Saying that it's all about immigration vs xenophobia, and nothing else, is gross oversimplification.

For starters, immigrants may take up jobs that native-born citizens also need, but there's also the issue of outsourcing. Corporations will exploit low-wage labor, and will leave areas where workers will not accept such low salaries. Look at what outsourcing has done to places like Detroit; the jobs leave, the money leaves, and infrastructure and quality of life crumbles. Yet the United States is still a lucrative market to sell goods in, so these corporations, such as car manufacturers, still sell foreign-manufactured cars in the very places they left. They make more money because they pay the foreign workers less, while the common man and woman suffer.

This is no good for us, so Trump's solution is implementing a 35% tariff on American corporations who think they can outsource and get off easy by selling these foreign-made goods. At the same time, Trump plans to reduce the business tax to 15%, giving these corporations an even better reason to come back (as well as more money to give workers good salaries). You can already see it with various companies abandoning plans to build factories in Mexico, and investing in plants in Michigan.

Ironically, Obama said this was impossible. He asked Trump what kind of magic wand he had to bring those jobs back. Well, looks like Trump's a wizard.

Actually, walls remain a very practical means of controlling movement of people. For instance, look at the results of Hungary's border wall.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i...eca3LNzlFCOvEw

And if you question whether illegal aliens bring violent crime (which, in turn, a barrier to migration would indirectly stop), look no further than Israel's border fence.

http://www.factsofisrael.com/en/imag...urityfence.gif

It's mostly because it was a campaign promise.

I'm guessing public opinion is about 50-50 right now.

whats the point in building a wall when the USA caters so much to illegal immigrants. I see reports of people illegally in the USA having car licences and jobs at franchises and such. In Australia it's practically impossible to function in society if you're here illegally, unless you're getting paid cash it's impossible to have a job (because the Tax Office will know where you're working) and in my state (and I assume others) you can't get a drivers licence without a shit ton of ID. And good luck going to the doctors lol.

A: when you have immigrants coming to your country, you expand your economy accordingly. Labour is an economic input that increases your GDP. Also if a Mexican that knows thirty words of English took a job 'meant for you', you never deserved it in the first place.

B: Detroit failed because of financial nelgligence and because Obama bailed out the companies and not the employees.

C: you just used one of the most right wing governments in Europe, and an apartheid state, as evidence that walls are good. Top lad well done wew.

Of course we need to expand our economy accordingly, or we will not sustain these immigrants. That's why Trump is fighting outsourcing.

But outsourcing remains a factor, correct? As the city of Detroit loses its competetive edge, yet unions shout louder and louder for unsustainable wages, the corporations move their production to low-wage foreign factories... Leaving people jobless.

How does that matter? Would it work differently for a left-leaning government building a wall? Can you give me an example of such a case?

I'll need to write a fuller response to the other claims you're making in this thread another time, but a quick note on this point is that Trump himself is guilty of this type of outsourcing in his own businesses. He is a massive hypocrite, on this and many other issues.

Sounds good.

He, himself, has admitted that he's been part of the swamp he's draining. Take the beginning of this video, for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIBCEkzPYoE

Considering that he has refused to adequately divest his business interests, has he actually done anything about this? Admitting he's done it isn't the same as taking action to rectify it.

He could very well have not done anything to alleviate these concerns in the first place.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_55...b002d5c078b44c

Handing his businesses down to his children is very much an "anything." We can't just expect him to sell what he's spent his whole life to make in a fruitless gesture to appease people who will never cut him an inch of slack regardless. He knows a terrible deal when he sees one.

@UnderTheSun, I'm pretty sure Manco didn't mean Trump has to immediately get rid of his business.

@Manco, Where's the hipocrisy, exactly? Does the new solutions he presents have his business listed as an exception?

I never said illegal immigrants weren't a problem - you could say the idea of legal immigrants too may not be the greatest for our local workforce. But our entire country was founded on immigration. My point was actually people are just using them as a scape goat more than they should be. If we dealt with immigration, I really don't think that would magically fix all of our problems.

The thing about importation tariffs though... That's one thing I can agree with, because that's a thing going after businesses not people. Corporations leap from country to country to avoid the taxation that they'd have to deal with in being a local business while exploiting cheaper, less regulated labor in foreign land, which they then turn around and sell back to us. When a business is not actually based on our soil it can be detrimental to our economy - just look at Walmart. Their entire business model was that they were the store that sells things to us cheaper than everyone else but the money they earn doesn't actually help the country's cycle besides the paychecks of the people they employ. Meanwhile they make use of cheap foreign labor and import it back to their stocks here, which they sell at cheaper rates than everyone else which really damages local competitive - especially for small businesses which just simply can't compete. Of course more people will want cheaper groceries from Walmart vs some place like Target.

Also... Comparing our immigrants to those of another country's isn't really the most valid of arguments. Israel is Israel. The entire middle-east is in the shitter right now, it's all complete chaos and many people are basically just running away from corrupt governments or the fighting between moderates and radicals vs other radicals. Of course there's more crime in Israel, their whole world over there in that part of the world is going to shit. Among the people fleeing these different lands, there are terrorists tagging behind them with two main goals: Kill the people fleeing, and kill the places they're fleeing to. This is exactly what's fueling xenophobia in all the countries they're fleeing to because as more immigrants get accepted, they potentially bring with them more terrorist attacks because of those zealots that are following them, and naturally the people living in those countries resent that. But at the same time, denying them all is basically a death sentence to them.

Mexican immigrants ARE BY NO MEANS like the immigrants over there - they don't come over to our borders with bombs strapped to their ass. Most of them are just looking for the opportunity to start a new, more stable life or they're running away from all the druglords and corrupt police forces - both of whom present MUCH less of a threat to us.

I hate trump!!

I prefer him than Clinton.

In the end, the Democratic party basically ruined itself by choosing literally the worst possible left-wing candidate to be its head. Why Obama was the first to sponsor her is beyond me - especially considering how viciously she fought him in the past. You know, she actually said some borderline racist shit against him in a few debates? I don't remember it much - some comment about her being lucky enough to have been "raised away from the thug life" or whatever.

She got boo'd for it and even the other speakers were surprised.

I have heard she's a nasty piece of work but I never heard that exact story. But there you go, if it is true then I have even more of a reason to not like or trust her.

I prefer sanders the communist

Fixed.

You need to read the article again – the 2011 situation was not a ban. The updates at the end of the article set this out flatly. It was also a situation caused by necessity, as the administration at the time had to respond to an identified issue. In contrast, Trump’s ban has been put in place without good reason, was ordered without going through appropriate planning, and has caused chaos as a result.

It may have been a campaign promise, but I’m not arguing about that – I’m arguing whether it is a good policy, and it clearly is not.

And it was far from his only option – there was absolutely no reason to make this order so soon, and he wanted to wait for when he was in a more secure position he could have done.

Even the argument that this is about combating terrorism is plainly false – between 1975 and 2016 zero Americans were killed on US soil by a foreign national from any the countries identified on Trump’s list; and the probability of being killed by an immigrant in a terrorist attack is an astronomically low 1 in 3.6 million. Only 3 refugees have been arrested in the past 15 years for terrorist activities; only 0.00062% of refugees admitted into the country since 1975 ever attempted a terrorist act – and only 3 out of the 20 attempts were successful.


The proposed tariff will not be paid for by Mexico, it would be paid for by Americans through increased prices to compensate for the tariff. Add to it that the US buys in more import from Mexico than vice versa – $316.4 billion versus $267.2 billion. This deal would hurt America more than Mexico; that is not ‘holding all the cards’. And tracking down money sent to Mexico by immigrants would be exceedingly difficult to manage; let’s not even get into the implications of holding hostage the money immigrant workers’ families depend on for support.

Meanwhile, Trump’s aggression is souring relations with the Mexican government, and the current wisdom is that the upcoming Mexican elections will see candidates vying to be as anti-Trump as possible to gain votes. President Nieto is already playing hardball, and it’s only going to get worse.


You are confusing immigration and outsourcing into a single issue, but these are separate issues. Yes, manufacturing abroad is cheaper, and many businesses exploit the lower wages in countries such as China. But this is not something that can be blamed on immigrants or refugees within the country (many of whom immigrate for better wages), and it will not be solved by banning immigration or turning away refugees.

And immigrants raise wages.


Do you mean companies like Ford, where Trump falsely claimed credit for the Michigan investment (which is a fraction of the amount due to be invested in Mexico), or where Trump took credit for saving a plant that wasn’t even going to close?

Trump has threatened to implement his tariff, but the deals he’s struck have not come from the tariff – they’ve come from tax cuts. And any tariff would simply be costing Americans more tax money and damage international trade.


In Hungary’s case, the fact is that refugees can take other routes around this border – so building the wall has simply redirected those people, not blocked them; they will seek the past of lesser resistance. For Trump and Mexico, the scenario is different – the size of the border is much larger, and there are no other routes around, so people would be more determined to find a way in.

But I am not concerned about the effectiveness of a hypothetical wall – of course putting a wall up will stop people. What worries me is the implication behind these walls; the ideology they represent. Let alone the prohibitive financial cost of such a wall would be quite possibly the largest waste of federal money on a vanity project the US has ever seen.

Hungary’s wall represents one part of the rising anti-refugee sentiment in Europe. Let’s recap: refugees are people fleeing war, seeking asylum, fleeing from terror. They risk life and limb abandoning their homes to travel across the world to find safety; but now instead they are finding themselves blocked, turned away, or penned in to despicable holding camps. The European Union is failing to support people desperately in need of help – is that the example the US wants to follow?

Hungary stands accused breaking Geneva Conventions by “escorting” refugees who cross the wall back to the other side; and Hungarian police are alleged to have used excessive force, while those who make it into the country are described by Amnesty International as being “treated like animals” in detention. It has not reduced refugee numbers; it has simply made life harder for them.


I don’t even know where to begin with this claim. Israel’s border fence is designed to hem in Palestinians; it has spent decades illegally encroaching further and further into Palestinian territory, building illegal settlements and driving the Palestinians out. Thousands of Palestinians have been murdered by the Israeli government. Israel’s border control is little more than apartheid oppression; much like Trump’s racist wall, it is built on the back of hatred and xenophobia. Illegal aliens do not bring crime – violent oppression ensures retaliation.


Trump’s approval rating has plummeted faster than any other US President in history, if that’s any indication of popularity.


A left-leaning government would not build a wall. Sybil’s point is that the walls you cited are by-products of dangerous xenophobia – conservative anti-refugee Hungary and oppressive Israeli occupation. These are not examples that the supposed “land of the free” should follow; not if it wishes to be seen as a nation fit to lead the world on humanitarian issues.


Trump has done as good as nothing – his proposals to leave his businesses in the hands of his children are not enough to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics, and they do not constitute a blind trust. And yes, we should expect Trump to divest – regardless of the work he put in building those assets, the fact of the matter is that the most powerful government position in the free world should be free of any conflict of interest, and every other. We have already seen Ivanka Trump’s jewelry promoted on the White House website, and the Trump Organization pressuring foreign diplomats to stay at his hotels. There are many more ways in which trump stands to abuse his power and influence to personally enrich himself and his family, and that is unacceptable.


Yet now Trump brands any news story critical of him as fake news – we have his press secretary making up ‘facts’ to berate reporters with. Is that OK?


He does.


The hypocrisy comes from his businesses outsourcing abroad, with him then turning around and proclaiming that businesses outsourcing abroad are a problem, without doing anything to change his own business practices. Has he stopped his businesses from outsourcing? Has he implemented any actual policy about this yet? It is far from the only hypocritical thing he has done.

I honestly don't know what to say... This is one of the best walls I've ever seen.

The only real thing I think I can add on is that I also found that one comment about stopping immigrants from sending money to their families a bit worthy of raising an eyebrow at. And once again I ask the forums - Is a single dick worth 25 billion dollars to the people of the United States?

There's a couple things I wanted to add to Manco's wall

Let's not forget the fact that the countries he conveniently omitted from the ban are countries that have had links to terrorist activities that have occurred on US soil in the same timeframe (our most famous example, 9/11, was enacted by terrorists from Saudi Arabia and Egypt), but these same countries have Trump businesses set up within them.


And as a reminder, to anyone who thinks the wall would be at all effective, consider the fact that the US-Mexico border is surrounded by water on both sides. If someone's going to cross the border, a wall isn't going to stop them. People can dig. They can swim, boat, and fly in. In a crude reference, they can also climb. There is a reason there's so many jokes about Mexicans hopping fences really well.

This is after the wall's built. The wall, that will take approximately 10 years to build, and by the time it's done it will likely be more useless than it already is, since Mexican immigration is no longer an issue and hasn't been for at least a decade now, way after we had the mass illegal immigration and dealt with it. The wall is a massive waste of money and resources that could be going towards infrastructure, the exact thing Trump said he wanted to focus on time and time again when appealing to rural voters.

As an addendum to how stupid the wall is, I'm an American born citizen that's always lived ~4 hours or less from the US-Mexico border and grew up in an area effected heavily by the mass illegal immigration a while back. The wall is very wasteful and very stupid. The proper measures for dealing with the undocumented immigrants have already been made. The wall is a total waste

Also a very firm reminder, that once elected president, your duty is to The People. You officially serve The People. Everything you've built up off to the side is officially not of your concern, and you are not in that position for yourself. You are no longer an individual, you are the public figurehead for an entire country. The only people who would try to say otherwise are dictators and people who stand to profit by being in that position (not mutually exclusive), which is why you're supposed to immediately drop all conflicts of interest upon entering the White House, since the US loves to cling to the label of democracy and "freedom with liberty and justice for all".

As an addendum to other people's posts about The Wall; approximately 40% of Mexican illegal immigrants come by plane. A wall might slow things down (although as Slog Bait said, probably only a bit), but the there's plenty of people who are just going to fly over the top.

So far, I've personally seen just one case, with the CNN reporter who was aggresively trying to butt in while it wasn't his turn to ask.

Of course not. Although, I don't think Trump tells literally everyone in the office what to say each day. I don't even think it's possible (time constraints), and saying the inauguration crowds were big or not seems like such a trivial matter, that I honestly doubt he would bother.

It's been literally a little more than a week since he's in power.

WallOfText.exe
 

>not a ban
>literally forced the refugee process to halt

If it wasn’t a ban, then the Obama Administration wouldn’t have had the State Department stop processing Iraqi refugees, yes?
I could say that Trump isn’t really banning people from the 7 Middle Eastern countries, he’s just told CBP to stop processing people with nationalities pertaining to those countries.
Either way, the setup to both is the same. The ban (temporary halt, if you will) in 2011 was due to a bomb threat, while the temporary halt (ban, if you will) this past weekend was sparked by events such as the Orlando shooting and Ohio State car-knife attack.
Trump's a man of action, not the kind of person who is willing to wait while his cabinet gets filled out. Besides, voters expect results, and, again, Trump is a man of action, i.e. results.
I don’t think the refugee crisis was in 1975, do you? The Gulf War wasn’t even until the 1980’s. The Middle East was a lot more stable back then.
You seem to misinterpret the point of a tariff.
Tariffs make it more expensive for foreign bodies to sell goods in our markets. If they want to stay profitable, then they are forced to raise their prices, giving less expensive local goods a competitive edge. Consumers, obviously, will buy the local goods.
This means the foreign bodies lose money.
Trump hasn’t even implemented his tariff on China yet. The tariff he set on Mexico (in retaliation for President Nieto refusing to negotiate the wall) is at 20%. This kind of looks like a practice round.
How was I saying they were the same issue, when I explicitly stated that it’s not just illegal immigration and refugees that are the problem?
That article makes it sound like only illegal immigrants raise wages. We can reap the rewards of letting in people legally, while enforcing our immigration laws to keep out people who don’t care to follow the rules. Heck, Trump wants to streamline the immigration process.
Nah, I was thinking more along the lines of cases like the Carrier jobs staying (even after Obama said that wouldn’t happen). But the Ford CEO very much agrees with Trump’s policies, like the tariff.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fo...rticle/2607739
https://i.redd.it/6pjz47lqobyx.png
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0d9a5945c8b7b
http://i.imgur.com/T8VKq0s.jpg
Then again, what does he know? He’s only the CEO of one of the world’s largest automanufacturing companies.
“No other routes?” Slog Bait, you LIED to me!
Estimated wall cost: Around 25$ billion
>be Obama
>propose $70 billion budget to carry out regulations
http://www.forbes.com/sites/susandud.../#cc4e1b1c7e4b
vs.
>be Trump
>for every new regulation, 2 regulations will be diced
>want to build $25 billion wall
>25 isn’t even half of 70
Is it really Hungary's problem how the refugees feel, since they're the very refugees that Hungary wants to keep out? Maybe the people of Hungary know something we don't? Isn't that grounds for negotiation?
That goes for other countries. Bringing in people from war-torn countries with a very different perception of human rights… What could go wrong?
http://68.media.tumblr.com/41b123b49...wfq9o1_500.jpg
I don’t know what European Union you’re talking about, but they seem to have the right idea. Japan saw trouble a mile (well, many miles) away, and only took in a few refugees. Guess what two of them (Turkish) wound up doing?
Evidently, the statistics you brought up didn’t work for Japan. Maybe they haven't worked out for America, either? Maybe that's why Trump won the election?
The barrier worked, didn't it? That's what we're talking about here.

Also... "Trump's Racist Wall"

"Mexican" is not a race. While we're at it, neither is "Muslim."
Polls have shown themselves to be… Unreliable at best.
So, beyond ideological dilemmas, walls work just fine?
Also… The United States has never been a saintly country. We were among the last of the world’s countries to abandon slavery, and even that took a long and brutal war to actually accomplish. We’ve been treating the Middle East like a chew toy for the past few decades.
Do you know why? Because we act in our own interests. If you look at my Sweden example above, that’s what happens when a country values foreigners over its own people. That’s what happens when a government fails to prioritize the well-being of its own people.
We don’t want to have our government make that mistake. That’s why we elected Trump.
Personally, I think these allegations are overblown, and this is all a waste of time. Obviously, the OGE thinks differently, and that’s their prerogative. Which is good, because we need people who will scrutinize our politicians. But I don’t agree with what they’re treating like a smoking gun.
Besides, you do realize what happens next if the OGE actually gets Trump indicted, right?

>be Office of Government Ethics
>sue Trump
>win
>Trump is somehow impeached by republican-dominated Congress
>be President Mike Pence
>”amperes for queers” Pence
>”turning fruits into vegetables” Pence
>conservative evangelical Christian
>no conflict of interests... with God
>federalize conversion therapy
>nuke Middle East
>deusvult.jpg
Do you know who popularized “fake news” in the first place? The mainstream media, which can’t handle American citizens deciding for themselves who they will and will not trust as sources of information. The same mainstream media that lied to the American people, that Trump would never run for president, that Trump would never win the Republican nomination, that Trump would never win the election. Yet they have the audacity to call their more honest competition “fake news.”
Needless to say, Trump trolling the mainstream media like this was beautiful to witness.
Is there reason for concern? Yes. But, personally, I could care less.


You’re right, we need to add them to the pre-made list made by Obama that Congress already approved.
>be poor Mexican
>want to go to America
>don’t care about legal immigration
>want to climb over pesky wall
>go to ladder store
>45 ft long ladder costs over 9,000 pesos
>sell kidney for ladder
>haul 100 pound 45 foot long ladder dozens of miles through Mexican desert with other supplies
>reach wall
>can’t find level ground to set ladder
>try anyway
>half way up I fall off
>break leg
>too poor to afford medical care
>ice agent with 45 foot long pole pokes ladder off wall
>ladder drops onto my face

Not to mention we have Coast Guard patrolling the, well, coasts.
If illegal immigration from Mexico is no longer an issue, then why do illegals who get deported multiple times keep finding their way back?
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/07/0...ultiple-times/
And why would the wall be a waste if Mexico itself had to build a barrier of its own at the Guatemalan border?
http://static.snopes.com/wordpress/w.../08/fence2.jpg
And what’s this about so many people from Haiti and Africa going to Mexico? Why would they want to go there?
[img] http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/25/in...tarian-crisis/[/img]
The fact of the matter is, illegals we deport aren’t staying out, and even Mexico is having to deal with illegal immigrants whom, for all we know, want to join the USA border hopping extravaganza.
Even if Mexico isn’t the source of illegals any more, it is undeniable that a wall will be an effective barrier in the long term.
We’re a republic. Our votes represent our will. When a candidate wins, that means we approved of what they’re going to do, and any amount of us changing our minds will only matter come the next election cycle.
Besides, if a president was REALLY obligated to act on the people’s will, then we get a thing called “tyranny of the majority,” which our founding fathers specifically set up the Electoral College to counter.


If Slog Bait is correct in that illegal immigration from Mexico is no longer a problem, then why is this 40%, from flights of all things, so big? Trump is right; if people are slipping through the cracks like this, we're obviously not paying close enough attention.

Then they'll be limited to land and water travel, and we'll have the wall and Coast Guard.

Or sail around it using those two fuck of massive oceans that happen to exist either side of America's Mexican land border.

"Trump is a man of action" seems more of a glorification of his person than anything. Many of us think he's headstrong and stupid, and we don't trust his actions. It's not a matter of how confident he is, it's a matter of how competent he is, that's the problem. Obama fought with congress for literally EVERY decision he EVER tried to make, and virtually everything he did had to involve severe compromise in order for it to get passed, if at all. Now with a Republican in office, presidential decisions are quicker to process because we have a right-wing majority at this time with a right-wing cabinet. So far, since Trump has officially been president he's made what many of us consider a bad business deal of sorts, building a wall which we think will not be worth our tax payer's money, and now this whole airport situation is further indication of bad things to come. Innocent people like the OP's spouse are being denied access to their families back in the US because of an irrational, wild form of discrimination, meanwhile professional business men and women are facing work-related crisises as they can't continue their international work.

I keep using the word "xenophobia" because this is exactly what is being encouraged and what will continue to be encouraged with this attitude, regardless of why these decisions are being made. We've already had a problem with religious discrimination since 9/11, and while I agree that doing nothing about threats to national security is a worse option, automatically deeming someone a potential threat because of who they pray to or where they were born only reminds one of the Japanese internment camps of WW2. There are appropriate ways to deal with problems, and there are over-reactions which fuel bigotry.

I don't recall the last time the KKK initiated victory parades instead of protests for a president elect. It doesn't matter whether or not you call it an actual "ban" or the "temporary cease of processes". As you said, the initiation is the same, and the effect is the same too. Even if there is reason to temporarily halt the processing of certain kinds of people, the ultimate effect we're getting seems to be doing more harm than good as a "preventative measure". The same could probably be said for similar actions from previous administers.

Forgive me if I’m being stupid, but didn’t Trump say at some early point in his campaign that gross and overzealous safety procedures in airports were a problem we had to deal with? Maybe I misinterpreted or I’m remembering wrong, but that doesn’t really fit with what’s going on now.
You did kind of bunch the issue of immigration and outsourcing together, it kind of looked like you were using one to prove the other point, which even confused me a little until I read it over a couple of times.
If Trump will really make it easier for people to migrate here legally and start a healthy American life, then I'm all for that, but I haven't really seen any indication of that. If anything, the message I've been hearing from him sounds more like he's trying to crack down on immigration all together and keeping people out more than anything. The idea of preventing people from using work Visa's to send money back home, which as you mentioned could pay for the wall, sounds more insensitive than anything. Many immigrants keep their actual families on the other side of the border because they honestly can't afford to go through the legal process to move them here much less buy a house or pay rent. Going harder on work Visas will only decrease legitimate, legal immigration. That's not streamlining. Raising prices for Visas also sounds like a way to make life harder for low-income, desperate families seeking the American dream, and nothing more.




Okay, so Obama’s idea was more expensive. Was it more reasonable though? What these regulations, specifically? Maybe they were a better idea than what Trump’s trying to do or maybe they weren’t. Either way, that doesn’t change the fact that many of us still think that the all mighty border wall won’t actually help our nation enough to be worth that kind of money.

Once again, Mexican immigrants – who are the ones allegedly going to be effected by the wall – are by no means like immigrants over there in the middle-east. Plus, you still can’t ignore the kind of image a giant wall presents to other countries. I think Manco hit it pretty hard here.


Again that’s not the issue – of course a wall will reduce illegal immigration. What I keep stressing is I honestly don’t think that issue is affected the country enough to warrant spending that kind of money. We should just invest in better security measures if anything. Or again, how about make it easier to legally migrate here? You know, streamline it?
Apples and oranges. There is no need to be a dictionary here. It’s an idea that will promote discrimination, in a time where people are already resentful towards Hispanics. Though I have yet to be directly discriminated against, I have seen my mother and father discriminated against quite often growing up. Discrimination and resentment towards Mexicans is very much alive in this country, especially in border states. This wall presents a bad sentiment and I firmly believe it will not be worth the money to build.
Things are different now since 9/11, but the Gulf War was a situation we had to deal with because we were obligated to defend an ally who was being wrongfully invaded.


Trump got elected because of the electoral college, he did not win because of the popular vote – which to this day he still stubbornly claims was due to “all those damn dirty illegals” with absolutely no evidence to support such claims. I absolutely promise you that if someone better than Hillary won the head of the Democrats, Trump would have lost to an absolute landslide.
In fact, I promise you so much that if I had a time machine and could go and change who won the primary on the left and make it Bernie Sanders, Trump would have lost the general election by like 25% vs 75% AT LEAST. I promise you that so much that I would seriously give you a THOUSAND dollars if I would be wrong after using such a time machine. There are A LOT of Republicans who refused to vote because of Trump, and many I know personally would have voted for Bernie – some of which voted Hillary during the general just to try to keep Trump out of office. The Democrats fucked themselves one way or another by selecting Hillary to be their head. And many believe it happened in part because of the corruption in our politics – she is Wall Street incarnate and a witch.


Yes I agree, Pence is a scumbag and a much worse potential leader. The problem though is, how much of his kind would Trump cater towards to secure the next election? We’re probably going to see religion meddle more and more with government decisions and regulations as time goes by.


http://images5.fanpop.com/image/arti...che=1319209386
….
That represents an entirely different issue that many others have been debating since its creation, and many have been calling for its abolishment. In fact, even TRUMP HIMSELF has stated before during his early campaign that the electoral college is an example of federal tyranny that must be abolished for the betterment of the American people. He said this, and then now he’s said the opposite because IT WAS THE REASON HE WON. This is one of the largest, most talked about examples of his hypocrisy. And of course now many more people are raging against it because here we are with Trump as our president.

Also, I agree polls aren't the most reliable of sources. But massive protests and just the simple word of mouth are when it comes to the general popularity of someone. Trump is by no means a 50-50 split, it's far more than that. Hillary and him were two of the most hated presidential candidates EVER to fight each other - both of whom hated by their own parties. This is not a matter of the "liberal media making him look bad". I can promise you that though Trump has his legitimate supporters, he has many more people who absolutely /hate/ him.

My history teacher, my federal government teacher and even my Texas government teacher all agreed on this, and they obviously studied this subject very thoroughly. 2016 is perhaps the most vicious, toxic election the country has ever seen, or at least it's the most absurd in that /both/ party's major candidates achieved the victory of the primary despite overwhelming hatred from their own parties. My federal government teacher stressed almost every single day that "These are two of the most unpopular candidates fighting that we've ever seen in a single election".

Son what


Manco's said numerous times that it was primarily xenophobia first and racism second. Most people use latino and Mexican, as well as several other Latin America nationalities, interchangeably. Latino is a "race".

The only people who argue this are the majority of Americans who genuinely were lead to believe we are The Greatest Nation In The World who does nothing but altruistic things for the rest of the world and that we are rewarded with garbage in return. Yeah, I don't know about you, but my entire experience through elementary school was a constant rehashing of exactly that. It's like we were set up to vote for a looney like Trump.

Also man dang, I didn't know that 61,201,031 voters (in other words 19.19% of the country's current population) counted as us as a whole. You're right, we sure did vote for him. Totally.

Congrats? You figured out one of the many reasons libtards were so freaked out at the idea of Trump winning. It's obviously a set up to get Pence into power, and it's only a matter of time.

Bitch the coast guard ain't shit. My neighbor and their 50 chihuahuas when I was like 12 swam their asses through the Gulf of Mexico and somehow hitchhiked their asses all the way to Nevada to start their new life and weren't stopped or caught a single time. I still meet people who pulled this shit off that are in the process of getting the appropriate documents to live in the states legally.

If you've ever looked into emigrating anywhere, you'd realize how insanely difficult and expensive it is, and how much easier it would be to just force your way into a country and figure it out while you're already there. The entire process is weighted heavily against you. God forbid you actually want to become a citizen. The second you miss a payment here or there to the appropriate people, or the second you slip up even the tiniest bit (not having your papers on hand when an ICE agent suspects you of being undocumented because you forgot them at home and you aren't totally read up on how to handle a situation like that) you get detained and treated like a god damn animal despite all the effort you put into immigration. It's fucking disgusting. It's the reason why there's so many undocumented people here, because what the hell does it even matter? If you get suspected of being undocumented you'll be treated the same way as someone is undocumented anyways. You still risk deportation. The entire country is working against you just by virtue of you wanting to potentially live there.

When Mexican immigration was actually a problem they were bringing down property value and upsetting the work force specifically because we weren't expecting it and their customs clashed with ours. But we adapted to it, tightened border control, cracked down on undocumented immigrants, and now all that's left is just the lingering remains and a steady stream of immigration and deportation, which would happen no matter how big or secure the wall was.

Also, the above reasons are why immigrants that went through the whole process and successfully gained their citizenship get even more pissed off than a natural born citizen about illegal immigration. They figure that because they were able to put in the time, and had the money to pull it off, that everyone who migrated here would be able to do the same. And for the most part, yeah, it's possible, but when you were just trying to escape in the moment as a means to provide for and protect your family it's pretty likely you don't have the money to expend and that you're viewing this as a bandage solution anyway.

I said this in a previous thread about a similar topic, and I think even the discussion of breaking out of a fortified prison was brought up, but if someone really wants to get in/out of somewhere, they'll find a way. Someone really wants to continue their life in America? They'll keep coming back again and again no matter how often they're deported or detained, no matter how big and flashy the border wall is. Someone really wants to break out of jail? There's been several cases of people throughout history that became famous/infamous for constantly committing felonies and yet somehow always breaking back out of prison or just being savvy enough to get let out early time and time again despite the fact they really shouldn't have.

What Mexico does with their money and their country's borders have absolutely nothing to do with what America does with their money and their borders. Mass immigrations and people seeking asylum only happens when Some Serious Shit goes down in the country of origin and the people are desperate for a better life or to stay alive at all. But that's been rehashed several times in different ways already in this discussion. The fact of the matter is, the time for a wall on the caliber that Trump wants has already come and gone. Mexico's economy has steadily been bettering itself, whether we were complicit in helping them or not is also irrelevant, and as a result far less people have been wanting to immigrate from Mexico, and more people are comfortable seeking asylum in Mexico or even crossing Mexico as a means to find shelter elsewhere.

You're about half correct. We are in fact a democratic republic, though the majority of Americans will tell you we are strictly a democracy, because they genuinely believe that to be the case. This is why I brought up that it's a label we cling to. When a candidate wins, assuming the system works as it's meant to, it means that the candidate is what the country as a whole needs, rather than representing what the will of the people is. The system is flawed, however, when The People don't understand how it works. Stop any random person on the street and I can promise you they believe the president is basically the only person that calls the shots and don't even realize they have a representative for their county they can speak to in response to a proposed bill or a sudden ban on a handful of countries they may affect them or someone they know. Which brings me to my next point.

Except with the way our government is structured, the "tyranny of the majority" is not feasible. The POTUS is not an all-powerful figure head, they are a spokesperson for the country and are meant to represent us as a whole. They are meant to serve The People. Our system works on checks and balances, or at least it should, remember? If the president does something the people oppose, the legislature can overturn the executive branch because it's not what The People want, and the Executive branch must oblige. And there it is: The Legislature. The branch of our government that represents the will of The People. The way that there could never be a tyranny of the majority.

For the longest time, I did believe the electoral college was a good thing because it gave a voice to the little people, but the little people already have a voice. Several of them, actually. Each state has a senator to represent the state as a whole. Each state has several districts divided based on population. Each district gets a representative to speak on behalf of the people within that district. This way, the people voice their concerns and their will to their representative, who in turn vouch for the people when voicing their concerns and will to the senator, who in turn sits in with a senator for every other state to make a decision based not on the majority, but the country as a whole. Everyone already has a voice.

Removing the electoral college would not hinder us in the slightest. However, because there's been so much emphasis on the executive branch, specifically our president, it's allowed people to totally overlook our house and senate, and as a result there's some very gross and very shady figures basically working against the will of The People at every given opportunity.


40% may be a big number at first glance but when you take that 40% out of another number (40% of 50 is 20) it's moot. Also, all you have to do to be considered an illegal immigrant is to be in this country without a valid visa or green card, or you've stayed in the country longer than their laws allow with your passport (for example, if I stayed in the UK for longer than 2 months without a visa with just my passport I'd be considered an undocumented immigrant/illegal, even if I intended to leave shortly after that timeframe). What you're seeing there are people who came in and decided to stay or got held up and couldn't leave for fear of punishment for not making whatever the deadline was.

https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=%22f...c=typd&lang=en

This is just when he’s explicitly used the term, by the way.


Apparently it bothered him enough that he called the National Park Service director to complain, and he spent most of his first address to CIA staff boasting about it.

But let’s be real here – of course Trump isn’t going to dictate every single thing to his staff, even if he is known as a micromanager. But that doesn’t excuse his staff propagandizing on his behalf, either – he is responsible for selecting those staff, after all.


And he’s been campaigning to get elected since June 2015. If this was an issue he genuinely cared about, he could have changed his own business practices a long time ago.


This isn’t 4chan, don’t greentext.


It was not a ban, it was a delay in processing due to the high workload of reevaluating applications:
This differs significantly from Trump’s executive order, which is a definite ban.

The Orlando shooting took place in June 2016 and was an act of domestic terrorism, motivated by homophobia and the attacker was radicalized through the internet. Immigration had nothing to do with the attack, and tougher immigration law wouldn’t have prevented it. The Ohio State attacker is not believed to have had any contact with terror organizations, and was a lone-wolf attacker. Neither of these are convincing grounds for the ban being put in place now, as neither case has shown a flaw in the immigration system which was the case when Obama’s administration reevaluated Iraq refugee applications in 2011.


This is a rather aggrandizing manner of saying that Trump’s decisions are led by his ego. Look at his approach to interviews – he constantly talks himself up as popular, and constantly denigrates his critics. He alleges voter fraud because he lost the popular vote; he becomes enraged because his inauguration was poorly attended; he accuses opinion polls of being rigged because they show he is unpopular; he insults the massive protests dwarfing his own crowds.

Trump is a ‘man of action’ because he is seeking quick-fix, populist results to serve his own ego. He is nakedly self-serving, but the job of one of the most powerful political leaders in the world demands that he serve all of the people of the United States.


We’re not just talking about 1975, we’re talking about the entire 41 years in that time period. And I’m sorry, but the Middle East has been far from stable for that time period, and for a long time beforehand.


It’s you who is misinterpreting – any tariff will simply be responded to by Mexico raising prices, and buyers will raise prices to pass on that cost to the consumer. So Mexico still profits on its goods, while American consumers pay higher prices as a result of increased taxation. Americans pay for the wall.

And of course, if Mexican imports are reduced, then even less money will be made on those tariffs. Mexico might be making less money, but they still ain’t paying for that wall – all Trump will have done is sabotage the international trade market.

But I guess this shows that you never read the article, which sets this out:

Because you responded to a point criticizing Trump’s stance on immigration by immediately segueing into talking about outsourcing, without addressing the issues raised?


Here’s another article that discusses legal immigration as well. So between the two articles, we’ve established that both legal and illegal immigration has a positive effect on wages. So your previous claim — that immigration is responsible damages jobs because corporations pay foreign workers less — is incorrect. If Trump wants to ‘streamline’ the immigration process he is welcome to – but shutting down borders, turning away immigrants and refugees and causing chaos with poorly-planned executive orders is not ‘streamlining’ anything.


I don’t think an article title “Ford Scraps Plans For Mexico Plant, But Says It’s Not Because Of Trump” is a very convincing evidence for what you’re arguing, do you?
Of course, as CEO for one of the largest automanufacturing companies, he is going to like policies of tax and regulatory cuts – which is what he is describing in your link, not the proposed tariffs. He is not a fan of the proposed tariff at all.


The problem with this comparison is of course that federal regulations cover the entire United States and must be enforced across the entire economical and social landscape of the country. It is a necessary function of the government to ensure safety and stability for its people, and that’s why the US government has regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration, and National Labor Relations Board, among others. These agencies exist to protect people, and without proper regulation there would be significant health, safety, ethical and economic risks.

Now considering that in 2016, the total US Federal Budget was $3.54 trillion, regulatory spending would have been around … 1.98% of the total budget. This is a justifiable proportion of the budget to allocate to protecting people.

Contrast that with Trump's wall, whose high cost does not justify its own existence. Mexican immigration is not a problem that justifies such a high cost, and a competent president would recognize that those funds would be much more effectively spent elsewhere. But Trump is not a competent president, he is self-serving and is promising the ultimate vanity project fuelled by racist rhetoric.


“Is it really Hungary’s problem how the refugees feel” is an incredibly callous way to refer to one of the largest humanitarian crises of our times. Let’s remember: the refugees entering Europe are abandoning their homes and lives to flee from war, terrorism and persecution. They’re travelling thousands of miles and risking their lives for safety that they no longer have in their home countries.

Arguing that this is simply “not their problem” is nothing more than sticking one’s head in the sand. This is a global humanitarian crisis affecting millions of lives – you don’t get to turn your back on people in danger and claim any sort of moral high ground.

And let’s not forget that Muslim countries have taken in the vast bulk of refugees, and those reaching Europe are a fraction of those being received in countries in the Middle East.

Your example of Sweden is completely misrepresented, of course:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opini...ticle30019623/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ish-women.html
Gonna need a source on that chart there, and a source on your comments about Japan (although considering how xenophobic Japan usually is it doesn’t surprise me).


I’ve been over this exact same discussion before on these forums, so rather than rehash I’m just gonna quote myself:


Polls are generally reliable in gauging the political mood; that doesn’t mean they are always correct, but they are more useful than anything else since we can’t hold a full election every time we want to know the political climate. It is unwise to ignore polling data.


So your argument here is that because America has never been a saintly country, that justifies not becoming a better country? OK.


Well I’m glad you think that the most powerful politician in the world having ethical conflicts around privately profiting from his position is “a waste of time”. It’s certainly not grounds for impeachment after all – and it’s not as if the man campaigned to “drain the swamp” and criticized corruption in politics or anything, right?


I think it’s perfectly acceptable for the mainstream media to be concerned over false news being published free of facts or accuracy – it must be rather unfair for them to see less scrupulous folk getting away with publishing propaganda. Let’s be clear: fake news is not “honest competition” for the established media, it’s people abusing social media to get lies heard.

Of course, when all the available evidence says that Trump won’t be elected, it’s fake news to report on that – those goshdarn journalists not being able to see the future, amiright?


So when Trump campaigns on the issue, it’s a big enough deal that you dedicated two entire paragraphs of your post explaining it; but when Trump himself is shown not to practice what he preaches, you could care less. Gotcha.


So here’s my question to you: Trump’s executive order is flawed because it includes countries where no significant terror threat has come from while leaving out considerably more concerning countries. Trump’s administration claims the list came from Obama administration – the same administration Trump said wasn’t tough enough on immigration. So, is it right for them to now use the same flawed list that their political opponents created when they were previously critical of their strategies? Surely if Trump wishes to tackle terrorist threats more effectively he should have created a new list?


My friend.

My friend, that isn’t a picture of the Mexican border wall. It’s a picture of the fence on the Israel–Egypt border. It says so in the Snopes article you directly linked it from. There is no border fence between Mexico and Guatemala.

Fuckin’ fake news, right? Gets everywhere.


If the votes represent the will, then Clinton should be President. It’s rather disconcerting that in one breath you claim this, then in the next you talk up the electoral college, which specifically functions to unbalance the value of votes and dramatically over- and under-represents many states.

Tyranny of the majority is always a danger in political systems – but that must be balanced with the need for fair representation of people. Trump was not elected by the majority, yet now he is abusing his power and causing significant damage to the country and the minorities that do not have the power to oppose him.

This post has a title.
 

Personally, I believe the reverse; Trump is just as competent as he is confident. To me, his ego and passion are assets. Of course, some find his charisma… deplorable. I'll show myself out...
If it were up to me, I’d appoint magic psychics that can just vet people in a few seconds, then either let them pass or send them back. But bureaucracies aren’t genies (even though they kind of rhyme a little), so now we wind up with cases like a women being unable to visit her family. Every played “Papers, Please”? It’s a bit like that. It hurts to be a moral person whose job is more ethically fit for robots.
If you ask me, it’s like our modern justice system; people who did nothing wrong are going to be punished, but it’s better than saying everyone’s guilty (as chaotic as the travel ban is, at least people are making it through), or that everyone’s innocent (so all the really dangerous people would make it through with the people who wouldn’t hurt a fly (not to say that it’s impossible that some have slipped through the cracks these past few days; that’s what’s impossible)).
I dunno. There’s no denying Trump flip-flops on many issues. Makes him hard to predict, but, on the bright side, it shows he’s willing - well, not closed off to - changing his mind on issues.
Key word sounds. To me, it sounds like all he wants to do is increase vetting of immigrants for safety reasons. Of course, to you and the other fellows here, he’s John Adams back from the dead. All of us are taking what we’ve heard about him, and drawing our own conclusions.
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/.../trollface.jpg
I think the reason Trump changed his mind is worth consideration. During his campaign, as far as Trump could tell, the entire election system was being rigged against him. Even if he managed to win the election itself, the establishment could just get enough electors to go against the results for their states, and that would be that.
Obviously, that’s not what happened, so now Trump’s all like, “Huh, maybe the Electoral College isn’t so bad.” Not to mention I’m pretty sure no reports of vote rigging have been properly investigated yet.
(By the way, Trump changing his mind isn’t exactly hypocrisy, since he’d have to be rigging something himself. Hypocrisy is Trump saying that fit people don’t drink Diet Coke… as a drinker of Diet Coke himself. That got a good chuckle out of everybody (not saying he wasn’t joking))


Are you sure that the Coast Guard of your childhood is the same as the coastguard of today? As you’ve said, anti-illegal immigration measures have vastly improved (certainly enough to be satisfactory, in your eyes). How does today’s Coast Guard factor into this?
(Also, how did that fella manage to do that with a bunch of dogs? People can’t just tell little fuzzy critters to follow them around like that. Sounds like something out of a video game.)
So we should give up on enforcing rule of law, since crime will always exist?
Actually, there’s another aspect to “tyranny of the majority” that concerns me: if we elected our president off of the popular vote, the high-density, high-population urban states would be the only states with any political influence. That’s not a good deal for the rest of the Union. It’s the same reason why we have a legislature with two houses, one with equal representation from every state, and one with representation based on population size; with just the former, small states are given disproportionate power, while with only the latter, well, tyranny of the majority.
If the Electoral College’s current structure poses a problem, then the solution is a Constitutional Convention when the time comes…Which, if Trump turns out to be a massive failure (as you infer will happen), isn’t too far into the future.
I’m sorry, I need to clarify: The article does not mention any goods that Mexico holds an import monopoly over the United States. It gives an example of a Mexican product, formerly costing $100, that is now $120. That means the principles of consumer choice remain; consumers may choose between the taxed Mexican goods, or non-Mexican goods which are not subject to this tax.
Consumers, logically, choose the products remaining at $100 (or even lower), and lose no money; meanwhile, retail stores fail to make a profit, so they stop accepting the proverbial white elephants. Again, America is not adversely affected, rather, Mexico is no longer profiting on exports, damaging Mexico’s economy and industries.
Furthermore, Mexico makes well in excess of $25 billion in two-way export revenue. Rather, we mutually make, more or less, ten times the proposed cost of the wall. President Nieto would do well to negotiate with Trump.
Source does not prove that Mark Fields is against the tariff, only that it has legal friction with, and may threaten, certain international agreements. It even mentions that Trump and Mark Fields have common ground on the TPP (which we recently pulled out of, under Trump).
We’re not turning our backs; check out what Trump’s got in store to help those guys out. A much more long-term solution than just taking in people fleeing an ever-worsening part of the world; if they’re leaving because it’s dangerous, how about we make it safe? If a pipe burst, why desperately look for bucket after bucket to hold the water, when you can temporarily stop the flow of water and mend the pipe?
Trump says we shouldn’t pay for it (of course, he’s a conservative, so he thinks people (and countries) should fix their own problems, hence him wanting to get people off of welfare), but since the refugee crisis itself is a problem to us Americans as well (caused, of course, by the refugees’ disrupted state of living, which they can’t really fix by sticking around), then I see no reason not to pitch in. The only problem is how one would go about doing this.
Here’s a very thorough explanation of Sweden’s situation. Personally, I disagree with the sources you present, since they handwave the issue. One concedes that immigrants are behind the increase, but then saying that it’s really the fault of xenophobic Swedes (despite Sweden being very multicultural and xenophilic) and poor management of refugee shelters (How refugees could be any worse off than where they came from is beyond me; what about halting the flow of refugees until better conditions can be provided?). The other skirts around the truth by saying it’s due to “socioeconomic factors,” blames it on the Swedes (despite cases of hate crimes, apparently, being speculation, based on cited articles), and shifts the issue to sexual assault in general (as if not looking into who the perpetrators are will help women and case studies in any way).
All Trump’s saying is that outsourcing isn’t good for the country that’s losing the jobs (like us). Sounds reasonable. Since he himself put (not any more, he’s the president now) outsourcing to use, that implies he’s got a good grasp on how it works. At least, a better grasp than the establishment politicians.
Also, chalk it up to me being tired of “Trump this, Trump that” all over the Internet. And during the election. My ears kind of got numb to criticism of Trump after a while. Too much soulless vitriol. At least the pro-Trump crowd gets to joke about the senile old lady who yells at cartoon frogs. Maybe I’d be on your side of the fence if your crowd had enough soul and passion to make up entire sagas about Hillary in the DNC primaries. Instead, they went and called the pro-Trump crowd “deplorables,” whom took up that name with honor.
Speaking of joking around…
I deliberately put in greentext so that I wouldn’t be taken so seriously. When an online discussion becomes too serious, we run the risk of devolving into a flame war. Trying to keep things calm and casual wouldn’t be so hard if the tone of words on a screen wasn’t up to the reader to interpret.
Greentext, on the other hand, is inherently humorous. While this does sacrifice formality, it also drops tension in a way that normal text cannot, therefore averting flame wars. In addition, due to it being humorous by nature, it can be used in both self-deprecation and to show the silliness of what others are saying, without appearing overly demeaning. If the other user feels insulted, they can fire back with greentext of their own, and the would-be flame war instead becomes an arms race of who can construct the most elegant shitpost.
Another thing to consider: this is the Oddworld Forum. The Oddworld franchise is founded on sending a serious message about the world’s problems through entertainment laden with humor. Why can’t its community do the same? Greentext seems to be a reliable means of doing so.
It’s better than a flame war over a politician who hasn’t even been in office for a month. And better for the mods, that’s for sure.

Thoughts?

Yeesh, I need to check these things. Good catch.
Then again, it’s a good thing Mexico didn’t build a wall, since they need the money to pay for ours. :p

That's entirely untrue. As it stands now there are only a few states that determine the election. A popularly elected president would have to appeal to vast swathes of the electorate to be elected.

Mind naming those states?

Anyway, here are the results of the 2016 election (by county)

http://i0.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-co...county-map.png

Although Trump appealed to 3084 counties, thereby winning the electoral victory, Hillary won only 57, yet won the popular vote.

This demonstrates that an election done by popular vote skews power in favor of America's dense coastal cities, which would then impose their will on more rural areas. One could call it domestic imperialism.

Our Electoral College system does give more votes to more populous states, but their advantage over less populous states is carefully measured to give the latter a chance. With this system, no state within the Union should fear its interests being drowned out by the influence of urban elites.

"Here's a map of arbitrary geographical divisions as you can see Trump won the ones with on average less people."

I don't see your point. Large tracts of land don't have political interests that need consideration. idk why but Americans seem to have this fixation of seeing these things very black and white (or blue and red). Like I'm sure many of those counties were within a few percentage points of being coloured differently. And with a directly elected president the conservative votes in the more urban states for Trump actually would have mattered, likewise for the slightly-less-conservative votes for Hillary in the red rectangles.

The ones that weren't a foregone conclusion before election day.

Are we all just going to skim over this?

So what exactly is the purpose of the electoral college?

Is it part of an ancient prophecy to ensure the God Emperor's ascension?

I don't get it.

It was originally intended to stop candidates that are "unqualified, but with a talent for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity" from attaining presidency. Basically, exactly to stop Trump.

I dunno if I've missed it, but can we just point out that there's no barbed wire border fence between Guatemala and Mexico, and anyone who posts that picture of one, which is actually between Israel and Palestine, is a fucking moron who doesn't do research?

Also it's funny how conservatives love pure democracy until it doesn't work for them. ONE PERSON ONE VOTE (until it becomes obvious that we'd loose on the grounds of pure democracy so ahhhh it's not fair for rural areas reeeeeee).

Re Electoral College:

We didn't. Responses to that jumped around here and there but they were buried by more pressing comments.

I know it's not, I was just using the most ludicrous example of someone that was Really Determined to enter the states that I knew personally. They weren't the only ones I've met that rafted/boated/straight up swam over, and I definitely have met more people who had done the same as them fairly recently, so obviously the coast guard remains 'not shit'. And as far as I remember they only had two dogs when they entered the states and their mom took advantage of how fast they bred to make some quick money off people in the neighborhood that totally ignored the 4-dogs-per-household law and had a thing for tiny dogs you could carry in your pocket. It was... surreal.

And yeah, they're satisfactory to me personally because they're no longer causing any negative impact that I can see. I can't speak for SoCal, but I know for a fact that Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, the other states that get the highest influx of undocumented Mexican immigrants, are not hindered or hurt from having large latino populations. In most of these cases, they assimilated into American culture just fine, and are functioning members of society. Believe it or not, even undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Go figure.

Yeah you totally missed the point of what I was trying to say.

You asked why the same undocumented immigrant could get away with illegally crossing the border time and time again, and used it as an example of our border being too weak and there still being a problem with illegal immigration from Mexico. In response, I told you essentially, that no matter how strong our border is, if that same person who keeps getting detained and deported really really wants to get back across the border, they will find a way. They would be an outlier, and are likely just as much of a problem to Mexico as they are to the US. Most people who get caught once don't try to make the effort to do it again unless their situation in Mexico is that dire.


Except as I said, every district has representatives. Rural districts far outnumber urban districts. Representatives can be spoken to directly by the people in their district, and their jobs are to voice their districts concerns and do everything you seem to think the president is meant to do. They are the ones that represent the will of the people. You can also call your senator to voice the same concerns, as your senator represents the state and is obliged to listen to all the state's residents as well as all the states representatives. Collectively, they all carry the same concerns to direct the president in the right direction. Everyone gets heard, when the system works as it should. Putting so much focus on the executive branch and glossing over the legislative branch breaks the system and turns it into a system where you sit there and defend the electoral college because you're so worried the minority won't get a voice and totally ignore the fact our system already allows for a voice.

Also, with the electoral college abolished, it would open a lot more avenues for elected leaders. Third party candidates would actually stand a chance, and there's less chance for the mass corruption an essentially two-party system creates. I don't think there's anyone here who, in the last several election cycles, looked at the main two candidates presented and said "you know what? this candidate is totally in line with all of my beliefs and there is no contest because I don't have to play the lesser of the two evils game this election". I can also guarantee if they had looked at the third party runners during each election cycle they would have found someone who resonates with them almost to a t. With the electoral college, even if the candidate SOMEHOW got the popular vote, they would have still lost because they'd walk out with maybe 20 electoral votes if they were lucky thanks to how the electoral system works and the bias of the Democratic and Republican parties.

With the electoral college abolished, we might be able to prevent more elections from being so Red and Blue, and actually allow a chance for real anti establishment candidates and people who are genuinely interested in helping this country as a whole, rather than just thinking about it as a game or trying to use it as a means to squeeze more money out of us, to get into office

You really think the people in power are going to give it up the system skewed in their favour that easily?

Ego does not belong in government, nor any kind of leadership role.


“I am going to criticize this system, until it benefits me and then I will change my mind” is pretty basic hypocrisy. You’ve written a lot of words to try and handwave that.


Looking forward to it.


So, to be clear: the proposed tariff will increase the cost on imports from Mexico, thereby meaning that Americans in practice will be paying for the wall.

Because the tariffs will make Mexican imports more expensive, American buyers will buy less, meaning less money will be made from the tariff.

So not only are Americans paying the cost of the wall and not Mexico, but they would be buying fewer imports, thus reducing the amount the tariff earns at all.

That is completely illogical. You cannot expect to earn income on a tariff by actively sabotaging the trade relationship with the country you expect to tariff; and ultimately it is less likely that US buyers would invest in local goods to replace their 3rd largest import supplier, and far more likely that they would simply move to import from other cheap markets that are still more cost-effective than local investment. That’s just how business works.


Yes it does:
The same message is corroborated in other outlets:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...riff/93906064/
http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/15/fo...tariff-pledge/
http://www.salemstatelog.com/ford-ce...ps-car-tariff/

Of course as a business they will move to capitalize on the current situation as best they can; they need to continue to make a profit, and refusing to work with the president and setting themselves up for a tariff would only serve to hurt their bottom line.


This is a completely ridiculous assertion, and the very article you linked as evidence makes this clear. The article clearly states that the supposed ‘safe zones’ are not included in his executive order, don’t appear in the original statements from the White House or the Saudi Arabian King’s office about the call where they were supposedly mentioned, and also here he is again decreeing that other countries are going to pay for his ideas. The ‘only problem’ that you have identified is the biggest possible problem Trump could have – how does he expect that to ever work?


If you’re going to disagree with my sources, then I’ll happily dispute yours – the Gatestone Institute is a notably conservative, right-wing think-tank that often take an anti-Islamic stance on issues. You misrepresent the articles I cited: one states that the result of Sweden’s higher than average rape statistics is because Swedish people are much more likely to report sexual assault and sexual assault reports are calculated in an unusual manner, and explains that the more likely reason for the slightly above-average crime rate is because of economic factors – immigrants tend to be poorer, and poorer populations tend to commit more crime. The other article points out that hasty assumptions in identifying and reporting on perpetrators has created a distorted and inaccurate view of the crime statistics. So the causes appear to be: economic disparity resulting in higher crime rates, higher than average rates of reporting sexual violence, and distorted media reporting on crime. But accepting that would mean that people would have to confront the issue of poverty, rather than the convenient immigrant boogeyman.


This does not get around the facts that Trump is a hypocrite on this issue and that he has yet to take more action than empty rhetoric. Call me when his businesses stop outsourcing and he actually implements policies.


If you back a hateful, xenophobic, egotistical fascist-enabler, I imagine having to defend that viewpoint must get pretty tiring. I will try to contain my sympathy.


Yes: don’t greentext, this is a forum, not 4chan. It’s a political discussion thread, not comedy hour – spend less time being funny and more time fact-checking your own arguments.


It’s incredibly careless of you to post someone else’s arguments without verifying the evidence for yourself first. The Snopes URL should have been a giant red flag.

I want to conceive your child.

Trump is too human