US Politics: Everyone's Manipulating Everyone

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Is this type of request more common than it seem? Also, it's not surprising at all that Mexico told the Trump Administration to F off:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-mexico-rejects-u-s-plan-to-deport-1487988401-htmlstory.html

Quote

Mexico has informed the Trump administration that it cannot accept non-Mexican nationals whom U.S. authorities arrest along the  border and seek to remove from U.S. territory,  the nation’s internal security chief said Friday.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration rolled out a broad immigration crackdown that included a proposal to send non-Mexican detainees apprehended along  the U.S.-Mexico border back to Mexico while their immigration cases were pending in the United States.

The vast majority of  non-Mexican nationals detained along the U.S.-Mexico border are Central Americans. They  often travel overland through Mexico to reach the United States.

In a fact sheet released Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said that releasing detained, third-country nationals “to the foreign contiguous territory from which they arrived” would save on detention and adjudication resources. The idea would be to keep them out “pending their hearings” on deportation, the fact sheet said.

However, Mexican authorities have reacted coolly from the outset to the notion. Now, they appear to have formally nixed the idea.

 

[Balefont]

3 hours ago, aceluby said:

I'm having a hard time even accepting that since their 'socially liberal' stance really only extends to 'letting' people sleep with who they want to and occasionally ok with abortion rights.  Other than than it's a line of Fuck You's, I've got mine.  Discriminated against?  Too bad.  Fired for being gay?  Too bad.  Education?  Only if you can afford it.  Health care?  Homelessness?  Literally any social contract held up by the government?  Those need to go.

Hey!  That's *my* saying for Republicans!  "I got mine!"

(Like in Idiocracy, "Carl's Jr.  Fuck you!  I'm eating!")

[Fragile Bird]

50 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is this type of request more common than it seem? Also, it's not surprising at all that Mexico told the Trump Administration to F off:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-mexico-rejects-u-s-plan-to-deport-1487988401-htmlstory.html

 

I think the rule is any country can refuse the admission of any person who is not a citizen of their country. Mexico can refuse anyone who's not a Mexican citizen.

And, perversely, the US has been shipping out people they refused entry to back to their countries of birth. So you saw stories about people from the UK, who lived in the UK and had dual citizenships, being deported to Iran or whatever, even though they had no connection with the country anymore and could have been in danger if sent back to their birthplace.

Large numbers of the people who are crossing the US border from Mexico now are from Central or South America or from Africa or the Middle East, so this looks like a cost saving move by the US. If Mexico refuses them entry, the US will have to build detention centers while they await hearings before an immigration judge.

[Ice Queen]

8 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I think the rule is any country can refuse the admission of any person who is not a citizen of their country. Mexico can refuse anyone who's not a Mexican citizen.

And, perversely, the US has been shipping out people they refused entry to back to their countries of birth. So you saw stories about people from the UK, who lived in the UK and had dual citizenships, being deported to Iran or whatever, even though they had no connection with the country anymore and could have been in danger if sent back to their birthplace.

Large numbers of the people who are crossing the US border from Mexico now are from Central or South America or from Africa or the Middle East, so this looks like a cost saving move by the US. If Mexico refuses them entry, the US will have to build detention centers while they await hearings before an immigration judge.

Which is why the private prison industry is licking its chops. 

[Crazydog7]

I have been reading some really great (for internet anyway) things about narcissism it will probably help alot over the next 4-8 years. 

http://thoughtcatalog.com/abby-rosmarin/2017/01/10-little-ways-to-know-that-youre-dealing-with-a-narcissist/

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Which is why the private prison industry is licking its chops. 

Yeah, this is just all kinds of great. Yesterday I was watching a thing where Bill Maher...being the usual self-involved and annoying dear that he is...was doing one of those q&a things at a UK school a year or so back, and while he was generally critical of the US, he was inspired enough amongst a European audience to rattle off a list of areas of real progress, and wow did it make me wince.

His lead was the belief that America had turned or was turning a corner with regards to not demonizing immigrants anymore...yikes. The whole thing was a list of items Trump is knocking down. The now Pollyanic optimism of a confirmed cynic served to make everything even more depressing, if that's possible.

[Mexal]

At least 19 more JCC's with bomb threats today across 11 states. A Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia had 400+ headstones destroyed, the 2nd Jewish cemetery desecrated in the last week. Nope, no rising antisemitism happening. All normal. At least that's what Swordfish will tell me.

[James Arryn]

4 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Well the stats show that while elderly users have gone up they are still using it less than any other group.

sure I'll give you it might have had some effect but I think it diverts from the real issues that brexit threw up, that people have genuine grievances about EU. Blaming a Facebook campaign is just a distraction: 

Let me propose you a hypothetical: suppose you could convince a decisive number of people that Obama didn't meet the legal requirements for the Presidency. Or suppose Leave supporters were overwhelmingly and erroneously convinced that 350 million pounds a year otherwise heading to the EU would instead go towards the NHS. Would those counter-factual beliefs specifically tailored to deceive the electorate on issues of fact rather than opinion/philosophy not be enough to call into question/invalidate their response regardless of the ~ merits of correspondent positions?

 

If it could be established that Richard Nixon made some very good points that many agreed with, would that mean that his attempt to manipulate elections ought to be overlooked?

[OldGimletEye]

5 hours ago, Commodore said:

for some reason Rand provokes an intellectual schoolyard bully mentality to shun/ridicule her out of consideration at all

Maybe it's the old DL in me, but, you know, when somebody runs right at me, I'm inclined to run right back at them and pop them a good one.

Now, Mr. Ryan doesn't like liberals. And Mr. Ryan thinks liberals are a bunch of morons or whatever. So with Ayn Rand in hand, he's is going right after liberals and the things they value.

Which is fine with me, but when thing start to get rough, I really don't want to hear a bunch of conservative whining about it.

Also, though, this whole poor little victimized conservative thingy has grown tiresome. According to conservatives, they are a small band of oppressed rebels taking on the evil galactic liberal empire.

Poor little conservatives. They have no money. They have no media to represent their "conservative values". And they have no political power either.

Boo hoo. Crying my eyes out I am.

But, if you want to complain about "intellectual bullying", let's not pretend conservatives are completely free of this.

Now you want to accuse the left of intellectual bullying. But, you know, conservatives have a very sorry history of it too.

Start for instance with William F. Buckley accusing Keynes of being a Marxist, though Keynes was no such thing. Fortunately, for Buckely Keynes wasn't alive during the charge as I'd suspect Keynes would have eaten his conservative lunch.

Or take for instance, Rick Santorum saying something was "Marxist talk". An attempt, it would seem to me to shut down any conversation about class. I'm not really a Marxist, as I do believe there are advantages to private markets, but it would seem to me that class might have some influence on how wages are set in this country. But, nope, according to conservatives that can't be talked about because it is against "conservative political correctness".

Or take the conservative Robert Lucas saying that the field of economics really shouldn't study the issue of wealth distribution as it were a waste of time. Basically, trying to shut down an entire line of research because it offended his "conservative values". 

Or how about conservatives trying to shut any conversion about the issues surrounding race by crying about "identity politics" while at the same time it practices a very insidious form of white nationalism.

Or take conservative attempts to shut down criticisms of George Bush's handleling of Iraq by trying to conflate "supporting the troops" with his foreign policies.

Not that I'm asking conservative people to stop saying things they want to say. I'm not. But, when I or some other liberal offers up a stiff retort, take the "conservative victim" thingy somewhere else cause I don't want to hear it.

I think Ayn Rand was full of crap basically. And I am not going to mince words about it, even if it offends somebodies "conservative values".

5 hours ago, Commodore said:

"Only idiots read this stuff. You're not an idiot are you?"

I'm just basically an aging hillbilly living out here in the sticks and wouldn't claim to be the uh, ur, um, the sharpest tool in the crayon box. 

I just know enough to know when conservatives are trying to slip a little shit in everyone's rice when they think they are not lookin.

[DMC]

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

 

Rand's objectivism and it's closely related libertarian cousins are kind of like the mullets of political philosophy. To wit,

"It has an economically conservative business front end, but it's got a socially liberal party in the back!"

Regardless of the fact it's an unsustainable ideology for a large republic (let alone a superpower), there are a number of people that articulate the libertarian cause with far more logic and elegance.

5 hours ago, Commodore said:

for some reason Rand provokes an intellectual schoolyard bully mentality to shun/ridicule her out of consideration at all

"Only idiots read this stuff. You're not an idiot are you?"

 

Hey, I'll take being called an intellectual "schoolyard bully" over the usual "elitist egghead" - which is admittedly pretty much what I am.  And in that role it's only responsible to clarify Rand's work does not pass muster.

[James Arryn]

In my fantasy world Ayn Rand is actually a brilliant and misunderstood satirist. This is the only way I can stop myself from losing respect for so many people who love her work. Can you imagine if this turned out to be true? 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

20 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Let me propose you a hypothetical: suppose you could convince a decisive number of people that Obama didn't meet the legal requirements for the Presidency. Or suppose Leave supporters were overwhelmingly and erroneously convinced that 350 million pounds a year otherwise heading to the EU would instead go towards the NHS. Would those counter-factual beliefs specifically tailored to deceive the electorate on issues of fact rather than opinion/philosophy not be enough to call into question/invalidate their response regardless of the ~ merits of correspondent positions?

 

If it could be established that Richard Nixon made some very good points that many agreed with, would that mean that his attempt to manipulate elections ought to be overlooked?

It would depend on whether you think that a false fact about money going to the NHS is the deciding factor swaying people on a major national issue. I'd argue its beside the point and it actually shows a lot of disregard for the intelligence of the population to think that they just flip flop over these issues because of a couple of facebook posts. I think far closer to the truth is that most people were pretty much in one camp or another and have been for quite some time. Dont forget that UKIP got huge amounts of votes in the previous election, they didn't get many seats but that was that was due to the system. 

Clearly there was a large sentiment in the country that they wanted to leave the EU, that they didn't like the mass immigration they had seen, they didn't like the lack of independence they felt they had, nor did they like the way the EU was running itself or treating other countries. I initally thought brexiters were idiots, but now I'm pretty clear that they have genuine issues (and some not so genuine), but its insulting to them to suggest that the odd banner on a bus or a facebook post is going to be what made them vote. 

- for some reason this seems to be on the US thread, I get confused as to which people are replying to now. 

[James Arryn]

1 minute ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

It would depend on whether you think that a false fact about money going to the NHS is the deciding factor swaying people on a major national issue. I'd argue its beside the point and it actually shows a lot of disregard for the intelligence of the population to think that they just flip flop over these issues because of a couple of facebook posts. I think far closer to the truth is that most people were pretty much in one camp or another and have been for quite some time. Dont forget that UKIP got huge amounts of votes in the previous election, they didn't get many seats but that was that was due to the system. 

Clearly there was a large sentiment in the country that they wanted to leave the EU, that they didn't like the mass immigration they had seen, they didn't like the lack of independence they felt they had, nor did they like the way the EU was running itself or treating other countries. I initally thought brexiters were idiots, but now I'm pretty clear that they have genuine issues (and some not so genuine), but its insulting to them to suggest that the odd banner on a bus or a facebook post is going to be what made them vote. 

 

I don't think that is true at all. Why is it an insult to suppose a counter factual belief is significant in making a decision? That seems an absurd notion to me. Obviously the Leave movement disagrees with you as they invested a substantial amount of time and money into that angle-issue misdirection. Why did they do that, in your eyes? Why were their genuine issues insufficient?

[Seli]

26 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Regardless of the fact it's an unsustainable ideology for a large republic (let alone a superpower), there are a number of people that articulate the libertarian cause with far more logic and elegance.

 

I will always be very sceptical of an ideology that needs a random cutoff of what defines violence to even start to relate to the real world.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Just now, James Arryn said:

I don't think that is true at all. Why is it an insult to suppose a counter factual belief is significant in making a decision? That seems an absurd notion to me. Obviously the Leave movement disagrees with you as they invested a substantial amount of time and money into that angle-issue misdirection. Why did they do that, in your eyes? Why were their genuine issues insufficient?

Because it supposes that leavers concerns were totally false and they were tricked into voting the wrong way. Most leavers I've talked to know that not to be the case at all, in fact even when presented with the falseness of that fact they said it didn't change their mind at all and despite what the BBC likes to tell us they aren't going back on their decision. 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

At least 19 more JCC's with bomb threats today across 11 states. A Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia had 400+ headstones destroyed, the 2nd Jewish cemetery desecrated in the last week. Nope, no rising antisemitism happening. All normal. At least that's what Swordfish will tell me.

Welcome to the new normal. And when Trump gets pressed on this again, I'm sure he'll remind us about how he had one of the biggest electoral victories ever.

[Dr. Pepper]

32 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Welcome to the new normal. And when Trump gets pressed on this again, I'm sure he'll remind us about how he had one of the biggest electoral victories ever.

And also that he's the least anti-semitic person ever because his daughter and grandkids are Jewish.  

6 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Disgusting attacks on the Jewish centers.  I sure hope it's not the new normal but fear that it is.  

I think it is.  That and attacks on immigrants and Muslims.  

Speaking anecdotally, the community I live in has a huge immigrant, refugee and Muslim population and the fear here for everyone is high. I was listening to an NPR piece earlier (can't find it now) about the widow of the Indian man who was shot in an apparent hate crime discussed how her particular community is feeling extremely terrified.  

[Relic]

"President Trump's Justice Department will no longer argue in court that Texas intended to discriminate against minorities when it passed a strict voter ID law that allows voters to show gun licenses but not student IDs before casting a ballot."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/321361-trumps-doj-dropping-opposition-to-texas-voter-id-law

Who here thinks the USA will actually have a Presidential election in 2020? 

[Dr. Pepper]

Has anyone been following any of the stories on ICE checkpoints and raids?  There has been some misinformation about checkpoints in places like NYC and then ICE social media accounts coming out to say that they don't do checkpoints, but then there are some really clear though unverified examples of them at checkpoints.  A friend of mine just sent me a picture of ICE boarding his commuter bus in Seattle and asking everyone where they were born.  Other photos have been passsed around of ICE meeting domestic flights and asking people for "papers."  

I don't have any special question of commentary here other than to say I'm not sure what to make of all this.  

[Relic]

Just now, Dr. Pepper said:

Has anyone been following any of the stories on ICE checkpoints and raids?  There has been some misinformation about checkpoints in places like NYC and then ICE social media accounts coming out to say that they don't do checkpoints, but then there are some really clear though unverified examples of them at checkpoints.  A friend of mine just sent me a picture of ICE boarding his commuter bus in Seattle and asking everyone where they were born.  Other photos have been passsed around of ICE meeting domestic flights and asking people for "papers."  

I don't have any special question of commentary here other than to say I'm not sure what to make of all this.  

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/ice-immigrant-deportations-trump.html

 

Edited to add - At least morale over at ICE has never been better.Thank god for that!

[/i]"“Morale amongst our agents and officers has increased exponentially since the signing of the orders,” the unions representing ICE and Border Patrol agents said in a joint statement"[/i]