You can identify (and test for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases if needed!) immigrants coming in via legal channels, that's kind of the point. You can also track and better enforce any needed social distancing measures with legal immigrants even if they number an order of magnitude larger than a separate group of illegal immigrants where government officials are likely unaware of their existence. Besides the fact that it's incredibly immoral to use illegal immigrants as our shadow force of semi-slave labor so we can buy grapes for slightly cheaper instead of using workers with legal authorization to be in the country.
I have a problem with your reasoning. What I am hearing is that ignorance doesn't make you bad/evil. When speaking about children or recent immigrants, I agree. When speaking about adult Americans raised in this country, I believe ignorance does indeed make them bad and evil. Tolerating ignorance in adult Americans under the guise of free speech enables evil in our country. Free speech is a good thing, tolerating stupidity is not.Firstly, my response is just to the idea you brought up and not to you specifically. I don't see anything wrong with what you said even though I advocate looking more deeply.
To that end, I'm clear with the words I chose, although it's definitely stepping into an area that's less comfortable. If we see racism as a relative measure where there is some socially determined although a bit fuzzy threshold for where racism properly starts, then I agree I'm not at all racist. If we define it as overt acts and not covert acts, thoughts, feelings, or unconscious phenomena, then I agree I'm not at all racist. And I realize that I'm a biased observer, so if anyone else sees something I don't please let me know.
If instead, we see racism as including those other things and measured absolutely instead of relative to some societal standard, then unequivocally I know I have racism. I know further of specific instances which thoughts or feelings I think are wrong have come up and I felt too much anxiety to confront. So much that I have fear imagining sharing them. And these are things that I believe are basically normal and in line with everyone's experience. And I know that my pursuit of knowing myself better has both made me less racist and more aware of my racism. That's good and it's uncomfortable. Even knowing that it is true that what I am encountering is not just normal but universal, it isn't easy to talk about.
But here's the problem that I suffer from which was created in me as it has been created for all of us by the society we live in. My fear isn't warranted. How could I be bad for being the same as everyone else? Racism doesn't make people bad. It makes us people. Now, we have learned and I agree that racist acts and systemic racism emanating from unconscious biases are inherently bad for society. But being part of them doesn't make a person bad. I personally believe that good and bad aren't categories which are appropriate wholesale for people at all. And I also recognize that some people's function in society is such that it violates the rights of others so much that they should be removed from society temporarily or permanently. That doesn't invalidate my respect for them as people, but it doesn't also mean I think because there are no bad people we can't take action to stop people from doing bad things or punish them as a consequence.
So anyway, I think what would be best for society is for us to try and add more safety to talk about the racism that's out there which is not so bad as we could choose to collectively ignore. I think my racism is in that category, but I'd rather it not be ignored even if society would do nothing to keep me from that or even push back when I put it out there.
I don't think it is a present significant issue either, though it is plausible to be different at some point in the future. Unlikely still to my judgment, but not so unlikely as to cast off an analyses of the possibility as a waste of time.
As to the latter, it's a real concern. And while I'm testing the waters here of engaging in a conversation about it, I still fear it enabling xenophobic stances. My observation since talking about it here, though, is that those who have shown that problem here have since engaged in a more moderated fashion with their comments. Still, I could be wrong. If I am, then at least I hope someone else also shares their sadness that consideration for something of real merit no matter how small has no place in the world.
I have a problem with your reasoning. What I am hearing is that ignorance doesn't make you bad/evil. When speaking about children or recent immigrants, I agree. When speaking about adult Americans raised in this country, I believe ignorance does indeed make them bad and evil. Tolerating ignorance in adult Americans under the guise of free speech enables evil in our country. Free speech is a good thing, tolerating stupidity is not.
Shared ignorance becomes a culture of hatred. The vast majority of cultures provide a structure for limiting friction within society. Ignorance increases it. Insular cultures of hatred are a cancer in humanity. I respect individuals until they blindly follow their culture's norms. It isn't the the white hooded swastika wearing idiots or the jihadists that are the problem, it's the larger society that tolerates them.We disagree fundamentally. That's not bad. I share your wish when something becomes known that it may spread readily. And frustration for those who act with apparent disregard for what society has otherwise embraced.
Yet I find your suggested plan largely ineffective. Here is why:
If you take an ignorant person and treat them as bad/evil and as if they should know better, then this guarantees they remain ignorant and possibly incites them to aggressively act upon their ignorance. This I believe to be self-evident should any person take a gander at who is in the White House and recall that we put them there.
One does not have to cater to the beliefs of the stupid in order to respect the person who holds them. If someone feels as though respect for their beliefs (though not agreement) is assured, then they will be eager to learn differently when appropriate.
Except despite all the very public unavoidable evidence about Trumps unsuitability for office people willingly voted for him.
3.5 years later of proving said unsuitability for office on a weekly basis should have been enough.
Intellectual laziness is unforgivable, and ignorance is dangerous.
I admit I didn't read the whole thread, I'm just here to say that the OP's premise makes no sense as there no evidence or indication that illegal immigration was a vector in this pandemic. I'm sure that someone else already brought this to the OP's attention.
Meanwhile, we are currently discovering the vast economic consequences of what happens when the isolationists' wet dream of closed borders occurs.
The straw is getting its fucking ass kicked today.. you do realize that you just posted a liberal position on how to deal with immigration, from a liberal university professor published in a liberal news magazine, right?Since the progressive left seems to love so much how other places handle stuff like healthcare, perhaps you should read up about and perhaps even emulate countries with way more successful immigration policies than ours? But that would require morality higher than perhaps you possess in that you'd need to forgo your indentured servants working in the fields for slave labor wages so you didn't need to pay more for tomatoes or god forbid pay minimum wage for a nanny to watch your kids.
Canada Has Its Own Ways of Keeping Out Unwanted Immigrants
The country’s methods of controlling immigration are simply less in-your-face than America’s.www.theatlantic.com
Since the late 1980s, Canada has consistently been a high-immigration country, at least relative to the U.S. As a result, the proportion of Canadians born outside the country hit 21.9 percent in 2016. That same year, America’s foreign-born population was 13.4 percent. That’s a record high for the U.S.—but it’s been 115 years since Canada’s foreign-born population was at such a low level. As Derek Thompson put it in his article analyzing how Canada has escaped the “liberal doom loop,” Canada’s floor is America’s ceiling.
So why has Canada managed to sustain popular acceptance and cross-party support for so much legal immigration? For one thing, the movement of people into the country has generally been so law-abiding and orderly as to be uncontroversial and barely newsworthy. Canada, unlike the U.S., is a country where nearly all arrivals come in through the front door, in the open, during daylight hours.
Almost everyone who immigrates to Canada has to first apply from overseas, and before they’re granted entry they’re subjected to extensive vetting by Canadian authorities. Those who make the cut have to wait months or years for their turn in line before being let in. Over the past 20 years, about 5 million immigrants chose Canada. But the vast majority only entered the country after Canada also chose them.
As for illegal and irregular immigration, Canadian governments from both ends of the political spectrum have worked—quietly—to ensure there is as little of it as possible. The unspoken underpinning of Canada’s otherwise welcoming immigration policy is a giant and assiduously maintained border wall.
The straw is getting its fucking ass kicked today.. you do realize that you just posted a liberal position on how to deal with immigration, from a liberal university professor published in a liberal news magazine, right?
I disagree that there is a substantial difference between the classical liberal position on immigration and what the "typical modern American liberal" supports except insofar as the latter is falsely portrayed in conservative media and other populist/isolationist circles.I realize this might be a newsflash to you but I actually support the “liberal” position on this. Which is actually a classic liberalism position which contrasts greatly to what the typical American “liberal” supports. Which is threatening to explode the Canadian success story as well.
I disagree that there is a substantial difference between the classical liberal position on immigration and what the "typical modern American liberal" supports except insofar as the latter is falsely portrayed in conservative media and other populist/isolationist circles.
Even this issue of sanctuary cities is grossly misrepresented by the populists/isolationists. The actual issues there are that 1) liberals in the cities do not want to be unfairly burdened by the costs of enforcing federal law, especially when that pressure is coming mostly from the rural areas, 2) they do not want to deal with the increase in crime that would necessarily happen were immigrants to be cut off from basic law enforcement protection, and 3) they want a path to citizenship for those immigrants who have proven themselves to be good citizens.
None of these ideals are in any way illiberal, classically or modern. And in all cases, they are striving towards exactly the opposite of that slave labor straw man you were pushing earlier. In fact, the liberal viewpoint is that conservatives create illegal immigration by refusing to rationally address the realities of immigration in the first place. Much like conservatives created the crisis of drug crime and illegal drug use by refusing to rationally address the realities of that issue.
If you're going to complain about the "cost" of helping enforce laws that benefit you as much as anyone, then perhaps the federal government should recoup some of the costs it assumes in helping your local law enforcement. I'm sure the rates you'd pay for the services and databases of the FBI, DHS, and other agencies would offset the costs of holding a prisoner for a few extra hours until ICE can retrieve them.
As for your second point, it's not really about asking those reporting crime about citizenship. It's deliberately withholding that information from the feds when someone is in custody for murder or whatnot and is an illegal alien. THAT'S the issue. And it doesn't keep you safer, it makes you less safe.
Citing Murder, Top Trump Official Condemns N.Y. Sanctuary Policy (Published 2020)
“A phone call, one simple phone call, and Ms. Fuertes would be alive today,” the ICE head said, referring to a 92-year-old woman killed in Queens.www.nytimes.com
I won't even address the last point since you're basically mooting even the premise of our immigration law. You might as well proceed to straight open borders and at least be honest about your desires for a change.
1) I'm glad we can agree that having the Feds pay the cost of enforcing federal law, as the Constitution requires, is the best course of action.
2) Anecdotal fearmongering.
3) Classical liberalism:
"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality."
- George Washington
This is about free societies, not your silly open borders straw man. Liberals still want immigration and citizenship to be strictly regulated and to be based largely upon merit. What they don't want is for that "merit" to be based upon accident of birth. What they also do not want is exactly what the populists/isolationists do want: closed borders that adversely impact legitimate trade and travel.
LOL as if this is somehow principles based on the trivial amount of money involved. I'd be fine with having the feds "reimburse" you for the trivial costs involved with enforcing immigration laws that already benefit you and allowing you to stop incurring the costs you accrue from actively undermining immigration laws. You'd simply move the goalposts anyway.
So the "merit" system you use instead is whoever can sneak in and stay hidden for 10 years?
States rights is in the Constitution and is real, even on the issue of immigration. More to the point, you frequently argue here that you shouldn't have to pay a penny in taxes for something you perceive as not in your interests, so your argument here is simply hypocritical.
Merit, in large part, means creating an immigration system where such a person wouldn't have to sneak in or stay hidden. Illegal immigration exists almost entirely our legal immigration system is so broken. We literally create illegal immigration by refusing to rationality address the realities our legal immigration needs.
All you're demonstrating here is that you don't understand this issue besides the false talking points of "immigrants bad" and "liberals want wide open borders."
The Coronavirus is pulling America's bluff about being the greatest country in the world and American exceptionalism. America's response to Coronavirus looks more like a failed state.Perhaps once the left sees illegal immigrants as the potential carriers of pestilence into their cities instead of ripe targets of wage exploitation we'll see a turn on views on this? Will the nativist right continue to deny reality and fight against any increase of legal immigration quotas and simply hope for the best and hope that illegals get tired of making the trip? Hard to enjoy that produce picked from the fields by the illegals you happily overlook, or risk your kids' health to the Guatemalan nanny you pay under the table. Maybe just maybe we can admit there's a point to demanding immigration by via legal channels, insisting all immigrants are vetted for health, ideology, and other concerns, mandating those already here to report to be screened and pay heavy monetary fines, and deporting the rest who don't comply? Nah that's too mean, we can't expect them to obey the laws or anything (talking about both the illegal immigrants and their enablers who excuse away their acts).
LOL a progressive arguing for state's rights. Now I've seen everything.
Yes, the immigration system you claim to want in your post resembles the one I've laid out. But in addition to allowing lots more in via legal channels it means strictly enforcing the rules for those who come in illegally. And you've made it abundantly clear you have zero interest in that side of the equation.
LOL a progressive arguing for state's rights. Now I've seen everything.
Yes, the immigration system you claim to want in your post resembles the one I've laid out. But in addition to allowing lots more in via legal channels it means strictly enforcing the rules for those who come in illegally. And you've made it abundantly clear you have zero interest in that side of the equation.