Harmful Liberal Policies Mega-Thread

[Emerald]

3 hours ago, Thought Art said:

@Emerald

 

1. policies around immigration: In Canada we have let in many immigrants which has lead to a housing crisis and cost of living crisis, at least in part. 

This didn't talk about a specific immigration policy but referred to an opinion poll about the percentage of the Canadians in a particular survey who said they wanted fewer immigrants to move there.

 

2. Legalizing Drugs Complete Failure: Oregan has Legalized drugs and it has been a complete failure. 

This showed a balance of two different perspectives on the decriminalization law in Oregon. Some in the video were against it and some were for it.

It wasn't clear to me from the video that the issues with drug use got worse with the decriminalization bill. That said, it seems that it got a bit more visible with fewer people hiding it. 

There are several issues when it comes to drugs being illegal. One is that it pushes the business underground to drug trafficking rings which don't have any regulation in the way they run and violent crime proliferates.

Another is that it stigmatizes and criminalizes people who are really struggling with addiction. And it creates a dynamic where those people go to jail/criminals with harder violent criminals which creates more criminal activity and not less.

The main counter-point I could see in this that was actually a decent point is that it made the drugs cheaper... so money doesn't act as a deterrent. 

3. Easy on Crime Complete Failure: There is a policy in San Fancisco that has made petty crimes a misdemeanour instead of a criminal act and it has severely back fired and theft runs rampit 

This video was longer, so I didn't watch it. But misdemeanors still are considered (and have always been considered) a criminal act and still go on people's record.

And misdemeanors are supposed to be for petty crimes. People can still go to jail for them and can still go on probation for them. But misdemeanor is meant to be for petty crimes.

Also, here in Florida, if you get three misdemeanors of the same type (even not serious ones) you become a felon. I knew someone who became a felon because of having multiple misdemeanor issues with his driver's license.

But you'd be surprised how screwy the distinction between misdemeanors and felonies can be.

The person I mentioned before once showed me this paperwork he had to fill out and it had a list of felonies and misdemeanors on it to check off boxes for... and it has child abuse under the misdemeanor section and writing a bad check (or some smallish financial crime that I can't quite recall since this was over 15 years ago) under the felony section.

And we were both pretty incredulous at how they were classing misdemeanors and felonies. It's so completely ass backwards sometimes.

But I agree that if you make the consequences for certain crimes too lenient, their instances will go up. Like... child abuse being a misdemeanor should never happen. 

 

Other things you’ve mentioned would likely fall I to people policy ideals, and I think you may find examples of people actually trying to pass those policies. 

 

[Thought Art]

@Emerald Thanks for checking them out. 

1. Immigration: I mean, yeah... It's not pointing to specific policy but the impact of those policies, and how the impacts are perceived which is what matters. You have to be able to see that when you have policies that allow for example large amounts of immigrants to enter the country there are risks. That is what that video is showing. I am not attempting to show you specific policy but hoping you would be able to use your intelligence to see the video and infer policy, impact, etc at least inference. I am not attempting to share specific policy. The short clip is an example of what is happening here in Canada not meant to be something extensive. If you wanted to look up Canadian immigration policy specifics be my guest. I watch Canadian news because I live here and have learned the statistics and the problems Canadians are facing due to the immigration policies. I am not fragmenting this conversation to simply the Policy but also it's actual impacts and pros and cons. Of course there are many factors that go into a housing crisis.

But, when immgration policy allows too many immigrants and international students that we have a housing crisis and tent cities all around the country that is a problem. Of course, you could also call air BnB a more liberal business idea that is also contributing to house crisis.

A policy and it's impact are connected. They aren't separate. 

2. Legalized Drugs: There are many interviews with people in other videos showing polices, businesses, residents saying that the situation in Oregon has gotten worse and not better since the change in policy. Therefore this wasn't a good or useful liberal policy that was put into place around drug use in Oregon.

 However, Portugal is an example of a place that decriminalized drugs and it worked., If people are caught on the streets and obviously addicted they would be given the choice to go to a treatment facility, get mental health care, etc or spend time in jail. Oregan did not set up adequate social programs in advance and it seems there problem is only getting worse.

Legalizing and decriminalizing are different things, and here are many nuances that can be applied to policy that make using drugs, especially in public is thwarted, and mental health and healthy usage of drugs is promoted. But, we still don't really know the best policies. The point is, legalizing drugs isn't an abolutue good and therefore policy design needs to take that into account. I am not here providing stats. So don't expect that.

This is all policy. How you handle drugs, health, laws, etc is policy and they all work together. What is the actual impact, what do people believe about it? 

Just because I think something is stupid or naive doesn't mean others don't.

The examples shows that a liberal policy may not work at all, and it may back fire. However, if done properly it can really make a difference. The thing we need to see is that just because an idea is liberal doesn't mean it will work. It can be very dangerous. There are so many nuances when it comes to dealing with highly complex systems we need be careful of letting our ideologies think things are absolute goods. How we philosophize, our level education, develop, etc these play a huge role in policy people vote for, that people put into power, that people believe in. We can't just look at what law makers do but how policy is perceived and understood by everyone. 

Policy has a very real work affect, and when we see issues in the world we have to ask what is the policy? What are the laws? Regulations? Practices? The way a society functions is largely due to the highly complex interweaving of human systems in relation to policy, law, and the actually way things work in the world. When Policy is bad, we see bad shit happening. But, even that contains subjective elements which makes policy extremely complicated and difficult to create. Often times the policy you think will work backfires.

When the streets are flooded with drug addicts, tent cities, walking zombies like in Philly. There is huge systemic policy issue. Are they liberal policies are or not? This is a bigger issue than maybe is right for this thread.

If your policy isn't actually making things better, and there is a crisis like drug epidemics that is a big issue and the fact that people thought it would work is unfortunate. It appears these drugs situations are getting worse in places like Oregon. 

If only 1% of people who are receiving tickets in Oregon are actually calling the help line... These are people addicted to hard dangerous drugs, many who overdose and die. What are you talking about how it's unclear if it's working or not? I think you have a very different sense making system than I do. 

3. San Francisco Crime: Many of those thieves are not being persecuted at all which is why the crimes keep happening. They have no fear of the authority and therefore the policy isn't working. However, I am not ignorant enough about systems thinking theory to assume that the only way to lower crime is stricter law punishment... Except when it is because somehow down the line, and in other areas there are other systemic issues that are leading to these crime waves. The crime waves is already at your footstep. What do you do? The question is now that a city is dealing with these crimes what are the best policies? It's not a liberal one, at least not traditionally as I understand the word. 

edit: realize theres typos so editing.

Edited April 7 by Thought Art

[Emerald]

29 minutes ago, actuallyenlightened said:

You can't make that argument when the dems in Washington decide to cut barbed wire that Texans put up. It might as well be an open border if it's that easy for a migrant to cross. 

This rationale is not very well thought through. 

That's like saying 'Because the U.S. Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th amendment in the Bill of Rights, it is pro-crime."

Cutting barbed wire on the border just means you're trying to keep people from hurting themselves at the border and not that you're opening up the border. And undocumented immigrants should not be subjected to physical harm for crossing the border illegally.

And I feel like this should be pretty obvious. It's not like barbed wire is an effective defense at stopping illegal immigration anyway. So, removing the barbed wire isn't going to do much other than keeping from people getting injured.

Most undocumented immigrants actually fly into the country legally and overstay their visa. So, the border policies that are pulling the most weight at preventing illegal immigration don't have to do with the actual crossing of the Southern border.

And since you don't even have a physical border in most areas across the border, there are already plenty of places without barbed wire anyway. 

The way you seem to be thinking about it is like "Oh no! Now that the Democrats removed the barbed wire, the border is now totally open to anyone who wants to immigrate to the US on a whim."

[Emerald]

8 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Emerald Thanks for checking them out. 

 

You're welcome

 

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, zurew said:

Yep, thats where the interesting and worthwhile potential conversations are. But,  lets be real here - to actually establish those kinds of arguments in a non-vague and in a rigorous way - that requires things that most of us don't have the prerequisite skills and or knowledge for (especially when it comes to domain specific things). 

• How many people here do you think have good enough stat knowledge, so that he/she can properly evaluate the empirical data on any of your mentioned topics?
• How many people here do you think have actually read at least one full wiki article on any of your mentioned topics?
• How many people do you think in general here would be able to steelman both the pro and the contra side on any of your mentioned topics in a way where the inquiry actually goes down at least 5-6 levels deep and we don't get stuck at knocking down the weakest arguments or we don't get stuck at knocking down strawman arguments?
• How many people here do you think have looked up actual research on any of your mentioned topics?
• How many people here do you think have read books on any of your mentioned topics?
• and how many people do you think here even has an idea what a valid argument is ,let alone what a sound argument is and how many of them would be able to actually create a sound argument?

While it's probably the most interesting conversations you can have, it's also probably the hardest conversations you can have, which is why almost nobody has them. Even when Schmactenberger is directly asked the question of how to implement his ideas in practice, he doesn't actually get to the point, or at least I can't remember ever seeing it. I'm thinking specifically about his conversation with McGilchrist and Vervaeke where he was directly asked that question. He seems stuck on defining the problem but not actually acting on it. And I don't blame him. I can't even imagine an attempted solution that is not microscopic in its impact without presupposing a level of coordination and integration between different systems that would automatically solve the very problems we're trying to fix (a perfectly internally coordinated and functional organism is not a house divided against itself).

Edited April 7 by Carl-Richard

[Thought Art]

35 minutes ago, Emerald said:

You're welcome

 

I added more, thought I don't know if you'll like my response. I am not strictly speaking and listing policy but talking more broadly about how I see certain issues, because of liberal policy. I am not listing or writing out the policy. To find specifics you'd have to go deeper.

Question about Oregons drug problem: 

If only 1% of people who are receiving tickets in Oregon are actually calling the help line... These are people addicted to hard dangerous drugs, many who overdose and die. What are you talking about how it's unclear if it's working or not? I think you have a very different sense making sense than I do. 

The policy wasn't developed to give drugs addicts a free pass to use all the time. To sell drugs and just have a ball. Or, to just continue coping with mental health issues, dealing with their pain, and traumas. 

Their drug policies are attempting to be nice, to be kind, to show compassion for the addict. Which I think is an important element in a policy design process. However, we need to be realistic that many of these addicts will not change on their own. They need external forces to push them in a direction to gain experiences that will change them for the better. Left to their own devices as they are in Oregon you have a festering wound.

Ideally it was implemented to help people and to make Oregon a more livable and healthy place for everyone.

But, it hasn't done that. It's obvious to me if you read any articles your going to see that people don't believe it has worked and it has made things worse over the time it has been implemented.

It appears there is a downward trend in that area with regards to mental health, and a upward trend of drug use and out of alignment living with living properly. 

Is it doomed to fail forever? Can it be changed and improved? Yes.

It's not that we have to be extremely conservative or liberal but, we can apply and create policy built on holistic systems thinking principles that allow for society to heal and improve over time. But, it will be risky and unfortunately policy can fail, in very tragic ways, or it may simple not make the change you want and another policy may be needed. 

If nothing is getting better, and businesses are scared, people walking the street are upset, there are overdoses, etc...

I mean, this is an example of a failed liberal policy. I don't get how you didn't see that.

Edited April 7 by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

abolishing ICE

That's a good example of what I mean.

You really wanna abolish ICE? And who will deal with all the illegal drugs coming over the border?

The term "open borders" doesn't only mean 100% open borders. It broadly means the loosening of all sorts of border enforcement policies. There are many degrees of this liberalization. We have an immigrantion crisis on the border right now because of various liberalizations.

Abolishing ICE would be one such liberalization, and you are not taking seriously that this policy could cause more harm than good.

This one example demonstrates my whole point.

Edited April 7 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

14 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Emerald Thanks for checking them out. 

1. Immigration: I mean, yeah... It's not pointing to specific policy but the impact of those policies, and how the impacts are perceived which is what matters. You have to be able to see that when you have policies that allow for example large amounts of immigrants to enter the country there are risks. That is what that video is showing. I am not attempting to show you specific policy by hoping you would be able to use your intelligence to scan through policy, impact, etc at least inference. I am not attempting to share specific policy. The short clip is an example of what is happening here in Canada not meant to be something extensive. If you wanted to look up Canadian immigration policy specifics be my guest. I watch Canadian news because I live here and have learned the statistics and the problems Canadians are facing due to the immigration policies. I am not fragmenting this conversation to simply the Policy but also it's actual impacts and pros and cons. 

2. Legalized Drugs: There are many interviews with people in other videos showing polices, businesses, residents saying that the situation in Oregan has gotten worse and not better. However, Portugal is an example of a place that decriminalized drugs, but if people are caught on the streets and obviously addicted that would be given the choice to go to a treatment facility, get mental health care, etc or spend time in jail. Oregan did not set up adequate social programs in advance and it seems there problem is only getting worse. Legalizing and decriminalizing are different things, and here are many nuances that can be applied to policy that make using drugs, especially in public is thwarted, and mental health and healthy usage of drugs is promoted. But, we still don't really know the best policies. The point is, legalizing drugs isn't an abolutue good and therefore policy design needs to take that into account. I am not here providing stats. So don't expect that.

3. San Francisco Crime: Many of those theives are not being persecuted at all which is why the crimes keep happening. They have no fear of the authority and therefore the policy isn't working. However, I am not ignorant enough about systems thinking theory to assume that the only way to lower crime is stricter law punishment... Except when it is because somehow down the line, and in other areas there are other systemic issues that are leading to these crime waves. The question is now that a city is dealing with these crimes what are the best policies? It's not a liberal one, at least not traditionally as I understand the word. 

1. I would have to look at the sample size and sampling method that they used for that survey to see if it's something that most Canadians actually believe... or if they happened to sample in a way that might slant things in an anti-immigration direction. It's possible they could have simply found people who are more biased against immigrants due to bigotry. Or they could have sampled towards people whose job prospects are specifically troubled by immigration because the people who could hire them instead want to hire immigrants for much cheaper. And either way, this would be a bias that most may feel neutral about or not hold. So, I'd have to look at the sampling process to really understand in lieu of seeing the actual policies. 

My view is that there should be a merit-based path to citizenship that requires a couple years of commitment. But beyond that, there are many things in U.S. foreign policy (perhaps other countries' foreign policy too), that deliberately puts Mexico and other nations South of the border in precarious financial positions. And this causes many people from those countries to want to immigrate here for a better life or to send the more valuable U.S. dollar back to their families. And this is all very deliberate because under-paid foreign labor is essential to the U.S. economy. And it makes working class Americans have to undervalue their work to compete with exploited undocumented immigrants.

So, it's important to recognize that illegal immigration is a feature and not a bug of the U.S. system. And if we really want to solve the issue of illegal immigration, then we have to change the foreign policies that put Mexico and other nations in a compromised financial position. Powerful nations have always done this to less powerful nations to exploit them for cheap labor.

2. You'd definitely need more structures and systems in place to handle the issue. But I don't suppose that drug use would increase in these circumstances around legalization or decriminalization. People who are addicted to drugs will find ways to do them regardless of whether they're legal or not. This just brings the situation out more into the light of the public consciousness... which is uncomfortable but helpful. I'd have to see some reliable and clear statistics around drug use rates increasing upon legalization or decriminalization to get me to consider changing my viewpoint. I get that those statistics would be difficult to obtain, but I'm just not convinced that decriminalization/legalization would worsen drug problems.

3. The issue with crime is that the justice system only addresses it one the level of the symptom and not at the root. Certainly, we need a justice system that functions to deter crime by creating negative incentives around it. But crime comes from a myriad of root causes... and most of those root causes are nurture-based.

The reality is that reforms to the criminal justice system can only ever tweak the problem of crime around the edges because it is only handing the symptoms... which is the crime itself. The roots have to be addressed through building strong communities, getting rid of poverty, healing collective traumas, having an effective mental healthcare system, teaching better parenting skills, teaching skills for maintaining relationships, having equal access to education, making sure children are properly resourced with minimal amounts of trauma, etc.

It's only then that we can really address problems with crime. There would still be some crime here and there, of course. But if we could address these problems from the bottom up, it would really turn the dial on the crime problem. But it's very bottom up work... and not top down.

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's a good example of what I mean.

You really wanna abolish ICE? And who will deal with all the illegal drugs coming over the border?

ICE was just established in 2003. So, we'd just go back to doing whatever we were doing before then.

The Abolish ICE movement is about getting rid of that specific organization and have its duties re-absorbed back into the other immigration agencies as it was prior to 2003.

The reason why leftists want to abolish ICE is because of the harshness of the crack downs from ICE in particular, as they were enacting all the family separations/kids in cages dynamics. 

It's also because ICE is meant to be a criminally-focused organization (like prosecuting people bringing drugs across the border) but back in the Obama era, they began simply focusing on the crime of having come into the country illegally.

And it's treating the act of illegal immigration itself as though it is like drug trafficking. And it creates a dynamic of harsher treatment of undocumented immigrants. 

[Thought Art]

@Emerald 1. In the same video you saw it said those same people agree that they think immigrants add good diversity to the country. But, think it is also causing housing issues. 

[Emerald]

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The term "open borders" doesn't only mean 100% open borders. It broadly means the loosening of all sorts of border enforcement policies. There are many degrees of this liberalization. We have an immigrantion crisis on the border right now because of various liberalizations.

Abolishing ICE would be one such liberalization, and you are not taking seriously that this policy could cause more harm than good.

This one example demonstrates my whole point.

Open borders does literally mean open borders. Of course, Republican politicians know that it's not literal and they're just using hyperbole to scare their constituents. But when the Republican voter says they're concerned about open borders, they really do believe Democrats goal is to open the border.

Also, Biden has been strict on the border and even offered Republicans many immigration reforms on their wish list (in exchange for their cooperation on other things). And Republican rejected it so they can keep the Biden border crisis narrative going.

Here is a Pew Research poll on how many undocumented immigrants are coming in per year, and it's stayed pretty steady but on a slightly downward trajectory since 2005.

So Obama, Trump, and Biden clearly haven't done things much differently as it comes to immigration policy. 

Here's the link... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/

It does reflect a growth in illegal immigration through the Clinton years and most of the Bush years. So, if there are liberalizations that happened to cause more illegal immigration, I would suspect it's Clinton-era policy that's to blame.

But it could also come from a variety of different economic factors that aren't specifically coming from liberalizations... but instead come from dynamics that put the crunch on the economies of Mexico and other nations that people illegally immigrate from.

[Thought Art]

@Emerald Lots of true things you say. Policy is a very complicated issue and thank you for discussing it with me. 

[Thought Art]

5 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Open borders does literally mean open borders.

Ah, careful there. That’s your interpretation and choice of understanding and not allowing for more nuanced use of that term. Who are you to say what it means or doesn’t mean to others?

When I say it I mean a broader was as Leo does. Though, me and him have different data base and implicit and explicit understanding of “open boarder” and ability to see different peoples models of that term. 

”I know a time is coming , all words will lose their meaning… black mirror…..”

 

Edited April 7 by Thought Art

[Emerald]

29 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

Ah, careful there. That’s your interpretation and choice of understanding and not allowing for more nuanced use of that term. Who are you to say what it means or doesn’t mean to others?

”I know a time is coming , all words will lose their meaning… black mirror…..”

 

The issue is that the term "open borders" is being used hyperbolically to fear-monger and mislead voters.

And if we're talking about a specific policy about "open borders" there won't be any to be found.

This is the main point I keep coming back to with this thread. If we're talking about legal policy, we have to be able to point to exact policies and critique the exact content of the policies and the outcomes of those policies.

Otherwise, we might as well just go to the other mega threads around conservative ideas and liberal ideas and philosophies and put all these posts over there.

So, if people are critiquing "open borders" policies, there are none because there are no policies that deal with opening the border. 

If someone points to a policy that says, "The US must accept at least 20% of the people who are seeking a green card." we can have a debate about that policy and talk about it on its merits.

But the notion of "open borders" is vague, and if people are viewing it subjectively... someone could look at the policy and say "That's an open borders policy" and another person could say "that's a reasonable policy."

But we have to actually look at a policy first rather than speaking of vague labels put on the status quo.

Edited April 7 by Emerald

[Emerald]

14 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Emerald Lots of true things you say. Policy is a very complicated issue and thank you for discussing it with me. 

Thank you!  

[Buck Edwards]

Some immigrants want open borders. Some immigrants want closed borders once the borders have been opened for them. 

 

[Emerald]

6 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

Some immigrants want open borders. Some immigrants want closed borders once the borders have been opened for them. 

 

That's definitely frustrating.

Me and my (immigrant) husband were in Orlando with our kids a couple weeks back.

And I forget what it was... like a billboard or a radio announcement... I think it was a billboard. But it was basically a message from "anti-immigration immigrants" or "immigrants against immigration".

And this sparked a brief discussion where we were joking about hypocritical immigrants that come through the door and want to close it behind them. 

[actuallyenlightened]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

This rationale is not very well thought through. 

That's like saying 'Because the U.S. Constitution bans cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th amendment in the Bill of Rights, it is pro-crime."

Cutting barbed wire on the border just means you're trying to keep people from hurting themselves at the border and not that you're opening up the border. And undocumented immigrants should not be subjected to physical harm for crossing the border illegally.

And I feel like this should be pretty obvious. It's not like barbed wire is an effective defense at stopping illegal immigration anyway. So, removing the barbed wire isn't going to do much other than keeping from people getting injured.

It is very effective. Many migrants can't just fly in since they need a visa and to pay a flight. Physically blocking migrants would prevent some (not all) from entering. The risk of injury will deter more.

You're making value statements: "I would rather migrants avoid injury than securing the border." So you're basically making a leftist argument and want open borders in practice. 

[Emerald]

2 minutes ago, actuallyenlightened said:

It is very effective. Many migrants can't just fly in since they need a visa and to pay a flight. Physically blocking migrants would prevent some (not all) from entering. The risk of injury will deter more.

You're making value statements: "I would rather migrants avoid injury than securing the border." So you're basically making a leftist argument and want open borders in practice. 

Like I said before, MOST undocumented immigrants come into the country legally and overstay their visas.

And only about 1/3 of undocumented immigrants come in through the Southern border.

And I'm sure that of that 1/3 (though I haven't looked up the exact statistics) that most of those get smuggled in in vehicles crossing into America or just cross at a point that already has no barbed wire (as barbed wire doesn't line the entire Southern border).

So, if you understand immigration at all... you'll understand that the barbed wire already isn't pulling a lot of the weight in terms of deterring illegal immigration. I bet it's not even making a 1% dent in the problem if it's having any effect at all.

So, to say advocating for getting rid of the barbed wire is advocating for open borders is silly. 

I am against there being barbed wire at the border because children and adults alike may try to cross there. And I especially don't want children to get hurt on the barbed wire. It's just basic human decency to not subject people to that... especially because it's not going to meaningfully address problems with immigration.

[actuallyenlightened]

15 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Like I said before, MOST undocumented immigrants come into the country legally and overstay their visas.

And only about 1/3 of undocumented immigrants come in through the Southern border.

And I'm sure that of that 1/3 (though I haven't looked up the exact statistics) that most of those get smuggled in in vehicles crossing into America or just cross at a point that already has no barbed wire (as barbed wire doesn't line the entire Southern border).

Ok so with strong measures we can reduce illegal entries by 1/3. That's very good.

15 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, if you understand immigration at all... you'll understand that the barbed wire already isn't pulling a lot of the weight in terms of deterring illegal immigration. I bet it's not even making a 1% dent in the problem if it's having any effect at all.

So, to say advocating for getting rid of the barbed wire is advocating for open borders is silly. 

Yeah, but what if we put barbed wire along the entire border. Or a wall?

15 minutes ago, Emerald said:

I am against there being barbed wire at the border because children and adults alike may try to cross there. And I especially don't want children to get hurt on the barbed wire. It's just basic human decency to not subject people to that... especially because it's not going to meaningfully address problems with immigration.

So if a parent is willing to risk their child dying at the border. What do you think they would do to survive if they made it into the States, and see that locals have it better than them (and aren't welcoming because migrants led to the degradation of their community)?

Edited April 7 by actuallyenlightened