This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm increasingly against the concept of "asylum" in general. A lot of discussions about immigration seem to take it for granted that we must let in a nonzero percentage of "asylum seekers," that this is just some sort of given, or law of physics or something. It's not. The number of asylum seekers we have to take in is zero.
It must suck to live in a place controlled by warlords and gangs. But life sucks in a lot of place and in a lot of time periods. Sometimes it even sucks within the borders of the U.S. I don't believe I or my countrymen have a special moral duty to shelter every single person who shows up at the border with some unverifiable story of persecution. The idea sounds good in theory, but in practice it is one of those ideas that seems unstable in its theoretical limited form and which inevitably decays into its more stable degraded, excessive, unlimited form (see also college financial aid).
Even a midwit like me can tell that there are simply too many people in LatAm and the 3rd world for the U.S. to absorb without impacting the living standards of Americans, so I have to suspect that "taking care of asylum seekers" is really a pretext for serving some other ideological belief, like "increasing diversity" or "destroying white hegemony" or "free market absolutism." I guess there are a few true believers among the suicidally altruistic (religious charities come to mind) but I wager that they're a minority and are mostly the "useful idiots" that the ideologues in power use to further their ideologies.
Merely living in a place with lots of crime is not ground for asylum. First, a person cannot shiw eligibility for asylum where "the harm that Petitioner fears is not distinct from '[m]ere generalized lawlessness and violence," which "generally is not sufficient . . . to grant asylum . . . .'" Caamal-Rosales v. Garland (9th Cir 2022)(unpublished case). Moreover, the applicant must show that he was specifically targeted because of his race, religion, or membership in a particular social group.
Also, where persecution is by private parties, "the applicant must show that the government condoned the private violence 'or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the [applicant].'" Bertrand v. Garland, 36 F. 4th 627 (5th Cir 2022).
Unverified stories don't cut it. The burden of proof is on the applicant to prove all elements of an asylum claim. Which is why the grant rate has historically been low. See, eg, this article, complaining that recently "asylum officers have granted asylum in nearly 31 percent of the border cases that they heard to completion — or almost twice as often as immigration judges historically had."
The real issue is the enormous backlog in adjudicating cases. See here. Given that, it is a worthwhile gamble to come here and give asylum a shot. At least you will give your kids a better life for a while. If we increased funding for immigration courts, etc, the problem of dubious asylum claims would largely disappear.
Another idea is a treaty whereby asylum applicants are randomly assigned to a country to have their application heard and to be resettled in if approved, rather than the current system whereby the applicant basically picks his country.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link