Harmful Liberal Policies Mega-Thread

[aurum]

We need to add to this list various schools of thought surrounding Leftist Anarchism, of which exist many. Communism is just one.

We also have (just to name a few):

• Anarcho-syndicalism
• Green Anarchism
• Mutualism
• Anarcho-Pacifism
• Anarcho-Transhumanism

If you aren't seriously considering how your anarchist philosophy might backfire and fail, you've lost the plot. Unfortunately many leftists over-index so much on anti-authoritarianism / populism . It is hard for me to take anyone's political positions who is an anarchist seriously. 

 

[Emerald]

Just now, actuallyenlightened said:

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

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

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?

You're really not understanding what I'm saying here.

I'm saying that barbed wire is not an effective deterrent for illegal immigration. And no, it wouldn't reduce illegal entries by 1/3.

And a wall wouldn't be effective either. All of these are a child's solutions to immigration. The most it will do is cause harm to some of the people who try to cross there. But someone who is willing to go through hill and high water to cross, will find a way across the barbed wire.

I feel like you're focusing on the barbed wire because you like the idea of it and it feels like a simple solution to you or maybe even some sort of justice.

But it's not actually going to address immigration issues. 

And with your last comment... immigrants (both documented and undocumented) have lower rates of crime per capita compared to American citizens. So, I don't feel particularly threatened by people crossing the border as most of them are just looking for a better life... and may be fleeing from negative circumstances. This is especially true if they are in the position to have to cross the barbed with with a child in tow.

[actuallyenlightened]

Just now, Emerald said:

You're really not understanding what I'm saying here.

I'm saying that barbed wire is not an effective deterrent for illegal immigration. And no, it wouldn't reduce illegal entries by 1/3.

A combination of physical barriers and stringent vehicle checks absolutely would approach that. I'm ok with the few that get through via submarine, that's manageable.

2 minutes ago, Emerald said:

And a wall wouldn't be effective either. All of these are a child's solutions to immigration. The most it will do is cause harm to some of the people who try to cross there. But someone who is willing to go through hill and high water to cross, will find a way across the barbed wire.

1) They would need to be very athletic. 

2) They would also have to be willing to risk it.

The ones who try and fail might get harmed. Others see this and would wonder if it's worth risking it themselves.

4 minutes ago, Emerald said:

I feel like you're focusing on the barbed wire because you like the idea of it and it feels like a simple solution to you or maybe even some sort of justice.

Not about justice. But about securing the border.

4 minutes ago, Emerald said:

And with your last comment... immigrants (both documented and undocumented) have lower rates of crime per capita compared to American citizens. So, I don't feel particularly threatened by people crossing the border as most of them are just looking for a better life... and may be fleeing from negative circumstances. This is especially true if they are in the position to have to cross the barbed with with a child in tow.

Please make the distinction between illegal migrants and immigrants. Also you should visit New York and see what it's like. I'm all for legal immigration and would like to see a complete stop to illegal migration

[Bobby_2021]

12 minutes ago, actuallyenlightened said:

I'm ok with the few that get through via submarine, that's manageable.

Sir this is unacceptable. We need a submarine taskforce to check their papers. 

[actuallyenlightened]

3 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Sir this is unacceptable. We need a submarine taskforce to check their papers. 

In civ 4 destroyers + other subs can see subs, so that might work 

[Bobby_2021]

22 minutes ago, Emerald said:

I don't feel particularly threatened by people crossing the border as most of them are just looking for a better life... and may be fleeing from negative circumstances.

There are 1.8 million immigrants who came to America via the legal route waiting for citizenship based on employment.

If any these people have virtually zero crime rates and they contribute disproportionate value to the US economy. Have you thought about honouring them. They are also in the united states, like those border crossers, just that they took the legal route. 

It's disrespectful to people who honor the law and come to united states legally, to give citizenship to anyone who can jump a fence. 

Leftist/Liberal policies has a trend of incentivising these kinds of unlawful behaviour while punishing people who take the pain to follow the law and morality. 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Emerald said:

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. 

If all abolishing ICE means is moving those duties to another department then it's a meaningless gesture. But leftists don't want a meaningless gesture, they want to literally abandon those functions.

You are trying to have it both ways. You want to abandon those functions but not admit that you are doing so.

This is how leftists fool themselves.

The fact is that at the end of the day someone with a gun has to stand guard at the border and deal with a flood of illegals, drugs, crime, etc. There's no abolishing that.

Edited April 7 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

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.

You can say all that but the bottom line is that you are ignoring the potential harm that leftist polcies can cause. You are shifting the conversation to avoid acknowledging that.

[Emerald]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

If all abolishing ICE means is moving those duties to another department then it's a meaningless gesture. But leftists don't want a meaningless gesture, they want to literally abandon those functions.

You are trying to have it both ways. You want to abandon those functions but not admit that you are doing so.

This is how leftists fool themselves.

The fact is that at the end of the day someone with a gun has to stand guard at the border and deal with a flood of illegals, drugs, crime, etc. There's no abolishing that.

My understanding of what leftists don't like is the way that ICE comports itself as an organization. 

But don't put a "you" into this. I'm not super invested in the idea of abolishing ICE. I'm just talking about leftist policy proposals... which includes abolishing ICE... and not vague things like "open borders".

Though I can see why people would have an issue with the organization given its actions. I became aware of the "Abolish ICE" movement around 2017 or 2018 when they were instrumental in the situation around putting kids in cages.

Perhaps it is just about leftists disliking the core elements of border security. I'm sure that's somewhat true.

But I can see that, if ICE is a particularly brutal institution, why people would want it disbanded and subsumed into other agencies where there are more checks and balances. 

[Bobby_2021]

Also there is more things to add:

We need to teach children to be good citizens and honor the law. We need to teach them good etiquettes, manners and how to behave in public places, especially roads.

Law and order has it's limits. Laws can rectify only when something bad has already been done.

It's culture that makes people behave like good citizens that they don't even need law to guide them. 

Religion did this for a while, but no more. So we need to continue such moral studies in school. Eroding people's faith is bad like Leo mentioned in the post.

@r0ckyreed did a gread post covering that. https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/100613-the-missing-element-of-actualizedorg/

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Emerald said:

My understanding of what leftists don't like is the way that ICE comports itself as an organization. 

But don't put a "you" into this. I'm not super invested in the idea of abolishing ICE. I'm just talking about leftist policy proposals... which includes abolishing ICE... and not vague things like "open borders".

Though I can see why people would have an issue with the organization given its actions. I became aware of the "Abolish ICE" movement around 2017 or 2018 when they were instrumental in the situation around putting kids in cages.

Perhaps it is just about leftists disliking the core elements of border security. I'm sure that's somewhat true.

But I can see that, if ICE is a particularly brutal institution, why people would want it disbanded and subsumed into other agencies where there are more checks and balances. 

That's one of the problems with leftism: it yearns to do good but in a naive and foolish way which often ends in virtue signaling and moral outrage more than actually workable policy.

Yes, leftists are morally outraged at ICE and the police in general. But abolishing these things is like sweeping a turd under the rug. Leftists do not have a workable immigrantion policy. Their policy is just go let endless immigration happen and things will be cool. But they won't be cool. Because most people aren't leftists.

- - - - -

This isn't about you. It's about a general point about the blindspots of liberalism.

Edited April 7 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You can say all that but the bottom line is that you are ignoring the potential harm that leftist polcies can cause. You are shifting the conversation to avoid acknowledging that.

I'm not ignoring the potential harm of leftist policies.

I'm actually the only one in this WHOLE ENTIRE thread that named off specific leftist policies that are harmful and problematic. And I'm a bit annoyed by that, because I would like to actually discuss the problems with specific left-leaning policies and their effects.

Everyone else's posts have been around vague ideas about too-lenient immigration or other potential problems of leftists philosophical idea... but without any specific laws on the books to point to. In reality, everything else on this entire thread just belongs in the left-wing mega thread.

Sure, there are potential problems that can come up from border policy that's too lenient. That's pretty obvious.

But name for me an actual policy, and I can critique it more effectively in terms of its impacts.

Also, with the Abolish ICE thing... I'm not saying that that's without its problems. I just mentioned it as a real leftist position.

It could be neutral, negative, or positive in practice. But there's no such law on the books and not even a policy proposal around it. So, we really don't know if that policy would be harmful or not as it's not a law that's on the books.

[actuallyenlightened]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's one of the problems with leftism: it yearns to do good but in a naive and foolish way which often ends in virtue signaling and moral outrage more than actually workable policy.

And they pick and choose where to be morally outraged.. it seems they are extremely sensitive to lesser evils by the powerful, completely accommodating when it comes to greater evils by the weak, and are completely indifferent to the needs of the middle class.

Edited April 7 by actuallyenlightened

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But name for me an actual policy, and I can critique it more effectively in terms of its impacts.

I gave a list of problematic leftist policies in my recent blog post.

Abolish the police is one of them.

Gender fluidity is another one.

Printing money and going ever-deeper into debt, with inflation.

And many more.

Edited April 7 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's one of the problems with leftism: it yearns to do good but in a naive and foolish way which often ends in virtue signaling and moral outrage more than actually workable policy.

Yes, leftists are morally outraged at ICE and the police in general. But abolishing these things is like sweeping a turd under the rug. Leftists do not have a workable immigrantion policy. Their policy is just go let endless immigration happen and things will be cool. But they won't be cool. Because most people aren't leftists.

Sure. I can agree with all that.

Now, tell me some actual specific left-leaning policies on the books that have caused harm. Then, we will actually be on-prompt. 

[Emerald]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

I gave a list of problematic leftist policies in my recent blog post.

Abolish the police is one of them.

Gender fluidity is another one.

And many more.

Those are philosophies not policies.

Name for me ACTUAL codified laws. That's what a policy is. It's a law. 

[aurum]

Just now, Emerald said:

Now, tell me some actual specific left-leaning policies on the books that have caused harm. Then, we will actually be on-prompt. 

Consider that part of the reason it's challenging to name left-leaning policies on the books is precisely because they are so unworkable they never get on the books.

This doesn't mean that many leftists don't hold these positions. They do. They just aren't able to successfully pass them.

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Emerald said:

Now, tell me some actual specific left-leaning policies on the books that have caused harm. Then, we will actually be on-prompt. 

Drug decriminalization in Oregon.

Oregon's addiction rates have skyrocketed and now they are forced to reverse course.

Will leftists ever admit that legalizing all drugs does more harm than good? No. They will shift blame elsewhere and make excuses.

Edited April 7 by Leo Gura

[actuallyenlightened]

1 minute ago, Emerald said:

Those are philosophies not policies.

Name for me ACTUAL codified laws. That's what a policy is. It's a law. 

obfuscation through technicalities

[Emerald]

Just now, actuallyenlightened said:

obfuscation through technicalities

Nope! I'm more than happy to discuss problems with leftist philosophies.

I just really like the idea of a thread that's about problematic leftist policies because I like to explore the issues with my own perspectives. But no one is talking about specific laws, and it's annoying to me.