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National Emergency

On the Facebooks, I posted an article about Trump’s declaration and pointed out that there is no security crisis on the southern border. An old high school classmate’s response was, “So you’re for open borders?”

To my mind, this is a false dilemma bordering on (no pun intended) non sequitor. Why would no border wall over terrain that few, if any, make the attempt to cross necessarily equate to open borders? It’s a solution in need of a problem, so Trump merely imagined one.
 
On the Facebooks, I posted an article about Trump’s declaration and pointed out that there is no security crisis on the southern border. An old high school classmate’s response was, “So you’re for open borders?”

To my mind, this is a false dilemma bordering on (no pun intended) non sequitor. Why would no border wall over terrain that few, if any, make the attempt to cross necessarily equate to open borders? It’s a solution in need of a problem, so Trump merely imagined one.

I'm for open borders. You go tell them that someone who is actually for open borders doesn't think you are.
 
In case any of y'all missed Trump's sing-songy routine during the emergency announcement, prepare to cringe with embarrassment and/or laugh your ass off, take your pick.

 
On the Facebooks, I posted an article about Trump’s declaration and pointed out that there is no security crisis on the southern border. An old high school classmate’s response was, “So you’re for open borders?”

To my mind, this is a false dilemma bordering on (no pun intended) non sequitor. Why would no border wall over terrain that few, if any, make the attempt to cross necessarily equate to open borders? It’s a solution in need of a problem, so Trump merely imagined one.
When I think about it, the term open borders has at least two different meanings.
1. It could refer to a physical barrier that would distinguish between the border of two different countries. Lack of a barrier would make that space open.
2. It could also refer to two different nations whom view every humans as sovereign, thereby some or all of those nations allow free and uninhibited travel from one territory to another.

Do you support either of the definitions I provided for open borders?

When Obama was president he declared a humanitarian crisis at the border. Very very few took issue with that statement. The major media platforms backed him up. Trump also believes that there is a crisis at the border. There is no debate on whether or not there is a crisis at the border; the debate is whether the US citizens should be concerned for themselves or non-citizens. The answer is the US should be concerned for both.

Do you know the story of Mexican Texas? While I was visiting the Arch in St Louis they had a slide show that taught me all about it.

A couple hundred years ago, Mexico owned the territory known today as Texas. The Mexican government did not control immigration to this Mexican territory. When Mexico realized that they were loosing this territory to US citizens they enacted a law that forbid US immigrants, but it was too late. A war ensued and Mexico Texas because a US territory and was renamed to Texas (It would have been just as easy for the inhabitants living in this territory to have taken the peaceful route of voting their allegiance to the US. God Bless Democracy).

This is a cautionary tale; the US took ownership of Texas due to Mexico's lack of control of US immigrants into their territory.
This completely transformed the lives of the people whom lived in this territory. Concern for uncontrolled immigration into a country isn't automatically racist or bigoted, sometimes it's a realistic concern that has been proven possible by historical examples.
 
When I think about it, the term open borders has at least two different meanings.
1. It could refer to a physical barrier that would distinguish between the border of two different countries. Lack of a barrier would make that space open.
2. It could also refer to two different nations whom view every humans as sovereign, thereby some or all of those nations allow free and uninhibited travel from one territory to another.

Do you support either of the definitions I provided for open borders?

When Obama was president he declared a humanitarian crisis at the border. Very very few took issue with that statement. The major media platforms backed him up. Trump also believes that there is a crisis at the border. There is no debate on whether or not there is a crisis at the border; the debate is whether the US citizens should be concerned for themselves or non-citizens. The answer is the US should be concerned for both.

Do you know the story of Mexican Texas? While I was visiting the Arch in St Louis they had a slide show that taught me all about it.

A couple hundred years ago, Mexico owned the territory known today as Texas. The Mexican government did not control immigration to this Mexican territory. When Mexico realized that they were loosing this territory to US citizens they enacted a law that forbid US immigrants, but it was too late. A war ensued and Mexico Texas because a US territory and was renamed to Texas (It would have been just as easy for the inhabitants living in this territory to have taken the peaceful route of voting their allegiance to the US. God Bless Democracy).

This is a cautionary tale; the US took ownership of Texas due to Mexico's lack of control of US immigrants into their territory.
This completely transformed the lives of the people whom lived in this territory. Concern for uncontrolled immigration into a country isn't automatically racist or bigoted, sometimes it's a realistic concern that has been proven possible by historical examples.

I don't think any US citizen have a legitimate concern for the wellbeing or future of US citizens. Heck, mathematically there is a chance getting rid of illegal immigrants could raise their chances of US citizens being the victims of violent crime.
 
What seems to be forgotten is that the net flow of "illegals" (for want of a better word) is FROM the USA TO Mexico nowadays. Far more people leave the USA via the southern border than arrive.

So let's say this wall is indeed impenetrable. What it would be doing is stopping these "illegals" from actually going back home. You would be forcing them to stay in the USA, where they would presumably shoot thousands of sweet American babies with wild abandon, consume trillions of dollars of social services, pay zero taxes, and all vote for Hillary and her emails.

Of course this is ridiculously exaggerated. According to Rush and Hannity, it would be millions of babies.
 
Shouldn't we be putting every airport and land border on 12 on 12 off shifts and rushing everyone in CBP on the third shift to the Southern Land Border to patrol between the ports of entry? Shouldn't all those Homeland Security criminal investigators working intellectual property crime cases be sent South as well? If this is really an emergency shouldn't we be doing emergency stuff?
 
Shouldn't we be putting every airport and land border on 12 on 12 off shifts and rushing everyone in CBP on the third shift to the Southern Land Border to patrol between the ports of entry? Shouldn't all those Homeland Security criminal investigators working intellectual property crime cases be sent South as well? If this is really an emergency shouldn't we be doing emergency stuff?
We all need to go on a golfing weekend at Mar-a-Lago, tax-payer-paid.
 
In case any of y'all missed Trump's sing-songy routine during the emergency announcement, prepare to cringe with embarrassment and/or laugh your ass off, take your pick.


Yes, SNL should have done their skit by simply recreating Trump's announcement verbatim. Let people have their laugh about it, then inform them that they did not add any exaggerations or lines to drive home the point of how crazy agent orange is.
 
Concern for uncontrolled immigration into a country isn't automatically racist or bigoted, sometimes it's a realistic concern that has been proven possible by historical examples.

Agreed. However, in this case of Trump's wall, it is racist and bigoted. It's all about keeping the brown people out.

Nice try, but such deception and trickery doesn't really work in this forum.
 
I don't think anyone seriously thinks that border security is a trivial subject nor that racism doesn't figure in some situations. The Dems have made that abundantly clear, and Obama was certainly not reticent in enforcing southern border security himself.

Just that the White House has gone full 700-foot ICE-wall mode as their actual one-and-only security model. Like seriously into it. For realz. Even stealing the TV logos to promote it! They are trying to make the TV series real life. Which sort of gels with Donny's justifications which seem to come straight from shoot-em-up fictional movies rather than real life. It's Fantasyland, but even Disney knew that wasn't really real. Donny can't seem to make the distinction, because he and/or his team of nasty acolytes are demented.
 
As I mentioned earlier in another thread despite being the longest, arguably peaceful-est, and probably most boring border in the world, the US and Canada are both weirdly anal about making sure our border is really, really obvious to a degree a lot of other countries don't bother with, maintaining a ~20 meter long "dead zone" free of trees and brush along the entire length (not withstanding a few weird cases here and there various reasons) for... no real reason.

Not to give any ammunition to Trump's nonsense, but 6 billion for a secured border does sound a little less crazy in the abstract when you compare to the 1.5 billion we spend just on keeping the US / Canada border neat and tidy.
 
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When I think about it, the term open borders has at least two different meanings.
1. It could refer to a physical barrier that would distinguish between the border of two different countries. Lack of a barrier would make that space open.

Like the Canadian-American border.. oh hang on - Trump's not trying to keep brown people from crossing that border... my bad

2. It could also refer to two different nations whom view every humans as sovereign, thereby some or all of those nations allow free and uninhibited travel from one territory to another.

Yeah, an example of a meaning for something that doesn't exist.

Do you support either of the definitions I provided for open borders?

No

The definition that Trump is using is -

"3. A policy in which the party neither cares about people entering the country illegally, nor wants to do anything about it"

He says this is the Democrat policy - he is a pants-on-fire liar. The Dems want no such thing; what they want is an immigration policy that is fair to everyone, and border security that is sophisticated, and up to date for the 21st century, not some dumb, worthless medieval wall that is no more than a vanity project for Dear Leader.

When Obama was president he declared a humanitarian crisis at the border. Very very few took issue with that statement. The major media platforms backed him up. Trump also believes that there is a crisis at the border. There is no debate on whether or not there is a crisis at the border; the debate is whether the US citizens should be concerned for themselves or non-citizens. The answer is the US should be concerned for both.

When Obama was talking about a crisis at the border he was talking about a crisis where people were in physical and emotional distress.

When Trump talks about a crisis at the border, he is talking about too many brown people being allowed to enter the country

Do you know the story of Mexican Texas? While I was visiting the Arch in St Louis they had a slide show that taught me all about it.

A couple hundred years ago, Mexico owned the territory known today as Texas. The Mexican government did not control immigration to this Mexican territory. When Mexico realized that they were loosing this territory to US citizens they enacted a law that forbid US immigrants, but it was too late. A war ensued and Mexico Texas because a US territory and was renamed to Texas (It would have been just as easy for the inhabitants living in this territory to have taken the peaceful route of voting their allegiance to the US. God Bless Democracy).

This is a cautionary tale; the US took ownership of Texas due to Mexico's lack of control of US immigrants into their territory.
This completely transformed the lives of the people whom lived in this territory. Concern for uncontrolled immigration into a country isn't automatically racist or bigoted, sometimes it's a realistic concern that has been proven possible by historical examples.

What are you, a supporter of "Manifest Destiny"? That is a complete misrepresentation of what actually happened and why it happened.

In the early 1820s, the Mexican government actually encouraged American emigration into Texas in order to strengthen the economy of the territory and to increase their income from taxes. As large numbers of Americans came to live in Texas, they attempted to create their own power base. The key issue that lead to all the trouble was that those Americas came mostly from nearby southern states, and of course, they wanted to introduce slavery into a Mexico, a country where slavery was illegal (and that tells us all a bit about which of the two countries was more civilized). The result of this is that Santa Anna tried to become dictator of Texas, and after a number of different groups tried to claim government status, fighting broke out. Americans were hammered and decided to give up, but General Sam Houston kept a small force of troops together and launched a counter-offensive and defeated the Mexican Army. They took Santa Anna prisoner, and forced him to sign documents giving Texas independence.

The Americans still living in Texas were hoping to be annexed by the USA but President Jackson and most northerners were against it as they did not want to annex a new slave territory and thereby increase the Southern votes in Congress.

Texas was a wild and lawless expanse in the 1820's, hence the hiring of experiencedfrontiersmen as lawmen by Land Agent Stephen Austin - those frontiersmen later formally becoming known as Texas Rangers. To even suggest the idea that Mexicans coming to the USA could in any way repeat the Texas scenario is complete and utter hogwash; it tells me that you have little, if any, understanding about this history (as evidenced by your anecdotal tale of learning for the first time about it in a slide show).
 
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Like the Canadian-American border.. oh hang on - Trump's not trying to keep brown people from crossing that border... my bad



Yeah, an example of a meaning for something that doesn't exist.



No



When Obama was talking about a crisis at the border he was talking about a crisis where people were in physical and emotional distress.

When Trump talks about a crisis at the border, he is talking about too many brown people being allowed to enter the country



What are you, a supporter of "Manifest Destiny"? That is a complete misrepresentation of what actually happened and why it happened.

In the early 1820s, the Mexican government actually encouraged American emigration into Texas in order to strengthen the economy of the territory and to increase their income from taxes. As large numbers of Americans came to live in Texas, they attempted to create their own power base. The key issue that lead to all the trouble was that those Americas came mostly from nearby southern states, and of course, they wanted to introduce slavery into a Mexico, a country where slavery was illegal (and that tells us all a bit about which of the two countries was more civilized). The result of this is that Santa Anna tried to become dictator of Texas, and after a number of different groups tried to claim government status, fighting broke out. Americans were hammered and decided to give up, but General Sam Houston kept a small force of troops together and launched a counter-offensive and defeated the Mexican Army. They took Santa Anna prisoner, and forced him to sign documents giving Texas independence.

The Americans still living in Texas were hoping to be annexed by the USA but President Jackson and most northerners were against it as they did not want to annex a new slave territory and thereby increase the Southern votes in Congress.

Texas was a wild and lawless expanse in the 1820's, hence the hiring of experiences frontiersmen as lawmen by Land Agent Stephen Austin - those frontiersmen later formally becoming known as Texas Rangers. To even suggest the idea that Mexicans coming to the USA could in any way repeat the Texas scenario is complete and utter hogwash; it tells me that you have little, if any, understanding about this history (as evidenced by your anecdotal tale of learning for the first time about it in a slide show).

But he saw it on a slide show at a tourist attraction in another State. If we can't trust tourist sites who are we left to trust?

(Excellent post, btw.)

James Michener in his multi-millenia saga, Texas, had someone in the present (of the time it was written) twisting the tale in a different direction.... that the original settlers along the entire southwestern corridor from the Mississippi to the Pacific were originally Spanish/Mexican and that they weren't going to have to fire a single shot to "retake the whole area" because they were doing it through population growth. I had a huge argument with my usually liberal first wife at the time because she loved Michener's books (I have to confess a certain affinity for them) and didn't mind the xenophobic characterization. My argument then, as now, is that it misrepresents people who have been in situ for five centuries as "foreigners". And what, exactly, is anyone "losing" if people with Latin-American and Spanish ancestry represent the majority of certain states.
 
And what, exactly, is anyone "losing" if people with Latin-American and Spanish ancestry represent the majority of certain states.

Well, they will be losing their "whiteness" won't they!

ETA: Oh, and to be fair Jimmy Michener used to use to a fair bit of "artistic licence" in his novel writing. If he was a sci-fi writer. and writing in this day an age, Neil DeGrasse Tyson would say that he uses Mark Twian's edict: "gets your facts straight, and then distorts them at your leisure".
 
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If Trump manages to actually enact his national emergency, what are the odds he ends up defunding military building projects in a way that is advantageous to Putin?
 

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