As a veteran, I have optimism these active duty military troops will recognize their duty. "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". ICE is the best example of a domestic enemy I have seen.
(a) Enlistment Oath.- Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:
I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
Law of war training for new troops was eliminated back in April.[1] The core concept that members of the US military have a duty to resist illegal orders is no longer taught to troops.
Recall Trump's comments after several US members of Congress made a video along the lines of "you must refuse illegal orders." Trump called this "seditious behavior, punishable by DEATH!"[2]
The parts of the command structure, Inspectors General and attorneys in the Judge Advocate General's office, that are supposed to enforce that have been gutted.[1] Secretary Hegseth said that the removals were necessary because he didn't want them to pose any "roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief."
This is setting things up for a real conflict. Protesters, National Guard called by Walz, Troops coming in. I am absolutely certain the 1500 soldiers going in are hand-selected MAGA morons. Checkmate ... martial law declared!
The militias are cosplaying cowards, the actual people of Minnesota are ramping up and succeeding in resisting ICE. There is a nonzero chance there will be a standoff between the national guard and the army in Minneapolis.
Trump is trying to incite an insurrection so he politically gets a free hand to do whatever he wants. If Congress and the courts are too slow or too cowardly to get anything done, he might get what he wants.
> The Militia Act of 1903 divided what had been the militia into what it termed the "organized" militia, created from portions of the former state guards to become state National Guard units
yes, the present national guard is very much a government entity, and held to the same training standards as federal armed forces. they regularily hold joint training.
the people at large however are not prevented from forming a militia or a posse, or volunteering to be deputized by a local police force.
the common element is that they are responding to a domestic threat originated from government activities.
the original conception of american government insists that the government exist at the consent of the governed, in service of the governed, and this consent is revoked when that government fails to colour inside the lines when interpreting the constitution of the USA
The definition of "militias" tends to depend on your political affiliation and the interpretation of that word is often a strong argument determined by how you felt about the 2nd amendment.
The framers certainly didn't think of militias either as the professional standing force that is the national guard nor could they probably even conceive of these little gun enthusiast wannabe paramilitary groups (or maybe if they wondered what if Don Quixote was an enormous asshole and also a small group instead of just a man)
But you get a group of people together, arm them, and give them the goal of being ready to use those arms for one purpose or another... that's a militia. It's a pretty broad term lots of folks want to shove into a pretty narrow definition.
Many Americans don't value the 2nd amendment very much. Public opinion in Minnesota in particular, is largely in favour of strict gun laws. Many anti-gun advocates claim that developing a militia against the government is futile and even counterproductive.
> Public opinion in Minnesota in particular, is largely in favour of strict gun laws. Many anti-gun advocates claim that developing a militia against the government is futile and even counterproductive.
regulation of a militia. the apocrypha is that "the people" have uninfringed rights to arms, as a counter to a militia that is conveying tyranny.
i have read, in various places, that the last straw initiating foment of open revolution was when the kings militia began "taking liberties" with the wives and daughters of the colonists. piecemeal resistance, consolidated to a social movement, and the "shot heard around the world" was loosed.
Just the possibility of an armed population resisting still gives them pause. But we're not at the level of the theoretical threat becoming realized.
If the people too eagerly exercise it they'll be used as justification for further oppression. Resistance is political. Unfortunately most of our politicians are spineless cowards on both sides.
But it is not at all a mystery about how things got to be the way they were in the 1930s. I've heard people I know advocate for atrocities.
After the Civil War, nearly all states gave up on maintaining their own independent militia and they became the National Guard (a few states maintain poorly provisioned state guards). Ostensibly the Guard is run by the states but can be federalized at any time. Previous presidents only used that to deploy the Guard overseas, with a few exceptions (notably Eisenhower, to enforce the early civil rights legislation and court decisions). Unfortunately those powers were never reformed, so Trump has already deployed them domestically (though there have been court decisions against that), but it effectively means states can't use the Guard to protect against federal aggression (it would simply be immediately federalized). Any attempt to actually deploy state troops against federal law enforcement, even when they're aren't justly enforcing laws, would be met with the Insurrection Act, allowing the deployment of active duty troops against the states, not just the Guard. Trump has been eagerly awaiting that moment, as it would allow him to completely cut the state off from the rest of the country, including Congress (you're in rebellion, you have no representation), and lock their elections in legal limbo.
Nowadays, the 2A is used simply to guarantee gun access to individuals, a movement underway since the early civil rights movement in the late '50s and largely confirmed with the Heller decision in '08. Unfortunately, that movement didn't bring any right to actually resist government overreach, which is why we haven't seen citizen militias form to violently resist ICE's own violence. They'd simply be killed and imprisoned and used to justify an increase in violence.
Personally, these events have really exposed the moral bankruptcy of the modern 2A movement. They want guns, and the attendant increase in shootings that accompany that, but have brought no real ability to resist government violence along with it. So we have the negative without the purported positive.
Obviously the next Congress and President will need to reform how the Guard works and how it can be deployed, otherwise we'll see this again.
Because of the fraud scandal and the concentration of cases among the Somali community there (that those people are generally citizens and not immigrants or refugees is besides the point to the administration). The MN fraud story is a huge big deal in conservative media.
No, but the premise of the ICE/CBP flood to MN is that the fraud is being conducted by deportable people. Note that ICE/CBP has no statutory authority to enforce fraud laws.
My understanding is that the "flood" is due to the state not assisting and arguably impeding ICE, vs states like Florida where the state is cooperating so they don't need as much ICE to do the work. It sounds like the fraud is being used as a red herring by detractors.
AFAIK, committing fraud does not protect illegal immigrants from deportation, which seems to be the implied conclusion here. If ICE deports illegal immigrants who are also committing fraud, I can't see how that is a minus rather than a plus.
Might have to do with the size of the city - I've heard through the grapevine that even Minneapolis is too big and they're thinking of shifting to some city in Maine or New Hampshire.
"Too big" supposedly meaning orchestrating something that allows them to have the optics without the potential for fallout. This is really speculation though.
They found a weakness to justify an increase in violence to their base: the day care corruption. Despite the fact that most of that was found and prosecuted years ago, right-wing influencers were successfully able to bring it back to the forefront, and the administration jumped on it to justify an increased ICE presence, naturally leading to the violence we see. They didn't get the same thing in Chicago, where ICE avoided most of the areas likely to see violence in the first place. And they didn't leave Chicago, they just aren't publicizing it like they were.
I'm not especially in the know about such things. Is there a Chicago politician that crossed Trump such that revenge against Chicago would be in the cards? I assume this is about Walz running against him. It would be California (due to Harris) but they're probably in a better position to fight back than Michigan is.
It's amazing and sad to watch Republicans so quickly forget what 'Republic' means as they trash State Sovereignty and lick the Federal Boot...MAGA means RINO.
I used to have that perspective, but I actually think it's even simpler than selective application of principles or hypocrisy as the parent commentator put it. It's not so much that they believe in an ideal but struggle to apply it when doing so isn't in their favor and more that their guiding premise is that things should always go their way and they adopt the language, but not the intent, of a deeper principle because it sounds like a better justification.
You may not have meant to excuse the sad state we are in by presenting the "both sides are bad" argument. But it does have a strong whiff of it.
Both sides are bad. No doubt about it. It has always been that way. But, one side takes being bad to a whole new level.
Our choice has always been between bad and less bad. The voters decided to pull the lever for "massively bad" during the last presidential election because they could not tell the difference.
We get to give one bit of feedback to "the system" every four years. After four years of Trump, the feedback was "we don't want that". After four years of Biden, the feedback was "not that, either".
My impression of the US electorate is that they don't want illegal immigration, at least not in the volume and with the openness it was happening. They don't want immigrant trains rolling through Mexico. But they don't want the brutality and violence of the current crackdown, either.
They don't want trans people on womens' sports teams, and they don't want the US taking over Greenland.
And so on.
So after four years, the majority of voters were choosing "not Biden, and not the Biden things we don't like" rather than "yes Trump".
The place where it was "yes Trump" was the Republican primary. If you want to fix US politics, get involved with a political party - either one - and have some influence on who comes out of the primary process.
The politics of fear stoked by two sets of extremists egging eachother on is the core reason we're in this mess, the failure to reject both simultaneously and the desire to rule with feelings instead of facts caused it all.
I'm not a "whatabout" guy, I'm actively opposed to both extremes. The far left is just as capable of ruling with violence as the far right, they just haven't got the opportunity in this country yet.
The politics of emotion and absolutism is the cause, which flavor of extremism you pick isn't the core issue.
>The politics of fear stoked by two sets of extremists egging eachother on is the core reason we're in this mess, the failure to reject both simultaneously and the desire to rule with feelings instead of facts caused it all.
Pol Pot[0] was a leftist extremist. Chairman Mao[1] was a leftist extremist. As were the Red Brigades[2] and the Symbionese Liberation Army[3], etc., etc., ,etc. Who in the US Democratic Party advocates for the same things as those guys? Let's see. No one.
In fact, the only ones in the US who've shown an interest in nationalizing the means of production (c.f. Intel) or putting down the Intelligentsia and normalizing violence against those who criticize the regime are just one set of extremists. Because extremists end up going full circle -- because for them it's about power and not ideology.
Wrong. Neither the center-right nor far-right support unrestrained illegal immigration. And yet that is exactly what has been happening. The far-left controls a lot more than you want to admit.
The "far left" statistically doesn't even exist in the USA. Less than 1% of the population and less than 0.01% of elected politicians. Effectively zero. No major national or state politicians call for seizing the means of production, a centrally planned economy, widespread price controls, Great Leaps Forward, and so on. The far right has us all convinced that anything to the left of Reagan is "far left".
You can pretend all you want. The proof is in the reality of what we see. Mass illegal immigration is not a center-right or even left position. It's a "far left" position that has had enough political power to be enforced for years now.
That's the most disingenuous argument yet, that completely ignores reality.
The libertarian party does NOT advocate for illegal immigration today. Only once NAP-violating governments are abolished, do they contend that the harmful effects of unconstrained immigration are non-existent. They argue that if you want complete freedom of movement, you must first give up all claim to nonconsensual government force, including taxation and redistribution of wealth. And even the most radical of libertarians include a "non-aggression" exception. They support screening to exclude violent criminals, security threats, and health risks. All of which are impossible if there is no monitoring or reasonable enforcement.
You know _damn well_ that in the context of actual politics in America as they stand TODAY, open immigration is a FAR LEFT position. It's undeniable to anyone arguing in good faith.
Every accusation is a confession, rules for me not for thee, it's been like that for many years. Hell, 'member Clinton and the blowjob? The problem wasn't the blowjob, the problem was that Clinton let himself get caught and exposed.
Or, specifically to the situation at hand, there's yet another famous quote applicable: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
It's completely obvious what ICE and the ordinary citizens of all blue regions are, respectively.
This presidency reminds me a lot this speech from Knives Out: Onion Ring:
“ If you want to shake things up, you start with something small. You break a norm or an idea or a convention, some little business model, but you go with things that people are kind of tired of anyway. Everybody gets excited because you're busting up something that everyone wanted broken in the first place. That's the infraction point. That's the place where you have to look within yourself, and ask: Am I the kind of person who will keep going? Will you break more things? Break bigger things? Be willing to break the thing that nobody wants you to break? Because at that point, people are not going to be on your side. They're going to call you crazy. They're gonna say you're a bully. They're gonna tell you to stop. Even your partner will say you need to stop. Because as it turns out, nobody wants you to break the system itself. But that is what true disruption is, and that is what unites all of us. We all got to that line, and crossed it.‘
It’s like the following this recipe to break the system
Genuine question to US folks: Why do you guys seem to be hell bent on keeping and welcoming large number of illegal immigrants in your country? Almost no other country does that except western ones. From an outsider’s viewpoint, current approach of letting almost anyone in does not seem to work that well.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
> From an outsider’s viewpoint, current approach of letting almost anyone in does not seem to work that well.
By what metric do you make this determination?
From a crime perspective, legal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens, and illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes still.
From an economic perspective, immigrants of all stripes tend to work harder than native-born citizens so they can establish themselves here. They contribute to society, pay their taxes, and in the case of illegal immigrants, aren't even afforded its protections and services.
The only metric by which I could see an argument that immigration has backfired is in political unrest, but that's mostly due to the fact that the right-wing media has been stoking panic over immigration for decades - anything to distract from how easily we're being fleeced by the wealthy and powerful.
The US is a huge country with a massive economy and large borders. There are many jobs for migrants to do. It's why at times Trump has appeared to backtrack on hardline deportation stance, saying undocumented farm and hotel workers are hard working and needed. Likely because businesses called him worried they would lose too many workers.
As a veteran, I have optimism these active duty military troops will recognize their duty. "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". ICE is the best example of a domestic enemy I have seen.
The full oath is as follows
10 U.S.C. S: 502
S: 502. Enlistment oath: who may administer
(a) Enlistment Oath.- Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:
I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."
Law of war training for new troops was eliminated back in April.[1] The core concept that members of the US military have a duty to resist illegal orders is no longer taught to troops.
Recall Trump's comments after several US members of Congress made a video along the lines of "you must refuse illegal orders." Trump called this "seditious behavior, punishable by DEATH!"[2]
[1] https://www.veterannews.org/veteran-news/army-eliminates-sev...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2025/11/20/nx-s1-5615190/trump-democrats...
That's not good, but their command structure will still have learned the LOAC, right?
The parts of the command structure, Inspectors General and attorneys in the Judge Advocate General's office, that are supposed to enforce that have been gutted.[1] Secretary Hegseth said that the removals were necessary because he didn't want them to pose any "roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief."
[1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/02/24/people-are-ve...
I'm suspecting they'd stay neutral, but even that would be better than ICE alone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46666605
This is setting things up for a real conflict. Protesters, National Guard called by Walz, Troops coming in. I am absolutely certain the 1500 soldiers going in are hand-selected MAGA morons. Checkmate ... martial law declared!
I'd be surprised if Walz has the spine to deploy the Guard in response.
Guard already deployed by Walz. How used, what will change, what will actually happen is up in the air.
Infowars has been warning for decades this would happen, clearly just projection, where are all the militias vowing they would oppose this?
They all joined ICE.
The militias are cosplaying cowards, the actual people of Minnesota are ramping up and succeeding in resisting ICE. There is a nonzero chance there will be a standoff between the national guard and the army in Minneapolis.
Trump is trying to incite an insurrection so he politically gets a free hand to do whatever he wants. If Congress and the courts are too slow or too cowardly to get anything done, he might get what he wants.
What militias? I always thought the state nat guard were the modern militias not the fat old man LARPers you hear talking in gun stores.
civilians vs persons enlisted as government forces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia
US from your link
> The Militia Act of 1903 divided what had been the militia into what it termed the "organized" militia, created from portions of the former state guards to become state National Guard units
yes, the present national guard is very much a government entity, and held to the same training standards as federal armed forces. they regularily hold joint training.
the people at large however are not prevented from forming a militia or a posse, or volunteering to be deputized by a local police force.
the common element is that they are responding to a domestic threat originated from government activities.
the original conception of american government insists that the government exist at the consent of the governed, in service of the governed, and this consent is revoked when that government fails to colour inside the lines when interpreting the constitution of the USA
Many US states also have a state guard that is under the sole control of the state government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force
These forces are distinct from the state's National Guard and cannot be federalized.
The definition of "militias" tends to depend on your political affiliation and the interpretation of that word is often a strong argument determined by how you felt about the 2nd amendment.
The framers certainly didn't think of militias either as the professional standing force that is the national guard nor could they probably even conceive of these little gun enthusiast wannabe paramilitary groups (or maybe if they wondered what if Don Quixote was an enormous asshole and also a small group instead of just a man)
But you get a group of people together, arm them, and give them the goal of being ready to use those arms for one purpose or another... that's a militia. It's a pretty broad term lots of folks want to shove into a pretty narrow definition.
They only show up when another kid shot their parents in the face.
French here, what was the the 2nd Amendment already?
> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
A yes, "necessary to the security of a free State", so, what about it?
Many Americans don't value the 2nd amendment very much. Public opinion in Minnesota in particular, is largely in favour of strict gun laws. Many anti-gun advocates claim that developing a militia against the government is futile and even counterproductive.
> Public opinion in Minnesota in particular, is largely in favour of strict gun laws. Many anti-gun advocates claim that developing a militia against the government is futile and even counterproductive.
So a "have your cake and eat it too" situation.
regulation of a militia. the apocrypha is that "the people" have uninfringed rights to arms, as a counter to a militia that is conveying tyranny.
i have read, in various places, that the last straw initiating foment of open revolution was when the kings militia began "taking liberties" with the wives and daughters of the colonists. piecemeal resistance, consolidated to a social movement, and the "shot heard around the world" was loosed.
We're not yet at the level yet.
Just the possibility of an armed population resisting still gives them pause. But we're not at the level of the theoretical threat becoming realized.
If the people too eagerly exercise it they'll be used as justification for further oppression. Resistance is political. Unfortunately most of our politicians are spineless cowards on both sides.
But it is not at all a mystery about how things got to be the way they were in the 1930s. I've heard people I know advocate for atrocities.
After the Civil War, nearly all states gave up on maintaining their own independent militia and they became the National Guard (a few states maintain poorly provisioned state guards). Ostensibly the Guard is run by the states but can be federalized at any time. Previous presidents only used that to deploy the Guard overseas, with a few exceptions (notably Eisenhower, to enforce the early civil rights legislation and court decisions). Unfortunately those powers were never reformed, so Trump has already deployed them domestically (though there have been court decisions against that), but it effectively means states can't use the Guard to protect against federal aggression (it would simply be immediately federalized). Any attempt to actually deploy state troops against federal law enforcement, even when they're aren't justly enforcing laws, would be met with the Insurrection Act, allowing the deployment of active duty troops against the states, not just the Guard. Trump has been eagerly awaiting that moment, as it would allow him to completely cut the state off from the rest of the country, including Congress (you're in rebellion, you have no representation), and lock their elections in legal limbo.
Nowadays, the 2A is used simply to guarantee gun access to individuals, a movement underway since the early civil rights movement in the late '50s and largely confirmed with the Heller decision in '08. Unfortunately, that movement didn't bring any right to actually resist government overreach, which is why we haven't seen citizen militias form to violently resist ICE's own violence. They'd simply be killed and imprisoned and used to justify an increase in violence.
Personally, these events have really exposed the moral bankruptcy of the modern 2A movement. They want guns, and the attendant increase in shootings that accompany that, but have brought no real ability to resist government violence along with it. So we have the negative without the purported positive.
Obviously the next Congress and President will need to reform how the Guard works and how it can be deployed, otherwise we'll see this again.
The cold weather there may be a great way to prepare for the assault on Greenland. (Mostly joking :)
Anchorage is closer to Nuuk than to Minneapolis by air... Just saying.
Almost as close, sorry.
Why did Minneapolis end up getting more ire than Chicago? I thought it was Chicago that Trump wouldn't shut up about this whole time
Because of the fraud scandal and the concentration of cases among the Somali community there (that those people are generally citizens and not immigrants or refugees is besides the point to the administration). The MN fraud story is a huge big deal in conservative media.
And the ringleader of the fraud was a white woman who is awaiting sentencing, but they ignore that part
The fact that she's awaiting sentencing suggests they didn't ignore her as much as she may have liked.
That was just one case. There's a lot of other decentralized fraud that had nothing to do with that person.
Is fraud legal for citizens? (Since you brought it up as a point)
No, but the premise of the ICE/CBP flood to MN is that the fraud is being conducted by deportable people. Note that ICE/CBP has no statutory authority to enforce fraud laws.
My understanding is that the "flood" is due to the state not assisting and arguably impeding ICE, vs states like Florida where the state is cooperating so they don't need as much ICE to do the work. It sounds like the fraud is being used as a red herring by detractors.
AFAIK, committing fraud does not protect illegal immigrants from deportation, which seems to be the implied conclusion here. If ICE deports illegal immigrants who are also committing fraud, I can't see how that is a minus rather than a plus.
Nobody claimed that "committing fraud protects illegal immigrants from deportation", and I don't understand how that even makes sense.
Might have to do with the size of the city - I've heard through the grapevine that even Minneapolis is too big and they're thinking of shifting to some city in Maine or New Hampshire.
"Too big" supposedly meaning orchestrating something that allows them to have the optics without the potential for fallout. This is really speculation though.
Would George Floyd have anything to do with it? Or is that just coincidence?
They found a weakness to justify an increase in violence to their base: the day care corruption. Despite the fact that most of that was found and prosecuted years ago, right-wing influencers were successfully able to bring it back to the forefront, and the administration jumped on it to justify an increased ICE presence, naturally leading to the violence we see. They didn't get the same thing in Chicago, where ICE avoided most of the areas likely to see violence in the first place. And they didn't leave Chicago, they just aren't publicizing it like they were.
I'm not especially in the know about such things. Is there a Chicago politician that crossed Trump such that revenge against Chicago would be in the cards? I assume this is about Walz running against him. It would be California (due to Harris) but they're probably in a better position to fight back than Michigan is.
Fortunately they have the second amendment to protect themselves from an oppressive government.
> Around 1,500 soldiers on standby for deployment to Minneapolis
If you don't come to democracy, democracy comes to you.
It's amazing and sad to watch Republicans so quickly forget what 'Republic' means as they trash State Sovereignty and lick the Federal Boot...MAGA means RINO.
I guess "Don't Tread on Me" and states rights are just for red states. It's shameful watching all the hypocrisy.
So many people are like this. Their ideals only apply when they benefit people they like.
I used to have that perspective, but I actually think it's even simpler than selective application of principles or hypocrisy as the parent commentator put it. It's not so much that they believe in an ideal but struggle to apply it when doing so isn't in their favor and more that their guiding premise is that things should always go their way and they adopt the language, but not the intent, of a deeper principle because it sounds like a better justification.
We don't disagree. I suppose "their ideals only apply when... " and saying "they don't actually hold the ideals they claim" really are the same thing.
You may not have meant to excuse the sad state we are in by presenting the "both sides are bad" argument. But it does have a strong whiff of it.
Both sides are bad. No doubt about it. It has always been that way. But, one side takes being bad to a whole new level.
Our choice has always been between bad and less bad. The voters decided to pull the lever for "massively bad" during the last presidential election because they could not tell the difference.
In agreement with sibling colechristensen but wanted to add.
>The voters decided to pull the lever for "massively bad" during the last presidential election because they could not tell the difference.
That is being intellectually dishonest, we had already had 4 years of Trump and similarly had 4 years of Kahmala with Biden.
Saying they were ignorant or didn't understand is to ignore the electorate and their issues.
The problem is pervasive propaganda and information bubbles...i.e., systemic.
We get to give one bit of feedback to "the system" every four years. After four years of Trump, the feedback was "we don't want that". After four years of Biden, the feedback was "not that, either".
My impression of the US electorate is that they don't want illegal immigration, at least not in the volume and with the openness it was happening. They don't want immigrant trains rolling through Mexico. But they don't want the brutality and violence of the current crackdown, either.
They don't want trans people on womens' sports teams, and they don't want the US taking over Greenland.
And so on.
So after four years, the majority of voters were choosing "not Biden, and not the Biden things we don't like" rather than "yes Trump".
The place where it was "yes Trump" was the Republican primary. If you want to fix US politics, get involved with a political party - either one - and have some influence on who comes out of the primary process.
The politics of fear stoked by two sets of extremists egging eachother on is the core reason we're in this mess, the failure to reject both simultaneously and the desire to rule with feelings instead of facts caused it all.
I'm not a "whatabout" guy, I'm actively opposed to both extremes. The far left is just as capable of ruling with violence as the far right, they just haven't got the opportunity in this country yet.
The politics of emotion and absolutism is the cause, which flavor of extremism you pick isn't the core issue.
>The politics of fear stoked by two sets of extremists egging eachother on is the core reason we're in this mess, the failure to reject both simultaneously and the desire to rule with feelings instead of facts caused it all.
Pol Pot[0] was a leftist extremist. Chairman Mao[1] was a leftist extremist. As were the Red Brigades[2] and the Symbionese Liberation Army[3], etc., etc., ,etc. Who in the US Democratic Party advocates for the same things as those guys? Let's see. No one.
In fact, the only ones in the US who've shown an interest in nationalizing the means of production (c.f. Intel) or putting down the Intelligentsia and normalizing violence against those who criticize the regime are just one set of extremists. Because extremists end up going full circle -- because for them it's about power and not ideology.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Brigades
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
> The politics of fear stoked by two sets of extremists egging eachother on is the core reason we're in this mess,
How could you possibly think that the establishment dems that have formed government are 'a set of extremists'?
I'm mostly writing about the electorate here.
> The far left is just as capable of ruling with violence as the far right, they just haven't got the opportunity in this country yet.
So why are you pointing at far-left then? In US there are only two parties. Center-right and far-right.
Wrong. Neither the center-right nor far-right support unrestrained illegal immigration. And yet that is exactly what has been happening. The far-left controls a lot more than you want to admit.
The "far left" statistically doesn't even exist in the USA. Less than 1% of the population and less than 0.01% of elected politicians. Effectively zero. No major national or state politicians call for seizing the means of production, a centrally planned economy, widespread price controls, Great Leaps Forward, and so on. The far right has us all convinced that anything to the left of Reagan is "far left".
You can pretend all you want. The proof is in the reality of what we see. Mass illegal immigration is not a center-right or even left position. It's a "far left" position that has had enough political power to be enforced for years now.
The Libertarian Party advocates for free and open immigration. Are you going to sit here and tell us that the Libertarians are far-left?
That's the most disingenuous argument yet, that completely ignores reality.
The libertarian party does NOT advocate for illegal immigration today. Only once NAP-violating governments are abolished, do they contend that the harmful effects of unconstrained immigration are non-existent. They argue that if you want complete freedom of movement, you must first give up all claim to nonconsensual government force, including taxation and redistribution of wealth. And even the most radical of libertarians include a "non-aggression" exception. They support screening to exclude violent criminals, security threats, and health risks. All of which are impossible if there is no monitoring or reasonable enforcement.
You know _damn well_ that in the context of actual politics in America as they stand TODAY, open immigration is a FAR LEFT position. It's undeniable to anyone arguing in good faith.
I'm talking about the far left in the US relative to the rest of the population, not some theoretical political spectrum you're imagining.
We're not talking about the same things.
Every accusation is a confession, rules for me not for thee, it's been like that for many years. Hell, 'member Clinton and the blowjob? The problem wasn't the blowjob, the problem was that Clinton let himself get caught and exposed.
Or, specifically to the situation at hand, there's yet another famous quote applicable: Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
It's completely obvious what ICE and the ordinary citizens of all blue regions are, respectively.
Any time the red states brought up "States Rights", the response from the other side was "States rights to what? Oh...you mean slavery."
So what States Rights are we supporting now?
Both sides are very good at developing and using tactics against the other then acting surprised Pikachu when it is turned back on them.
Look at journalists and "Learn to Code"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19358725
This presidency reminds me a lot this speech from Knives Out: Onion Ring:
“ If you want to shake things up, you start with something small. You break a norm or an idea or a convention, some little business model, but you go with things that people are kind of tired of anyway. Everybody gets excited because you're busting up something that everyone wanted broken in the first place. That's the infraction point. That's the place where you have to look within yourself, and ask: Am I the kind of person who will keep going? Will you break more things? Break bigger things? Be willing to break the thing that nobody wants you to break? Because at that point, people are not going to be on your side. They're going to call you crazy. They're gonna say you're a bully. They're gonna tell you to stop. Even your partner will say you need to stop. Because as it turns out, nobody wants you to break the system itself. But that is what true disruption is, and that is what unites all of us. We all got to that line, and crossed it.‘
It’s like the following this recipe to break the system
It's Knives Out: Glass Onion, but I'll take Onion Ring because it's Monday morning and I need a laugh before signing on.
As the saying goes, the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of the weak and the marginalized.
Genuine question to US folks: Why do you guys seem to be hell bent on keeping and welcoming large number of illegal immigrants in your country? Almost no other country does that except western ones. From an outsider’s viewpoint, current approach of letting almost anyone in does not seem to work that well.
> From an outsider’s viewpoint, current approach of letting almost anyone in does not seem to work that well.
By what metric do you make this determination?
From a crime perspective, legal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens, and illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes still.
From an economic perspective, immigrants of all stripes tend to work harder than native-born citizens so they can establish themselves here. They contribute to society, pay their taxes, and in the case of illegal immigrants, aren't even afforded its protections and services.
The only metric by which I could see an argument that immigration has backfired is in political unrest, but that's mostly due to the fact that the right-wing media has been stoking panic over immigration for decades - anything to distract from how easily we're being fleeced by the wealthy and powerful.
The US is a huge country with a massive economy and large borders. There are many jobs for migrants to do. It's why at times Trump has appeared to backtrack on hardline deportation stance, saying undocumented farm and hotel workers are hard working and needed. Likely because businesses called him worried they would lose too many workers.