LA Protests

[Apparition of Jack]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Arrest does not require conviction, merely reasonable suspicion of illegality.

Not hard to determine someones legal status or lack of visa.

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.)

Edited June 10 by Apparition of Jack

[Leo Gura]

48 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

How is deporting some factory package worker who’s lived in America for 20 years and supported their family making anyone safer?

It spooks off more illegals from coming here.

Due to such lax enforcement over the years, illegals have gotten used to crossing the border without hesitation. Now they will be too scared.

That's the point of law enforcement. But leftists are so soft they cannot see the value of law enforcement.

Americans do not like unlimited immigration. Do you get that?

Edited June 10 by Leo Gura

[Apparition of Jack]

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It spooks off more illegals from coming here.

Due to such lax enforcement over the year, illegals have gotten used to crossing the border without hesitation. Now they will be too scared.

That's that point of law enforcement. But leftists are so soft they cannot see the value of law enforcement.

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.

Edited June 10 by Apparition of Jack

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

You know, honestly, this whole thing is making me question whether I believe in America as an idea at all.

Haha!

Sour grapes!

[Apparition of Jack]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Haha!

Sour grapes!

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?

Edited June 10 by Apparition of Jack

[Leo Gura]

19 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

Do you really think the way America currently exists is a fundamental force for good in the world, Leo?

There's no such thing pure good in the human domain. There never was.

Humans can only be as good as they are conscious.

Edited June 10 by Leo Gura

[Apparition of Jack]

34 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Americans do not like unlimited immigration. Do you get that?

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 

Edited June 10 by Apparition of Jack

[Apparition of Jack]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There's no such thing a pure good in the human domain. There never was.

Humans can only be as good as they are conscious.

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?

Edited June 10 by Apparition of Jack

[aurum]

22 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

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.

This is such a biased perspective of the US.

The US provides some of the most value to the world compared to other nations.

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

I do think there is some fundamental force for good operating somewhere out there in the universe.

I didn't say there was no good in humans. I said it only goes as high as their level of consciousness.

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

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.

Nope. It will just use guns and police. It's cheaper and more emotionally satisfying to average Americans than throwing trillions into a corrupt 3rd world hell-hole.

Edited June 10 by Leo Gura

[Apparition of Jack]

1 minute ago, aurum said:

This is such a biased perspective of the US.

The US provides some of the most value to the world compared to other nations.

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.

 

[Apparition of Jack]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Nope. It will just use guns and police. It's cheaper and more emotionally satisfying to average Americans.

Yes and that’s wrong.

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Apparition of Jack said:

Yes and that’s wrong.

Maybe your view of the world is wrong.

Don't overlook that simple answer.

Edited June 10 by Leo Gura

[Apparition of Jack]

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I didn't say there was no good in humans. I said it only goes as high as their level of consciousness.

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?

[Apparition of Jack]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Maybe your view of the world is wrong.

Don't overlook that simple answer.

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?

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, Apparition of Jack said:

Do you really think there’s no room for ethics or human values in this equation?

There's been a lot of ethics and values. Millions of illegals have been given no punishments and rewards for decades.

You can cross the border and be given water, food, blankets, shelter, courtroom.

Edited June 10 by Leo Gura

[Apparition of Jack]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There's been a lot of ethics and values. Millions of illegals have been given no punishments and rewards for decades.

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.

Edited June 10 by Apparition of Jack

[Leo Gura]

@Apparition of Jack You are rationalizing now. You're not seriously confronting this issue.

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

[Apparition of Jack]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You can cross the border and be given water, food, blankets, shelter, courtroom.

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.