North Carolina Voting - and Consistency

[Cow Poke]

I think you are suffering from TFS...

Does that explain the flatulence?

[One Bad Pig]

But the general, sweeping claim that "the left wants open borders" and "the left doesn't care about border security" is simply patently false. It may sell well in Pretoria, but it is simply not true. I would suggest that this is a great example of cherry picking examples because they support your position.

Granted, my usual sources for the left's point of view are Yahoo, the Washington Post, and JimL, but I have yet to see anyone from the left claim to care about border security. I'm'a callin' yer bluff. If the left generally supports border security, it would surely be elementary to cite examples supporting such.

Your move.

[rogue06]

Granted, my usual sources for the left's point of view are Yahoo, the Washington Post, and JimL, but I have yet to see anyone from the left claim to care about border security. I'm'a callin' yer bluff. If the left generally supports border security, it would surely be elementary to cite examples supporting such.

Your move.

A decade or so ago they were but not so much now.

[carpedm9587]

Does that explain the flatulence?

It actually might. After all - the man does produce a great deal of gas and hot air.

[JimL]

Meh. Consider the source.

That's what I did. I considered the source. Problem is that you righties here on tweb like to demean those of us on the left all the time, but like bullies you get all upset and whine about how mean I am when I return the favor. I didn't see one of you call out BtC for his insulting posts.

[rogue06]

As I noted, Rogue - 3% of the wall is concrete. Since it is 404 miles long, that means a little over 12 miles of it is concrete - more than enough for these google images. These sections tend to be 30 feet high, are located in three population centers and are designed to prevent sniper fire. (Last I checked, we didn't have a great deal of sniper-fire problem from the Mexico side of the border). Now let's look at the rest of the wall.

https://files.foreignaffairs.com/sty...?itok=a0wI46O5

https://www.jerusalemonline.com/wp-c...er_flash90.jpg

https://cdn.presstv.com/photo/201802...c0709ed5a9.jpg

The wall is described here:

Although critics have sought to portray the security fence as a kind of "Berlin Wall," it is nothing of the sort. First, unlike the Berlin Wall, the fence does not separate one people, Germans from Germans, and deny freedom to those on one side. Israel's security fence separates two peoples, Israelis and Palestinians, and offers freedom and security for both. Second, while Israelis are fully prepared to live with Palestinians, and 20 percent of the Israeli population is already Arab, it is the Palestinians who say they do not want to live with any Jews and call for the West Bank to be judenrein. Third, the fence is not being constructed to prevent the citizens of one state from escaping; it is designed solely to keep terrorists out of Israel. Finally, only a tiny fraction of the total length of the barrier (less than 3% or about 10 miles) is actually a 30 foot high concrete wall, and that is being built in three areas where it will prevent Palestinian snipers from around the terrorist hotbeds of Kalkilya and Tul Karm from shooting at cars as they have done for the last three years along the Trans-Israel Highway, one of the country's main roads. The wall also takes up less space than the other barriers, only about seven feet, so it did not have a great impact on the area where it was built.

Most of the barrier will be a chain-link type fence similar to those used all over the United States combined with underground and long-range sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles, trenches, landmines and guard paths. Manned checkpoints will constitute the only way to travel back and forth through the fence. The barrier is altogether about 160 feet wide in most places.

The land used in building the security fence is seized for military purposes, not confiscated, and it remains the property of the owner. Legal procedures are already in place to allow every owner to file an objection to the seizure of their land. Moreover, property owners are offered compensation for the use of their land and for any damage to their trees.

You are right to correct me about one thing, however: the metal overhang is connected to both the concrete and metal parts of the wall/fence - not just the metal fencing. On the concrete segments, it is part of the sniper protection. So thanks for that correction.

I wondered why the concrete parts of the "wall" dominated the google search. Then I realized they are what comes up if you search on "Israeli Wall." If you search on "Israeli fence", however....

Facts can be such pesky things...

Facts like AFAICT nobody ever proposed a wall stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific but cost estimates provided by the left always assume it will. Like this:

Pouring $25-$70B into a 2,000-mile long concrete border

[rogue06]

An example is just that, Rogue, an example. I have seen no one claim that you cannot find anyone who believes in open borders, some of them fairly highly placed and some of them in Congress. Frankly, in a perfect world, I would as well. We don't live in a perfect world, so reasonable precautions need to be taken. The key is "reasonable." Pouring $25-$70B into a 2,000-mile long concrete border when there are less expensive and effective alternatives, as the Israeli wall demonstrates, is simply not "reasonable." It's a political tactic being used because it has good "optix" and rallies the Trump base.

But the general, sweeping claim that "the left wants open borders" and "the left doesn't care about border security" is simply patently false. It may sell well in Pretoria, but it is simply not true. I would suggest that this is a great example of cherry picking examples because they support your position. I suggest you look around to see what most on the left are actually saying, instead of indiscriminately buying into Trump's memes.

Gotta go to bed in a bit but I'll rip into the leftist meme that they are opposed to open borders tomorrow.

[carpedm9587]

Granted, my usual sources for the left's point of view are Yahoo, the Washington Post, and JimL, but I have yet to see anyone from the left claim to care about border security. I'm'a callin' yer bluff. If the left generally supports border security, it would surely be elementary to cite examples supporting such.

Your move.

You can start with this article. Note that the article cites:



From Ocasio-Cortez:



If you have a subscription or have not used up your maximum free articles, there is also this article.

From the democrats.org website:



I wandered through this page and found numerous quotes from both the left and the right about the importance of border security and how to achieve it.

Then we have the simple fact that the vast majority of the left voted for the budget that allocated $1.6B for border security funding. If they wanted "open borders," why allocate any money at all?

The list goes on. I think you can do some of this legwork yourself, OBP - unless you really want to stay mired in the right wing meme. The information is out there. You just have to get out of your sandbox or bubble and go play in other people's sandboxes and bubbles a little. You might be surprised by what you find. We may disagree on the "how," but we are remarkably aligned on the "what."

[Mountain Man]

because you are not interested in border security. If you had your way, it'd be a free for all. What other reason could you possibly have for there to be no physical barrier to deter illegal crossings? Perhaps future voters? Let them in unfettered, whine about their poor kids not knowing better, demand citizenship for their kids, and voila! Ready made demographic. We let you in, sheltered you from the mean cops, and got you citizenship, so you better vote for us! It's clever, I admit, but pathetically shallow to anyone with a sliver of brain cells.

Governor of California Jerry Brown is slowly starting to realize the ultimately self-defeating nature of liberal social policies as he whines, "What's wrong with being a white man?"

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...a-bit-of-time/

[carpedm9587]

Gotta go to bed in a bit but I'll rip into the leftist meme that they are opposed to open borders tomorrow.

I look forward to it. Hopefully it will be supported by data, and not one-off examples. I'm talking about data like this, or this.

[carpedm9587]

Facts like AFAICT nobody ever proposed a wall stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific but cost estimates provided by the left always assume it will. Like this:

Actually, Rogue - someone did propose exactly that - your president, in numerous campaign speeches. I listened to them. I search for them to post one, but a search of his campaign rallies requires me to spend so much time scrolling through And Mexico was supposed to pay for it, remember? The range of numbers I cited for the cost come from both left and right (hence the broad range), and include both "all concrete" (the original promise) and "more like a fence" or "metal slats" (the current hedge). This article outlines his evolution from campaign to post election to post inauguration. Then there is this one.

I realize many on the right dismiss his comments by either saying "we take him seriously, not literally," or "he said "wall" but he didn't say what it would be made of. Look at your own search, Rogue. When you search for "Israeli Wall" you get the concrete sections. When you search for "Israeli fence" you get the metal fence segments. Trying to squeeze through the definitions to claim Trump never said X is a common tactic from many on the right - but it really doesn't convince anyone. Even TRUMP distinguishes between "wall" and "fence." And he didn't start to say "fence" until after the election, AFAICT.

[rogue06]

Um carpe... I didn't say anything about his claim about getting Mexico to pay it (although some economists have noted that the improvements he worked out in NAFTA could cover it) I was very specifically talking about how the left always claims he said the wall would run all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. You quickly changed the subject to the funding after giving a vague Trump said it but I'm not going to waste my time looking for evidence that he did.

[Mountain Man]

...(although some economists have noted that the improvements he worked out in NAFTA could cover it)...

Which is precisely what Trump said he would do.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...irectly-nafta/

This idea that Trump expected Mexico to write a check and hand it over was a meme that liberals used to mock Trump, but it's not something he ever said.

[One Bad Pig]

The list goes on. I think you can do some of this legwork yourself, OBP - unless you really want to stay mired in the right wing meme. The information is out there. You just have to get out of your sandbox or bubble and go play in other people's sandboxes and bubbles a little. You might be surprised by what you find. We may disagree on the "how," but we are remarkably aligned on the "what."

Thank you for the information. No thanks for the accompanying snide remarks and mischaracterization, jackass.

I did run across a quote this morning from Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) expressing support for "enhanced fencing" but not a "wall" (which would certainly qualify as "enhanced fencing"); the Democrats are making the right noises, but stonewalling over semantics. It's difficult to resist despising politicians in general (both sides of the isle are abundantly guilty of this).

[rogue06]

the Democrats refusing to distinguish between illegal immigration (including MS-13) and legal immigration as they conflated the two by claiming that Trump was calling all immigrants "animals" even though the most cursory of checks show he wasn't.

So how has this affected their views toward border security in general?

Although Democrats vehemently deny that they're for open borders, usually rejecting the claim as an outrageous slur, the evidence contradicts their protestations.

For a start let's examine how they reacted to the violent attempts back in late November by some of the illegal aliens in the caravan at the Ysidro port of entry. It was wall-to-wall condemnation of efforts to prevent this storming of the border by rock and bottle throwing thugs -- especially for the use of non-lethal crowd-control measures like tear gas and pepper spray in response to the attacks. For example, the incoming Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, huffed in response:



Likewise, Democratic Rep. Scott Peters of San Diego went on NPR to denounce what he called "a shocking use of tear gas" against "a few of them [who] got impatient." Never mind that during the Obama Administration tear gas and pepper spray were used dozens if not hundreds of times along the border, but physically attacking border agents is now considered merely a few of them getting impatient.

We are left wondering if that now gets condemned like this then what border-control measures can they possibly be for?

In July 2018 a simple non-binding resolution supporting United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement was put before Congress. Only 18 Democrats voted for this resolution with nearly twice as many (35) voting no. Another 133 dodged the issue altogether by voting "present."

Instead of voicing even nominal support Democrats instead seemingly prefer to liken Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers Nazis.

For instance, last January, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York actually stood on the steps of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Manhattan and declared that:

We are standing in front of a building that has become the headquarters for the Gestapo of the United States of America.

Michael Hayden, who served as Obama's first director of the CIA compared the temporary separation of adults and children on the U.S. southern border by ICE with the systematic genocide of the Holocaust thereby refashioning ICE agents as Nazis and turning illegal aliens into the bizarre equivalent of a Holocaust victims.

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Others merely want to get rid of ICE without resorting to slurs. The "abolish ICE" movement has really taken off among Democrats.

Open-borders socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (the swooned over darling of the left who Tom Perez, the head of the Democratic National Committee, called the future of his party) ran on a simple far-left platform that included abolishing ICE to be "replace[d] with a humane agency that is directed towards safe passage." Her vision of a secure border is where border patrol become travel agents instead of law enforcement. They will no longer deter anyone from entering illegally. Instead they will offer "safe passage." You can't get more open border than that.

Ocasio-Cortez has also called for protesters to occupy ICE offices around the country.

Many of those listed as being aspirants for the Democrat's 2020 presidential nomination have signed on. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif) along with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio have all called for the agency to be outright abolished or at least to "start from scratch." Interestingly, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), another likely candidate, came under intense criticism from liberal activists for refusing to go that far.

But, it should be noted, some others went the other way. For instance Occupy Wall Street, which received praise from the Obama Administration (which even instructed law enforcement to back off wrt enforcing any laws they broke) as well as Democrats in Congress (several of whom went to their riot/protests and spoke before them and encouraged them), called for the murder of ICE agents altering a CPR infographic so that it provides graphic instructions on how to accomplish it.

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As for open borders, many prominent Democrats have expressed support for the idea when they declare that illegal aliens shouldn't be deported.

Hillary Clinton talked about her dream of open borders in a paid for 2013 speech but tried to backtrack later on laughably claiming she was actually referring to free trade. But in 2016 she made what she meant clear during one of the 2016 primary debates when she said:

Of the people, the undocumented people living in our country, I do not want to see them deported.

Nancy Pelosi put it very clearly in 2013:

If somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation.

And as previously noted

The claim that Democrats support open borders is obviously nothing but a right wing meme and can safely be dismissed. While there are some on the fringe who might fall into that category, those in elected office, especially in the upper echelons don't... want open... bord...

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Oh.

Further, a Harvard-Harris poll from this past summer revealed that 36% of Democrats support "basically open borders."

All of this has been cause for concern for other Democrats. Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York lambasted the extremist immigration rhetoric coming from his party stating, "Open borders is not a winning policy." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has criticized all of the calls to scrap ICE. Such things would hardly be necessary if they weren't serious concerns.

So as we can see, a large percentage of Democrats want to neuter the one agency responsible for enforcing border security. They want to make it easy for illegals who cross to stay in the country. They want those already in the country illegally to not be deported. And that isn't all.

Democrats have been moving to give non-citizens including illegal aliens the right to vote. For example, in San Francisco they started registering illegals in July 2018 so that they can vote in local elections like those for school boards.^[1] Several towns and cities in Maryland also allow non-citizens to vote as well, allowing them to vote in municipal elections in 2017.

IIRC, Portland, Oregon has made similar moves although I don't know if they've been enacted.

Keep that in mind when Minority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer of New York declared at a press conference last month that Democrats are fighting for "real reforms," such as allowing "everybody" to vote. "Everybody," he reiterated. Schumer then twice called it "despicable" to excluding anyone from voting.

And finally we get to "sanctuary cities" and "sanctuary states" -- the very embodiment of the left's open border policies (regardless of what the law says) where illegal aliens are protected from being deported even when they break the law. In some, like Oakland, the mayor will even tip them off to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As of April 2018 there are 564 jurisdictions in the U.S. (including entire states like New York and California) that have adopted sanctuary policies. That is up from more than 200 when Trump took office and 40 when Obama took office. The Washington Times calculated^[2]

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The second one demonstrates there were a lot of other routes but only one led to a sanctuary state

1. would be very disappointed if I didn't include at least one footnote so I'll note that several "fact checkers" dishonestly declared that the fact that non-citizens as well as illegal aliens were being allowed to vote was false. They were saying that because they weren't (yet) being allowed to vote in all elections they therefore weren't being allowed to vote.

2.