SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
There was a massive ICE raid a couple of days ago on the east side of Madison, one which I apparently missed by mere moments. The Madison law enforcement were NOT notified of this, as stated by both Mayor Soglin and Police Chief Koval...though, of course, their primary concern (at least on the air) was "breakdown in communications" rather than "Jesus fuck, WHY are these people conducting damn near paramilitary raids without warning?!"
There is a way to fight illegal immigration. This is not how. Instead of enforcing the laws we have and going after the causes of the problem--this being large businesses like meatpacking plants who bring illegals in as essentially slave labor--they go after the individuals themselves. Not only is this about as useful as locking the barn door after the horse bolts, not only is it a tacit wink and nod to said virtual slavers, but it ends up being open season on these people. Because they're illegal (presumably; we do NOT know everyone targeted in these raids is!), they are not truly human in the eyes of many, and I guaran-fucking-tee you the kind of person who signs up for ICE is even less likely to see them as human beings than the average Joe or Jane on the street.
It's Happening Here.
"Oh, it's JUST the spics," people will say. "They ought not to come here illegally," they say. Well, that last one is true, but they ARE here, and how we deal with them speaks to who and what we are as a nation. There are better ways to handle this. What is being done is possibly the worst way aside from simply rounding up any suspected illegal immigrant and summarily executing him or her...and, frankly, not that far off. What is being done is, again, tacit approval to the big businesses profiting off these peoples' vulnerability in the first place.
One of the reasons I am not a fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt for any reason aside from his economic policy is because he ran internment camps. Or as they are better and more properly called, *concentration camps.* And I don't know how else to describe what ICE is doing in these so-called "detention centers." If you ask me, "detention center" is to concentration camp as "enhanced interrogation methods" is to *torture.* Call it what you want, but if it concentrates "undesireables" it's a concentration camp.
It's Happening Here.
Because people say it can't happen here, when it *is* happening here, they refuse to understand that it is. It's not in their worldview. This is why the euphemism treadmill that, among others, George Carlin called out for its dishonesty and evil is so sinisterly effective: because It Can't Happen Here, when it *does* happen here, people will latch onto anything to believe that it's not happening here.
It's Happening Here.
What's next? Where is this going? Once the infrastructure for concentration camps is in place, once warrant standards are lax and paramilitary action against citizens is legalized, once we have secret courts, once We The People "have a reason" to suspend the Constitution--whose basic clauses apply to EVERYONE, NOT just citizens!--a turnkey fascist state is in place, just waiting for the right crisis to come along, or indeed, to be manufactured.
It's Happening Here. First they came for the illegal immigrants...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday October 01 2018, @12:50AM (11 children)
This is so true and unfortunately all too common. There are others (typically media and politicians) that seem to see the law plus political correctness as an adequate replacement for morals. Don't get me wrong; many of the guidelines in some groups' conceptions of political correctness are ones which I do agree with morally. That's why it's so easy for people to mistake it for a full moral code. But it's incomplete and biased. It's usually against particular kinds of discrimination like racism and sexism (and rightly so) but too often ignores the fact that all forms of negative discrimination that judge someone merely for falling into some broad and potentially harmless category--and really on anything other than the morality of their own voluntary behavior--are morally wrong. Any group that occupies too small a niche or makes the establishment uncomfortable will be omitted from the PC guidelines and is fair game for persecution. A couple of examples might be the obese or those in the BDSM community. As I've mentioned before, I believe that animals have rights that are also typically not recognized by the established order.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 01 2018, @03:32AM (10 children)
It's very easy to rationalize such categories as actively harmful. For a recent example, several posters have repeatedly claimed that Muslims are trying to genocide Buddhists in Myanmar and thus, the recent ethnic cleansing of said Muslims is justified as self-defense. Thus, that defeats your argument even thought the viewpoint is utterly retarded.
(Score: 3, Informative) by acid andy on Monday October 01 2018, @01:43PM (8 children)
It doesn't defeat my argument because all parties involved in your example are judging individuals based solely on their race / religion. If they instead consider individuals on a case by case basis, seeking additional evidence of threatening behavior before condemning the individual, then it ceases to be the type of negative discrimination I was describing.
No. It's only rational, if the category itself necessitates harm in 100% of cases. For example, the judgment that "All murderers are harmful." is justified. Strictly speaking it should be "All murderers have been harmful." otherwise we're unfairly extrapolating. If it's not 100% of cases, the best you can do rationally is statistical analyses and make probabilistic predictions. They may be rational but it's immoral to use them to condemn someone solely on that basis.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 01 2018, @02:41PM (7 children)
You are making the implicit assumption that being a particular race or creed is a "potentially harmless" category. They are making the opposite assumption.
Rationalize != make rational, here. While there are meanings [oxforddictionaries.com] of the word that do indeed mean "make rational" we also have this definition:
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday October 01 2018, @03:17PM (6 children)
The clue's in the fact I used the word "potentially". What I mean is that if you select an individual belonging to the category at random, you cannot guarantee that they are harmful simply by knowing the category. They are innocent until proven guilty. That's not an assumption. It's a moral principle.
OK; fine. In cases where the logical reasoning is flawed then any moral judgments based on it would also be flawed.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 01 2018, @04:05PM (5 children)
It's not a clue to the person who believes everyone of that category is harmful (proven harmful in their own mind even, to answer your related second argument). As Arik noted [soylentnews.org], dehumanization is a thing and we see it here in this discussion such as with Azuma's continued discussion [soylentnews.org] of what's going to happen to gated compounds when society falls apart.
Indeed. One can choose to fix the flaws in logical reasoning as you have done in your previous post. But one has to pay attention in order to discover those flaws. Elsewhere, what happened when Azuma discovered that Arik had common moral values with her? She got disturbed and thought no more about it. That's not the way you become a more rational person.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday October 01 2018, @06:17PM (4 children)
Don't quit your day job as a psychiatrist, Hallow. I'm disturbed, yes, but I'm also *relieved.* It means I can think better of him now. I seriously thought he was as bad as you for a while, but upon learning he's got Asperger's I cut him some slack...and now seeing that he not only has AS but he actually is able to think realistically and has a theory of mind that includes other people, it means that's one less person I have to be frightened of on this site.
You, on the other hand, seem to have been getting worse as time goes on.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 01 2018, @06:31PM (3 children)
Yeah, he's kept up the veil of calm and logic in an attempt to maintain the "high ground". There is a cultural phenomenon where whoever gets upset is immediately "wrong" and the other person "wins". It is a remnant from middle school, just more proof that these types of people are giant babies who never managed to grow up. Probably also quite asocial to develop these harmful tactics. We are starting to see the real khallow I'm sure, probably tied into Trump going down in flames and the MAGA just constantly getting further and further away.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 01 2018, @07:29PM (2 children)
It's called "not being the idiot". When you get upset, you're acting emotionally and bypassing reason. It's one thing to get upset, when someone is trying to kill you - that's a healthy response. It's another to get upset merely because someone has a different opinion.
We call that projection. Getting upset over talk? That's maturity. Being level headed even in the face of aggressive assaults by upset people? That's middle school. Pretty Orwellian doublethink there.
Asocial unlike acting like a baby when people disagree with you?
You're not even starting to look.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 01 2018, @08:20PM (1 child)
Unless Star Trek is based on reality and you're really a visiting Vulcan I have two words for you. Get fucked!
That response of yours was entirely predictable and why I previously mentioned you pretending to be a robot. The problem you don't seem to comprehend is that humans are always operating on emotional and logical levels at all times. You don't realize when you've been emotionally compromised because often it is at a subconscious level where you decided to make an emotional judgment but on the conscious level you perceive it as logical. Besides that there are times when emotions are desired, that is how you apply empathy to a topic of discussion. Emotions are a huge aspect of what we call morality.
The discussion between you and Arik is a nice and recent example you can refer to. You speak about war crimes and normalize them with "eh they've been doing this for a while, just how things go". Either you have some seriously repressed emotions or you're a psychopath. These are real people's lives being lost not some board game.
One of my "favorite" responses from you:
arik - Yes, yes, so impressively precise - under ideal conditions, and measured against the yardstick of dumb bombs.
khallow - Those conditions hold in most of the Middle East. The problem is not a failing of the technology, but sloppy decision making based on weak recon and intelligence.
me: That is so in line with your market fantasies where if only things were perfect and we didn't have sloppy variables everything would be great! My guess is you're severely brainwashed with patriotic propaganda and so every part of the US system must be based on the best of the best of the best. You then proceed from that premise and anything that goes against that premise is wrong in some fashion, thus queue your lame "logical" evaluations of every post where you often walk sentence by sentence to build your "logical" conclusion.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday October 01 2018, @08:56PM
Meanwhile your response was irrelevant, meaning it doesn't matter if I predicted it or not. This is why I started with the obvious rebuttal shtick way back when. There are too many idiots saying stuff which they had even thought about it a little, would realize was dumb and wrong.
And now we get the weaselly rationalizations. This is a bit predictable, dude.
Telling me what I think. Very unpredictable.
Notice the quote that isn't a quote. And of course, you gloss over that the reason real peoples' lives are being lost is because real peoples' lives were lost in the past.
What would the problem be with that exchange? It is correct after all. These smart bombs aren't missing good targets and veering off to wedding parties. They are aimed at what they hit. But when the criteria is something sloppy like bomb any place you see a bunch of dudes and gunfire, then you're going to hit things that aren't valid.
Markets work great in such circumstances, actually. The usual market failures people complain about however are when they are deliberately breaking markets, such as blocking new refinery construction for a few decades and then complaining that existing refineries now have a powerful cartel. Another is the person or people who advocated ending all money and then replacing it with energy-derived money.
I've heard all the excuses, Standard Oil, money can't buy happiness, etc. I get markets aren't perfect. But they work really well. It's time we look at actual problems of society rather than attack the things that work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday October 01 2018, @02:36PM
Yes, and THAT is the underlying problem here in a nutshell.
It's not muslims, it's not buddhists, it's individuals of both religions who have acted badly, and then successfully used this unfortunate vulnerability of human group psychology to avoid personal responsibility. A man from one group is caught stealing from a man of another group, in a nearby village, and beaten for it, as they would beat their own for theft. But then he goes to his home village and tells it his way, and he was beaten for his religion. This inevitably angers them. Perhaps nothing is done immediately, but even if not, they're now suspicious, now primed to do something against the others. Repeat over and over again for several years and the grounds have been laid for pogroms, for religious war, for all manner of evil.
We have a part of our brain that inhibits violence against our own species. This is why we spend time ritually dehumanizing each other as a preparation for violence. It's necessary psychologically. Which means that if we can stop the dehumanization, we can stop the largest part of the violence.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?