Neelix causes another government shutdown because he wants a bigger border wall

[Yukaphile]

It reminds me of what Sheridan told Ivanova when she was about to shoot Bester. Fight the enemy without becoming them. Because in the end, your enemy is just a normal human being, with the same dreams, hopes, and loves and fears you have. Unless they're a murderer and a rapist, we should try to extend every opportunity to understand our fellow people. To do otherwise is an absolute position I find abhorrent.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm not dehumanizing them just because I call out their bullshit.

If you do evil things, you are an evil person.

[Admiral X]

No, you just call them evil so you don't have to consider things from their perspective. It keeps you safe in your own bubble.

[G-Man]

I don't think that the wall is necessarily the most effective form of border security, but it is more effective than what the Democrats want.

Because of our current loopholes, we cannot turn people away at the border unless they are Mexican. Given that most border crossers are Central Americans coming through Mexico, this means that we have to either detain most of the illegal border crossers we catch or release them with a court date. Processing all the cases we have could take years. And moreover, under our current system you just need to say "I am afraid if I go back" and you get to make use of our asylum claim center; it's incredibly easy to make false claims of asylum and the number of claims has skyrocketed.

Essentially, what Democrats propose is more agents and more sensors. That means we will have a lot more ability to monitor and record people coming into our country; it does not mean we can keep people out who do not have permission to be here.

Democrats would love to spend tons of money on border security and are perfectly willing to do so as long as they know that it won't stop people from coming here illegally.

And in the end, Democrats really do not want us to be able to keep anyone out. They think that everyone who wants to come should be given a legal way to do so, and that the American people have no right to limit the quantity of people coming into the country, or to try to set any standards of whom to let in (notice how many people in these threads have basically said that it violates MUH POEM if you want to restrict the immigration of people who cannot support themselves).

Ultimately I would take the claim that people oppose the wall because it is ineffective more seriously if they were not the same people suggesting that we have an obligation to let everyone in who wants to come here.

[G-Man]

From what I hear, Democrats wanted to increase border security, and even offered to add it to the budget even though the debt is so damned high and we could spend more time investing in education and taxing the rich and stuff like that,

What good is investing more money in education if the only result is that we import millions of English as a second language students to consume all of the money? I mean, given that immigrants use welfare at a much higher rate than the native born, it seems to me that spending money on border security would save money to be used for these things.

Again though, this is why I can't take people seriously when they say that they oppose a wall because it won't work. People who say that almost invariably are people who do not want to stop illegal immigration to begin with; certainly Yukaphile does not really support spending money on border security to begin with, and whether it works does not seem to be much of a consideration.

[sayla0079]

lol speaking of president Neelix anyone else find this clip ironic in hindsight? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtparSnQhFc

[Yukaphile]

I am sympathetic to those who are so fed up with how long it takes and what a hellish procedure it is that they just take a quick shortcut. I also don't stereotype them as drug dealers and rapists the way Trump does. The cartels, sure. But maybe we could try to extend an offer of American friendship just a little and legalize marijuana. That would break the backs of the cartels so horribly, things might improve even a little over there. Remember what's simply legal is not what's moral. Do you know how much this wall is going to cost? Five billion dollars. When the debt is already so damned high thanks to the GOP's tax cuts for the rich. Democrats, I hear, offered a billion in more guards and patrols. Is that not enough for you? Also, to claim they're flooding the border is a stereotype. Most overstay on their visas or smuggle themselves over the oceans. They're not swarming the border like an invading army. Jesus Christ, while I care about upholding the law, I am also in favor of breaking those laws if it's getting in the way of something truly important - like helping those less fortunate get a leg up, and face it, we've been given everything on a silver platter. It's out duty to help those who have less and are struggling to get ahead.

[Yukaphile]

We've meddled in their countries so often, and destabilized things so badly in the name of stopping Communism, I understand their entitlement and temptation to take a slice of the pie that is the American Dream. I don't agree with it, as I feel the Soviets were such an inhuman threat they HAD to be stopped. But I understand their feelings, given how poor they are in their countries, and how deep the corruption runs, that they just want to escape that. Hell, that they still wanna come here despite our chosen leader calling them rapists and drug dealers? Should tell you how awful things are there. And we caused a lot of those problems.

[G-Man]

I am sympathetic to those who are so fed up with how long it takes and what a hellish procedure it is that they just take a quick shortcut.

"I want to come to America" does not mean you have a right to come to America. This entire statement rests on the assumption that everyone who wants to come here has the right to do so. "It's too hard to immigrate legally" is really like saying "it's too hard to get consent."

I also don't stereotype them as drug dealers and rapists the way Trump does. The cartels, sure. But maybe we could try to extend an offer of American friendship just a little and legalize marijuana. That would break the backs of the cartels so horribly, things might improve even a little over there. Remember what's simply legal is not what's moral.

To be fair, Trump is probably moving us much further in the direction of marijuana legalization than any other President.

Do you know how much this wall is going to cost? Five billion dollars.

How much does illegal immigration cost? Estimates are in at least the hundred billion dollar range annually.

I'm sorry, but five billion dollars is chump change in government terms. No one is opposed to the wall because they are worried about spending all that money.

When the debt is already so damned high thanks to the GOP's tax cuts for the rich. Democrats, I hear, offered a billion in more guards and patrols. Is that not enough for you?

Have you not read anything I have said? What good are more guards when current law forbids them from turning the vast majority of border-crossers away? We are already mass-releasing detained illegal border-crossers in Arizona. What good is more patrols if they are just going to catch-and-release more people?

https://news.yahoo.com/while-us-debates ... 56523.html

Also, to claim they're flooding the border is a stereotype. Most overstay on their visas or smuggle themselves over the oceans. They're not swarming the border like an invading army.

Illegal border crossings, after going way down in 2017, have surged this past year.
http://thehill.com/latino/278785-migran ... can-border

Illegal border crossings hit the highest in a decade in November.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018 ... -a-decade/

Yes, we need to deal with visa overstayers as well, (I'd like to know how many people are being smuggled over the oceans). But to use that as an argument against securing the border is like using sexually-transmitted AIDS as an excuse not to deal with IV-needle-transmitted AIDS or vice versa. (Why are you so concerned with needle exchanges when most people get AIDS through sex?)

Jesus Christ, while I care about upholding the law, I am also in favor of breaking those laws if it's getting in the way of something truly important - like helping those less fortunate get a leg up, and face it, we've been given everything on a silver platter. It's out duty to help those who have less and are struggling to get ahead.

What happens if we take in so many people that we cannot assimilate them all into our culture and we turn into a third world country ourselves? Do you want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?

I don't think that allowing mass immigration into our country is the most efficient way to help poor third-worlders get a leg up.

Do we force well-off families to adopt orphans because "their kids did nothing to deserve being in that home?"

Our country is so successful largely because of the culture our ancestors created. Unchecked immigration of people from other cultures, along with a multicultural attitude that does not force assimilation, threatens to make that culture collapse and destroy the success.

Most of the arguments that the pro-mass-immigration side uses rely on the idea of "magic dirt" or "magic paper." That is, give them citizenship and they become Americans just like other Americans, and they increase our wealth and power and have the same political and cultural ideas regarding, e.g. free speech, that we do. Or, once they get here suddenly they become indistinguishable from other Americans because they are here, with just as much economic and social success.

Worffan101 displays this naivete right here:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2288#p27667

There is no need to push assimilation, because if the magic dirt or the magic paper fails, the blame can always be shifted onto the native-born Americans for sabotaging the immigrants by institutional bigotry and privilege (because it is always our fault).

(from previously linked thread)

Nobody else can really DO this. We can get millions of free citizens in 25 years--citizens who work, pay taxes, bring billions of dollars of value to our GDP. Europeans will ask "how are those _insert country name here_ people accepted?" and we'll say "What _insert country name here_ people? Those are Americans. Sure, 25 years ago their parents immigrated here, and there's some nativists who still hate them, but those idiots are dying off and these guys, wherever their parents came from, they're just Americans."

Yeah, I am sure that a lot of Yugoslavians said the same thing under Tito. But of course, maintaining this required an oppressive, invasive government. As soon as the government lost power, suddenly people started seeing themselves a lot less in terms of state loyalty and a lot more in terms of ethnic identity. If we do not get our borders under control, we are headed for a civil war.

[G-Man]

We've meddled in their countries so often, and destabilized things so badly in the name of stopping Communism, I understand their entitlement and temptation to take a slice of the pie that is the American Dream. I don't agree with it, as I feel the Soviets were such an inhuman threat they HAD to be stopped. But I understand their feelings, given how poor they are in their countries, and how deep the corruption runs, that they just want to escape that. Hell, that they still wanna come here despite our chosen leader calling them rapists and drug dealers? Should tell you how awful things are there. And we caused a lot of those problems.

Great, but they are going to wind up brining their problems with them.

And I am all for the U.S. not meddling so much in foreign countries.