PeepinGoodArgs
@PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
- Comment on Joe Biden Hands Out Obamacare to Illegal Immigrants 1 week ago:
The only reason I’m a citizen of American is because of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution:
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
That is, the law of the U.S. defines my status as a citizen of the U.S. by virtue of my being born here.
Still, there are four other ways to become a citizen of the U.S.
- by naturalization
- by marriage
- through parents
- through the military
These pathways are all outlined in various laws.
Again, the status of immigrants who are now citizens is determined by law.
I said earlier that “the ‘We support a legal path to citizenship for immigrants that go through the proper channels’ people do not, in fact, support a legal path to citizenship for them”. That is, Republicans generally refused to grant citizenship to immigrants by passing the DREAM Act. In their inability to govern, they did not pass a law.
You make it seem as if citizenship is an inherent characteristic of being born in the U.S. It is not. Repeal the 14th Amendment, and birthright citizenship goes away. Change the immigration laws, and lesser or greater numbers of immigrants can be granted citizenship. You’re right, “They are not citizens of America.” But they could have been (and could be) at the stroke of pen. It is the law that determines citizenship. While I’m both an American citizen and identify as American, dreamers only identify as American. It’s only because of xenophobia that dreamers are not citizens.
- Comment on Joe Biden Hands Out Obamacare to Illegal Immigrants 1 week ago:
It is sending a citizen of that country back to their country.
When you say “their” country, what do you mean?
- Comment on Joe Biden Hands Out Obamacare to Illegal Immigrants 1 week ago:
Exactly. That’s why it’s abusive. It’d be like sending a random conservative to Hungary. Though CPAC attendees may love Hungary, I doubt they’d like to be sent there forcefully when they identify as an American through and through.
- Comment on Joe Biden Hands Out Obamacare to Illegal Immigrants 1 week ago:
Abuse for abuse is not a cure.
- Comment on Joe Biden Hands Out Obamacare to Illegal Immigrants 1 week ago:
No, they didn’t. They were given a chance to “protect the innocent”, as they call kids, and decided to betray them anyway.
- Comment on Joe Biden Hands Out Obamacare to Illegal Immigrants 1 week ago:
Under the initiative, more than 100,000 illegal immigrants will be granted free healthcare under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The so-called “Dreamers” will be able to enroll in the program’s health care system beginning next year.
Who the eff are Dreamers?
From the pro-genocide Anti-Defamation League:
young people impacted by DACA and the DREAM Act are often referred to as “Dreamers.”
The recipients of DACA are young people who have grown up as Americans, identify themselves as Americans, and many speak only English and have no memory of or connection with the country where they were born. Under current immigration law, most of these young people had no way to gain legal residency even though they have lived in the U.S. most of their lives.
Since DACA began, approximately 800,000 people have been approved for the program. To be eligible, applicants had to have arrived in the U.S. before age 16 and lived here since June 15, 2007. They could not have been older than 30 when the Department of Homeland Security enacted the policy in 2012. DACA applicants have to provide evidence they were living in the U.S. at the prescribed times, proof of education and confirmation of their identities. They also had to pass background, fingerprint and other biometric checks that record identifying biological features.
Well, now we know who they are, but ARE THEY LEGAL? That’s the fundamental question in this carnival of marginalization.
No. No, they’re not. But by law, they are protected from deportation, authorized to work and go to school, get a social security number, and some other stuff. And the only reason they’re not legal is because the “We support a legal path to citizenship for immigrants that go through the proper channels” people do not, in fact, support a legal path to citizenship for them, with a bit of help from weak-kneed Democrats.
And now, this article has the audacity to stoke the fears of illegal immigration? Standard Republican politics: Republican solutions for Republican-caused problems.
- Comment on Republicans / conservatives are winning the immigration and values game. Am I misguided? (read post) 1 week ago:
I don’t understand how this can be so powerful, but so many people believe it and vote accordingly. It’s not rational, it is identity, it is tribe.
Who we are and how we see ourselves is extremely powerful. Take me for example: I cultivate a self-identity of an aspiring intellectual. I generally want to be seen as rational, with evidence-based beliefs, and having spent time thinking about my own thinking. I go to great lengths to shore up this identity for myself. This may not make me popular with the ladies, and I may not be able to easily converse with my friends on pop culture topics because I prefer analyzing arguments, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
In contrast, some people want to be seen as loyal. This irrational to me, but it’s not like being an intellectual with properly weighted beliefs has ever been particularly useful. Being loyal means adhering to the norms of the group because it’s your group. Fundamentally, it’s about identity for those that value loyalty and want to be seen as such. They’ll side with their SO even if their SO is wrong to demonstrate that loyalty. They’ll terrorize the out-group, believing themselves virtuous, because being loyal is virtue to them.
Republicans are winning this game. And we’re becoming increasingly tribalistic in the U.S., where loyalty is more valued than a belief in democratic pluralism. What is public transport, public healthcare, unions, expanded medicaid, access to abortion, etc, in the face of belonging, being valued as a member of a greater community? The latter is existential; the former, just policy.
- Comment on [Serious] Any high-quality right-wing media, books, explainers? 1 week ago:
Oh, you wanted that, too? Shoot, I’ll save you some trouble:
- These three below are the academic powerhouses of conservatism. The Heritage Foundation (and their news arm, The Daily Signal) are your standard rage-bait, but they still put out influential stuff)
- Heritage Foundation (Project 2025 folks)
- Cato Institute—Actually more Libertarian, and has praised Biden before, but generally sides with conservatives
- American Enterprise Institute
- Family Research Council—They hate abortion and everything to do with it. The Washington Stand is their news arm.
- Alliance Defense Fund—Current Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, used to work for these ghouls as a lawyer.
That’s all I got off the top of my head. I used to have RSS feeds of all of these organizations, but reading their headlines was infuriating. It was like a shot of hate every time they popped up. So, if I’m looking for arguments, I know where to go, otherwise, out of sight out of mind.
- These three below are the academic powerhouses of conservatism. The Heritage Foundation (and their news arm, The Daily Signal) are your standard rage-bait, but they still put out influential stuff)
- Comment on [Serious] Any high-quality right-wing media, books, explainers? 1 week ago:
Mises’ Socialism and the economic calculation problem threw me for a loop for a while. It really rocked my preference for socialism at the time. Then I realized modern corporations with modern computing power are doing exactly what Mises says a theoretical central planner can’t do.
- Comment on [Serious] Any high-quality right-wing media, books, explainers? 1 week ago:
While I don’t disagree exactly, the way he puts his arguments is far better than Shapiro. Reading or listening to Sowell is a lesson in uncovering sophisticated conservative arguments. It took me a while to understand how Sowell reasoned, so that’s why I include him and think he’s a great example of conservative thinkers.
- Comment on [Serious] Any high-quality right-wing media, books, explainers? 1 week ago:
Yeah, that’s what they do and say.
- Comment on [Serious] Any high-quality right-wing media, books, explainers? 1 week ago:
For Gingrich, you can read his memo Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.
- Comment on [Serious] Any high-quality right-wing media, books, explainers? 1 week ago:
Yes! I’ve been on this journey!
Thomas Sowell bibliography is easily the best starting place. As a prominent conservative economist, his books actually make good arguments. It takes actual effort to deconstruct his arguments and identify where he’s wrong. He’s widely and highly respected in conservative communities and tackles a lot of the common cultural war issues.
Then there’s granddaddies Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. Also economists, they were directly impacted by the Cold War, and make intellectual cases that capitalism is the only economic system that leads to real individual freedom. And they also try to prove why the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union undermines liberty. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom are staples.
Castigated by modern conservatives because they’re not serious about anything, sociology’s Emile Durkheim is a cornerstone of the discipline. I’ve never read it, but his book *Suicide *concerns individuals within community and the institutions of it. He talks about a type of suicide derived from moral disorder and lack of clarity, anomic suicide.
One book that I found incredibly insightful was Yuval Levin’s The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. This book is genuinely fair to both sides, and it shows the historical roots of conservatism and its relation to the French Revolution, when the right and the left as political stances first became a thing.
- Comment on Biden must remember the reason Jordan, Egypt, and the rest of the Middle East don’t accept Palestinian refugees 1 week ago:
So, dark pluralism is just the assertion that there are no universal truths?
Talk about cowardice…
- Comment on Biden must remember the reason Jordan, Egypt, and the rest of the Middle East don’t accept Palestinian refugees 1 week ago:
Many of them are spent blissfully on many other things, thankfully.
- Comment on Biden must remember the reason Jordan, Egypt, and the rest of the Middle East don’t accept Palestinian refugees 1 week ago:
Gaza’s population is uniquely unfit to thrive in a pluralistic population.
This from a newspaper with the antidemocratic ideology of the modern American right. The real concern is having to add more pluralism to squash for the former president, current criminal defendant.
- Comment on Nypd storms Columbia 1 week ago:
Those are questions for you to answer. This community’s conservatives pay lip service to free speech in the absolute sense but abandon it when you disagree.
If you could be honest, where do you draw the line for the expression of free speech?
- Comment on California Loses Nearly 10,000 Fast-Food Jobs After $20 Minimum Wage Signed Last Fall 2 weeks ago:
The link to the WSJ doesn’t say they cut 9.5K jobs. It’s the same as the one from a month ago about some pizzeria dude losing his job. So, idk wtf this article (or the other Google links, because I searched this time) are talking about. This number feels like it’s being pulled out of thin air to provide a narrative that isn’t true. In other words, unless there was a study done, it’s disinformation.
- Comment on I don't really know how to deal with coworkers who emotionally dump their issues on me 2 weeks ago:
Do only older white conservative men do this?
No. An older Hispanic man almost did it to me. He stopped himself, though, thankfully.
- Comment on Fact check: Biden repeats his claim that he ‘got arrested’ defending civil rights. There’s still no evidence for it | CNN Politics 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, I conceded the point 🤷🏾
- Comment on Fact check: Biden repeats his claim that he ‘got arrested’ defending civil rights. There’s still no evidence for it | CNN Politics 2 weeks ago:
Well if Biden is such a liar for this repeated lie (according to you), then what about Trump? (Other premises of my argument are implied by the three sources above).
If Biden is such a liar, and Trump lied wa-ha-hey! more than Biden, then Trump must be like…an outrageously egregious liar!
So sure, Biden’s a liar because he said he got arrested defending civil rights and didn’t get photographed like Sanders (which, would make the argument that Biden is a liar a hasty conclusion…but I don’t really care about pointing out fallacies as such, I’ll just roll with it like so: )
But Trump is thousands of times worse.
- Comment on Fact check: Biden repeats his claim that he ‘got arrested’ defending civil rights. There’s still no evidence for it | CNN Politics 2 weeks ago:
I’m familiar with whataboutism. And what about it?
- Comment on Fact check: Biden repeats his claim that he ‘got arrested’ defending civil rights. There’s still no evidence for it | CNN Politics 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Supreme Court appears likely to side with Trump on some presidential immunity 2 weeks ago:
Dang…that’s a really good analysis of the arguments.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared sympathetic to the former president’s argument that criminal statutes do not apply to the president unless they say so specifically. He told Dreeben that it’s a “serious constitutional question whether a criminal statute can apply to the president’s criminal acts.”
Kavanaugh – who served as a deputy to Ken Starr during his investigation of then-President Bill Clinton – cited the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Morrison v. Olson, upholding the constitutionality of the independent counsel statute, as “one of the Court’s biggest mistakes” because it “hampered” presidential administrations. When former presidents are subjected to prosecution, Kavanaugh said, “history tells us it’s not going to stop.”
I don’t have anything better to do (yay for being off work today), so I want to dig into this.
Morrison v. Olson basically upheld the constitutionality of the Independent Counsel Act, which was used to appoint Alexia Morrison to investigate and prosecute any federal violations Theodore Olson, then Assistant Attorney General, had committed during an investigation of the EPA. Upholding it meant that Congress could appoint an independent counsel “to investigate and prosecute crimes by high-ranking members of the executive branch. Unlike “the special counsel,” the independent counsel could not be removed by the attorney general (except within a narrow set of circumstances)”^[TeachingAmericanHistory.org]. In other words, the judicial branch could appoint someone with executive power to investigate and prosecute executive members.
In short, Kavanaugh thinks this ruling violates the separation of powers and, as a result, has reigned in the range of actions presidential administrations may have taken in the past. To be fair to him, the Independent Counsel act was used to prosecute government officials in the Watergate Scandal, the Iran-Contra affairs, and the White scandal^[The Efficacy of the Independent Counsel Law: Holding Presidents to Account from Nixon to Trump to Account from Nixon to Trump]. So, it’s been used, and Kavanaugh’s concern is legitimate.
And that concern is relevant to this Trump’s immunity cases because, if they say that Trump isn’t immune from his allegedly criminal acts, then it with further constrain presidential administrations. The reductio ab absurdum argument is that of course presidents should be held accountable for their criminal actions. Duh! The more intellectually honest consideration is that, while president’s should indeed be held accountable for their criminal actions, allowing Trump to be held accountable would encourage investigating and prosecuting the criminal actions of future presidents as yet another tool for political dominance.
Fundamentally, I think Kavanaugh’s concern is less about Trump’s accountability specifically than the functioning of American democracy generally. Having worked through this myself, I better understand where he’s coming from, but…Trump needs to face consequences for what he did as president. IMO, if American democracy can’t function if it’s highest political offices can’t engage in criminal behavior, then American democracy shouldn’t function. Better a dysfunctional democracy with accountability than it’s illusion without.
- Comment on Oklahoma Senate passes bill making illegal immigration a state crime 2 weeks ago:
it sounds like this is just going to shoot themselves in the foot.
Well, when you follow in the footsteps of Florida man, you get what’s coming to you
- Comment on Oklahoma Senate passes bill making illegal immigration a state crime 2 weeks ago:
Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat said. "The Oklahoma Legislature is taking the necessary action to protect our citizens. Doing nothing is unconscionable and this legislation is the appropriate measure to keep Oklahomans safe and uphold the rule of law.”
Some questions:
- What does Oklahoma do now with undocumented immigrants it finds?
- Seeing as how the U.S. Customs Border and Protection “Order of Release on Cognizance” legally releases an immigrant into the U.S. as part of removal proceedings, what more does this Oklahoma law do exactly?
Without the answers to those questions, this seems performative to me, so Republicans in Oklahoma can say, “See! We’re doing something!” despite achieving nothing at all.
- Comment on FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes 3 weeks ago:
So, anyway, you could actually take away that conservatives and…non-conservatives have some issues they agree are the problem and particular solutions to those problem…or not.
- Comment on FTC Announces Rule Banning Noncompetes 3 weeks ago:
Lina Khan should be valued by both conservatives and leftists. She understands competition better than Larry Summers.
- Comment on Google CEO tells staffers the office is not a place to ‘debate politics’ after firing 28 for anti-Israel sit-ins 3 weeks ago:
Well, I guess it’s better that Google enable mass murder than employees oppose it, according to your logic.
What’s funny is that after the atrocities of WWII, there were all these books written about “How could they do that?!” Well, if they thought like you, it’s pretty clear: it was always warranted. The only thing that really mattered was whether people did their jobs.
- Comment on Google CEO tells staffers the office is not a place to ‘debate politics’ after firing 28 for anti-Israel sit-ins 3 weeks ago:
Well, they did leave…by force. But that still leaves Google supplementing genocide and them out of job. Ideally, they’d still have a job, and Google would uphold the human right to life. But Pichai sidesteps that contention altogether by decree: “Don’t talk about it!”
In a Marxist country, you’d be put in prison for disagreeing.
In a capitalist country where life is cheap, you’ll lose your livelihood refusing to contribute to murder on an industrial scale. So, trade-offs, I guess.