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US Immigration Policy - I'd have a snarky subtitle but this shit isn't funny.
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But are they handing a 7 year old a suitcase with $1 million in cash and keys to a house ("trash pickup is Wednesdays, and you got a lot of trees may want to check the gutters" "que??")?
If not, no deal!
It's news that continues a topic that was discussed, what, just a week ago? It's hardly as though people are bringing in old grudges out of context just to fight or something.
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I know you're trying to do a thing to mock other forumers, but you're also mocking immigrants because they often come from some pretty awful conditions (not even including the detention centers) and things like a proper house (with walls, a ceiling, and a door that locks) with trash pick-up are actual huge luxuries that Americans take for granted.
You don't like things that forumers say? Fine. But don't take it out on immigrants with collateral damage shit-talk.
I am super not catching the connection here on how the quoted post is mocking immigrants or the conditions they came from.
Honestly, it's OK if you don't explain deeper, presumably others get what you're saying, just... I don't.
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That being said, and to make this post far more productive, I do think that one of the best things the US could do to help stem the tide of immigration would be pouring a ton of money into helping build better housing/infrastructure and some real major law enforcement assistance. Where I am now, aside from those shacks, this country already has the military helping to patrol (it was a little unnerving at first to have groups of 4 soldiers with M4/M16's and what appears to be a M249 walking through residential areas, but sadly you get used to it). We also don't even have enough water capacity to run water to all the people 24/7. I have 3 days a week where we get water service. I'm fortunate, I make enough that I have a house with a cistern and a pump, so unless we go crazy, we can still have running water the days we don't have water service. A LOT of folks are lucky if they have a few 55 gallon water drums they use for things like bathing and flushing toilets, and those are people with actual houses.
Personally, I don't see it as 'attacking compassionate viewpoints', but the sort of endless back and forths these threads have gone through where it has sometimes felt like there is always another depth to which the situation will go, no matter what.
Which, to be fair, US Immigration is such a clusterfuck (and has been for so long) that it's likely the case!
But it's hard to see even something that could be tepidly referred to as kinda sorta maybe slightly good news and not think 'boy, I can't wait to hear how this is actually the worst thing ever.'
On an old Magic: the Gathering forum I used to post on, there was a saying that "WOTC could put a fresh $20 bill in every booster pack, and some would complain based on how they were folded."
Maybe that is WILDLY unfair, and I'm sure a few (you know who you are) are prepared to tell me how that's an ignorant viewpoint that does a massive disservice to many peoples, and is indicative of just so many character flaws and privilege so vast it might as well be considered a minor super power, but at the risk of being pilloried, it's also kinda where I am.
No silver lining is so bright that one cannot find a cloud for it. No action fast enough (sometimes simultaneously too fast, as well), no improvement broad enough, no method of stepping back from the previous horror show that cannot be seen as failing in some capacity.
And it's a subforum for Debating of topics! Discoursing upon them, even! But the tone on certain topics (often bleak and unpleasant ones!) feels like a rush to push up our glasses (figurative as they may be) and set the record straight on just how awful it all is, no more awful, no keep going, you're not going far enough, here lets really lay it out in excruciating detail.
But I'm also just some random asshole from another country. I care about friends and family in the US. I care about humanitarian crises on the border, I empathize with those striving for a better life and the last half decade being a particularly dark period of the US's history on that matter.
So feel free to ignore me if you see fit. Or go with the pillorying, but it'd also kind of prove my point.
We argued there were more humane and dignified ways to house immigrants than camps with dubious histories, but because we disagreed with the policy set by a favored political administration, our point of view is considered worth only scorn and derision apparently.
Makes you feel real welcome, especially when you’ve been a member of this community for over a decade
This is absolutely NOT what happened, on either side. The constant refusal to accept ANYTHING said by anyone that might be mildly approving of anything the US has done has been a real drain. That being said, the "mocking" was a light jab at one of the more extreme "proposals" set forth. Immigration is a topic VERY near and dear to a number of people's hearts, on both sides (and I'm not including the side that looks at immigrants as subhuman, fuck those guys). The amount of refusal to acknowledge ANYTHING said by the other side is just more of the "perfect being the enemy of the good" disease that affects progressives/leftists.
No one was treating you with derision or scorn. They were mocking the “plan” of “give all immigrants a house and a million dollars”.
You told people yesterday “it’s not always about you”, the same advice seems applicable here as well.
Well, I was also personally called a supporter of child abuse because my outrage wasn't outrage-y enough, so y'know, I wouldn't quite describe it like you have, but whatever.
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That was -Tal, on the first page in reply to something No Quarter said, which seemed to be hyperbolic to express disgust with the detainment system.
So basically then satire against, essentially, something meant as a satirical point (at its most serious you could argue that her point was that a house and one million dollars is sufficient recompense for having to suffer through our immigrant detainment system)
The level of emotion in this thread does not allow for satire.
And I can't help but feel that this thread might see that somewhat as well, and perhaps several others.
While us D&D regulars are no strangers to pedantry and really getting into the weeds, I've felt that in some conversations and topics, especially over the last few years, the line was getting particularly blurry.
Like, there are forumers in this very topic whom I consider intelligent, informed, and passionate people. They are also absolutely insufferable on certain topics, to the point that I generally strive to avoid engaging them at all, because it's generally just a mess (and they also usually have a bunch of other running word battles going on in a given thread, so one less isn't going to be missed).
These are even people that I'm ostensibly in agreement with! But how they comport themselves is so deeply grating that it's a challenge to align with how they express that.
Which I'm sure a few are bringing up hackles and are going to call me out for tone policing (I legit had second thoughts about even using the word tone in the previous post), but nothing of the sort. I'm not naming names, or shaming. I'm free to engage or not as I see fit, and as I said, I generally choose not to, and I'm sure none of our lives are much poorer for it.
But the basic notion keeps bouncing around my head. Is that a reason to lie to ourselves and one another and proclaim that the sky is full of puppies and rainbows and rainbow puppies? No. But is it possible, just maybe, that at times we lose sight of having actual conversations in good faith with both sides generally in agreement but minor discrepancies in the particulars or how one might get from A to B to C?
Do mods really need to come in and yell at us to settle down on the regular because the left and the lefter can't get along, while the right are busy trying to actually go full Mustache Twirling Evil?
Again, to be taken or ignored as one sees fit. I dare say that the vast majority of the folks in these threads are fine sorts whom I'd happily sit down with for lunch or a game or something, but how we communicate is something that is occasionally a struggle, and as an outsider watching siblings bicker, I'm not sure how to do anything but hope it doesn't take thread kicks/bans to sort some of this out (such as it were, it's not like some of these rivalries are exclusive to a particular thread either).
Anyways, circling back to my original point, I don't know where that line is. To assess bleak and awful situations realistically, without getting caught in the endless 'nuh uh/uh huh' of whether or not this particular shade of grey is truly legit a hair darker or lighter than another perceives it to be.
I mean there's more than one post for the idea. At what point is satire not satire and just off-topic?
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Was there?
I replied in regards to it making me think about reparations for those who’ve suffered through our blatantly white supremacist immigration system, and that discussion went for a few pages; But it wasn’t as far as I remember a bunch of posts about “a house and a million dollars” (though we noted such a reparation program would have a price tag far surpassing millions given the generations and numbers of the populace affected)
The reparations discussion was definitely serious given the history of US immigration law as a tool to enforce a white majority and it’s supremacy
Tal at least posted about it a couple of times. Regardless, not important. Sarcasm was treated with sarcasm and we can all move on without our feelings hurt.
Reparations, imo, is completely different, and I agree, serious. Pretty sure we were both on the same page with that iirc.
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Double checking for the record, the house and a million dollars post was -Tal’s last post in here; she didn’t post here after that one; she seemed fairly disgusted with the situation going by the two posts
(You're missing the third one saying it was a serious suggestion)
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I'm a fist generation immigrant who was given a mattress and a loan for first month rent and plane ticket that had to be repaid but nice try.
I don't mock immigrants but the goosery of someone thinking a minor should live alone in a house and a million bucks. What could go wrong?
Your right, missed that one, but I think that’s her taking the piss out of the whole situation:
Given her first post, I got the sense she had no patience with any defense of the administration’s policy of reopening the camp to begin with. So every post was basically derision at what she felt was a morally untenable position.
Or at least that’s my read
Gregg Abbot is the cartoonishly evil governor of Texas, to every Texas resident’s misfortune
Yeah, yeah, I know, usual mix of hatred and bigotry and othering and 'isms.
But sure, as we all hold our collective breaths regarding the response existing known variants have to the vaccines, let's see a bunch of people filling up bars and roll those dice some more. Coolcoolcool....
I bet you 100 internet points no one on this forum said that
Edit: also come on here, no one should think that this is a constructive post. Why would you even come in here saying this, what's your goal?
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Almost definitely ass coverage
And he gets his racist jollies off.
Two-fer!
Reminder that Texas is gerrymandered and voter restricted to hell and back. A functional democracy it is not.
So Abbott only has to play to a very narrow base, because they’ve already made sure anyone else not primed for this bigoted bullshit won’t have a voice.
It seems to me that this is already some kind of surrealism.
It looks like the Biden Admin will be using hotels after all! Just not for unaccompanied minors.
Oh yes, the phrasing of that article is fucking infuriating.