Emerald

That's silly. Just bring up a law and we can talk about it. It doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to begin with an actual law. It's as simple as "What are your thoughts on the TPP?" or "How to do you feel about the Dreamers immigration law?" or "How do you feel about legal marijuana in x, y, and z states?"

That makes sense. But it does open up some questions about why it is that it doesn't quite work the same way for the right side of the political aisle and why it's possible to have a mixed bag of beneficial and detrimental right wing policies... but doesn't necessarily work that way for the left wing. If it's the case, why are detrimental right wing policies possible to codify... but detrimental left wing policies are not possible to codify.

If it's being done by a governing body, I will accept it as being within the realm of policy.

When people talk about policies as it pertains to politics, they usually mean codified laws as distinct from political philosophical positions. For example, a leftist might hold the political philosophical position that "trans women are women." But that wouldn't be reflected in policy. Instead an adjacent policy to that philosophical position might be some laws around public funding for gender affirming care or what the legal protocols are for people seeking access to HRT. So, policy and philosophical positions are fundamentally different. And I was interested in this thread because I thought it would be a thread about policy. So, leftists tend to have similar political philosophies, which can be critiqued on their merits. But I'd be interested in talking about the merits of actual policies that are on the books that aren't nebulous philosophical idea but are brass tacks protocols, rules, and laws. For example, when Jordan Peterson was first getting popular he came out against Bill C16 (I think). So, he had particular issues with that policy. That's the type of critique I was hoping would happen with this thread.

Sure, it's a lot of unworkable lefty philosophical positions. But I wasn't making any claims that it was/wasn't a lot. My point was to say, I can point to positive lefty positions that have been codified into law... but I'd like to know of some lefty positions that have been codified into law that were harmful and backfired as that what this thread is actually about. That's what I'm interested in knowing. But you see, there are lots of right wing positions on the books too. And we can point to ones that are beneficial and ones that are detrimental. I can sort them quite easily. I could pretty easily find some right-wing policies on the books and talk about them on their merits and find a mixed bag. When I went to think of harmful lefty laws, I could think of the positive ones. But I couldn't think of many negative lefty laws on the books. I chalked it up to the US government (which is what I'm most familiar with) having mostly center-right laws... so you only see the legal excesses of the right and not the legal excesses of the left. But I would still like for people to bring up actual left-wing policies that have been harmful. I wouldn't be satisfied with the conclusion that there are no harmful left-leaning laws on the books (except in authoritarian left countries). There must be some on the books. But I do find it interesting how next to no one's actually bringing up actual policies. I think it's just harder to come up with real example of harmful left-wing policies on the books... and so people have to go to soft philosophical positions to point out issues.

Because a policy is a law. And I want to have a discussion about harmful left wing laws. If the thread was about the harm of leftwing philosophical positions, I would find it uninteresting since that it's more familiar territory to me. I already know what people don't like about leftwing philosophical positions and I'm not interested in the same discussions that I've had a thousand times before. Also, I'm tired of arguing about gender fluidity. Am I doomed to be arguing about gender fluidity until I'm 80? I can clarify my position if you want. I just don't think it's as big of a deal as you imagine it to be. I've been a full time high school teacher... and a substitute teacher. And I've never seen it discussed in the curriculum. And I've worked with tons of kids. And kids are pretty much the same as they've always been. And I have an elementary school kid and a middle school aged kid. And they've never gotten any education on the topic from school. My older one was telling me about all the different genders and sexualities when she was like 9 years old. (She's almost 13 now.) She got really into the flags for a month or two. Then, she moved onto another phase. But she never heard any of this from teachers or as part of the school curriculum. She just heard it from friends and the internet... which is far more influential to her perspective than whatever 5 minute discussion about gender fluidity might happen in some high school sex ed class. So, I'm not really worried about it. Things will unfold however they'll unfold. And kids will figure themselves out as they always have. Long story short... as a parent and former teacher, I don't view it as a threat.

In what way does it suit me to be technical? I'm not interested in being intellectually dishonest or twist myself in pretzels to win an argument in favor of myself or leftism or whatever. I'm not goofing around with semantics to be like "Aha! Gotcha!". I really do just want to have a discussion about policy (which is law) because that's a discussion that I can actually learn from. If I wanted to talk about problems with lefty philosophy, I'd have just gone to the left-wing mega thread. NAFTA is a discussion that we can have. Lots of US manufacturing jobs were outsourced which really gutted the middle class in the Rust Belt.

I'd be interested in learning more about this. What my assumption is, is that drug addiction rates would stay the same but be more visible. But if these statistics around addiction show an actual cause and effect relationship between the decriminalization of drugs and heightened rates of addiction, then I will reconsider my position. My concern would be that the statistics are more reflective of heightened visibility rather than showing a cause/effect relationship between decriminalization and addiction.

Okay. Are there specific laws on the books around free trade and globalism that you view as particularly harmful?

But this thread is about policies. And a policy is a law. So, if we're not talking about laws... we're not talking about policies. We can talk about all these other soft positions and philosophies that people hold on another thread. But I came here to discuss harmful left-leaning laws. I'm not really interested in discussing anything else right now.

That's not really true. Maybe it's the case that 50%+ of lefty wish-list positions are not workable. But there's already plenty of lefty positions that have been codified into law. There are already lots of left-leaning policies on the books that are not harmful.... like environmental protections, social safety net policies, protections under the law for vulnerable groups, limits on corporate power, etc. But I can't think of very many problematic/harmful lefty positions on the books other than in authoritarian left governments and in negative side effects of positive lefty laws. So, I really want people to bring up specific problematic/harmful lefty laws. I can think of overall positive ones on the books. But I would really like for people to bring up specific lefty laws that are causing a lot of problems. Then, we can have a real discussion about them.

Nope! I'm more than happy to discuss problems with leftist philosophies. I just really like the idea of a thread that's about problematic leftist policies because I like to explore the issues with my own perspectives. But no one is talking about specific laws, and it's annoying to me.

Those are philosophies not policies. Name for me ACTUAL codified laws. That's what a policy is. It's a law.

Sure. I can agree with all that. Now, tell me some actual specific left-leaning policies on the books that have caused harm. Then, we will actually be on-prompt.

I'm not ignoring the potential harm of leftist policies. I'm actually the only one in this WHOLE ENTIRE thread that named off specific leftist policies that are harmful and problematic. And I'm a bit annoyed by that, because I would like to actually discuss the problems with specific left-leaning policies and their effects. Everyone else's posts have been around vague ideas about too-lenient immigration or other potential problems of leftists philosophical idea... but without any specific laws on the books to point to. In reality, everything else on this entire thread just belongs in the left-wing mega thread. Sure, there are potential problems that can come up from border policy that's too lenient. That's pretty obvious. But name for me an actual policy, and I can critique it more effectively in terms of its impacts. Also, with the Abolish ICE thing... I'm not saying that that's without its problems. I just mentioned it as a real leftist position. It could be neutral, negative, or positive in practice. But there's no such law on the books and not even a policy proposal around it. So, we really don't know if that policy would be harmful or not as it's not a law that's on the books.

My understanding of what leftists don't like is the way that ICE comports itself as an organization. But don't put a "you" into this. I'm not super invested in the idea of abolishing ICE. I'm just talking about leftist policy proposals... which includes abolishing ICE... and not vague things like "open borders". Though I can see why people would have an issue with the organization given its actions. I became aware of the "Abolish ICE" movement around 2017 or 2018 when they were instrumental in the situation around putting kids in cages. Perhaps it is just about leftists disliking the core elements of border security. I'm sure that's somewhat true. But I can see that, if ICE is a particularly brutal institution, why people would want it disbanded and subsumed into other agencies where there are more checks and balances.

You're really not understanding what I'm saying here. I'm saying that barbed wire is not an effective deterrent for illegal immigration. And no, it wouldn't reduce illegal entries by 1/3. And a wall wouldn't be effective either. All of these are a child's solutions to immigration. The most it will do is cause harm to some of the people who try to cross there. But someone who is willing to go through hill and high water to cross, will find a way across the barbed wire. I feel like you're focusing on the barbed wire because you like the idea of it and it feels like a simple solution to you or maybe even some sort of justice. But it's not actually going to address immigration issues. And with your last comment... immigrants (both documented and undocumented) have lower rates of crime per capita compared to American citizens. So, I don't feel particularly threatened by people crossing the border as most of them are just looking for a better life... and may be fleeing from negative circumstances. This is especially true if they are in the position to have to cross the barbed with with a child in tow.

Like I said before, MOST undocumented immigrants come into the country legally and overstay their visas. And only about 1/3 of undocumented immigrants come in through the Southern border. And I'm sure that of that 1/3 (though I haven't looked up the exact statistics) that most of those get smuggled in in vehicles crossing into America or just cross at a point that already has no barbed wire (as barbed wire doesn't line the entire Southern border). So, if you understand immigration at all... you'll understand that the barbed wire already isn't pulling a lot of the weight in terms of deterring illegal immigration. I bet it's not even making a 1% dent in the problem if it's having any effect at all. So, to say advocating for getting rid of the barbed wire is advocating for open borders is silly. I am against there being barbed wire at the border because children and adults alike may try to cross there. And I especially don't want children to get hurt on the barbed wire. It's just basic human decency to not subject people to that... especially because it's not going to meaningfully address problems with immigration.

Those things are all well and good... but being more open to gay people and having more Vegans doesn't mean that the Israeli government isn't committing a genocide. Lots of imperialist nations have very socially progressive people within them (the US is one of them)... but it doesn't mean that their treatment of those in countries/cultures considered "other" will be fair or just or good.

That's definitely frustrating. Me and my (immigrant) husband were in Orlando with our kids a couple weeks back. And I forget what it was... like a billboard or a radio announcement... I think it was a billboard. But it was basically a message from "anti-immigration immigrants" or "immigrants against immigration". And this sparked a brief discussion where we were joking about hypocritical immigrants that come through the door and want to close it behind them.

Thank you!

The issue is that the term "open borders" is being used hyperbolically to fear-monger and mislead voters. And if we're talking about a specific policy about "open borders" there won't be any to be found. This is the main point I keep coming back to with this thread. If we're talking about legal policy, we have to be able to point to exact policies and critique the exact content of the policies and the outcomes of those policies. Otherwise, we might as well just go to the other mega threads around conservative ideas and liberal ideas and philosophies and put all these posts over there. So, if people are critiquing "open borders" policies, there are none because there are no policies that deal with opening the border. If someone points to a policy that says, "The US must accept at least 20% of the people who are seeking a green card." we can have a debate about that policy and talk about it on its merits. But the notion of "open borders" is vague, and if people are viewing it subjectively... someone could look at the policy and say "That's an open borders policy" and another person could say "that's a reasonable policy." But we have to actually look at a policy first rather than speaking of vague labels put on the status quo.

Open borders does literally mean open borders. Of course, Republican politicians know that it's not literal and they're just using hyperbole to scare their constituents. But when the Republican voter says they're concerned about open borders, they really do believe Democrats goal is to open the border. Also, Biden has been strict on the border and even offered Republicans many immigration reforms on their wish list (in exchange for their cooperation on other things). And Republican rejected it so they can keep the Biden border crisis narrative going. Here is a Pew Research poll on how many undocumented immigrants are coming in per year, and it's stayed pretty steady but on a slightly downward trajectory since 2005. So Obama, Trump, and Biden clearly haven't done things much differently as it comes to immigration policy. Here's the link... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/ It does reflect a growth in illegal immigration through the Clinton years and most of the Bush years. So, if there are liberalizations that happened to cause more illegal immigration, I would suspect it's Clinton-era policy that's to blame. But it could also come from a variety of different economic factors that aren't specifically coming from liberalizations... but instead come from dynamics that put the crunch on the economies of Mexico and other nations that people illegally immigrate from.

ICE was just established in 2003. So, we'd just go back to doing whatever we were doing before then. The Abolish ICE movement is about getting rid of that specific organization and have its duties re-absorbed back into the other immigration agencies as it was prior to 2003. The reason why leftists want to abolish ICE is because of the harshness of the crack downs from ICE in particular, as they were enacting all the family separations/kids in cages dynamics. It's also because ICE is meant to be a criminally-focused organization (like prosecuting people bringing drugs across the border) but back in the Obama era, they began simply focusing on the crime of having come into the country illegally. And it's treating the act of illegal immigration itself as though it is like drug trafficking. And it creates a dynamic of harsher treatment of undocumented immigrants.

1. I would have to look at the sample size and sampling method that they used for that survey to see if it's something that most Canadians actually believe... or if they happened to sample in a way that might slant things in an anti-immigration direction. It's possible they could have simply found people who are more biased against immigrants due to bigotry. Or they could have sampled towards people whose job prospects are specifically troubled by immigration because the people who could hire them instead want to hire immigrants for much cheaper. And either way, this would be a bias that most may feel neutral about or not hold. So, I'd have to look at the sampling process to really understand in lieu of seeing the actual policies. My view is that there should be a merit-based path to citizenship that requires a couple years of commitment. But beyond that, there are many things in U.S. foreign policy (perhaps other countries' foreign policy too), that deliberately puts Mexico and other nations South of the border in precarious financial positions. And this causes many people from those countries to want to immigrate here for a better life or to send the more valuable U.S. dollar back to their families. And this is all very deliberate because under-paid foreign labor is essential to the U.S. economy. And it makes working class Americans have to undervalue their work to compete with exploited undocumented immigrants. So, it's important to recognize that illegal immigration is a feature and not a bug of the U.S. system. And if we really want to solve the issue of illegal immigration, then we have to change the foreign policies that put Mexico and other nations in a compromised financial position. Powerful nations have always done this to less powerful nations to exploit them for cheap labor. 2. You'd definitely need more structures and systems in place to handle the issue. But I don't suppose that drug use would increase in these circumstances around legalization or decriminalization. People who are addicted to drugs will find ways to do them regardless of whether they're legal or not. This just brings the situation out more into the light of the public consciousness... which is uncomfortable but helpful. I'd have to see some reliable and clear statistics around drug use rates increasing upon legalization or decriminalization to get me to consider changing my viewpoint. I get that those statistics would be difficult to obtain, but I'm just not convinced that decriminalization/legalization would worsen drug problems. 3. The issue with crime is that the justice system only addresses it one the level of the symptom and not at the root. Certainly, we need a justice system that functions to deter crime by creating negative incentives around it. But crime comes from a myriad of root causes... and most of those root causes are nurture-based. The reality is that reforms to the criminal justice system can only ever tweak the problem of crime around the edges because it is only handing the symptoms... which is the crime itself. The roots have to be addressed through building strong communities, getting rid of poverty, healing collective traumas, having an effective mental healthcare system, teaching better parenting skills, teaching skills for maintaining relationships, having equal access to education, making sure children are properly resourced with minimal amounts of trauma, etc. It's only then that we can really address problems with crime. There would still be some crime here and there, of course. But if we could address these problems from the bottom up, it would really turn the dial on the crime problem. But it's very bottom up work... and not top down.