Comment by _DeadFred_
8 months ago
You've said he's "almost certainly committing <criminal> perjury". Based solely on the category of immigrant that he is. I think that is abhorrent, un-American, and violates the Constitution. In the USA 'all men' are created equal, and our rights apply to 'people' not just 'citizens' (a class that the current regime now wants to redefine to not include natural born Americans, forget slippery slope we're now on a water slide).
You keep trying to justify your claim with 'we need to categorize/make determinations on these groups because reasons' but not engaging with that you think we should categorize a class of immigrants as perjures simply because of the class they fit in' because to do otherwise makes immigration policies hard/able to be abused'. We used to believe as a nation in the theory we would rather that 10 criminals go free if it prevents one innocent person from going to prison. I get it's hard, and it has negative impacts to follow our Constitution and what our nation believes in. It's so hard that people have had to die to secure those things. It's so hard that my grandfathers faced crippling life long injuries fighting for their belief in it in WW2. My understanding it's hard doesn't mean I think we should just throw it away. Blanket 'xyz people are criminal liars' has no place in the United States of America. Systems that are aware of the incentive to lie, sure. But that is why we have courts and a rule of law, not labels on entire groups of people. That Democrats allowed abuse doesn't mean we give up on what America is. You can keep giving me bullet points but your basic premise is so flawed to me they don't matter.
Imagine you were talking about the Chinese in the U.S. in the 1800s. You’d have the same kinds of bullet points,claims about fraud, about them being impossible to integrate, claims it just too many people, about systems being overwhelmed. That’s how we got the Chinese Exclusion Act. A whole race of people labeled suspect by default, stripped of legal protections, barred from citizenship, and assumed to be lying just to get in. It was wrong then, and it’s just as wrong now. Policies built on fear and group guilt erode everything we claim to stand for. If we don’t push back against that, we’re not protecting our country we’re abandoning it.
I'm going to keep it very simple for you:
I said I think it's unfair and cruel that he is being forced to leave at all. I think it's immoral. I also think he told the story that let him stay with his family rather than the truth, and I don't fault him if he did do that. Anyone would do that.
I think you should, for practice and because it would help you be a better person, try to have a disagreement with someone without thinking they must be racist. I think it would be new for you but I think it would be healthy to try it.
Remember when you said you didn't go low? Look at your last paragraph.
I don't think you are racist, I never called you racist, but I think what you are saying is wrong and is the type of group guilt assignment that has been used for very f'd up stuff in the past and not how we do things in the US. Again, your entire premise is he's lying because of the class he is in. That is the slippery slope that I am calling out. Your own words. You didn't judge him unfairly you say, you just said he committed criminal perjury based on your knowledge that he's a foreigner seeking asylum. I said that the system should be structured to recognize the incentives to lie, but we shouldn't judge people based on their class, you continued to say all foreigners seeking asylum are probably liars, especially your original example individual, based SOLELY on that he is a foreigner seeking asylum.
I explained my reasoning. And I even said I agreed that the Democrats have broken the system, and that the courts needed to be structured to account for the incentive to lie. But I didn't like classifying a group/class of people liars based on their class. 'All poor people steal because they are poor and have incentive' is basically what you are saying. 'All people in Alabama are dumb, Bob is from Alabama, Bob's dumb'. Nah, I refuse all of that, labeling a group, assigning a characteristic because Bob's a member of a group. I never just tried to shout you down saying 'racist', I responded in way too many words :)
And again you resort to the low, personal attacks. Super lame, basic internet dig you gave there too. Because I quoted your words back at you and I don't think in the USA we should classify groups as guilty.
You are calling me a racist and saying I'm somehow responsible for attacks on chinese people 100 years before I was born. It's so lazy and straw-man, you don't seem able to honestly engage with what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that if you can show that it is very likely that 99% of the people from Alabama are dumb (this is not true but for the sake of argument), and Bob is from Alabama, there's approximately a 99% chance that Bob is dumb if you don't know anything else about Bob to improve your estimate. This is just true, and it's obvious, and if you read what I said it's exactly how I framed it (he's very likely or almost certainly lying). This isn't because of class, or race, or age, or whether they are trans or whatever else.
One more time:
People come to the border or get caught in the US without a visa. If they say "I'm in danger" about 85% of them are allowed to stay in the US while their claim is processed. Of those people who stay, only 10% end up being approved. 10% are denied, and 80% don't show up for the interview, get arrested for something else, self deport, etc. So best case, if you trust our judges, half are not credible. Since the 20% that show up probably, on average, have the best cases it's a fairly safe bet that the 80% who don't show up wouldn't break 50/50, maybe more like 80/20. So 74% would be found not credible (10% who are denied with interview, and 80% of the 80% who don't show up), 26% credible. That's a pretty overwhelming majority who are not making an honest claim. But again, if we just go with the numbers we know, it's 50/50, half are lying (or if you prefer "making an incredible claim they are unable to support with plausible evidence").
2 replies →