Political Roundtable - Part VII

[Zonkerbl]

I miss hands

[dckingsfan]

Fine Nate--so stop immigration, eliminate the low wage immigrant worker from the workplace, and give those same jobs to Americans for 2-3x the salary. And then guess what happens...those huge corporations who sponsored these immigrants--your Doles, Del Monte's, restaurants, hotels, janitorial staffing companies--are all going to cry foul because they now have to pay American workers more money, which leads to less available jobs. And don't act like this isn't the truth.

Either way you slice it, if you limit immigration, the groups that benefit from it (mostly large corporations) are going to cry foul. And you know damn well the Republicans aren't going to pass anything that hurts large corporations.

And at the same time the Ds are going to protect the Entitlements - and there you have it...

Both sides are going to protect THEIR OWN entitlements.

yes, but I am capitalizing Entitlements (which is the combination of SS, Medicare and Medicaid + the debt required to keep them above water. Guessing you know that something needs to be done as well. It isn't one side that is causing the problem - it is the two working together.

[crackhed]

in other news, apparently donald trump is now advocating a national registry that will track muslims in america only.
to recap, donald trump intends to ..
- build a wall across the entire south border (with a beautiful gate)
- extract and deport 10million illegal immigrants
- register and track all muslims in america
- shut down suspicious mosques

makes sense to me that some support these policies. I disagree with them, but respect the positions.
what doesn't make sense is believing donald trump

[nate33]

in other news, apparently donald trump is now advocating a national registry that will track muslims in america only.
to recap, donald trump intends to ..
- build a wall across the entire south border (with a beautiful gate)
- extract and deport 10million illegal immigrants
- register and track all muslims in america
- shut down suspicious mosques

makes sense to me that some support these policies. I disagree with them, but respect the positions.
what doesn't make sense is believing donald trump

I haven't looked into the specifics of Trumps plan to track Muslims but it sounds like a really bad idea to me. I make a huge distinction between immigrants and U.S. citizens.

Immigrants aren't citizens. They don't have any constitutional rights and we don't have any moral or legal obligation to take care of them. I resent the notion that we have some duty to take care of the entire 3rd world when it can destroy our economy or put our people at risk. We'll take whatever immigrants we want to take, but nobody can tell us we have to take anybody.

U.S. citizens are an entirely different matter. U.S. citizens have constitutional rights. All must be treated equally. You can't single out somebody because of their religious beliefs. That's exactly why we have a 1st Amendment in the first place. This proposal completely violates the legal, moral and spiritual foundation of this nation.

I could understand if our law enforcement people paid slightly closer attention to certain mosques if they had intel that members of some mosques were collaborating with ISIS or other outside organizations tied with terrorists, just as I'm sure they pay closer attention to Mexican-American gangs who have known ties to Mexican drug cartels. But I absolutely would not condone singling out all mosques for "registration" just because they're mosques.

[dckingsfan]

And speaking about immigration - looks like the folks from Mexico are returning... so much for that as the key campaign issue.

http://tinyurl.com/p98g4vs

[nate33]

And speaking about immigration - looks like the folks from Mexico are returning... so much for that as the key campaign issue.

http://tinyurl.com/p98g4vs

Self deportation. It works.

[montestewart]

I miss hands

Me too. I talked about that a lot in other threads.

[crackhed]

in other news, apparently donald trump is now advocating a national registry that will track muslims in america only.
to recap, donald trump intends to ..
- build a wall across the entire south border (with a beautiful gate)
- extract and deport 10million illegal immigrants
- register and track all muslims in america
- shut down suspicious mosques

makes sense to me that some support these policies. I disagree with them, but respect the positions.
what doesn't make sense is believing donald trump

I haven't looked into the specifics of Trumps plan to track Muslims but it sounds like a really bad idea to me. I make a huge distinction between immigrants and U.S. citizens.

Immigrants aren't citizens. They don't have any constitutional rights and we don't have any moral or legal obligation to take care of them. I resent the notion that we have some duty to take care of the entire 3rd world when it can destroy our economy or put our people at risk. We'll take whatever immigrants we want to take, but nobody can tell us we have to take anybody.

U.S. citizens are an entirely different matter. U.S. citizens have constitutional rights. All must be treated equally. You can't single out somebody because of their religious beliefs. That's exactly why we have a 1st Amendment in the first place. This proposal completely violates the legal, moral and spiritual foundation of this nation.

I could understand if our law enforcement people paid slightly closer attention to certain mosques if they had intel that members of some mosques were collaborating with ISIS or other outside organizations tied with terrorists, just as I'm sure they pay closer attention to Mexican-American gangs who have known ties to Mexican drug cartels. But I absolutely would not condone singling out all mosques for "registration" just because they're mosques.

thx 4 responding, reasonable positions to take, i disagree with some of them but no big deal. but you didn't respond 2 the last point... let me break it up
- do you believe those stated goals can be delivered, and
- do you believe trump intends 2 deliver?

[nate33]

in other news, apparently donald trump is now advocating a national registry that will track muslims in america only.
to recap, donald trump intends to ..
- build a wall across the entire south border (with a beautiful gate)
- extract and deport 10million illegal immigrants
- register and track all muslims in america
- shut down suspicious mosques

makes sense to me that some support these policies. I disagree with them, but respect the positions.
what doesn't make sense is believing donald trump

I haven't looked into the specifics of Trumps plan to track Muslims but it sounds like a really bad idea to me. I make a huge distinction between immigrants and U.S. citizens.

Immigrants aren't citizens. They don't have any constitutional rights and we don't have any moral or legal obligation to take care of them. I resent the notion that we have some duty to take care of the entire 3rd world when it can destroy our economy or put our people at risk. We'll take whatever immigrants we want to take, but nobody can tell us we have to take anybody.

U.S. citizens are an entirely different matter. U.S. citizens have constitutional rights. All must be treated equally. You can't single out somebody because of their religious beliefs. That's exactly why we have a 1st Amendment in the first place. This proposal completely violates the legal, moral and spiritual foundation of this nation.

I could understand if our law enforcement people paid slightly closer attention to certain mosques if they had intel that members of some mosques were collaborating with ISIS or other outside organizations tied with terrorists, just as I'm sure they pay closer attention to Mexican-American gangs who have known ties to Mexican drug cartels. But I absolutely would not condone singling out all mosques for "registration" just because they're mosques.

thx 4 responding, reasonable positions to take, i disagree with some of them but no big deal. but you didn't respond 2 the last point... let me break it up
- do you believe those stated goals can be delivered, and
- do you believe trump intends 2 deliver?

I think the general essence of the state goals can be delivered. I recognize that he's taking an extreme stance so that he can back off a bit and still essentially get what he wants.

I think a working fence can be built across the southern border. It doesn't have to span the entire border, just the populated areas. It wouldn't bother me if drones replaced the wall in portions of the uninhabited desert. The rhetoric about Mexico paying for it is probably just for show.

I think if we implement e-verify, and otherwise make an actual effort to enforce immigration law, most of the illegal immigrants will simply leave. It won't require going door to door, rounding up 10 million people and putting them on buses to Mexico.

As I understand it, Trump never said he'd track Muslims. When asked by a reporter, he refused to rule it out. I think he intends to track refugees just as we should be tracking any immigrants before they obtain citizenship. It wouldn't surprise me if he told the FBI to pay special attention to mosques, but my guess is that they already are.

Ultimately, I think Trump is the only candidate who seriously intends to reduce the immigration of low-skill laborers. I think he is sincere about it, since it is the primary basis of his support. He is more serious than any other candidate who merely pays lip service to the issue and then implements amnesty as payback for campaign contributions from Big Business.

[Zonkerbl]

I think it would be fine to register and track all Muslims but why stop there? Let's register and track all handgun owners too. Hey, if we're going to ignore the Constitution in the name of self-defense, lets target the truly dangerous people - gun owners. They are responsible for infinitely more domestic terror than Muslims.

[nate33]

On the Muslim refugee issue, I just had a thought and I wanted to run it by those on this board who generally disagree with my politics. This isn't trolling, it's an honest attempt to provoke serious thought on the issue:

We are told that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people and only a vanishingly small minority are the extremists who promote terrorism. Many compare them to Christians. There were Christian-backed terrorist attacks on abortion clinics in the past for example. Since the proportion of radical terrorists within the Muslim community are so small, we have nothing to fear from admitting refugees. They are no different than Christians.

But think that through. Here, the number of radical Christians are so small, that we have rooted them out and/or won the ideological argument to such a degree that they have no power. We continue with our free, peaceful, democratic society with virtually no internal religious strife. We were never forced to run from our own country and ask to join other "safe" countries as refugees. So clearly, there is a difference between radical Christianity and radical Islam.

What is the difference?

The difference is that the radical Muslims are NOT a vanishingly small minority. They are a HUGE sub-group, perhaps even a majority, with enough followers and power to take over vast swaths of land and drive out the "moderate Muslims". For an ideology to produce THAT many radicals, one simply must re-evaluate the nature of the ideology as a whole. Clearly, there is something in the teachings of Islam that sows the seeds for radicalism. Do we really want that type of ideology to expand dramatically within our borders?

Is my logic flawed?

[Zonkerbl]

On the Muslim refugee issue, I just had a thought and I wanted to run it by those on this board who generally disagree with my politics. This isn't trolling, it's an honest attempt to provoke serious thought on the issue:

We are told that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people and only a vanishingly small minority are the extremists who promote terrorism. Many compare them to Christians. There were Christian-backed terrorist attacks on abortion clinics in the past for example. Since the proportion of radical terrorists within the Muslim community are so small, we have nothing to fear from admitting refugees. They are no different than Christians.

But think that through. Here, the number of radical Christians are so small, that we have rooted them out or won the ideological argument to such a degree that they have no power. We continue with our free, peaceful, democratic society with virtually no internal religious strife. We were never forced to run from our own country and ask to join other "safe" countries as refugees. So clearly, there is a difference between radical Christianity and radical Islam.

What is the difference?

The difference is that the radical Muslims are NOT a vanishingly small minority. They are a HUGE sub-group, perhaps even a majority, with enough followers and power to take over vast swaths of land and drive out the "moderate Muslims". For an ideology to produce THAT many radicals, one simply must re-evaluate the nature of the ideology as a whole. Clearly, there is something in the teachings of Islam that sows the seeds for radicalism. Do we really want that type of ideology to expand dramatically within our borders?

Is my logic flawed?

Most of the Islamic countries where terrorists come from were under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence during the Cold War and they adopted their sponsoring power's form of governance, totalitarianism. I think totalitarian countries are more likely to incubate terrorism, state-sponsored or otherwise. If there is an Islamic bias, it's not that Islam encourages terrorism more than other religions, but rather Islamic terrorists are more likely to target the West.

Well, let me put it this way. Totalitarian countries incubate violent radicalism. In Islamic countries, violent radicalism is more likely to be targeted at the West. Violent radicalism targeted at the West is what we call international terrorism.

[TheSecretWeapon]

On the Muslim refugee issue, I just had a thought and I wanted to run it by those on this board who generally disagree with my politics. This isn't trolling, it's an honest attempt to provoke serious thought on the issue:

We are told that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people and only a vanishingly small minority are the extremists who promote terrorism. Many compare them to Christians. There were Christian-backed terrorist attacks on abortion clinics in the past for example. Since the proportion of radical terrorists within the Muslim community are so small, we have nothing to fear from admitting refugees. They are no different than Christians.

But think that through. Here, the number of radical Christians are so small, that we have rooted them out or won the ideological argument to such a degree that they have no power. We continue with our free, peaceful, democratic society with virtually no internal religious strife. We were never forced to run from our own country and ask to join other "safe" countries as refugees. So clearly, there is a difference between radical Christianity and radical Islam.

What is the difference?

The difference is that the radical Muslims are NOT a vanishingly small minority. They are a HUGE sub-group, perhaps even a majority, with enough followers and power to take over vast swaths of land and drive out the "moderate Muslims". For an ideology to produce THAT many radicals, one simply must re-evaluate the nature of the ideology as a whole. Clearly, there is something in the teachings of Islam that sows the seeds for radicalism. Do we really want that type of ideology to expand dramatically within our borders?

Is my logic flawed?

Probably.

I think it could be that Christianity -- being an older religion -- is at a different point in its history. The Crusades, for example, started at about 1100 years into Christianity and ended around 1500-to-1600 more or less. Islam is about 1400 years old, so perhaps things will moderate over the next 100-200 years.

But, before we go too far into the weeds, what does "HUGE" mean?

A guy named Angel Rabasa, who studies and writes on this kind of topic, found while researching a book he co-wrote (Euro Jihad) that Western European intelligence agencies estimated that less than 1% of Muslims living within their borders are at risk for becoming radicals. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to become violent, though.

""Radicalization and violent extremism are two different things," Mr. Rabasa says. "Violent extremist behavior only comes about if a radicalized individual falls in with a circle of people who are open to using violence."

Estimates on the number of people who have joined ISIS range from 12,000 to 20,000. Weirdly, the 20,000 figure was in February of this year; the 12,000 from September.

[nate33]

Most of the Islamic countries where terrorists come from were under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence during the Cold War and they adopted their sponsoring power's form of governance, totalitarianism. I think totalitarian countries are more likely to incubate terrorism, state-sponsored or otherwise. If there is an Islamic bias, it's not that Islam encourages terrorism more than other religions, but rather Islamic terrorists are more likely to target the West.

Well, let me put it this way. Totalitarian countries incubate violent radicalism. In Islamic countries, violent radicalism is more likely to be targeted at the West. Violent radicalism targeted at the West is what we call terrorism.

Is that really true? Yes, the Soviet Union's sphere of influence encompassed Afghanistan and Syria, and perhaps portions of Iraq, but they didn't control Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, etc. Can we really blame it on totalitarian influence?

And if so, why isn't there similar widespread terrorism in China?

I can see the totalitarian angle as a potential hypothesis, at least as an influence, but I think it's a huge leap to make it the working theory. Occum's Razor suggests that Islam is the much more obvious commonality.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union hasn't been a major power in the region for 25 years. If it takes that long for the totalitarian influence to wane, do we really want to let them in here in hopes that it might get better 25 years from now?

[nate33]

I think it could be that Christianity -- being an older religion -- is at a different point in its history. The Crusades, for example, started at about 1100 years into Christianity and ended around 1500-to-1600 more or less. Islam is about 1400 years old, so perhaps things will moderate over the next 100-200 years.

I think this could very well be the case. But it doesn't address our current problem. In another 200 years, I might be more open to admitting a large contingent of Muslims.

But, before we go too far into the weeds, what does "HUGE" mean?

A guy named Angel Rabasa, who studies and writes on this kind of topic, found while researching a book he co-wrote (Euro Jihad) that Western European intelligence agencies estimated that less than 1% of Muslims living within their borders are at risk for becoming radicals. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to become violent, though.

""Radicalization and violent extremism are two different things," Mr. Rabasa says. "Violent extremist behavior only comes about if a radicalized individual falls in with a circle of people who are open to using violence."

Estimates on the number of people who have joined ISIS range from 12,000 to 20,000. Weirdly, the 20,000 figure was in February of this year; the 12,000 from September.

My definition of "HUGE" is "large enough to consolidate power and drive out the moderates". There may only be 1% of truly radical terrorist suicide bombers, but there's another 30% who sympathize with the cause to a large enough degree that they don't oppose it.

[TheSecretWeapon]

I think it could be that Christianity -- being an older religion -- is at a different point in its history. The Crusades, for example, started at about 1100 years into Christianity and ended around 1500-to-1600 more or less. Islam is about 1400 years old, so perhaps things will moderate over the next 100-200 years.

I think this could very well be the case. But it doesn't address our current problem. In another 200 years, I might be more open to admitting a large contingent of Muslims.

But, before we go too far into the weeds, what does "HUGE" mean?

A guy named Angel Rabasa, who studies and writes on this kind of topic, found while researching a book he co-wrote (Euro Jihad) that Western European intelligence agencies estimated that less than 1% of Muslims living within their borders are at risk for becoming radicals. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to become violent, though.

""Radicalization and violent extremism are two different things," Mr. Rabasa says. "Violent extremist behavior only comes about if a radicalized individual falls in with a circle of people who are open to using violence."

Estimates on the number of people who have joined ISIS range from 12,000 to 20,000. Weirdly, the 20,000 figure was in February of this year; the 12,000 from September.

My definition of "HUGE" is "large enough to consolidate power and drive out the moderates". There may only be 1% of truly radical terrorist suicide bombers, but there's another 30% who sympathize with the cause to a large enough degree that they don't oppose it.

I don't think there actually need to be that many "radicals" to consolidate power and drive out moderates. Honestly, I don't even think much of the radicalism is even religious, except as pretext. Basically, I think it boils down to people wanting power, and using the pretext of religion to stir resentments against the West, etc. I think the folks running ISIS (and other terrorist groups) are skilled at recruiting people who may be mentally ill and/or psychopaths to do their bidding. Which STILL doesn't solve our security issues, just sayin'.

I don't know about that 30% figure. It sounds high, but perhaps not.

In terms of solving our security issues, I think we're sorta back to a few basic options, none of which are all that great:

- beef up intel and interdiction operations -- try to discover and dismantle terror attacks before they can be carried out
- perform background checks on immigrants from everywhere -- as soon as we screen out "Muslims" terrorists will change tactics
- cobble together a coalition of nations to militarily defeat ISIS, disband the caliphate and drive terrorists back into caves

[nate33]

In terms of solving our security issues, I think we're sorta back to a few basic options, none of which are all that great:

- beef up intel and interdiction operations -- try to discover and dismantle terror attacks before they can be carried out
- perform background checks on immigrants from everywhere -- as soon as we screen out "Muslims" terrorists will change tactics
- cobble together a coalition of nations to militarily defeat ISIS, disband the caliphate and drive terrorists back into caves

Although our rhetoric may be different, I'd say our stance on these issues are very much similar.

1. Obviously we should always try to improve our intelligence operations. Eventually, you bump into privacy concerns, but at the very least, we need better analysis and intra-agency sharing of existing intel.

2. I agree that we should perform more thorough background checks of all immigrants. The issue here is, to what extent are the available records trustworthy enough for analysis? Syria, and most Middle Eastern countries in general, are highly corrupt, barely functioning governments. From what I've read, it's really easy to bribe the right officials to get the right documentation. If the official documentation can't be trusted, how can they be vetted? If they can't, then we're right back to my position - that Middle Eastern Muslims shouldn't be admitted unless there are extenuating circumstances which give us very high confidence in their peaceful assimilation.

3. I'd only be in favor of this step if that coalition consisted of and was run almost exclusively by Muslim countries in the region. The U.S. could provide some intelligence and perhaps some air support, but that's about it. I don't think that's going to happen. Every attempt at training and arming Muslim allies and sending them into battle has failed. They refuse to fight the extremist ideology, which is what gives me so much concern in the first place.

[nuposse04]

The problem with the terrorists in muslim nations extends beyond simply the quantity of terrorists. A sizable minority of populations in some muslim nations have a positive or indifferent view of ISIS and their ilk. I think it was 8 percent of Turkey had a positive view of ISIS, 8% of like 75 million people is a large amount, and turkey is a relatively moderate muslim nation. Now some of that might be explained with the fact that Kurds and turkish have some things to resolve but still. Places like Pakistan and Indonesia have pretty substantial sympathizers as well. In Pakistan's case a lot of animosity probably developed since the afghan war and drone wars killing civilians in their population.

There are reasons why the animosity exists but there are a sizable portion of Muslims that have a wayyy too literal interpretation of Koran and Hadiths.

And with many other problems, education over multiple over multiple generations should help extinguish that... but if you're gonna start with pointing the blame anywhere, I guess blame Saudi Arabia, lotta the nutjob mullahs come outta there.

[Zonkerbl]

Most of the Islamic countries where terrorists come from were under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence during the Cold War and they adopted their sponsoring power's form of governance, totalitarianism. I think totalitarian countries are more likely to incubate terrorism, state-sponsored or otherwise. If there is an Islamic bias, it's not that Islam encourages terrorism more than other religions, but rather Islamic terrorists are more likely to target the West.

Well, let me put it this way. Totalitarian countries incubate violent radicalism. In Islamic countries, violent radicalism is more likely to be targeted at the West. Violent radicalism targeted at the West is what we call terrorism.

Is that really true? Yes, the Soviet Union's sphere of influence encompassed Afghanistan and Syria, and perhaps portions of Iraq, but they didn't control Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, etc. Can we really blame it on totalitarian influence?

And if so, why isn't there similar widespread terrorism in China?

I can see the totalitarian angle as a potential hypothesis, at least as an influence, but I think it's a huge leap to make it the working theory. Occum's Razor suggests that Islam is the much more obvious commonality.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union hasn't been a major power in the region for 25 years. If it takes that long for the totalitarian influence to wane, do we really want to let them in here in hopes that it might get better 25 years from now?

I still put forward that totalitarianism leads to the violentisation of radicals. In some totalitarian states like China (or the Soviet Union) the violent radicals are the government. My hypothesis is that radicals exist in every country, radicalism is more likely to be violent in totalitarian or failed states, and that violent radicalism is more likely to turn into international terrorism in Islamic states. I think that's a defensible way of stating what you are trying to say, Nate.

Everybody perceives the world in black and white, good guys and bad guys. I think it's fair to say the Islamic world perceives us as the enemy (just like we apparently view them as the enemy). Yes, we are allowed to try to keep certain people out - we were very hostile to Communists and I don't think anyone besides the Communists objected. I don't think we should give a religious group the same treatment is all. It's not the same risk.

[Zonkerbl]

The problem with the terrorists in muslim nations extends beyond simply the quantity of terrorists. A sizable minority of populations in some muslim nations have a positive or indifferent view of ISIS and their ilk. I think it was 8 percent of Turkey had a positive view of ISIS, 8% of like 75 million people is a large amount, and turkey is a relatively moderate muslim nation. Now some of that might be explained with the fact that Kurds and turkish have some things to resolve but still. Places like Pakistan and Indonesia have pretty substantial sympathizers as well. In Pakistan's case a lot of animosity probably developed since the afghan war and drone wars killing civilians in their population.

There are reasons why the animosity exists but there are a sizable portion of Muslims that have a wayyy too literal interpretation of Koran and Hadiths.

And with many other problems, education over multiple over multiple generations should help extinguish that... but if you're gonna start with pointing the blame anywhere, I guess blame Saudi Arabia, lotta the nutjob mullahs come outta there.

This is my point - there are small unhappy minorities in every country in the world. The unhappy minorities in Islamic states turn their unhappiness towards us for some reason. But that doesn't make Islam a violent religion, it's just one that's relatively more likely to produce anti-Western sentiment. And that's not the religion itself but the history of the region that happens to be Muslim.