Apparition of Jack

You mean like Jan 6th?

The same state that won’t even pay his son’s bills when that son comes down with epilepsy? How does that help his survival?

Unlike the wolf chasing the rabbit that ICE agent’s survival doesn’t depend upon locking up that school teacher. He could instead just go home and watch the football. I feel like this is basic logical induction, Leo.

Doesn’t seem like to me. That Mexican gym teacher being locked up isn’t meeting their survival needs.

Survival for who?

SMH. You’re a lost cause dude. I mean that sincerely. You’ve broken a sacred trust between the powerful and the powerless for the sake of your own egoic gain. For shame. For shame. For shame.

I mean, money is a lie anyway. The entire world is basically built off one entire phantasm. Call that looney Marxist talking points if you want but it’s also kinda true. Also, I’ve tried to see it from the other side, but am I really wrong for saying these deportations are literally unconstitutional? Regardless of emotional feelings, isn’t that just an objective fact? Or the fact that the vast majority of the protests have been peaceful? Or that Donald Trump led an insurrection? Again, ignoring personal bias, are any of those things false? I’m really not sure what it is you’re trying to teach me. If you’re saying I need to take a grounded, more realistic approach to politics, I’ve tried that, I’ve genuinely tried to see the case for harsh enforcement, deploying troops etc, but it’s genuinely been hard to come to any other conclusion than this is just massive right-wing overreach, even when taking everything into consideration, and especially when considering the hypocrisy of who’s committing them. And isn’t there also the case of defending individual rights, no matter what? Even if 99.99999% of the people detained are the worst criminals on earth (which isn’t true but let’s say it is), if even just one person was a law-abiding citizen or, hell, even a long term resident who just doesn’t have documentation, isn’t that an injustice to that person personally and their family? It’s easy to take a big picture perspective of all these, but does that really justify ignoring the personal, human cost of all these? Do individual humans count for nothing, or are we all just mere pawns in a game played by much bigger forces none of us can comprehend?

I suggest you drop the hard shtick and consider an opposite soft compassionate perspective, for your own illumination.

America has way, WAY more than enough resources to provide all of that to whoever comes to its borders. America is so absurdly productive it would feasibly house a billion people and not even break a sweat. The problem isn’t lack of resources, it’s where they’re distributed. When America collective decides its work is best used to provide countless private yachts, islands, jets, mansions etc for a handful of out-of-touch billionaires than provide for the needs of the people (both citizen and migrant), that’s when you get scarcity. Your average working American has more in common with that Guatemalan food packager than they do with the vultures circling the White House.

I mean, if we’re being as ontologically honest as possible Hispanic people have a greater claim to the land than white people do. Where else do you think the name “Los Angeles” comes from? But that’s beside the point. Migrants are a net economic positive for America. Like I said before, countless businesses literally rely on their cheap labour to be profitable. Why is no one going after those businesses? From all economic points of view the idea that undocumented migrants are a drain is observably false. The only “true” argument I can see against letting them in is just cultural and racial arguments, but I think white America has forfeited any claims to have a decent culture worthy of protection when they vote for a murderous rapist pedophile criminal conman traitor to the White House who, again, will not even give his own citizens healthcare.

This is an is/ought problem to me. It IS true that most Americans want to see brown people beaten with a stick and sent back to Mexico, but is that OUGHT how it should be? Do you really think there’s no room for ethics or human values in this equation?

Sure, but consciousness can be developed to, and I like to believe all of human history and experience is a way to increase that consciousness, even for the most racist of rednecks or violent of cartel members. Slavery used to be a fact of life for human consciousness, but now it sees it as abhorrent. Large-scale warfare used to be as basic as getting married or sowing your field but now overwhelming people reject it (a few notable examples not withstanding.) Humans evolve. Humans grow. Sometimes there is a better way to act, and a worse way. Can’t we be a part of helping human consciousness grow in a compassionate direction?

Yes and that’s wrong.

And who gets most of that value? Your average postman? Librarian? Nurse? Doctor? Or does it all go to an increasingly small number of elites who have more money than God and the desire to control and dominate the world as they see fit? Productivity has been exploding in America for decades and yet even the most basic human fundamentals like housing and healthcare are increasingly out of reach for the vast majority of the population. What’s the point of being productive if you never get to see the fruits of that productivity? And no, iPhones and Netflix shows aren’t a replacement for heathy, prosperous communities where no one goes sick or hungry. Plus, those things are often a function of natural professions in technology, you don’t need absurd extractive economics to develop them.

I think this is where you and I disagree. Call me a naive optimist but I do think there is some fundamental force for good operating somewhere out there in the universe. I don’t think that means the world will all be sunshine and rainbows but I do think that means there are certain ideas, policies, movements and energies that can fundamentally lead to a better, more just world if not opposed by the forces desiring a more sick, hateful and selfish world. People can be fallible but surely there’s some true source of goodness out there in the universe no?

Immigration happens because of economic imbalance. You can’t have a city of rich country club snobs drinking margaritas and spending all their time trying to bang their Mexican secretary a few dozen miles from a city of impoverished farmers and workers constantly trying to pay for food while dodging cartel bullets and not have at least some of those poor workers make it to the rich city, regardless of the risks. Not to mention much of the wealth from that rich city comes from directly exploiting that poorer city. People will go where the money is. If America wanted people to stop coming to its borders, it would use some of its insane reserves of wealth to build up communities in other nations. You know, things like USAID, which has just been defunded by the Trump administration

Do you really think the way America currently exists is a fundamental force for good in the world, Leo? Do you not see the supreme inequality, racism, division etc it promotes on a global scale? Without wanting to be too critical, you are a rich white guy who benefits from this set up. I don’t think you are personally racist or uncaring but the evil the US state is inflicting across the globe affects hundreds of millions of people, including countless of its own citizens, not just a few “illegal criminals” as the current conservative zeitgeist would have you believe. Millions upon millions of lives have been killed under its insanity (Iraqis, Palestinians, South Americans, Indonesians etc), not to mention the countless more lives ruined through debt, oppression, racism, etc, again, even within its own borders. Are you really OK with the way things are? How can you not see the overwhelming injustices being committed in its name?

You know, honestly, this whole thing is making me question whether I believe in America as an idea at all. I used to believe in reasonable border enforcement, cultural assimilation, legal migration etc, but the more I see the US state enacting supreme injustices against other nations and its own people, the more I feel like the idea of the vague, oligarchal “western” (ie white) state maintaining absolute power on the North American continent is an affront to humanity itself. The US state destroys foreign economies, unilaterally uses its power to destroy another nations, backs insane ethnonationalist states abroad, and then doesn’t even have the decency to provide its OWN CITIZENS with healthcare. The entire thing is just one massive, vile experiment in hegemonic oligarchal white supremacy. There may have been a time it was serving the interests of humanity, but those days are long gone. “America” as we understand it needs a massive, MASSIVE restructuring from the ground up. It should no longer exist to be the harvesting ground for a bunch of vile billionaires and Nazis to harvest wealth from the rest of the planet while giving nothing in return. Things need to change.

Migration law is so fucked in the US that a lot of people would be legal if the system wasn’t so convoluted. How is deporting some factory package worker who’s lived in America for 20 years and supported their family making anyone safer? If undocumented migration is so truly evil, where’s all the crackdowns on the thousands of farm, business etc owners who employee these people for below minimum wage? They’re the economic forces driving this migration, but apparently because they’re rich and white they get all the protection from the law in the world. Also the whole thing is wrapped up in white supremacy. Where are all the raids on European backpackers in New York who’ve overstayed their visa? At this point “illegal” = Hispanic (i.e. someone who’s a “threat” to “white” America.)

Not without due process. If America is not built off constitutional law, then it’s not America at all, but rather whatever stooge who’s in power’s personal playground. EDIT: Trump also led a deadly insurrection on the US capitol. Where was the outrage then? The fact that he’s leading the country and not behind bars for for life for extreme sedition is an injustice that boggles the mind of any thinking individual.

As an Australian it’ll be interesting to see how the rise of Indonesia will play out. Most Australians are only vaguely aware of the country and there’s slight cultural suspicion due to religious/ethnic differences. At the same time I wouldn’t say we’re outright hostile though. I hope we can find common ground and find productive agreements that benefit both of us.

He can’t. He wasn’t born in America.

And every single one of them is an agent of Mammon, lol 🤑

What do you guys think about this? I think in the age of outrage and social media algorithms, having a place for grounded, respectful debate is very helpful. https://braverangels.org/

Have you ever considered that Musk is an impulsive idiot? Stop idiolising these cretins. They’re not 4D chess masterminds. They’re impulsive, immature assholes who just know how to manipulate people to get power. Don’t read into it too much.