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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   38238 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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I'd apply that last part to human rights lawyers who frustrate deportations -- if anyone you rescued from deportation commits a crime, you are also held responsible.

Lawyers are enforcing the rules of the game.

I know the rules are bullshit and people often deliberately frustrate the setting of the rules, but before making lawyers responsible for the crimes of the people they represent I would want to try everything else first.

Lawyers are enforcing the rules of the game.

Yeah, no, and being a regulatory lawyer in private practice is my day job. A lot of regulatory law is deliberately contorting and poking the process as hard and as wildly as possible, often in manners completely disconnected from the actual equities of the case, to achieve some sort of preferred policy result or outcome for the client.

I really cannot overstate how much I despise these lawyers. I don't believe for one moment that they actually believe that the asylum laws were intended to include migrants from countries that are simply unpleasant places to live. I think they know beyond any shadow of doubt that coaching economic migrants up on how to make asylum claims that result in them being released into the interior of the country is exploiting a loophole in how the law works. They want people to be able to migrate freely, they know they can exploit that loophole, and they feel morally righteous in doing so.

I don't know if Patchwork_October has the perfect solution, but it seems like a good enough workaround to curtail the worst of this behavior.

I really cannot overstate how much I despise these lawyer

If the answer to "why are we punishing the lawyers" is "because I hate them" then we have really cut through all the bullshit exceptionally fast.

I really like Patchwork_October's idea for requiring birthright sponsors for immigrants. I would go further and have them put up a bond to stop some judgement-proof patsy being used.

And I'm advocating changing the rules.

I honestly don't see the problem. If you're asserting that a person isn't a danger and can be released into the general population, you should be held accountable if you're wrong. Otherwise if that person goes and robs from someone, or rapes or murders, the cost of your bad decision is entirely externalised. Unless your terminal value is letting the most people stay in the country you possibly can, what's wrong with it?

And I'm advocating changing the rules.

To say that people questioning the rules get punished. Typical strongman behavior but I will try literally anything else.

If you have the power to punish lawyers for representing the wrong people, you also have the power to say those immigrants just do not have legal rights to stay in the country in the first place.

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