Comment by a2tech

> One is 79 and one is 83, where are all the young politicians?

Down ballot. There are very few elections where nothing on the ballot is of stake.

The 83 year old wasn’t the candidate.

If you're talking age, the US just had a 60 year old run in the last election and the party that complained to no end about the elderly running for office still voted for the 80 year old. Next election, the other frontrunner is currently 58. We had a strong 38 year old candidate in 2020 but the South collectively still doesn't like gay people enough to have him win the primary.

The 83 year old dropped out before the election took place. Kamala Harris is 61. No spring chicken, but at least not old enough that she should've retired years ago.

The two-party system will always leave you with suboptimal choices when it comes to casting your vote, but the alternative to Trump was two decades younger.

US elections happen in two stages, a "primary" where each party decides their candidate and then the "general" where the final winner is decided. It sounds like you may only be getting news about general elections (and may have missed the news where the 83 year old ended up getting swapped out).

Yes, the system sucks and there should be more and better candidates.

But when one side represents fascism and the other doesn't the choice is still easy.

There are plenty of young politicians. Their parties deliberately keep them out of power. Political power in the united states gets strangely concentrated by our 2 party system in a way that tends to ossify policy and promote more ring-wing versions of both parties.

(also a Brit)

Biden was no longer a candidate even by the time the last election happened.

Look to Mamdani. Note that the real election there was in the primary. If you squint a bit, the US electoral system looks like the French one. There's two rounds of voting, and in the first one you get to pick who is the crook that will be put up against the fascist in the final round.

It's going to be boring and time consuming, but people have to use the levers they do have available to do internal Democrat party politics if they want to improve the situation.

If there's one thing both parties agree with, it's that you can't ever vote for a third party because that's effectively voting for the other major candidate. So the problem of not having more than 2 choices perpetuates indefinitely.

It's worth noting that Renee Good was shot because she was protesting after she happened upon ICE operating in her city. More than just weekend protests are happening. Few people in any of the blue sanctuary cities ICE is terrorizing actually want ICE to be there and those who don't frequently make themselves heard, sometimes resulting in their tragic end.

Yes, some protests happen when it's convenient for the protesters. That does not invalidate their protests, nor any others with a similar message. It does not weaken the message nor the movement.

You can enforce immigration laws without shooting people in the face, ramming into their vehicles, ripping them out and putting them in illegal chokeholds, shipping them to prisons in El Salvador, firing tear gas at legal observers and on and on.

It also wasn't an agency prior to 9/11. It should be dissolved. All ERO agents should be prosecuted and or barred from all future public service.

A protest movement can't be very subtle. A clear and short message like "No ICE" or "ICE Out" is much preferable to "We would like an immigrations and and custom enforcement agency that respects people and the law, efficiently inspects imports, checks in on visa overstayers, pursues charges against business owners that have a business practice of not checking work eligibility of new hires, and works with competent, trained agencies to perform traffic stops and home/office raids or trains their own officers for such"

ICE has been turned into a secret police force. If you'd like a history of the border patrol in the US, then here is an excellent introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdStIvC8WeE

ICE as an agency was created in 2003. Most of the posters here are older than it by a significant factor. We can live without it and create another agency to enforce immigration laws that isn't thoroughly rotted and filled with criminals.

My libertarian philosophy is not compatible with immigration laws in general. I'm not quite let everyone in - but I require strong reason to not let someone in. People should have the right to move, only restricted in the worst cases.

Original concept is dead when they are used as militia against states that did not vote for current administration.

> Are there any countries that don't enforce their immigration laws?

I don't think there are many developed countries where their immigration officers are routinely tear gassing students and bystanders, no. I don't think there are many developed countries where their immigration officers are detaining indigenous peoples in private, for-profit detention centers without charging them with any kind of crime.

Feel free to point out other developed countries where this is now just a routine occurrence though.

"I don't understand why people protest the Gestapo as a concept. Are there any countries that don't have undercover police?"

It saddens me that your rather innocuous comment has been down-voted so aggressively. Immigration enforcement is required. Illegal immigration should be discouraged. ICE's current tactics seem overly aggressive to me and, yes, seem to be used politically. But immigration laws should still be enforced. I imagine you'd agree that if ICE agents/supervisors act beyond the scope of their duties or with excessive force, they should be disciplined/prosecuted. I also have a hard time understanding people who don't agree with what I just wrote. I can only imagine those that want to disagree think I'm writing with some sort of underlying agenda and in code to push some broader political narrative (I'm not).

Perhaps that is the real problem.

The Rebels were 'accelerationists', but the Empire was also wanting it to escalate. They played into each others hands.

Both sides wanted escalation, so it is positive feedback loop.

When societies get to the point where everyone is escalating, there isn't much to stop it. The cool heads are drowned out.

Watch it. Best TV show I can think of, ever. By that I mean that the writing and acting and production values are top notch; it's entertaining throughout - some of the other greats are not (The Wire falls down here, sometimes; Keislowski's Dekalog, likewise - though its best moments are better than anything else); and Andor nails its cultural moment, by being directly about, well, all of the Important Stuff we're talking about in this thread. Also, it's a tragedy; it's about sacrifice and loss, and the human consequences of following your convictions - regardless of the side you choose. (That last note's a personal taste, but I'd stand by the former points as being reasonably objective.)

I sat through it going, "how the hell did they manage to make a work of art out of a Star Wars series?", which even makes it better. You don't have to care about Star Wars AT ALL to appreciate Andor, but if you do, watching Andor -> Rogue One -> Originals back to back makes the earlier stuff better.

You'll think I'm over-selling it. Please watch it, then come back and tell me I'm wrong.

We're actually dumber than the frogs. The original 19th century experiment involving frogs that didn't jump out of heated water was using frogs who had had their brains destroyed. The question being asked was whether the escape reaction to hot water was caused by the brain or by something further down in the nervous system. With an intact brain, the frogs would jump out. Without one, they wouldn't. Question answered.