2020 US Election (Part One)

[El_Machinae]

Well, the hypocrisy would be twofold. Firstly, obviously you can only collect remittances from legal labor. So, it is hurting the people who did what they were supposed to do in order to work.

Secondly, it is an attempt to damage the worker. It is not an attempt to punish the corporatist overlord. It is going after the working stiff.

Pass a minimum wage for foreign workers. Charge companies an equalization tax for hiring foreign workers. These are obvious ideas, I think. Probably superior for creating the end goal that they have said was the end goal. I can see why someone would disagree with these ideas, but we are remembering that we are dealing with a cohort that is concerned about foreign labor driving down local wages. In some ways, it will be a zero-sum game. No way around it.

There are implicit reasons why the remittance tax occurred to them, and why it appealed to them. This is the reason why they preferred a subpar mechanism for achieving their stated goals.

 

[Takhisis]

The "problem-->solution" rhetoric elides the fact that I believe illegal immigration is a problem, and he believes illegal immigrants are a problem. I doubt he has ever met one though he has probably eaten food prepared by one. The solution to illegal immigration is change the law so there aren't illegal immigrants. The solution to illegal immigrants is...well...Trump's starting to carry it out.

So you're saying that onejayhawk is a shill but a low-level one so he's never been golfing with the depressident or met his wife?

At first I thought it was just a combination of meanness and being regressive. But it wasn't, I think that remittances could easily be one of the most amazing forms of foreign aid out there.

Could be. The jury is still out, because we've only recently started to truly examine effectiveness of different types of foreign aid

Conservatives often like to brag about how generous the United States is when it comes to foreign aid. Now, I don't begrudge anybody their individual donations. But when people plug stats, they are often including stats that include remittances. And then bragging as if the entire populace is generous

Remittances as foreign aid? It's a consolation prize.

Predatory international finance destroys a country's economy. People from that country flee to the richer countries where said international finance launders its profits (the US, the UK, various Arab sultanates, etc.) to work there and enrich that country, and they get to send a pittance back home.

It's not that far from the old transoceanic slave trade from Africa into the Americas and India.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Its true walls can be bypassed, but the number of apprehensions along the southern border began going down when Congress and Bush funded more wall construction around ports of entry. The wall cant prevent visa overstays, it can reduce the number of people crossing the desert.

There's a stretch in this concept that I doubt most people would just swallow.

NO ONE is disputing that you can't just build a gate in the middle of a field and expect people to go through it instead of a round it. So no one really questions the fact that wall construction around the ports of entry was effective.

The stretch is that by extension there is good reason to extend those barriers across the desert and expect the same result.

If you have your gate in the middle of a field and I'm supposed to go through it and when I arrive I see five people waiting I might just say "screw it" and go around. If going around means going a couple miles out of the way I'll probably just get in line. But if I am planning to cross the border out in the middle of the desert there is no spontaneous decisions involved. I'm going to reach your barrier, be it fence, wall, or line painted on the ground, prepared to cross anyway.

 

[onejayhawk]

Rubio tried to make immigration his signature issue until the Republicans removed his brain and installed the Rubiobot cybernetic drive in its place. McCain also tried to make immigration one of his signature issues, but FOX News and talk radio lost their minds over that so he quietly gave up on it.

I regularly encounter liberal/Democratic Massachusetts and Connecticut white guys up here who are nevertheless all too happy to talk about the "immigration problem" by saying things like "I'm no fan of Trump... but something does need to be done about the border" in a very matter-of-fact way. To me that's a sign that a focus on immigration is a losing issue for the Democrats. A Hispanic Democrat leaning into the blatantly anti-Hispanic "Build The Wall" with "Path to Citizenship" is sailing into a headwind for sure.

Trump co-opted the whole issue. As we saw, it was a winner.

J

 

[Tristan_C]

Conservatives often like to brag about how generous the United States is when it comes to foreign aid. Now, I don't begrudge anybody their individual donations. But when people plug stats, they are often including stats that include remittances. And then bragging as if the entire populace is generous

Not really. Conservatives draw attention to this "generosity" mainly to point out that it does us absolutely no good. It does not trigger development in the recipient countries, nor does it buy favor or re-branding for the US. The State Department labors under outrageous, longstanding NWO delusions about how other nations feel about the US and what drives these sentiments.

Moreover, foreign aid is not even generosity, because there is no such thing as generosity where spending someone else's money is concerned. This is conservatives' problem with all government welfare programs. The virtues you spoke of in this post, of how there is nothing like providing for your family and all that, do not exist in these programs. They are compulsory. The money was taxed and/or borrowed from the taxpayers, it's not charity. Luckily foreign aid is only 1 percent of the budget.

I acknowledge some real force in your point, which is to say, that remittances seem to be a robust channel for foreign aid, because it goes cheaply through Western Union to people at the ground level. It's all micro econ; it was earned, not taxed, with no warlord on the other end intercepting the money.

Well, the hypocrisy would be twofold. Firstly, obviously you can only collect remittances from legal labor.

It would have been a sales tax taken at the counter on wire transfers destined for any of a list of countries, so it would have applied to illegal immigrants wiring money. It would apply to any wire transfer to the target country. Where the money came from is immaterial. It could even be a member of the Mayflower Society wiring money to a friend traveling abroad in the target country. They would pay the tax. 2% was the proposed amount. Not a high rate, considering these people are competing with American citizens for jobs and then proceeding to not reinvest the money into American products and local businesses.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Trump co-opted the whole issue. As we saw, it was a winner.

Anti-Hispanic immigrant is a very effective stance for Republicans, yes. Pathway-to-Citizenship is not. Not for McCain, not for Rubio. A Democrat running on Pathway-to-Citizenship leans right into an issue that is a can't miss for Republicans.

 

[El_Machinae]

I appreciate the distinction about foreign aid. I know that there is incredible skepticism towards government-funded foreign aid, and when I was talking about generosity I wasn't talking about that. But there's no way you could have known it from what I wrote.

I view (much) government-funded foreign aid as being from the same budget as defense spending. It's just two sides of the same coin, where increase in peace is the goal. After that, it's a function of efficiency. Borrowing to build a wall is insignificantly different from spending to rebuild a foreign community undergoing a disaster to prevent migration. Just show me which one costs me the least. Especially at the margin. It works better with tanks than walls, since they're easier to think of as marginal. Do something that prevents me from needing the tank, and I'm happy to save money by doing that by not buying the tank.

I was referring to people pulling out statistics about personal efforts towards donations out of country. Don't get me wrong, my church supported people in Thailand and in Kenya, and I am very proud of our efforts. I have no complaint if anybody else would be proud of generosity. But people would look at the averages, and then brag about the average, being proud as if remittances weren't a significant portion.

Not a high rate, considering these people are competing with American citizens for jobs and then proceeding to not reinvest the money into American products and local businesses.

Can you appreciate that finishing your description with a closing argument that 'these people' deserve being taxed is a bit ... expressing a bias against them? Like, I understand the entire fundamental concern. But, I've been told many times that the frustration is with the global elite that is profiting from the laborer. So, closing the argument by 'othering' the worker is expressing an implicit bias?

Now, you wrote it because either that phrase is something you believe, or is something you think could persuade me. I'm not saying anything about that either way. But it has a target audience for the type of person it would convince.

Now, I really don't like regressive taxes (except potentially when it's used to assist in price discovery), so the regressive aspect of any proposal always leaps out at me. That said, I apologize for assuming that you were using 'remittance' in a more colloquial sense as compared to the 'money sending' sense. A tax on money transfers based on target is waaaaay less hostile to foreign laborers than a tax on the money laborers send home.

Unfortunately, you have a different paradigm of taxes. I view taxes as belonging to the citizens. So, if a citizenry chooses to give money, I'm going to describe it as generous. Especially if that gift is given without strategic intent towards non-citizens.

 

[Berzerker]

There's a stretch in this concept that I doubt most people would just swallow.

NO ONE is disputing that you can't just build a gate in the middle of a field and expect people to go through it instead of a round it. So no one really questions the fact that wall construction around the ports of entry was effective.

The stretch is that by extension there is good reason to extend those barriers across the desert and expect the same result.

If you have your gate in the middle of a field and I'm supposed to go through it and when I arrive I see five people waiting I might just say "screw it" and go around. If going around means going a couple miles out of the way I'll probably just get in line. But if I am planning to cross the border out in the middle of the desert there is no spontaneous decisions involved. I'm going to reach your barrier, be it fence, wall, or line painted on the ground, prepared to cross anyway.

It'll work if we name the gate the William J. Le Petomane Thruway. When the walls started going up before Obama was elected apprehensions dropped and visa overstays increased and that trend continued for close to a decade. It became easier to get a visa than bypass the walls for many people. Now that means the walls appeared more effective than they really were because visas were available, but if legal entry was further restricted the walls would have more people trying to get by them.

In 2018 most asylum seekers - and by logical extension virtually all non visa holders and non asylum seekers - went around or under/over walls. Extending walls wont stop everyone but it will deter people from crossing the desert. Why bother walking 50-100 miles west or east of a port of entry if the wall just keeps going? I'm sure the wall's proponents plan on backing the wall with surveillance technology and personnel to further deter people, but a wall will save lives. Its just bad for other reasons.

 

[onejayhawk]

Anti-Hispanic immigrant is a very effective stance for Republicans, yes. Pathway-to-Citizenship is not. Not for McCain, not for Rubio. A Democrat running on Pathway-to-Citizenship leans right into an issue that is a can't miss for Republicans.

True, which is one reason I am not Republican.

What I do agree with Republicans is that we have to secure the border if we ever want to get a handle on drug smuggling and human traffic. Right now smugglers can just go with the flow.

J

 

[cardgame]

can't smuggle drugs if they're legal :rollsafe:

 

[FriendlyFire]

Pretty much daily, Jorge Ramos was the one this morning.

Republican Libertarians are for open borders as well, dose that count as Republican policy ?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It'll work if we name the gate the William J. Le Petomane Thruway. When the walls started going up before Obama was elected apprehensions dropped and visa overstays increased and that trend continued for close to a decade. It became easier to get a visa than bypass the walls for many people. Now that means the walls appeared more effective than they really were because visas were available, but if legal entry was further restricted the walls would have more people trying to get by them.

In 2018 most asylum seekers - and by logical extension virtually all non visa holders and non asylum seekers - went around or under/over walls. Extending walls wont stop everyone but it will deter people from crossing the desert. Why bother walking 50-100 miles west or east of a port of entry if the wall just keeps going? I'm sure the wall's proponents plan on backing the wall with surveillance technology and personnel to further deter people, but a wall will save lives. Its just bad for other reasons.

The people "crossing the desert" aren't people who pull up at the port of entry and then for <reasons> decide to go around. They are people who for whatever reason have decided to skip the port of entry and cross the desert instead. The "logical extension" doesn't work because the non-asylum seekers who don't have a visa aren't going to the port and never were, they are the ones who plan on a desert crossing. And a wall in the desert is no deterrent once that decision is made. Whether they show up with cutters to go through chain link, or a truck with a welder on the back to go through some steel posts, or ladders, or whatever else is appropriate for the designated speed bump material, the middle of the desert will allow them plenty of time to scout it, prepare for it, and penetrate it.

Let's look at an example section. Fifty miles of border right around the New Mexico/Arizona state line. From the US perspective it is NOWHERE. On the Mexico side there's a highway running pretty much along the border, so if I want to go to the USA I can pretty easily approach the prospective wall anywhere along this length. At one end there's a border crossing at Aqua Prieta in Arizona, at the other there's a crossing at Antelope Wells in New Mexico. So, first choice you need to make in securing this section, even more important than material for your wall, is do you want to station personnel at both ends of this fifty miles, or do you want your response teams to just come out of Aqua Prieta? Something to consider here is that at the most recent count the population of Antelope Wells was TWO, so if you want to station people there you are basically going to have to build them a town, from scratch.

Anyway. Now you build your wall out of whatever. I come bopping down the highway on the Mexico side, pull off into the desert a couple miles and start climbing over with my spiffy ladder since the good old days of just cutting chain link with bolt cutters are put behind us.

So, let's assume you have not only built a town twenty miles away in Antelope Wells, but you've got a spiffy monitoring station and all the electronics and personnel you need to continuously monitor a quarter of a million feet of wall. What do you figure, a camera every thirty feet? Forty? Not suggesting the expense here might be a problem, but truthfully I'm losing interest in the USA because I have a thriving business salvaging cameras from the desert and selling them in Mexico. But, neither here nor there. Your gigantic army of camera monitoring personnel there working three shifts round the clock in the suddenly booming metropolis (how many people per shift do you figure? hundred? two hundred?) of Antelope Wells have seen me on my ladder, and I'm twenty miles away across a stretch of what we call "high desert," which means it is rugged mountains even though it's arid desert climate. Good off road vehicles with experienced riders that know the terrain can probably make the twenty miles in...call it two hours assuming I wasn't cooperative enough to start this expedition in daylight.

Ah well, don't worry about that whole illegal immigration thing. By the time they get here I'll be back on the highway in Mexico. Besides all this cool slightly used surveillance gear, I've got several hundred pounds of scrap steel to sell, so I don't have time for your desert commandos. Sorry. Been fun though. Have to do it again sometime. How soon do you think you can get my cameras restoc...errrr....your surveillance gear replaced?

 

[Berzerker]

The people "crossing the desert" aren't people who pull up at the port of entry and then for <reasons> decide to go around. They are people who for whatever reason have decided to skip the port of entry and cross the desert instead. The "logical extension" doesn't work because the non-asylum seekers who don't have a visa aren't going to the port and never were, they are the ones who plan on a desert crossing.

Ports of entry typically have Mexican cities/towns across from them serving as collection points for people trying to get into the country regardless of what route they decide to take at that point. If the wall extends too far people wont try to cross the desert to get around it. They'll stay in close to the port of entry and get thru it without having to risk the journey. If you have the means to go through, under or over the wall why do it out in the middle of the desert?

Let's look at an example section. Fifty miles of border right around the New Mexico/Arizona state line. From the US perspective it is NOWHERE. On the Mexico side there's a highway running pretty much along the border, so if I want to go to the USA I can pretty easily approach the prospective wall anywhere along this length.

And then they'd have to walk across the Nowhere Desert. I dont disagree with you about a wall's inefficiencies, but the walls we've built so far have driven more people out into the desert. We can stop or reduce that by removing walls or extending them. Hell, we already have barriers most of the way from San Diego to Texas. The drop in apprehensions has been attributed mostly to the recession of 2008.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Oh yes totally further to the right. Totally. Right.

We'll establish a UBI, nationalize health care, and weaponize the government's police and spy apparatus against Republican politicians and those who vote for them, and all the while the npcs will be beating their chests about the country moving right.

Can someone advocate for unlimited massive immigration and then wonder why there are rising ideological divisions and civil unrest? Indeed, what a mystery.

this is a dumb post. progressivism and identity politics has absolutely nothing to do with worker's rights, universal healthcare and other actual leftist concerns. what you're moaning about is a cultural concern that has manifested itself in the political sphere.

meanwhile the democratic party is more "to the right" than any of the mainstream center-right parties in central Europe, like CDU etc., and people are baffled. but then again you call other people "NPCs" so I just have to assume room temperature IQ for you. probably a homophobe, too, but not going to admit it on CFC

 

[Tristan_C]

this is a dumb post. progressivism and identity politics has absolutely nothing to do with worker's rights, universal healthcare and other actual leftist concerns. what you're moaning about is a cultural concern that has manifested itself in the political sphere.

No True Scotsman

meanwhile the democratic party is more "to the right" than any of the mainstream center-right parties in central Europe, like CDU etc., and people are baffled. but then again you call other people "NPCs" so I just have to assume room temperature IQ for you. probably a homophobe, too, but not going to admit it on CFC

In context I was trying to say "people with no self-awareness," but I probably shouldn't have said npc because it would trigger automatic defense mechanisms. Sorry. Go ahead and do what you need to do. Stop thinking and slide into a comfortable behavioral pattern. Reassure yourself that I have a low IQ, am a homophobe, am dishonest and/or cowardly.

 

[Lexicus]

In context I was trying to say "people with no self-awareness," but I probably shouldn't have said npc because it would trigger automatic defense mechanisms. Sorry. Go ahead and do what you need to do. Stop thinking and slide into a comfortable behavioral pattern. Reassure yourself that I have a low IQ, am a homophobe, am dishonest and/or cowardly.

That's okay. Go ahead and do what you need to do. Stop thinking and slide into a comfortable behavioral pattern. Reassure yourself that we are NPCs, simply reciting "talking points" from Hollywood, the librul media, and Facebook.

The NPC meme has to be the biggest self-own in history. Well, I guess not bigger than when the Fuhrer ordered Stalingrad to be taken at all costs.

 

[Kyriakos]

Don't hate the player, hate the NPC

 

[Tristan_C]

That's okay. Go ahead and do what you need to do. Stop thinking and slide into a comfortable behavioral pattern. Reassure yourself that we are NPCs, simply reciting "talking points" from Hollywood, the librul media, and Facebook.

The NPC meme has to be the biggest self-own in history. Well, I guess not bigger than when the Fuhrer ordered Stalingrad to be taken at all costs.

Ah, the best form of flattery. Thanks man.

 

[Lexicus]

You are getting this now?

Really... now?

Yes, because I am only one-tenth as smart as you, the all-seeing, the all-knowing.

Truth is I've just never paid much attention to Biden and frankly as creepy as that montage is my main reason for not liking him is that he's voted for basically every crap right-wing policy for the last forty years. He started his political career as a major opponent of desegregation school busing, was friends with Strom Thurmond, voted for banking deregulation at every opportunity...

 

[metalhead]

The "problem-->solution" rhetoric elides the fact that I believe illegal immigration is a problem, and he believes illegal immigrants are a problem. I doubt he has ever met one though he has probably eaten food prepared by one. The solution to illegal immigration is change the law so there aren't illegal immigrants. The solution to illegal immigrants is...well...Trump's starting to carry it out.

Let the record show that J favors the Trump concentration camps and a Wall, or at least that's how his comments here read.

I mean obviously the problem is that we're calling people illegal and then abusing them because of that label. I'm not surprised that the closet racists love that approach, because it gives them cover. "Oh well they broke the law!" They're also human beings and haven't hurt anyone with their actions. In fact they're typically trying to help themselves and their family have better lives.

If you ever needed proof that the whole idea of the right favoring people who bootstrap through hard work was utter bullcrap, this is it. "Oh we can't let in people who want to work for practically nothing at manual labor 16 hours a day!" So much for the virtue of hard work.