Who are you voting for?

[Mila_]

Everyone can agree there is a place for welfare, everyone can also agree that it's intended to be a temporary thing and that you have to work more towards eliminating the need for it than making it a permanent state.

Some people don't agree with this, libertarians, for example. Libertarians believe that tax is theft and taking money away from one individual to give it to another, no matter the reason, is wicked. So there is a section of the right that doesn't care for government sponsored aid.

And then, there is a section of the left that don't believe this should be temporary. For a wide section of the left, "welfare" is not really aid, but "redistribution of wealth". Part of the worldview of the left is that people are not in control of their circumstances so you cannot expect people to "climb" out of poverty since it doesn't depend on them (there are evil rich people oppressing them, remember?)

However, we can agree that the full spectrum of the left does consider welfare important and a chunk thinks it should be perpetual, and not all of the right cares about welfare. So we could say that even though welfare is not a policy that "belongs" to any side (it is a populist measure), it does tend to be more favored by the left. Especially once you wipe all true conservative ideas off the table and label them "far-right" so all that is left of conservatism is fiscal conservatives. Then all you see is people demanding less taxes and less welfare.

Any actual conservative worth his salt will support welfare for their own in-group. Not universal welfare, though.

 

[Osmia]

@Kitsune , there's some "nitpicking" below, as you call it, and some more substantive discussion. I do want to ask a question: you've identified yourself as a journalist. Do you write like this for your published writings? I mean, do you use absolute characterizations and stereotypes?

The practical side:
Missionary work isn't charity, it's proselytism.

No; it's both. How much is charity and how much is proselytizing depends on the church and the individuals involved.

This doesn't happen when you give foreign aid to your enemies like Obama has done, or when you fight against the wall for illegal immigrants to flood the country.

Who are these enemies you speak of?

So The Wall is the only acceptable response to the illegal immigration problem?

This is what loyalty means, that you put your own in-group's needs first. And secondly, that you defend those who defend you.

Agreed, and this describes almost all humans, including liberals.

For the left none of this matters. It is "open borders or you are a racist"

Citation, please? How many Americans are for "open borders"? The plain sense of "open borders" is what you see in the EU countries that are party to the Schengen Agreement. Is there anyone in the US who is for that? I've never heard it even mentioned as a possibility.

Same thing goes with adoption. Leftists are always applauding people who adopt kids from far away lands or who choose to foster over having their own babies.

I'm not sure which "leftists" you're talking about. Given the population of the US, I'm sure these types do exist, as statistical outliers. I don't applaud or condemn them, because I don't know them or their circumstances.

And if a white person says: "I would only adopt a white baby from my community" I am sure he would be labeled a racist. Even women who say they want to give birth to their own children before adopting are labeled as selfish by some crazy people on the left. It is all part of the same trend. A conservative gives priority to his in-group first, especially when the foreigner wants to hurt their people. The left doesn't, the left wants to help the foreigner even at the expense of their people, because to the left there is no such a thing as "my people". This is a very good example of what a disregard for loyalty looks like.

Let's see...

Intercountry adoptions peaked in 2004.
Since that year, at about 23,000, they have started declining. Pertman attributes this to a host of factors, from countries like Russia closing to U.S. adoptions and others, like China, cutting back. The most recent figure reported by the U.S. Department of State for 2014 was 6,441.
​

I guess this means that the number of liberals has decreased since 2004.

...the left wants to help the foreigner even at the expense of their people, because to the left there is no such a thing as "my people".

How many people on the left actually want to ". . .help the foreigner even at the expense of their people"? These sound like really bad people! Has a representative study been done demonstrating this?

Globalism, which is what we are discussing in the end, is a leftist value because it is a part of the christian faith.

There's some truth in this, but what about the conservative Christian churches? Are they not part of the Christian faith? How did they become conservative?

Leftism is a crypto-sect of christianity with a "secular" coat of paint. The tenets of liberté/fraternité/egalité of the French Revolution are christian in nature, and the left is the child of the French Revolution (globalism=fraternité) Which is why you can find similarities like this... something christians do kinda rings a bell. The problem is, when you remove divinity out of the equation many of the ideas the left took from the christian faith end up being corrupted and taken in a dangerous direction to an unhealthy extreme. So it isn't really a mirror image what you see in missionary work, it is more of a distant echo.

I generally agree with this, though I would put it a bit differently. The Enlightenment values of the French and American revolutions are a direct expression of Christianity's emphasis on human dignity, the potential of humanity and all humans, and the fundamental goodness of the created world. I personally believe that Christianity is inherently self-secularizing, and that it was "meant" to be that way. But you may be right about the consequences of removing the divinity from the equation.

So, for example, take egalité. The root is in christianism, in the gospels with the idea that we are all equal in Christ. What does "we are all equal in Christ" mean? That if and only if you accept Christ, then you will be equal to all other christians. It requires the person to convert in order to be an equal.

That's one interpretation, but I think that kind of legalism isn't consistent with modern (i.e., "liberal") theological directions. The way it makes sense to me is to posit that all humans, past, current and future, are interconnected or spring from the same root; all are our neighbors, and therefore we all owe each other something. That doesn't imply that leftists think that it's OK ". . . to accept syrian muslims who behead christian priests." And it doesn't mean that criminals and terrorists are "equal" in all senses or should be welcomed or treated like a friend.

I do think (and I think this is what you were getting at) that the western liberal democracies' tradition of tolerance does originate in Christianity, via the Enlightenment, and that this tolerance has been abused by others, and that this tolerance needs to be adjusted to fit the current circumstances, whatever those might be. I think that's happening in Europe; it's just not something that happens overnight, like the gate of a fortified castle being raised and closed.

 

[SexySteph]

The difference is people send people to help people over there to rebuild their own countries.

Bahahahahahahahaha

If you think that's what missionaries do over there, and what our military is doing over there you are DEEPLY misled.

Any actual conservative worth his salt will support welfare for their own in-group.

I guess NONE of the conservatives I know and the loudest of Trump supporters aren't conservatives then. Because all I hear is how "blackies" are leeching the welfare system and buying Nikes and if you need welfare then you haven't tried hard enough.

Our welfare system is broken. It's so hard for people to get off welfare because once they start making over X amount they lose welfare and all the subsidies that come with it (subsidized childcare, housing, etc) and then the money that they're making that is greater than what they were receiving on welfare isn't going as far as it was when they had those subsidies. If you're on welfare and you try to put money in a savings account, once your savings account hits a certain threshold, you lose welfare. So until things change, people will choose to be on welfare forever rather than try to work there way out of it just to end up in a worse place than where they were on it.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

Any actual conservative worth his salt will support welfare for their own in-group.

True conservative? Really?

Everyone can agree there is a place for welfare, everyone can also agree that it's intended to be a temporary thing and that you have to work more towards eliminating the need for it than making it a permanent state.

Good news. It's not going to be permanent, even if we don't work towards eliminating it. Everybody on it is going to die. And one day, our species will be extinct, and there will be no more welfare.

See, the problem I have with the members of the faux conservative cult I am familiar with is that one of the defining features of their in-group is that you not believe there is a place for welfare. In fact, when they are busy demonizing anything they deem remotely liberal, it is one of their favorite targets. They don't seem to think there is a place for it at all. That is because their heads arrived somewhere north of their appendix by taking the back road.

 

[LuckySmiles]

Uh huh. because I don't know anyone that ever helped rebuild anything in a foreign country alongside our allies. Give me a break. I also don't forget about good people dying when Obama blows up a hospital in afghanistan by accident.

Temporarily Removing myself due to personal involvement and being accused of being "DEEPLY MISLED" before I say impolite things.

 

[SexySteph]

Uh huh. because I don't know anyone that ever helped rebuild anything in a foreign country alongside our allies.

I did missionary trips growing up, I know people that still do missionary trips and the bulk of what those are is simply "spreading gods word" and doing things that aren't actually helpful to the countries we visit, but simply make the missionaries look good (Donating clothes (which actually harms the garment industries that are creating jobs for locals) and similar activities).

As for our military we aren't helping them rebuild. We actually create a reliance on the west which is the opposite of helpful.

ETA: It surprises me that the people that complain about being "pooped" are so quick to use it when they should be clicking disagree. Stating an opinion that you disagree with, however much you dislike how it's said, isn't trolling.

 

[Mila_]

I did missionary trips growing up, I know people that still do missionary trips and the bulk of what those are is simply "spreading gods word" and doing things that aren't actually helpful to the countries we visit, but simply make the missionaries look good (Donating clothes (which actually harms the garment industries that are creating jobs for locals) and similar activities).

As for our military we aren't helping them rebuild. We actually create a reliance on the west which is the opposite of helpful.

I mostly agree with your perception of missionary work (proselytism) but I do want to say that some of the things the Church has done in order to proselytize are of great value... like teaching indigenous peoples to read and write, or steering them away from their indigenous cults which in many cases in South America and Africa involved things like human sacrifices or cannibalism. That was of value. Today many missionaries help the communities they go to build churches and schools and houses. It is all done with a political goal, but that doesn't mean it is destructive or evil.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

I also don't forget about good people dying when Obama blows up a hospital in afghanistan by accident.

Temporarily Removing myself due to personal involvement and being accused of being "DEEPLY MISLED" before I say impolite things.

Should I be upset at Obama for a hospital being attacked? Or shall I condemn him for apologizing?

 

[SexySteph]

It is all done with a political goal, but that doesn't mean it is destructive or evil.

I agree that it's not evil or destructive, but I think it's entirely wrong to think their intentions are altruistic or beneficial for helping the people rebuild their countries.

Like if someone believes that going and doing missionary work in other countries is helping them rebuild their countries themselves, is that what we were doing with the Native American conversion schools here too?

 

[justjoinedtopost]

I agree that it's not evil or destructive, but I think it's entirely wrong to think their intentions are altruistic or beneficial for helping the people rebuild their countries.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...ti-gay-conservative-evangelicals-9193593.html

I think it depends on the missionaries. I don't believe for a minute they are all bad.

I knew a woman who went to Ethiopa as a missionary during the famine in the 1980's. One of the guys that she went with thought he would do the Christian thing and demonstrate the love of Jesus by giving his dinner to one of the refugees. Supposedly got a rifle pointed at him while an Ethiopian soldier screamed "YOU DON'T GIVE THEM YOUR FOOD".

 

[Mila_]

Like I said, @Osmia I am a bit tired of engaging you as I think you are just gaslighting me and making a point of opposing whatever I say line by line for sport and aint nobody got time fo dat. It is as tiresome as that other libertarian dude whose name escapes me and was so boring we had to create a different thread to contain him. But here is my last attempt at chewing shit for you

@Kitsune , there's some "nitpicking" below, as you call it, and some more substantive discussion. I do want to ask a question: you've identified yourself as a journalist. Do you write like this for your published writings? I mean, do you use absolute characterizations and stereotypes?

I don't know if your mom taught you manners or the rules of playing nice with others, but when you are discussing any topic including politics or religion, the rule of thumb is to stick to the argument and not attack the person you are talking to or involve their personal lives into the discussion. It makes you look like a dick. And if you do it with white gloves like you are doing it here, it also makes you look like a pansy.

@KitsuneWho are these enemies you speak of?

Let's see... the brightest example was when Obama tried to pass 20 million in aid to "the Caribbean" aka his buddies, Fidel and Raul fucking Castro. A communist murderer and his murderer brother who have been US' enemies since 1961. For those with short memories, among other things, Fidel Castro is the guy who tried to manipulate Krushchev into nuking the US and offered his island as a launching pad. Obama's generous aid proposal was blocked by Congress, so his plan B was to campaign to get Cuba's trade embargo lifted, and when that one didn't work he did the only thing he could do from his own chair: make it legal to travel to Cuba from the US again, giving the Castro's economy a boost and risking undermining Miami's tourism in the process.

Citation, please? How many Americans are for "open borders"? The plain sense of "open borders" is what you see in the EU countries that are party to the Schengen Agreement. Is there anyone in the US who is for that? I've never heard it even mentioned as a possibility.

I think it was obvious I wasn't talking about the Schengen Area although it would be excellent if other countries followed the UK's lead and exited the fuck out of it, take control of their borders back, and let Angela Merkel and her ilk condemn only the future of Germany as opposed to the future of all of Europe. I was talking about actually enforcing borders and the law which is a concept the Left despises. Leftists usually recoil in horror when countries like Hungary, for example, choose to close their borders with Turkey to avoid being flooded by refugees and call them racist.

How many people on the left actually want to ". . .help the foreigner even at the expense of their people"? These sound like really bad people! Has a representative study been done demonstrating this?

Almost everyone and if you have an iota of honesty you will accept that fact. Why are you gaslighting me? Read all the examples I already offered of this before you ask for more.

So, this is my last time engaging you on this thread, mostly because I think you aren't debating me with honesty and integrity.

 

[SexySteph]

depends on the missionaries. I don't believe for a minute they are all bad.

I agree that they're not all bad. But I think that a lot of it is good people misled. Its done for selfish reasons (bringing more people into Christianity is not altruistic in my opinion) and it's often done without research into what's truly helpful.

It's like when people do food drives. They're not bad people and they're not trying to do bad things. But they're essentially being selfish (donating their old canned goods so they can feel good about helping others) and not doing research into what's really helpful (many food banks and similar organizations will tell you that they need money more than canned goods because they're able to buy food products wholesale and get more for $1 you donate than what you could get at the store).

So no, I'm not saying they're bad, I'm just saying it's more self serving than anything.

 

[JoleneBrody]

The practical side:

Missionary work isn't charity, it's proselytism. The difference is proselytism has a political nature: the goal is to convert people into christianity. So, in the case of say, Jehova's Witnesses, this is done so more people buy and sell the Watchtower which is published in over 250 languages (that's how many foreign countries contribute money to the Witnesses). In the case of mormonism, converts to mormonism all over the world donate money to their church, I read somewhere that the Mormon Church makes around 7 billion annually from donations and tithes, much of which comes from outside the US.

This is the same thing that happens with foreign aid. Why give foreign aid to allies instead of spending that money at home? And while there is tension there, you have to look at what the goal is. Giving money to allies is done to keep them on your side, because when shit hits the fan you need people who will be willing to fight with you against an enemy. So even though it might seem like you are helping others, in reality you are helping your own. This doesn't happen when you give foreign aid to your enemies like Obama has done, or when you fight against the wall for illegal immigrants to flood the country.

It is also a matter of priorities. The first thing the catholic Church does when they are short on money is to cancel missionary work. They will fight to keep their charity programs within their communities going no matter what, though. Surely there has to be a few jesuits out there doing the opposite, they are the left wing of the church after all, but this is the priority for most of the catholic church. And the same happens with foreign aid. If you have an emergency at home and you need funds, you should always prioritize that and cut foreign aid if you need to in order to keep your citizens safe. This is what loyalty means, that you put your own in-group's needs first. And secondly, that you defend those who defend you.

For the left none of this matters. It is "open borders or you are a racist" and "take in Syrian refugees even if they are beheading your citizens or you are an islamophobe". Same thing goes with adoption. Leftists are always applauding people who adopt kids from far away lands or who choose to foster over having their own babies. And if a white person says: "I would only adopt a white baby from my community" I am sure he would be labeled a racist. Even women who say they want to give birth to their own children before adopting are labeled as selfish by some crazy people on the left. It is all part of the same trend. A conservative gives priority to his in-group first, especially when the foreigner wants to hurt their people. The left doesn't, the left wants to help the foreigner even at the expense of their people, because to the left there is no such a thing as "my people". This is a very good example of what a disregard for loyalty looks like.

But we can do the abstract game too:

Globalism, which is what we are discussing in the end, is a leftist value because it is a part of the christian faith. Leftism is a crypto-sect of christianity with a "secular" coat of paint. The tenets of liberté/fraternité/egalité of the French Revolution are christian in nature, and the left is the child of the French Revolution (globalism=fraternité) Which is why you can find similarities like this... something christians do kinda rings a bell. The problem is, when you remove divinity out of the equation many of the ideas the left took from the christian faith end up being corrupted and taken in a dangerous direction to an unhealthy extreme. So it isn't really a mirror image what you see in missionary work, it is more of a distant echo.

So, for example, take egalité. The root is in christianism, in the gospels with the idea that we are all equal in Christ. What does "we are all equal in Christ" mean? That if and only if you accept Christ, then you will be equal to all other christians. It requires the person to convert in order to be an equal. And converting means that they accept the tenets of the christian faith, their moral values will align with the values of the christian community, it requires work and submission from the person who is being accepted into the community. But if you remove theology from the equation, if you rmeove "Christ" all you are left with is "we are all equal" like that, no matter who you are, where you are from, what your religion is, or what your morals are. That is why it is okay for the left to accept syrian muslims who behead christian priests. Christians would have rejected these people until they converted to the christian faith. Leftists embrace them as equals even when they bring a fucking rifle to Charlie Hebdos HQ.

I totally agree with and understand some of your points and then Couldn't possibly disagree with you more in the very next sentence... So I'm at a rating loss here. So I'll just type up a new rating.
Im Forgainst this post. Lol

 

[JoleneBrody]

I know... I went off about stuff, but what I'm trying to point out is it's all related. And it's all the same point. It's not directed at anyone in particular. But it's all the same thing. Because the hypothetical suburban connecticut "liberal" that I'm talking about... is the same person who'll say to save all the refugees... and might talk crap to me... and will never consider joining the military or let her kid join the marines...

It's not about anyone or directed at anyone, but I think everyone can picture exactly the kind of personality I'm talking about. And it's related to every controversial issue out there.

Oh ok! I understand now, and can see your point. Thank you, I was pretty sleepy when I read your post so my reading comprehension wasn't exactly great either, haha.

 

[Osmia]

Like I said, @Osmia I am a bit tired of engaging you as I think you are just gaslighting me and making a point of opposing whatever I say line by line for sport and aint nobody got time fo dat. It is as tiresome as that other libertarian dude whose name escapes me and was so boring we had to create a different thread to contain him. But here is my last attempt at chewing shit for you

I don't know if your mom taught you manners or the rules of playing nice with others, but when you are discussing any topic including politics or religion, the rule of thumb is to stick to the argument and not attack the person you are talking to or involve their personal lives into the discussion. It makes you look like a dick. And if you do it with white gloves like you are doing it here, it also makes you look like a pansy.

Feel free to put me on ignore. I will feel free to refute any misleading statements.

I asked you about your journalism work because the style of your writings here does not strike me as coming from a journalist. I'm not saying you're not, and I'm not asking you to reveal anything. I'm just interested in your writing style. Professionals like doctors and lawyers develop habits of thought from their training and practice, and those habits tend to carry over to other spheres of their lives.. I've always assumed this is true of journalists too. For example, if a journalist writes something that is prima facie false, he or she (or the publication) might be sued, or at least there may be a lot of complaints from readers or advertisers. So, journalists tend to write in a dry, qualified, circumspect style. I think that's where the practice of "false equivalence" comes from.

What I'm saying is that you would be much more persuasive writing like a journalist unless it's obvious that you're expressing your opinion. I often find that you are saying something potentially interesting, or something I didn't know, but to understand it I would have to peel back the layers of anger, stereotyping, black and white thinking, etc., and it's not worth it.

 

[Chezza]

I voted for Gary Johnson in the 2012 election, and I'll do so again because I believe in him and Bill Weld. I'm guessing they don't do the bidding of their donors AS much as other options who seem to be so money hungry, even at the expense of the people. I really love Jill, and the message of the green party but she has very little political experience. #garyjohnson2016

 

[LuckySmiles]

I did missionary trips growing up, I know people that still do missionary trips and the bulk of what those are is simply "spreading gods word" and doing things that aren't actually helpful to the countries we visit, but simply make the missionaries look good (Donating clothes (which actually harms the garment industries that are creating jobs for locals) and similar activities).

As for our military we aren't helping them rebuild. We actually create a reliance on the west which is the opposite of helpful.

ETA: It surprises me that the people that complain about being "pooped" are so quick to use it when they should be clicking disagree. Stating an opinion that you disagree with, however much you dislike how it's said, isn't trolling.

It's not like I don't already know any of this or consider this is my point. "HAHAHAHHA SO DEEPLY MISLED" is a bit unnecessary. I've never said anything to give the impression of that. I've repeatedly talked about US foreign involvement and poor strategies in like.. every topic related.

But I point out that there's good already done it's like I don't know what I'm talking about... ok...
Or a "doctors without borders" hospital(the one referring to blown up) must just be so terrible and selfish.

Next thing people are going to tell me military die and the sky is blue.

 

[Mila_]

It's not like I don't already know any of this or consider this is my point. "HAHAHAHHA SO DEEPLY MISLED" is a bit unnecessary. I've never said anything to give the impression of that. I've repeatedly talked about US foreign involvement and poor strategies in like.. every topic related.

But I point out that there's good already done it's like I don't know what I'm talking about... ok...
Or a "doctors without borders" hospital(the one referring to blown up) must just be so terrible and selfish.

Next thing people are going to tell me military die and the sky is blue.

I also want to add that we talk a lot about poop ratings but we don't discuss insulting words as much. A while back a member kept rating all my posts poops and I asked him to stop. He did stop, only he started to quote every post to call me troll with words instead. You might not be flinging poop ratings at me anymore, but you are essentially doing the exact same thing with words so.. you didn't really stop the behavior.

In general it is best to be kind to one another, that includes not giving poop ratings where they don't belong, but it also includes words and mean spirited white glove comments aimed at attacking the character of another person. If you do any of the things I listed before and you threw the first punch, you can't really complain when the person you attacked flings poop back, or insults you with words, or gives you a spoon of your own passive-aggressive BS. It would be better not to feed those fights but sometimes when you are being attacked it is very difficult to raise above it and not reply.

I really want to believe we are better than this nastiness. We are adults and I know politics is a sensitive subject for many of us, but can do better than this.

 

[Protocosmo]

Bahahahahahahahaha

If you think that's what missionaries do over there, and what our military is doing over there you are DEEPLY misled.


I guess NONE of the conservatives I know and the loudest of Trump supporters aren't conservatives then. Because all I hear is how "blackies" are leeching the welfare system and buying Nikes and if you need welfare then you haven't tried hard enough.

Our welfare system is broken. It's so hard for people to get off welfare because once they start making over X amount they lose welfare and all the subsidies that come with it (subsidized childcare, housing, etc) and then the money that they're making that is greater than what they were receiving on welfare isn't going as far as it was when they had those subsidies. If you're on welfare and you try to put money in a savings account, once your savings account hits a certain threshold, you lose welfare. So until things change, people will choose to be on welfare forever rather than try to work there way out of it just to end up in a worse place than where they were on it.

I'm not sure how telling the truth can be rated a bad troll attempt.

 

[SexySteph]

I'm not sure how telling the truth can be rated a bad troll attempt.

I agree, I feel like some of us have been much ruder than calling someone misled and gone without negative ratings.

 

[Osmia]

Here are a couple of interesting articles about tunneling under the US Mexico border. (Point being, of course, that these activities would continue with The Wall, unless it was extended and reinforced a good distance underground, which would make it much more expensive. And it might not work even then.)

This NY Times article looks at some recent tunneling efforts and the Border Patrol's difficulty keeping up. Apparently, ground penetrating radar doesn't work very well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/us/us-mexico-border-wall-tunnels.html

Carey M. Rappaport, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, said the depth of many tunnels also posed a technological challenge. Some can be as deep as 90 feet, beyond the reach of most ground-radar devices and sensors. “Soil is very good at keeping secrets,” said Mr. Rappaport, who has also worked with the United States and Israeli governments on tunnel-detection methods.

This one, from the New Yorker about a year ago, looks at the Sinaloa cartel's tunnel building, leading off with the nearly mile long tunnel that was dug to spring "El Chapo" from a high security Mexican prison. Lots of interesting details about how these tunnels are built. Some are quite sophisticated, with rail tracks and ventilation systems.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/underworld-monte-reel

 

[Mila_]

Luckily we have a really good real life example of how well a wall works on stopping people from entering your country: the West Bank barrier.

Before Israel constructed the wall, palestinian terrorists would sneak across the border and conduct kamikaze style attacks on Israel's soil. There were attacks on temples, buses, cafes, and pubs that claimed many lives. Then Israel decided to build a wall to help control the situation.

The year before the wall was built 138 terrorist attacks happened on israeli soil by palestinians who crossed the border. After the wall in 2012, only 9 attacks were carried out:



Sure, there are still attacks sometimes, they dig up tunnels, but this is an amazing reduction on the number of incidents. Digging up a tunnel costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and not everyone can do it. It isn't the sort of tunnel you dig with a spoon. You need reinforced concrete, a team of people digging, and a lot of time.

The amazing success of the West Bank wall probably has to do with the fact that along with the wall there was an increase in security spending along the wall. But the wall was not only a physical obstacle, it also made it easier to patrol the area and set up checkpoints.

We will never be able to stop all the bad guys. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Just because we cant fix something 100% doesn't mean we shouldn't do our best to reduce it to 90%. It does make a great impact, especially on the lives of the people who would have been victims and werent.

 

[Protocosmo]

Let me see here... The West Bank Wall is roughly 810 km at a cost of about 2 million dollars per km... The US/Mexican border is 3,201 km...

What's the cost/benefit factor in this for us? Are we suffering regular cross border terrorist raids from a hostile faction?

Personally, I'd rather not have my country hide behind a wall. It insults my sense of national pride.

 

[Mila_]

Let me see here... The West Bank Wall is roughly 810 km at a cost of about 2 million dollars per km... The US/Mexican border is 3,201 km...

What's the cost/benefit factor in this for us? Are we suffering regular cross border terrorist raids from a hostile faction?

Personally, I'd rather not have my country hide behind a wall. It insults my sense of national pride.

I wasn't addressing the practical side of building it, but the fact that it does help stop most of the illegal activities and people crossing over.

The US doesn't know who is crossing the border, so it could be terrorists, or it could be anyone else. However, we do know that the mexican drug cartels do cross the border frequently and commit crimes in US soil, not only related to drug trafficking. And their crimes are incredibly similar in brutality to muslim terrorist attacks. I was going to post a bunch of pictures under a spoiler tag but it is just too brutal for me to handle. But go to google images and look up "mexican drug cartel terrorism" to see what I mean.

 

[LuckySmiles]

lolol. It's not just "Calling someone misled" it's calling someone misled about something who agrees with you about something and has repeatedly stated feelings about the wars being bullshit. So at that point I have to assume no one pays attention to anything people say and wants to just seem like winner of the internet. When I try to give people as much benefit of the doubt as possible knowing I don't know where they come from and they can't possibly know much about me. But I'm a person . I will take back your poop if it bothers you, but IMO it was a shitty thing to say. Felt like just the right button at the time.

 

[Bocefish]

I don't know if your mom taught you manners or the rules of playing nice with others, but when you are discussing any topic including politics or religion, the rule of thumb is to stick to the argument and not attack the person you are talking to or involve their personal lives into the discussion. It makes you look like a dick. And if you do it with white gloves like you are doing it here, it also makes you look like a pansy.

While trying to catch up on some of the postings... the above struck me as a clear winner of the most hypocritical award.

 

[justjoinedtopost]

I also want to add that we talk a lot about poop ratings but we don't discuss insulting words as much. A while back a member kept rating all my posts poops and I asked him to stop. He did stop, only he started to quote every post to call me troll with words instead. You might not be flinging poop ratings at me anymore, but you are essentially doing the exact same thing with words so.. you didn't really stop the behavior.

In general it is best to be kind to one another, that includes not giving poop ratings where they don't belong, but it also includes words and mean spirited white glove comments aimed at attacking the character of another person. If you do any of the things I listed before and you threw the first punch, you can't really complain when the person you attacked flings poop back, or insults you with words, or gives you a spoon of your own passive-aggressive BS. It would be better not to feed those fights but sometimes when you are being attacked it is very difficult to raise above it and not reply.

I really want to believe we are better than this nastiness. We are adults and I know politics is a sensitive subject for many of us, but can do better than this.

LOL you are trolling. You are smart, you make some good points, you take some deranged positions, and you are a troll. God bless you; wouldn't want you to be any other way. I'm not saying you are a cancer.

Heads up everybody, she's going all PC.

While trying to catch up on some of the postings... the above struck me as a clear winner of the most hypocritical award.

Gave a poo of respect rating for that comment.

 

[SoTxBob]

well, it seems this thread has totally gone personal now......
Amber, I'd like to suggest a rating of a white duck quacking, bet ya can guess the meaning. Also maybe a poindexter type with big glasses and white gloves. You know, the lil kid that adores sitting at the front of the class and calling out everyone else's mistakes trying to make brownie points when its something even the teacher doesn't care about....

 

[Osmia]

well, it seems this thread has totally gone personal now......
Amber, I'd like to suggest a rating of a white duck quacking, bet ya can guess the meaning. Also maybe a poindexter type with big glasses and white gloves. You know, the lil kid that adores sitting at the front of the class and calling out everyone else's mistakes trying to make brownie points when its something even the teacher doesn't care about....

point taken

 

[Osmia]

A couple of insightful quotes from this clip of "Morning Joe."

Around 13:50, the CEO of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce said, Trump's version of "Immigration reform is a monster [Trump] created so he could slay it."

Around 19:00, Mike Barnicle (a columnist) said (referring to Trump's hard-line Phoenix immigration speech) "You saw a man who was absolutely willing to be captured and fueled by an audience in a hall, not the country."

The theme for the whole discussion was how Trump is still playing to his base, and is not expanding it like he would need to do to win.