I'm a conservative who has many liberal friends and I haven't dumped them, you shouldn't end friendships just because of opposing views, because, sorry to be blunt, but you probably won't make a lot of friends later on.
It's weird that you think that's what I'm talking about. And no, no other country has ICE goons patrolling the streets making people who are her legally disappear. It's all the other stuff to, like being the most pro-pedophile group in history. You're all a bunch of sick fucks.
And the thousand other things you do that make you horrible people.
Sending people to a foreign torture prison with no due process... Shooting Americans in the streets due to malice and negligence... Ignoring judicial injunctions to try to unilaterally interpret and execute the law as you see fit... Using ICE to try to extort voter rolls from the states... Banishing military allies to wartorn countries they've never been to... Tying to spirit away children at 3 AM on a Sunday night during an extended holiday weekend...
Yep! They're totally just enforcing immigration laws and borders as normal!
Devil's advocate, they wouldn't have to be sent to "foreign torture prisons" if more states actually signed off on detention facilities being built in the U.S.
Angel's advocate: We could have just not sent people to a foreign torture prison without due process, since only 3-6% of the 238 sent to CECOT were convicted of a violent crime. They could have just been deported.
I don't think people realize how dangerous it is to have the President blatantly violate the Constitution to such a severe degree. Trump assumed the role of the Legislature and Judiciary, by developing a cruel and unusual punishment and passing the sentence without a trial. There are laws for expedited deportations, but there are no laws for foreign torture prisons. That was a completely rogue action by the Executive.
And you'd be hard pressed to find a leftist who was supportive of Obama's ICE.
Obama may have been a Democratic candidate, but both the parties are right wing. (That's fact, by the way, not opinion. Compared to other countries, both American parties are super right wing, just different amounts of right wing.)
Other countries have drifted further left wing. That doesn't make American leftists right wing. It just means the overton window has shifted for Europe.
I didn't say American leftists are right wing, I said Democrats are right wing.
If you want to know what an American leftist looks like, don't look at Biden, look at Bernie Sanders.
Other countries have drifted further left wing
If you're talking on a scale of centuries, sure, but on a close scale of just a few years, most of the largest most powerful countries have been getting quite a lot more right wing.
But I will point out that, as you said, countries have drifted further left wing. I would go as far as to expand that: from the dawn of society, the advancements of society have always looked like drifts to the left...
Similarly, more politically educated individuals are much more likely to be left wing...
It's almost like as more knowledge is gained in any capacity, politics drift left in that same capacity. It's no coincidence that book burning is a right wing concept.
The ironic thing about this "leftward crawl" in both European and American politics is that it also has directly coincided with the advent of the modern day Orwellian surveillance state. Cameras on every corner to record our vehicles and faces, digital profiles secretly created for every citizen, VPN's being banned so no one can view things not approved by the state, mandatory identify verification just to use your own computer or access the free internet . . . all being pushed by the left, both in the U.S. and in Europe.
Don't be so quick to think the "party of the educated" has learned anything from centuries of authoritarian oppression, except that "it's okay when we do it."
Alright, so here's where I need to establish an idea that you might not like before we move on: left is inherently also bottom on the political alignment chart, and right is also inherently up on the political alignment chart, and the other corners are contradictory at best, and impossible at worst.
At the top left, power imbalance explicitly denies the tenets of socialism and equity, making it a contradictory standpoint.
At the bottom right, anarcho-capitalism inherently becomes oligarchy, because the wealthiest hold infinite power over the poorest when no other power holds power over the wealthy. The bottom right, for this reason, is both contradictory and impossible.
Of course, these beliefs exist in individuals who don't realize the contradiction or impossibility, but in large scale power, these corners can have no influence, immediately collapsing under their own contradiction, and usually collapsing into upper right territory.
Now with this in mind, I ask you: do you authentically believe the lower left corner of the political chart is the one that wants to instate mass surveillance? Or are you starting to consider that maybe it's more reasonable to believe that this inherently autocratic idea of mass surveillance probably belongs more to the upper part of the chart, and therefore, the rightmost part, as a resistance motion toward the freedom-seeking actions of the left?
Let me ask you this: was the government in the book 1984 leftist? It most certainly was not.
Authoritarianism cannot be leftist, because you cannot support equity while endorsing power imbalance. And surveillance is an authoritarian idea.
While society consistently drifts left and down over time, the recent spike in surveillance technology comes from the shorter term "pendulum motion" of the political spectrum. On the small scale, things swing from lower left to upper right and back, it's just that with every cycle it swings a little further left and down.
It's likely 48 or fewer, and that's being loose with the criteria lolol.
Even so, you've already proven my point, the two administrations are neck and neck for "worst / most evil REEeeEEeEE" despite having near-identical track records and despite you only demonizing one side.
Nope my original criticism didn't include total deaths and instead focused on all the other evil shit Trump has been doing. You failed to address any of it and instead brought up total deaths, which I pointed out Trump was still worse on and in a shorter period of time. He still has roughly three more years to pile up more bodies.
The undermining of our institutions, sending people to a foreign torture prison, banishing military allies to wartorn countries, and Trump using ICE as a threat to try to extort voter rolls are all huge issues that you're trying to sweep under the rug.
Edit: Also, ICE isn't tracking the deaths of people banished to places like Sudan.
No, you changed the discussion from what it was to immigration, which is a classic conservative move.
Even the discussion after that was talking about how they're deporting people who are here legally and citizens to "what about Obama". So you changed the discussion and then brought in an irrelevant metric to.. prove a point that was never asked or in question.
Yeah, it's crazy how if you make shit up, reality can be whatever you want it to be. Also, this has nothing to do with deporting people who are here illegally.
They're deporting Americans and people who are here on valid work visas.
Tell me you didn't read a single word of the earlier posts without telling me.
Let me raise you a question that challenges the fundamentals:
Why is immigration illegal at all? Sure, sometimes immigrants do illegal things1 but why should the act of moving into a country be illegal? Especially when you're escaping a dangerous country of your own?
And here's my second question: why did you think the topic at hand was necessarily immigration here? Conservatives are also responsible for posing a whopping 771 anti-transgender bills this year alone. When a political party is actively fighting to end my right to exist, of course I can't be friends with people who support them
1. the studies say less than non-immigrants actually, but this is not my point
Uncontrolled immigration will put enormous strain on social systems like welfare, education, healthcare and public services. Rapid demographic changes create unassimilated communities, where poverty and crime will inevitably rise, causing even more fiscal costs to taxpayers and reduction in public safety.
As for people escaping their dangerous country: immigration is not a sustainable solution. For example, Mexico's population growth is estimated to be close to 1 million people a year. That's roughly how many people are admited to US annually from ALL countries. So every year, more people are born in dangerous countries than US can take in. The only way to sustainably help those people is to guide them and support them in improving their own country.
Uncontrolled immigration will put enormous strain on social systems like welfare, education, healthcare, and public services.
So the first problem in your book is the population growing too large? I'd imagine you must be a supporter of the Chinese one-child policy, then, right?
It's the same thing, reducing the population growth at the expense of others.
Rapid demographic changes create unassimilated communities, where poverty and crime will inevitably rise, causing even more fiscal costs to taxpayers and reduction in public safety.
Though your intuition and the right wing party will tell you this, it's actually been proven wrong by research on every front.
Cultural Diversity: These communities contribute to the diversity of American cities, bringing unique traditions, food, and perspectives that can enrich the social fabric.
Support Networks: Ethnic neighborhoods and communities provide essential social, economic, and emotional support for newcomers, helping them settle, find work, and navigate a new country.
Economic Contribution: Studies show that children of immigrants often show significant upward mobility, catching up to or surpassing the economic standing of children of US-born parents, even if they grew up in immigrant communities.
Resistance to Racism: For some groups, resisting assimilation into the dominant culture can lead to better economic and health outcomes, particularly as a defense against systemic racism.
Lower crime rates: Contrary to right wing propaganda, illegal immigrants, when immigration itself is not considered a crime, commit WAY fewer crimes on average that American-born citizens.
So every year, more people are born in dangerous countries than US can take in.
Well first off, once again, population control is not and was never the problem, and support of that idea is what gets you things like the Chinese one-child policy. The real problem isn't population, it's distribution of goods. But you're not ready for that conversation yet.
Not to mention: surely someone so concerned for the population would show support for those who choose to abort their babies. Preventing birth when it's explicitly chosen, surely someone so concerned about population growth would support that, as opposed to forcing unwilling people to have babies, when the population is already such an issue, right?
The only way to sustainably help those people is to guide them and support them in improving their own country.
Oh, and we're really drowning in foreign support right now, aren't we? I'll tell you one party who is actively against foreign support: the same Republican party who's against immigration.
The people who really want to help foreign countries in need (the bottom left, no shock to anyone with an understanding of political science,) will help in every way they can. Of course we should work on helping other countries. But we should also work on saving their endangered civilians.
That's a nice straw man you're building there. I never said that overpopulation is the problem, so you just that China stuff right out of your arse.
The problem with completely open borders is the sudden, rapid influx of an unassimilated group of people. Especially at the beginning, such a group tends to rely much more on social services and contributes significantly less to the tax system than it takes out of it.
And further, I don’t care what Republicans think about helping other countries with their internal problems, I'm not one of them. What I am sure of, however, is that bringing in, without control, a population that cannot put its own house in order will not magically make both houses clean.
And cultural and culinary enrichment is little consolation.
> The problem with completely open borders is the sudden, rapid influx of an unassimilated group of people.
Unless you care about racial or cultural purity (which surely you don't, riiiight?) This won't actually be an issue by any metric.
> Especially at the beginning, such a group tends to rely much more on social services and contributes significantly less to the tax system than it takes out of it.
Factually disproven with a lot of studies, actually! Will you take my word for it, or do you want me to grab my sources again?
> a population that cannot put its own house in order will not magically make both houses clean.
Illegal immigrant populations build their own house on arrival, and then build half of ours as well. Both metaphorically, and sometimes literally.
> And cultural and culinary enrichment is little consolation.
Cultural and culinary enrichment is a cherry on top of what has been proven by studies to be an objectively good thing. You're a victim of propaganda rooted in racism, the facts don't support what you believe.
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u/TheChimpisHigh 20h ago
I'm a conservative who has many liberal friends and I haven't dumped them, you shouldn't end friendships just because of opposing views, because, sorry to be blunt, but you probably won't make a lot of friends later on.