Quo Vadis GOP?

[The Minsky Moment]

if that is so, it says awful things about our national character.

You chopped out the part where I explained why it doesn't say awful things about our national character.  That's not like you.

You raised some questions of fact.  I don't think the resolution of those questions is relevant to whether it is appropriate or decent to bus people on Christmas Eve to a destination in the freezing cold where there is no place for them to stay.  That is like a plot element in a Grinch-themed movie.

If we want to talk about facts, such as burdens on states, then the fact is that California hosts more immigrants then Texas and Florida combined. New Jersey hosts far more per capita than either Florida and Texas.  Yet the governors of California and New Jersey are not sending out busloads of immigrants to Kansas.

If Texans believe their state is bearing a disproportionate burden of incoming migrants, then they would be well within their rights to demand additional federal assistance.  But that would conflict with Abbot's agenda, which is not to ameliorate the problem for the state but to exploit it for political points.  Instead, he is wasting millions of state taxpayer money on perverse human campaign ads.

[Josquius]

I guess it is "clever" in that it hits so many of the notes that really appeal to morlocks.
The "why don't you let them stay in your place" fallacy, anti metropolitan liberal elite, anti government, etc....

Hopefully it's not clever in that more of the population are capable of rational thought that he is assuming.

Fingers crossed Texas hurries up and goes purple

[Admiral Yi]

You raised some questions of fact.  I don't think the resolution of those questions is relevant to whether it is appropriate or decent to bus people on Christmas Eve to a destination in the freezing cold where there is no place for them to stay.  That is like a plot element in a Grinch-themed movie.

I think it is very relevant if the people were asked if they would like to take a bus on Christmas Eve to a destination in the freezing cold where there is no place for them to stay or if they were coerced or tricked into doing so.

[grumbler]

I think it is very relevant if the people were asked if they would like to take a bus on Christmas Eve to a destination in the freezing cold where there is no place for them to stay or if they were coerced or tricked into doing so.

So you'd be okay if they were asked if they wanted to be shot or to take a bus on Christmas Eve to a destination in the freezing cold where there is no place for them to stay?  I mean, they got to choose, right?

I think that you are being as absurd as question above.  No one choses to be transported with their kids to a freezing location with no food or shelter.  What they almost certainly did choose was to follow the directions of the Texas state authorities, not knowing that they were just pawns in some despicable political game.

[Josquius]

It need not be an either/or.
I recall with the Martha's Vineyard one they thought they were being sent to Boston where they'd be met and dealt with officially.

Also worth considering they probably aren't tracking weather reports for all parts of the country and don't know what to expect in Washington. Its 24 degrees [American] sounds perfectly fine to people in most of the world. If they're from Central America they might never have dealt with seriously freezing temperatures- a pretty common problem for international students hitting their first winter

[The Larch]

Yi, I didn't have you for such a piece of shit kind of person.

[Admiral Yi]

Yi, I didn't have you for such a piece of shit kind of person.

Well now you know.  I'm exactly this kind of person.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yep--I lump Yi in with Berkut as someone who has massively declined in terms of their quality as human beings in the last few years. I remember a time many years ago when I was one of the more diehard Republican and conservative posters on these boards (and also one of the few devout Christians), but as my former party has gotten into awful things like this very topic (using humans as pawns for political points) I've tried to pretty vigorously denounce them.

Yi clearly hasn't aged well, I'm guessing as he's gotten older he's gotten more bitter about things in his life, and he clearly doesn't like America anymore because it isn't the same America he knew 20 years ago or 30 years ago. It's a common nastiness that people get as they age, but I had hoped for better from many people here.

[The Minsky Moment]

Same Yi, same libertarian-ish streak.  What matters is the fact of an individual choice, not the context for that choice or the meaning associated with it.

[Syt]

Same Yi, same libertarian-ish streak.  What matters is the fact of an individual choice, not the context for that choice or the meaning associated with it.

That's how I see it. Which is a nice ideal, but unfortunately people often aren't free from outside pressures when making their choices, and don't always have access to all relevant information and/or resources to make an informed decision in the first place (and with interested parties often going out of their way to hinder access to that information and those resources).

[Admiral Yi]

Same Yi, same libertarian-ish streak.  What matters is the fact of an individual choice, not the context for that choice or the meaning associated with it.

I was thinking about this very question last night.  Now obviously using people as props for political purposes is done all the time, so that in itself can't be the issue.  What does differentiate this case is the props presumably don't subscribe to the same agenda as the ring leader.  Whatever De Santos actually would like in terms of changes to immigration policy--he hasn't mentioned any specifics--it's surely to limit immigration.  Build teh wall, tell asylum seekers to fuck off.  The props probably disagree with his position.

So here are groups of asylum seekers who have been given the choice to move at taxpayer expense to blue states.  I don't *know* they have been given a free choice because I haven't personally talked to each and every one, but I also know there are numerous parties who have a vested political interest in demonstrating they have not been given a free choice and AFAIK they have failed to produce any evidence this is so.  On that basis I feel confident they were not prodded onto Greyhound at bayonet point.

As far as that goes I don't see how you can call the asylum seekers victims of anything.  If they of their own free will accept the offer of transportation  even though it has political ramifications does that make them victims?  I say no.  They are free to weigh the net benefits to themselves of free transportation vs. furthering an agenda they object to.  Same if they are indifferent to US immigration policy.

I think the wedge comes in when they are naive to the ramifications, when they don't follow US politics.  I.e. the paternalistic argument.  In a way they are child like and like children they need to be protected from their own decisions.

So I do see grounds for saying De Santos has DONE WRONG.  But I also think the Democratic response, which has been endless repetition of "don't use people as political props" has missed the mark.

[ulmont]

I also think the Democratic response, which has been endless repetition of "don't use people as political props" has missed the mark.

You're not a fan of Kant, I take it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I would love to understand how someone can be so "deliberately stupid", it's easy to be accidentally stupid, but Yi's obvious deliberate stupidity takes real effort, and is not nearly so easy to pull off as one would assume.

I have not seen any mainstream claims that people are being "prodded" onto buses. That is what we call a shitty strawman argument (which you wouldn't bother making unless on some level, you "like" what's happening to these immigrants--which I suspect Yi does because he's a huge piece of shit.) The claims are that they are not being given informed consent, and there has been significant investigative reporting that has largely substantiated those claims. I'm not sure what more evidence you want. Arrests? Criminal trials? It's highly skeptical if a person working as a contractor for the State of Texas or Florida, giving someone who can't speak English vaguely confusing information and sending them for free to another state constitutes any kind of crime at all. In Florida it may have represented a breach of law restricting how the State spends money, but it would be up to the Florida legislature to deal with that--and they are in fief to DeSantis.

I don't think the Democratic response has missed the mark. It has gotten on record they think this is wrong, which all good people agree with. It hasn't changed the way ghoulish asshats like Yi look at it because well, they are ghoulish asshats. This stuff is designed to appeal to asshats like you.

[DGuller]

Yi, I didn't have you for such a piece of shit kind of person.

Well now you know.  I'm exactly this kind of person.

You're not that kind of a person at all.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I also think the Democratic response, which has been endless repetition of "don't use people as political props" has missed the mark.

You're not a fan of Kant, I take it.

Of course not. When people say they are libertarians they really just mean they have no morality whatsoever and want to do everything they want, have no obligations in life, but take pride in seeing other people who aren't like them get shit on by the government.