Absolutely, it's an enormously unappealing policy for the Dems to tackle by themselves during the limited times they have a trifecta. If the only people in the room are centrists, business liberals and ideological liberals the question of "why are we even wrangling over this" is almost unanswerable.
Those examples are all being done on behalf of "left wing coded" causes like safety and climate change. When it's on behalf of right wing causes the wingers are absolutely delighted to stomp those jackbooted agents till the cows come home.
Which would create a constituency for change. increased legal immigration, for instance, or a robust guest worker program.
But, really, while the right would continue to inveigle on it, I suspect that if the asylum de facto loophole was closed a lot of the oomph would drain out of the issue. In the US I suspect that a lot of immigrant skeptical folks are very cheap dates.
Oh yes, the irony is that the problem, such as it is, is not very hard to solve here in the US as a practical matter except that both of our duopoly parties don't want to tackle it (the GOP because they like things they way they are, the Dems because they have other things they'd rather spend political capital on).
Yes, the Byzantines tried fishin everything to sort out the downsides of this system; they couldn't and it ended up destroying them. After the Romans everyone went back to hereditary monarchy right up until small l liberalism came along with the enlightenment and upended everything.
It is, and it got there, at least partially, because the voting masses on the right said "We want a -4 policy on immigration and if our elites refuse to give us anything less than a +1 on immigration policy then we'll fire them and hire new elites who are offering a -10 policy on immigration. "
To clarify: yes, your analysis is right, Chip. Both Mom&Pop business owners as well as corporate executives would end up getting perp walks. Managers at meatpacking plants and liberals with “in this house” signs in their front yards would be screaming about the sharp fines they’d be facing. All those peoples assets would get fined and no small amount of them would end up in federal hands because, unlike undocumented immigrants, the employers of undocumented workers have money that they can lose.
Let us, further, recognize that this policy would cause agricultural produce to rot in fields across the nation. The cost of food in general would, initially, go up as the food industry scrambled to automate, raise wages to get legal employees or to source their goods in Latin America (or lobby for some kind of guest worker program). The cost of construction would skyrocket as would the cost of child care, nursing home care and all kinds of landscaping services. If we didn’t have full fledged inflation we would, at a minimum, have a lot of urban liberal types going “I can’t afford all these services any more because there’s no one to do them at a level I’m willing to pay for and that makes me feel poor.” And a LOT of bien peasant right wing suburban and rural business owners would be shrieking about how no one wants to work anymore.
BUT, this policy would, emphatically, drive down undocumented migration. Hiring undocumented workers would become entirely uneconomical and businesses would have little to no way to evade this kind of labor scrutiny. Economic migrants would stop coming because they wouldn’t be able to get jobs and they’re marching across continents and deserts to send money home, not letters to their relatives bemoaning how they can’t work here.
The core point is that if one is talking about using regulation to cut down on undocumented migrants and one is talking about building “walls” on the border or “deporting” or otherwise chasing the undocumented workers themselves around with weapons, dogs or rules; that’s just a vacuous pose. That won’t accomplish any of the goals that immigration restrictionists claim to hold dear. Any immigration restriction regime that ignores employers is simply a mask for the status quos and a sop for business concerns that think of right wingers who care about immigration as patsies. Nothing more.
I would hazard to guess that virtually no one at OT would like this policy because the OT commentariate consists of A) liberals who have no problem with immigrants and B) libertarian types who are pro-business. But that shouldn't prevent us from recognizing that any policy about restricting immigration that doesn't involve going after the employers is poisonous posturing and calling it out.
I agree, I think genuine xenophobic blood and soil anti-immigration position is not popular but that a lot of people who otherwise don't like it would vote for it if the alternative was the "anyone who gets here can come in and we should let them have safety net benefits too" position that is en vogue on the internet left (but not-mind- in the Democratic Party).
And I say that as a person who looked back at Merkle’s position vis a vis Syrian refugees and said “What a moral and admirable stance, good for her”. There’ve been a lot of hard lessons handed down since then that we left of center types would be remiss to ignore- we don’t have the luxury of the fringes to say “well the masses are racist and immoral so we need new masses” the way libertarians or internet leftists do.
I agree, with a place as big as the US it's hard to get a coherent read. That said it is very safe to say that the preponderance of the voters who think about immigration at all sit very significantly to the restrictionist side of the party elites of both parties in the US.
I suspect it'd be somewhat different in that, with regards to the abortion issue, pro-lifers have a pretty unified set of wants that the masses mostly despise. Immigration is a much more amorphous policy question and the interests of the monied right are absolutely inverse to the desires of the immigration restrictionists whereas in abortion the monied right most don't care about abortion whereas the pro-lifers do.
I believe you, no doubt it's squirrely but I'm confident there could be more defining and, most assuredly, there could be financing to make it so people can get an answer on their asylum claims in something approaching a prompt order which would, in of itself, resolve a lot of the way asylum is being used (allegedly abused) by a lot of migrants.
"But remember the Citibike Karen story from a few months back when a pregnant cis-het white woman tried to steal a rental bike from a BIPOC?"
No, never heard of it.
The laws on asylum could stand with some tightening of definition and financing for enforcement I'd say. And if we keep trying to pretend like we can go right to "accepting the facts on the ground" without addressing that necessary work the stronger we're going to make the worst kinds of right wing immigration restrictionists.
The masses have demonstrated, clearly in Europe and implicitly here, that if you don't do some form of enforcement first you'll end up outside of government watching in fury while the masses applaud people in power proposing shooting or drowning undocumented immigrants.
I'm more of a Yglesian billion Americans kind of guy personally but if we ignore where the electorate is on this policy they'll elect an absolute monster so long as they're on the opposite side of the debate from us. Being realistic about what the voters want and will tolerate isn't optional.
That said if you want enforcement first then the only effective enforcement would be to target the employers. The farmers, the businessfolks AND the effete landscaper and nanny employing liberals.
I absolutely adored cultist simulator for the incredible lore background. The game is, indeed, fiercely challenging. I'm looking forward to trying Book of Hours.
Indeed there has been. I'd allege we're seeing a steady implosion of the popularity of such politics, in fact I'd hypothesize we're pretty far down the slop past the peak of their popularity since people in the Middle East don't seem to have enjoyed their experience with theocrats very much.
I'll do you one better. In some nightmare world where the west invaded Egypt, for example, on behalf of the Copts we'd be looking at a decade or so of bleeding, terror and ruin followed by the west withdrawing in disgust and unholy hell descending on the Copts that remained such that the Copts would look back on the pre-invasion days as halcyon paradise in comparison.
Agreed, they're barely bending, but you can hear the creaking and groaning. Is Iran exporting its system around the world? Does anyone look and say "We want to be Iran?" What is your over/under on Iran being more/less theocratic in 5 years? 10 years? Our lifetimes?
And while, I grant, B is an unsatisfying option I see no option C and that puts us in a binary. If we don't do B then we do A and the last 22 years have shown what a catastrophic failure A was. Frankly I'm struggling to think of an example of option A -ever- being successfully employed. Japan? Germany? Those were modern industrial (but not liberal) states BEFORE we flattened them and reformed them.
On “Let’s Save America with Civility”
I appreciate all everyone does, but this was my opportunity to thank you specifically.
On “Slack Tide of the Slack Jawed Also-rans”
It's Pillsy!!
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/21/2023”
The mind blowing thing is the dumb mother fisher was in Africa and got blown up flying BACK to Russia.
On “Let’s Save America with Civility”
I love everything ya do Michael, thank you for all your efforts.
On “The Biscuit of Diversity”
Absolutely, it's an enormously unappealing policy for the Dems to tackle by themselves during the limited times they have a trifecta. If the only people in the room are centrists, business liberals and ideological liberals the question of "why are we even wrangling over this" is almost unanswerable.
"
Those examples are all being done on behalf of "left wing coded" causes like safety and climate change. When it's on behalf of right wing causes the wingers are absolutely delighted to stomp those jackbooted agents till the cows come home.
"
Which would create a constituency for change. increased legal immigration, for instance, or a robust guest worker program.
But, really, while the right would continue to inveigle on it, I suspect that if the asylum de facto loophole was closed a lot of the oomph would drain out of the issue. In the US I suspect that a lot of immigrant skeptical folks are very cheap dates.
"
Oh yes, the irony is that the problem, such as it is, is not very hard to solve here in the US as a practical matter except that both of our duopoly parties don't want to tackle it (the GOP because they like things they way they are, the Dems because they have other things they'd rather spend political capital on).
On “Sunday Morning! “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare”
Yes, the Byzantines tried fishin everything to sort out the downsides of this system; they couldn't and it ended up destroying them. After the Romans everyone went back to hereditary monarchy right up until small l liberalism came along with the enlightenment and upended everything.
On “The Biscuit of Diversity”
Well heck, scientifically speaking by that definition anyone not residing in North Africa is an "immigrant".
"
It is, and it got there, at least partially, because the voting masses on the right said "We want a -4 policy on immigration and if our elites refuse to give us anything less than a +1 on immigration policy then we'll fire them and hire new elites who are offering a -10 policy on immigration. "
"
To clarify: yes, your analysis is right, Chip. Both Mom&Pop business owners as well as corporate executives would end up getting perp walks. Managers at meatpacking plants and liberals with “in this house” signs in their front yards would be screaming about the sharp fines they’d be facing. All those peoples assets would get fined and no small amount of them would end up in federal hands because, unlike undocumented immigrants, the employers of undocumented workers have money that they can lose.
Let us, further, recognize that this policy would cause agricultural produce to rot in fields across the nation. The cost of food in general would, initially, go up as the food industry scrambled to automate, raise wages to get legal employees or to source their goods in Latin America (or lobby for some kind of guest worker program). The cost of construction would skyrocket as would the cost of child care, nursing home care and all kinds of landscaping services. If we didn’t have full fledged inflation we would, at a minimum, have a lot of urban liberal types going “I can’t afford all these services any more because there’s no one to do them at a level I’m willing to pay for and that makes me feel poor.” And a LOT of bien peasant right wing suburban and rural business owners would be shrieking about how no one wants to work anymore.
BUT, this policy would, emphatically, drive down undocumented migration. Hiring undocumented workers would become entirely uneconomical and businesses would have little to no way to evade this kind of labor scrutiny. Economic migrants would stop coming because they wouldn’t be able to get jobs and they’re marching across continents and deserts to send money home, not letters to their relatives bemoaning how they can’t work here.
The core point is that if one is talking about using regulation to cut down on undocumented migrants and one is talking about building “walls” on the border or “deporting” or otherwise chasing the undocumented workers themselves around with weapons, dogs or rules; that’s just a vacuous pose. That won’t accomplish any of the goals that immigration restrictionists claim to hold dear. Any immigration restriction regime that ignores employers is simply a mask for the status quos and a sop for business concerns that think of right wingers who care about immigration as patsies. Nothing more.
I would hazard to guess that virtually no one at OT would like this policy because the OT commentariate consists of A) liberals who have no problem with immigrants and B) libertarian types who are pro-business. But that shouldn't prevent us from recognizing that any policy about restricting immigration that doesn't involve going after the employers is poisonous posturing and calling it out.
"
I agree, I think genuine xenophobic blood and soil anti-immigration position is not popular but that a lot of people who otherwise don't like it would vote for it if the alternative was the "anyone who gets here can come in and we should let them have safety net benefits too" position that is en vogue on the internet left (but not-mind- in the Democratic Party).
And I say that as a person who looked back at Merkle’s position vis a vis Syrian refugees and said “What a moral and admirable stance, good for her”. There’ve been a lot of hard lessons handed down since then that we left of center types would be remiss to ignore- we don’t have the luxury of the fringes to say “well the masses are racist and immoral so we need new masses” the way libertarians or internet leftists do.
"
I agree, with a place as big as the US it's hard to get a coherent read. That said it is very safe to say that the preponderance of the voters who think about immigration at all sit very significantly to the restrictionist side of the party elites of both parties in the US.
"
I suspect it'd be somewhat different in that, with regards to the abortion issue, pro-lifers have a pretty unified set of wants that the masses mostly despise. Immigration is a much more amorphous policy question and the interests of the monied right are absolutely inverse to the desires of the immigration restrictionists whereas in abortion the monied right most don't care about abortion whereas the pro-lifers do.
"
I believe you, no doubt it's squirrely but I'm confident there could be more defining and, most assuredly, there could be financing to make it so people can get an answer on their asylum claims in something approaching a prompt order which would, in of itself, resolve a lot of the way asylum is being used (allegedly abused) by a lot of migrants.
"
"But remember the Citibike Karen story from a few months back when a pregnant cis-het white woman tried to steal a rental bike from a BIPOC?"
No, never heard of it.
"
So am I, but the right is assuredly NOT interested in that. They'd much prefer the status quos.
"
The laws on asylum could stand with some tightening of definition and financing for enforcement I'd say. And if we keep trying to pretend like we can go right to "accepting the facts on the ground" without addressing that necessary work the stronger we're going to make the worst kinds of right wing immigration restrictionists.
"
Even the Canadians have had some struggles with the asylum issue.
"
The masses have demonstrated, clearly in Europe and implicitly here, that if you don't do some form of enforcement first you'll end up outside of government watching in fury while the masses applaud people in power proposing shooting or drowning undocumented immigrants.
I'm more of a Yglesian billion Americans kind of guy personally but if we ignore where the electorate is on this policy they'll elect an absolute monster so long as they're on the opposite side of the debate from us. Being realistic about what the voters want and will tolerate isn't optional.
That said if you want enforcement first then the only effective enforcement would be to target the employers. The farmers, the businessfolks AND the effete landscaper and nanny employing liberals.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Book of Hours”
I absolutely adored cultist simulator for the incredible lore background. The game is, indeed, fiercely challenging. I'm looking forward to trying Book of Hours.
On “Columbia Up And Left Kabul”
Indeed there has been. I'd allege we're seeing a steady implosion of the popularity of such politics, in fact I'd hypothesize we're pretty far down the slop past the peak of their popularity since people in the Middle East don't seem to have enjoyed their experience with theocrats very much.
"
I'll do you one better. In some nightmare world where the west invaded Egypt, for example, on behalf of the Copts we'd be looking at a decade or so of bleeding, terror and ruin followed by the west withdrawing in disgust and unholy hell descending on the Copts that remained such that the Copts would look back on the pre-invasion days as halcyon paradise in comparison.
"
Agreed, they're barely bending, but you can hear the creaking and groaning. Is Iran exporting its system around the world? Does anyone look and say "We want to be Iran?" What is your over/under on Iran being more/less theocratic in 5 years? 10 years? Our lifetimes?
And while, I grant, B is an unsatisfying option I see no option C and that puts us in a binary. If we don't do B then we do A and the last 22 years have shown what a catastrophic failure A was. Frankly I'm struggling to think of an example of option A -ever- being successfully employed. Japan? Germany? Those were modern industrial (but not liberal) states BEFORE we flattened them and reformed them.