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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   32264 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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For people upset about ICE and due process, this coverage is also not your friend. The framings- and the not-very-deep undercurrents that go against the framing- will give a basis to dismiss concern as motivated. The children-in-cage's and child-separation critiques are not going to be forgotten. The fact that not separating children from their deported parents is now a basis of criticism is going to undercut criticims of both. The media's rush to present a concerned father is going to run into discrediting disappointing revelations.

I agree, but what am I to do with that? Based on the "child separation", the "Dreamers", this case's publicity, and the general zeitgeist, it really does seem that the only policy that will actually be accepted by opponents on this is that if you have a child in the United States, you cannot be removed. There is no actual set of proceedings that could satisfy the demand that parents not be separated from their children but also that children cannot be deported with their parents. Any attempt to come up with some narrowly satisfactory resolution that would meet the due process standard that someone came up with approximately 15 minutes ago will slam into some new bad-faith litigation about why of course some deportations are fine, but not this one.

It is increasingly clear to me that getting any resembling what I would consider an appropriate level of deportations will actually just require deciding to be mean in a way that will alienate a significant number of people. My options are not between making a strong legal argument for position or just letting everyone stay, they're between deciding to look mean or just letting everyone stay. If meanness is going to be the actual deciding factor, that's what the decision-making from my side is going to have to be centered on, and I'm perfectly fine with just being mean at this point.

It is increasingly clear to me that getting any resembling what I would consider an appropriate level of deportations will actually just require deciding to be mean in a way that will alienate a significant number of people.

If you want to hold sustained political, you'll have to find a formulation that meets as much of your goals as possible without alienating lots of voters. Probably won't be all of it, but it's awful politics to decide that you're just gonna speedrun it rather than figure out a durable policy.

If you want to hold sustained political, you'll have to find a formulation that meets as much of your goals as possible without alienating lots of voters.

Only if you keep holding elections. If you go all Augustus or Napoleon, it doesn't matter how many voters you alienate.

If you want to hold sustained political, you'll have to find a formulation that meets as much of your goals as possible without alienating lots of voters.

There is another way, of course.

The people who make labyrinths in the way of sane government policy should understand themselves as building monuments to the necessity of violence. Because that is what they are doing.

It can be reasonable and necessary to do so, in a Cold Liberal sense, but this is not what this is. This is the immigration equivalent of Locke saying "we'll just ban Atheism" as if that's a solution.

Labyrinths are one thing, but /u/walterodim was pretty clear he felt like the opposition was coming directly from the people being alienated.

I don't believe in public opinion.

You’re entitled to that, but you can’t then be shocked if you lose elections.

What possessed you to think that I, an avowed critic of democracy, would be surprised that good government is unpopular?

My point is precisely that, though it is, we live in reality, not in whims. Which you can only ignore for a time before despotism grows in its allure. Brainwashing your population to make sure sensible rule is impossible has consequences.

I encourage you to read Federalist No. 10 again.

The problem with getting despotism via populism is clear.

See you say that, and many people say that, but I don't think they actually believe it. Otherwise Americans wouldn't have been ramping up anarcho-tyranny and handing all power to the executive for decades now.

The American People don't have a good intuition for how bad things can get if you torch institutions because lawlessness has seldom happened to them in living memory. Otherwise they wouldn't be arresting each other's judges and politicians so brazenly.

I'm perfectly fine with just being mean at this point.

OK, you've decided to be mean. ICE agents are screaming at crying toddlers and dragging them kicking and screaming away from their parents, who are put in concentration camps until they can be deported to a country that may jail or execute them.

Problem: Normies hate seeing things like this. They balk and the other party wins the next election. All of Trump's policies are written in chalk that can just be erased when a new POTUS is in town. Now there's talk about going back to the defacto open borders of Biden's times.

What's step 2 in your master plan then?

That's why you can't have massive deportations without authoritarianism, even if they are supported by the majority. People go to the US for the better life that's just too of a empathetic reason for the public to not be sympathetic to them. Yes, this line of thinking logically leads to de facto open borders and hundreds of millions Africans and latinos going to US but that too second order for common folk.

Either that or public stops being empathetic to anybody but their tribe, but I don't think that's very likely in America.

I'm sure the public would be perfectly fine believing that nothing untoward is happening if the media was on the side of the ruling administration and either not talking about it or dutifully framing it and reminding normies that these are people who broke the law and are getting their comeuppance (however fitting that is to the facts).

That's unlikely to happen under a Republican administration for political reasons, but the idea that it's impossible to convince your run of the mill American to be indifferent to the fate of people with interests that conflict with theirs is farcical. Wars were begun and ended on much flimsier pretenses.

The question is whether you'd call that media manipulation authoritarianism or not. I think any serious analysis is past such qualifiers. Effecting unpopular causes with popular consequences is like the entire purpose of government. And people really want to be lied to about these things.

They want to think of themselves as empathetic whilst they launder the violence necessary to maintain society to the State. So the banality of evil has to happen, but off camera.

I'm sure the public would be perfectly fine believing that nothing untoward is happening if the media was on the side of the ruling administration and either not talking about it or dutifully framing it and reminding normies that these are people who broke the law and are getting their comeuppance (however fitting that is to the facts).

Kind of tangential, but whenever I hear people complaining that the media is reporting unfairly on Trump (which, to be fair, you are not saying), I want to play a very sad song for that guy on the world's tiniest violin. Trump made his first baby steps into politics by condemning the Central Park Five, and not surprising to anyone with the benefit of hindsight, he was full of shit when he did so. Decades later, he elected the fringe conspiracy theory of birtherism to make a foray into politics in earnest, followed notably by the denial of the 2020 election result. Even his White House press releases look like the ramblings of someone who has long lost contact with anything resembling objective truth. So if his political demise comes at a totally fabricated yellow press story of him fucking a male underage porcupine, I would call that poetic justice.

Now, I am a lot more sympathetic to both deontological and consequentialist arguments against twisting the truth to foil him. The deontological argument is basically that by adopting a Trumpian nihilist irreverence for what is true, the press is basically throwing overboard the most important quality which separated them from him. (Or at least part of it -- see SA on Bounded Distrust.) The consequentialist argument is that you can not out-bullshit the master bullshitter, and that the way to prevail against him is not to get dragged down to his level. (Not that I would call the spinning the MSM did on this story Trump level dishonesty, sure, they did spin it and selectively reported the facts to suit their agenda, but if this was instead a WH press release I would be fully prepared to later learn that Honduras is not a country and people do not have mothers because humans multiply through fission.)

And sure, from some cosmic perspective, Trump probably does not deserve to have lies told about him, in the same way that Billy the fucking Kid did not deserve to have his life snuffed out by a piece of lead.

Live by the media controversy, die by the media controversy?

I'm sure the man himself actually loves it. You never see him smirk as much as when he can call some journo "fake news". I find that whilst the most ridiculous lies are told about the man and he constantly complains about it, the way he frames the complaints tells another story. Trump is constantly doing "a little trolling (it's called [...] a little trolling)".

The far more legitimate complaint here is that the MSM should be, on their own terms, above falling for it. And yet since 2016 they've gleefully shoveled their credibility into a fire trying to claim the "Trump bump" to anchor their dying viewerships.

Not that I am making the complaint, I'm now securely convinced that journalists have always been dishonorable sellswords and should be treated as such. But that's what I imagine the frustration from people sentimental about the Cronkite era looks like.

Either that or public stops being empathetic to anybody but their tribe, but I don't think that's very likely in America.

"It is not that 'cruelty is the point'- it is that the accusation of cruelty is no longer sufficiently deterring." - was a quality contribution nominee in the last quality post roundup, for what it's worth.

That's why you can't have massive deportations without authoritarianism, even if they are supported by the majority.

You absolutely can.

Step 1 would be to have competent and diligent people in charge, making decently intelligent decisions about prioritization and being dedicated to followthrough.

Like, this lady was voluntarily showing up to periodic checkins with ICE. Seems like they could have easily given her 10 days to figure out what to do.

She had a removal order and was removed. She requested her child accompany her. That was granted.

ICE was as nice as is realistically possible to he aside from not deporting her. The "mean" part is to the child who is 2 years old and doesn't even know what being a citizen is. Also said child can come back to the US when they want to. Obviously that will be in the distant future because she probably can't articulate anything on that level at the moment.

Regarding these immigration stories that keep coming out, I feel like we are at, "Just let the terrorists win" levels at this point. That is the argument coming out of the media.

I dont want the terrorists to win. How do you propose to do so?

In this case tell her that we’re terminating the ISAP and she’s got till next week to depart.

She’s been showing up diligently to check-ins, she’s not the problem.

Step 1 would be to have competent and diligent people in charge, making decently intelligent decisions about prioritization and being dedicated to followthrough.

People tried that. The ones calling themselves diligent and competent refuse to implement the policies they campaign on, and proceed to invest their political capital into foreign wars that aren't ran diligently or competently.

And if diligence and competence gets us Biden's border crisis, perhaps these words don't mean that much to begin with.

I don't suspect that it will go much better when substituting retarded and short-attention-spanned.

Why? The border crisis was solved overnight.

Indeed. What makes you think it's a durable solution?

Depends what you mean by "durable". I see no reason so far to believe that it will stop being effective, but if you're referring to the possibility of it being overturned by the next administration, that's certainly a choice they can make, but it's a choice that will unequivocally show that substituting the diligent and competent for the short-attention-spanned and retarded does work out better.

Now there's talk about going back to the defacto open borders of Biden's times.

Is there any evidence that this wouldn't just happen anyway?

Sure, eventually there will be another left wing President. The key outcome you'd want is to maximize your guy's time in office before that happens.

Forget about the deportation for a minute and assume the mother decided to move to Honduras with the child. Unless the father's parental rights were completely terminated, he would have grounds to contest the decision in Louisiana family court. The fact that ICE is now involved doesn't magically supersede state law and allow the mother to make a unilateral decision, and ICE shouldn't have sent away the child absent a determination by the family court.

I am not a family law lawyer, but it seems like the father may not have any rights under LA since the parents weren’t married when the kid was born.

Ouch, that is fucked up.

Presumably, this means that that the father also does not owe any alimony, since giving someone the duties of parenthood without the rights of parenthood would be plainly absurd?

I jest.

Nah, hé fucked around(like actually literally) and found out. He could’ve married her to fix it(it’s unlikely to me that a woman would turn down a marriage offer from a man she’s already having a kid with- the exceptions are probably AWFLs, not illegals).

I'm assuming the 11 year old is the daughter of this man, but what if she's not? What if Mom moved herself and her kid to the US (illegally), met a new guy, had a kid with him outside of marriage and that kid is the 2 year old citizen here. Then the father of the 2 year old has no relationship to the 11 year old, which may be why he's not seeking custody of her.

Letting both daughters go back with Mom may not be the meanest decision here, if the primary family is Mom and daughters with Dad (of 2 year old) not living with them.

That's perfectly compatible with @quiet_NaN's point, though. If we're going to force the moron in question to take on the duties of parenthood, he should take on ALL of them, and the rights and privileges thereby.* Which is pretty similar to the old remedy of the shotgun wedding. It's the non-reciprocity of it that repels.

*Unless he's clearly unsuited, which would presumably be decided by social services.

At a certain level, there are things we make people do. ‘Providing for your kids’ is one of them. It’s beyond civilizational capacity to make him do it well, so we don’t- send x amount of money is a perfectly reasonable amount of state coercion.

I can't take claims that the Trump admin is trying to decrease the population of illegal immigrants in the US seriously in the absence of any attempts to expand the scope of e-verify.

But focusing on employers through an already-existing program wouldn't let Trump grandstand and vice signal.

that the only policy that will actually be accepted by opponents on this is that if you have a child in the United States, you cannot be removed.

Should be

that the only policy that will actually be accepted by opponents on this is that you cannot be removed.

These people aren't upset about the anchor baby. They're upset that illegals aren't being allowed to stay. There are no grounds for a special exception to US immigration laws that they won't accept. If an illegal crossed the border and claimed asylum in the US from the nth-dimensional lizards who gangstalk them in the old country, the people upset by this removal would gladly say that he has the right under international law to stay.

This is wildly uncharitable.

But is it untrue? We are seeing people who, outside of illegal migration context, are considered lowest of the low - child molesters, drug dealers, domestic abusers, violent gangsters, robbers, rapists, etc. - are protected and defended by the establishment figures as soon as the removal is concerned. Up to personally obstructing immigration officials, sometimes. Where is the bar where they'd say "no, that's enough, we agree this person needs to be removed from our country"? I don't know, but certainly it is so low that at least anybody who is not engaged in active combat against the Americans at this particular moment seems to be easily clearing it.

If an illegal crossed the border and claimed asylum in the US from the nth-dimensional lizards who gangstalk them in the old country, the people upset by this removal would gladly say that he has the right under international law to stay.

No, I wouldn't.

The best execution of the policy would likely have been to let the call happen for some period longer than 5 minutes, and document thoroughly discussions and decisions about the custody of the 2-year-old, but with the same result (assuming that the mother did in fact want to keep the daughter with her, and the father did not have some legal right to contest that.

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