Kids in cages; how does anyone defend this

I think it's good they made concessions to detain families together, but I think the left is being hypocritical to the extent they are not willing to pursue full liberation of border control. Tolerance policies are not fair as the threat of punishment is maintained and can be used to manipulate the people being 'tolerated.'

When authorities do this it creates an opportunity to lure people into migrating for dirty/undesirable jobs, such as drug trafficking or whatever else someone wants to pay them to do. Then, they are under threat of catch-and-release, so they will keep their mouths shut rather than risk losing the money they're getting by being in the US, but they are also sitting ducks for deportation because no one has created a law that actually protects them against it, only 'tolerates' them.

This 'zero-tolerance' critique hides the fact that tolerance is a method of subjugation and repression. It's a tricky one so most people don't understand it. What do you propose to do to stop organized crime from using parents with children to run drugs, etc. because they know they won't be detained and/or prosecuted? Do you think there is a code of human rights in drug trafficking that ensures no child will be used as a drug mule because they're a child? No, if a child is the safest way to transport drugs without detection, drug traffickers will use children. Why doesn't anyone note that crime is not ethical and instead focus on the attention on government?

answer: because the trade war is making enemies and they are paying demonize the regime in order to turn the people against it. If there was no trade war, media would be silent on family separation just as they have been in the past and as they still are regarding all the other forms of family separation that go on in the US and globally.

What Livinglava is saying is a lie. And it is a pretty insidious one because the basic principle is this; laws are strictly enforced, or not, in the United States based on your ethnicity.

I am a White man. I was caught drinking while underage. I got a slap on the wrist, the police didn't care (my parents did but that is another story). I was once pulled over while driving with an expired license. The law has a pretty big penalty for this, the police officer gave me a "stern lecture" and let it pass... not even writing me up for the reason he pulled me over in the first place. My brother was caught shoplifting as a teenager. It was seen by the authorities, not as a crime... but as a teenaged prank (he had to apologize to the store owner and work to pay it back).

This is the life of Americans, especially White Americans. We expect to be treated with deference by law enforcement. Imagine if White Americans where being harassed by law enforcement, we certainly wouldn't tolerate it.

Even when White Americans commit serious crimes, often law enforcement bends over backwards to make their arrest easier on their families. There are many cases where law enforcement negotiates a time and place where they can be arrested without embarrassment to themselves or their families.

This idea that we are all living in a police state where any infraction of the law is strictly punished is a convenient myth.

You accept it for these immigrant families because of their ethnicity.

Well, Max, that was one long-ass non sequitur, with a specious conclusion. Race has nothing to do with people illegally crossing our borders. Trump will arrest anyone who does it, black, white, yellow, green, whatever.

that's obvious when your source, russia today, is reporting on a rasmussen poll

But, if "selective enforcement" were the issue here, you should be thrilled to see "zero tolerance" rather than "partial tolerance but only for a select few." You don't even make sense.

All you want is 100% tolerance--don't EVER arrest ANYBODY, and piss all over the law, because you want open borders.

Really? What difference does that make? It's been reported all over the world. Are you trying to claim that it's not a Rasmusen poll, or that it has been secretly altered in this report?

PS: Why don't you edit your post, while you still can, to eliminate all the dead space you inserted at the end?

Just for a moment let's pretend like everyone was for open borders because they didn't discriminate against people based on nationality. What would happen then? Would all the drug traffickers and human traffickers suddenly stop targeting US cities? No, why? Because there is money to make there and big-spending drug users to serve. If no one bought recreational drugs or spent loads of money on other things because there was cheap migrant labor to hire, then why not have open borders?

Now what about the argument and migrants take jobs and social benefits? If minimum wage laws were eliminated along with social benefits, there would be no reason to protect against migrants except for crime, and if they would be subject to the same criminal justice system as citizen-criminals, then what reason would there be to have closed borders? Because it's cheaper than policing, prosecuting, and jailing crime within US jurisdictions?

Exactly, Lava, there are all kinds of considerations and concerns which, frankly, are much bigger issues than the question of whether some foreign child is crying because of the situation his parents put him in.

But don't ever, EVER, I SAY!, try to tell some cheese-eater that.

They always ignore those concerns.

You don't think that national citizenship is a form of discrimination? What if during the time of the tea tax, stamp tax, etc. the British crown has also imposed restrictions against migration and citizenship? Have you ever read this quote from the Declaration of Independence:

The king refused Assent to Laws regarding immigration. He hindered immigration from England and refused to cooperate in furthering the growth of the Colonies.

Of course, back then migrating meant coming to work and be productive. Nowadays the economy is mostly consumptive, not productive, with many illegal industries and legal ones that only waste resources for the sake of lucrative indulgence.

And of course back then they failed to respect the land, failed to leave indians alone instead of taking their land to grow cotton, etc. Basically we've never had a truly virtuous economy and it's sad because if we did, the ideal of liberty would make migration a basic freedom.

Of course its discrimination. It should be. It must be, if you intend to maintain sovereignty.

The cheese-eaters have fooled many people into thinking that "discrimination," in the abstract, is inherently evil.

Don't fall for that.

We "discriminate" (i.e. make a distinction) when we put some people in jail for murder, rather than everybody. When we let 18 year olds drive cars, but not 2 year-olds. The list of discriminations we can, do, and should make is virtually infinite.

I don't believe in such discrimination, though I know it happens. But there is a subtler side to it, which is that not all whites are cooperative and receive a slap on the wrist. You also have whites who are rebellious and angry and/or reek of dishonesty. These are people who will get in your face and challenge you, "are you calling ME a liar?" They use aggression as a shield and a mask. Who would give such people a pass, regardless of their race? Now, are there people who are assumed to be dishonest because of racial prejudices? Yes, I think that happens; but does that mean I will accept that every person who is not treated mildly is someone who is timid and cooperative? No, it's wrong to give someone a free pass regardless of their character based on the fear of being called a racist. Police need to be able to recognize good character in all racial/gender/sexual/class identities and treat such people more tenderly; but when it comes to 'bad-asses' of any race/gender/sexuality/etc. why should they be allowed to boss police with their arrogant, sinister, and dishonest win-by-cheating life attitude?

When asked "How serious a problem is illegal immigration in the U.S. as a whole?," 58% said it was either "very serious" or "somewhat serious." 8% said it was "not a problem."

When asked: "Which policy do you prefer for how to handle families that are stopped for crossing the border into the United States without proper documentation?," only 19% favored the "catch and release" policy of Obama.

The other 81% favored detention of illegal immigrants, either in jail after being arrested, or in detention centers.

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/rbrysksiud/econTabReport.pdf#page89

Edit: I originally overlooked the 17% percent who said they were "not sure." That still leaves 64% who are absolutely SURE that they don't want catch and release. Probably most of the other 17% would agree if they were forced to make up their minds

8% actually wanted the kids to be arrested, too, and held in juvenile detention centers until they could be criminally prosecuted.

Face it, Max, America simply does NOT want illegal immigration.

At least we're on the same page that it's a form of discrimination. I must admit I am torn, because while I idealize the hope of a global republic where everyone's liberty allows them to migrate responsibly and not for the sake of exploiting borders and economic differences, I think that would not happen automatically, even if every government opened all the borders.

So the question then is what should be done to procure liberty at the global level. Or do we give in to relativism and say authoritarianism is good for some people and liberty for others? And do we even want to face the massive problems people have achieving responsible liberty in the US when they are citizens? Education isn't working. Freedom of speech isn't working. It's all being used to promote the idea that government and economic institutions are responsible for providing the means of consumption to 'beneficiaries.' How many people don't just see pleasing customers and managers as the means to get everything done for them by spending money? It was over 100 years ago that President Coolidge said that "the chief business of the American people is business" and for most people it still is. How many people are really willing to take on the responsibilities that they are used to having provided for them by migrant workers and low-wage workers in Asia, etc.? Will this trade war and migration crack down actually result in citizens pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, so to speak?

The United States probably has the world's best by far record for the real cultural and economic assimilation of immigrants. The millions of Germans, Scotch Irish, Irish, Chinese Scandinavian, Czech, Polish, Jewish and Italian and their steady upwards trajectories in American life amply testify to this fact.

Just what was our "system" for doing this? In fact, other than economic freedom to pursue their ambitions unassisted, there was no "system" at all. Each in turn was initially a despised minority, known as "Kraut", "Mick" or "Paddy", " Chink", "dumb Swede", "Hunkie", "Kike, or "Dago" or " Wop". The trajectories they pursued initially included laborer, farmer, crime. professional sports and quickly moving up to skilled worker, entrepreneur, government employee and finally professional pursuits. The same path was subsequently followed by Latinos of many origins and many others. Each in turn won its own self-respect and the, usually grudgingly given, respect of whatever was the establishment of the time and place, and each made its own lasting contributions to our cosmopolitan culture. Slavery and Jim Crow stopped the clock on this process for African Americans for too long, but it is happening now. Jason Reilly's work "Please Stop Helping Us" comes quickly to mind here.

No European or Asian country has come close to us in this respect. Australia and Canada have come fairly close but mostly only in the last two generations.

I believe there is a fundamental lesson here. Freedom and economic competition are the real drivers for assimilation, and no government program has ever equaled this basic process in the results it achieves. Government efforts at "protection" and "levelling the playing field are quickly corrupted by people acting in their immediate self interest and the result is that the wrong people and behaviors get rewarded and amplified.

Oh yeah, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, the National Origins Act of 1924 . . . yup, the land of opportunity.

Let us not forget the Asiatic Barred Zone of 1917, which excluded people from nations stretching from what is modern Turkey to Papua-New Guinea. Asians were not allowed to apply for American citizenship until after 1952. Oh yeah . . . I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

There have always been competing visions of what economics should entail among free people. There were/are those that seek greater freedom from economic exploitation and those who seek to exploit the advantage of various 'empires,' whether those are plantations, foreign nations, corporations, entire races/classes, etc.

The problem with 'freedom' is that it is possible to defend exploitation in its name. Liberty was a beloved concept because it contained the idea that freedom could be used responsibly, but it still gets used in a way that defends exploitative and irresponsible economic and personal/social choices.

As a nation of immigrants, we've always had to deal with "wretched refuse longing to be free," but we've always maintained the hope and faith that human instinct can be refined to something higher. Consider these lyrics from America the Beautiful:

America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.

and

America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

Both hint at the problem a nation of migrants faces where people desperately pursue economic gain at the expense of conscience and good judgment. It is not just an American problem or a migrant problem, but a human one. We are flawed in our base nature, but we also possess the potential to improve and achieve 'nobleness' and 'divine (as opposed to worldly) gain.' We are supposed to have our flaws mended by learning awareness of good/bad and self-control to make good choices with our liberty. This is mostly undermined, however, by a media and educational culture that normalizes all the established economic patterns of exploitation and unsustainability because they are lucrative.

I am not sure ... but it seems like you are suggesting that Central American migrant are exploiting Americans. If so, you are more ridiculous than Layman.