Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

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Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I know, artillery on our border sounds a bit insane. I like to think I'm not insane, but I'm not afraid of crazy ideas, so make up your own mind.

I don't think it's an acceptable idea. If for no other reason, Middle Class America doesn't really worry about crime, that happens to other people. And apparently, other people's problems aren't real, until one experiences the problem on a more personal scale.

Besides, Americans are too fond of the Hollywood fantasy of soldiers as heroes, and so is the military. It's hard to feel like a hero calling fire on civilians in the desert. I doubt any gun bunnies would like it, anymore than I liked the idea of riot gear.

And I'm pretty sure artillery everywhere would be very inefficient. The generals will come up with something.

If the last 2 years have taught me anything, it's that it is possible to start out a policy proposal from an insane but workable starting point, and move to an acceptable solution, but that starting from an acceptable opening position is unlikely to end in a working solution.

Campitor
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Campitor »

I think your take on immigration and its cause and effects is pretty spot on. Per your last post, I also don't want artillery strikes on human beings but equipping drones to spray them with luminescent paint (kind of like the ink in expoliding bank bags) so they can be easily spotted and deported immediately sounds like a good idea; but they should 1st undergo fingerprinting, photoing, and DNA sampling as you recommended. And border security should be a military endeavor - the armed forces already patrol our air and sea.
Last edited by Campitor on Mon Aug 20, 2018 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Lefties tend to be much more concerned with what the rules are, not how, why or if, they are enforced. A bad law, that is no longer enforced, is a solution, not a problem.
True. One of my ah-ha moments in mid-life therapy was learning or realizing that when you enter into a contract you have two obligations; upholding your own end and enforcing the other end.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Exactly. I can't get upset by people looking at our current system, deciding that their only access to opportunity in the north runs outside the rules, when we both make the rules, and reward the ones who work outside them.

That those outside the lines, being rewarded, are both American, and immigrants, doesn't alleviate this.

This is our land. It is our rules. If they don't work to our advantage, nor to the advantage of the real victims, the class below the law, that is our fault. Fixing this is our responsibility.

Shouting "WALL", and "RACIST" is nothing like a fix.

RealPerson
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by RealPerson »

I pretty much agree with all you have said here about immigration. Your proposed solution won't fly because of the employers who greatly benefit from lower paid and unprotected undocumented workers. Plus, consumers pay less for food and services than they otherwise would. And both parties in Washington benefit from the same status quo. They both appeal to their respective bases with a hot button issue. So neither party wants the immigration problem to go away. Therefore it will not get resolved. It is one of the ultimate cynical political footballs. And innocent people suffer and die.

Because economic benefits for businesses and consumers line up with the interests of both parties in Washington, it is hard to see what would push for a change.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

A new, Centerist party. Put that on the platform.

Any volunteers?

prognastat
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by prognastat »

The problem for third parties in the US is that the two primary parties have gotten very good at squeezing third parties out of the process and even when someone runs not as a third party, but within the party while having positions they don't agree with it's unreliable. It worked for Trump, but you can also see what happened to Bernie's campaign.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Oh. I thought the Bernie lesson was "don't cross the Clinton crime family."

But, since the DNC is allergic to sunlight, and their members aren't interested in a purge, I expect plenty of room between their next candidate and the Cheeto in Chief. Maybe enough room for a centrist. There certainly seems to be plenty of dissatisfaction from members of both parties. it's not like an independent party hasn't done this before. Though the last time I can think of, off the top of my head, was Lincoln, and that didn't turn out so well.

fell-like-rain
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by fell-like-rain »

Riggerjack wrote:
Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:14 pm
Militarize the southern border. We are a nation at war. Border security should not be controversial. Build the wall to far enough on each side of any population center, that there can be no accidental crossings. Enforce with rifle fire. Enforce the rest by artillery and Argos drone systems. Close this zone of lawlessness down, with extreme prejudice. Any human attempting to move thru this area is to be treated as an enemy combatant. Surrender is possible, but a dangerous proposition. This may seem inhumane, but by comparison to what we currently tolerate, it seems kind.

This would end the low grade war currently raging on the border. People will try to cross a border and dodge patrols, when the downside is deportation. Not so much when faced with artillery strikes, called in by aerial camera systems that spot movement. Smuggling and human trafficking will move to border crossing stations and the coasts, easier places to secure. Easier enforcement will raise the cost of attempts, reducing the problem.
I see three issues with this- morality, the law, and facts. Morally, the punishment for a crime should fit the crime- inflicting the death penalty for crossing a border without a visa would be extreme beyond all measure. Legally, there has to be due process, (yes, even for non-Americans), so you can't just shoot people on sight, you'd have to take them into custody and try them. And then, based on your proposed system, execute them. And factually, I really struggle to understand how the border is a "low-grade war" when (on the U.S. side, at least), there's actually fairly little crime. According to a study done by the Woodrow Wilson International Center (nonpartisan), the crime rates in U.S. border counties are lower than the average for similarly sized inland counties. Yes, there's a lot of cartel violence in Mexico, but relatively little of it spills over. And with regards to smuggling/human trafficking, most of that already takes place through official ports of entry- turns out it's actually pretty easy to hide a few kilos of cocaine inside an fully-loaded eighteen-wheeler. Artillery wouldn't prevent that.

I definitely agree that we need a guest worker program with low barriers to entry, and enforcement of fair labor standards. People aren't hiking dozens of miles through the desert for fun, they're coming to try and get jobs. If there was a legal pathway to do so, I don't think we'd have a tenth of the undocumented entry there is today.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Right. This is what I mean when I talk about my communication problems. I assume more knowledge than is appropriate.

Let me try to be more clear.

The US is at war. Have been, for too long. It's rare for a country at war, to not have a militarized border.

Military explosives are scary, making the showy, fiery special effects of Hollywood, look like the fireworks they are. Artillery is not smart bomb accurate, but can be presighted to some very serious accuracy. No civilian is going to advance in the face of an artillery strike.

Shelling a single target is poor use of artillery, and targeting groups of civilians would be a war crime. Getting the military on board means meeting their ethical standards. But I am not talking about killing anyone trying to cross the border. I am talking about deterrence. Stop the flood of human trafficking and smuggling. Move it to areas more easily controlled. I don't expect this to be bloodless, but the death count should go down, not up, from our current system.

Then, after closing off the source, we can address a guest visa policy, to legitimize existing guest workers, and deport problems.

Citing "nonpartisan" studies of crime reports, telling us that unreported crime isn't a problem, just makes me wonder if you read what I wrote. Juarez has entire landfills of bodies in barrels. Leading the world in violent death. That's one city. Worse than Kabul, at the high of the war. If that's not a low grade war, what is? How many guest workers have to die, get maimed, raped and forced into prostitution to make this a real problem?

We have been down this path before. We have had other amnesty programs that lead us to where we are. That's why the right is so excited about a wall. It won't work, but nothing has worked, and nobody is proposing a working solution. At least a wall looks like we might think about being serious, someday, and still be there after the next election.

So I figured I would give it a shot. My solution gets most people what they want. Legit guest workers and an end to the recruitment of an underclass, below the law. Guest workers can come out of the shadows, get legal protection, and pay taxes, get second jobs, and some will become the Americans they want to be. And we can be happy to call them neighbors. Not feeding an entire class of people to organized crime is just a bonus.

The downside is slightly more expensive agricultural commodities, the end of predatory business models (and their Congressional influence), and bad optics.

If that is too high a price, we can just keep shouting "Wall!" And "Racist!".

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

I want good things for guest workers. Skilled and otherwise. Blowing them up is not my idea of a good thing.

But for those good things to happen, organized crime on both sides of the border have to stop thinking of them as a product, or a tool. If organized crime can't use them to flush out border patrols, or as mules, and can't sell them off on this side, they will lose interest in them.

If there is a guest workers program, and strict employment enforcement, the black market for labor dries up. Who is going to hide in a truck to face the same economic difficulties found at home? We need to give them a legit path, for their sakes, and our own. But because we have had previous amnesties, with no attempt to fix the underlying causes, we still have the same problem. And conservatives won't bite on another amnesty, until the tide is turned.

As distasteful as a militarized border is, (and I share that distaste) the reason I am no longer a liberal, is I can't justify the deaths of others to feel better about optics.

Hobbes
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Hobbes »

Riggerjack wrote:
Tue Aug 21, 2018 4:21 pm
If there is a guest workers program, and strict employment enforcement, the black market for labor dries up. Who is going to hide in a truck to face the same economic difficulties found at home? We need to give them a legit path, for their sakes, and our own.
Wouldn't strict employment enforcement, paired with strict police (local + federal) enforcement against illegal immigration, achieve the desired goal of stemming the tide of desperate people into this country - without additionally shelling these desperate people?

Come to think of it - why wouldn't strict enforcement of employment laws in conjunction with increasing the penalties upon the corporations for violating them to the nearly business-ending level (think something along the lines of 50% of net assets and profits, or other draconian levels) also achieve the goal of stemming the tide? If there aren't jobs for those who go the illegal immigration path, why would they run the risks of ending up being exploited by the cartels\other organized criminal groups?

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Because we have at that point, closed off our ability to use guest workers, without in any way curbing their value to organized crime. Still have the same problems. A class below the law.

And if there were the political will to deal with just the employment side, (there never has been, see Congressional influence) this wouldn't be a problem.

This needs more than just a better policy, it needs a visceral, "we mean it" message, for both sides of the border. The wall crowd would approve of almost all of the above. And it would take their votes to pass this change.

If lefties could do this on their own, they would have. But their interest in our guest workers is superficial, at best. Their interest seems to be more about maintaining an image of caring, than actually helping.

Hobbes
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Hobbes »

Yes, there still would be a class below the law in my scenario - but wouldn't this class get smaller over time, and have fewer people entering into it? Most of the incentives for people electing the illegal immigration path have been removed (as far as I can tell), right?
As for those stuck in this underclass, wouldn't finding them (a police action) and then reintegrating them (yay for amnesties!) be more efficient, when paired with draconian fines for corporations breaking immigration laws? Something along the lines of giving amnesty to those already here, but preventing any jobs from being given to new arrivals?
As for the employment side congressional issues, yes, I saw your bit on the Congressional influence. I agree with what you wrote there, but I'd also say it'd be easier to solve the employment issue in Congress than to get Congress to remain mute on the literal shelling of illegal immigrants (especially with a blue wave forming for the midterms, yet I can't imagine Graham nor McCain, or their allies, allowing shelling without their opposition). Which is to say, neither shows of force nor employment enforcement are particularly realistic proposals.

I think the 'solution' to immigration can only come about once the massive political gridlock in Washington has been addressed, by which I really mean only once both parties are once again able to make reasonable compromises with one another. This deadlock is only going to feed further frustration, and yet more radical proposals in addressing issues (which I say as a socialist, which is considered pretty radical here in the US)

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

So your solution is to fix a mess that is nearly 50 years in the making, by employing politics as usual, but with the addition of a fantasy of cooperation, that has been also missing for decades? Do you remember the first 2 Obama years? White house and both houses of Congress, and one signature bill that STILL needed an R. Even if the blue team wanted to actually fix this, rather than appear to care, history says they couldn't.

With faith of that magnitude, I guess being a socialist makes sense. :D

I wasn't speaking of politically expedient "solutions" that aren't expedient or solutions. I was speaking of fixing this. Blues can't fix this, it's been demonstrated. Some would argue that since Ted Kennedy wrote the last major immigration reform, blues created this mess. Not me though.

Apathy and intolerance created this. If there were trophy trees in NY, we wouldn't have to talk about this.

The truly horrifying aspect of my solution, is that it doesn't require Congressional approval. Executive abuse of power has widened the commander in chief role far beyond Constitutional limits. This could be done with a set of orders from the white house, and an executive order. By the time the legal ramifications were worked out, the amnesty could be in place and working.

But we can't get amnesty, while the border is open. We've tried that.

As for rounding up guest workers, see the last 50 years for how well that works. The key here is to incentivize enough guest workers to come out and get legit, that the remainder are far less hidden.

To do away with this class below the law, by cooperation, rather than playing whack a mole. That's in all of our interests.
Last edited by Riggerjack on Tue Aug 21, 2018 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

And there are blue interests lined up against fixing this as well. What do you think unions are going to think of a guest worker program?

Hobbes
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Hobbes »

I too would prefer cooperation to whack a mole, and I fully agree there are many issues with trying to hope cooperation can reach some satisfying solution in the context of our political situation\institutions. But I also don't think creating a new low for executive overreach is really the answer to our issues.

I'm really fishing for a solution that doesn't involve us blowing up desperate people, yet still resolves the ongoing immigration problems. I grant your method does have a shock and awe aspect to it, but you jumped rather quickly from 'President orders military intervention on the southern border' to 'amnesty in place and working.' It would be easier for Congress simply to block the President from maintaining that military deployment, using the optics of the President's act against him.
Why are you so certain that there aren't enough Republican votes in this Congress for stopping that military deployment, then going back to business as usual? That's what my gut says would happen.

Or said more directly: my plan was a longshot, I grant you that. But your plan is also quite the long shot. Walk me through why you see it as a realistic option, in the sense of actually being implemented. I'm not seeing it. I'm also not seeing the President that implements it. Trump seems content with his wall. I haven't heard of a candidate with a real shot of winning the Presidency proposing such a proposal. Who's putting it into practice?

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

Who's putting it into practice?
I was going to nominate you. 8-)

I probably shouldn't have posted with a fever. Rereading what I wrote, it seems as effective and as appealing as the Tullock steering wheel spike. It would work, but nobody would choose it. And the unintended consequences are many, and unappealing.

My main point was that lefties could fix this, by addressing righties concerns. But righties can't fix this, because lefties aren't even willing to admit the problems.

And that both the red team, and the blue team, are locked into never solving this. Never. Not with a blue wave, and all three houses, nor a red wave. All we get is crowds chanting "Wall!" And "Racist". And yet, I think a 60% majority could support the hybrid solution. Convinced by a documentary of the problem, and a declaration of the borderlands as a state of emergency.

This would require executive leadership, (so clearly the Cheeto is out) declaring the emergency, moving the troops, writing the reform, and using the bully pulpit to get public support for the solution. Then turning the press loose on anyone getting in the way.

Congress, regardless of composition, will never fix this. Too many entrenched interests. That doesn't make it unfixable, it makes it unfixable by normal means.

Really, I was really just expressing my shame that nearly 25 years later, we still have trophy trees, and nobody even willing to admit the full set of problems, because that would acknowledge the other side isn't just made of monsters.

Riggerjack
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Riggerjack »

So, I guess a milder version of the plan could be used by a center-left candidate, after the DNC primaries, to gut support for the Cheeto.

But she couldn't mention it before the primaries. Though she could highlight it as a special area of concern.

Hobbes
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Re: Beliefs, Preferences and Delusions

Post by Hobbes »

As perhaps a case in point of lefties being unaware of the full set of issues, prior to you mentioning trophy trees, I was entirely unaware such barbarity like that occurred on the border. Apparently, rape is such a common occurrence for women attempting an illegal immigration into the US that they just plan for it. I can see why draconian measures to stop this state of affairs would be on the table for you.

All that being said, I'd have to agree that Congress is highly unlikely to fix this issue. Too many vested interests, as you say.

But perhaps you should lead with that documentary you were mentioning :D . If it becomes viral enough, perhaps there will be a populist wave that sweeps into power a Congress that's more sensible on immigration issues. We've already elected the Cheeto, so anything is possible, right?

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