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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   29344 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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Throwing in a quick post because I'm surprised it hasn't been discussed here (unless I missed it!), Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago sets up "ICE-free zones" in Chicago.

This comes on the heels of Trump sending in the national guard after Chicago PD apparently wouldn't help ICE agents under attack. I haven't read all the stuff about this scenario, but on the surface level it seems pretty bad, I have to say.

There's a video clip where that mayor is saying that Republicans want a "redo of the Civil War," amongst other incredibly inflammatory things. The Governor of Illinois is apparently backing the mayor up.

This refusal to help ICE and even outright claim that you're fighting a war with them I mean... I suppose Democrats have been doing it for a while. This seems... bad. I mean sure you can sugarcoat it and point to legal statues and such, but fundamentally if the local governments of these places are going to agitate so directly against the President, I can't blame Trump for sending in the national guard.

Obviously with the two party system we have a line and such, but man, it's a shame that our politicians have fully embraced the heat-over-light dynamics of the culture war, to the point where they really are teetering on the brink of starting a civil war. Not the social media fear-obsessed "civil war" people have been saying has already started, but real national guard vs. local pd or state military type open warfare. I just don't understand going this far, unless the Mayor of Chicago thinks that he can get away with it and Trump will back down.

Even then, brinksmanship of this type seems totally insane!

I suppose Newsom in CA has been doing it too, now that I mention it. Sigh. I hope that we can right this ship because man, I do not want to have to fight in a civil war I have to say. Having studied history, it's a lot more horrible than you might think.

Words are words, and actions are actions. If ICE agents actually come to major and life threatening harm as a direct result of city-mandated inaction, that’s one thing. If the Chicago mayor says inflammatory things that’s another. Trump floated using the Insurrection act, but it’s a major stretch from the actions POV (which is what matters way, way more in legal matters) to jump straight to claiming actual insurrection and rebellion. Trump has gotta sit and wait for evidence. Much like I disapprove of “declaring” emergencies (IMO you need to have, you know, an actual emergency and not just a political agitation) I strongly disapprove of that kind of crackdown based on what “might” happen. I know it kind of sucks if you’re convinced overreach is inevitable (on either side!) but the simple sucky fact is that usually you need to wait for things to actually happen (or not happen) before you can take the next step. Perception of inevitability is time-proven to be not at all equal to actual inevitability.

And on the facts the local government will always be reasonable for preventing the feds from setting up in school district parking lots (the practical and contextual issue at hand, less so some kind of Seattle lawless zone 2.0). It’s reasonable for the city to object to these actions hindering the normal and peaceful operation of their city. Even if you’re a “make immigrants uncomfortable on purpose” type, there’s a compelling public interest in making schools off-limits.

If ICE agents actually come to major and life threatening harm as a direct result of city-mandated inaction

I think "direct result" ends up doing a lot of work. ICE could also go out in fewer/larger groups closer to where backup is. The Feds could hold more forces in reserve to respond to threats.

In fact, that's probably where this is going to actually end up -- no one is gonna get hurt, but the political choice of states and localities not to assist will end up being an operational constraint on ICE.

the political choice of states and localities not to assist

I thought we settled this question in 1865.

The Supreme Court is drawn on the line in a very particular place.

I don't understand why everyone is beating around the bush (actually I do, it's partisanship, or in rationalist speak "in-group bias").

ICE's mission obviously isn't a bad mission, and most people agree with the overall goal.

ICE's conduct is obviously not good, especially in an American context, which is a country that (ideally) has a stronger aversion to government overreach than most.

"Muh masks" seems to have become a meme here, but it's real. You're Americans, why are you okay being cucked by your government. Masked non-uniformed men are stuffing people into vans. Not just that, they're sending them to third world prisons??? That's insane. Obviously it's nowhere near as bad as the NKVD, but why are you okay taking even a step in that direction? What if the Democrats spin up the "super ATF" who start kidnapping people who fuck up their gun paperwork into unmarked vans to be sent to Romania? Government overreach is bad, period.

Judges, prosecutors, and the supermajority of law enforcement agents manage to do their jobs with their faces uncovered. ICE agents could too. Doxxing ICE agents is illegal and prosecuting people who do that is almost a bipartisan slam dunk. It would be especially bipartisan if ICE didn't make themselves such easy targets by acting like NKVD-wannabes. Most Americans don't like the current immigration situation. So make ICE not maximally shit looking, and then let the Democratic leadership alienate themselves protesting something Americans like, instead of currently, where Americans are starting to dislike ICE.

Further, the actions of ICE are WILDLY UNDERMINED by the fact the administration is EXPLICITLY SAYING they won't go after farm or hotel labour (why hotels?????) If they were serious about immigrants, they'd go after them where they were in large concentrations. They'd use their political capital to push e-verify. They'd go after the AMERICAN CITIZENS WHO PAY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AMERICAN DOLLARS. But they aren't, because they don't want to. This massively undermines the legitimacy of ICE.

They made ICE maximally inflammatory, and then you act suprised the Dems are inflamed? This is the sibling equivalent of winding up your little brother then acting suprised when he tries to kick you in the nuts. You'd get a lot more parental (american people) sympathy if you weren't obviously trying to piss him off and were actually doing the thing you said is your goal, because right now it just looks like you're trying to piss him off and don't care about the goal.

Not only should masked ICE agents continue to deport illegals anywhere they could be found, there should be a mandatory ICE detachment in every school, hospital and government building. There should be ICE backed up by the National guard at fucking Target. Don't even get me started on what I wish they would do to the anti-ice protestors.

The ICE are wearing masks because if they dont they rationally think their children will be killed. That is it. If you think ATF agents have sustained prolonged sieges of major ATF buildings you want to compare these to, please do.

What if the Democrats spin up the "super ATF" who start kidnapping people who fuck up their gun paperwork into unmarked vans to be sent to Romania?

That's been tried before: in 1992 (admittedly under the elder Bush administration) Randy Weaver (not the best of characters, mind you) had an undercover informant request illegal shotgun modifications, then ATF agents shot his dog, shot his son in the back, and shot his unarmed wife who was holding a 10 month old baby.

And they followed this up a year later by, on a rather flimsy set of weapons allegations, (allegedly) lighting on fire and demolishing the Branch Davidian (David Koresh again not the best of characters) compound near Waco, killing 76, including 25 children.

The resulting backlash was complicated [1] (and also pretty terrible, but Weaver did win a civil suit and there were some later investigations of the Waco incident that weren't entirely supportive of the government side), but seemed to usher in a ceasefire in practice, with the gun folks (mostly) filling out all their paperwork and ATF not shooting up (too many) places (see the two Bundy standoffs in which they didn't go scorched earth). Although the two sides, as far as I can tell, don't really have tremendous fondness for each other still.

That's been tried before: in 1992 (admittedly under the elder Bush administration) Randy Weaver (not the best of characters, mind you) had an undercover informant request illegal shotgun modifications, then ATF agents shot his dog, shot his son in the back, and shot his unarmed wife who was holding a 10 month old baby.

This was actually a joint Federal operation. ATF entrapped him, a US Marshall killed his dog and his son, and an FBI sniper killed his wife.

I made a comment here that broadly addresses some of these points you're making.

The gamble here is that the optics will have significant utility in deterring other potential migrants. The short term results suggest that it is effective.

"Muh masks" seems to have become a meme here, but it's real. You're Americans, why are you okay being cucked by your government. Masked non-uniformed men are stuffing people into vans. Not just that, they're sending them to third world prisons??? That's insane. Obviously it's nowhere near as bad as the NKVD, but why are you okay taking even a step in that direction? What if the Democrats spin up the "super ATF" who start kidnapping people who fuck up their gun paperwork into unmarked vans to be sent to Romania? Government overreach is bad, period.

We know the potential of the online left to find, doxx, and terrorize people. It's not even up for debate. They will terrorize ICE agents' families. The tools and collective effort that anti-ICE and anti-Trumpers have at their disposal when it comes to identifying, locating and terrorizing these people is massive, and it will be an all-hands-on-deck effort. To them, they would be doxxing Nazis, so it would be for a noble cause.

They made ICE maximally inflammatory, and then you act suprised the Dems are inflamed?

I don't think you appreciate how little "Dems being inflamed" matters anymore. It's not because I, or many other middle right people want to do that. Some do, but I don't want that. That's not the goal for me. It has just become utterly impossible to not inflame Democrats at every stop. Everything Republicans do is racist or fascist, so it doesn't matter. It reminds me of this meme. It may come off as cheesy, but it is nonetheless a great way to convey what the non-left is up against every time they do anything that deviates from kit glove treatment of nonwhites or any "marginalized" community.

We know the potential of the online left to find, doxx, and terrorize people. It's not even up for debate. They will terrorize ICE agents' families. The tools and collective effort that anti-ICE and anti-Trumpers have at their disposal when it comes to identifying, locating and terrorizing these people is massive, and it will be an all-hands-on-deck effort. To them, they would be doxxing Nazis, so it would be for a noble cause.

  1. they don't do this to cops, even during the 2020 summer of love

  2. just arrest people who do this

  3. if ICE was in any way sympathetic to the median American, doxxing them would make the Dems look terrible, and prosecuting them would make Republicans look great. If half the country is fine with them getting doxxed, you have fucked up massively, and only have yourself to blame.

just arrest people who do this

Ain't gonna happen. Online doxxing mobs are not subject to prosecution. I mean as a practical matter. Even if counterfactually there was a will to prosecute, the feds couldn't get almost all of the online mob.

You don't need to get almost all. You just need to make it clear that any one of them can go to the slammer for doing the wrong thing on the public internet. That shouldn't be hard. People go to jail for CP and doxxing is inherently easier to catch.

they don't do this to cops, even during the 2020 summer of love

Here's a study out of Canada about doxxing officers.

just arrest people who do this

You could arrest someone who is doing something illegal sure. How many things could you think of right now that are technically legal but that would really stress someone out after they know they're identity as ICE agent has been revealed? I know I can think of probably a handful.

if ICE was in any way sympathetic to the median American, doxxing them would make the Dems look terrible, and prosecuting them would make Republicans look great. If half the country is fine with them getting doxxed, you have fucked up massively, and only have yourself to blame.

The perception from the left is that they are not sympathetic, so this point is moot before you even begin to explain the rest of it.

just arrest people

If Democrats were willing to do this, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. Regular criminal enforcement was left by the wayside along with immigration enforcement.

I wish we would just arrest people. Democrats have taught me, very thoroughly, that they don't want that, either.

Are we not arresting people? There have been a few stories lately (the first to come to mind: Decarlos Brown Jr.'s 14 prior arrests) that suggest that the problem is later in the pipeline.

Perhaps that's not your goal, but you have to agree that that is the goal of many of your counterparts and it's the goal of those in the White House who are implementing the policy directly. Their public statements on the matter are intentionally designed to be both silly and inflammatory

Masked non-uniformed men are stuffing people into vans. Not just that, they're sending them to third world prisons??? That's insane.

They're not US citizens, I don't give a fuck. It's extremely sane, and extremely awesome. FAFO, lawbreakers.

What if the Democrats spin up the "super ATF" who start kidnapping people who fuck up their gun paperwork into unmarked vans to be sent to Romania?

Gun people are meticulous about paperwork, and don't have much sympathy for people who don't do their paperwork. FAFO, lawbreakers.

So make ICE not maximally shit looking, and then let the Democratic leadership alienate themselves protesting something Americans like, instead of currently, where Americans are starting to dislike ICE.

I have already covered this before.

This massively undermines the legitimacy of ICE.

Perfect is the enemy of good. When the GOP fields a "deport all lawbreakers except hotel and farm worker candidate" versus a "deport all lawbreakers" candidate, I'll vote for the latter. But so far, we've only ever been offered the former.

They made ICE maximally inflammatory, and then you act suprised the Dems are inflamed?

I'm not surprised, I'm indifferent. They are inflamed because I exist. I don't care that they don't like it. No matter what I do, they will be inflamed and continuously encroach on me and mine. It's war now, war to the knife. The time for talking is over.

I write this not to wage the culture war, but to express what (I think) many who support these ICE actions are feeling and thinking. In the context above, supporting ICE makes sense. Your use of caps lock made me think you were genuinely distressed and looking to understand the other side. Maybe my answer is disappointing because there is nothing there for you to relate to (hopefully I'm wrong!), but I really think that many people feel this way and therefore really do not care what ICE does to illegals.

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? In May they took a guy’s REAL ID after wrestling him the ground and cuffing him, and just declared on the spot that it was fake. They then kept him detained for a few hours and eventually let him go after he provided his SSN (wtf???), but that doesn’t change the fact that this is retarded. There would be no story here if they simply had not done that, and just arrested the guys who were undocumented. A traffic cop can scan my license and verify it’s real, why can’t ICE? I don’t carry around my passport and as a US citizen I’m not required to. 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. Add to that the fact that some of these guys are masked, not in uniform, and refuse to present a badge. It’s pretty close to just plain kidnapping. It’s idiotic and Americans are right to sour on such an astounding lack of professionalism.

| 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.

I am American and understand how it works, I’m okay with all of that and mostly think the execution has been very bad. 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, especially in a country like this where limiting government overreach was a core value of our constitution. I haven’t liked when Democratic administrations have done stuff like this and now I also don’t like that the Trump administration is doing it.

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.

Cops, federal or other, dont decide whether your license is fake. They run it through a system, typically known as LEADS. If you pop on the system and are an American citizen without an arrest warrant issued for you, you are in the minority, maybe 0.1% probably less. And in most of those cases it is because you had your identity stolen at one point.

Everything gets checked. Sometimes frustratingly slowly. But the slowness is because of the things that prevent people from being hanged the morning after arrest, not things working in the other direction in 99.99% of cases.

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, especially in a country like this where limiting government overreach was a core value of our constitution.

I agree. Unfortunately we are in a state of exception, because a large proportion of the people within our borders are not supposed to be here, and until very recently they were coming in at a faster rate than we could kick them out. Once there are almost no illegal aliens in our country, I will gladly join you in support of strengthened civil liberties to prevent ICE overreach (coupled with extremely strict and aggressive border controls, of course!).

They're not US citizens

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.

FAFO, lawbreakers

Again, what if the government makes you a lawbreaker? This is such myopic thinking. These are terrible precedents. This is literally the definition of the "first they came for" quote but you're just super confident it'll only be the first step.

Perfect is the enemy of good

Sure, but then you can't complain when I call your guy a retard and his policies terrible. If you want to have low standards that's fine, but I get to point at them and call them terrible. Your standards suck.

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I am not very pro-immigration myself. I am mildly distressed I guess, but mainly because I feel kind of like I'm screaming into the void as a centrist.

This administration is retarded, and isn't even doing the thing they say they're doing, and it kind of feels like this (normally quite smart) community is content to clap like seals instead of going "wait why aren't they actually doing things that would solve immigration permanently, and instead going for maximum heat and chaos?"

I really think that many people feel this way and therefore really do not care what ICE does to illegals.

Polling shows trump getting steadily less popular on immigration all year. Down and to the right. So while you're right, that group is shrinking due to his shitty execution.

what if they accidentally pick up a US citizen

Cost of doing business. I don't care. As a normal middle class person with a job who isn't tatted up or dressed like a thug, ICE is literally a 0% threat to me or any people I know or care about.

Again, what if the government makes you a lawbreaker? This is such myopic thinking. These are terrible precedents. This is literally the definition of the "first they came for" quote but you're just super confident it'll only be the first step.

It's not myopic it all, in fact the liberal scales have fallen from my eyes and I see clearly. The Left is going to eventually come for me anyway, and in fact they have already been boiling the frog for decades. No matter how hard the Right contorts itself to please the Left, it will never be enough. A lot of Leftists would already like to declare me a lawbreaker for my gun ownership, political and religious beliefs, and educational choices for my own children. They just haven't gotten the right tyrant in the power yet. They have a religious view of Progress and a Manichaean worldview that divides people into Decent Human Beings and chuds. Chuds deserved to be silenced, disarmed, barred from employment separated from their own children (who will be forcibly converted into Decent Human Beings by state education)..

Sure, but then you can't complain when I call your guy a retard and his policies terrible. If you want to have low standards that's fine, but I get to point at them and call them terrible. Your standards suck.

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here. He's a "retard" because... he's doing what he was elected to do less than perfectly? Does "retard" here just mean "MAGA shitlord" or is there a more specific meaning you intended? To me, a retard (here I mean "foolish or naive person") would be trying to deport people with the best possible optics in attempt to please both sides while failing to accomplish anything of note because he'd be using a bureaucratic state full of hostile partisans. Under this definition, Trump is clearly not a "retard." Optics and decorum have been effectively weaponized by the Left, and only a retard would allow his supporters' agenda to be stymied by accusations of "racism" or "14 heartbreaking photos"-style manipulation.

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I am not very pro-immigration myself. I am mildly distressed I guess, but mainly because I feel kind of like I'm screaming into the void as a centrist.

You know, I am actually sympathetic to distressed centrists. I never wanted to be an angry partisan, and I am in fact weary and a little ashamed of my partisan thoughts and feelings. At heart I am a disappointed liberal. My world was more pleasant when I thought my fellow countrymen and I just had the same fundamental conceptions of goodness and justice, and we merely disagreed over the best ways to realize both. But it seems undeniable that the worldview of a large segment of the Left and the majority of the Right are actually incompatible and irreconcilable, and the Left believes in their political position with religious fervor. And so, in a great irony, the descendants of those religious men who laid down their arms and embraced Liberalism in order to end all holy wars must now arm themselves against a fanatical religious movement which is the fruit of that same Liberalism.

| 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.

‘Trump isn’t going after the problematic illegals’ is a reasoned criticism. The guys in a Home Depot parking lot are probably not people I want my kids hanging around with once they’re done with work(I mean, they’re roustabouts), but that doesn’t make them the worst people. The worst ones are outside of employment, making their money off of other illegals or crime.

Now farm and slaughterhouse workers are probably the least problematic ones, when native citizens have the choice between doing those jobs and jail they choose jail. Somebody has to pick the crops and slaughter the chickens and thats a very reasonable principled exception.

I will gladly pay twice as much for strawberries or steak in the U.S. if it means Americans get those jobs. I currently live in Japan, and so I'm already essentially doing that. It's really not that bad.

I heard an NPR show in which they interviewed chicken slaughterhouse workers. White Americans worked those jobs. They were displaced by illegals.

Somebody has to pick the crops and slaughter the chickens and thats a very reasonable principled exception.

Without really wanting to weigh in on whether this statement is true or not, it's at least possible to note that Congress in its wisdom created visa categories (H-2A, H-2B) for these sorts of jobs. Is it completely crazy to think "maybe we should actually use (or expand/modify as necessary) the existing visa program, rather than allow 'anything goes' under the table"?

Although there's probably an interesting tangent on using AI and robotics in slaughterhouses.

Somebody has to pick the crops and slaughter the chickens and thats a very reasonable principled exception.

???????

That’s not principled at all.

If your “principle” is “no illegals, except for these specific jobs that natives shouldn’t sully themselves with” then that’s just a comedic farce and the left would absolutely have every right to spit in ICE’s face in that case.

I'm reminded of an ironic line someone posted in a comment back on slatestarcodex or perhaps the subreddit, well before TheMotte was a thing:

I'm principled! My principles are, everything for my team, nothing for yours, and win at any cost.

I'm also reminded of a discussion I had on the SlateStarCodex subreddit with someone probably around 2020, when they were arguing that Twitter was being perfectly principled in selectively censoring Trump, since they were following the principle of "I don't want Trump to speak" (it might have been some different public figure on some different platform - my memory is fuzzy).

If you make principles sufficiently absolute or sufficiently bespoke, then you can make any behavior principled. Which, sort of like "everything is political," is really just word games, since the entire point of words having meaning is to discriminate between things that match that word and things that don't, and this destroys this ability to discriminate between "principled" and "unprincipled."

Either that, or perhaps it forces people to explicitly declare which principles are involved, forcing people to recognize different principles that each other have that were only implicit until then.

Now farm and slaughterhouse workers are probably the least problematic ones, when native citizens have the choice between doing those jobs and jail they choose jail. Somebody has to pick the crops and slaughter the chickens and thats a very reasonable principled exception.

I'm so confused what your view on immigration is. "I'm fine with immigrants if they do shitty jobs"

So then you're fine with the status quo? What % of illegal immigrants are gang bangers?

My view of immigration is that there is no market clearing price for first world citizens doing a variety of shitty jobs- you can reallocate the limited supply by offering more money, but you cannot get them fully staffed.

Ideally we would let Hondurans come, make lots of money(for them) and then go home and enjoy the purchasing power advantage. But at a certain point it’s on us for being lazy and incompetent.

there is no market clearing price for first world citizens doing a variety of shitty jobs- you can reallocate the limited supply by offering more money, but you cannot get them fully staffed.

This is, frankly, absurd. It must misunderstand both components, supply and demand. How is this supposed to work? Does demand for such workers not slope downward? (I would think that as the price of such labor increases, the quantity demanded would go down, as the price of the ultimate products would have to go up, reducing the consumer demand, in turn.) Does supply for such workers not slope upward? How would this work? Are you somehow going to entice fewer workers to take those jobs by offering $X+1 instead of $X?

It's not really a lack of a market clearing price, but if the supply curve is very flat, behavior that looks like that can happen. Suppose there are 10000 people willing to do a job from any price from $10/hr to $100/hr. And there are 3 employers willing to hire a 3333 people for any price between $10/hour and $50/hour. Market clearing price is $10/hour and one person is unemployed. Now another employer pops up, also willing to hire 3333 people for between $10 and $50. At first they offer $11, and they fill all their positions while the other 3 employers end up understaffed. Those employers offer $12 to fill their positions. The new employer offers $13, and so on -- the market clearing price eventually reaches $50 and a bunch of positions go unfilled. And if any of those employers decide they can pay more than $50 (but less than $100), all they do is move the people around and end up at a higher equilibrium price.

if the supply curve is very flat, behavior that looks like that can happen. Suppose there are 10000 people willing to do a job from any price from $10/hr to $100/hr.

A very flat supply curve would, by convention, be nearly perfectly elastic, with the value of elasticity very close to infinity. In contrast, what you go on to describe is a perfectly inelastic supply, with the value of elasticity very close to zero.

This is in pretty sharp contrast to actual measurements of the elasticity of labor supply, which are more like 0.7-1.8. Do you have any sort of empirical support for this claim of (I believe) perfectly inelastic supply (as opposed to your description of the supply curve, which would be perfectly elastic)?

Maybe I'll put off dealing with the demand side until we see if we can make some progress on the supply side. TBH, I've got a bad feeling about this one.

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They're not US citizens, I don't give a fuck. It's extremely sane, and extremely awesome. FAFO, lawbreakers.

Perfect is the enemy of good. When the GOP fields a "deport all lawbreakers except hotel and farm worker candidate" versus a "deport all lawbreakers" candidate, I'll vote for the latter. But so far, we've only ever been offered the former.

This has been my position since the Regan amnesty.

"Muh masks" seems to have become a meme here, but it's real. You're Americans, why are you okay being cucked by your government. Masked non-uniformed men are stuffing people into vans. Not just that, they're sending them to third world prisons??? That's insane. Obviously it's nowhere near as bad as the NKVD, but why are you okay taking even a step in that direction? What if the Democrats spin up the "super ATF" who start kidnapping people who fuck up their gun paperwork into unmarked vans to be sent to Romania? Government overreach is bad, period.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unlike Judges and Prosecutors which are a small, relatively cloistered group if need be, ICE is the law enforcement front line. And there is an active threat to dox and murder them. Sure you can prosecute the people who do, but it doesn't un-murder the husbands and fathers.

Cops manage just fine for centuries and they're front line. Also very unpopular in blue areas and yet aren't being murdered in their sleep.

Cops are liked in blue areas,

You actually see a lot of cop ambushes. Because you don't need to murder them in their sleep when you can literally call them out to you.

Police officers across U.S. face crisis as ambush shootings rise: "It just happened out of nowhere"

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. Nobody wants to police Democrat controlled areas with politicians literally putting targets on their back. I wouldn't pretend everything is all hunky dory in the land of policing.

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.

recruitment has completely collapsed.

Recruitment collapse is in large part due to the decline in working class human capital. Cops have high standards(reasonably so) and human capital has gotten worse.

But not, notably, targeted ambushes. A 2014 report claimed somewhat lazily that about a quarter of all ambushes had an assailant that had a prior relationship (broadly and vaguely defined) with the officer. Two thirds were spontaneous. Reading between the lines, the reasonable assumption is that it’s probably more like 1 in 8 ambushes that loosely fits your profile (ambushes themselves seem to be maybe a quarter of all “officers get shot at”). And I suspect ambushes where a very specific officer is the actual and only target is small, even there I’m not convinced their name being public is moving the margins much.

Dont get me wrong policing in general is “fucked”. I wouldn’t want to be one. In the general sense though, we do trade cop deaths for other benefits, much like we trade other deaths for other benefits all the time. It’s normal in a society. Cold as it may sound, it seems the marginal drawbacks to no-mask policy are worth the non-marginal gains in trust. And for that matter, at least naively my first assumption is that ICE agents are more, not less, safe from targeted retribution (presumably mostly gangs and cartels) because they know escalation doesn’t benefit them (stateside).

No, not in their sleep.

This is a shooting based on anti police sentiment. There’s no strong connection between that and the debate here, which is about anonymity.

Oh no an almost 10 year old mass shooting in America.

Better let the government get away with whatever they want!

  • -12

Back then the police was the target of a mass freakout the same way ICE is now, when the Blues stop using their media apparatus to drive a moral panic about ICE the shootings will also stop. It has nothing to do with organic unpopularity.

ICE's mission obviously isn't a bad mission, and most people agree with the overall goal.

The second part does not appear to be true. Or rather, it is true that "most" people agree with it, but there's a significant number opposing it both rhetorically (including here) and physically who do not, and that should not be ignored.

ICE's conduct is obviously not good, especially in an American context, which is a country that (ideally) has a stronger aversion to government overreach than most.

This is pretty much unproven. There's lots of stories, but most of them describe pretty ordinary law enforcement stuff (which I often object to, but applying such complaints only to ICE is not valid) and often use overwrought words like "kidnapping".

Democratic talking points like "if you're not enforcing the law in the way we would prefer you enforce it, you're not serious" are themselves not serious.

The second part does not appear to be true. Or rather, it is true that "most" people agree with it, but there's a significant number opposing it both rhetorically (including here) and physically who do not, and that should not be ignored.

This is my thesis. People want action on immigration, but hate how they see ICE doing it. ICE is being run poorly and the administration is fucking this up.

This is pretty much unproven. There's lots of stories, but most of them describe pretty ordinary law enforcement stuff (which I often object to, but applying such complaints only to ICE is not valid) and often use overwrought words like "kidnapping".

They've done enough dumb/weird/unpleasant looking things that it's safe to say they're not operating at a super high level of discipline or care.

Breaking a dude's leg and holding him in a hospital for 37 days with no charges under a fake name so he's harder to find isn't "ordinary law enforcement". Shipping people to prisons in different countries isn't ordinary either. Even if those people are illegal, it leaves a bad taste in their mouths, and eventually at this level of sloppy chaos, they will do something stupid and fucked up to an American citizen who isn't illegal (if they haven't already).

A comment below compared this to enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. I actually had the same thought, and wanted to expand on it.

Lets get this out of the way first: I don't think they are morally equivalent, escaping human slavery is not the same as escaping a crappy country. Being sent back to a crappy country is not the same as being sent back to a crappy country.

Where they are similar is in the political situation at hand. The fugitive slave act was meant to bring a recalcitrant north in line with the south's slavery policies. Now the divide is more between cities and rural, and the different policy preference is on immigration levels. In both cases local enforcement is needed everywhere to maintain the policy. In both cases the different policy preferences means that some areas are just not interested in carrying out the law enforcement needed.

Slavery is perhaps about 80-90% of why the civil war started. These kinds of issues do have the power to tear a nation apart. But I don't think immigration will do it. Not because of the geography of the situation. Sometimes civil wars have clean geographic dividing lines like north and south. But plenty of modern examples just have a pervasive insurgency hiding in plain site among civilians.

The reason I don't think immigration will be a lynchpin for a civil war is that most civil wars have competing groups of elites vying for power. And there are no elite groups in America that actually want to limit immigration. Academics don't want that. Business owners don't want it, immigration is great economically. Politicians don't truly want it (as someone else pointed out Trump is very conveniently ignoring the many illegal migrant farmers that keep food prices down).

The fugitive slave act was meant to bring a recalcitrant north in line with the south's slavery policies.

No, the FSA was meant to bring the recalcitrant North in line with what they agreed to in the Constitution.

Article IV, Section 3

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

If the North didn't want to return fugitive slaves, then they shouldn't have agreed to it in the first place. If they changed their mind, they should change it via the constitution instead of lawlessly defying federal authority, authority which they themselves agreed to and submitted themselves to. These concessions were necessary for the South to continue in union with the North in the first place.

The morality of slavery is irrelevant, because unlike the Constitution, it is not agreed upon between all parties.

Slavery is perhaps about 80-90% of why the civil war started.

Northern defiance of the constitution is why the civil war started. The South, correctly, thought the North couldn't be trusted to abide by their own agreements.

The constitution was a political document. The distinction you are making seems meaningless to me.

I'd describe the divide on preferred gun policy or preferred speech rights in the same way.

there are no elite groups in America that actually want to limit immigration

Thank you for speaking the core truth

Trump is very conveniently ignoring the many illegal migrant farmers that keep food prices down

He's not just ignoring them, he's telling us (and them, and the Americans who pay them) he's ignoring them. Also hotel workers for some weird reason... maybe because he owns hotels? Lmao

Good. ICE officers have, in my mind, about as much legitimacy as federal officials enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and it is every red-blooded Americans moral duty to resist them.

  • -30

and it is every red-blooded Americans moral duty to resist them.

Below is an aside to @Gillitrut 's comments. It looks like he/she/they (idk pronouns) have decided to flame out in this thread.

Regardless of what "it" is, a blanket statement asserting the "moral duty" to react in any way to whatever "it" is ... is something close to the antithesis of the Motte, I think. People get to voice whatever strongly held beliefs the have here without censure, which is a good thing. The requirement for that is to then explain why they have such a strongly held belief, or, perhaps, their assumed likely outcome should people not share their strongly held belief.

Stopping after asserting "it's a moral duty!" is one of the worst things a person can do to discourse or conversation. You're inviting people to disagree with just so you can then perform all of the complex dance steps of moral outrage, probably, mostly, in order to support your own feelings of moral superiority.

I am the Steven Segal of Traditional Catholicism a practicing Catholic and so a lot of my beliefs boil down to "because God said so." But even in those cases (check out some of my posts on porn from earlier today - and smash that like button) I try to, at the least, outline the doctrinal teachings / cathechesim standard response on why and how "God said so." I don't smash and run, I don't think anyone out to either .... for the reasons stated above :-).

It is every red-blooded American's moral duty to resist and repel invaders.

The Fugitive Slave Act was 100% legitimate, and in fact there would be no United States without the federal authority to pass such an act and enforce it.

It's literally right there, Article IV, Section 2:

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Without this clause, we don't get a United States, we get whatever else could have come from the Articles of Confederation when the South broke from the North (and likely the West from the North, too).

It's my opinion that if you make concessions to your partners that they require as a basis for partnership, you cannot then renege on those concessions simply because you don't like them.

For the most part yes, you shouldn't renege on agreements "you" made (I'm not fully aware of the history here, but the people who made the agreement, and the people who refused to enforce it aren't completely the same people).

But also it was slavery. In today's day and age the moral question is settled - it's abhorrent, and free societies should do everything practical to stop it. Breaking the agreement is much less morally reprehensible than actually keeping slaves.

In today's day and age the moral question is settled

Ah yes, appeal to universality. At the time, this wasn't the case. Applying our knowledge or morals to them is fine if that's what you want to do, but it doesn't illuminate anyone's decision making, and it doesn't make sense of the past.

it's abhorrent, and free societies should do everything practical to stop it

You've already smuggled in something that's nowhere near universally accepted. Slavery abounds, in today's day and age, and I feel no need to stamp it out in Arabia, or Africa. I think you're making the personal universal.

Okay, so I'm treating the fact that slavery is bad as a given here, and that certain societies can have correct or incorrect views on it. If you disagree on this we're not going to get anywhere. I'm not really interested in arguing this point, I'm sure many many others have done it better than I could.

With the benefit of hindsight, the North was correct on slavery, and the south was incorrect. This justifies many of the North's actions, such as the refusal to enforce the FSA.

Individuals living during that time are mostly blameless for going with the mainstream view, but they were still incorrect.

Note my caveat of "practical". Political pressure, or sanctions, or wars could be be required to fully stamp it out, but cause more damage than the slavery itself. That doesn't mean islavery is okay! It just means it's too difficult to fix or that free societies are more selfish than they'd like to admit.

It's my opinion that if you make concessions to your partners that they require as a basis for partnership, you cannot then renege on those concessions simply because you don't like them.

Yeah, a person I otherwise respect used to have a saying "accept compromise, but keep fighting", and boy I sure have a lot to say about how I hate the very idea of it.

I think it depends on the manifestation.

If you accept the compromise today but in 6 months still want to push the terms more in your favor (and you're complying by the terms of the compromise in the meantime) I don't think it's totally unreasonable.

ICE is even worse than the ATF in terms of how much freedom it destroys, if you hate the ATF you should hate ICE even more.

  • -24

Whose freedom?

ATF agents' main job is violating the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. ICEs main job is enforcing immigration law, and there's no "open borders" provision to the US Constitution, so no, one does not imply the other.

The only freedom at threat is the freedom to be an illegal immigrant, which is what Americans voted to see persecuted.

Living and working in America is not a universal human right.

This extremely basic concept that a very large majority of American voters agree with was painstakingly sidelined in all major institutions by the elite of both parties during my entire lifetime, to keep the tap of virtually unlimited cheap labor flowing.

Seeing people cry tears of blood at the enforcement of very basic immigration law is hilarious, but also a sad reminder of how far collectively we have strayed into decadence and away from the foundational job of a functional state; providing territorial integrity.

The question of who is a member of a community and who is not is so fundamental, it’s what is known as the “pre-political”; it’s the primer of a common political identity that allows for political action to be taken and sustained without violence from opposing parties.

There are people who decry the crumbling of taboos and polite conventions in politics and point their finger to this person or that person, but this is the very heart of it, and no return to civility is possible without resolving this issue because civility is based on group solidarity and group solidarity cannot survive past a certain threshold of diversity, because past that threshold there simply is no “group” to have solidarity with.

The same argument applies equally well to supporting Prohibition, however I'd wager you see the fight against Prohibition and its reduction in freedom as a good one.

  • -18

I think there is a significant difference due to which population gets impacted; prohibition impacts citizens, ICE doesn't. Certain rights are determined by whether you are a citizen of the country or not. I don't think it's inconsistent to want less freedom for foreigners than for fellow citizens.

No, I'm disappointed it failed.

Fair enough, points for consistency.

I would have opposed prohibition, and perhaps violated it wantonly. I don’t think I would have tried the stunts we see in reference to ice.

| ...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.

Unfortunately, you don't get the former without the latter. A law that is not being violated will not be repealed.

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.

Probably true empirically but that doesn't mean you should therefore support those breaking the law*.

It means I must choose between acceding to every bad law or supporting lawbreaking in some instances. I won't give politicians that blank check.

(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).

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.

Sometimes, I want some of that machinery chipped away, so the organized, peaceful, advanced society can be less regimented.

More comments

I would appreciate an in-depth defense of this claim. I'm a big proponent of following the law as it is, but working to change bad laws. If changing the law requires violating it then I would have to rethink my stance.

  • Speed limit is too low → mayor continues to enforce speed limit → convicted speeders get angry and complain to their municipal councilors → municipal councilors change speed limit

  • Speed limit is too low → mayor stops enforcing speed limit → there are no convicted speeders to get angry → no municipal councilors have any reason to care about the speed limit

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…no? Prohibition was totally legitimate, attacking random police officers during prohibition would’ve been very wrong too.

How is this not literal treason? I guess fuck having borders and laws and shit.

Shooting at the National Guard would almost certainly qualify, but that’s not what the city of Chicago is doing.

See Nybbler’s explanation here.

Edit: I thought this was a response to the top-level.

Treason is making war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Despite some attempts at stretching this to call illegal immigrants in general "enemies", that doesn't cover opposing ICE. But it does imply an full open borders position, which is not very popular in the US.

"...moral duty to resist them" can definitely stretch to treason. I don't think the recent attacks on the convoy or facility count (they're regular crime instead), but scale it up by 100x and it would.

It could also mean something as milquetoast as refusing to volunteer information and help, which is completely protected conduct.

Maybe it is but morality does not require "never do a treason." The founding of America was substantially treason against the British crown and they were right to do that.

Seriously, is it just the scary masks or do you actually think it's a crime against humanity to expect anyone to live in Mexico?

Surely part of this is that a certain side of the political aisle seem to believe that America is the land of milk and honey and that every less-developed country is literally Pol Pot's Cambodia.

The funny part is that this set of people is almost identical to the set of people that think America is irredeemably evil and everybody from a less-developed country is automatically morally superior to every American by the virtue of not being tainted by the evil that thoroughly permeates the American society.

You seem to imply treason is inherently loathsome. Personally, I see it as one of the crimes against states which are morally different from crimes against men. Morality cannot exist between entities that are so different in power and nature.

Morality cannot exist between entities that are so different in power and nature.

… which of course is why there can be no possible moral objection to wantonly torturing puppies and kittens just for laughs (/s)

Well, yes, that's the contractarian view. Certainly, I oppose laws against people behaving cruelly to their own* animals, with a few exceptions for the animals that legitimately are capable of engaging in reciprocity.

*Cruella de Vil is still not okay, as while I don't see the puppies as having inherent value and being ends-in-themselves, they're valuable to the Dearlys/Radcliffes in both economic and sentimental ways, and she conspired to steal and destroy them.

We do that, in a sense. We keep them as pets in strange dwellings, feeding them strange food, castrating them and arranging their entire lives around our enjoyment. Were an alien do that to humans we'd probably consider it torture.

you know, it doesn't make you less admitting when you fucked up and didn't think things through. Torturing logic like you are doing does.

The opinion on pets is pretty much my actual opinion, I didn't make it up just now to win this argument. To elaborate, we do of course cherish our pets and do our best to not do what we think of as torture to them - but it's still our morality and done for the sake of ourselves - and certainly we expect no reciprocity from cats and dogs. We do not expect them to be good cuddly pets because it would be the right thing to do of them, but because they're here for that purpose. Hence "morality does not exist between humans and pets".

It should be needless to say that the relationship between humans and states is usually far less amicable. So the comparison of treason and torturing kittens doesn't quite land for me, I'm afraid. You could compare how similarly to the torture of kittens having impact on the surrounding humans, so too can treason have an impact on the surrounding humans. I don't specifically advocate selling out your country to evil cannibal aliens for that reason. But going "literal treason, yikes!?" as if treason is automatically something bad amuses me.

I have plenty of complaints about the conduct of ICE but the legitimacy of their official mission seems fine? Even if you think having open borders is a moral imperative the US is clearly not set up to support flipping a switch from 0 to 100% on that without lead time.

Unless this is bait, in which case can you please not or at least choose better bait?

the conduct of ICE but the legitimacy of their official mission seems fine?

I really thought this was the whole point of this thread / argument but everyone really loves to conflate the two

I mean, I think that's the motte and bailey.

I think a majority of leftists believe that their official mission is illegitimate, and borders in general are basically unethical, but outright saying that is still a bit outside the Overton window of mainstream political discourse (insofar as you still care about trying to convince conservatives and "centrists" and put on good optics for them).

borders in general are basically unethical, but outright saying that is still a bit outside the Overton window of mainstream political discourse

I don't think this is a particularly common view among leftists, but I've definitely heard statements to that effect in far-left media spaces (i.e., from people publishing, not just random comments).

https://old.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F8s58fo0kjrtf1.jpeg

The manager/franchisee of a Lush store in Chicago put this sign up. AFAIK the entire Chicago subreddit agrees with this sentiment.

I don’t think that’s what mainstream dems think, especially in places like Chicago which are dominated by the black political machine. I think some of them are confused about the asylum seeker thing but most of them believe that being on US soil entitles a person to rights and that illegal immigration just isn’t such an important problem to violate those rights.

I think a majority of leftists believe that their official mission is illegitimate, and borders in general are basically unethical

Does anyone on this site think this? I meant like this argument in this thread.

I think that the concept of borders is more than a little bullshit, but I’m under no illusion that more than a tiny minority of the country agrees with me on this.

I think a majority of leftists believe that their official mission is illegitimate, and borders in general are basically unethical

Does anyone on this site think this? I meant like this argument in this thread.

Yes, in this very thread:

Good. ICE officers have, in my mind, about as much legitimacy as federal officials enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and it is every red-blooded Americans moral duty to resist them.

Isn’t that just MLK-ism? The whole “unjust laws” bit, how it doesn’t challenge the legal legitimacy but rather the moral legitimacy, and despite the time worn temptation is to conflate the two they are not the same. I’d want to see more elaboration of this point than jump to that assumption. Unless you have an actual issue with MLK-ism?

What was illegitimate about the Fugitive Slave Act other than the flagrant and duplicitous disregard for the law by free states?

It was morally abhorrent to enslave people and to return them into slavery. Legitimacy does not consist in "whatever the state says is legitimate."

Iis morally abhorrent to cross border without permission and to overstay a visa. To impose yourself in a place you don't belong and doesn't want you.

If we are talking about well-behaved gainfully-employed illegals in blue cities like Chicago (which is where the ICE raids causing the fuss are focused), then nobody is imposing. The illegals are in a place where their landlords, bosses, butchers, bakers etc. as well as a super-majority of the community are perfectly comfortable to have them there. The people who don't want them are the people (almost entirely from outside said blue cities) who voted for Trump.

Now as a matter of positive law, this particular group of intermeddling non-Chicagoans and the federal government they elected do in fact have the legal right to send goons into Chicago to round up and remove the illegals. But that only affects the morality of the immigrants' behaviour if you think there is a moral obligation to obey permissibly-dumb-but-not-evil laws in a democracy. I do, but my impression is that most Motteposters subscribe to the libertarian view that there there is no such obligation. Even if breaking laws is immoral, peacefully breaking immigration laws is immoral on the level of filesharing or handling salmon suspiciously*, not on the level of victimful crimes like burglary, so "abhorrent" seems excessive.

* "Handling a salmon in suspicious circumstances" is, somewhat notoriously, a crime in the UK. The purpose of the law is to make it easier to prosecute blatantly guilty poachers like this guy without needing to litigate the provenance of a specific salmon.

If we are talking about well-behaved gainfully-employed illegals in blue cities like Chicago (which is where the ICE raids causing the fuss are focused), then nobody is imposing. The illegals are in a place where their landlords, bosses, butchers, bakers etc. as well as a super-majority of the community are perfectly comfortable to have them there. The people who don't want them are the people (almost entirely from outside said blue cities) who voted for Trump.

I am a white American. My neighbors here in Japan like me well enough. I perform community service and pay taxes. I have children here and am well-integrated into the community. If I had come here on a tourist visa 5 years ago and the Japanese immigration services finally caught up to me and deported me, would you find that outrageous and unjust? For consistency's sake, you may respond to me in this thread saying that you would. But if your eyes passed over a headline reading "American man deported from Tokyo over illegal visa violations" would you immediately be shocked and upset by this? Or would it pass beneath your notice as a mundance "dog bites man" story? The outrage over punishing immigration crime really seems like an isolated demand. It's only bad when America does it, for some reason.

Arbitrary and capricious enforcement of paperwork offenses (and illegal immigration is a paperwork offence) is an injustice, though a minor one in the grand scheme of things and I certainly wouldn't call it an outrage. I think tolerating well-behaved illegal immigrants for decades and then rounding them up for deportation counts as arbitrary and capricious enforcement, although I understand why the people voting for right-populist parties don't*. It definitely isn't shocking given that almost every 1st-world government - especially the ones that don't actually believe in immigration enforcement - now engages in occasional bouts of arbitrary and capricious immigration enforcement as a form of reality-TV prolefeed.

As a separate issue, I think deporting well-behaved established members of communities harms those communities. If your neighbours like you, then the Tokyo government is hurting them by deporting you, and they are entitled to treat a government that does so as hostile, just as Chicago is treating ICE as hostile.

The median voter seems remarkably sane about immigration - people want system of managed legal immigration operated in the national interest, with criminals, scroungers, and radical Islamists deported asap and well-behaved productive immigrants on a 5-10 year path to citizenship. The "Why can't we have an Australian/Canadian points system?" discourse. There are multiple reasons why this does not happen in the UK or US, and the most annoying one is that the whole debate is poisoned by the completely broken humanitarian immigration system. It doesn't help that two-party systems in the social media age shut out the median voter, such that the public debate is between leftists who favour de facto open borders through a trivially abusable humanitarian system and rightists who want a near-zero immigration system that would have deported Elon Musk and Jensen Huang's parents.

* If you think that the 30 years of broadly-tolerated illegal working was a conspiracy by the Dems, the GOPe, and their corporate supporters against the American people, then the American people (and the Trump administration as their agent) aren't acting arbitrarily and capriciously - they are doing what they always wanted to do and always said they were going to do at the first reasonable opportunity. The comparable argument in the UK is similar but more complex because most of the low-skilled working immigrants in the UK entered using (possibly deliberately) easily-abusable legal routes, not illegally.

Arbitrary and capricious enforcement of paperwork offenses (and illegal immigration is a paperwork offence)

Illegal immigration is not a "paperwork offense", except in the case of those illegal immigrants who could have cured or avoided it by doing the right paperwork. Most of them, no matter what paperwork they would have filed, would not have been lawfully admitted to the US.

I think that if my neighbors had learned I had broken the law, they would like me less and would (rightly) regard me as a criminal. Japanese take the law very seriously, they don't have any of the American-style anti-authoritarian animus. And although I'm loathe to admit it, I'm also not sure how me getting deported would harm them. This house would probably be vacant for a few months before another polite and quiet middle class family moved in with whom they would get along just fine. And they'd probably be relieved to no longer be living next to a lawbreaker. My friends here would be sad, but they'd probably think I made some pretty stupid choices and got what I deserved.

I'm tired of hearing about Elon Musk and Jensen Huang. America went to the moon and back before we opened the immigration floodgates, we can clearly do just fine without mass third world immigration. The idea that America "needs" a bunch of immigrants to stay competitive is IMO a revisionist historical narrative promoted by those same recent immigrants. I don't even really blame them for pushing the narrative; doing so helps them fill a psychological need to write themselves into the American story. The Ellis island generation did the same thing ("America is a nation of immigrants!"). But it's also fair play for heritage Americans to call it what it is, revisionist propaganda.

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peacefully breaking immigration laws is immoral on the level of filesharing or handling salmon suspiciously

This is, of course, the load-bearing item of contention. To me, and to many, peacefully breaking immigration laws is some combination of trespass, home invasion and squatting. If I come to your house, and I eat your food and I tell you I'm never leaving, and the police back me up, it's not really your house any more. If 100 people like me do they same, it's definitely not your house any more. You are vestigial. Maybe there are photos of your family on the dresser - what do those people mean to me and mine? My children's photos will look much better there. Your furniture is ugly and doesn't represent my culture - let's throw it out, sell it, burn it for warmth.* It doesn't matter how peaceful illegal immigrants are, or if they do odd jobs around 'your' (for now) house. Demographic change is demographic change.

That's ignoring the face that lots of illegal immigrants actually turn out to be neither nice, peaceful or helpful, of course. But is it any wonder that voters react badly to breaking immigration law, or helping others break immigration law, when seen from this perspective?

*You might feel that this is catastrophising, or at least very pessimistic. I think that anyone pro-immigration must feel that way, but post-woke I can't agree. The outbreak of statue-vandalism, proposed name changes to get rid of all the old English names on parks and streets (most of which didn't get pushed through because there was no yet enough support), the direct import of specifically American racial grievances post-Floyd, the constant drumbeat of 'X is no longer appropriate for Modern (Multicultural) Britain' moved me heavily on these issues.

This is, of course, the load-bearing item of contention. To me, and to many, peacefully breaking immigration laws is some combination of trespass, home invasion and squatting. If I come to your house, and I eat your food and I tell you I'm never leaving, and the police back me up, it's not really your house any more.

If you are a Republican voter in Alabama, I don't see how Chicago is "your house" in any morally relevant way. If you are a Reform UK voter in Lower Snoring, I insist that my house in London is not "your house" in any morally relevant way, and politely suggest that you show some gratitude to the people whose taxes fund your lifestyle rather than insinuating that our friends, neighbours, colleagues and servants are somehow "eating your food". That it is your country is legally relevant, but the only moral claim that gives rise to is the one that upholding the law is generally good. My claim that illegal immigration is morally trivial is restricted to the situations where the community the immigrants are moving to does not, in fact, object to their presence.

That's ignoring the face that lots of illegal immigrants actually turn out to be neither nice, peaceful or helpful, of course. But is it any wonder that voters react badly to breaking immigration law, or helping others break immigration law, when seen from this perspective?

Yes - there is supermajority support essentially everywhere for curtailing abuse of the humanitarian and family-based routes to immigrate to first-world countries, based on the accurate belief that the people who get in that way are, on average, bad neighbours. We should do so. But public opinion on this point is downstream of immigrant behaviour - people who have experience of well-behaved immigrants don't want to kick them out.

the direct import of specifically American racial grievances post-Floyd

I remember the pictures of the pro-Floyd march in London. I haven't seen a London crowd that close to all-white since before Blair opened the immigration floodgates, and I doubt I will ever see another one. I think it was whiter than the recent Tommy Robinson rally. Wokism isn't being pushed by immigrants or their descendants - unless you count the Milibands.

If you are a Republican voter in Alabama, I don't see how Chicago is "your house" in any morally relevant way. If you are a Reform UK voter in Lower Snoring, I insist that my house in London is not "your house" in any morally relevant way

For the obvious reasons:

  1. There is free movement within borders. Open borders for one part of the country means open borders for all.
  2. There is continuity of government within borders. Imported voters in London can and do vote on what people in the oh-so-condescendingly-named Lower Snoring are allowed to do, think and say. They also exert cultural control through more indirect means (quangos, pressure groups and so on).

Are you proposing allowing individual US states / UK counties to have their own legally-enforced borders and government?

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Yes - there is supermajority support essentially everywhere for curtailing abuse of the humanitarian and family-based routes to immigrate to first-world countries, based on the accurate belief that the people who get in that way are, on average, bad neighbours. We should do so.

And yet, it doesn't happen. Curious!

A lot of the failure comes from the fact that European countries could not really fathom a guest worker program with NO route to permanent residency. There was a need for guest workers, but we should just have used the Kafala system. No family members. No route to citizenship. Mandatory return home for a 6 month period every 5 years.

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If you are a Republican voter in Alabama, I don't see how Chicago is "your house" in any morally relevant way.

CDL holders issued in California killing people in Florida says otherwise.

Look, I'd love for there to be a larger argument for States Rights(for my own safety's sake, if nothing else), but it's clear by this point that it's been well done and buried, and we have to live with the consequences.

If you are a Republican voter in Alabama, I don't see how Chicago is "your house" in any morally relevant way. If you are a Reform UK voter in Lower Snoring, I insist that my house in London is not "your house" in any morally relevant way,

Okay, whose house is it then?

Open borders proponents always say "well, it isn't yours, so you have no right to exclude anyone". It's someone's. Who does have the right to exclude? It may be an individual, it may be a government, but that right didn't just go away because you don't personally own the country. Where did it go and who has it right now?

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So now existing in Mexico is equivalent to slavery? Are we going to liberate Mexico and rescue them all, then? Can we put them where you live?

No, more precisely, having no access to the benefits of US welfare state is equivalent to slavery.

Wut

  • -35

Federal officials enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act were returning people to slavery. ICE agents are returning people to Mexico. If you're going to have such a precious little time making the comparison, it would help if the two were comparable in some way.

They are comparable in that the state's actions are equivalent in their lack of moral legitimacy. I thought I was pretty clear about that.

  • -30

No, that's not clear at all.

"Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.".

It's unfortunate that it seems like you have chosen to flame out, but taking your argument at face value - are you arguing for something to the effect of "A (enforcing the FSA) is immoral, and B (preventing federal agents from enforcing it) was an appropriate reaction to it; therefore if C (enforcing immigration restrictions) is immoral, then B is likewise an appropriate reaction to it"? In that case, setting A=9/11, B=the commando raid on Osama's compound, C=illegal immigration, under the reasonable assumption that the majority of US citizens agree that A and C are immoral and B was an appropriate reaction to A, are you arguing for commando raids to kill all illegal immigrants (and/or even those involved in planning their immigration)?

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They are comparable in that the state's actions are equivalent in their lack of moral legitimacy. I thought I was pretty clear about that.

Yeah except you completely left out the part where you explain why they're, you know, comparable. You just walked out on stage and said "Slavery. There, now that I have moral legitimacy, I don't like ICE."

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And why are those actions morally illegitimate? What is the source of moral illegitimacy in those two cases?

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...and your stated reason slave officers were immoral is because they were doing their jobs, and their jobs are bad. Drawing the parallel that you believe ICE officers are immoral because they are doing their jobs, and their jobs are bad is the most obvious reading IMO.

I can't see how you could miss that. In fact, I can't see what else it could possibly be, so I'll ask directly: What is the connection between ICE officers and Fugitive Slave Act enforcers, that it's appropriate to compare their moral legitimacy?

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Is it morally abhorrent for Mexicans to live in Mexico instead of becoming illegal aliens? Do you believe that every illegal alien has a right to your personal property in the same way that slaves have a right to their freedom? Do you believe that the law saying that have property and rights and not stripping them away from you to give them to illegal aliens is also illegitimate?

You are comparing two wildly different things; if your only response to this being pointed out is blank confusion, you should perhaps consider the properties of slaves and illegal aliens in more detail.

I do not think all actions of the state which lack moral legitimacy are factually equivalent. Hope this clarifies things!

  • -34

You are aggressively ignoring every poster asking you to clarify why enforcing immigration law is equivalent to enforcing laws on slavery. This is just trolling.

Do they lack moral legitimacy because you don't believe borders should exist? Should the hypothetical Slave Catchers have instead of returning the escaped slaves to slavery, elected to take them back to Africa or to Mexico, wouldn't that have been less immoral than if they returned them to bondage?

Cool. Now imprint this feeling in your mind, so that you can recall it in detail when the shoe is on the other foot.

I think it is every red-blooded American's moral duty to do a lot of things you probably would not approve of. moral clarity is a rush but it does not keep the peace.

Is it the peace that is the absence of tension or the peace that is the presence of justice?

  • -18

Neither. It is the peace where "they" get away with it for another day, for whatever definition of "they" we each prefer.

“For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.”
-G.K. Chesterton

This isn’t brinksmanship.

The Trump administration must end the war on Chicago. The Trump administration must end this war against Americans. The Trump administration must end its attempt to dismantle our democracy.

They have repeatedly called for a rematch [of the Civil War], but in the coming weeks, we will use this opportunity to build greater resistance. Chicagoans are clear that militarizing our troops in our city as justification to further escalate a war in Chicago will not be tolerated.

What kind of resistance? Anti-ICE signs, apparently. Maybe some malicious compliance. Chicago isn’t importing military hardware. It’s not calling for volunteers. It’s not even obstructing the federal agents and troops who are already there. No, the ball is in the President’s court. He holds all the cards, right? He can threaten to make things worse and worse until he gets what he wants.

That’s brinksmanship.

  • -11

What kind of resistance?

Ramming an ICE vehicle with a car multiple times while armed seems like a bit more than malicious compliance. Every single time a car leaves or enters the ICE facility there it needs riot police to stop protestors from throwing rocks and otherwise attacking the officers. Your post is complete propaganda.

It looks like ICE solved that one just fine.

I don’t see why they’re entitled to local police escorts. Surely they can take care of themselves?

  • -15

They aren't entitled the courts have said as much.

Blasting drivers after they: form convoys, interdict Federal vehicles, ram those vehicles, and do so with pistols sitting in their lap is an outcome, but it is not one I would consider just fine. I place ICE/CBP beyond the ATF on the meathead-unprofessional gradient for Federal law enforcement agencies. They will handle business in accordance to this position. The fact they didn't shoot more than one person or any caged pets might push them to be on par with the ATF. We'll have to see more cases.

This is more in the concerning or bad category of outcomes that, yes, would be easier to mitigate with some greater effort of cooperation or support from local officers. If for no other reason than for the city to protect its residents from dying for The Cause.

Exactly. And if right-wing militias start making organized, "attempted murder" attacks on feds they dislike, say, the ATF, then you'll be just as bloodless about that, right? Hardly anything to bother about. Just some kids with signs. Why are you overeacting?

You know, I used to not really have a handle on what your politics were. But you've been coming in hot and fast and ignorant lately, with maximum charity one way and maximum hostility the other. Are you feeling strange new feelings, like molten-veined partisanship?

Shooting at ICE is unacceptable. Ramming vehicles, unacceptable. I am particularly disturbed by the Texas ICE ambush; it’s good that the feds were able to come down on them immediately. This is true regardless of the agency*. Violence is terrible, and the people committing it against the authorities are criminals.

Posting anti-ICE signage is not violence. Neither is declining to let them use your property. Or to deploy your riot police to risk their own safety. I’ll admit that when I see commenters equivocating between Chicago’s government and its lawless protestors, I do in fact feel some frustration.

This is a motte and bailey. The mayor is just supposed to avoid rocking the boat. Riot police show up for riots, federal agents camp on your city property: you know, the usual stuff. Also, if he disagrees with any of this, that’s brinksmanship and possibly treasonous. It absolves the EXTREMELY UNUSUAL force of armed feds of all responsibility.

I’m willing to accept that I’ve been too flippant over the past week. Maybe that really is a newfound streak of partisanship. But I’ve never been shy about my distaste for Trump’s strongman governance. I’d like to think my position here is its natural extension.

* For the record, if I had to pick one exception, it would be the ATF.

I’m willing to accept that I’ve been too flippant over the past week. Maybe that really is a newfound streak of partisanship. But I’ve never been shy about my distaste for Trump’s strongman governance. I’d like to think my position here is its natural extension.

FWIW, I'm not particularly judging about the change. You're becoming more like me, if with a different valence. But one of the things I've learned over the years is that, even for topics that fill me with molten-veined partisanship, there are going to be incidents where my side just has to take the L (even if I think it doesn't change the overall conclusion). And when I see people talking about some new Happening, it's worth at least finding out what they're on about before coming in hot with a take. In the worst case, where it's something that goes strongly against my priors and makes my side look awful, I can always just not talk about it.

If I were sitting on a jury trying a man for killing an ATF agent in the course of his official duties, I would attempt to nullify it.

There are plenty of individual anti-ice protestors who do things that deserve arrest. But most of them are simply annoying. It’s not illegal to have a dumb sign or be a Karen. AFAIK the guard in Chicago is about making Abbott look strong and flattering Trump’s ego. Chicago is not in a state of revolt.

I like to think I might do that, but it's much more likely that I would autistically lock in and just deliver the right answer according to the rules of the game.

It looks like ICE solved that one just fine.

U.S. District Judge Heather McShain denied a request by the federal government to detain Martinez and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21, pending trial.

...

Shortly after Monday’s court hearing, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the other drivers who followed and boxed in agents.

An FBI statement says about 10 vehicles were involved in the chase that Martinez and Ruiz were allegedly part of in the 3900 block of South Kedzie. The statement also describes the “ramming” of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle repeatedly in the 3700 block of Kedzie, allegedly by the driver of a black Chevy Tahoe with Illinois license plate EM 62829. That driver is still at large, the FBI said.

Now, perhaps the defendant's lawyers claims of the ICE officers just calling someone a bitch and opening fire are tots honest -- stranger things have happened than an immigration-related lawyer lying their pants off, albeit not often -- and the ICE officers in that specific case will be going to jail themselves. We can review it in a week.

Either way, I can think of several reasons why local police department support would help develop these cases toward the results truth demanded, rather than whatever random coincidences and biases occur in a fog of war.

Sigh.

You know, when I see your name on a reply, it triggers a little burst of shame. Classical conditioning.

I recognize that the mayor’s actions are making some bad scenarios worse. That includes withholding resources which might have rightly solved crimes. I shouldn’t have been so flippant.

I still believe it’s the motte to a bailey expressed all over the thread. Chicago is supposed to run this kind of investigation, and generally cooperate with federal operations, because that’s just business as usual. But the bailey launders the definition of “usual” to include more or less anything that supports ICE’s operation. If local governments aren’t actually compelled to provide aid, then they don’t have to run the investigation. They don’t have to provide riot police, or give access to every city building. I have a hard time squaring that with the absolute vitriol getting thrown their way.

If local governments aren’t actually compelled to provide aid, then they don’t have to run the investigation. They don’t have to provide riot police, or give access to every city building. I have a hard time squaring that with the absolute vitriol getting thrown their way.

They don't legally have to. That is clear. But as a matter of norms, they did something they didn't have to.

You can play the game of "who broke the norm first" if you want.

You can play the game of "what is the next escalation of this norm breaking" as well

Those games are fine, but they do not answer the core question of whether than norm was worth preserving.

If local governments aren’t actually compelled to provide aid, then they don’t have to run the investigation. They don’t have to provide riot police, or give access to every city building. I have a hard time squaring that with the absolute vitriol getting thrown their way.

They also don't have to actively oppose to the limit of the laws / rules that would make further active opposition outright illegal. They certainly do not have to proactively create new laws / rules that make it actively illegal for other people to voluntarily provide aid, with all the coercive implications that has.

If you have a hard time squaring not providing aid with the amount of vitriol involved, it's probably because you are presenting the civil administrations involved as trying to be studiously if oppositionally neutral and not support something they dislike, but not taking action beyond that. This false caveat would naturally confuse someone. It is true sanctuary cities and states do not have to support ICE. It is also (probably) true that your neighborhood homeowner association does not have to support your child's club activities or birthday parties. You would not be confused as to their neutrality if the HOA threatened nuisance fines against any of your neighbors who attended your child's parties except to the degree that it was required by superseding city ordinance.

The antagonism that is going towards sanctuary cities like Chicago is not because of what they are not doing, but because of what they are doing, and using their own available power to coerce others into going along with.

saying that Republicans want a "redo of the Civil War," amongst other incredibly inflammatory things.

Oh no, the perfidy of the woke left truly knows no bounds. And to attack such an upstanding citizen as president Trump, who started his political career with his very nuanced ad about the central park five (about whose guilt he was factually wrong, sadly), based his bid for the presidency on another unfortunate misunderstanding of his and proceeded to win the hearts and minds of Americans by always maintaining decorum and treating his political opponents with respect. Always a voice of moderation and compromise, as well as a great husband and fine human being and an upholder of the highest epistemic norms.

Let me be blunt. Falsehoods are always bad, but if there is one party which has forsaken the high ground here, it is Trump's party. Given all the shit Trump has been spewing over the years, I would not particularly upset on his behalf if the Democrats were to spread a rumor that he has an Olympic swimming pool filled to the brim with the eyes of murdered babies in which he likes to go skinny-dipping with his cabinet.

Besides, "Trump wants a civil war" is far-fetched, but not maximally far-fetched. There is a notable community of preppers and 'militias' for whom "another civil war" has long been a favorite masturbatory fantasy. (Of course, they did not expect to fight on the side of the federal government!)

It is established case-law that the duty of the police to protecting individual citizens is fuck-all. I do not know if relevant local or case law has decided if local police forces owe any service to the feds, but I would default to "no".

Letting the BLM riots happen was actually bad. Deciding that you have more urgent police priorities than helping ICE, which Trump likely ordered specifically into Chicago to punish the people who voted against him, and whose whole mission is to score cheap political points in a rather farcelike manner -- "we get rid of all the illegals, except for the ones in the hotel sector (where Trump is involved) and the ones in the agricultural sector (whose deportation would make the food prices skyrocket even more)".

Why should the local mayor lend Trump the PD for his political stunts? Let him at least waste federal funds for it.

For some reason sending in the national guard is really helping me frame the Democratic response as what it is - basically outright treason against the U.S. federal gov.

Are you saying that you know that the Democrats are treasonous because Trump sent the national guard to deal with them? Then DC must have turned treasonous already weeks ago!

Here is my take. This is a clown-show. Trumps masked goons try to kidnap illegals to help him score political points (and own the libs). I imagine that local PDs will in turn try to hamper ICE as much as they can. Perhaps their unmarked cars get towed while they are illegally parked mid-arrest, or they are subject to frequent 'random' traffic checks. This is probably likewise not the best use of police resources.

I can not speak for the random people Trump gave a bonus, a badge, a mask and a gun to act as his muscle, but my priors are that both the national guard and the local PDs really really do not want to shoot at each other. If they clash about specific questions which enforcements of local strictures which just so happen to impede ICE are allowed, both sides will refer to the court system to figure it out, and the court system will do this in very short order. Few national guard commanders would be stupid enough to trust Trump to pardon them if they break the law in his name, and approximately zero police chiefs have any delusions about defeating the federal government once the courts have decided in its favor.

At the end of the day, this is mostly a pointless dick-measuring contest.

about whose guilt he was factually wrong, sadly

Excuse me? Those men are guilty as sin, and obviously so. They did, in fact, rape and murder that woman. The fact that they are still breathing is an affront to justice, and one of Trump's best qualities is that he was right on the money about them decades ago.

ETA:

The woman was in a coma, left for dead, but didn't die. I am wrong about details, and can and do quibble about direction below, but she didn't die, there was no murder, and I should have let go of my annoyance instead of shooting off a contrary reply.

Had I come to my senses earlier, I'd have cancelled, or deleted swiftly. I didn't.

See my reply here.

Again, it is technically possible that they aided Reyes in raping the victim alone, then killed her, and for some reason decided to shield him (and only him) in their confessions by claiming he was not present. Perhaps he was a member of the illuminati, and the defendants who were afraid enough to betray their buddies were nevertheless more afraid of him than of a murder sentence, and had taken the steps to coordinate a false version of events -- which lead to them spending decades in prison -- so they did not have to implicate him.

Or it could be that Reyes is psychic and edited himself out of the memory of his accomplices after the deed.

Or perhaps a bunch of forensic experts formed a conspiracy to falsely exonerate a bunch of murderers and get them millions in restitution instead, and falsified the DNA evidence after convincing Reyes to confess. Perhaps they did it to make Trump look bad a decade later when he would start to become a political force.

Here is what I think likely happened. CP5 was a big, political case. Trump published his attack ad on the mayor. The mayor knew that he needed a conviction, and made it clear to the police that he wanted a guilty verdict. For a cop, this is the kind of case which will make or break your career. They found the likeliest suspects that they could find and convinced themselves that they were guilty, which was easy because it was in their personal best interests to believe it (as opposed to telling the mayor that they had been unable to find the killer). Confirmation bias did the rest.

They did not follow good epistemic protocols, like having different cops get confessions from different suspects, and then check the confessions for consistency, or determining if the suspects had perpetrator's knowledge.

In their mind, there was no need, because they already knew that they were guilty ("police instinct" and all that), and their job was simply to paint a picture which would convince any bleeding heart jury.

They very likely cut corners in the process, skipped legally mandated safety checks. Even if you are a cop who will mostly play by the book, this case was to important to leave it up to chance if the real, circumstantial evidence would convince the jury. So you 'forget' to give your suspect the Miranda warning. Perhaps you beat a few of them up to get them to confess, after all, these scumbags just murdered a girl, and you are not even breaking their bones. Or you prompt them with the same story which they should confess. Who cares if you find out in which order they raped her, the important thing is that you present a version of the story which will get them sent to prison, not contradictory confessions which will confuse the jury. Simulacrum level two, not one. Perhaps you even plant a bit of evidence to help justice along.

And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it were not for the fact that the boffins developed a new forensic technique which is far more reliable than any amount of confessions.

In a way, the case exposed the whole rotten underbelly of the US criminal justice system. I wonder how many other 'criminals' are still sitting in prison because the same dirty cops played the same dirty tricks on them. (While I believe that most convicts are in fact guilty, I also believe that US cops do not have a culture of good epistemics and calling out the ones who use illegal shortcuts to paint a nicer picture.)

The reason why every kid learns that the only thing you say when arrested is "I will not answer any questions and I want a lawyer", no matter if you are innocent or guilty, is because US citizens can not trust the police to be interested in determining the truth, especially if they are already detaining you.

The fact that they are still breathing is an affront to justice

Oh come on. Now every state that does not execute prisoners is inherently unjust?

Here is what I think likely happened. CP5 was a big, political case.

You skipped an important part in your haste to come to a conclusion. What do you think they were doing that night, when a woman was raped and beaten nearly to death? What do you think happened to her?

It's kind of important to have an idea of what did happen before you start imagining things about the response to what happened.

I think they were there, attacking and robbing people, maybe indiscriminately, maybe targeting whites, along with about 25 other people. I think all 30 deserve a short trip from a high place, and I think these 5 in particular are in fact guilty of the assault on this woman because of their confessions which implicated each other.

I also think the response to that response was a pretty good one.

Oh come on. Now every state that does not execute prisoners is inherently unjust?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Once more for those in the cheap seats:

HELL YES.

A state that exercises a monopoly on violence but doesn't put anyone to death is abdicating their duty and denying victims their due justice. Some people deserve to die for what they've done. Many people, in fact. Delaying this is the same as denying it, and denying it outright from the start is cruelty to the victims.

So you support the death penalty for attempted felony murder for 14yo perpetrators (given that you are annoyed that the CP5 are still breathing).

Our different ideas about standards of evidence aside, do you have a lower limit on the age a perpetrator in a similar situation? If an 8yo brother of one of the CP5 had tagged along and taken a minor part in the act as you believe it took place, would you also hang him? What about a 5yo who just finds an unsecured pistol, says "bang, you are dead" and shoots someone?

Or take the severity of the crime. Most of the other 25 were not accused of crimes as severe as the CP5, WP talks of muggings. So the 14yo mugger gets the noose, should the 14yo pickpocket hang next to him? Or the copyright infringer? At what point should society decide that a kid is beyond redemption?

14yo perpetrators

Adult perpetrators get adult punishments. That society is abdicating its duty to train its young men and women and delaying -> denying them a significant chunk of the prime of their life does not change this basic biological fact.

The reason why society does that is related to the reason society generally fails to punish criminals- redistributing resources (intangibles like virtue and intelligence are just as real a resource as physical goods are, though I understand this is a fringe view) from the useful and decent to the useless and evil under a belief that being useless or evil could be solved if the community simply loved them more (that it imposes real costs on everyone else is not material to that analysis).

Thanks to the relatively unbalanced rise in political power of those whose evolutionary biological specialization leads them to solve problems that way, that's the approach we most often see in modern times. And in fairness, there is something to that approach; keeping humanity's natural biological tendencies in check can be greatly beneficial to mankind. That being said, though...

At what point should society decide that a kid is beyond redemption?

At the point where means, motive/desire, and opportunity become relevant factors (we treat those who are sufficiently mental defective in the same way- they just go to an institution until they are fixed or die). It's very rare- like, once-in-a-generation rare- for actual children to pull off capital crimes in the first place, but I really don't have a problem with the sentence for the once-in-a-lifetime case of tweenagers luring and murdering a toddler for kicks being death. Probably unwise to parade them through the streets before the gallows, though.

14yo perpetrators

Adult perpetrators get adult punishments. That society is abdicating its duty to train its young men and women and delaying -> denying them a significant chunk of the prime of their life does not change this basic biological fact.

Are you arguing that 14yo's are adults, and society should treat them as such in legal matters?

So they should also be old enough to buy smokes, weed and vodka, own guns, drive cars, have full control over their finances, shoot porn, vote, enlist, gamble in Vegas, make medical decisions without their parent's consent (think transgender surgeries), supply and use sperm banks, hold political office, perform for Epstein?

From a physiological perspective, 14yo's are not adults. the median 14yo guy fighting the median 18yo guy will be a lot more one-sided than 18yo-vs-22yo. Still, that is not very relevant to the legal aspects: we generally do not bestow rights based on how good you are at beating people up.

As far as mental development is concerned, 14 is still in the throes of puberty. Some people will, for better or worse, be as wise at age 14 as they will ever be. Personally, I was not prone to life-ruining bad decisions (except for avoiding bad decisions), but I was not certainly stupid about lot of things. Still, I think that plenty of 14yo's would be prone to making life-ruining bad decisions if we let them, which is why we limit the decisions they can take.

Of course, the 18th birthday cutoff point is completely arbitrary. an 18yo will still be more prone to bad decisions than a 25yo, but we can hardly deny people the benefits of adulthood until then. Still, the worst youthful bad decision tendencies will be over by age 18. Personally, I would support the Terra Ignota majority exams. If you are some wunderkind who can convince society at age 10 that you should be allowed to drive a car and own a gun, then by all means let society also punish you for your crimes as an adult.

So they should also be old enough to buy smokes, weed and vodka, own guns, drive cars, have full control over their finances, shoot porn, vote, enlist, gamble in Vegas, make medical decisions without their parent's consent (think transgender surgeries), supply and use sperm banks, hold political office, perform for Epstein?

In order:

They already do, they already do, this was fine in 1960 so why isn't it fine now?, they're nearly there anyway, what finances?, what else do you think 14 year olds use Snapchat for?, no taxation without representation, if they can pass for 18 they lie about it and we didn't much care in the past, welcome to Counter Strike unboxing video #99999, they already do, when they act as sperm banks they owe child support, this would be worse than the current crop of politicians... how, exactly?, meanwhile, in Rotherham...

Oh yeah, and we already try teenagers "as adults" anyway, especially when they break the above laws, so clearly this is just ageism.

we generally do not bestow rights based on how good you are at beating people up.

Rights are not "bestowed". Men have those rights because they are capable of the organized violence required to force their recognition. Every one was fought for.

More comments

Not the one you responded to, but it appears obvious to me that 14yos are more adult than the law treats them, in many cases. Things like drinking should be acceptable in moderation under parental supervision, if only to teach the teens the limits so that they don't have to learn them getting blackout drunk among similarly clueless but eager peers at 18. (Of course, we then arrive to the issue of many parents being prone to bad decisions.)

Really, the law on drinking age appears now to be designed to account for negligent parents. What is a properly parented 14yo gonna do if they're able to buy alcohol? Get illicitly drunk once?

Regarding crimes, at 14 a human should have enough moral knowledge to know that beating a human being while they're down is unacceptable and enough self-control to stop themselves from doing it. They can be excused to some extent for crimes of passion, but there's a point where "passion" no longer cuts it.

I should have been more temperate, and I cranked up my, well, crank at the hagiography of the CP5. It's worth being temperate about these things, and I am willing to take the not-at-all extreme position that relatively routine death penalty is justice, but I'm too many posts deep for not enough forethought.

Hanging for thieves is not unknown, but I would consider harsh. If you want to advocate for the death penalty for copying files I'm willing to hear it. I don't think running Napster deserves death, but you might be able to convince me of Silk Road.

Hanging for beating people senseless is closer, especially given the disposition of the victim. If she had died then it would have been murder, even if she was breathing when they left her, and none of them raped her. I think he severity of her injuries given her complete innocence deserves death.

Muggers, yes again, especially if someone ends up dead or in a coma. Not if they are confronted and flee, but more likely if they prey on the women, (actual, prepubescent) children. Carjackers, too, while we're at it. The correct number of these criminals put to death is way higher than zero. It doesn't have to be every single one, but the more violent you are, and the more helpless, innocent, and vulnerable your victims, the more you deserve to die for the same crimes.

Does acting as a prowling gang make each member less culpable, or more? I don't think you can necessarily treat all thirty the same, but it speaks to coordinated action and opportunistic behavior, and neither are cause for leniency.

Does youth remove culpability? You clearly think so, and I'm inclined to agree, but the amount of grace I'm willing to extend does not get to 14, and just like before, the worse your crime the less leniency you deserve on all counts, including age.

For the 8 year old: not hanged but still punished severely. The 5 year old: no legal punishment makes sense but that doesn't mean faultless, blameless, or free from scrutiny. Who is shot matters a lot, as is what happens. That's also part of justice, as there are victims who matter, and everyone has an interest in deterrence of new criminals and prevention of new crime from known criminals.

Redemption should not dominate the discussion of justice to the extent that it has. It is less important than Consequences.

I started with a weak mea culpa but I'm ending with a stronger one. I was wrong on the details and ran my mouth off, then had to go back and justify myself. Had I any sense, I would have cancelled the first reply. I muddled through it, eventually, and I got to a decent thesis of my original reply, but I regret doing it and would take it back if I could.

I've edited, above, too.

very nuanced ad

Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer ... Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will. ... How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits? Criminals must be told that their Civil Liberties End When an Attack On Our Safety Begins!

This is good and correct, actually. Muggers and murderers should suffer. This is the foundation of justice. Why should Trump or anyone else be nuanced about this, where nuance means 'being really nice to everyone even if they're actively sabotaging and robbing you, give them a second chance, a third chance, a thirtieth chance'. It's cooperate-bot behaviour. Cooperate-bots lose most of the time, it's a very vulnerable and pathetic strategy. What about the nuance of 'be nice to those who are nice to you and punish those who harass you', there's actual nuance and distinction there.

First, the context was clearly the CP5 case. Timing matters. I think that most here would agree that a lefty posting a "resist fascism" meme within hours of Kirk being killed would be worse than a lefty posting the same meme a week earlier. Personally, I was disgusted by the pro-Palestinian demonstrations a day after the oct-7 attacks, when I week earlier I would been wholeheartedly meh about it.

Second, I disagree with Trump that an emotional response like hate will lead to better justice outcomes. I want judges and juries calm rather than emotional when they make their verdict.

Third, the world is not populated by easily distinguishable cooperate-bots and defect-bots. Your perception of the behavior of other people is always affected by noise. Under such circumstances, tit-for-tat is no longer the optimal strategy, and you want to build in some amount of forgiveness to avoid getting into a defect-defect loop with someone like you. Sure, any forgiveness option will lower your performance against defect-bot, but maximum effectiveness against defect-bot is defect-bot, and it does not perform particularly well. (This also happens to be the gist of the message of Christianity, as far as an atheist like me understands it.)

In particular, the fact that Trump was (as I have extensively argued here) wrong and overconfident about his "murderers" being defect-bots -- an opinion he likely formed with no in-depth knowledge of the subject -- is a cautionary tale.

Sure, we could simply task the police with shooting anyone who looks like a defect-bot to them, and that would tremendously cut down on the costs of the justice system as well as the rate of reported crime, but it would not lead to a much worse equilibrium than our present system, both due to innocents getting killed and such a system being ripe for abuse.

I mean this is extremely inflammatory especially as coming from elected officials. They aren’t openly saying it, but I would not expect them to be horrified by some random person taking shots at federal officials. You don’t say things like “redo of the civil war” or declare “ICE free zones” or anything of the sort unless you want to escalate whatever is happening on the street level. Which is already at least at the throw rocks stage.

I mean this is extremely inflammatory especially as coming from elected officials.

Did you mean from an elected official who is not Trump?

Saying 'Republicans want to redo the civil war' is very different from saying "let's redo the civil war", from where I stand.

Sure, they are longing for an escalation, but they have also learned in the last decade that being a divisive leader who takes a shit on his opponents every chance he gets, always doubling down rather than backing down is what the electorate prefers.

I mean sure, but eventually you get the escalation you wanted and are now being blamed for a dead federal agent or worse member of the military. The ratchet cannot go on forever.

I think the CP5 were likely guilty.

Also Trump isn’t unique in his lying. He lies a lot. But so do other politicians. Trump is simply more uncouth.

I think the CP5 were likely guilty.

They were not guilty of the specific charges they were facing (we know this because someone else was).

No — we know someone else was also guilty. Doesn’t mean the CP5 weren’t concurrently guilty.

As quiet_NaN points out, there was DNA evidence connecting the other man to the rape; there was no such evidence connecting the CP5 to it. Without a time machine we won't know for sure, but to me it looks more likely than not that they didn't attack that particular woman. That they weren't good people and were committing serious crimes against other people that day is also likely true, however.

They were guilty, he was also guilty. The confession of the 6th person is the only exculpatory evidence for the CP5 and carries zero weight with me considering the situation he was already in.

Eh... DNA evidence proved a sixth person raped the victim, but there's a lot of evidence for the CP5 themselves being guilty too, of the crime they were convicted for. Maybe there's some doubt, but I don't think Reyes' confession is anywhere near enough to be certain or even very confident they were not guilty.

Generally, I place very little trust in confessions, little trust in eyewitness accounts and a lot of trust in technological evidence.

We know that Reyes raped her. It is reasonable to assume that this was the same incident in which she was also murdered. We know that there is no DNA evidence linking any CP5 to the rape, which is at least strong circumstantial evidence that they did not rape her.

The accepted standard for criminal convictions is "beyond reasonable doubt". So the prosecutor had to convince the jury that the police had reconstructed the crime correctly. I doubt they told the jury "or perhaps some unknown third party raped her, we don't really know". We know that the police had done no such thing.

So we have cops who extracted confessions which were later falsified in the details, and sold them as the truth. This puts really sharp limits on the trust we can place on the police investigation.

Now, it is technically possible that they were randomly directionally correct and framed the guilty party minus one. But even if they were, the penalty for investigatory misconduct in the US is generally that the gathered evidence gets thrown out, which sets the correct incentives.

Trisha Meili wasn't murdered, she ended up living. And all 6 of their taped accounts (including Lopez who isn't counted in the "central park 5" because his parents made sure he didn't confess like the others did), and those of a few other people who had been around them that night, were really pretty consistent. The only difference was that each kid downplayed his own actions somewhat, thinking that they would be fine if they weren't the one who raped her. And the confusion that everyone knew she was raped, but these kids didn't actually see a rape, so they were trying to fit that into their confession incorrectly.

But the consistent picture of an assault and sexual molestation (but not rape, they were really too young and awkward for that) is pretty clear. It would be pretty remarkable if the detectives in a few hours of the untaped interrogation got them all to get on the same page of implicating themselves consistently in a made-up story, especially when they weren't even suspects in the initial questioning of ~30+ kids until kevin richardson happened to mention that the scratch on his eye was done by "the female jogger". Also especially because a few of them were borderline retarded, as was used in their defense. But they still all knew exactly which kid was hitting people with the metal pipe, who was throwing rocks at joggers' heads, and who was ripping her clothes off, etc.

That Reyes came along later and raped the woman who was lying there unconscious and nearly dead, really has no bearing on the assaults committed (on multiple victims) by the above 6 (which were attested to by multiple other kids as well, who somehow avoided being 'framed' by the detectives themselves).

Trisha Meili wasn't murdered, she ended up living.

I stand corrected.

The fact that the police managed to convince the juries that four of the five had committed rape beyond reasonable doubt certainly places an upper limit on the trustworthiness of their investigation. Given that the police did have DNA evidence and knew that none of the CP5 had anything to do with the semen, going for rape convictions seems downright malicious.

I will also note that DA Morgenthau (who recommended vacating the judgements) does not seem like a pink-haired 'defund the police' type (WW2 veterans generally are not, in my experience). Typically DAs are very reluctant to recommend overturning convictions, especially ones secured by their own assistants.

I assume that it is possible that he recommended that because he thought that given all of the convicted we had already served their time, fighting to keep the none-rape parts of their convictions was a fools errand (especially since it was obviously CW fodder and he would have to argue that only the rape part of the confessions were wrong and the rest was fine, which would be a tough position to defend), rather than because he personally believed that they had never touched Meili.

That Reyes came along later and raped the woman who was lying there unconscious and nearly dead

From WP, Reyes killed one of the four other women he raped. As far as I know, none of the other alleged victims of the CP5 had life-threatening injuries, which is likely why their case focused on Meili. It is not like we have a medical examination of her from just before she was raped. Given that the when the cops tried to blame the CP5 for the state Meili was found in, they might have exaggerated the injuries inflicted by the CP5 as well.

Potentially, they groped her and left her with a mild concussion, and the rest was Reyes doing. Or they did everything except the rape. Or they never met her.

Meta: I think that the CP5 case is great culture war material, even a scissor statement. Also, I find this discussion enlightening. I come from my niche, get blowback for what I considered an uncontroversial fact, think to myself "why do these idiots not believe in DNA evidence?", but try to argue halfway politely, get polite responses and eventually a more subtle picture emerges from the arguments. (I mean, @KMC is still completely beyond my understanding, in the appreciation of DNA evidence, the quality of evidence for the attempted murder charge in hindsight and the general morality of imposing the death penalty on 14yo's for attempted murder.)

Potentially, they groped her and left her with a mild concussion, and the rest was Reyes doing. Or they did everything except the rape.

Yeah I had forgotten about that part. The detectives knew she was hit with a big rock in the head as an attempted death blow finisher, so they were probing these 15 yr olds with questions around that, without giving it away. But consistently they all knew nothing about that (even when trying to come up with what the detectives were looking for, they never came close); they only knew about all the other injuries. So that was Reyes with the final attempted murder using the rock.

Within the North Woods, between 102nd and 105th Street, assailants were reported attacking several cyclists, hurling rocks at a cab, and attacking a pedestrian, whom they robbed of his food and beer and left unconscious.[12][13] The teenagers roamed south along the park's East Drive and the 97th Street transverse, between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.[12] Police attempted to apprehend suspects after crimes began to be reported between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Michael Vigna, a competitive bike rider, testified that, at about 9:05 p.m., he was hassled by a group of boys, one of whom tried to punch him.[12] At about 9:15 p.m., Antonio Diaz, who had been walking in the park near 105th Street, was knocked to the ground by teenagers, who stole his bag of food and bottle of beer.[12] And Gerald Malone and Patricia Dean, riding on a tandem, said that a group of boys tried to block their path on East Drive south of 102nd Street at about 9:15 p.m.; Malone said that he and Dean sped towards the boys, causing them to scatter, though Dean said that a few grabbed at her; the couple called police after reaching a call box.[12]

At least some of the group of teenagers traveled farther south to the area around the reservoir, and, there, four male joggers were "set upon" between 9:25 and 9:50 p.m.[13]: ¶ 7  David Lewis testified that he was attacked and robbed about 9:25–9:40 p.m.[12] Robert Garner said he was assaulted at about 9:30 p.m.[12] David Good testified he was attacked at about 9:47 p.m.[12] And, between 9:40 and 9:50, John Loughlin was "knocked to the ground, kicked, punched, and beaten with a pipe and stick"; he sustained "significant but not life-threatening injuries".[13]: ¶ 7  At a pretrial hearing in October 1989, a police officer testified that when Loughlin was found, he was bleeding so badly that he "looked like he was dunked in a bucket of blood".[14]

According to a later statement by District Attorney Nancy Ryan, "[a]ll five implicated themselves in a number of the crimes which had occurred in the park."[13]: ¶ 10

I don't think I got anything wrong. Hitting someone with a pipe doesn't leave DNA evidence, and the fact that someone else raped her at some point doesn't mean these five are innocent.

As to the five defendants, the [2003 Armstrong] report said:

We believe the inconsistencies contained in the various statements were not such as to destroy their reliability. On the other hand, there was a general consistency that ran through the defendants' descriptions of the attack on the female jogger: she was knocked down on the road, dragged into the woods, hit and molested by several defendants, sexually abused by some while others held her arms and legs, and left semiconscious in a state of undress.

I also believe this. Hang 'em high.

They were not just five random boys out for a lovely stroll at 10pm. Some were arrested for criminal behavior before the police even knew there was a rape victim.

But aside from their confessions there's almost nothing linking them to the victim.

I do think their confessions are worth something even if they're dumb kids under duress. Some confessed even with their parents present.

Sure is awkward that someone else confessed and DNA evidence links him to the victim though.

I don't think they're guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but it's definitely bizarre to turn around and conclude that they're heroes, which is how they're being treated by progressives (???)

I don't think they're guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but it's definitely bizarre to turn around and conclude that they're heroes, which is how they're being treated by progressives (???)

I think this is a general problem of modern therapy culture - we can't distinguish between innocent victims and actual heroes. (Christian martyrology doesn't help). I first noticed this after 9-11 - far too many people failed to make a moral distinction between the unheroic victims (the office workers in the towers and the Pentagon, the passengers on the three planes that hit their targets) and the actual heroes (the firemen and police who climbed up the burning towers, and the passengers on United 93).

The central park 5 were the victims of serious wrongdoing, in that they were imprisoned for far longer (and under worse conditions, as sex offenders) than would be justified by the various minor offences they committed as juveniles. That 4 of the 5 went straight after getting out is not particularly surprising and is why we have a relatively soft criminal justice system for juveniles - most (but by no means all) criminal youths grow out of it if given the chance. They aren't "heroes", and I don't think anyone capable of making the distinction thinks they are.

People were noticing the problem a decade before 9/11 too:

Homer: "That little Timmy is a real hero."

Lisa: "What makes him a hero, Dad?"

"Well, he fell down the well and... can't get out."

"How does that make him a hero?"

"Well, it's more than you did!"

-- The Simpsons, "Radio Bart", 1992

It's silly to claim that victims of natural tragedies are all heroes, but it's no worse than silly. I think the psychology here is a much more concerning problem in contexts like due process and free speech rights, though. Most people really don't like "defending scoundrels", as the old quote goes. For someone who can't get past that, the only ways to resolve the cognitive dissonance are to either abandon the defense or pretend the defendant isn't a scoundrel, both options that can have awful consequences if they become popular enough.

the various minor offences they committed as juveniles

Nah. Either they were guilty of what they confessed to, or they were guilty of implicating each other with false confessions. Even supposing the cops bullied them, and the other half dozen witnesses, including in front of their parents, that would just make the false-accusation offences excusable, not minor.

Yeah the whole justice project thing seems to have headed down a weird pathway in recent years. Obviously scope-creep is natural for non-profits but I remember a good Motte comment a few months ago about how it essentially ran out of 'real miscarriages of justice' and now gets by on mostly liberating people who were 98% guilty of horrible crimes but may get clemency with some procedural wiggle room due to lazy prosecutors... which is like fine but doesn't feel like the point of the project.

it's a shame that our politicians have fully embraced the heat-over-light dynamics of the culture war, to the point where they really are teetering on the brink of starting a civil war

Trump brought this on himself.

There's a million ways he could've implemented the ICE program, and he chose one with the greatest optics of cruelty. Masked and armed bouncers dragging people away at gunpoint has horrible optics. There are documented cases of people being deported to random nations, a few people have been disappeared (from public tracking, limiting a family's visibility into where a loved one is) and there's a general allergy to due process. Horrible optics.

"Cruelty is the point". I didn't believe it during Trump 1. For Trump 2, I believe it.

Here are the 'job requirements' for a deportation officer. Literally randos. (I retract my statement, I was wrong here)

  • U.S. citizenship
  • Have a valid driver's license
  • Be eligible to carry a firearm

There is reason that police & military training take time. Using a gun for law enforcement is a heavy responsibility. ICE is picking untrained civilians, giving them guns and asking them to go be bounty hunters.

Democrats are justified in believing that this will select for bottom-feeder men with anger problems looking to get the high of having power over someone else. Given that most illegal immigrants are brown, I can see why democrats would believe that the average ICE agent is a raging racist too.

If Democrats believe what they claim to believe, then their actions are in line with those values. ICE agents look like an angry paramilitary that a dictator would deploy against his populace. People believe what they see. Democrats are cherry picking, but the cherry picked images are still real images.

Democratic response as what it is - basically outright treason against the U.S. federal gov

It may be treason. It may not. An accusation must be validated by a supposedly neutral arbiter. In your characterization, when the state oversteps its powers to oppose the federal govt, it is treason.

Now, both parties have operated in a maximally oppositional manner since Obama was elected. The adversarial nature has only gotten further amplified with every subsequent President. Given the way laws are written, both parties fight it out in the massive grey area between words. States vs Federal tussles are the most common form of inter-party warfare. This is business as usual. The system leaves it to Courts to decide what the bounds of this grey area are.

As with all accusations in the US, until the supreme courts weighs in, it isn't formally treason. Given that no one have been convicted of Treason since WW2, I think you're being hyperbolic.

I hope that we can right this ship because man, I do not want to have to fight in a civil war I have to say. Having studied history, it's a lot more horrible than you might think.

I'm confused. Trump is consistently the first one to raise the temperature and to lower the bar for acceptable discourse. I don't want to sound like a kid. But, he started it. Only now, the democrats are responding.

Trump is the President and central figure to America's current polarization. If there is a civil war, it will be because of him. As the one in power, the onus is on Trump to reduce the temperature.

There's a million ways he could've implemented the ICE program, and he chose one with the greatest optics of cruelty.

Give me the power of mainstream media, and I can portray a "free school lunch" program as having the optics with the greatest cruelty. Like why, after everything that we discussed here overe the years, should anyone, including left-wingers, take any of these declarations seriously?

These two statements:

The left-leaning media will paint Republican efforts in the most negative light

and

Trump wants ICE to be seen as a force to be feared

are not incompatible. The first is true, but doesn't actually dismiss whether the second is true or not.

And as to this second point, Trump is currently the guy who frames illegal immigration as an invasion, pays for illegal immigrants to be sent directly to a foreign jail without trial as gang members despite having no criminal record even close to gang membership and suggests sending Americans there, and sends the National Guard to progressive cities.

Trump's entire shtick is portraying everything as war and himself as champion. He wants that image and uses the media's attempts to smear him as fuel for it.

Was it the mainstream media that put up videos of ICE enforcement with silly music in the background, or was that the administration itself?

Was it the mainstream media, or the administration itself that decided ICE officers should be masked and incognito, while performing arrests unlike law enforcement officials?

Was it the mainstream media or the administration itself that declared that violence commited against ICE was a direct result of Democrat rhetoric?

Perhaps if you ignore all the facts it's easy to assume that the cruelty and unusual nature of this treatment is all an invention of the "mainstream media" but such a perspective is not supported by the facts

But regardless of media spin they are actively choosing to have insane optics. The Hyundai plant. Tiktok videos with the pokemon theme song "gotta catch em all" on what I thought was a very serious topic that required significant government resources.

Also, again, they'd be way more justified if this wasn't so obviouslyfake. They don't actually want to solve this, they just want the base to think they are. It undermines all of it.

Where is e-verify? Why are they not going after illegal immigrants in hotels? Or farms? Why aren't they going after american employers, all of whom are documented, who make up a much smaller # of entities to deal with? American citizens pay illegal immigrants American dollars to work. Go after them! That's so much easier, that's so much more effective. Illegal immigrants will deport themselves if they can't make money to send home, they're not here for fun.

Or farms

Hotels looks like straight forwards corruption to me, but there isn’t really a replacement for illegal labor on farms. This would be a principled exception literally anyone makes. You can get farm work done by taking advantage of wage differentials(these guys think they’re making n Dakota oil money) or through forced labor. There is no other option.

Illegal immigrants will deport themselves if they can't make money to send home, they're not here for fun.

Correct, they’re not here for fun. But, the average daily wage for the paid in cash underclass in the US is similar to the average weekly wage for the normal working class in Mexico, which is the wealthiest of the countries these people are coming from. I really don’t think you’re going to solve the economic case with a few laws when señora cleaning one house a week for cash makes more than she would with a full time job in the old country. You’d have to make ATM’s illegal.

but there isn’t really a replacement for illegal labor on farms

Actual visas for the particular types of workers you want to bring in would be the way a functional country would handle this.

We aren’t that, though.

Agreed :(

I find the view "I'm against illegal immigrants except for farm worker ones they're fine" incomprehensible

That's just being fine with illegal immigration with extra steps.

I disagree, it's simply looking at the tradeoffs of enforcement within certain contexts. If the harm of enforcement within a certain context would be greater than the benefits, that doesn't invalidate enforcement everywhere.

Uh, what do you want done instead of immigrants on farms?

From what I've seen of US school lunches, you don't even need the power of mainstream media for that.

Is it the left that's posting videos of these raids? I seem to recall with the Hyundai plant raid that it was ICE themselves that released that video. They're definitely being intentional in their choice of optics within the video, at least.

There's a million ways he could've implemented the ICE program, and he chose one with the greatest optics of cruelty. Masked and armed bouncers dragging people away at gunpoint has horrible optics. There are documented cases of people being deported to random nations, a few people have been disappeared (from public tracking, limiting a family's visibility into where a loved one is) and there's a general allergy to due process. Horrible optics.

I dont think there is much evidence supporting this assertion. Arresting people is always going to generate the possibility of "bad optics" if the media wants to portray it as bad. Illegal immigrants are concentrated in cities that are run by Democrats. With not just passive resistance by Democratic governments, but often active participation in the thwarting of law enforcement actions, things would always have progressed to this point unless Trump just went along with the program and continued to not enforce immigration law. You had that judge in Wisconsin smuggling away an illegal in court, but court is the most orderly place to arrest ANYONE! They already went through a voluntary weapons screening and/or are already in custody and have been searched. So, no. He isn't going to the max, he's barely doing the minimum proscribed by law.

I dont think there is much evidence supporting this assertion

Yes there is???!

Masked and armed bouncers dragging people away at gunpoint has horrible optics.

This is happening, and the optics do suck. You can tell they suck because people hate and fear ICE officers in a way they didn't a year ago.

There are documented cases of people being deported to random nations, a few people have been disappeared (from public tracking, limiting a family's visibility into where a loved one is)

This happened, and the optics are so bad

and there's a general allergy to due process.

This has been happening.

Why are you in dental

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Masked and armed bouncers dragging people away at gunpoint has horrible optics.

This is happening, and the optics do suck. You can tell they suck because people hate and fear ICE officers in a way they didn't a year ago.

The core issue here is that there's no causal relationship between the optics sucking and the behavior of ICE, though. The optics are defined primarily by 2 things: what people see, and how they respond to what they see. Former is primarily determined by people who hate Trump and hate the core mission of ICE, and the latter is highly determined by those people as well. And the past decade or so has established a pattern that these people will always make the optics bad when it comes to Trump, in a way that's entirely orthogonal to truth and fact. So it makes sense that ICE and the people who lead it, like Trump, have decided to focus little on the optics.

Credibility takes a lifetime to earn and a millisecond to destroy, and unfortunately, the media and political organizations that are against Trump pretty much blew their load within his first presidency (I'd argue within his first campaign) and are still in the refractory period 8 years later, furiously rubbing the poor flesh and wondering why it just hurts instead of shooting another rope.

ICE literally posted a montage of masked dudes blowing up doors to the pokemon theme song.

I'm not saying the media isn't a biased shitshow, it is, but it would be much less effective if ICE were acting in an extremely professional and regimented manner, they aren't.

but it would be much less effective if ICE were acting in an extremely professional and regimented manner, they aren't.

Hard disagree. At best, it would be infinitesimally less effective, small enough that you'd need a magnifying glass to tell the difference. Of course, it's impossible to properly ascertain what an alternative universe would look like, but, based on the general reception that these official ICE-released videos got, I'd wager that the effect was net-neutral at worst in terms of Americans' perception of ICE.

the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.

So it's clearly not making Americans like it more!

I could be mistaken, but aren't you yourself a non-american who really doesn't like Trump? It seems like you've been exasperated for months here about the way this administration is handling their immigration crackdown attempt, particularly in regard to bad optics, damaged polling, and hypocritical american values. Taken together though, that sounds more like concern trolling than persuasive analysis.

That's not how statistics work. It's quite possible that this action by ICE is making Americans like it more, it's just countered by the other stuff around optics that's also happened in that time lowering it. In whole, we can say that Americans like it less now than they did in January - we cannot say that one individual act that happened in that time caused the net negative effect, i.e. which is why I said "I'd wager that," not "it is the case that" or even "it is evident that."

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This is happening, and the optics do suck. You can tell they suck because people hate and fear ICE officers in a way they didn't a year ago.

Not too many years ago many of the same people hated a couple of catholic kids for standing at a bus stop and smiling.

Truly the proof of the fault was how many people hated them in a way they didn't the week prior.

I don't really understand what your comparison is here. I also don't care about whatever algorithmic rage bait slop event you're talking about. The Republicans shit their pants once about Obama wearing a tan suit. Does that mean all Republican concerns are now invalid?

The optics suck, you can tell they suck because they're terrible. You can tell they suck because people are shooting at ICE officers. You can tell they suck because city mayor's think they'll score political points by making it hard for ICE agents to do their jobs.

You can tell the optics suck because the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.

This was an incredibly popular electoral issue. He crushed the election on it. Now he's underwater on it. I wonder why???

  • -10

I also don't care about whatever algorithmic rage bait slop event you're talking about.

This is what he is referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Lincoln_Memorial_confrontation

I'd not describe it as rage bait slop.

It was genuinely upsetting that much of twitter at the time came to the conclusion of "this kid should be punched in the face". I specifically remember the comedian Patton Oswalt saying something along those lines.

Comments on Twitter you don't like is quite literally the definition of "algorithmic rage bait slop" because the Twitter algorithm specifically shows you things that'll make you unhappy because that makes you engage more.

If you take the opinions of a clown (liberal cuck? He's actually pathetic) like Patton Oswalt you are being rage baited.

I don't read Twitter. Patton Oswalt's comments got picked up off Twitter space, that's how I know about them.

The kid in the incident successfully sued/settled with two news agencies over how irresponsible they were in reporting on this.

The gravity of the incident was not about the twitter comments but the media coverage, which was both defamatory and inflamatory.

The optics suck, you can tell they suck because they're terrible. You can tell they suck because people are shooting at ICE officers. You can tell they suck because city mayor's think they'll score political points by making it hard for ICE agents to do their jobs.

"Yeah, ok, you didn't actually do those things, and I'm just describing normal policing like a total asshole, but doesn't the fact that I could believe you would do something so horrible say something terrible about you?"

No. It says something about you. As does your eliding that, per your own link, immigration is still Trump's best polling policy.

Sorry, you were lying?

A solid majority of Americans still want every illegal deported. The relentless propaganda you are cheerfully participating in hasn't actually changed that. I wonder what the polling would look like if people were asked to choose between an ICE agent doing his job versus one of your trantifa insurrectionists trying to kill his family over it?

This is unnecessarily antagonistic.

one of your trantifa insurrectionists trying to kill his family over it?

I have no connection, affiliation, or agreement with whatever portmanteau of trans(?) and Antifa you made here. I find both of those groups insufferable.

I don't understand your quote/allegory of my words to be honest.

As does your eliding that, per your own link, immigration is still Trump's best polling policy.

That has nothing to do with my thesis, which is that optics (perception) of ICE is horrible, and it's clearly shown by the fact his approval on immigration, relative to earlier, has been dropping.

Just because he's even more underwater on his other awful ideas doesn't challenge this.

A solid majority of Americans still want every illegal deported

Yes they do, which is fine, I don't blame them, but they're clearly not thrilled with how it's happening WHICH IS LITERALLY THE OPTICS THING LMFAO

Also as an aside but it's just so blatantly clear they don't actually want to "solve" immigration because as stated infinity times, they're not taking any action to make employers use e-verify more and they're EXPLICITLY AND DELIBERATELY not going after hotels or farms, which are two of the biggest low hanging fruit for tons of illegal immigrants in obvious places.

If they wanted to, they would, and they aren't, so they don't.

This entire forum is so allergic to admitting this. If they actually wanted to address immigration, they'd punish the American citizens who give illegal immigrants money to do jobs. THE ILLEGALS ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU PAY THEM. Just go after the people who pay them, it's that simple. Again, this forum is wildly allergic to admitting that.

Yes there is???!

Step me through this, please. Evidence of this being true would require a reasonably deep look at the anti-ICE narrative, the pro-ICE narrative, and some analysis of not only why the anti-ICE narrative is closer to the truth than the pro-ICE one, but an ironclad case for why ICE is being unnecessarily cruel.

I say some reasonably unoctroversial things like "gender affirming doctors are prescribing chemical castration drugs to children" and I'm expected to provide evidence with citations, but you make your case with "yes there is???!?" and repeating "thr optics are so horrible"? Why should I accept that?

For one, I don't see why you need any of that evidence. Optics aren't even about truth, it's OPTICS. I'm not taking a stance on if ICE is too cruel, or if the pro/anti ICE narrative is more true I'm saying that ICE's optics as an organization are not good. As in, ICE looks bad to many Americans.

The optics suck, you can tell they suck because they're terrible. You can tell they suck because people are shooting at ICE officers. You can tell they suck because city mayor's think they'll score political points by making it hard for ICE agents to do their jobs.

You can tell the optics suck because the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.

This was an incredibly popular electoral issue. He crushed the election on it. Now he's underwater on it. I wonder why???

  • -10

For one, I don't see why you need any of that evidence.

When people tell me it exists, I like taking a look.

The optics suck, you can tell they suck because they're terrible. You can tell they suck because people are shooting at ICE officers.

If you get shot, does it mean your optics suck, or does it maybe say more about the person doing the shooting?

This was an incredibly popular electoral issue. He crushed the election on it. Now he's underwater on it. I wonder why???

Polls generally are a lame argument, and I'm even more puzzled about why you think the names of The Economist and Nate Silver specifically should carry any weight with me.

By the way, did you just type out the same 2-3 paragraphs in 3 different comments? Are you ok?

Polls are a lame argument when talking about public opinion and optics???

If you don't accept polls with evidence to the contrary of your views, and you don't accept arguments about shootings increasing being a sign of public opinion, then what evidence do you accept?

When people tell me it exists, I like taking a look.

I guess I'm just not sure how to define or quantify a fuzzy object like "optics" which by nature is opinion based, without pointing at measures of people's opinions.

Also on a real human level, they're just obviously bad? Partisanship aside can we not agree that dudes in face coverings abducting people and sending some of them to 3rd world prisons run by dictators is really fucking off-putting?

To be honest, I actually feel like you're being willfully ignorant here. When people in this thread say "Optics" they obviously mean "the public perception or appearance of an action, decision, or policy. How it looks rather than what it is."

Perception is everything here, and polls measure perception/opinion.

Why are polls a lame argument?

The Economist is generally regarded as a reliable source, and Nate Silver is a very talented pollster, so it is highly likely these pills are a real indication of how the American people feel. If you have a different hypothesis as to how the American people feel, you should present it.

By the way, did you just type out the same 2-3 paragraphs in 3 different comments? Are you ok?

I'm pretty sure I'm responding to 3 different people, so I wanted to make sure they all saw the stats that back my hypothesis. Copy and pasted so it was pretty easy, but I appreciate you checking.

Yes there is???!

Then by all means, lay it out. When I want to list law enforcement travesties by federal law enforcement, I list people murdered, women and children burned alive en masse, obviously unnecessary use of lethal force, decades-long patterns of abuse of rights and murderous malfeasence, destruction of evidence, perjury and coverups, all without meaningful accountability through any process intended to supply it.

What are the clear misdeeds of the current ICE offensive?

This is happening, and the optics do suck. You can tell they suck because people hate and fear ICE officers in a way they didn't a year ago.

Blue tribe emotions are not a reasonable guide to material reality.

What are the clear misdeeds of the current ICE offensive?

From my comment, quoting the comment above.

Masked and armed bouncers dragging people away at gunpoint.

There are documented cases of people being deported to random nations, a few people have been made deliberately hard to find (from public tracking, limiting a family's visibility into where a loved one is)

Breaking a guy's leg and holding him in a hospital for 37 days without any charges after signing him in with a fake name.

Blue tribe emotions are not a reasonable guide to material reality.

Quite literally half of the country hates something and you live in a democracy so you unfortunately don't get to not care lol.

You can tell the optics suck because the economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.

This was an incredibly popular electoral issue. He crushed the election on it. Now he's underwater on it. I wonder why???

But fmac is not talking about material reality. fmac is talking about the optics. If people hate and fear ICE officers in an unprecedented way, this is strong evidence that their optics suck. Being feared and hated doesn't prove they're actually behaving badly, but it does, almost tautologically, mean that they are giving off a scary hatable vibe.

Or evidence that their optics are exactly what they want them to be and they're reasonably competent at cultivating the appearance they want to have. So far I see no evidence that ICE wants to cultivate an image of professionals who dot every i and cross every t, and quite a bit of evidence that they want to cultivate an image as badass thugs who are getting shit done in terms of kicking anyone illegal out of America, no matter who they are and no matter why they think they're safe.

Well, sure, the phrase "their optics suck" is ambiguous. I think it can cover either of "ICE are unsuccessful at shaking off an unwanted bad reputation" or "ICE are successfully cultivating a bad reputation", and I agree the latter seems more likely, though some people in this thread vehemently deny it even as other ICE-supporters embrace it. But it still seems fair to call that "their optics suck", it would just mean that their optics suck on purpose for some inane galaxy-brained reason.

The meat of the disagreement is what constitutes a "bad reputation". At best it's scissor statements, my "efficient law enforcement" is your "brutal tyranny" but you started this with adjectives like "chaotic" that are pure outgroup messaging, and far from anything ICE is promoting about themselves. Seriously, go look at the @ICEgov twitter feed. The message they want out is "We are always getting bad guys, and if you act like a baby about it, we'll still get you and make fun of you for it, too."

That's a far cry from "chaos marauder stormtroopers".

but it does, almost tautologically, mean that they are giving off a scary hatable vibe.

I would surmise that the majority of americans have not seen an ICE officer performing their duty in real life, only through videos that are cherry-picked, contextualized and characterized by a hostile media. In that context, the vibe around them is definitely not something that they are tautologically giving off, but something that could be constructed around them.

ICE themselves posts videos of them raiding places. They posted a video to the pokemon sound track. The pokemon one has clips of masked dudes blowing up doors. It doesn't look good man.

You don't even need the media lol, they're structuring their own optics. It doesn't look great.

It doesn't look good man.

Would it not look good if it were not in the context of the media breathlessly describing them as stormtroopers for months? We're talking about counter-factual world we can't really observe here, but purely on its own, for me, masked guys blowing up doors to the Pokemon soundtrack doesn't really raise an eyebrow. It's not like they're committing atrocities, or even just filming themselves doing a bit of the ol' unnecessary police brutality and laughing about it, that'd be different.

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TheMotte is weirdly averse to admitting the Trump’s administration is often deliberately maximally inflammatory and absolutely does engage in “liberal tears” style antagonism. Yes, I understand that the media will always portray conservatives as the villain no matter what you do (Nicholas Sandman, Binders full of women, etc) but that doesn’t mean you have no agency in being more or less provocative. In many cases it may make no difference in your public perception due to media manipulation, but we shouldn’t ignore that Trump is openly, deliberately inflammatory

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ICE themselves posts videos of them raiding places. They posted a video to the pokemon sound track. The pokemon one has clips of masked dudes blowing up doors. It doesn't look good man.

It does, to the target audience, which is why they do it.

There is no way ICE can have good optics for Democrats and those who watch mainstream-left media. So they don't bother, which leaves them free to pander instead to those who are receptive.

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They also haven't seen and/or haven't thought about how law enforcement is done. It's often brutal, because you're trying to catch people who don't want to be caught and make them do things they don't want to do. It's also often far more brutal than it has to be, but most of the time you can't tell if it is that just by looking at a few short videos. Dragging people away at gunpoint is part of what law enforcement does, and indeed there are many circumstances where they are masked when doing so. I object to most of ICEs masking, but I don't believe for a second that the objection here would go away or become significantly less strident if they didn't do so.

It's also the El Salvadorian prison stuff. The whole vibe sucks.

I agree, the objection wouldn't have changed a lot, but the sway it has over the median American would.

If ICE acted in a less shitshow aggro way, the opposition to them would look more like crying blue-hair SJWs and not a broader coalition of SJWs, Americans who don't like para-military themed law enforcement, etc

Then, it would be a really intelligent wedge issue to bait democratic leadership into opposing something broadly popular, instead of now something that half of Americans don't like.

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Arresting people is always going to generate the possibility of "bad optics" if the media wants to portray it as bad.

This. If the media wanted to, they could run non-stop coverage of deranged leftists screaming at stone-faced ICE agents before assaulting the purported fascist stormtroopers. They could do wall-to-wall coverage of the attacks against feds, complete with interviews with crying wives and mothers.

IMO the optics are kind of the point of the current incarnation of ICE. Deportation is such a massive task that actually doing it at scale is very very difficult, so doing as much as possible to 'change the vibe' seems to have worked to discourage new illegals entering the country, increase self-deportation and create an atmosphere of fear. It also makes Trump's base feel that 'something is being done'.

There's a million ways he could've implemented the ICE program, and he chose one with the greatest optics of cruelty.

No plan has good optics when faced by hostile media, as well as protestors deliberately trying to create bad optics.

What about releasing an ICE montage over top of the pokemon theme song?

Democrats are justified in believing that this will select for bottom-feeder men with anger problems looking to get the high of having power over someone else. Given that most illegal immigrants are brown, I can see why democrats would believe that the average ICE agent is a raging racist too.

Aw, man. Remember when Democrats believed that the people fighting in Iraq were bottom-feeder 10% loser retards who just wanted to be racist and murder sand-n**gers?

You should explain why that psychotically uncharitable dehumanization of the outgroup belief was as justified as this one.

Then we'll all hold hands and agree that the progressives occupying their Long March positions in the regulatory agencies are just bottom-feeder pseudo-intellectual retards looking for the high of acting like Ayn Rand villains on account of their raging bigotries and inferiority complexes.

Right?

Remember when Democrats believed that the people fighting in Iraq were bottom-feeder 10% loser retards who just wanted to be racist and murder sand-n**gers?

You should explain why that belief was as justified as this one.

Both are retarded beliefs, and both government actions are retarded as well

Sadly, I don't. I did not read western news back then :(

You know what, I saw the admission to the other poster, and I always find myself liking and respecting people who do that.

Sorry for the heat.

Here are the 'job requirements' for a deportation officer. Literally randos.

U.S. citizenship Have a valid driver's license Be eligible to carry a firearm

No. It it has many other requirements such as the ability to hold a secret clearance, a background check, drug testing. Do you think 'randos' and 'bottom-feeder men with anger problems looking to get the high of having power over someone else' can qualify for a secret clearance?

The deportation officer role also requires 16 weeks of training which is less than the NYPD's 26 weeks in their police academy, but plenty for their specialised role.

Frankly, I was indeed worried that the bar was that low.

Reviewing the job profile, these qualification demands are more rigorous than I gave them credit for. I said a lot of things today, and I have been corrected on a good few. I am glad that happened. Turns out that US is a liberal first world nation, and standards are standards. I am satisfied.

Do you think 'randos' and 'bottom-feeder men with anger problems looking to get the high of having power over someone else' can qualify for a secret clearance?

Not anymore

NYPD's 26 weeks in their police academy, but plenty for their specialised role.

It's 6 months in the academy and then ~2 years in probation.

being qualified to carry a gun selects against "bottom feeders," a term I feel is more appropriate for say, fentanyl addicts. but it probably does select for people who are not well into the arts, i.e. philistines. That's a kind of bottom feeder for many.

If Democrats believe what they claim to believe, then their actions are in line with those values. ICE agents look like an angry paramilitary that a dictator would deploy against his populace. People believe what they see. Democrats are cherry picking, but the cherry picked images are still real images.

Does this rule apply to any other political cause?

Because we had a debate about a predawn raid where masked and unidentifiable men broke down someone's door and shot the guy in the head over some simple paperwork crimes -- complete with defiance of long-standing policy and only-by-the-text compliance with a warrant -- and people here defended it as all acceptable because He Broke The Law.

For some reason, the cherrypicked image of his ventilated skull wasn't a cause celebre nor a moment for deep retroflection on the costs of a cause; at most, it was reason Those Damned Republicans Should Want Police Reform (that won't apply here). Nor, for that matter, were the dozens of other examples going back decades, sometimes with far greater casualty counts, which, to skip the charcoal briquettes rant, did nothing to sate progressive efforts to The Cause.

Ah, well, nonetheless.

Perhaps there are clear examples of immigration enforcement that weren't cause celebres for the Left? The Nicer, Kinder, Cruelty Isn't The Point 2018 policies were not tolerated and accepted -- even when some of the outrage was based on photos dating to the previous Democratic admin, or entirely made up, it still became The Worst Thing Ever at the same time it didn't work, only for all of those problems to get shoved back in the box as soon as something was (D)ifferent in the Presidency.

Does this rule apply to any other political cause?

Yes? Is this a trick question? It looks like people here were pretty close to universal in saying the ATF was incompetent, malicious, or most likely both here.

For some reason, the cherrypicked image of his ventilated skull wasn't a cause celebre nor a moment for deep retroflection on the costs of a cause

Yeah, it is an unfortunate truth that "someone did an unambiguously terrible thing and now the world is worse :(" doesn't get nearly as much engagement as "someone did a thing, maybe it's very bad, maybe it's not so bad, but everyone has an opinion and thinks anyone who disagrees with them is an evil mutant".

Perhaps there are clear examples of immigration enforcement that weren't cause celebres for the Left?

Yeah, almost all of them. In (to pick an arbitrary Biden year) 2022, ICE deported about 70,000 people. Not more than a handful of those people were cause celebres. Likewise in 2018 (to pick an arbitrary Trump 1 year), and likewise this year.

It looks like people here were pretty close to universal in saying the ATF was incompetent, malicious, or most likely both here.

Would you like to demonstrate where, exactly, Rov_Scam said that, rather than moe about gun owners not wanting to compromise?

Yeah, it is an unfortunate truth that "someone did an unambiguously terrible thing and now the world is worse :(" doesn't get nearly as much engagement as "someone did a thing, maybe it's very bad, maybe it's not so bad, but everyone has an opinion and thinks anyone who disagrees with them is an evil mutant".

Oh, if everyone agreed it was awful, then there must be a whole ton of sympathetic coverage from mainstream and even progressive sources, right? I must be able to find some Honest Gun Control Advocate who talked about how they wanted enforcement, but Not Like This, rather than just memory hole or completely ignore the matter? President Biden, who was willing to speak out personally about an immigration officer using reins on a horse, must have spoken on the matter: it was the middle of election season and an excellent opportunity to Sister Souljah nutjobs. Or if his brain was too applesauce at the time, perhaps Kamala "I own A Glock" Harris did so? The officers in question -- who unquestionably did violate policy, and near-certainly violated a lot of constitutional protections in addition to the not-getting-shot-in-head-bit -- must have been fired or at least demoted, right, even if they couldn't be prosecuted?

Ah, no.

In (to pick an arbitrary Biden year) 2022, ICE deported about 70,000 people. Not more than a handful of those people were cause celebres. Likewise in 2018 (to pick an arbitrary Trump 1 year), and likewise this year.

Did you follow the link? Because a good part of the complaint here is that those 2018-2019 period did get a massive amount of often-not-honest outrage, even when the some of photos predated Trump. Yes, no one cared about Biden deportations, that's the punchline.

That's the joke, and that's why the outrage here is a joke.

There's a million ways he could've implemented the ICE program, and he chose one with the greatest optics of cruelty.

Could have been maximally "gentle" and the cruelty would have been manufactured by the mainstream media. Under Biden the media used forced perspective to make it look like border patrol was whipping illegal aliens.

Trump brought this on himself. There's a million ways he could've implemented the ICE program, and he chose one with the greatest optics of cruelty.

There's a million ways he could have implemented the ICE program completely ineffectually. This way is delivering at least some level of results, and there is no reason to believe that any other plausible method would deliver better results.

"Cruelty is the point". I didn't believe it during Trump 1. For Trump 2, I believe it.

This has been a bipartisan pattern throughout the last decade, pretty clearly as a result of collapsing federal authority. Gun laws are routinely enforced this way, and have been for decades. COVID mandates were very clearly enforced this way. Trans ideology was enforced this way.

Here are the 'job requirements' for a deportation officer. Literally randos.

What job requirements would seem more appropriate to you? Can you point to some examples of how low recruiting standards have resulted in bad outcomes?

Democrats are justified in believing that this will select for bottom-feeder men with anger problems looking to get the high of having power over someone else.

As you say, "An accusation must be validated by a supposedly neutral arbiter." I disagree that Democrats are justified in such a belief. On the other hand, I can point to recent cases where federal agents promulgated official orders to violate their core mission to better discriminate against Reds.

As with all accusations in the US, until the supreme courts weighs in, it isn't formally treason.

I think you overestimate the sociopolitical "pull" maintained by the courts, including the Supreme Court. We are more than a decade into lesser courts, and local, state and federal officials operating in open defiance of rulings they disagree with.

The fact is that systems of law do not constrain human will, individually or collectively. "Treason" is a word invented by humans, applied by humans, and assessed by humans. If the argument here is that Democrat local and state officials probably won't be charged, convicted and sentenced for Treason for the things they're doing right now, I'll readily agree with you. But the fight that is happening right now is more likely to grow than to gutter out, and there does not appear to be an obvious point where it will stop. Blue Tribe has acted for decades as though it is above the law, and it turns out those actions have consequences.

Trump is consistently the first one to raise the temperature and to lower the bar for acceptable discourse. I don't want to sound like a kid. But, he started it. Only now, the democrats are responding.

It is certainly true that Trump started raising the temperature, if one carefully defines "raising the temperature" to exclude everything Democrats have done to raise the temperature over the last decade or more. Trump is essentially a copy of Bill Clinton. His cabinet and associates are full of former high-tier democrat figures. His policies used to be entirely normal within the democratic party as recently as a decade ago. Red Tribe has slaughtered numerous sacred cows to assemble their current coalition, essentially capitulating to broad swathes of the Democratic policy platform. The democrats have only moved further left in response, and have made both unconscionable government repression and large-scale, organized lawless violence core aspects of their political program.

The democratic party announced their intention to use mass immigration to secure a permanent majority Twenty years ago. It turns out that this was not quite the silver bullet they expected, but Reds are assessing future cooperation in terms of intentions, not results, and Blues have made it abundantly clear that further cooperation with them leads to no livable future for Reds.

Reds are not going to back down because there is no retreat available to us. We decline to be reduced to second-class citizens in our native country. We decline to be victimized by the full power of the Federal Government. We decline to uphold rules that are enforced only to our detriment and never to our benefit. We decline to maintain systems that exist only to oppress us.

No justice, no peace.

there is no reason to believe that any other plausible method would deliver better results.

You don't even need e-verify

Just go after employers! Fine the shit out of people who knowingly use illegal labour. Imprison them! They're basically traitors to you anyway right? They're aiding and abetting these illegal immigrants. THE IMMIGRANTS DON'T COME TO THE USA FOR THE WEATHER, THEY COME BECAUSE AMERICANS PAY THEM MONEY FOR THEIR LABOUR.

I know two sectors that use HUGE amounts of illegal labour, hotels and farmers! Just go after them! Fish in a barrel.

Oh wait no nevermind we can't go after those guys because... reasons that I'm sure have nothing to do with Trump owning hotels.

Direct quote for you, by Trump:

“But you know, when you go into a farm and you set somebody working with them for nine years doing this kind of work, which is hard work to do and a lot of people aren’t going to do it, and you end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away — it’s a problem. You know, I’m on both sides of the thing. I’m the strongest immigration guy that there’s ever been, but I’m also the strongest farmer guy that there’s ever been, and that includes also hotels and, you know, places where people work, a certain group of people work,”

The segue to hotels is hilarious

there is no reason to believe that any other plausible method would deliver better results.

This is factually false. E-verify is a thing. If you want to stop people who are not authorized to work from working, then mandating that employers actually check that their employees are authorized to work for them seems like an obvious step to take.

If you haven't even taken the step of mandating the use of e-verify for all employers, I don't believe you when you say "but we have to disappear people, it's the only strategy that could possibly work".

E-Verify is currently very easy to circumvent and would require an act of Congress, aka 60 senators, to fix. The current batch of senators cannot cobble together 60 who will vote for a clean continuing resolution because sunset provisions for a free money from the sky provision are going into effect.

Yes, the fact that one of the three branches of government has decided not to do their job does seem to be the root of the problem here.

I don't believe you when you say "but we have to disappear people, it's the only strategy that could possibly work".

Nobody is getting disappeared. Everyone apprehended can be looked up on a public website. https://locator.ice.gov/odls/#/search

Nobody, you say?

A federal judge has ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to temporarily end round-the-clock surveillance of a man hospitalized with a broken leg he suffered during his arrest [...] The man, who suffered a broken leg while being arrested in California on August 27, had been detained for more than 37 days [...] To date, ICE has not placed petitioner in removal proceedings, charged him with violating immigration law, set bond, issued a Notice to Appear or otherwise processed him [...] The man, registered by ICE with the pseudonym “Har Maine UNK Thirteen,” was arrested by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Carson Car Wash in Carson, California, on August 27

So ICE arrested someone, detained him for 37 days in the hospital under armed guard, did not charge him with anything, denied him legal counsel, and used a pseudonym when registering him in the locator. That sure sounds to me like "ICE disappeared that guy".

If he was in the hospital ICE would have gone to a judge and obtained a hospital order wherein they explained to the judge why he could not be brought to court for his initial court appearance. The judge then changed his/her mind after this situation continued for such a long time that he/she deemed it unreasonable given the state of the case. Your ignorance of criminal law has allowed you to be propagandized.

You wanna bring receipts on that for this case? I can bring them for the proceedings leading up to the TRO, and I see nothing like that mentioned.

Well all the documents appear to be sealed....

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If a federal judge can order ICE to release you, you have not been disappeared. You are very much in the system, documented, and his lawyers and the judge know his name even if the hospital does not, that's for sure.

In this case it looks like he got badly hurt during arrest and was taken to a hospital where he was admitted under a pseudonym and kept under guard. ICE says they were waiting for him to be released from the hospital and taken to their LA processing center before charging him. The judge said they had to release him from custody because they hadn't charged him yet. ICE did, and basically said they'd arrest him again after he gets out of the hospital and then charge him properly.

If your lawyer can talk to you and file court motions on your behalf, you have not been disappeared. When the NKVD showed up at your apartment in the dead of night and took you away, nobody saw or heard you again. That was proper disappearing! A lot of them were taken to the basement of the Lubyanka and shot in the back of the head.

When the NKVD showed up at your apartment in the dead of night and took you away, nobody saw or heard you again. That was proper disappearing!

Ok, I admit I don't have any documented examples of people being disappeared without a trace by ICE and never heard from again. I don't think things have to get to the point of "literally as bad as the NKVD" for us to go "wait a second this is not good and I want to see less of this" though.

We had this argument repeatedly during the "Maryland Dad" fiasco. The best example people could come up with for malfeasance was a missed piece of paperwork before quite properly deporting a human smuggling, wife-beating gang banger.

Napkin math suggests ICE is the most properly functioning government agency of all time. I'm honestly kind of shocked that there hasn't been any proper travesties.

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“Disappeared” is what the NKVD did, what ICE is doing is called “arresting”. If you say people are being disappeared, you’re saying it has gotten to the point of being as bad as the NKVD!

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It does not appear he was "disappeared". Otherwise, how would the habeas corpus petition be filed in the first place?

The habeas corpus petition was filed on September 30. He was detained on August 27. That's a solid month. How long do you think is appropriate to hold someone without charging them?

On September 17th, 3 weeks after he was first detained, CBP informed him that they still hadn't assigned him an A-number - so

  • the ICE locator mentioned upthread wouldn't show him by his name
  • the ICE locator mentioned upthread wouldn't show him by a-number because one had not been assigned

My non expert reading is that the judge is pissed at a level that is not normal. From the temporary restraining order

There is generally no public interest in the perpetuation of unlawful agency action. To the contrary, there is a substantial public interest ‘in having governmental agencies abide by the federal laws that govern their existence and operations.

And looks like she's expecting malicious compliance from ICE as well

To be clear, Respondents must not remove Petitioner from the hospital, cause his discharge before his medical team deems it medically appropriate, or require his in-person appearance before an immigration officer prior to his discharge from the hospital. Rather, the Court orders that guards be withdrawn from Petitioner’s hospital room, that restrictions on his activities be lifted (including his ability to make telephone calls to family and friends and to confer confidentially with counsel outside the presence of ICE agents), and that any physical restraints, such as handcuffs, be removed.

This guy had 2-4 guards posted 24/7 for over a month. Someone high up signed off on this, this can't be written off as a single agent acting alone. Seems pretty egregious to me..

The habeas corpus petition was filed on September 30. He was detained on August 27. That's a solid month. How long do you think is appropriate to hold someone without charging them?

That wasn't the question. The question is whether he was disappeared. He was not. I do not know why it took a month to file the petition.

It's quite possible ICE did wrong here. What they did not do is disappear someone.

My non expert reading is that the judge is pissed at a level that is not normal.

I don't much care. Performative pissyness from judges seems to be pretty standard in political cases, and doesn't stop the judges from being overruled.

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But they wore masks while they did it, masks make people feel bad. That's basically the same as disappearing people, amirite?

This is low effort sneering. Don't do this.

The eVerify mandate [edit: sorry, not eVerify, but a card check] is old enough to vote; while it doesn’t apply to literally every business, it applies to almost all of them. Even outside of the error mode where every other Presidential administration unlawfully issues bulk work permits and mugs about standing to the courts, or shut down compliance audits, several Blue states have undermined it by the letter of the law and destroyed it in practice, and it’s biggest impact has been a burst of SSN fraud.

E-Verify is also old enough to vote. It's just not mandatory at the federal level. It is mandatory in some states, so it's not like it's a half-baked system which wouldn't work at scale. It exists, and it works in practice, but it's still not mandatory everywhere. As far as I can tell nothing is preventing Congress from passing a law to make it mandatory, other than "congress has decided it no longer needs to do its job".

Anyway, I'm looking at the examples you gave:

  • Illinois SB0508 - this... just looks like it's saying "employers who use E-verify still have to comply with all other relevant employment law"? Is there a particular part of this you object to? Maybe the bit which says "An employer shall ensure that the System is not used for any purpose other than employment verification of newly hired employees and shall ensure that the information contained in the System and the means of access to the System are not disseminated to any person other than employees who need such information" - is your objection that actually Illinois should allow E-verify to be used for employment verification of existing employees as well?
  • California AB 450 QA - As far as I can tell, this says "Employers shall not voluntarily and actively assist immigration officials in accessing areas which are closed to the public, or actively provide records to immigration officials, unless those immigration officials have a warrant or subpoena. If immigration officials insist anyway employers have no obligation to try to stop them". That seems fine and very much in line with other regulations in California, e.g. CA Civ Code § 56.10 which says "A provider of health care, health care service plan, or contractor shall not disclose medical information regarding a patient of the provider of health care or an enrollee or subscriber of a health care service plan without first obtaining an authorization, except as provided in subdivision (b) or (c)" and subdivisions (b) and (c) are basically "(b) there's a warrant or equivalent" or "(c) the information is being disclosed to the insurer / other parts of the medical system". I like this law. Law enforcement agents should need either a warrant or reasonable suspicion - I don't like fishing expeditions by law enforcement, and this law seems to specifically prohibit employers from assisting in fishing expeditions where there is no warrant and no probable cause.

As far as I can tell nothing is preventing Congress from passing a law to make it mandatory, other than "congress has decided it no longer needs to do its job".

Congress is doing its job of being partisan. Democrats do not want E-Verify to work, so they oppose legislation that would make it work. That isn't not doing your job, its just doing your job in a way that gets stagnant results. The fact that large numbers of Democratic voters prefer a functioning E-Verify, and overwhelming numbers of Republican voters prefer it is of no moment if they do not punish at the polls non-compliance with that desire. Republican voters have carried out that displeasure via Trump, Cotton, etc. Democrat voters have not punished this specific non-compliance with their expressed policy desires, so the elite Democratic party position remains unchallenged in law until enough voters get angry to put 60 yes votes in the senate.

Or they get rid of the filibuster.

Illinois prohibits employers from using eVerify to any extent not mandated by the federal government, prohibits local jurisdictions from doing anything not mandated by the federal government (even for their own employees!), and requires employers to notify employees within 72 hours of receiving notification of an i9 audit.

California prohibits employers from complying with federal administrative warrants ("Documents issued by a government agency but not issued by a court and signed by a judge are not judicial warrants. An immigration enforcement agent may show up with something called an “administrative warrant” or a “warrant of deportation or removal.” These documents are not judicial warrants"), and from voluntarily providing any employment information. If you're willing to call the current state of eVerify a fishing expedition, that's on you, but I'm not going to take it seriously.

Q: What should employers do if an immigration enforcement agent seeks to enter the employer’s place of business?
A: Employers, or persons acting on behalf of the employer, shall not provide “voluntary consent” to the entry of an immigration enforcement agent to “any nonpublic areas of a place of labor.”
This provision does not apply if the agent enters a nonpublic area without the consent of the employer or other person in control of the place of labor or if the immigration enforcement agent presents a judicial warrant. In addition, employers are not precluded from taking an agent to a nonpublic area if all of the following are met: (1) employees are not present in the nonpublic area; (2) the agent is taken to the nonpublic area for the purpose of verifying whether the agent has a judicial warrant; and (3) no consent to search the nonpublic area is given in the process.
See Government Code Section 7285.1.

Q: What does it mean to provide “voluntary” consent to the entry of an immigration enforcement agent?
In general, for consent to be voluntary, it should not be the result of duress or coercion, either express or implied.
An example of providing “voluntary” consent to enter a nonpublic area could be freely asking or inviting an immigration enforcement agent to enter that area. This could be indicated by words and/or by the act of freely opening doors to that area for the agent, for instance.
Whether or not voluntary consent was given by the employer is a factual, case-by-case determination that will be made based on the totality of circumstances in each specific situation.
This law does not require physically blocking or physically interfering with the entry of an immigration enforcement agent in order to show that voluntary consent was not provided.

Q: What should employers do if an immigration enforcement agent tries to access, review, or obtain employee records?
A: Employers, or persons acting on behalf of the employer, shall not provide “voluntary consent” to an immigration enforcement agent “to access, review, or obtain the employer’s employee records.” This provision does not apply if the agent accesses, reviews, or obtains employee records without the consent of the employer or other person in control of the place of labor. In addition, exceptions to this provision apply if: • The immigration enforcement agent provides a subpoena for the employee records; or • The agent provides a judicial warrant for the employee records; or • The employee records accessed, reviewed, or obtained by the immigration enforcement agent are I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification forms and other documents that are requested in a Notice of Inspection issued under federal law.

Q: Does AB 450 require employers to defy federal requirements?
A: No. Compliance with AB 450 does not compel any employer to violate federal law. Rather, it may require employers in some instances to decline requests for voluntary cooperation by federal agents. However, the statute makes clear that its provisions only apply “[e]xcept as otherwise required by federal law” and do not restrict or limit an employer’s compliance with any memorandum of understanding governing use of the federal E-Verify system.

That, again, seems fine? My impression is that the stuff about voluntary vs involuntary search is that it mainly has to do with what evidence is admissible in court - law enforcement agents are going to be able to go where they want whether or not your cooperation is voluntary.

And in terms of documents, documents that are actually relevant to work eligibility are already covered as things that employers should cooperate with if there's an administrative warrant. My understanding is that what you can't do is hand over the Workday login to ICE and invite them to go on a fishing expedition unless you are compelled to do so.

All that said I am not a lawyer, maybe I'm reading the law wrong? ChatGPT agrees with my interpretation when I ask it, but it also agrees with your interpretation when I ask it.

My impression is that the stuff about voluntary vs involuntary search is that it mainly has to do with what evidence is admissible in court - law enforcement agents are going to be able to go where they want whether or not your cooperation is voluntary.

The California bill has absolutely zero to do with what's admissible in court -- not just because immigration courts are federal processes where it can't apply, but also because it includes a fine aimed at employers who voluntarily cooperate with federal agents, or voluntarily provide documentation to federal agents.

And in terms of documents, documents that are actually relevant to work eligibility are already covered as things that employers should cooperate with if there's an administrative warrant.

The law requires employers to ignore administrative warrants for personnel records. It's in the FAQ you're quoting!

My understanding is that what you can't do is hand over the Workday login to ICE and invite them to go on a fishing expedition unless you are compelled to do so.

Or access to a nonpublic area of a workplace. Or specific employee records. Even if given an administrative warrant, you can not do so without risking tens of thousands of dollars per instance. Or to reverify existing employees, such as, just as a theoretical exercise, an employer isn't quite sure if they did that initial eVerify check.

If you stop people from working, they are still in the country. If you disappear them, they disappear and are not in the country.

People come here to work. If they're not going to work, there's not much point in being here.

I'm confused. Trump is consistently the first one to raise the temperature and to lower the bar for acceptable discourse. I don't want to sound like a kid. But, he started it. Only now, the democrats are responding.

Trump is the President and central figure to America's current polarization. If there is a civil war, it will be because of him. As the one in power, the onus is on Trump to reduce the temperature.

I agree. If we can get Trump to speak nicely about deportations, then people will suddenly calm down...

Yes, I think that Trump's camp is doing a lot of damage to the pro-ICE position, and is raising tensions in the country, by going with the "fuck you, we're sending ICE in and by the way, fuck you again" optics. I don't know why they're doing it that way. 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.

The left is also very much to blame in many ways for raising tensions in the country, so it's not like I'm just blaming Trump's camp. But Trump's camp is certainly choosing to display, frame, and discuss their actions in an inflammatory way.

I don't know why they're doing it that way. 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.

My personal theory is that while the Trump base legitimately wants to put an end to illegal immigration due in large part to the economic consequences, those economic consequences are actually extremely beneficial to a lot of republican donors. When you remove illegal immigrant labor and force the farmers to hire Americans (legally) the price of everything goes up. Ultimately society and the economy would be healthier after this gets done, but the political consequences for Trump in the short term would be disastrous. "All basic staples are now twice as expensive, but in exchange your wages will improve permanently in 9 months" might be a great deal for his base in the long run, but it is suicidal for someone who has to care about daily opinion polls and work around congressmen and senators who are taking vast sums of money from the people who benefit from illegal labour.

"All basic staples are now twice as expensive,

So, between deportations and self-deportations, a purported 2 million illegal immigrants have left. What percent of the "twice as expensive" are we up to?

Well they're explicitly not going after farm workers, even though a huge % of illegals work on farms. I'm sure the Mexican nanny labour market has gotten much tighter, but that doesn't effect as many people.

So, literally nothing you can point to. Thanks, you made my point abundantly clear.

Is there actually real, serious and muscular enforcement of immigration law against migrant workers? I was under the impression that Trump was explicitly preventing this from happening because illegal immigrants can be treated badly and help keep the costs of produce down.

Trump, who has appeared sympathetic to both farmers and immigration hawks, said Tuesday that the farm laborers aren’t easy to replace — an argument that runs up against critics’ argument that native-born workers could fill the jobs. The president said that “people that live in the inner city” won’t do the work.

“They’ve tried. We’ve tried, Everybody’s tried. They don’t do it. These people do it naturally. Naturally,” Trump said. “I said ‘what happens’ — to a farmer the other day — ’what happens if they get a bad back?’ He said, ‘They don’t get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back, they die.’ I said, ‘That’s interesting.’ In many ways, they’re very, very special people.”

If I'm wrong and Trump has been aggressively enforcing the laws against the employment of illegal immigrants I'd be happy to hear it.

It's hard to gauge. Here's an article claiming that the raids have devastated the industry, but journalists/hate/insufficient/etc.

That article seems to suggest that I'm correct.

Across the nation today, about 70% of workers in the U.S. farm sector are foreign born, according to the Federal Reserve of Kansas City. The National Milk Producers Federation says milk prices could nearly double if the U.S. dairy industry loses its foreign-born workforce, the group said.

70% of all your farm workers are foreign born and I have zero doubt that the vast majority of those would be illegal immigrants, because the entire reason they can get those jobs is their lack of labor protection and inability to protest terrible conditions. Remove them and the price of staples like milk will double - which is why I believe Trump and ICE are focusing on getting deportations into the news rather than actually fixing the problem.

Again, 2 million immigrants are gone in the last 9 months. Where price doubling?

It seems possible that there are simply so many illegal immigrants in the US that even herculean efforts at mass deportations will take years, e.g. enough time to gracefully offramp most industries.

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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?

Proposition 1: it is impossible to deport millions of people by actually catching them and deporting them.

Proposition 2: People who are afraid will self deport.

Proposition 3: We want to deport millions.

Solution: Make illegals afraid they might be caught and disappeared.

Here in Texas we’re getting radio ads to that effect.

“If you’re in the country illegally, leave.”

Definitely in line with the strategy.

But those ads are in English. Might I suggest that they’re campaign ads for Trump and not actually targeted at illegals?

¿Por que no los dos?

It’s one of the more efficient and reasonable approaches of this initiative, in my opinion.

There are Spanish versions of those ads. I suspect they're both.

People who are afraid will self deport.

Illegals aren't afraid of being caught by ICE, they're afraid of having to leave America. The only illegals who will actually leave on their own are either rich enough to avoid the dysfunction of their home countries (in which case, they're probably not illegal) or so dirt-poor that it makes no difference. For the average Jose, living in America is such a massive increase to quality of life that he'll pay his life savings to smugglers for the chance to escape his shithole of origin[1].

This solution would still work nearly as well if ICE just acquired a reputation of being very efficient, without the Trumpian "fuck the left" optics.

Lol, Lmao even. Why do you think ICE gets to pick their own optics? Like any federal agency, they get to wear whatever label the media slaps on them today. And the leftoid media industrial complex has decided "nazi storm troopers" is the label ICE gets to wear for the foreseeable future.

Compared to most feds, ICE seems to be undertaking an extremely difficult task, that puts them in quite a lot of personal danger, in a reasonably professional manner. That puts them in the top 5% of efficient agencies as far as I'm concerned. Lefty shitflinging will happen completely independently of how ICE is actually performing, because it mostly works at convincing the average lefty voter their country is turning into the Fourth Reich.

They literally posted a montage of dudes in masks blowing up doors and arresting people with the pokemon theme song.

No media bias required to look retarded

You did the meme.

I voted for this, actually. Deport all foreigners, especially the legal ones, especially the unnaturalized paper citizens, especially the anchor babies. I do not care about their rights, I do not care about their welfare, I do not care where they go when they leave here, I care that they are gone. The longer it takes to accomplish this, and the more resistance encountered, the less I'm going to care about norms, or laws, or rights, or anything other than what I want accomplished.

This is called being a reactionary. The thing is, you can simply fix what I'm reacting to and I won't be a reactionary any more. Neat trick.

you can simply fix what I'm reacting to and I won't be a reactionary any more

I agree! That's why they're going after farms and hotels, two of the biggest employers of illegal immigrants and the main reason they come to America.

Oh wait, they explicitly said they aren't...

"Gotta catch 'em [illegal immigrants] all" has long been a mantra of Trump and his his supporters.

You think its retarded because the media bias in this country has led you to believe Anarcho-Tyranny is an acceptable form of government. That montage was a cute little poke at the fact that its not, and times are a' changin.

No I think it's retarded because it looked bad and doesn't help them achieve their stated goals.

The economist shows his approval on immigration is down to -10% now versus +10% in January. Nate Silver shows him going from ~+9% to -4% with now (just) over 50% disapproval.

You would prefer "Ride Of The Valkyries" or "Bad Boys" or "Paint it Black" perhaps?

None of the above. I take law enforcement seriously and I expect the government should too.

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Because they're posting videos from their own raids, and those videos get lots of engagement, and the reactions to the videos that ICE posts is largely in line with what you'd expect given what footage ICE chooses to show and how they choose to show it.

Yes, but that is all far, far downstream of the media industrial complex's and the DNC's (but I repeat myself) decision to push the idea that immigration law doesnt matter and anyone who enforces it is a evil nazi. What options does ICE have? Attempt to arrest between 10-30 million illegals, give them multiple hearings, provide all legal care and shelter during said hearing period, while being fought tooth and claw by approximately half of the population? Lol, not a fucking chance.

ICE is doing the only thing it can do- demonstrate in a highly visible way that they will enforce the law, and the days of free-riding are over, might as well self-deport doe the thousand bucks and free plane ticket. If this offends the left, well, fuck it, they broke the system first.

Consider the possibility that you are in a bubble. Twitter will show you what it thinks you want to see. When I look at the last "cruel" ICE post on twitter, it shows 161k likes and 10k comments, almost all of which appear to be positive on the logged-out, incognito-mode mirror I'm checking.

I don't think faul_sname meant that the reaction is overwhelmingly negative. But if the positive reactions are along the lines of "hell yeah! make illegals afraid!" rather than "ah, normal policemen doing their work normally, how neat and orderly" then it's still support for the claim that ICE is deliberately projecting an image of themselves as scary chaotic mofos. Which they are. You might very well think that's a good thing because it'll intimidate illegals into self-deporting, but "ICE are scary goons" isn't left-wing slander, it's the image they're deliberately leaning into because that's what Trump's base wants them to do.

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I'm not saying that ICE is picking their own optics, I'm saying that the Trump camp are framing their immigration enforcement in a "fuck the left" way.

Okay, and I'm saying its only "fuck the left" because the left has abandoned any pretense of rule of law and embraced Anarcho-Tyranny. The left could end the controversy tomorrow, if they just said "actually yes, lets enforce immigration law and stop selectively chosing which criminals are good and which are bad. Then we can work on comprehensive reform."

"Fuck ICE fascists!" Is not the own the left thinks its is.

Yeah. The mainstream media is definitely trying to make ICE look maximally bad, but also there's been a conspicuous decision from the people managing ICE to maximize the intimidation impact of their activities.

Which might not even be a bad idea, considering it keeps the Red Tribe happy that 'something is being done', makes the blue tribe wail amusingly and seems to have cut down on people entering the country.

Its not just not a bad idea, its the only idea that will work. Self-deportations greatly outnumber ICE deportations, and have to do so for anything meaningful to be accomplished.

The legal system in America is simply unable to deal with millions of deportation hearings, you have to set examples pour encourager les autres.

No, it wouldn't because the optics are the primary deterrent and the right wouldn't control the bureaucratic infrastructure that would be overseeing this "efficient" process. Without the optics of swift deportation, left wing lawyers and nonprofits would be using every tool imaginable in order to become equally as efficient at delaying deportations.

Just go after American farm owners who pay illegals American money to work for them.

You don't even need to deport them, make it impossible for them to work, make them poorer in America than they are in Mexico, that will solve this permanently.

If you aren't targeting the employers of illegal immigrants, you aren't serious about immigration. If you aren't pushing e-verify, you aren't serious about immigration. If Trump EXPLICITLY says he's not enforcing immigration against farms and hotels, it's clear he's not serious about immigration.

Go after our agricultural industry and significantly increase food prices? What political benefit does that have?

If you aren't targeting the employers of illegal immigrants, you aren't serious about immigration

Most in the Republican party don't actually care about getting rid of all illegal immigration. They care about progressives and democrats giving the entire planet a green light to migrate here.

Pause for a moment and try to disabuse yourself of the literalness of the argument you hold yourself to. Nobody who runs the country actually thinks they can get rid of all illegals and survive it politically, but if we can project an image that says "We will deport you if you come or stay here illegally." then the likelihood of people trying to come here illegally plummets. This is far more preferable than quickly creating or using a system that the left will then take and turn into an entry permission slip for millions of illegals, like they already have. If Dems and Republicans want to re-implement something like that, then ok, but it will fuck with the optics and people will flood the border, and the media will report on the humanitarian crisis, and Democrats will adopt policy to allow more people in than what was agreed to. Overall, you want to perfect or streamline something that is ripe for left wing overreach. We know this because we just got out of an admin that did it.

I actually agree with most of what you wrote but projecting an image of:

"If you come here, you won't make any money because every farmer/hotel/roofing company will be too scared to even talk to you, let alone give you american dollars in exchange for your time. You have more economic opportunities in Mexico than you ever will here."

Would be even more effective. In the current version if you can get to Texas/Florida/California and find a farm to work for, you know you're pretty safe.

Most in the Republican party don't actually care about getting rid of all illegal immigration.

Sure but then doing dumb shit that degrades personal liberty and stretches norms about acceptable government force isn't worth the marginal benefit of deporting a small % of illegals? That's a horrible trade.

Given everything you say is true, who are my alternatives? Where is my better option?

I don't see one, and so I won't let perfect be the enemy of good, I'll take what I can get and ask for more.

That's fair enough, I guess I'd just hope you'd ask for more in general from your government and society

America is really down bad if that's where people's standard is lol

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You have a point. I can see how that would be the case, although that doesn't mean I think that it's necessarily worth the damage it causes to society in other ways or that I necessarily believe that this is the Trump camp's actual motivation.

I can't help but see every counter proposal made thus far as anything other than favorable to progressives and detrimental to Republicans and their voters.

If they try to be legally efficient and spend months checking boxes for every potential deportee, it slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.

If they defer to local law enforcement overseen by Democratic mayors, it slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.

If agents remove their masks and get doxxed by the public, it endangers agents and slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.

If they kneecap ICE agents' discretion when it comes to use of force, it slows the process and works in favor of Democrats and progressives.

Democrats and Republicans working together on maximizing efficiency and morality of deportations would be something, but it simply is not possible. Democrats will resist every step of the way.

Do the people opposing ICE really believe that large scale unregulated immigration from Latin America will actually benefit the US? Mexico is in a state of permanent civil war. The countries that the migrants are coming from are low trust, violent societies with major dysfunction. I am not really seeing the endgame here. Importing labour in an unregulated way from third world countries is going to dump wages.

It seems like they are taking a position which they themselves know is losing in the long term for some other benefit that I can't see.

Yes, the people opposing ice believe the median illegal is good for America. They like someone else doing the lower construction jobs and janitorial work it takes to keep a society running.

Do the people opposing ICE really believe that large scale unregulated immigration from Latin America will actually benefit the US?

It is precisely because the migrants' home countries are terrible that white progressives support them. After all, we can't blame them for wanting to escape poverty; in fact we have a duty to share our wealth, which we probably stole from them one way or another. White leftists believe that we're already so much better off than everyone else that to advocate for our own interest is disgustingly mercenary; all their other arguments for migration are downstream from this impetus.

The quibble is that if Jose is willing to work on a farm in California for what are shit American wages but still a better deal than staying home, the progressive view is that allowing Jose to stay is not advocating against our own interests or wealth redistribution, it's Jose contributing his labor to the economy and getting paid.

Progressives simply don't care that he had to enter illegally to get to this point because they'd rather immigration be expanded in the first place. I'd personally rather more expansive work visas that allow them to do this while still being vetted, and with better wage/labor controls. The conservative view seems to be that if we got rid of all the illegals farmers would pay more and Americans would do it, of which I am skeptical.

The conservative view seems to be that if we got rid of all the illegals farmers would pay more and Americans would do it, of which I am skeptical.

I mean, at some point one of three things is going to happen.

  1. The price of farm labor will climb high enough that Americans will do it.
  2. The price of farm labor will climb high enough that it will be cheaper to automate it, unless 1 happens first.
  3. The price of farm labor will exceed the price people are willing to pay for the food and the farm will go under, unless 1 or 2 happen first.

2 and 3 can go together. Farming has already been trending towards "Go big or go home." The margins on farming already suck, so big farms may eventually automate while small farms go under. Though honestly, I think big farms already automate as much as they can afford, and I think the crunch from lack of labor will hit faster than the relief from tech innovation.

A more complete account of (1) may look like: the price of farm labor will climb high enough, and American living standards will sink low enough, that Americans will do it.

Not everything can be automated, and as farming labour gets more expensive, Americans (who buy things downstream from farms) will need more money and hence higher wages to sustain the same lifestyle.

Before 3 happens you get "the price of food rises enough that the voters get unhappy, and unhappy voters are bad for reelection chances".

The price of farm labor will exceed the price people are willing to pay for the food and the farm will go under

This is what happens. Western wage demands and a global food market cannot work together, full stop.

America could import a ton more food, every agricultural exporting country would love to sell more avocados to America.

America doesn't want to give up food security, which is the right choice.

So then you can:

  1. tariff food imports until for prices rise such that the wage cost can be met

  2. go full socialism and subsidize farmers even harder than the USA already does to make up the wage cost without impacting food prices which would be hilariously expensive

If the automation existed it would already be in use all over the world

The quibble is that if Jose is willing to work on a farm in California for what are shit American wages but still a better deal than staying home, the progressive view is that allowing Jose to stay is not advocating against our own interests or wealth redistribution, it's Jose contributing his labor to the economy and getting paid.

Open border, a functioning economy, a robust welfare state. Pick two, and the welfare state is functionally non-negotiable. This version of the progressive take is simply a lie. They manifestly don't care if Jose works, and would rather shut down the government than accept a limitation on their ability to give him taxpayer money.

The conservative view seems to be that if we got rid of all the illegals farmers would pay more and Americans would do it, of which I am skeptical.

Or that it could just be automated, and that it's insane to import tens of millions of farm workers right as we're looking at an AI/robotics era-defining revolution.

Open border, a functioning economy, a robust welfare state. Pick two, and the welfare state is functionally non-negotiable.

Ah yes, how could I forget all the wonderful government benefits that illegals most definitely qualify for. The rest is quite frankly a parody of how other people think and what motivates them.

Or that it could just be automated, and that it's insane to import tens of millions of farm workers right as we're looking at an AI/robotics era-defining revolution.

A, if they could be easily automated they already would be. B, Honestly the entire farm industry sounds like a mess to me with smaller farmers being pushed out of the market or being beholden to shitty John Deere's locked-down repair practices. I'm not as anti-AI as your average lefty, but I don't think this is coming in the next let's say 10 years and I don't think it'll be all that great when it arrives.

Ah yes, how could I forget all the wonderful government benefits that illegals most definitely qualify for. The rest is quite frankly a parody of how other people think and what motivates them.

They explicitly do in blue states. I tangentially interact with the process on a daily basis. And deeper than that, there's a thriving market in fraud and fake SSNs. Things like "free healthcare for illegals" are fucking budget items in California. NY and other states spent billions on free housing, free benefits and free money for illegal immigrants. This was widely covered. The relentless playing stupid about this is honestly kind of breathtaking and intellectually damning.

Do the people opposing ICE really believe that large scale unregulated immigration from Latin America will actually benefit the US?

Forget the US. What benefit do blacks like Johnson specifically get?

They compete with blacks for jobs (or spending in the case of cities with right to shelter) and now there's not even a pretense that they'll be a permanent Democratic client base like them to push for policies African-Americans would want. Clearly the emerging Democratic majority with a bunch of minorities all loyal to one another is not going to happen.

Hell, insofar as they do join up they dilute AA's hold on the party. And, because they're not fully captured there's more of an incentive to pander to them. As Biden said: unlike the black community Latinos are diverse.

the illegals flood cities and protect the Democrat power centers by keeping those who would threaten their power out

Clearly the emerging Democratic majority with a bunch of minorities all loyal to one another is not going to happen.

they don't need to be loyal to each other, they need to be united in opposition to another group which has worked pretty well for quite a long time

the loyalty to each other is solved through an ethnic spoils system which we already see in cities across the US (and have for quite some time, e.g., Los Angeles)

cities across the US are controlled by people who govern badly, let crime and other scams run rampant and, whether this is intentional or not, the result of this is they keep normal, functional Americans out of those cities which protects the machine politics of those cities

I get the theory. It's clearly just not playing out that way.

The fewer white people there are the more various goals conflict because you can't just take it all from them. Asians want meritocracy in education which squeezes out other groups besides whites, attempts to come up with some anti-crime measures that also don't annoy blacks lead to disorder that harms everyone, Latinos simply don't seem to be that interested in being auxiliaries in white progressives' fight against other whites if it comes at the expense of the economy or themselves and the in-group favoritism for random illegals is vastly overstated.

cities across the US are controlled by people who govern badly, let crime and other scams run rampant and, whether this is intentional or not, the result of this is they keep normal, functional Americans out of those cities which protects the machine politics of those cities

That part might be true but this isn't actually helping the electoral chances of Democrats or blacks as a whole. If anything, emigration to red states because of the disorder weakens their voting power and the most famous and wealthy liberal cities being basket cases just undermines the very idea of government competence.

This is basically what the Abundance turn of the party is about.

The state of California from 1960 to now proves the theory. The coalition is high-low, government workers, gov bureaucrats and other ideologues against the middle. Whatever "in-group preferences" random illegals have towards other random illegals isn't the question, it's whether or not they form coalitions against the White middle which they do routinely across the US and intra-coalition conflict is handled through ethnic spoils. Ethnic spoils systems may as well be made specifically for the low-trust, low "in-group preferences" for random ethnic groups for other random ethnic groups. Latinos were willing to be used by white progressive against the White middle in California and what they demanded was ethnic control and spoils and that's what they got.

That part might be true but this isn't actually helping the electoral chances of Democrats or blacks as a whole. If anything, emigration to red states because of the disorder weakens their voting power and the most famous and wealthy liberal cities being basket cases just undermines the very idea of government competence.

California is effectively a one-party state. California in 1960 was a firmly middle-class Republican stronghold. Emigration out of California to red states is mostly red tribe, further cementing control of the state for Democrats.

Right, and this is why the cities with the largest foreign-born fraction (Miami, San Jose, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco) are the poorest, most crime-ridden cities in the country, while the cities containing the lowest fraction of foreign-born Americans (Detroit, Louisville, Memphis, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City) are beacons of safety and prosperity.

On the one hand, selection effects are absolutely a thing, and will explain at least some of that trend. On the other hand it sure doesn't look to me like foreigners turn cities into ethnic spoils engines, except to the extent that they make cities wealthy and some of that wealth goes to spoils.

ethnic doesn't need to be foreign and foreign doesn't need to be illegals

the violence/crime stats for other demographics is so low compared to blacks, near the entire effect you're pointing out is explained by % black population down to the zipcode level

this outlier effect supplants any other effect because you've chosen a "top five" approach, but this argument doesn't work against the point of the post

places with high numbers of illegals are dirty, overcrowded, dysfunctional, and foreign, in addition to them having higher crime and being generally low-trust

that one "native" group also has this effect isn't mutually exclusive to illegals; the fact that Jackson, Mississippi is a dirty, dysfunctional, violent place while having few foreigners doesn't mean illegals don't have a similar effect on the places they concentrate which keeps regular functional Americans out

which reinforces the point I'm making; these cities being run poorly and protecting illegals (and black criminals) buttresses the political machines there because it keeps regular functional Americans out, even willing to commute multiple hours to live outside of these places

(Miami, San Jose, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco)

On the other hand it sure doesn't look to me like foreigners turn cities into ethnic spoils engines

wait, are you implying cities like NYC and LA don't have ethnic spoils systems now or in the past (some of the ethnics being foreigners)?

I'm implying that ethnic spoils systems aren't a particularly interesting or significant part of what's going on with NYC or LA. If you ask people "what is New York an engine of" or "what is LA an engine of" you're very unlikely to get an answer like "ethnic spoils" even from the most race realist types.

places with high numbers of illegals are dirty, overcrowded, dysfunctional, and foreign, in addition to them having higher crime and being generally low-trust

This sounds like a problem that can be solved through the approach of "don't live in such places". There are plenty of such places. I will say, having grown up in a majority-hispanic area of southern california that "overcrowded, dysfunctional, and foreign" is not a description that fits LA very well. LA is a sprawling, wealthy, soulless suburb stretching to the horizon with occasional pockets of city sprinkled throughout.

even willing to commute multiple hours to live outside of these places

People who commute for hours into LA are largely doing it because they're priced out of anywhere closer, not because they're trying to get away from immigrants. The exurbs have more immigrants, not fewer - e.g. Victorville (most stereotypical LA exurb) is 55% hispanic and only 18% white.

you're very unlikely to get an answer like "ethnic spoils" even from the most race realist types

even if true, what does asking this open ended question to "people" demonstrate?

describing LA and NYC as "ethnic spoils systems" is accurate whether or not the above is a true statement

the first time I encountered this idea and these specific examples was from my elderly communist black professor; perhaps she qualifies as "even from the most race realist types"

This sounds like a problem that can be solved through the approach of "don't live in such places"

right, which is what I claimed was the effect in my first comment

it's also a problem which can be solved through the approach of "deport illegals and other foreigners before they take over neighborhoods and fundamentally change it" bringing us back to the subject issue

it's also a problem which can be solved through the approach of "deport illegals and other foreigners before they take over neighborhoods and fundamentally change it" bringing us back to the subject issue

Again, see Detroit, Birmingham, etc. Basically no immigrants and yet they are the way they are. Keep foreigners out before they change the neighborhood did not work in those cases. Why expect it will in others? Especially why expect that when the most desirable cities to live in are the ones with the most foreigners?

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It's called ethnic spoils for a reason. It doesn't matter much whether the different ethnicities have immigrated recently or have been there for generations.

Just purview the list of US cities by crime rate, sort by total crime and check out the highest vs the lowest total violent crime rate cities. It's hard to miss the fact that the demographics are, with only a few exceptions, dramatically different. For example, among the lowest five, 4 have (asians + white) > 75%, while among the highest five, all have (asians + whites) < 50%. The difference for the black population is, of course, especially extreme. Hispanics is also quite noticable.

Top 5 are Memphis TN, Oakland CA, St Louis MO, Little Rock AR, Tacoma WA. Oakland is the only one of those I particularly associate with immigrants. Also I don't really like the methodology of weighting larceny equal to murder. Looking at murder rate alone which is harder to fudge the top 5 are Birmingham AL, St Louis MO, Memphis TN, Baltimore MD, Detroit MI. Larceny theft alone does put Oakland and Portland near the top, which tracks.

Regardless, the "immigrants specifically make cities bad to live in" hypothesis doesn't seem particularly reflective of reality.

I have no objections to looking at only the murder rate - but that doesn't actually change anything, just check out the demographics.

Looking at foreign-born fraction, I see

For reference 13.8% of all US residents are foreign-born by the same metric. If you're going to Notice things about the populations of those cities, the things you notice are not going to be immigration-related.

Unless you're saying the hispanic people have a sense of racial solidarity with other minorities, to which I have to ask whether you've ever talked to a mexican person because they are usually second only to indians in expressed racism.

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Historically, it seems fairly clear that this is what happens: Lebanon, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem, the spoils machines in places like New York in the 1930s (which used to be carefully split so that the major political positions were held by one Irishman, one Italian, one Jew and one protestant IIRC) and the black machines in places like Chicago.

From the outside, it looks like America is already heavily focused around ethnic spoils - some of your biggest political debates are about to what extent ethnicity is relevant in job and university applications, the appropriate ethnic composition of universities and good jobs (between whites, Jews, blacks, etc.). Where and how children of different races should be educated, and how they should be treated by the law when they grow up. In more integrated countries these questions simply don't come up.

The motivations of the people opposing ICE are heterogeneous.

Some are not thinking about benefit/harm at all, as in, it literally is not something that comes up in their minds.

Some think that the morality of allowing the immigrants in is more important than considerations of benefit/harm.

Some think that the morality of rejecting what they see as racism is more important than considerations of benefit/harm.

Some believe that immigration should be controlled to some extent, but think that ICE is currently acting in much too authoritarian a way and/or that Trump's camp's use of ICE sets up a dangerous possibility that Trump's camp might start to use ICE as their personal army in attacks on Trump's political opponents.

Some are various kinds of Latino nationalists who want to help their co-ethnics.

Some have mixes of the above motives.

In general, they are not taking a position that they themselves know is losing.

Importing labour in an unregulated way from third world countries is going to dump wages.

For blue-collar work, yes.

Why should a white-collar worker (including those with that aspiration) care about that, especially if there are an excess of them on the market?

You can alleviate the problem of having too many chiefs by importing more Indians. It's important to throw chaff about how it's justice for this to happen, so the people smart enough to figure that out don't say anything. What are they going to do, throw their support behind a counter-elite?

Why's Trump sending red state national guard units into blue cities? It's obviously a performative provocation which his base is lapping up.

The guy doing most to fan the flames of civil war is the President himself.

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Why is Lincoln keeping the federal military in the harbors of another nation? It’s obviously a performative provocation which his base is lapping up.

The guy doing the most to fan the flames of civil war is the President himself.

Why's Trump sending red state national guard units into blue cities?

Because that is a response on the table when state and local governments violate federal law and conspire to deny citizens their civil rights.

I’d actually really appreciate a writeup on the jurisprudence. It feels like the federal government wasn’t supposed to compel actions from lower levels…at some point. But I’m well aware of incorporation and of the myriad ways to apply the commerce clause.

As per the original post, he seems to be doing it because blue state local government officials are actively trying to block him, and are encouraging citizens to resist federal agents?

Also, this has been happening for over a year now consistently in various blue states, so I don't see how this is Trump trying to fan the flames.

Why's Trump sending red state national guard units into blue cities? It's obviously a performative provocation which his base is lapping up.

Because, according to Trump, the blue cities are allowing violence against Federal immigration authorities in those cities.

I realize that it’s probably more complicated, but that sounds like a real own goal for states’ rights enthusiasts.

I’m not clear on what all the federal government gets to compel from its subsidiaries. I have the vague impression it’s whatever it wants, but only if it threatens to withhold highway funding.

States rights has never been about preventing the feds from enforcing legitimate federal laws. It has been about saying certain laws are illegitimate (not applicable to immigration), certain laws are unwise on the federal level (same), and that the federal government can't force states to enforce laws they dont consider moral (also no applicable unless there is a new U of I Law Review article I am unaware of arguing arson, aggravated battery, and and attempt murder should be decriminalized).

As someone who leans more to states rights than not - I don’t think it is, actually.

The usual answer would be that each level of government is responsible for what only it can handle, and nothing more (in an ideal world). Territorial Sovereignty (whether that be through border control, military action, international trade, etc) are exactly the sort of things a federal government should be the authority on.

That being said, I’m Canadian, and I have no idea if that’s how it works out in practice in the US - but it is at least not inconsistent.

The states are not (formally) subsidiaries to the Federal Government, and the anti-commandeering doctrine means the Federal Government cannot compel states to assist it in enforcement of Federal law. However, this does not mean states can forbid the Feds from enforcing Federal law themselves, nor interfere with that enforcement. In these cases the Feds have been enforcing Federal law themselves, and the interference has been from private parties ("protestors"), not the state governments. The Feds, then claim the authority to bring in the National Guard to protect their own law enforcement officers -- this is the "protective power" which is somewhat controversial but not unprecedented.

Note that the various [StateName] National Guards, despite the names, are not actually state entities; they are under dual control -- normally state control, but they can be "federalized" under various conditions.

Lurking not very far in the background is the Insurrection Act, which allows the use of the military (including but not limited to the National Guard) when the President declares certain conditions have been met.

Which would be much more upsetting in a country where Warren v DC was not a thing.

Warren v DC

Warren v. DC is even more upsetting because it's in DC where at the time you couldn't prepare to defend yourself effectively (with a gun) either. Probably still can't. However, the Federal Government is not subject to such restrictions and CAN defend its agents (either through the protective power if it holds up, or via the Insurrection Act), and I see no reason to be upset at them doing it.

Everyone throws oil into the fire and kicks mud around. From one perspective:

  • the great majority of entrances are legal (illegal entry is a criminal offense, the first offense a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in prison and/or a fine)
  • unlawful presence is only a civil violation (not punishable by jail) (illegal reentry is a felony)

The government is deploying the military because of civil violations. Other types of civil violations involve running a red light, building a deck without a permit, accidentally spilling a small amount of pollutants, filing your taxes late (this is closest), letting your dog roam unleashed. If they are merely enforcing the current law, why in this manner? Does or should the military repel down helicopters to clear entire buildings and check everyone's tax documents on the presumption of guilt? Why is it doing differently here? If the law is wrong, why are they not changing regulations etc.?

From another perspective, sure, mass immigration is a threat against Western civilization and the other side hates patriots. But again, why are they not changing the laws to deal with this more thoroughly and why is all effort directed towards more pious coreligionists instead of Muslims or Hindus or Jews etc.?

From my own perspective, I have little idea what anyone's actually doing. It all seems like incompetence or self-sabotage, randomly flailing around with no coherence. I don't think anyone benefits besides China and goldbugs.

The government is deploying the military because of civil violations. Other types of civil violations involve running a red light, building a deck without a permit, accidentally spilling a small amount of pollutants, filing your taxes late (this is closest), letting your dog roam unleashed. If they are merely enforcing the current law, why in this manner? Does or should the military repel down helicopters to clear entire buildings and check everyone's tax documents on the presumption of guilt? Why is it doing differently here? If the law is wrong, why are they not changing regulations etc.?

If this kind of violence was being deployed against the EPA enforcing its anti-deck regulations during the Obama administration what do you think the result would be? I expect multiple governors would already have been arrested.

Because border security has always partly needed to be an optical illusion for economic reasons. It needed to be flexible: A scary bark with a less scary bite, to be tolerant of the massive illegal labor force that propped up multiple industries in this country. Republicans and Democrats alike projected the image of being somewhat strict on immigration all while allowing millions to work here for cheap. It was beneficial for both sides. Illegals got to bring home more money and the country could maintain an image of strictness that would deter massive amounts of other potential migrants, all while we benefitted from low wage labor. That cat is out of the bag now because progressives, through their oppressor lens, shed a light on it and started demanding more rights for "undocumented" workers.

The Republican tactic still appears to be optical, but they are cracking down harder on people overstaying their visas. This projects to other wannabe migrants that if you come here illegally, or temporarily, your ass will be deported when your status expires or you are caught and people have miraculously stopped showing up at the border.

The problem is that we have so many people on the left who are hellbent on pointing out the hypocrisy of the right for not deporting people in certain industries, or pointing to how racist they are, or pointing to how fascist they are, or pointing to how illegal their actions are that their 'all or nothing' game of immigrant chicken pushes a growing number of Americans to be in favor of 'nothing' and to upgrade border crossings to criminal offenses.

The problem is that we have so many people on the left who are hellbent on pointing out the hypocrisy of the right for not deporting people in certain industries

What is the issue with this? It's a clear sign that the administration doesn't actually want to fix this. If they did, they'd go after the obvious places illegals were working. They come here because they work. Stop the people who pay them from paying them.

Why are hotels being told explicitly they won't be cracked down on? How does that make ANY sense with the stated goals of removing illegal immigrants?

They don't actually want to fix this, which makes the enforcement they are doing feel pointless and stupid

I think I answered this in my other reply to you, but if there's something you want me to address more specifically, let me know.

Refusing to follow court orders to desegregate a school or stop administering poll tests was also a civil issue. Failing to show up for Court is a civil matter.

At the end of the day, the relevant issue is not the category of violation but its social importance. It is not necessary or desirable to criminally charge most immigration violators. It is more than sufficient to support them. But it is necessary and important that this enforcement occur. We got to this point by permitting far too little enforcement of the law. Imagine a society where it was rare to arrest people for failure to appear. Consider how little respect for the courts there world be and how this might affect the orderly administration of society.

The government is deploying the military because of civil violations. Other types of civil violations involve...

Whether those are valid reference class comparisons to illegal immigration is almost the entirety of the debate. Rightly or wrongly, people feel much more strongly about immigration than other items you listed. It may be an area where the law is lagging popular opinion.

However, assuming that they are valid I think the missing dimension is scale and state capacity. It would be wrong to bring down the military on a jaywalker, yes. But if instead of a jaywalker it was a sufficient number of jaywalkers to significantly impede the operation of a government building, jaywalking in that location not for the sake of jaywalking but for the sake of impeding. Then you might send in the military to ensure that the government building is clear of jaywalkers so that the building can operate according to its function. It would be technically true in such a scenario that you were "deploying the military because of jaywalking" but the military doesn't care about and isn't enforcing the laws against jaywalking as such.

And I support the use of the military in such a case.

But there is the possible complication - what if the majority of the people in the area of the government building would prefer that the jaywalkers successfully prevent the government building's operation?

where the law is lagging popular opinion

If the law is wrong, why are they not changing regulations etc.?

That's the point the top comment is making. If popular opinion is in line with Trump, then the votes should bestow enough power onto the Republicans to formally change the regulations. That's the whole point of a democracy.

Instead, Republicans have slim filibuster-able majority in the House and the Senate. The House can user the nuclear option, eliminate the filibuster and pass whatever law they want to pass. If a sufficiently large majority agree with you, then win 59% senate seats and pass what you want.

The fact that Trump isn't doing that, shows that the popular opinion may not be fully onboard with this style of aggressive ICE deportation.

https://gonzales.house.gov/2025/6/rep-tony-gonzales-republican-hispanic-conference-members-prioritize-violent-offenders-and-convicted-criminal-aliens

Given that 7 Republican house members explicitly oppose this style of ICE raids for non-violent illegals, I'd argue Trump is operating below simple majority on this issue.

If popular opinion is in line with Trump, then the votes should bestow enough power onto the Republicans to formally change the regulations.

"Should," according to a civics textbook model of how our "democracy" works, but, as we can see, it clearly doesn't. Yes that's "the whole point of a democracy," which is why its absence demonstrates that our "democracy" is a sham.

Interesting, thank you. The midterms are the proper test of the electorate's views - even as coarse a signal as elections is vastly more reliable than my opinion of the vibes. I could definitely be wrong, I'm eager to find out.

There is no need for new law. Immigration enforcement is already legal. It is already legal to deport aliens unlawfully present. If Tony Gonzales objects to this, it is up to him as a Congressman to change the law.

The government is deploying the military, not to enforce immigration law, but to protect the Federal officers who are charged with enforcing immigration law from organized violence on the part of civilians. Normally this violence, if it was greater than the amount the Feds could easily handle themselves, would be dealt with by state and local law enforcement, but several cities have decided that they will not provide this service. This is the "protective power", which Trump is using to deploy the National Guard without invoking the Insurrection Act. I think this power is dubious, but it's not new with Trump. It is possible he will actually lose the cases based on this, but if he does, he could (and I think he would) use the Insurrection Act (as he has threatened)

That unlawful presence is not criminal isn't really an issue. Why would it matter?

But again, why are they not changing the laws to deal with this more thoroughly and why is all effort directed towards more pious coreligionists instead of Muslims or Hindus etc.?

Because it has been established that blues ignore laws they dislike or find inconvenient, and that this is one such law. There is no reason to believe that making illegal immigration double-illegal will result in Blues actually enforcing laws they don't want to enforce and perceive great advantage in not enforcing. This is an invitation to waste political capital on "process" that has already been subverted.

From where I stand, the main difference between blue and red seems to be that one generally does not like to deport illegals, and the other is only deporting illegals in sectors where it will not wreck the economic sector of their constituents.

Also, prosecutorial discretion is basically the name of the game of Trump's DoJ. Why waste taxpayer money on prosecuting crypto traders when it is so much more lucrative to make them just buy Trump's shitcoins and see their legal trouble evaporate?

The idea that it is imperative to enforce any law on the book seems silly. Sure, I would prefer if laws just got struck (ideally automatically unless the legislature re-ups them) when they fell out of use, because selective enforcement is a tool of the tyrant, but it if a law is bad then it is better to ignore it than to enforce it.

The US had sodomy laws in force until the SC put an end to them in 2003 (and are still kept on the books by 12 states, including your usual suspects). Blasphemy laws remain on the books in six states, also unenforceable

I may be going out on a limb here, but from the context of Lawrence, it does not sound like even Texas had a big Butt Sex Prevention Task Force in 1998. My guess it that GWB mostly did exactly what you accuse the blues of doing: not enforcing a law which he found not to be politically relevant to enforce.

why is all effort directed towards more pious coreligionists instead of Muslims or Hindus etc.?

  • -12

Is your claim that Reds generally are unconcerned about Muslim or Hindu illegal immigration? That would be a surprising take, given a number of past incidents.

Most effort is being directed toward South and Central American illegal immigrants because these are by far the most numerous cohort of illegal immigrants, also generally the poorest, and at least arguably the most criminal.

My own opinion is that they should openly state their position and attempt to modify the laws to fit it (or at least draft laws they would like). I see no reason why they couldn't act at the same time. (Really, what incompetence would limit the entire administration to only doing 1 thing at a time?) If all civilization is truly at stake, I don't see why they should restrict themselves to laws beholden to their enemies. So again, why are they attacking Christians first?

  • -11

My own opinion is that they should openly state their position and attempt to modify the laws to fit it (or at least draft laws they would like).

We did that decades ago. We passed laws, and stopped laws we did not want from being passed. We won the legal argument fair and square. Only, it turns out that the legal argument doesn't matter because the other side, broadly speaking, is willing to ignore or actively subvert the law sufficiently to preclude all enforcement. There is no reason to believe that passing additional laws will force Blues to actually respect them.

So again, why are they attacking Christians first?

Did you miss this part?

Most effort is being directed toward South and Central American illegal immigrants because these are by far the most numerous cohort of illegal immigrants, also generally the poorest, and at least arguably the most criminal.

Considerable effort has been expended against Muslim and Hindu migration as well, but it is the southern border that represents the core of the problem. What part of this is confusing?

What part of this is confusing?

I don't believe hardworking Christians represent a civilizational threat. So clearly the current administration aren't Christian nationalists like the supporters I know and see. But I don't know what they actually are or what the purpose of such measures are.

I'm also confused by the legalism (caring if they are legal or not) mixed with antilegalism (why bother trying to change the laws).

  • -13

Most illegals are nominally Christian, but they’re not really more religious on average than Americans.

I mean, there was the Texas border standoff, and oh look where the national guard is coming from, and no civil war from that.

I guess we’re seeing one side doing what it wants and the other failing at it. Hmm. I seem to recall the motte predicted this scenario playing out rather differently.

For some reason sending in the national guard is really helping me frame the Democratic response as what it is - basically outright treason against the U.S. federal gov.

Come on. This is not true. First because treason is pretty well defined. But by this logic texas was treasonous when they decided to enforce border control on their own. Democrats are just grandstanding with non zero chance of giving republicans nice campaign points when some immigrant rapes a woman in the ice free zones.

Ok yeah that was a bit inflammatory, edited.

Come on. This is not true. First because treason is pretty well defined. But by this logic Texas was treasonous when they decided to enforce border control on their own.

IIRC, Texas explicitly defied federal control of a core federal concern. The federal government letting it go and refusing to push the issue was an admission of weakness, but... you can taboo the term "treason" if you want, but this was very clearly an inflection point in the collapse of our old system of government, a case where the rules very clearly went out the window. I supported it then and support it now because I think the rules are, at this point, a complete joke, but we should be clear-eyed about what is actually happening here: The federal government as an institution is dying.

Perhaps it's "light" treason?

An alternative to civil war could be peaceful secession followed by voluntary shuffling of populations between the new countries (blues in the red country can move to the blue country if they want to, reds in the blue country can move to the red country if they want to). I have never been comfortable with the idea that a country that was founded by a secessionist act of treason would consider secession and treason in the future to be automatically immoral.

In practice, it's hard to imagine the federal government allowing secession to happen without violence, but it's at least a hypothetically possible alternative.

A few years of the blue country pursuing insane blue policies without any counterweight and the red country pursuing insane red policies without any counterweight might cause at least some partisans to reconsider their ideas.

Of course it would also do a lot of damage to the former US' hard power in the world, and a significant amount of damage to the soft power too. But even for people who care about those things, would that actually be worse than staying in a failed marriage? The economies of the new countries would likely not be as strong as the former economy of the united country, at least not for a while. But neither would be in any danger of being invaded as long as both got some nukes. Splitting the nukes would be another thorny subject, however.

There's a video clip where that mayor is saying that Republicans want a "redo of the Civil War," amongst other incredibly inflammatory things. The Governor of Illinois is apparently backing the mayor up.

I mean, to be fair, a month or so ago, Trump did post an AI riff on apocalypse now with an image of helicopters dropping bombs on Chicago, and he wrote, "Chicago is going to find out what it's called the department of war".

Yeah, this seems more than a little important to recall when accusing the Democrats of starting the civil war talk.

He also flew every deployed star officer and their SEAs to Quantico for the biggest set-piece speech to the brass since Washington was alive, and told them that the people of Chicago were domestic enemies of the United States and that the officer corps should prepare for war against them.

History suggests that when Trump (i) says he is going to do a bad thing, (ii) the bad thing is wildly popular on right-wing social media, and (iii) appears to be doing the bad thing, he probably actually is doing it. If I was the mayor of Chicago or the governor of Illinois, I would be making "war" plans. After the attack on the South Shore apartment building, I would be thinking about activating them.

He also flew every deployed star officer and their SEAs to Quantico for the biggest set-piece speech to the brass since Washington was alive, and told them that the people of Chicago were domestic enemies of the United States and that the officer corps should prepare for war against them.

This statement appears to be untrue. The context of the "enemy from within" quote (which has been reported by many sources as "enemy within") is

Everybody knows friends, many friends probably, that you lost a child or adults too, but you lost a son or daughter because of what's coming into our border. And we're making it very hard -- oh, and we haven't even started yet. Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances.

This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control, once you're involved, at all. They all joke, they say, oh, this is not good. You saw it in Washington. We had gangs of Tren de Aragua, say 10, 12, 15 kids.

This particular group is not the people of Chicago, but illegal immigrants who are already present (thus "within")

He later talks about career criminals in a way which indicates they are also domestic enemies. He never refers to the people of Chicago as domestic enemies.

The section of the speech I was thinking about was (transcript - at 40:51)

Washington D.C. went from our most unsafe city to just about our safest city in a period of a month. We had it under control in 12 days, but give us another 15 or 16 days, it was -- it's perfect. And people other than politicians that look bad, they think. You know, the Democrats run most of the cities that are in bad shape. We have many cities in great shape too, by the way. I want you to know that. But it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they're very unsafe places and we're going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war too. It's a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can't let these people in. You know, we had no people enter in the last four months, zero. Even I can't believe that.

Clear statement that Trump wants to send troops to Chicago, in a warlike posture. And the enemy is "radical left Democrats" in a context which suggests that the term includes the elected governments of Illinois and Chicago and the voters who elected them. Even if it isn't a promise of war against Chicago as a whole, it is a promise of war against domestic political opponents who are broadly popular in Chicago. Given the segue to controlling the border, I think you can argue that Trump considers the war on domestic political opponents to be secondary to the war on illegal immigrants you mention - this is consistent with administration behaviour to date. But that just gives him a comprehensible motive - it doesn't change what he is doing.

The enemies -- at least, the specific enemies troops are being sent in against -- are not radical left Democrats, it's the people they're letting in and career criminals (as he says elsewhere). Trump is not sending in the military to arrest the Mayor of Chicago the way Kennedy's troops threatened to do to Wallace. Trump did not call the people of Chicago "domestic enemies".

it is a promise of war against domestic political opponents who are broadly popular in Chicago

No it's not, unless we're going for selective literalism. If you really believe that, I'll happily offer you a bet on whether military force will be deployed against local Chicago politicians, the same way I offered you one about whether Trump will run for a third term.

When a boss gives a speech to subordinates, we should at least consider the possibility that what he said was meant literally.

Whenever anyone says anything to anyone, we should at least consider the possibility that what they said was meant literally. But there's nothing here to suggest a literal interpretation, this is no different than Lyndon B. Johnson's "war on poverty" speech.

And if you disagree, then put your money where your mouth is, and bet me.

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