domain:samschoenberg.substack.com
KMC
2hr ago
The fugitive slave act was meant to bring a recalcitrant north in line with the south's slavery policies.
No, the FSA was meant to bring the recalcitrant North in line with what they agreed to in the Constitution.
Article IV, Section 3
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
If the North didn't want to return fugitive slaves, then they shouldn't have agreed to it in the first place. If they changed their mind, they should change it via the constitution instead of lawlessly defying federal authority, authority which they themselves agreed to and submitted themselves to. These concessions were necessary for the South to continue in union with the North in the first place.
The morality of slavery is irrelevant, because unlike the Constitution, it is not agreed upon between all parties.
Slavery is perhaps about 80-90% of why the civil war started.
Northern defiance of the constitution is why the civil war started. The South, correctly, thought the North couldn't be trusted to abide by their own agreements.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
It's unfortunate that it seems like you have chosen to flame out
What does this mean? Is disagreeing with the motte hive-mind "flaming out"? I thought that was the point of this website.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
the conduct of ICE but the legitimacy of their official mission seems fine?
I really thought this was the whole point of this thread / argument but everyone really loves to conflate the two
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2hr ago
Plausible, I guess.
But something can be wildly biased without being representative. Outside of the Squad, how many members of Congress really care about it?
This is a genuine question.
07mk
2hr ago
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.
The core issue here is that there's no causal relationship between the optics sucking and the behavior of ICE, though. The optics are defined primarily by 2 things: what people see, and how they respond to what they see. Former is primarily determined by people who hate Trump and hate the core mission of ICE, and the latter is highly determined by those people as well. And the past decade or so has established a pattern that these people will always make the optics bad when it comes to Trump, in a way that's entirely orthogonal to truth and fact. So it makes sense that ICE and the people who lead it, like Trump, have decided to focus little on the optics.
Credibility takes a lifetime to earn and a millisecond to destroy, and unfortunately, the media and political organizations that are against Trump pretty much blew their load within his first presidency (I'd argue within his first campaign) and are still in the refractory period 8 years later, furiously rubbing the poor flesh and wondering why it just hurts instead of shooting another rope.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
2hr ago
Neither are there molecules of laws, or any particular ethnicity or nationality, or states.
TK-421
2hr ago
| ...however I'd wager you see the fight against Prohibition and its reduction in freedom as a good one.
Really depends on how we're defining "fight against Prohibition".
If you mean the political efforts to generate support for and pass the 21st Amendment - yeah, totally.
If you mean the efforts of smugglers and criminals to violate the law, sometimes violently - absolutely not, no.
KMC
2hr ago
I don't think moral legitimacy exists at all.
To paraphrase Pratchett's Death, take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one molecule of moral legitimacy.
And yet you act as if there is some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
there are no elite groups in America that actually want to limit immigration
Thank you for speaking the core truth
Trump is very conveniently ignoring the many illegal migrant farmers that keep food prices down
He's not just ignoring them, he's telling us (and them, and the Americans who pay them) he's ignoring them. Also hotel workers for some weird reason... maybe because he owns hotels? Lmao
KMC
2hr ago
The Fugitive Slave Act was 100% legitimate, and in fact there would be no United States without the federal authority to pass such an act and enforce it.
It's literally right there, Article IV, Section 2:
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Without this clause, we don't get a United States, we get whatever else could have come from the Articles of Confederation when the South broke from the North (and likely the West from the North, too).
It's my opinion that if you make concessions to your partners that they require as a basis for partnership, you cannot then renege on those concessions simply because you don't like them.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
2hr ago
We do that, in a sense. We keep them as pets in strange dwellings, feeding them strange food, castrating them and arranging their entire lives around our enjoyment. Were an alien do that to humans we'd probably consider it torture.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
Comments on Twitter you don't like is quite literally the definition of "algorithmic rage bait slop" because the Twitter algorithm specifically shows you things that'll make you unhappy because that makes you engage more.
If you take the opinions of a clown (liberal cuck? He's actually pathetic) like Patton Oswalt you are being rage baited.
gattsuru
2hr ago
My impression is that the stuff about voluntary vs involuntary search is that it mainly has to do with what evidence is admissible in court - law enforcement agents are going to be able to go where they want whether or not your cooperation is voluntary.
The California bill has absolutely zero to do with what's admissible in court -- not just because immigration courts are federal processes where it can't apply, but also because it includes a fine aimed at employers who voluntarily cooperate with federal agents, or voluntarily provide documentation to federal agents.
And in terms of documents, documents that are actually relevant to work eligibility are already covered as things that employers should cooperate with if there's an administrative warrant.
The law requires employers to ignore administrative warrants for personnel records. It's in the FAQ you're quoting!
My understanding is that what you can't do is hand over the Workday login to ICE and invite them to go on a fishing expedition unless you are compelled to do so.
Or access to a nonpublic area of a workplace. Or specific employee records. Even if given an administrative warrant, you can not do so without risking tens of thousands of dollars per instance. Or to reverify existing employees, such as, just as a theoretical exercise, an employer isn't quite sure if they did that initial eVerify check.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
one of your trantifa insurrectionists trying to kill his family over it?
I have no connection, affiliation, or agreement with whatever portmanteau of trans(?) and Antifa you made here. I find both of those groups insufferable.
I don't understand your quote/allegory of my words to be honest.
As does your eliding that, per your own link, immigration is still Trump's best polling policy.
That has nothing to do with my thesis, which is that optics (perception) of ICE is horrible, and it's clearly shown by the fact his approval on immigration, relative to earlier, has been dropping.
Just because he's even more underwater on his other awful ideas doesn't challenge this.
A solid majority of Americans still want every illegal deported
Yes they do, which is fine, I don't blame them, but they're clearly not thrilled with how it's happening WHICH IS LITERALLY THE OPTICS THING LMFAO
Also as an aside but it's just so blatantly clear they don't actually want to "solve" immigration because as stated infinity times, they're not taking any action to make employers use e-verify more and they're EXPLICITLY AND DELIBERATELY not going after hotels or farms, which are two of the biggest low hanging fruit for tons of illegal immigrants in obvious places.
If they wanted to, they would, and they aren't, so they don't.
This entire forum is so allergic to admitting this. If they actually wanted to address immigration, they'd punish the American citizens who give illegal immigrants money to do jobs. THE ILLEGALS ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU PAY THEM. Just go after the people who pay them, it's that simple. Again, this forum is wildly allergic to admitting that.
When people tell me it exists, I like taking a look.
I guess I'm just not sure how to define or quantify a fuzzy object like "optics" which by nature is opinion based, without pointing at measures of people's opinions.
Also on a real human level, they're just obviously bad? Partisanship aside can we not agree that dudes in face coverings abducting people and sending some of them to 3rd world prisons run by dictators is really fucking off-putting?
To be honest, I actually feel like you're being willfully ignorant here. When people in this thread say "Optics" they obviously mean "the public perception or appearance of an action, decision, or policy. How it looks rather than what it is."
Perception is everything here, and polls measure perception/opinion.
Why are polls a lame argument?
The Economist is generally regarded as a reliable source, and Nate Silver is a very talented pollster, so it is highly likely these pills are a real indication of how the American people feel. If you have a different hypothesis as to how the American people feel, you should present it.
By the way, did you just type out the same 2-3 paragraphs in 3 different comments? Are you ok?
I'm pretty sure I'm responding to 3 different people, so I wanted to make sure they all saw the stats that back my hypothesis. Copy and pasted so it was pretty easy, but I appreciate you checking.
Jiro
2hr ago
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"
If the left thinks it was good to assassinate Charlie Kirk because it is okay to assassinate evil public figures, and that the only disagreement was whether he was evil, they can say "we think it is okay to assassinate evil public figures, we just disagree whether Charlie Kirk was evil". They won't do this. (And I don't think that's out of fear of being arrested, either, given the rhetoric that is acceptable.)
gattsuru
2hr ago
It looks like people here were pretty close to universal in saying the ATF was incompetent, malicious, or most likely both here.
Would you like to demonstrate where, exactly, Rov_Scam said that, rather than moe about gun owners not wanting to compromise?
Yeah, it is an unfortunate truth that "someone did an unambiguously terrible thing and now the world is worse :(" doesn't get nearly as much engagement as "someone did a thing, maybe it's very bad, maybe it's not so bad, but everyone has an opinion and thinks anyone who disagrees with them is an evil mutant".
Oh, if everyone agreed it was awful, then there must be a whole ton of sympathetic coverage from mainstream and even progressive sources, right? I must be able to find some Honest Gun Control Advocate who talked about how they wanted enforcement, but Not Like This, rather than just memory hole or completely ignore the matter? President Biden, who was willing to speak out personally about an immigration officer using reins on a horse, must have spoken on the matter: it was the middle of election season and an excellent opportunity to Sister Souljah nutjobs. Or if his brain was too applesauce at the time, perhaps Kamala "I own A Glock" Harris did so? The officers in question -- who unquestionably did violate policy, and near-certainly violated a lot of constitutional protections in addition to the not-getting-shot-in-head-bit -- must have been fired or at least demoted, right, even if they couldn't be prosecuted?
Ah, no.
In (to pick an arbitrary Biden year) 2022, ICE deported about 70,000 people. Not more than a handful of those people were cause celebres. Likewise in 2018 (to pick an arbitrary Trump 1 year), and likewise this year.
Did you follow the link? Because a good part of the complaint here is that those 2018-2019 period did get a massive amount of often-not-honest outrage, even when the some of photos predated Trump. Yes, no one cared about Biden deportations, that's the punchline.
That's the joke, and that's why the outrage here is a joke.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2hr ago
Surely there is some guy, somewhere, who is already in a position of high status, who can act as the mouthpiece or advocate for disaffected males without implicating any individual man as the complainant. Someone who can beseach the egregore on behalf of his brethren by amplifying the words they are individually scared to mouth.
No, there isn't. It's not just that making the complaint implicates the complainer. It's that the complaint itself is invalid by the standards of traditional masculinity. Portraying men as somehow in opposition to women already takes you out of the traditional Overton Window.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2hr ago
Once you free yourself from pernicious America-centrism, Osama just doesn’t rate. These dictators have to compete on fundamentals.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2hr ago
He also flew every deployed star officer and their SEAs to Quantico for the biggest set-piece speech to the brass since Washington was alive, and told them that the people of Chicago were domestic enemies of the United States and that the officer corps should prepare for war against them.
This statement appears to be untrue. The context of the "enemy from within" quote (which has been reported by many sources as "enemy within") is
Everybody knows friends, many friends probably, that you lost a child or adults too, but you lost a son or daughter because of what's coming into our border. And we're making it very hard -- oh, and we haven't even started yet. Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances.
This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control, once you're involved, at all. They all joke, they say, oh, this is not good. You saw it in Washington. We had gangs of Tren de Aragua, say 10, 12, 15 kids.
This particular group is not the people of Chicago, but illegal immigrants who are already present (thus "within")
He later talks about career criminals in a way which indicates they are also domestic enemies. He never refers to the people of Chicago as domestic enemies.
Surely there is some guy, somewhere, who is already in a position of high status, who can act as the mouthpiece or advocate for disaffected males without implicating any individual man as the complainant. Someone who can beseach the egregore on behalf of his brethren by amplifying the words they are individually scared to mouth.
Just one dude, somewhere, who has the necessary 'clout' to say "no, many men are suffering under current norms and these norms should shift, and men should demand much, much better treatment (while still being worthy of it)."
Oh wait. That's Andrew Tate.
Once again I point out that the fact that Tradcons have largely failed to provide the men they want to step up and "lead" with either a viable path to becoming worthy, or a proper incentive (i.e. an appealing pool of marriageable women) for doing so. They could at least provide a realistic and admirable role model to provide the inspiration and advocacy men crave.
Oh wait, that was Charlie Kirk.
In principle I agree with your point entirely.
In fact, I think this dynamic, mixed with the fact that the internet grants a massive advantage to those who are able to freely type out their complaints and form (the appearance of) a massive public consensus by finding other people who are also typing out their similar complaints and then form an 'interest group' that types out their complaints en masse to ultimately steer the debate to their preferred outcome.
i.e. we get dozens of articles from women discussing womens' grievances, whereas men are mostly commiserating amongst themselves, so on a social level the average normie assumes women's complaints are much more important because they're that much more salient.
And this dynamic is amplified by the fact that the internet rewards grievance and rage farming with more attention.
So basically because men aren't rewarded at all for speaking out about their struggles, especially in the medium-form article format, and women not only find that format more intuitive they are continually rewarded with attention for raising it, the feedback loop is pretty predictable from there.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
2hr ago
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.
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
2hr 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.
I mean, I think that's the motte and bailey.
I think a majority of leftists believe that their official mission is illegitimate, and borders in general are basically unethical, but outright saying that is still a bit outside the Overton window of mainstream political discourse (insofar as you still care about trying to convince conservatives and "centrists" and put on good optics for them).
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