domain:amphobian.info
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
1d ago
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.
cjet79
1d ago
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).
Primaprimaprima
Aliquid stat pro aliquo
1d ago
Sorry for taking so long to respond to this. These are the kinds of replies that still make TheMotte worthwhile, so I appreciate it, I truly do.
we keep "it" sacred.
No arguments there.
We should make special rules to protect the special things.
Perhaps. But, what kinds of rules?
The Bible is special too. But Christians don't think we should ban the Bible in order to protect it. They think we should disseminate it as widely as possible precisely because it's sacred and it brings people into contact with the sacred. (In fact they arrange regular mass public gatherings where they come together to worship that which is considered sacred. Apply the same logic to sexuality and...)
How do we demarcate the sacred things that need to be disseminated from the sacred things that need to be protected? Do we have a schema outlining the different modalities in which something may be sacred?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
Trump talks about sending troops into cities to quell general lawlessness, but apart from DC he has not done so - the facts on the ground are entirely about immigration enforcement.
Until and unless he invokes the Insurrection Act, Trump does not have the authority to send troops into cities (aside from DC) to quell general lawlessness, except the National Guard with the co-operation of the state governor. It appears Trump has agreement to do so in Memphis but has not actually done so yet.
stuckinbathroom
1d ago
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)
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
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.
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.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
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.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
My mom still has a painted Harris/Walz rock (?) in her back garden.
My stepmother named a beloved houseplant "Kamala".
ulyssessword
1d ago
"...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.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
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.
daguerrean
1d ago
…no? Prohibition was totally legitimate, attacking random police officers during prohibition would’ve been very wrong too.
BurdensomeCount
Unable to escape TheMotte's cycle of Samsara...
1d ago
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.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
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.
cjet79
1d ago
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.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
1d ago
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.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
· Edited 1d ago
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.
Skeletor
1d ago
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?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1d ago
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.
roystgnr
1d ago
If you go to his Google Scholar page and look at the list by citation count it's topped by fiction ("I, Robot": 2670 citations), then adds popular science writing ("Asimov's biographical encyclopedia of science and technology", 663) and other non-fiction, then eventually gets down to science textbooks ("Biochemistry and human metabolism", 54) and science research ("Acid‐phosphatase activity of normal and neoplastic human tissues", 48).
IIRC it could have been even worse. He went into biochemistry, so was relatively immune to the quantum chemistry revolution sweeping upward through the field, but I recall him describing the horror with which experienced chemists discovered that they would have to practically get a second degree in physics just to keep their own chemistry research relevant.
It's kind of a shame that he's now much better-known for his science fiction writing than his science writing, though. He jokingly had the "Clarke-Asimov treaty", acknowledging Asimov to be the second-best SF writer and Clarke the second-best science writer, but IMHO with SF Asimov was (among their contemporaries) second-best to Heinlein, whereas with pop science he really was the best around.
NunoSempere
1d ago
In Europe! But not in South America!
pigeonburger
1d ago
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.
They could win me over by actually delivering the public works improvements they campaign on and use to justify tax increases. When they can't or won't, the choice between simply not getting the improvements and getting taxed a bunch of money and still not getting improvements seems obvious. If Democrats in California had actually delivered a well-performing high-speed railroad by now, on time and on budget, I would probably be pretty stoked about voting for that on a national level. But they failed, and in a way that made it seem like they didn't even care whether they succeeded or not.
More options
Context Copy link