Hey folks, this is going to be a big one,... So big in fact, that this vote has been split into seven different parts. Original Discussion Thread: http://www.politicalforum.com/index...nact-comprehensive-immigration-reform.535480/ The plan here, is that we will vote on each of the parts, each containing a number of items, and at the end of that voting we'll have a list of options ranked from what we feel are the most important to implement down to the least. I'll then go through that resulting list from top to bottom adding each item ranked above the status quo option to a comprehensive plan... with the exception of items that conflict with each-other, in which case, whichever item was ranked higher gets added. In the final (comprehensive) stage, this resulting comprehensive plan will be pitted against others that have been suggested (including a couple by the senate) and we'll vote one last time to see which comprehensive plan we like best. So, for this particular topic of immigration, in order to fully participate in crafting the final resulting plan, you should try to cast a ballot in each of the following threads, particularly the five in the middle... What is the Most Important Immigration Category Needing to be Dealt With? How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Undocumented Immigrants & Visa Overstays) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Immigrants Wishing to Immigrate Legally) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Immigrants Who've Already Achieved Legal Status) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Immigration Systems, Security, & Enforcement) < (You Are Here) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Foreign Outreach/Other) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Comprehensive) And I know I always say that its important to rank a lot of options in your ballot, but given the nature of this issue I would say that that goes double for this set of votes in particular. If you want your ballot to be comprehensive and have an impact on the comprehensive results then please try to rank at least one option from each of the main colored letter sections. (i.e. at least one W, X, Y, Z, and &) You can of course, and are highly encouraged, to rank even more than that. Also, please excuse my shorthand... CitPath = Path to Citizenship Probat = Probationary Period/Temporary status ResStat = Permanent non-citizen Residency status GrCard = Green Cards w/i = within mo = months yr = years How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Immigration Systems, Security, & Enforcement) W0. $250-$2,000 Fine Per Undocumented Employee For First Offense for Employers of Undocumented Immigrants W1. All Employers Required to Utilize e-Verify System W2. Regulatory division tasked with yearly random checks in industries w/history of employing undocumented immigrants W3. Stiffer penalties (>$2k fine per employee/jail time) + more rigorous enforcement for Employers of Undocumented Immigrants X0. $4 billion new spending to streamline Visa Application and Petitioning Process X1. Streamline Visa Application and Petitioning Process for immigrants if U.S. company pledges to employ for 5 or more years X2. Keep Visa Application and Petitioning Process as is ( 1-4 yr Employment Based else 1-10) Y0. Add 165 new immigration judges and 69 attorneys over 3 yr to reduce backlogs Y1. Training and Technology Improvements to Increase Court/Processing Efficiency Y2. Immigrants caught at/near border simply escorted to other side rather than extended detention and deportation process Y3. Keep ICE as is (20K Agents, 226-240K Internal Deportations Annually) Y4. Abolish ICE Z0. Comprehensive border strategy+Increased CBP Ops and Drone Usage at the borders Z1. $550M allocation to increase coordination between CBP and state and local law enforcement at the borders Z2. Pay-fors should be included within the legislation Z3. Income tax increase included as part of legislation to pay for reforms Z4. Leave Pay-fors Out of legislation &0. $46 billion new spending to improve border security &1. Increase # of Border Agents to min of 38,405 &2. Add roughly 350 new Miles of border Fencing for a total of 700 Miles &3. Add More towers, cameras, ground sensors, radiation detectors, drones, other aircraft, ships, and radars on the borders &4. Add New Ports of Entry along the borders. Expanded inspection lanes at high volume southern border ports of entry &5. Ensure Constant surveillance of borders using combination of tech + manpower. Should be well-funded and capable &6. Keep border security as is (353 Miles of Primary Fencing, Observation Towers, 20K Patrol Agents) &7. Build a Wall ?0. End Sanctuary Cities ?1. Pull Federal Funding from Sanctuary Cities until they dissolve their sanctuary status ?2. $4K per day Fine per protected immigrant on cities declaring themselves as sanctuary cities ?3. $250-$2,000 Fine for anybody who registers a car to an undocumented immigrant ?4. $250-$2,000 Fine for anybody who provides day care services to an undocumented immigrant ?5. $4K per day Fine per immigrant on businesses that allow undocumented immigrants to panhandle outside ?6. Streamline legal process to more quickly reject immigrants who aren't proper asylum seekers ?7. e-verify system for all employers within 4 years of enactment. Non-citizens must show photo id to become employed ?8. Compulsory Voter ID Program ?9. System for tracking people leaving airports/seaports ?10. Creation of Southern Border Security Commission if 90% border effectiveness is not achieved within 5 years ?11. Reinstate the Family Case Management Program $0. Keep Everything About this part of Immigration System Just The Way it is (Status Quo Option) $1. Don't Feel Qualified/Knowledgeable Enough To Vote In This Poll $2. No Strong Feelings One Way Or The Other To participate in this vote, simply cast your ballot by making a post in this thread with a list of the letters sorted in your order of preference. Spoiler: Example Ballot (note letters don't have to be ranked in order): W2, W4, X3, Y0, Y1, Y2, Z1, &3, ?4, ?5, ?6, $0 You can still add write-ins here, just make sure that they're related to the specific part your voting in (this one is "Immigration Systems, Security, & Enforcement") and aren't already included as an option in one of the other parts. Also note that 14th Amendment/Birthright citizenship related options are included in the "Immigrants Who've Already Achieved Legal Status" section. BTW, for those who are new to this, this thread is part of a larger series geared towards coming up with and voting on solutions to society's persistent and pressing issues (this being one of the larger ones). Feel free to check the others out if interested: Ranked Vote: Discussion Thread (includes schedule) What To Do To Reduce Partisan Dysfunction In Politics Solutions Oriented Approach to Restoring Meaningful Civil Discourse Spoiler: Ranked Vote Notification List If you want to be added to the list (or taken off), go to this thread and make a post and or vote in the poll: http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/ranked-vote-contact-list.534668/ @Derideo_Te @Pollycy @fifthofnovember @redeemer216 @BahamaBob @modernpaladin @yiostheoy @Spooky @Jonsa @Crawdadr @Longshot @Distraff @Moi621 @Seth Bullock @Thought Criminal @jmblt2000 @61falcon @mamooth @Chronocide Fiend @Merwen @Bob0627 @fmw @clg311 @Mac-7 @APACHERAT @kazenatsu @Socialism Works @Moonglow @FreshAir @rtts48 @perdidochas @Bridget @Bowerbird @scarlet witch @Andrew Jackson @Sallyally @Kode @crank @Bluesguy @AlifQadr @tealwings @Capt Nice @Moriah @Ndividual @wyly @Woogs @DennisTate @Ritter @Junkieturtle @cerberus @Homer J Thompson @JohnnyMo @Smartmouthwoman @ARDY @reallybigjohnson @Falena @PatrickT @StillBlue @JakeStarkey @Nerd of Liberty @drluggit @PARTIZAN1 @Aleksander Ulyanov @Canell @The Rhetoric of Life @Lucifer @vman12 @btthegreat @Mr_Truth @JakeJ @DoctorWho @Loving91390 Feel free to take your time with this one folks, I know its quite a lot. And also, if you have questions please feel free to ask. Thanks! -Meta
Another easy one. Basically, priority here should be given to implementing e-verify and then more effectively cracking down on employment rule violators as well as taking steps to reduce processing backlogs and sensibly shoring up border security measures. Also, I think that reinstating the Family Case Management Program ought to be a no-brainier. W0,W1,?7,?11,W2,W3,X0,Y0,Y1,Z0,&5,&3,&1,&4,&2,&0,Z1,Z3,Z2,?10,X1,?6,?9,?1,?0,Y3,&6,$0,Y2,X2,Z4,?8,&7,Y4 W0. $250-$2,000 Fine Per Undocumented Employee For First Offense for Employers of Undocumented Immigrants W1. All Employers Required to Utilize e-Verify System ?7. e-verify system for all employers within 4 years of enactment. Non-citizens must show photo id to become employed ?11. Reinstate the Family Case Management Program W2. Regulatory division tasked with yearly random checks in industries w/history of employing undocumented immigrants W3. Stiffer penalties (>$2k fine per employee/jail time) + more rigorous enforcement for Employers of Undocumented Immigrants X0. $4 billion new spending to streamline Visa Application and Petitioning Process Y0. Add 165 new immigration judges and 69 attorneys over 3 yr to reduce backlogs Y1. Training and Technology Improvements to Increase Court/Processing Efficiency Z0. Comprehensive border strategy+Increased CBP Ops and Drone Usage at the borders &5. Ensure Constant surveillance of borders using combination of tech + manpower. Should be well-funded and capable &3. Add More towers, cameras, ground sensors, radiation detectors, drones, other aircraft, ships, and radars on the borders &1. Increase # of Border Agents to min of 38,405 &4. Add New Ports of Entry along the borders. Expanded inspection lanes at high volume southern border ports of entry &2. Add roughly 350 new Miles of border Fencing for a total of 700 Miles &0. $46 billion new spending to improve border security Z1. $550M allocation to increase coordination between CBP and state and local law enforcement at the borders Z3. Income tax increase included as part of legislation to pay for reforms Z2. Pay-fors should be included within the legislation ?10. Creation of Southern Border Security Commission if 90% border effectiveness is not achieved within 5 years X1. Streamline Visa Application and Petitioning Process for immigrants if U.S. company pledges to employ for 5 or more years ?6. Streamline legal process to more quickly reject immigrants who aren't proper asylum seekers ?9. System for tracking people leaving airports/seaports ?1. Pull Federal Funding from Sanctuary Cities until they dissolve their sanctuary status ?0. End Sanctuary Cities Y3. Keep ICE as is (20K Agents, 226-240K Internal Deportations Annually) &6. Keep border security as is (353 Miles of Primary Fencing, Observation Towers, 20K Patrol Agents) $0. Keep Everything About this part of Immigration System Just The Way it is (Status Quo Option) Y2. Immigrants caught at/near border simply escorted to other side rather than extended detention and deportation process X2. Keep Visa Application and Petitioning Process as is ( 1-4 yr Employment Based else 1-10) Z4. Leave Pay-fors Out of legislation ?8. Compulsory Voter ID Program &7. Build a Wall Y4. Abolish ICE -Meta
Talk to me folks, is this too much? One member has indicated that it might be... Too confusing maybe? I'm here to answer questions if any part doesn't make sense. -Meta
Or could it be that not as many are interested in finding a comprehensive solution to immigration as I thought?... -Meta
There is no need to make the solution so complicated. Secure the border and enforce the laws.....done and done.
The solution doesn't have to be complicated I agree, but it shouldn't be oversimplified either. Especially since the issue itself is a lot more complicated than people often make it out to be. For example, you say that the solution is simply to secure the border and enforce the laws, but even that alone begs so many unanswered questions. How do we enforce the laws? What should the laws even be? What specific steps should we take to secure the border? And what should be done about various factors which fall within legal grey areas? There are a number of different options in the votes for how to address all these questions. For border security, you've got ideas ranging from increasing drone usage, better coordination of enforcement agencies, the wall of course, or alternatives like more fencing, towers, sensors, surveillance etc. etc., and then the question of how to pay for it all. And for other sections, there are questions about what to do about dreamers, asylums seekers, legal immigrants who can't speak English, and on and on. But again, the solutions here don't need to be complicated, but if we're going for a comprehensive approach we should think carefully about things and make sure that we're not ignoring significant aspects of the overall issue. -Meta
Secure the border with a wall, border patrol and technology. Those here illegally should be deported and no, it will not be necessary to deport millions because if e-verify is enforced and employers of illegals are arrested these folks would self deport. It is not complicated. The group think propaganda of "it is just too difficult, expensive, etc"... is not true.
Why not just cast a vote? That way we'd be relatively sure nothing was being missed. And if things really are as simple as you say, you'd only need to pick out a small few items from the lists, right? I could of course attempt to interpolate what your vote would look like based upon what you're writing here, and for smaller simpler votes I usually would, but for this one that could get messy pretty fast and require a lot of back and forth for accuracy to be assured. So I think instead that it'd be easier for both of us if you just listed out the options using the labels. Or am I wrong about that? -Meta
This is a thoughtful and well-meaning poll, unlike many which are actually propaganda exercises. But ... it's like filling out your income tax form, where you have several sources of income and many expenses. You only do it if you have to. Meta: people are lazy. Trotsky said that human laziness was the source of human progress, since it made us develop technology. But looking at all your careful distinctions ... I thought, if I go through them all ... and I hope I get time to later today or tomorrow... I'll bet I'll be one of two or three. My suggestion: condense it somehow.
Income taxes?...Surely it isn't that bad. Also, can the issue here really just be one of laziness? And if it is laziness, is it laziness with respect to the amount of time involved, or of the mental effort required? Perhaps a bit of both? Though given the number of folks who place immigration as one of the nation's top issues and the fervor with which some tout the need for reform, I was sort of hoping there'd be more folks willing to put forth a bit of effort towards finding a compromise solution. But I think that part of the issue here is also that a lot of people may not really understand what there own positions are to begin with past the oversimplified binary choices... which by themselves are wholly insufficient for putting together anything comprehensive. May be difficult to vote if that is the case. One of the reasons I like these ranked votes though is because they are just the sort of thing to help one figure that out. And knowing one's own position clearly and fully as well as knowing that of others makes finding compromise positions significantly easier. I'm starting to wonder though just how many people actually want to find compromise... how many actually care about the immigration issue as much as they profess. If folks think that our current immigration system is such a big and serious issue, how much are they willing to do in order to help find ways to fix it? Not very much at all it seems. But this gives me an idea for another vote. All that said, perhaps this vote itself is more complicated than it needs to be. Some parts have been condensed a bit already (particularly in the border security section) and I thought splitting things up might make things more manageable (well it actually did, for me at least). Anyways, maybe things could be condensed a bit further, but if so, what would be the best way to do it without making too many assumptions or taking away too much of a voter's ability to accurately voice a detailed preference? I also thought of something else than might be making this more challenging for some than it is for others which I'll mention latter... For now though, thanks for the feedback Doug and thanks in advance for your vote(s). You're right, looking like there wont be many participants for this one. Wasn't really expecting too many, though was hoping to get at least 10 or so. But even 2 or 3 in addition to myself is still better than nothing. In that case, we'll know at least what the folks who truly care about the issue think of things. -Meta
BTW, if the concern here really is just with respect to the amount of time it takes, I guess I should note that its been taking me about 5 minutes on average to sort the lists. A little longer than that for the biggest list, and shorter for the smaller ones. So at 6 lists at present, that would come out to about a 30 minute time commitment overall, though of course not every list needs to be sorted at once. I've just been doing one or two at a time... -Meta
No, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Most people don't really know much about the immigration issue. (Or any other complex political issue.) I don't pretend to be able to see the world from the Left side of the spectrum, but on the Right, I think the view boils down to two or three things: rightly or wrongly, they fear that (1) the status quo will mean very large numbers of people coming in from Latin America over the next few decades, and (2) that they will bring with them the social conditions that made them leave, i.e. poverty, corruption, violence. If either of those two conditions were not perceived to be true, I think immigration would be no bigger a deal than it has always been There is then a (3): they don't trust their traditional political leaders, Republican or Democrat, when they promise to limit immigration, and they don't trust traditional sources of information about the problem, the mainstream media, academics, etc, when these sources say, there isn't any problem. We've seen exactly the same thing in Europe. (And we see it in Third World countries too.) And I think this would distort any nuanced vote on the issue: if I were to say, okay, how about this: we'll grant full citizenship to everyone who is already here, but we'll really, truly, close the border to further illegal immigration ... many people would see it as a trick: if they accept the first, the won't actually get the second. (It's sort of like those logic tests that Vygotsky gave to Russian peasants in the 20's: "If cows are mammals, and elephants are mammals, and a zoo has only cows and elephants, does it have only mammals?" -- to which the reply would be, "There are no cows in zoos". [I've just made this one up. But you get the idea.])
Sadly, I think you may be right about that. I suppose then that it falls to us in the know to step up our game somehow and help folks to become more informed... Its one thing to be against the status quo and to have a healthy distrust of politicians and the media. I myself am a pretty big opponent of the status quo in a lot of cases. And the fact that most politicians aren't very trustworthy ought to go without saying. But the thing we all need to be always asking ourselves is how are we going to act on these feelings of undesired stagnation and distrust? How will we react to issues like immigration given our perhaps very justifiable views towards politicians and the media? And will our actions make things better, or will they be making things worse? Will they help to improve a situation, or simply contribute to the perpetual nature of the underlying issues? For instance, all of us can agree, for the most part, that the current immigration system is indeed an issue. But if a group of us stake the position, and perhaps even prove without a doubt, that 'the politicians cannot be trusted to fix the immigration issue', well that's all fine and good, but then what? What are we going to do to solve things? Obviously we cannot just stop at saying that the politicians are untrustworthy, because doing that, and nothing else, doesn't actually fix anything. We're still left with the issue of untrustworthy politicians as well as the issue of a flawed immigration system. So in my opinion, all serious consideration and or discussion of issues like this need to be tackled with a focused eye towards coming up with solutions. And while our feelings on various things, like the trustworthiness of politicians, or the harmfulness of the status quo, should be factored into those solutions, we should be careful not to allow our emotions in those areas to have more influence on our actions than whats due. For example, just because we view the status quo as bad and can't always have faith in our politicians/media to tell the truth doesn't necessarily mean that we need to change every single aspect of a current system, or that we should try to make decisions while completely ignoring any and all facts provided by the media, or that we need to go all French Revolution on the House of Representatives... So if immigration is the issue, and untrustworthy politicians are also part of the problem, then let's ask ourselves, is there something we can do to solve the issue of untrustworthy politicians? And if not, are there things we can do to get around them/solve the immigration issue in such a way that ensures their untrustworthiness does not too negatively affect things? There are ways around that. Namely, what you do in this situation is you produce guarantees within the bill itself. In fact, simply including both provisions into a single comprehensive bill (rather than trying to pass one bill with one provision and a second bill with the other) is itself a sort of guarantee. But one could even go further if they wanted. In the Undocumented Immigrants & Visa Overstays section of this series of votes there are several options, taken from one of the senate proposals, which state that certain immigrants will be granted temporary residency status by the bill, but only after detailed plans for border security improvements have been created. And of course funding for that added security could take effect instantaneously as a part of that same comprehensive bill, and certain aspects of what the improvements should include can even be included directly in the bill as well; e.g. the government must add x number of additional agents on the border, x number of additional towers, x feet of additional fencing. etc. etc.... You know, stuff like that. But it seems that there aren't really all that many folks who are willing to go that deeply into things when considering an issue like this. And that's a shame really... Because we all have a responsibility here to figure out ways to ensure that issues like these get fixed. We do ourselves, our fellow citizens, and others a disservice when we try to make those decisions without first attempting to fully understand the issue and our options. And simply deferring those responsibilities to others, particularly the politicians, isn't enough. For how are we to ensure or expect that those politicians will effectively fix things if we ourselves have not but a trivial understanding of things ourselves... especially if its been established that we can't even trust those very same politicians?.... Actually, I don't get the idea at all. I think you may have flubbed the presentation. Either that, or this part of your post just flew way over my head. Lol! -Meta
Well, yes. The problem is that most people, of necessity, leave things like bringing us the news, interpreting events, making laws, conducting foreign policy, to 'experts'. And many people no longer trust the 'experts'. Even someone as conservative as Ted Cruz, banging on about religion, as conservative as you could get ... just was not trusted by the Republican base, when matched with Donald Trump. The oft-repeated observation, that the commentariat took Trump literally but not seriously, while his supporters took him seriously but not literally, is right on the money. "This guy really is different, he doesn't say what he thinks people want to hear, he's already rich so he can't be bought ... give 'im a try!" The Democrats actually had a symmetrical match for him in Bernie Sanders, in the sense of someone you could trust to say what he believed, but he was no match for the Machine. As for my Vygotsky reference, yes, it's not very clear. If you're familiar with James Flynn and the 'Flynn Effect' -- the steady three-points-per-decade increase in mean IQ over the last century -- it's his explanation, besides the usual one of nutrition and better education, for the Effect. We are becoming, collectively, more used to abstract thinking -- the sort of thing tested (or one of the main components) in IQ tests. Here's an original example, not from Vygotsky but from another Soviet psychologist, Alexander Luria, reporting on work done in the 1930s. They're investigating the reasoning powers of peasants living in backward conditions -- quite common in Russia then, and a concern of the Soviet government, which was trying to introduce mechanization into the countryside as well as turn millions of peasants into industrial workers: "These results made us realize that further study of logical operations required us to do preliminary work on syllogisms with our subjects in order to stress the universal nature of the premises and their logical interrelations so that subjects would focus their attention on these relations and better recall the basic problem when it came time to make a deduction. In this later work, we contrasted reasoning from syllogisms with familiar and unfamiliar content. When the syllogisms were drawn from the subject's practical experience, our only transformation was to change the particular conditions to which they applied. For example, a syllogism of this type would be: “Cotton grows well where it is hot and dry. England is cold and damp. Can cotton grow there or not?” The second type of syllogism included material unfamiliar to the subjects so that their inferences had to be purely theoretical. For example: “In the far north, where there is snow, all bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the far north. What color are the bears there?” Subjects living under the most backward conditions often refused to make any inferences even from the first kind of syllogism. In such cases, they were likely to declare that they had never been in such an unfamiliar place and did not know whether cotton grew there or not. Only after extended discussion, when they were requested to answer on the basis of what the words suggest, would they reluctantly agree to draw a conclusion: “From your words, it should be that cotton can't grow there, if it's cold and damp. When it's cold and damp, cotton doesn't grow well.” Such subjects refused almost entirely to draw inferences from the second type of syllogism. As a rule, many refused to accept the major premise, declaring, “I've never been in the north and never seen bears.” One of our subjects told us, “If you want an answer to that question, you should ask people who have been there and have seen them.” Frequently they would ignore the premise that we gave and replaced it with their own knowledge, saying such things as, “There are different kinds of bears. If one is born red, he'll stay that way.” In short, in each case they would avoid solving the task" [ Source ] In an American context, there is an old Abraham Lincoln joke: "If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? ..... Answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one." Now I would concentrate on that 'IF' and answered 'Five'. But I've had decades of considerating propositions like "If we COULD divide by zero, then .... " or "If there was a rational number which, if squared, gave two ... then " ... And apparently even in Lincoln's time, most of his listeners were doing the same ... abstract reasoning ... but that was in America, and -- according to Vygotsky and Luria -- in truly backward peasant societies, they would have answered 'Four'.
My view on that is that if the experts are to be rejected then one must have a contingency plan for gathering information on those subjects which require expertise. That's how I feel about it anyway. Typically such a plan entails for one to simply become an expert themselves. But as it is, I don't think people today seem to have any such contingency plan, at least not one that makes any sense to me. If the current experts are untrustworthy, then they very well should be rejected and replaced. But who is going to take they're place if the people rejecting them aren't willing to become experts on the subjects themselves? Will they be replaced with still more experts who are just as untrustworthy as the last batch, or maybe even more-so? Perhaps then what the people really need to become experts at, is in figuring out how to put in place more trustworthy experts... -Meta
Yes, exactly. More fundamentally, it would be good if we could all learn to engage in 'critical thinking': for instance, knowing when to discount -- not neglect entirely -- an expert's opinion because of his own personal stake in some issue, or previous commitment to a position that he could not change no matter what. On controversial issues, I try to find the highest-quality experts on both (or all) sides, and keep up with them, if only selectively. When a controversial book comes out, like The Bell Curve, after reading it, I try to read some quality critical reviews of it. I think the most important aspect of critical thinking is trying to understand one's own biases and intellectual limits, by always asking, of any given issue on which you have an opinion, "What evidence would make me change my mind?" -- the Karl Popper approach, basically: seeking disconfirming evidence, rather than confirming evidence. [There is a great card game, called New Eleusis, which aims to teach this method to children.] And here the public debate forum plays a negative role, as well as a positive one: if you have publically staked out a position on some issue -- say, climate change, or gun control, or forcing regime change through military action, or the causes of Black poverty, or school choice ... then it becomes, for reasons of ego, very hard to change it. Your manhood is at stake. That's why when I argue with someone, I never look for instant change of opinion on their part. I only hope to plant the seeds of doubt which may bloom several years later. There are whole organizations devoted to teaching 'critical thinking' in schools, but these usually mean, by 'critical thinking', "critical of positions that I'm critical of", not genuine critical thinking. However, I know that genuine critical thinking will never become widespread. There are powerful interests around every issue who do everything they can to shut down debate on any issue where their view is the dominant view, the 'doxa'. (in Bordieu's usage). You see this even in academia, which in theory prizes critical thinking -- for instance, the leftwing students who prevent conservatives from speaking, or the Zionists who prevent their critics from getting tenure. More importantly, most of us hate cognitive dissonance, and are members of groups that reinforce group thinking and that we are loathe to become dissidents in. However, over the long run, there are victories, and so one must keep trying.
Ah! I see what you're saying now... I think... Basically you're saying that those Vygotsky test subjects and the other Russian peasants weren't able to cope with the abstract nature of the questions they were being asked and as such were incapable of coming up with relevant answers to them. The idea of the Flynn Effect would suggest though that we as humans are becoming better at such abstract thinking every generation. But wait... if that's the case, then what does all this have to do with the immigration issue? Are you suggesting that the reason the topic of immigration is such a difficult one, is because significant portions of the population are just like those Russian peasants; incapable of grasping abstract concepts, unable to find or even consider the idea of something like compromise while such a thing as its implementation yet remains outside the realm of there own personal experience... that the Flynn Effect has yet to reach them? If this is indeed the case, then what must we do to teach them? Surely they do not remain in that state by conscious choice. Perhaps we need only point out to them the simple fact known by every pioneering spirit in history... that not a one of them ever journeyed forth across a new horizon having already visited their destination. Progress by its very nature requires abstract thinking. Without such thinking, progress is not possible. And without progress, we have only stagnation to take its place. Stagnation in turn leads to gradual deterioration and decay. Deterioration and decay then lead to weakness. Weakness leads to death. Don't know about you, but that's certainly not something I want for our country... -Meta
Agreed, and I'd also add that we really need to find ways to break these negative trends and tendencies. And double agree on that last line, whatever happens we must absolutely never give up on trying to improve things. -Meta
The Flynn Effect was a loose connection to the difficulties those peasants had with accepting the premise and reasoning from it. Their problem was unfamiliarity with abstract thinking. And the immigration connection is this: people who support Trump are used to being given 'premises' in the form of 'promises': "Don't worry, nothing to see here, we've got control of the border." So a promise/premise like : IF you vote for this candidate who supports the Comprehensive Settlement Bill (just made that up), which will grant immediate citizenship to all illegals here and then really, truly, close the border" ... such a promise is simply disbelieved. And rightly so. It's not that significant portions of the population cannot grasp abstract concepts. It's that they don't believe the abstract concept when it's in the form of an election promise. They've stopped trusting their elected leaders. In any case, what we have with the immigration issue, both in the US and Europe, is inductive logic, not deductive. It goes something like this: Country X [or set of Countries, X] is a crime-ridden, violent hellhole. It's that way because of some quality that its population has, or lacks. If large numbers of that population come to MY country, it too will become a crime-ridden violent hell-hole. If there were 15 million illegal Swiss, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, or Danish immigrants in the US, no one would care. So that issue has to be addressed directly. What are the actual facts about crime rates among Hispanics in general, and among illegals specifically? Most people don't have a clue. (I haven't investigated this thoroughly, and at the moment rely on the statistical work of a VERY non-PC statistician, whose cover-name is Griffe DuLion, specifically his analysis here: http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/hispanic.htm ... you have to get to the bottom of the lengthy post and can skip the statistical preface if you want. His results are surprising ... at least they were to him.)
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it... any solution on immigration needs to be comprehensive. As in, all the different aspects of the immigration issue ought to be taken care of in a single bill. We the citizens of this country should demand as much. No more of this piecemeal stuff, and that guarantees that everyone knows what they're getting at the time a bill gets passed/signed. One doesn't need to worry in that case, that a bill covering half of the immigration items will get signed with only a promise that the other half of the problems will be taken care of latter only for it never to happen. Include it all in a single bill and your good to go. Though I would also like to add that a phrase like 'close the border' is overly vague. I mean what does that even mean? Its not like our border is a door one can just seal shut. Its over 19-thousand miles of land we're talking just for the southern side, and we could even virtually extend that to include air and seaports. So you use a phrase like that, it can be taken to mean just about anything. No, instead what we need here are specific solutions. E.g. adding x-number of new patrol agents, x-number of towers, x-amount of new border security funding, x-miles of new fencing, x-number of drones, etc. etc. Well if we're talking just politicians not doing what they say they'll do in general, as opposed to specifically getting folks to support one bill in the hopes of another, then I would say that that actually goes beyond just the immigration issue and what I was talking about, and is really a whole separate issue unto itself. If untrustworthy politicians are causing concern, then we really ought to start picking better politicians... either that, or put in place some mechanisms to aid in keeping them honest. As for how to pick better ones, this is likely going to fall mostly to the individual voters to simply make better decisions at the polls. For example... yes, pretty much all politicians lie (that's a given), but if one wants more trustworthy politicians, then one should make relative honesty a top criteria for anyone receiving their vote, and if one sees during an election that one candidate seems to lie a lot more than the others or seems to tend do so more shamelessly, its probably a good idea not to vote for them. A politician's whole history should be considered for such a test btw,... which may require voters to pay closer attention than they do now (in addition to not simply dismissing a high frequency of lying as just something all politicians do), but there probably aren't too many alternatives to that. -Meta
I don't believe it would be difficult at all, to add requirements for stricter criminal background checks for immigrants to any comprehensive immigration bill. I believe such checks are already standard operating procedure, but perhaps the processes involved could use some improvements? And obviously, we'd still want to tamp down on illegal immigration, since by immigrating illegal such immigrants bypass such checks. Making the processes more streamlined for legal immigrants may be one way of reducing the number of illegal entrants, and not to mention improving border security of course. -Meta
Here’s the problem: many people — I among them — don’t believe in the efficacy of ‘background checks’. The countries these people are fleeing from are too shambolic, too corrupt, to be trusted. Nor do I trust the efficiency of the checkers, who may be bribed, or intimidated by the PC thought-police, into letting people in who should not be let in. For example, I would absolutely trust and admit someone who had a verifiable history as a member of one of the Protestant sects that have proliferated in Central America. — but can you imagine the outcry were it to be revealed that this was a criterion?
Yes I can. So given your views on that, what would your votes look like in the polls here? What is the Most Important Immigration Category Needing to be Dealt With? How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Undocumented Immigrants & Visa Overstays) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Immigrants Wishing to Immigrate Legally) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Immigrants Who've Already Achieved Legal Status) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Immigration Systems, Security, & Enforcement) < (You Are Here) How To Enact Immigration Reform? (Foreign Outreach/Other) -Meta
