Emerald

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Posts posted by Emerald

  1. Posted

    2 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

    Give it a try for yourself and then report back. It is a pain in the ass, and you will not be able to make sense of anything. I am talking from experience. Even proper lawyers struggle to make sense of this.

    Correct discussions starts from policy.

    Okay, here's one that kind of falls into left-leaning policy around immigration that I think is harmful but is currently a necessary evil in lieu of a more merit-based path to citizenship.

    It allows a path to citizenship for immigrants who are married to a U.S. citizen. And this is important in that it allows people who love each other to come together.

    But this law (in lieu of better immigration policies) creates all sort of difficulties for those who want to immigrate to the U.S. and it isn't based off of something that's easy to control.

    I know one woman who (back when she was 21, long before we met) paid to get into a fake marriage with this 50+ year old shady guy in order to get her green card. And he would call her up and give ultimatums to give him money right away or he's go to immigration. He really threw his power around.

    So, it just puts people who want to immigrate in these very precarious positions that leave them at the mercy of shady people.

    Or it leaves people in a position where they can't find a partner to marry. 

    I know a couple real couples that got married very quickly to keep their partner in the country.

    One of them is still together after 20+ years. The other of them had kids together and were together for nearly a decade an then divorced. 

    But I also know of people who weren't able to find a partner weren't able to get their green card.

    Needless to say, a problematic policy but I'm also glad it's there because of the dearth of better policies. 

  2. Posted · Edited by Emerald

    29 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    It does work that way for the left. The problem is that the left excuses away all their failures and blames the right.

    How about Marxist revolution and confiscation of property and wealth?

    Plenty of leftists want this. And it"s been doing before with plenty of harm.

    High taxation is standard leftist law. And leftists are also in denial that high taxation is harmful.

    The problem isn't lack of laws, the problem is denial.

    I did bring up authoritarian leftist policies in my original post in this thread around the abolition of private land ownership in places like China and censorship in North Korea. Those were obviously detrimental left-wing policies.

    And regarding high taxation, of course there can be problems with that. 

    Is there a specific existing tax system that runs off of a left-leaning philosophy on taxes that is detrimental in your opinion? Like Canada or any of the European countries with higher taxes?

    My personal view is that taxes should be bracketed and progressive where the wealthiest people pay the highest percentage of the tax burden because they earn the highest percentage of the wealth.

    Our current system has highest percentage of the tax burden on the middle class and upper middle class... while the wealthiest people who have most of the wealth pay a lower percentage. 

    What I mean by this is (I forget the exact numbers offhand, but this just helps me convey the idea better)... let's say that the middle class is earning 40% of the wealth and they're paying 70% of the taxes... while the top .01% of wealthy people are earning 40% of the wealth but paying 20% of the taxes.

    That tends to be how it works out now. And there can be many ways to re-allocate the tax burden to fund the public good that don't involve raising taxes on the middle class. 

    One such example is raising the Social Security cap. Someone who makes in the $168,601 per year pays the same amount in Social Security tax as someone who makes $100 quintillion bazillion jillion per year. 

    There's always tons of scare tactics around Social Security drying up, but they could just raise that cap a bit and there would be plenty of Social Security funding.

    So, smart leftist policy would be one that looks at re-allocating the tax burden so that the wealthiest people pay their fair share. 

  3. Posted

    2 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

    If that is what you want to do, then bring in your lawyer. Collect all the judgements released by courts. Even some of my lawyer friends struggle to make sense of the legal language and you want to discuss all that on an internet forum. It's clearly out of scope.

    Try reading those judgements released by the courts on any matter. You will never want to discuss anything about laws ever again.

    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?"

  4. Posted

    11 minutes ago, aurum said:

    I understand all that. Very reasonable.

    My point is that you may struggle in your quest due to the nature of leftism and how it goes wrong. The majority of harmful leftist ideas just don't get codified.

    Yes it is harder. When leftism works, it works very well.

    But it's not just because it's harder that people are going philosophical. The fundamental error of leftism is philosophical. Thus, philosophy is appropriate.

    Agreed.

    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. 

  6. Posted

    2 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

    @Emerald Leftist policy is dictated entirely by leftists. But when you enact laws, plenty of right wingers also have to approve of it and get in between. So laws are far more complicated and even lawyers cannot discuss and understand it's ramifications.

    Policies are easier to discuss. They make it clear the intentions and the effects of those intentions. That is all that matters.

    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.

  7. Posted

    6 minutes ago, aurum said:

    Well that's a highly debatable number. Regardless, if we want to go with 50%+, I'd consider that a lot.

    That's the problem.

    The left-leaning laws on the books ARE the ones that are more reasonable, less harmful and more workable. Otherwise they would not have gotten there and sustained with any length of time.

    The more problematic policies just simply don't get passed. But many of these positions still very much exist among leftists regardless. And then they want to blame it on right-wing sabotage, which of course does happen but is not the full story.

    The fundamental critique of leftism is that it's too utopian. Expecting to find such policies being enacted in the real world is by definition unlikely to exist.

    I consider myself mostly a leftist. And as I already said, most of the things on the books are fairly reasonable. So there's not much to discuss.

    I think a more productive conversation will not strictly focus on current laws. It's about leftism more generally, and self-reflecting on how and why we as leftists get it wrong.

    If you want to strictly focus on current laws, that's obviously your choice.

    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.

  8. Posted

    1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

    Why are you limiting this discussion to only law? Politics is obviously bigger than that.

    Why avoid my point about gender fluidity when that'a clearly a huge leftist position?

    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.

  9. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    @Emerald You are being way too technical when it suits you.

    Policy is not just law.

    But if you want law, look at NAFTA and all sorts of globalist free trade agreements.

    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.

  10. Posted

    32 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Drug decriminalization in Oregon.

    Oregon's addiction rates have skyrocketed and now they are forced to reverse course.

    Will leftists ever admit that legalizing all drugs does more harm than good? No. They will shift blame elsewhere and make excuses.

    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.

  12. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    @Emerald Much of leftist policy is not strictly law.

    Teaching gender fluidity in schools is not a law. But it is none the less a worrying trend.

    A lot of leftist policy is cultural. Like encouraging people to have free sex and get abortions.

    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.

  13. Posted

    4 minutes ago, aurum said:

    Consider that part of the reason it's challenging to name left-leaning policies on the books is precisely because they are so unworkable they never get on the books.

    This doesn't mean that many leftists don't hold these positions. They do. They just aren't able to successfully pass them.

    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.

  16. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    That's one of the problems with leftism: it yearns to do good but in a naive and foolish way which often ends in virtue signaling and moral outrage more than actually workable policy.

    Yes, leftists are morally outraged at ICE and the police in general. But abolishing these things is like sweeping a turd under the rug. Leftists do not have a workable immigrantion policy. Their policy is just go let endless immigration happen and things will be cool. But they won't be cool. Because most people aren't leftists.

    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. 

  17. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    You can say all that but the bottom line is that you are ignoring the potential harm that leftist polcies can cause. You are shifting the conversation to avoid acknowledging that.

    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.

  18. Posted

    2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    If all abolishing ICE means is moving those duties to another department then it's a meaningless gesture. But leftists don't want a meaningless gesture, they want to literally abandon those functions.

    You are trying to have it both ways. You want to abandon those functions but not admit that you are doing so.

    This is how leftists fool themselves.

    The fact is that at the end of the day someone with a gun has to stand guard at the border and deal with a flood of illegals, drugs, crime, etc. There's no abolishing that.

    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. 

  19. Posted

    Just now, actuallyenlightened said:

    Ok so with strong measures we can reduce illegal entries by 1/3. That's very good.

    Yeah, but what if we put barbed wire along the entire border. Or a wall?

    So if a parent is willing to risk their child dying at the border. What do you think they would do to survive if they made it into the States, and see that locals have it better than them?

    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.

  20. Posted

    2 minutes ago, actuallyenlightened said:

    It is very effective. Many migrants can't just fly in since they need a visa and to pay a flight. Physically blocking migrants would prevent some (not all) from entering. The risk of injury will deter more.

    You're making value statements: "I would rather migrants avoid injury than securing the border." So you're basically making a leftist argument and want open borders in practice. 

    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.

  21. Posted

    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.

  22. Posted

    6 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

    Some immigrants want open borders. Some immigrants want closed borders once the borders have been opened for them. :D

     

    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. 

  24. Posted · Edited by Emerald

    29 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

    Ah, careful there. That’s your interpretation and choice of understanding and not allowing for more nuanced use of that term. Who are you to say what it means or doesn’t mean to others?

    ”I know a time is coming , all words will lose their meaning… black mirror…..”

     

    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.

  25. Posted

    20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    The term "open borders" doesn't only mean 100% open borders. It broadly means the loosening of all sorts of border enforcement policies. There are many degrees of this liberalization. We have an immigrantion crisis on the border right now because of various liberalizations.

    Abolishing ICE would be one such liberalization, and you are not taking seriously that this policy could cause more harm than good.

    This one example demonstrates my whole point.

    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.