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What's the Matter THIS Time, Bunky?

Started by Doktor Howl, June 20, 2018, 08:15:51 PM

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Doktor Howl

What's the Matter THIS Time, Bunky?  You say you woke up one day and they were shoveling kiddies into toddler gulags?  You say this wasn't exactly what you expected when they told you they were going to make America great again?  You just wanted a president that was maybe not quite so...you know...

I've been thinking about your problem, and it occurs to me that Trump has delivered on his promises.  He told you exactly what he was going to do, and you didn't believe him.  His idea of when America was great has everything to do with concentration camps, internments, and ethnic cleansing.  Ask Japanese Americans.  Ask a Navaho.  This is in fact what you chanted for at all of those rallies.  But cheer up, Bunky, at least you didn't get HER and her emails.

When you sit and wonder how Germany got so awful in the 1930s, well, now you know. 

What's that?  You didn't want this, you just wanted to feel proud again?  Proud of what?  I can't help you if you can't tell me what the problem is or was.  And it doesn't look like you want to tell me what it was.  Almost as if you maybe feel a tiny bit ashamed of what was bothering you.  If not, maybe you should be ashamed, because you know that I know that you know what the problem was.

But I am here to help you, Bunky.  I am here to erase the clog of congnitive dissonance that is making your ears ring.  In one simple phrase, I can clear up all of the horrible contradictions that plague you whenever you hear a couple of hundred toddlers crying for their parents while the ICE guards laugh at them and make orchestra jokes.  Is it really that easy?  It's really that easy.  The phrase is this:

"We're not actually the good guys."

Now, Bunky, I can see your hackles going up, but let's be reasonable about this.  At what point since the end of the Korean war have we been on the side of the angels?  At what point can you say that America is okay, without having to contrast it with some horrible totalitarian regime like North Korea or Great Britain?  Try this simple test:  Argue a defense for what's going on right now without using any outside comparisons or comparisons with any other presidency or congress.  Argue it on it's own merits.

Just because there are worse people doesn't make us good people. 

To recap:  Trump told you about all of this in advance, continual political rallies are a bad sign, and we're not the good guys. 

I hope this helps.

Or Kill Me.
Molon Lube

Cain

I just can't wait until 2024, when Ivanka Trump (running mate: Kanye West) runs on the platform of "more children in camps."

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cain on June 20, 2018, 08:20:27 PM
I just can't wait until 2024, when Ivanka Trump (running mate: Kanye West) runs on the platform of "more children in camps."

Apparently, 15 minutes ago Trump signed an executive order to stop the separation while continuing zero tolerance.  So at least we're back up to the level of the internment camps.
Molon Lube

Cain

Exactly, this is how it will play out.  Family separation will be ended, which is undeniably good.  However, treating immigrants and asylum seekers as de facto criminals and sticking them in camps in the middle of the desert, will continue.  And so internment itself will be accepted as being OK, and then come 2020 and 2024, the extremists will come out of the woodwork and claim that family separation was too soft, that actually the children should be sent to labour camps.  And then the "moderate" position will be "send children to camps while parents do slave labour" and Serious Pundits everywhere will nod profoundly and pontificate on the moral goodness of this course.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cain on June 20, 2018, 08:32:42 PM
Exactly, this is how it will play out.  Family separation will be ended, which is undeniably good.  However, treating immigrants and asylum seekers as de facto criminals and sticking them in camps in the middle of the desert, will continue.  And so internment itself will be accepted as being OK, and then come 2020 and 2024, the extremists will come out of the woodwork and claim that family separation was too soft, that actually the children should be sent to labour camps.  And then the "moderate" position will be "send children to camps while parents do slave labour" and Serious Pundits everywhere will nod profoundly and pontificate on the moral goodness of this course.


No argument, that's precisely the way I was thinking.
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

From the Washington Post:

Quote"It may be easier to overturn the Flores Settlement than get Congress to pass something," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank whose restrictionist views on immigration policy have won broad influence in the White House.
"Getting rid of the Flores Settlement is the quickest way to solve the problem," Krikorian said. "The government has been faced with the choice of either splitting the family by detaining the parent and releasing the kid, or just letting the parent go too."

The Flores settlement is of course the ruling that prevents children from being detained without trial.
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Oh, and you're gonna LOVE this:

QuoteAnswering questions from Parliament, meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that "the pictures of children being held in what appear to be cages are deeply disturbing. This is wrong. This is not something we agree with."
Molon Lube

Cain

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 20, 2018, 09:46:43 PM
Oh, and you're gonna LOVE this:

QuoteAnswering questions from Parliament, meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Wednesday that "the pictures of children being held in what appear to be cages are deeply disturbing. This is wrong. This is not something we agree with."

There's some backroom wierdness going on with the UK lately re: anything to do with the US, so I would take what our PM says with an even bigger grain of salt than usual.

The thinking has been that May has been slow/reluctant to criticize Trump because she believes in the event of a bad Brexit deal, which is increasingly likely, the UK can pull the wool over the eyes of the US and get a far more favourable trade deal than they would with, say, someone competent in the White House (questionable, given how bad the FCO has shown themselves to be thus far, but that's the theory).

HOWEVER, lately there has been something of a shift at the elite levels in the UK, among not just sections of the media, but also the financial and administrative elite.  A lot of people are fearing a "no deal" Brexit, there are growing suspicions that Russian information ops may have been decisive in the vote (and the links between the Brexit vote and Trump campaign are even more entwined than previously thought), there are major security concerns about what Brexit will mean....and while that hasn't had a noticeable effect on the PM's conduct, it is likely exerting pressure somewhere in the background.

Just keep in mind that there is a large part of the Brexit iceberg that isnt obviously visible at the moment, and it's not clear what that means, or how it is affecting the UK's previous indulgence towards Trump.

Prelate Diogenes Shandor

Quote from: Cain on June 20, 2018, 08:32:42 PM
Exactly, this is how it will play out.  Family separation will be ended, which is undeniably good.  However, treating immigrants and asylum seekers as de facto criminals and sticking them in camps in the middle of the desert, will continue.  And so internment itself will be accepted as being OK, and then come 2020 and 2024, the extremists will come out of the woodwork and claim that family separation was too soft, that actually the children should be sent to labour camps.  And then the "moderate" position will be "send children to camps while parents do slave labour" and Serious Pundits everywhere will nod profoundly and pontificate on the moral goodness of this course.

Agreed. I would not be surprised if Trump tried to bring back slavery.
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Doktor Howl

Molon Lube