There are some nuances with immigration officers in some situations in border areas where they have more discretion to order an expedited removal, and if you at all claim US citizenship then expedited removal isn't permissible, this is not what's happening with ICE.) It's basically the same as other agencies enforcing different laws - ICE does not have the independent authority to deport in the same way that the police can arrest you for something but they can't make a determination of your guilt or impose a sentence.
TK-421
4mo ago
| (and no, I don't accept "We live in a society therefore suck it up and obey", no matter how many words you put behind it).
And I don't accept that you're a Free Man and that following laws you disagree with means that you're being unjustly put upon and must suck it up and obey. There are many, many avenues for you to try to get a law changed depending on the law. You are not a creature in a state of nature that has been cruelly subjugated and is striking a blow against The Man by doing what you want. Calling contributing to the smooth functioning of society even in areas that you might have some disagreement sucking it up and obeying is the attitude of a child, no matter how many times you shout "freedom".
| Sometimes, I want some of that machinery chipped away, so the organized, peaceful, advanced society can be less regimented.
Totally fair and reasonable to want to live in a different, more anarchic society and it's entirely possible that such a society would be better in some ways. By all means, get out there and advocate for your vision. But your preferences do not get to be arbitrarily imposed on the ~347 million other people in the US.
TK-421
4mo ago
| The concern is if you have law enforcement doing wack crazy shit, what if they accidentally pick up a US citizen and because they're operating at a level of "wack and stupid" they get shipped off? We should demand more competency from the government.
This is a concern, yes. This (very valid and very real) concern is true of all law enforcement. What if we arrest or even convict someone of a crime that they did not commit?
The answer is that we sometimes do.
Barring an even more intrusive surveillance state and its associated concerns, this is absolutely inevitable. Which is why there's a vast amount of legal guidelines around the operation of law enforcement, a robust series of protections and legal avenues for challenging the actions of law enforcement, and a free and really vocal press that will scream to high heaven over even legal but visually distasteful operations. These are all good things, great things even. Not flawless - some amount of errors will always occur and we should remain vigilant for them - but they operate well enough to know that your concern is essentially unfounded. If there were a real risk of citizens getting randomly yanked off the street and shipped overseas it would be occurring and we would know about it. ICE is being aggressive in enforcement, sure, but I'm unaware of anyone who was deported without an actual order of deportation. Even edge cases like Abrego Garcia had deportation orders. The due process has been duly delivered by immigration courts. "They have made their decision, now let ICE enforce it!" The system - it works if you let it.
And to the point that ICE is being unnecessarily inflammatory through their actions: I submit that being less invasive did not result in better cooperation or lower rhetoric. When people were (and are) legally detained by ICE after showing up to their hearings there was no end of whining that it was terribly unjust and fascist - why, those people thought they were just going in for a check-up, how dare you then arrest them? It truly does not matter how ICE operates if the other side thinks that (effectively) no person should be deported.
TK-421
4mo ago
Probably true empirically but that doesn't mean you should therefore support those breaking the law*. Consider Prohibition smuggling gangs or drug cartels. You could frame them as supplying a product that consenting adults want to use and have a natural right to ingest. That is not untrue. But these laws were put in place using the pre-existing processes within a system that generally (albeit imperfectly) works to promote human flourishing.
We live in large, complex, diverse environments. It is true and unfair that there will likely always be some subset of laws that any given person doesn't agree with at some time. Becoming a civilized person requires acceptance of that fact. It is simply not currently feasible to allow each person to craft their own legal code that conforms to their individual morality. Many people fervently believe that idolatry is immoral - they cannot break into a Hindu temple to destroy statues. Many others believe that it's morally right to punch someone who could be characterized as a Nazi - that is still assault.
So even laws as broadly unpopular as Prohibition (or, hey, immigration) are legitimate to be enforced. Attempts to circumvent them should be policed and anyone using violence or other force against their enforcement is, even if they think the law is bad according to their personal "higher ethics", scum. I support the state coming down on them with significantly higher intensity and organized violence. This is not because helping people take a chemical or cross an imaginary line between countries is depraved, it's because they are chipping away at the machinery that drives organized, peaceful, advanced societies.
It's about results; morality ain't got nothing to do with it.
- Yes - Nazi Germany, the USSR, and many other examples of oppressive governments have and do exist. There is obviously some fuzzy line that varies by individual where a government is sufficiently oppressive that resistance, including violent resistance, is justified. No, there is no objective standard; this is the Politics department, the Physics classroom is down the hall if that's the sort of thing you're looking for. And no, just because that line exists does not mean that the United States government at any level is on the wrong side.
TK-421
4mo ago
| ...however I'd wager you see the fight against Prohibition and its reduction in freedom as a good one.
Really depends on how we're defining "fight against Prohibition".
If you mean the political efforts to generate support for and pass the 21st Amendment - yeah, totally.
If you mean the efforts of smugglers and criminals to violate the law, sometimes violently - absolutely not, no.
TK-421
4mo ago
My only guess is that it feels good to them and it delivers quick cheap optics wins to serve to their base, because it feels good to many in the base as well.
Yeah, of course this is part of it. How could it not be? This is a political question being driven by political considerations for the consumption of audiences of political information. A government should deliver on its pre-election promises as best it can and make sure its voters know about it. Else it will lose to ones that do.
I don't know why they're doing it that way.
The optics, as you said, but also - why not? People interfering with ICE operations are in open defiance of Federal courts. They're deporting people with final orders of deportation. How much restraint is the Sovereign supposed to show towards internal unrest? (That's rhetorical, it's situational.)
Now we do live in a world of state level legalized marijuana so it's absolutely fair to call the administration hypocritical to choose to bring a sledgehammer to immigration law enforcement while playing dumb on marijuana. Completely true and fair and it doesn't change the fact that the Feds can enforce their law inside States up to Constitutional limits when and where and how they choose.
The best thing Dem elected officials could do (and to be fair, I assume basically are doing in many times and places) for the country would be to provide exactly as much assistance as legally required. This is not necessarily the best thing for them to always do electorally. Similar dilemmas exist on the Republican side.
Or, to invoke my proud heritage of a defeated people: why did the 82nd Airborne have to invade Little Rock?
Oh, sweet Netflix. They got to the tippy top just at the very end. The breaking news today originally came to me in the form of Netflix buying HBO. No, no. They're buying all of Warner Bros too: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/media/netflix-to-buy-warner-bros-rcna247510
Why not? I just spent hours a few days ago on the draft of a post about how Netflix was blowing absurd amounts of cash on in-house programming. Why not buy yourself the biggest diamond mine right around the time that pocket sized diamond factories start popping up everywhere?
The original target of my ire was Frankenstein. I hated it because I have lost the childlike innocence required to sit through a Guillermo del Toro movie and like it. I grew up, he didn't; or worse, he did and still has to make this shit. At least I can fold laundry while watching it. Which is, by the way, the average streaming viewing experience. Which is now the average "high" culture consumption experience. Phones being the lower version and garnering more and more of that sweet eyeball juice called money every day.
Instead, I decided to see what I could make with Veo for around $200 dollars. I present it to you, the discerning culture war audience:
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