domain:lesswrong.com
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
4hr ago
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:
-
tariff food imports until for prices rise such that the wage cost can be met
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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
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
4hr ago
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.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
4hr ago
As a self-admitted partisan, Reddit is a pretty accurate source for what the liberals are currently believing and narrativizing about, ever since Twitter went down. Bluesky is too crazy, Threads is barren, Facebook is full of boomers, Instagram and Tiktok too noisy. Anything else is too small to be relevant.
Reddit is the largest online collection of Democrat partisans online: it's something they're proud of. It didn't use to be that way but it is now firmly enemy territory.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4hr ago
Afraid I haven't seen the movie. You may or may not find the book similar. While I thought it was quite impressive, I suspect some of the parts I enjoyed could be classed as performance art. On the other hand, I'd say it absolutely manages a payoff.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
4hr ago
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.
sockpuppet2
4hr ago
I love Paul Thomas Anderson, but this had the same fatal flaw "Inherent Vice" did - his original stories are mostly about characters in control of their environments these stories very much aren't. (But kudos for being the only filmmaker ballsy enough to adapt Pynchon novels, in the first place. And the direction was superb, even if the screenplay wasn't - same as Megalopolis, last year.)
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
4hr ago
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.
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
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.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
4hr ago
I do not think that the South seceded because they thought that Lincoln would shoot them up a la John Brown.
My understanding is that southerners were very worried about large-scale slave revolts, having observed long-term the outcome of such a revolt with the Haitian Revolution in 1791. John Brown, a murderous terrorist, made a serious attempt to ignite the same sort of slave revolt in Virginia, and for this was lauded as a hero and martyr by northerners generally, and that contemporary southerners saw this as proof that the northerners held their lives and wellbeing in slight regard.
From the first result for "southerner reactions to john brown":
In John Ellis’ letter to John Floyd and John B. Todd’s letter to Governor Ellis, they both mentioned the need for a militia in the wake of John Brown’s raid and execution. Ellis wrote to Floyd, the United States Secretary of War, about the conditions of North Carolina after the John Brown raid, and why North Carolina needed weapons for its militias. “The Sense of insecurity prevailing among the people of this State, renders it necessary that I should apply to you for arms to place in the hands of the militia…
...It is important to realize that there are exceptions to this demand for a militia. One such exception appears in The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux, where she and her father differed on the issue of being militarily prepared after Brown’s raid. “He does not conceal that he thinks it all folly, childs play, no need of preparation for war…. I do not see how in the present attitude of the North, sample they have given us in the John Brown raid, he can be so indifferent to our preparation for a future one.”[4] Catherine’s entry reflects the attitude of several newspapers suggesting Northern fanaticism, and well as a family division between her father, a man not convinced of the need for preparing for a war, and Catherine, a woman who was convinced that war would be inevitable.
...And plenty more where that came from. The AI summary:
Southern reactions to John Brown were overwhelmingly negative, viewing him as a dangerous lunatic who threatened their way of life and sovereignty. His raid on Harpers Ferry intensified fears of slave insurrections and was seen as a direct challenge to the institution of slavery, leading many Southerners to advocate for secession and increased vigilance against abolitionist movements.
...And of course, all of this should be obvious with any understanding of who John Brown was and what he actually did. Of course, we understand now that John Brown was in the right when he attempted to secure his moral values through direct, murderous violence against those who disagreed, and of course we understand that similar murderous violence is acceptable when confronted by evil, implacable tyranny backed by force of law. The only wrinkle is that we cannot agree on what constitutes "evil" or "tyranny".
wemptronics
4hr ago
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.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
4hr ago
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
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
4hr ago
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.
Iconochasm
2. Bootstrap the rest of the fucking omnipotence.
4hr ago
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.
anti_dan
4hr ago
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.
anti_dan
4hr ago
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).
quiet_NaN
5hr ago
I do not think that the South seceded because they thought that Lincoln would shoot them up a la John Brown. They simply seceded because their elite's wealth was dependent on slavery, and it was clear that Lincoln would abolish slavery. Slavery was first defeated at the ballot box, and the cartridge box only did its part after Fort Sumter.
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.
anti_dan
5hr ago
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.
anti_dan
5hr ago
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.
Zephyr
5hr ago
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.
anti_dan
5hr ago
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.
SkoomaDentist
The Greater Finnish Empire
5hr ago
One obvious potential explanation: Gay men don't have to care about what women think of them.
anti_dan
5hr ago
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.
only under the pure assumption that it happens, no implication meant as to the probability - if you think it hasn't happened yet, roughly how long until it does?
The American government apparatus has to actually be broken, not merely wounded but smashed. No rich country with a strong government has had a civil war without extraordinary pressure from outside. Rich countries are stable because the government is so strong compared to anyone else, power is uneven and imbalanced. They have huge security forces and loyal armies. Military coup, yes! Civil war, no! Whereas Nigeria is poor and the central government is very weak, easy to have civil wars there since the country is balanced between different power groups.
Germany at the end of WW1 - mass famine, megadeaths on the front, kaiser has given up, traditional authorities greatly delegitimized. Then you get a brief civil war as the freikorps show up and poleaxe communists. It was basically still an unbalanced country but under extreme stress the communists came out and got demolished by the army. In Maoist China, the Cultural Revolution saw militias fighting in the streets with tanks and heavy weapons but it still wasn't a civil war as the govt retained control. In Venezuela there's massive economic problems but the govt is unbroken, no major alternate power bases.
Yugoslavia is a special case where it's this anomalous composite of various nations who hate eachother intensely, propped up by Tito, a Great Man and the Cold War economics of being a 'neutral' power in Europe, courted by both sides. Yugoslavia was a balanced country with separate power bases. The Balkans were proper wars with armies, not low-level stuff like Northern Ireland.
America is imbalanced, there are no major power bases outside the central government. The state national guard aren't real armies and states don't truly hate eachother. Hundreds of millions of privately owned guns but no organization makes the guns totally irrelevant, they could not matter less. Owning guns didn't prevent machinegun bans or Patriot Act or mass surveillance or anything else. On ethnic lines, blacks are no good at fighting, they're no match for whites in numbers or organization. Hispanics aren't particularly resentful or good at fighting either. Plus there's an extra stabilizing factor of the nuclear forces, the serious players aren't going to start fighting with the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, they'll choose restraint and stability. America is also very very rich and that's another stabilizing factor.
1990s Russia - economic depression, illegitimate govt, dubious elections, very unpopular president gets into a power struggle with parliament, president shells parliament into submission, no civil war. Unbalanced country, army and security forces are all united. It's very hard to break the power of a strong, rich government. Yes, Russia in the 1990s was rich. Rich is in an absolute sense of being industrialized, urban, there are televisions and electrification... not a relative sense.
So if a civil war were to happen in America, China needs to suplex the US in the Pacific, smash national myths about American exceptionalism. There needs to be an economic depression, maybe even a famine (Yellowstone going up?) There needs to be a massive, unprecedented economic crisis and delegitimization of old authorities. Somehow the central government needs to be split up or fall into different camps.
Or more likely, some black swan arrives and changes all the rules. I just don't see a civil war happening in the US.
Is it the peace that is the absence of tension or the peace that is the presence of justice?
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