Can't Anyone be Consistent?
I am just floored that Conservatives, who very very recently argued that the act of one bad guy at Newtown should not be used to limit the rights of tens of millions of legal gun owners, are now arguing that the acts of two bad guys (Tsarnaev's) SHOULD be used to limit the rights of tens of millions of peaceful immigrants.
Jamie:
Funny - I just made this point to my wife last night. It completely silenced her. Which, of course, means that I lost the argument by winning the argument.
April 30, 2013, 12:54 pmmckyj57:
I wasn't aware that immigrants had any rights other than the basic human rights ala 1947 UN Declaration. Citizens have rights, to be sure, but I believe that immigrants don't have a right to be present in the country. In fact, one could argue that their rights could be limited in all sorts of ways that citizens' rights cannot.
April 30, 2013, 12:57 pmKurt:
How about because one is a paranoid schizophrenic - almost all of these cases are - and the other is a terrorist? It also simply involves not letting people in from countries where Islamic fanatics exist and then giving them welfare while they foment Jihad. How is it that he is let in because he is persecuted, yet he feels safe enough to travel back to the same country? Meanwhile we are denying another family from Germany being persecuted for homeschooling their kids.
I am sure it depends though on what exactly are they saying that is being used to limit rights of peaceful immigrants? Some of it may well be nonsense.
April 30, 2013, 1:05 pmDavid:
I'm not making that argument. I don't think a pair of bad apples means that the tree is rotten. I'm still in favor of immigration.
April 30, 2013, 1:18 pmFrank W:
Really?? Limit the rights of tens of millions of peaceful immigrants?
April 30, 2013, 1:31 pmTed:
What rights? Nobody wants to limit their rights. Nor can we; they are foreign citizens. They have no rights here, never did, and we have no input about their rights at home.
Why are you so obsessed with granting them rights at our expense? What did we ever do to you that you want to colonize our country with unwanted, unskilled third-worlders who will set about displacing our semi-functional political culture with their own horrible one, wherever they are in the majority? Why do their rights override ours? Why do you consider us less than human? Why do we lack the fundamental right of self-determination? We are LIVESTOCK to you. The government should serve the interests of all Americans. We pay for it. "For the people", not "for the politically connected employers".
I know you won't suffer. Others will, people you consider less than human because they can't afford to buy their way out if the ill effects as you can.
If you deny that the ill effects exist, you are as blind as any Keynsian.
April 30, 2013, 1:34 pmskhpcola:
Typical Lartard-type of disingenuous wonderment. If you actually have a problem understanding the difference betwixt protecting a constitutional right for law-abiding Americans, and desiring restrictions on and the investigation of who enters our country to live here, you are less intelligent than I thought. This intentional conflation of issues and the child-like bullshit is the major reason why civil debate with you on this issue (and _any_ issue with Lartard) is impossible and a waste of time. I am 100% sure that you are apprised of the facts, so I conclude that your rancid version of Libertarian ideology drives you to be a liar and a propagandist.
From previous comment threads on the topic, your view is obviously anathema to the vast majority of your readers/visitors. But it _is_ your blog. I enjoy your insight on every other issue, but this open borders bullshit is retarded. You, like Lartard and other neo-leftists, misrepresent the conservative position and declare yourselves our moral and intellectual superiors. You (not Lartard...he is certifiably a mental defective) may have me on the latter, but you certainly do not on the former. Your policies would further erode our middle class, be ruinous for lower classes, and ding our economy. But ignore the facts. Go on and give yourself a smiley face for being better than the vast majority of the country. Whatev.
April 30, 2013, 1:43 pmskhpcola:
He wants to buy them all a Coke and teach them to sing in harmony. Or some other retarded bullshit. Ignore the $500 billion that we spend on his wannabe new best buddies every year.
April 30, 2013, 1:46 pmalbkmb:
Yes, I also can't stand people who provide food, shelter and other worldly goods to people who live in their household with nothing back in return but refuse to provide the same benefits to people who don't live in their household. I can't for the life of me figure out why they would treat those two groups differently? Inconsistencies everywhere...
April 30, 2013, 1:47 pmnnu-16121:
I still don't understand why you are so gung-ho about existing and proposed policies which have the demonstrated effect of drawing people into the US who will, once here, have limited recourse to the protections of the law because of their ambiguous status and the fear of deportation.
If I thought you the sort of person who wanted cheap docile exploitable laborers for a factory or agribusiness, it would begin to make sense.
April 30, 2013, 1:47 pmMingoV:
"Can't anyone be consistent?"
Politicians and political parties are consistently hypocritical.
April 30, 2013, 2:14 pmMatthew Slyfield:
Asking politicians to be consistent? You might as well ask the sun to not shine.
April 30, 2013, 2:23 pmMark:
Especially since I think the most effective way of handling the Newtown situation would be to institutionalize individuals that demonstrate these violent psychopathic tendencies. He, the Colorado movie shooter, the Arizona shooter, and many others should have been locked up in a facility getting treatment for their mental illnesses.
April 30, 2013, 3:05 pmYou can talk about "rights", but rights are in the world of reality. People with the levels of mental illnesses that those individuals demonstrated do not live in the world of reality, and thus do not possess the full range of rights that "normal" citizens do (Example: the right to the pursuit of happiness, which in their cases is simply not healthy to themselves and others). We need to create a mental health system that can contain these individuals and hopefully help them obtain a mental health state that can allow them to function in society.
If we have the courage to stop pretending that these mentally ill individuals have "rights", create the services and funding to treat these very disturbed individuals, and empower parents, relatives, and in the end, the state to do what is in the interests of the individuals and community, we can stop some of this violence.
And, the same approach needs to be considered with immigrants, particularly immigrants from certain countries. This isn't the "Yellow Scare", were I think immigration should be limited because of racial issues. But, we need to look at the holes in our immigration policy with respect to security and welfare benefits. The "Boston Massacre" highlights both the welfare issue and the security issues very vividly.
Patrick Ludwig:
Had a hard time believing anyone was actually making the argument, then I read the comments.
Sigh, so much hate...
April 30, 2013, 5:03 pmHandsome James:
They are all being consistent, always, consistently treating us like the slaves we are. They raise taxes, we pay. They make new laws we obey. They steal our money, we say okay.
April 30, 2013, 8:50 pmRevolt! Now.
http://rathbonezvizionz.wordpress.com/
Che is dead:
Sigh, so much douche-baggery ...
April 30, 2013, 9:45 pmskhpcola:
Might be more productive if you switched the exclamation marks around, like this: "Revolt. Now!" Your presentation is a bit anticlimactic. Or you could just double up on 'em and go full-bore. Either/or.
May 1, 2013, 12:07 ameccentricorbit:
I've unfortunately come to the conclusion that there is no consistency in politics, only tribalism. Only very few people are actually doing anything other than rationalizing the goals of their tribe.
May 1, 2013, 4:25 ammarque2:
Non sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow"), in formal logic, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises.[1] In a non sequitur, the conclusion could be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. Allinvalid arguments are special cases of non sequitur. The term has special applicability in law, having a formal legal definition. Many types of known non sequitur argument forms have been classified into many different types of logical fallacies.
-wiki
May 1, 2013, 7:21 amnehemiah:
Do you make any distinction between entering legally versus sneaking into the country? I would like to greatly reduce legal immigration choke points and allow more people in. But we have to have a defined process that protects and respects our country.
May 1, 2013, 8:28 amcal_culus:
Its simple. Guns don't kill, ingrate immigrants did.
May 1, 2013, 9:05 ammarque2:
For some reason we think we have to let everyone into this country. We are a sovereign nation and are allowed to pick and choose.
If folks want to emigrate and they show a disdain for this county we don't have to, and shouldn't let them in. If people from one particular country or region tend to cause a lot of trouble, we should not let them in either. The we should throw the door open to everyone because Republicans don't like gun control argument is bizarre at best.
May 1, 2013, 10:17 ammarque2:
It would be better if you evaluated the argument presented, which is just as irrational as anything said by a politician.
May 1, 2013, 10:22 ammarque2:
Brilliant!
May 1, 2013, 10:23 ammarque2:
Not only that the blogger in question, decries this type of logic when presented by others. I like this blog, but it has become a bit weak as of late.
May 1, 2013, 10:24 ammarque2:
You also need to make a distinction between people wanting to legally immigrate who do so for the American dream, and those that want to live off the system, or want to be agitators. We don't need to fund agitators, but our current system seems to work this way:
Are you educated, or moderately wealthy - stay home.
Are you poor, uneducated or have a big grind with the US - hey come on in, we love you - and don't bother to assimilate, because our US systems, philosophies and beliefs are known to be the worst the world. And shoot we'll give you free money and food stamps to live!
We need to get back to the way it was in the 1960's where folks were admitted based on needed skills.
May 1, 2013, 10:29 ammarque2:
You can lose the argument by winning the argument. - Between the sheets.
May 1, 2013, 10:30 amHenryBowman419:
Guess you are not a big fan of Hans-Hermann Hoppe's philosophy. Seems to me that if we did not give out lots of assistance to immigrants, perhaps they would be too busy, you know, actually working or searching for employment to bother planning bombings and other such actions. The welfare state is a monumental disaster.
May 1, 2013, 11:40 amMatthew Slyfield:
Rationality / irrationality has nothing to do with it. Politicians can't even be consistent when being irrational or for that matter, consistent about being irrational.
May 1, 2013, 12:16 pmDavid:
I do distinguish these things: we should reform our process, and make it easier to comply with the law than to evade it. I think that in the way that music piracy decreased as a serious problem when iTunes came out, fixing our legal process will dramatically reduce the number of people coming illegally.
May 2, 2013, 5:38 amDavid:
I was with you for the first sentence, then not so much. I think we should allow anyone in *as long as they are here to embrace the American Dream* and build a better life. Whether that is by being a physicist or a cab driver, I don't care.
I want people to come, assimilate, and be Americans. The "ax to grind with the US" is a clear problem. I don't think we should be screening for skills, but it should be "sink or swim."
May 2, 2013, 5:41 ammarque2:
There is a saying "An Idol Mind is the devil's playground" and the corolary
"Idle hands are the devil's playground"
Yeah if these guys had to spend their day working rather than emigrating and receiving free gifts, they wouldn't have the time to create bombs.
May 2, 2013, 9:44 ammarque2:
You might not like my last line - letting people in with necessary skills, but our current system really favors people who don't have skills and/or dislike us. That isn't good either. Maybe we can let in a few unskilled people, but we should also allow the skilled, to come in as well.
May 2, 2013, 9:50 amcal_culus:
Responsibility is a heavy burden.
May 2, 2013, 12:24 pm-wiktionary
marque2:
Perfect example of Non sequitur.
Thx
May 2, 2013, 4:12 pmmarque2:
An effective way to handle the Sandy Hook incident would be to allow the teachers, and the staff of the school to be armed. Yeah, even though the perp would have been dead before he got far, the leftist media would still whine - 2 people killed in school, but it is certainly much better than the 26 killings that did occur.
Of course 2 people dead would still garner less attention, and when the creeps who try these stunts realize they won't get attention for what they do, they will stop. The whole point for most of them is to cause a national storm and posthumously become famous.
May 2, 2013, 4:24 pmmarque2:
I think peaceful immigrants is a euphemism for illegal aliens. However many of these illegals are illegally doing other things as well, like I don't know running meth across the border, forming gangs in Los Angeles. Burning down our forests while trying to plant illegal pot farms. But ah its all OK. If but one peaceful immigrant is denied entry for trying to keep out the riffraff, it is one too many, therefore we should just let everyone come in, whenever they want to, with no controls whatsoever!
May 2, 2013, 4:33 pmcreeper:
When you're willing to replace the word "peaceful" with legal, we'll talk.
May 3, 2013, 7:26 amHandsome James:
Ha!ha!!!!!!! Nice. Fuck it. Revolt, now!!!!!
May 3, 2013, 2:43 pm