Mexicans provide humanitarian aid to migrant caravan

[Robovski]

You are justifying the use of chemical weapons on children.

Yes, I am. Again, what alternatives are there, other than open borders? Send SEAL Team 6 in for a pillow fight? Have the National Guard hold up pictures of sad puppies? A big sign saying, "Sorry, we're closed?" A cowboy at the border, opening a toll booth?

Look, I understand not wanting to see people hurt. But people are bringing along those children in an attempt to storm the border. Some discomfort should be expected. If not hurting children to any degree is a hard and fast rule for you, hey, you have to be you.

President literally deployed more troops to the border than there were migrants in the caravan. You're telling me the only viable solution was to deploy broad-area dispersal chemical weapons? If "hoze them down with tear gas" is your first response to people trying to get in somewhere they aren't supposed to go, I'd hate to have you working security at a concert.

Should they work them over with their fists? Nice clubbing with rifle stocks? Or are you for martyring them through live fire? You justify the beating and murder of children?

How did you even get that out of what I said? Did you see the final sentence?

I'm sorry, you clearly haven't been reading what has been quoted of yourself.

You said: ''You are justifying the use of chemical weapons on children.''

You also said: ''President literally deployed more troops to the border than there were migrants in the caravan. You're telling me the only viable solution was to deploy broad-area dispersal chemical weapons?''

If you expect soldiers to politely walk off people attacking them you are grievously mistaken. They aren't there to hand out party favors, or for their protection, they are there to prevent illegal entry.

[Yukaphile]

Doesn't it all come back to the argument, their intentions are what matter? Trump thinks they're here to rape our women and murder us and sell us drugs. To corrupt our culture. I just see them as desperate people trying to escape their hellish lives. If that's the case, surely there's a middle ground to all this?

[Darth Wedgius]

You are justifying the use of chemical weapons on children.

Yes, I am. Again, what alternatives are there, other than open borders? Send SEAL Team 6 in for a pillow fight? Have the National Guard hold up pictures of sad puppies? A big sign saying, "Sorry, we're closed?" A cowboy at the border, opening a toll booth?

Look, I understand not wanting to see people hurt. But people are bringing along those children in an attempt to storm the border. Some discomfort should be expected. If not hurting children to any degree is a hard and fast rule for you, hey, you have to be you.

President literally deployed more troops to the border than there were migrants in the caravan. You're telling me the only viable solution was to deploy broad-area dispersal chemical weapons? If "hoze them down with tear gas" is your first response to people trying to get in somewhere they aren't supposed to go, I'd hate to have you working security at a concert.

Use tear gas if the mob is large and committing a crime and has a way to disperse without trampling their way out, sure. I'm not sure a hose would be an effective delivery method.

If someone is just coughing a lot in the middle of a piano recital, I'd at least give a warning first. I can always go with the gas grenades later.

I'd like to note that you didn't answer my question either time. Unless you think that a large number of people can dissuade another group just by being there...?

[Yukaphile]

My mom told me hoses in the 1960s ripped apart black protesters, so... gotta side with Darth on this.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

You are justifying the use of chemical weapons on children.

Jesus Fuzzy. It's not like we're staking kids to the ground and firing tear gas at them.

A few kids got caught in a cloud aimed at the overwhelmingly adult and male group of protesters trying to break through the fence. If you really draw your red line at "no children must ever be exposed to tear gas ever, regardless of circumstance," well, you're going to find the world a deeply unsatisfying place.

Again, there are thousands of refugees trying their hardest to comply with the legal process. They have been patiently waiting for weeks, even months, for their claims to be processed. Do you really approve of people trying to skip the line?

You think tear gas is fine. Okay, what WON'T you accept? What do you consider unacceptable as a measure to keep refugees from entering this country? I'm genuinely, if morbidly, curious.

[LittleRaven]

You think tear gas is fine.

It's a regrettable, but generally acceptable way of dealing with unruly crowds. It's certainly better than what we USED to use, which was was either shotguns filled with birdshot or men on horses riding people down.

Okay, what WON'T you accept? What do you consider unacceptable as a measure to keep refugees from entering this country? I'm genuinely, if morbidly, curious.

See, this is the problem. You keep looking for absolutes. But very little in our world is absolute. Tear gas was acceptable in THIS situation...that doesn't mean tear gas is universally ok. If we start launching tear gas at groups of people peacefully standing in line, then something has gone horribly wrong. Even your phrasing is misleading...refugee is a real word with a real legal definition when it comes to immigration, and the guys who were trying to break through the fence this weekend don't meet that criteria. But you insist on lumping everyone who is trying to get into the country into one massive group. We shouldn't be tear gassing people peacefully waiting in line to have their claims processed. And we AREN'T tear gassing those people. We do have to deal with people trying to violently storm the border, and tear gas is certainly a globally acceptable response to situations like that. What happened this weekend did not justify LETHAL force, but it's not hard to imagine a situation that does.

I realize that complexity is frustrating. But there's no way around it.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

So you haven't answered my question.

And as for the definition of refugee, the UN resolution on human rights is on my side in this matter.

[Yukaphile]

So could this count as a war crime?

I also gotta side with Fuzzy. "Complexity" is just a fancy word for "overcomplicating" things.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

No, they're not war crimes because it's not in a war.

[LittleRaven]

So you haven't answered my question.

I did. You just didn't like the answer. Like most things in life, it's complicated and conditional.

Tear gas was justified on Saturday. It would not have been justified today. Does that mean I draw my line at tear gas, or not?