monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@Lash,

Presidents don't actually build cages. And yet that's exactly the word Trump and you both used. I doubt it's a coincidence. If you're not parroting Trump, you're parroting someone else, who Trump is also parroting... Like somebody living in St Petersburg for instance.

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@Lash,

Lash wrote:

but law or custom, when the foot of an asylum seeker hits American soil, they must be awarded asylum.

If that is true, you have the best asylum law in the world (and are the only country with such a law).
Here in Germany, like in any other country, you must set your foot on our soil to claim asylum (and in long legal procedures, it will be denied, mostly).

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@Lash,

Quote:

Trump isn't matching Obama deportation numbers

But he makes up for it in the poisonous rhetoric, the demonization of non-white races, and using immigration fear to excite his base.

Quote:

We have to change that law.

What changes would you make? Doing away with the asylum law or increasing the overall number of immigrants we allow?

The humanitarian concerns would be best met in the short run by spending billions on temporary housing for families and increasing the staff of the various agencies involved. Making them wait in Mexico is problematic.

If the US doesn't want to accept these people permanently it doesn't have to but the problem will persist until political and economic changes make it possible for people to live an work in those countries of origin. Given the realities of climate change it doesn't look like that will happen.

This situation is unprecedented around the world, is only going to worsen, and there very well may be no long range truly humanitarian solution.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

This said, I add that I don't understand why USAmericans don't differ between migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants.

We used to, the left has removed that distinction and lumped everyone into the "asylum" category so they have a weapon to use against our immigration system. All honesty is gone when it comes to the immigration debate.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

We used to, the left has removed that distinction and lumped everyone into the "asylum" category so they have a weapon to use against our immigration system. All honesty is gone when it comes to the immigration debate.

Well, you do it as well - asylum seekers are no immigrants, but should be part of the asylum debate (with laws that Lash want to be changed).

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

In this country, it is very common to shorten reference to an administration by using the president’s name or using ‘the White House’.

Here’s the literary term:
Metonymy
Definition:
Metonymy in literature refers to the practice of not using the formal word for an object or subject and instead referring to it by using another word that is intricately linked to the formal name or word. It is the practice of substituting the main word with a word that is closely linked to it.

Example:
When we use the name “Washington D.C” we are talking about the U.S’ political hot seat by referring to the political capital of the United States because all the significant political institutions such as the White House, Supreme Court, the U.S. Capitol and many more are located her. The phrase “Washington D.C.” is metonymy for the government of the U.S. in this case.

1 Reply

@hightor,

I’m going to listen to the plans put forward by candidates to help navigate this morass.

All I know is the current process doesn’t work.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

Well, you do it as well - asylum seekers are no immigrants, but should be part of the asylum debate (with laws that Lash want to be changed).

That's because I don't believe a vast majority are true asylum seekers, that's the buzz word for the last few years to increase the amount if immigrants in the US. A vast majority of them are refused asylum because they are only here for economic reasons and nothing else.

What I usually call out is the mis-naming of illegal immigrants as just immigrants, which the media and leftists are very big on.

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@Lash,

La métonymie is very common in French and other languages.

I think, however, you're referring here to a synecdoche.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

I think you could make the argument for both; in my perception, Obama wasn’t simply ‘a part’ of his administration, but a minor point.

Here’s what I think about it:

In practice, there isn't much difference: you could arguably pick just one of the terms and use it to describe both types of rhetorical substitution. (I like metonymy: it's easier to spell, more spelling checkers know it, and the meaning is more apparent to me: meta+name.)

The difference, to the extent that it exists at all, is whether the attribute that is substituting for the whole is part of the whole (synecdoche), or merely associated with it (metonymy). So "suits" instead of "officials" is metonymy (officials wear suits, but last I checked, the clothing is not permanently attached to their skin), while "hands" for "workmen" is synecdoche.

You could also make a case for using metonymy for any example where a smaller part or attribute substitutes for a larger part or attribute, and reserving synecdoche for examples where the larger stands for the smaller, or the container for the contents. Under this interpretation, both "suits" and "hands" could be considered metonyms, and synecdoche would be something like "General Motors announced cutbacks" — it was presumably a spokesperson who issued such a statement on behalf of the CEO or board of directors, since General Motors is not a single entity and does not possess speech capabilities.

Walter—just laughed over my brunch ASSURED that if I’d said synecdoche, you’d have suggested it was metonymy...

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@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

That's because I don't believe a vast majority are true asylum seekers, that's the buzz word for the last few years to increase the amount if immigrants in the US. A vast majority of them are refused asylum because they are only here for economic reasons and nothing else.

The reason why someone claims to ger asylum seeker might be ... not legitime in many cases.
But since she/he asks for asylum, this person is an asylum seeker.

An immigrant is someone who makes a conscious decision to leave his or her home and move to a foreign country with the intention of settling there. The entry to that country can be legal or illegal.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

I fled Nazi Germany. I hope the US doesn't turn its back on refugees

Quote:

[...]
Admitting so many Jews was controversial. At the time, Britain suffered from high unemployment; taking in people who would compete for jobs was problematic. There was also a fear of spies and saboteurs masquerading as refugees, who would harm the country if war broke out. And, of course, some of those opposing admission of refugees were antisemites who wanted to maintain Britain’s racial purity. Yet those espousing humanitarian principles prevailed. Among them, standouts included two members of Parliament, Colonel Josiah Wedgwood (of the famous pottery family whose 18th-century ancestor of the same name had fought against slavery) and Eleanor Rathbone, a longtime campaigner for women’s rights. They enjoyed strong support from this newspaper, then known as the Manchester Guardian, which played a crucial role.

Some in the US also sought the admission of Jewish refugees. A bill was introduced in Congress to accept 20,000 unaccompanied children, along the lines of the Kindertransport to Britain, but it failed. A ship carrying 900 Jewish refugees from Germany was denied permission to land in the United States in June 1939. Antisemites in the state department played a leading role in killing various proposals to admit Jewish refugees. The failure of President Franklin D Roosevelt to take a stand, despite the efforts of his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, allowed the antisemites to prevail.
[...]
Over the years the US has accepted, in absolute terms, more refugees than any other country. In proportion to population, however, the US has accepted fewer refugees than the United Kingdom and far fewer than Canada.

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@Olivier5,

Did you read the interview from the Obama ICE Chief?

https://www.dailywire.com/news/48913/barack-obamas-ice-chief-dont-blame-trump-cages-hank-berrien?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro

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@Baldimo,

Regardless of what you believe, it is legal to present yourself to border officials and request asylum. It is unconscionable to rip small children from their parents and send them to random points of the country just because you can. I don't think that is what we aspire to be as a country.

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@engineer,

Quote:

Regardless of what you believe, it is legal to present yourself to border officials and request asylum.

It is illegal to cross the border and then request asylum after you are caught... that's what taking place, none of these people are real asylum seekers.

Quote:

It is unconscionable to rip small children from their parents and send them to random points of the country just because you can. I don't think that is what we aspire to be as a country.

If they were coming across the border with their parents it would be one thing, a lot of these kids have come across on their own or with adults not their parents. They are simply gaming the system for entry into the US. We need to seal the border and fix our immigration system before we allow millions of people into our country.

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@Baldimo,

Quote:

...none of these people are real asylum seekers.

How do you know that?

1 Reply

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Quote:
...none of these people are real asylum seekers.

How do you know that?

More then likely Fox network told him that they was not real asylum seekers.

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@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

It is illegal to cross the border and then request asylum after you are caught... that's what taking place, none of these people are real asylum seekers.

In other countries, you have to cross the border to get asylum ... qua definitionem, since "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution". (Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by the United States of America, December 10, 1948)

If you seek asylum not crossing the border, you go in the embassy of that country, like Cardinal Mindszenty, who stayed 15 years in the US embassy in Budapest.

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

Regardless of what you believe, it is legal to present yourself to border officials and request asylum. It is unconscionable to rip small children from their parents and send them to random points of the country just because you can. I don't think that is what we aspire to be as a country.

I'm unable to get my head around why this ghastly practice isn't making Americans furious. Imagine Mexico or Canada capriciously separating infants from American mothers and shipping them off to internment camps? Think that would get a rise out of people? What would happen if we found out American babies were being kept in filth and without health care, sleeping on concrete?

There is no doubt in my mind Americans would furiously demand the children be returned to their parents/family. Why we are not equally furious about the children being abducted on our southern border is something I cannot understand.

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@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

Quote:
Regardless of what you believe, it is legal to present yourself to border officials and request asylum.

It is illegal to cross the border and then request asylum after you are caught... that's what taking place, none of these people are real asylum seekers.

That's not correct. If you cross the border and ask for asylum, that is what the law requires.

Baldimo wrote:

If they were coming across the border with their parents it would be one thing, a lot of these kids have come across on their own or with adults not their parents.

It doesn't matter how they are crossing the border, they are children, often infants or toddlers. There is no moral code that could justify ripping them from their parents or caregivers and putting them in detention. While every country fails to live up to their ideals, that is just outright barbarity.

Baldimo wrote:

We need to seal the border and fix our immigration system before we allow millions of people into our country.

Actually, it is the opposite, we need to fix our immigration system before we worry about the border. If you were fighting a gasoline fire and there was a pipe pouring gas on the fire, you would not say "I need to put out the fire before worrying about the gas line." That would be stupid. You would say "I need to shut off the gas before I can fight the fire." The fuel for our current fire is the completely broken immigration system that doesn't meet the needs of the US or the immigrants. We need a system that is safe, fair and adequate to the needs of US businesses (who need millions of immigrants, not thousands.)

2 Replies

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