domain:anarchonomicon.com
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
4m ago
At a bare minimum, they can use it as a wedge issue, as with abortion or gun control.
That would make vastly more sense coming from the right, where we've repeatedly seen conservative elites push back on certain kinds of immigration enforcement while also avoiding comprehensive immigration reform. YMMV if this is because they want it as a wedge or because it would it would implicate them and hurt their economic interests.
Like, who are the Dems wedging with immigration?
If there was minimal illegal immigration to speak of, what would be their case for increasing it.
That would depend a great deal on the counterfactual. A scenario where there's minimal illegal immigration because there's de facto open borders, not much. Illegal immigration is not a first preference for immigration advocates (hence, for example, efforts to route immigrants through the asylum system). In "death penalty for illegal entry" scenario, you're back to the humanitarian appeal. Not that either of those scenarios are likely, but I hope it illustrates the point.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
4m ago
It's not that I think there couldn't be self-serving motives, but I don't think the actual reality of American politics actually support any of them. All in all, I just don't think there's a very good reason to believe that opposition to mass deportations or other restrictive immigration policies is a cynical ploy as opposed to a fundamental values difference.
I have no idea why @Fruck is accusing me of being dishonest, other than that they have totally misread my argument.
That said, to claim it absolutely does not or could not happen, and cannot be an intentional policy, is to ignore history.
I'm not saying that the incident rate is literally zero, but I am saying that it is not high enough to be political relevant or be a serious motive for immigration advocates. As a self-interested motive it lacks substantial payoff (and would be risky to boot).
I don't think the historical point has much relevance. It strikes me that when you're talking about mid-century American politics, there's a lot more general bad behavior when it comes to election integrity. I don't really know enough about Texan politics in the 40s and 50s to fact-check you, but it doesn't strike me as especially distinct other forms of election manipulation that were common then and are far less common now.
most of them do expect anyone who comes and settles here illegally to eventually be legalized
I don't think this is true. Hopes might be high, but expectations for a general amnesty are generally pretty low. I think there is an expectation that 2nd gen children of illegal immigrants will lean left, but - again - I don't think it constitutes a significant motivating factor for pro-immigration advocates. Pushing a controversial position now in the expectation that it's going to pay off for different people in a generation is a level of long-term planning that I do not buy from people who will throw allies out of the tent for 75% agreement.
There's a feedback loop were pro-immigration/anti-immigration parties (reasonably) expect that immigrants will vote for/against them. That doesn't tell you much about their reasons for being pro/anti in the first place. (Ironically, both views appear to be at least partially incorrect.)
The xenophobes are already not going to vote Democrat
Margins matter. Indeed, in the current political environment they matter quite a lot. Diehard nativists are not going to vote for the Dems no matter what (both because they won't trust them on immigration and because hardcore nativist is strongly correlated with other conservative beliefs), but the typical anti-immigrant voter isn't nearly that committed.
I agree that there's a significant body of immigration advocates who think any immigration skeptic is a write-off. Probably more than there are people pushing for moderating on immigration on the basis of marginal electoral gains, but I think that points away from cynical motives and towards ideological ones. It's taking on board the added risk of losing an election (and thus all your other issues of concern) because you prefer to avoid compromising on this particular issue when you could safely move right.
Interestingly, in May 2025, the same article notes that average hourly wages rose by 0.4%, reaching $36.24, as companies competed for a smaller pool of workers.
Something I've never been clear on is how this dynamic is controversial. Obviously if labor is scarce wages will go up, eating away at the 'income inequality' boogeyman.
But try to argue that flooding the country with cheap labor will (besides making housing much more expensive) drive down wages and people smirk and tell you that's the "lump of labor" fallacy.
I don't think it is though. Yes, having more people around also generates some economic demand, but surely this is in the same sense that broken windows will generate economic demand? Unless those people are actually providing more value than they cost -- and here we must consider healthcare, education, wear and tear on infrastructure, social friction, decline in cohesion, crime, and so on -- doesn't the argument come down to "Well we have more mouths to feed so that generates economic activity"? And isn't that rather the broken window fallacy?
What is going on here?
Gaashk
7m ago
I'm not sure what the rules are for truck drivers in America, but it was pretty visibly the more established white truck drivers who were hanging out in the right lane, and the new immigrant truck drivers who were passing. If there are laws punishing new drivers who are acting the same as old responsible drivers, then, sure, those are bad laws.
Also, a lot of this could be resolved by increasing stupid 70mph speed limit (113km/h) on highways to 80 or 85 as in Europe, so you can catch up if you are inconvenienced for 30 seconds behind a truck or other vehicle.
This suggests lack of familiarity with American interstates in multiple ways.
- Yes, of course the other drivers can go 80 - 85 most of the time, the cops do not enforce 70 - 75 at all. That is largely why they are upset when they are cut off by a vehicle going 75.
- Cath up? To whom? It isn't exactly about getting home 10 minutes sooner. It's mostly about not being sandwiched between large trucks.
- It's probably 5 minutes inconvenience per vehicle, spread out over a two to eight hour drive, so maybe an hour or two of being in irritating and unsafe conditions over the course of a day of driving.
The alternative is to fly, but in the American West not only is it expensive for a full car's worth of people, you still have to rent a car at the destination, and even rent car seats.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
11m ago
It increases the fear of violence level of the rest of society.
How so? If I’m not planning on participating in a protest, why would my “fear of violence” be increased by the knowledge that protestors may suffer negative consequences for protesting? Their circumstances do not appear to mirror my circumstances in any important way, so why should I draw any conclusions about what’s likely to happen to me based on what happens to them?
It devalues nearby property by increasing the crime rate.
including taking court and police time away from other crimes.
Not if the police agree to do only a cursory investigation, informed by the assumption “Eh, whatever happens to these people happens, no need to look too deeply into it.” In that scenario, no arrest would be made and no court resources would need to be expended.
magicalkittycat
19m ago
This is the really intractable portion, because killing protestors is probably net pretty good when done by private individuals. Protesting, even the "peaceful" kind is still highly antisocial, at best being a massive waste of time and resources. But usually also significantly interrupting business and people's lives
Killing people also disrupts a lot of lives too, including taking court and police time away from other crimes. It disrupts the employers of both, the family members and friends of both, etc. It increases the fear of violence level of the rest of society. It devalues nearby property by increasing the crime rate.
Murder doesn't just hurt the murder victim.
Eupraxia
Shut up and quantify
24m ago
Considering that a common point from apologetics is that Christians tend to have healthier communities and better lives than their atheistic peers, that seems pretty categorically false.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
32m ago
Do you truly have no feeling that one's own whims can enslave oneself or is this truly just a semantic disagreement where you're unwilling to concede any moral limitation is required to be free because you see freedom as the absence of limitations?
If the latter, I enjoin you to reconsider because ultimately these words exist to describe reality, and the Rousseauan state of nature where the removal of some chains doesn't create new and more terrible ones is, as we have painfully learned, completely fictitious.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
34m ago
The mystery is part of the point my friend. We cannot understand the nature of God, and we are not meant to.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
35m ago
What part of it would be normal come-and-go movement related to seasonality, working on temporary and short-term project jobs etc though? I'd expect both regular and illegal migration to demonstrate such patterns to some degree.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
36m ago
Great write up overall. In terms of the last bit, definitely agree about pulling away from a strictly material belief system. It’s something you need a community for, and it does exist but can be hard to find.
erwgv3g34
37m ago
Arianism makes a lot more sense than Trinitarianism, though; it is the radical notion that God and Jesus share the exact same relationship that every other father and son do, instead of some not-even-wrong word salad about substances that is so incomprehensible even its adherents admit it's a mystery. If I was convinced that something like Christianity was true but was not really clear on the details, I would become an Arian, like Isaac Newton, or perhaps a Mormon.
4bpp
After January 20th, all orange flairs are considered political
39m ago
In general yes, and with the Saudis in particular I actually think they are long overdue for a drubbing on very similar grounds to Israel. (Since Saudi Arabia is not even remotely democratic, though, I think the moral case that its civilians deserve it is far weaker!) That being said, I think of the obligation to be a "good citizen" among the nations to only really come into full force after a certain threshold of national capability is surpassed - tasers and rubber bullets are appropriate for antisocial adults running wild, not antisocial children throwing a temper tantrum, with the latter being more appropriately subjected to gentler and more patronising modes of reeducation. If some random minnow on the order of Syria is impotently mouthing off against its neighbours, what they need is a stern talking-to and maybe a review if at some point it looks like they might be acquiring the capacity to making good on those threats.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
39m ago
I was more interested in why someone would change their axioms based on seeing the politically-compromised Science-as-Institution
One observes that things scrupulously labeled "Materialistic, evidence-based belief" turn out to be generated and maintained entirely by social consensus effects, and once one has seen the pattern, one can recognize it elsewhere. "Things labeled materialistic, evidence-based belief are what they say on the tin" is an axiom, and once you have a lot of strong evidence that this axiom is wrong by observing the politicially-compromised Science-as-institution, it's pretty easy to discard it and everything that depends on it, including consensus-narrative-style "materialism". then you're free to notice things like Determinism-of-the-gaps and "Materialism precludes free will = evidence of free will is evidence against Materialism", and a whole bunch of very carefully crafted and highly-rigorous arguments abruptly reverse polarity.
...This is a subject I dearly love to discuss, but I am in fact trying to answer your question. Observing the political compromise of Science-as-institution directly led to me changing axioms, and adopting a set that seem much stronger to me against Materialism itself, because the large majority of Materialist elements seem to me to obviously depend heavily on similar political compromise for their weight.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
40m ago
I very much am in the process of investigating it. My big concern with it right now — and this may just be a result of the strenuous efforts of Freemasonry’s modern public-facing advocates to massively downplay its esoteric beliefs and emphasize its compatibility with normie Christian-inflected liberalism — is that it seems to demand a commitment to hardcore Enlightenment ideas of universal human equality and the centrality of the liberated individual. Since I think a lot of these ideas are wrong/incomplete, I’m wary of committing myself to an institution which treats them as bedrock axioms. I’m still doing my research, though.
problem_redditor
40m ago
No worries, I imagined that would probably be the case - it is just a forum after all and I'm not a super consistent poster, especially not lately. Mostly I just come up with a very long essay-style post every now and then on a hobbyhorse of mine, and then I drop out. Just got curious and thought I might ask.
I'd say that summary of my preferences is largely accurate, though it's not a long or obscure web novel actually. It's a piece of fiction I think most people here are familiar with.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
45m ago
I was more interested in why someone would change their axioms based on seeing the politically-compromised Science-as-Institution, since that was the literal reading I took from the OP
Why would someone change their axioms? Because you grow up in our culture hearing Science as an institution say it has all the answers. They promote orthodox materialism. And as you grow older and realize that Science actually has a lot of flaws and lies quite a bit, you lose confidence/faith in their answers. You begin to question. Ultimately, you question materialism.
Can you explain a bit more where this doesn't make sense to you? I'm confused as to how you're confused.
sun_the_second
46m ago
The Rings are singular artifact though. I meant more like a hypothetical setting where everyone does Satanism for a living.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
46m ago
Why is this seemingly so impossibly difficult to explain/implement to people? I genuinely don't understand unless people are using immigrants as a scapegoat to vent their rage upon.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
47m ago
Anyways, symbolic beliefs are false. The Christians here are actually Christian, so why would they engage with symbolic (false) beliefs?
You are misunderstanding what symbolism means. The Church Fathers constantly referred to the symbolic meanings in Genesis and other Old Testament texts. When I say symbolic I do not mean "miracles aren't real they are symbolic in ways that fit a materialist framework." I mean that the symbol, which is the word meaning "the place where Heaven and Earth meet," is an important frame for understanding religious tradition.
"Actual Christians" should in fact understand symbolism on a deep level, if they are serious about understanding their faith. If they just want to practice theosis and try to be more like Christ, that's fine too of course.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
53m ago
I wish you had linked this comment instead, you do a great job here! To pick out some important bits:
We can make choices, every minute of every day. We can directly observe ourselves and others making those choices, and have direct insight to the apparent cause of those choices, which appears to be individual will and volition. We can observe that the behavior of others is not perfectly or even mostly predictable or manipulable, and that the degree predictability and manipulability that does exist varies widely across people and across contexts. All of our experiences conform seamlessly with the general concept of free will, none of them conform with Determinism of any sort.
There is no evidence that humans are "machines", ie deterministic chains of cause and effect. This claim is not supported by any direct, testable evidence available to us, and is in fact contradicted by our moment-to-moment experience of making choices freely. Many predictions have been made on the theory that humans are machines, and all of those predictions, to date, have been falsified. Even now, you form the claim in a way specifically designed to be untestable, because you are aware that such a machine cannot now be made. You only believe that it will be possible to be made at some indeterminate point in the future, perhaps ten years hence; ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years ago and more, your predecessors believed the same thing for the same reasons.
You do not believe in Determinism because it has been directly demonstrated by evidence. You believe in Determinism because you are committed to Materialism as an axiom, and because any position other than Determinism evidently breaks that axiom. Beliefs are not generated by a deterministic accretion of evidence, but are rather chosen through the exercise of free will, by a process that is easily observed by anyone with a reasonable memory and a willingness to examine one's own thought-process dispassionately. As I said before, this is how all human reason works, how all beliefs and values are formed and adopted. The mistake is only in failing to recognize the choices being made, to allow oneself to believe that the choices are anything other than choices.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
53m ago
Do you not understand that this is just like fourth wall breaking and pointless?
What is your understanding and assessment of the loaded phrase "just asking questions"?
I think what you are seeing here is a more general application of the ideas behind the phrase.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
55m ago
I'm sorry, but I don't recall enough of your posts to form an educated guess! (Nothing personal though, there are at most a single digit number of "characters" here where I feel like I have some model of their personality.)
I assume it's something related to sci-fi, based on your other recent comment. Probably a very long web novel that I've never personally heard of. I imagine that a lot of earlier 20th century works weren't intricate and hard-SF enough for you.
Because if half the country wants them here, and can leverage the courts to ensure free education and healthcare, then they will. The US system allows cultural trench warfare, the current term of art appears to be "No Kings."
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