Look both ways before you cross

[P3nT4gR4m]

Disagree with freedom of movement? You are racist, doesn't matter your reasons, you are racist, islamaphobic scum.

People can be quick to judge but I have yet to hear an argument against freedom of movement that doesn't play on fear of the other.

What about cheapness? A lot of people pretty openly also seem to be worried that immigrants will benefit from social welfare programs, the cost of which might possibly cause people's taxes to go up a penny

So the immigrants that aren't coming over to steal our jobs are coming over to shit up our social welfare? Still seems based in fear rather than empathy.

Weel, duh! Fear is how the drones are programmed. Brainwashing by empathy doesn't pack the same punch. Brexit had a large racism contingent, yeah but the majority were just shit scared a terrorist was going to sneak through the channel tunnel and kill them in their sleep. The left served this agenda admirably by screeching "Nazi" at them, in that whiny, sanctimonious voice the left are famous for, thus alienating any swing voters and sealing the deal.

Pretty much the same way the left gifted the US election to Trump.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Worrying about immigrants draining the welfare half of us don't even want to give to natives is sort of a silly argument anyway. It's always a shallow argument, like trying to outlaw abortion "because murder" while also doing your best to make life hell for the resulting children.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Disagree with freedom of movement? You are racist, doesn't matter your reasons, you are racist, islamaphobic scum.

People can be quick to judge but I have yet to hear an argument against freedom of movement that doesn't play on fear of the other.

What about cheapness? A lot of people pretty openly also seem to be worried that immigrants will benefit from social welfare programs, the cost of which might possibly cause people's taxes to go up a penny

So the immigrants that aren't coming over to steal our jobs are coming over to shit up our social welfare? Still seems based in fear rather than empathy.

Still not based in empathy but I never said it was. I merely said that it's not xenophobia, it's just being cheap. There's an implication with many that they don't want their taxes going to this sort of thing at all, even as concerns people who are already here and were born here

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Worrying about immigrants draining the welfare half of us don't even want to give to natives is sort of a silly argument anyway. It's always a shallow argument, like trying to outlaw abortion "because murder" while also doing your best to make life hell for the resulting children.

Existence is categorically better than non existence. It's better to be a living worm than a dead lion.

(The problem with the standard Christian pro-lifer that makes their point nonsensical is that they don't believe that they don't believe in non-existence. They believe that the soul is present from conception, making the entire matter a non-issue)

[Vanadium Gryllz]

Are poor people/welfare recipients just another form of outsider?

Existence is categorically better than non existence.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Are poor people/welfare recipients just another form of outsider?

Actually I heard a lot of Republicans are stereotypically poor rednecks (though I forget what the source was on that, so take it with a grain of salt)

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Also, can we talk about Islam? All the Abrahamic religions are religions of hate! That's what Abrahamic religion is about! Islam is not an exception! I understand that most actual Muslims are good people, but like Christians and Jews they're good despite their religion, not because of it. They're good because they ignore 90% of what the book has to say just like your everyday Christians and Jews who ignore most of the bible. Why is it ok to shit on Christianity but not on Islam? How is the bible belt worse than the middle east? The bible belt is phenomenally horrendously shitty, but the middle east is shit, and in a perfect world they would both disappear. I get that sometimes it's fundie christians saying it and that they really ought to remove the beam from their own eye first, but it's still accurate.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Also, can we talk about Islam? All the Abrahamic religions are religions of hate! That's what Abrahamic religion is about! Islam is not an exception! I understand that most actual Muslims are good people, but like Christians and Jews they're good despite their religion, not because of it. They're good because they ignore 90% of what the book has to say just like your everyday Christians and Jews who ignore most of the bible. Why is it ok to shit on Christianity but not on Islam? How is the bible belt worse than the middle east? The bible belt is phenomenally horrendously shitty, but the middle east is shit, and in a perfect world they would both disappear. I get that sometimes it's fundie christians saying it and that they really ought to remove the beam from their own eye first, but it's still accurate.

Centering your argument around religion is the problem. There is no possible future where humanity has completely abandoned ridiculous superstition, so it's only prudent to treat religion as a given. Rather than complain that Christians/Jews/Muslims adhere to a violent and hateful religion, we should emphasize the (many) exceptions to that rule as the enlightened/civilized way to practice those religions. Attacking Islam itself grants sanctuary, however limited or momentary, to the Christian bigot who thinks Islam is a religion of hate and violence. The same goes for attacking Christianity and Judaism. What we should be doing, in my opinion, is to loudly recognize that the source of strife in these areas is not really the religion, but the extremist interpretations of the religion used by political and economic powers for decidedly un-religious purposes.

Islam is not the problem, and neither is Christianity or Judaism. The problem is extremism, which turns out more or less exactly the same in all cases. The only reason we don't have Westboro Baptists running around beheading infidels is because we have a strong secular state that would put an end to that pretty fast. But attacking that sort of violence as some kind of inevitable result of religion only makes it worse.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Ok, that makes more sense. But how do we do that? There seem to be a lot of people off-message from that.

[Fallenkezef]

Ok, that makes more sense. But how do we do that? There seem to be a lot of people off-message from that.

Been thinking about this myself, will put ideas to page afterwork. The short answer is education.

You have guys like Robert Spencer, who have studied islam and are able to put coherent and hard to argue views about how islam is evil and the greatest threat to us ever. Yet there are few counter-arguments supporting the vast majority of muslims living peaceful lives.

The argument that every muslim is a terrorist waiting to happen, best get rid of them now is getting more and more support. Needs to be stopped before the logical conclusion

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

Disagree with freedom of movement? You are racist, doesn't matter your reasons, you are racist, islamaphobic scum.

People can be quick to judge but I have yet to hear an argument against freedom of movement that doesn't play on fear of the other.

What about cheapness? A lot of people pretty openly also seem to be worried that immigrants will benefit from social welfare programs, the cost of which might possibly cause people's taxes to go up a penny

So the immigrants that aren't coming over to steal our jobs are coming over to shit up our social welfare? Still seems based in fear rather than empathy.

Still not based in empathy but I never said it was. I merely said that it's not xenophobia, it's just being cheap. There's an implication with many that they don't want their taxes going to this sort of thing at all, even as concerns people who are already here and were born here

Actually would like to point out, it's a common misconception that immigrants are ending up on welfare. Speaking as someone who works in mental health and works with population that need help getting benefits, most immigrants wouldnt qualify for welfare, because they wouldnt have the basic forms or information necessary to even TRY to apply for it. They'd have to become naturalized citizens before they could even fill out the paperwork, so this whole point is moot anyhow. And before someone says they could fudge papers, keep in mind lots of immigrants come over to work fields and whatnot and forgery is a pretty hefty felony to risk just to be able to pick strawberries. The immigrant population as a whole generally keeps its nose cleaner on average because they usually fear that any ciminal offense will get them thrown back over the border.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Disagree with freedom of movement? You are racist, doesn't matter your reasons, you are racist, islamaphobic scum.

People can be quick to judge but I have yet to hear an argument against freedom of movement that doesn't play on fear of the other.

What about cheapness? A lot of people pretty openly also seem to be worried that immigrants will benefit from social welfare programs, the cost of which might possibly cause people's taxes to go up a penny

So the immigrants that aren't coming over to steal our jobs are coming over to shit up our social welfare? Still seems based in fear rather than empathy.

Still not based in empathy but I never said it was. I merely said that it's not xenophobia, it's just being cheap. There's an implication with many that they don't want their taxes going to this sort of thing at all, even as concerns people who are already here and were born here

Actually would like to point out, it's a common misconception that immigrants are ending up on welfare. Speaking as someone who works in mental health and works with population that need help getting benefits, most immigrants wouldnt qualify for welfare, because they wouldnt have the basic forms or information necessary to even TRY to apply for it. They'd have to become naturalized citizens before they could even fill out the paperwork, so this whole point is moot anyhow. And before someone says they could fudge papers, keep in mind lots of immigrants come over to work fields and whatnot and forgery is a pretty hefty felony to risk just to be able to pick strawberries. The immigrant population as a whole generally keeps its nose cleaner on average because they usually fear that any ciminal offense will get them thrown back over the border.

I know that, and you know that, but the right doesn't that know that, and that's why they don't like people coming here.

EDIT:
That and the converse paranoid worry that immigrant workers will take all the jobs and there won't be any jobs left for americans (or insert your first world nation here), despite the fact that many of the jobs anyone coming here illegally are going to take are menial ones that nobody wants anyways because they pay terribly and are even less prestigious than working at McDonalds

EDIT:
Always keep in mind the Epistle to the Paranoids and Hanlon's Razor.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

Fair enough.

[Vanadium Gryllz]

I didn't know that - so thanks, Chelagoras 

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Another problem with the left is the Newspeak, as it pertains to both minorities and transsexuals. In regard to the former, the euphemism treadmill needs to stop. I'm not talking about actual slurs like n***** and s*** and c****, obviously you shouldn't those. I'm talking about the fact that they apparently changed the PC tern for black people so many times that they have actually run out of euphemisms and had to go back to "colored people"; yet they insist on pretending it's a new term just because they switched the order of the words around to "people of color". That's a sign that something is seriously wrong.

As for transsexuals, you're not Big Brother, you don't get to dictate what the words of the english language mean. You can't change what "male" and "female" or "man"  and "woman" mean, and certainly don't get to rewrite history to say that they've always referred to some kind of nebulous internal identity; at best you could argue truthfully that that's always been part of it, but even with that said it's never been the biggest part of it, physical sex has always held the controlling share. If a man wants to live as a woman, fine, more power to them, that doesn't affect me (or anyone) as such , but living as a woman doesn't make them a woman, and the mere fact of wanting to live as a woman certainly doesn't, and if they insist I change the way I speak and the way the english language has always been spoken to accomodate them then it begins to affect me. The most I'm willing to offer is to use eurotrash pronouns from the romance languages, which have a precedent for not matching sex

Furthermore in a perfect world the idea of living as a man or living as a woman would be meaningless as the experiences, expectations, and norms would be identical for both. Anyone who clings to living as a man or living as a woman as something to be grasped is a stumbling block on the path to this perfected world.

With that in mind I do therefore side with trans people on most issues, albeit not for the same reasons they take that side. For example I oppose that ridiculous law requiring people to use the restroom corresponding to their sex on the grounds that it is sex based discrimination. Just about any place where trans issues come up there is some kind of sex based inequality or non-uniformity going on, despite the fact that outside of medicine and relationships (the only two areas where parts ever come up) there's never any reason for such non-uniformity to exist (and there's never a reason anywhere for the inequality)