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I mean, anyone who is still defending this administration isn't even trying to have a conversation in good faith. I have a Republican friend who appreciates th

by scoofy 21d ago

I mean, anyone who is still defending this administration isn't even trying to have a conversation in good faith. I have a Republican friend who appreciates the Supreme Court Justices, and then suddenly has zero clue about any news story involving the administration, and shrugs off the war. This despite meticulously following Benghazi hearings when it was someone he wanted to dislike. He would rather Trump be Romney, but he's not going to do anything about it whatsoever. I blame myself for teasing my Italian friend in college over Silvio Berlusconi, and now I've found myself in the same position :(

15155 21d ago
> defending this administration "Leave to renew" has been policy for decades.
- deleted 21d ago
  [deleted]
- foltik 21d ago
  > isn't even trying to have a conversation in good faith. What about the sweeping halt of all legal immigrant visa processing?
  - scoofy 21d ago
    Right, the point isn't that "Leave to renew" is some kind of horrible policy. Such bad-fucking-faith on display everywhere. The point is maybe signal to people that we will soon be pausing all visa renewals so people who trivially have good jobs and good records know they ought to literally just plan on moving out of their apartment rather than have to deal with paying thousands of dollars to have someone else move their shit overseas, just to maybe get their visa renewed right when their shit arrives and they have to do the same thing all over again. This would literally just helping law-abiding folks follow the law. But no, the cruelty is the point.
    - 15155 21d ago
      [flagged]
      - hvb2 21d ago
        > The terms were clear, visas are a privilege and not a right or automatic entitlement. They are. Yet can you tell me why you would need to pause all processing in order to retrain your people? Surely they do training all the time without pausing processing. Your passport is a right too, you wouldn't mind if they paused that request with no indication of when they might resume? And that's including when you're abroad and lost yours. If that happens to you, you'll happily hold the same position?
        15155 21d ago
        [flagged]
        hvb2 21d ago
        I meant that I agreed that visas are a right. > I am a citizen, so this isn't a good faith comparison. Oh, you still are. You'll get your passport, we just can't tell you when. That's what's happening here. These people aren't being denied, they're told to wait for an indefinite amount of time. But basically you're saying that you think this is outrageous if it were you, got it.
        15155 21d ago
        > I meant that I agreed that visas are a right. I've explicitly stated that visas are not a right - which is the legally-consistent opinion and basic English interpretation of the concept. (If visas were a right, why would denial be a possibility? If denial isn't a possibility, what function do they serve?) > That's what's happening here. These people aren't being denied, they're told to wait for an indefinite amount of time. What part of "these people" somehow makes them equivalent in entitlement to a nation's citizens - how is this even a question? Not agreeing that borders, citizenship are concepts generally doesn't make them magically cease to exist.
- GeneralMayhem 21d ago
  First, that's not what this is talking about. "Leave to renew" becoming "leave, and you will not be renewed" on a whim is insane, self-destructive cruelty. But also, it's only been "the policy" since 2004. That's technically "decades", but only just, and it was also introduced for idiotic pretextual reasons. The ostensible reason is that domestic State Department offices don't have the equipment to capture biometric data. Seriously. That's the argument. The law doesn't say "you have to leave to renew", it says "you have to get fingerprinted to renew", and conveniently there's nowhere in the United States that can do that, despite every police station in the country having that equipment at this point.
  - 15155 21d ago
    [flagged]
    - GeneralMayhem 21d ago
      They come with renewal expectations, assuming the situation hasn't changed. Reserving the right to change the rules unilaterally doesn't make you not an asshole if you actually exercise that right. And government only functions if it's predictable - if it's a random-number generator (outside of processes that are explicitly lotteries), what is anyone supposed to do? Why would anyone engage with it? In most states, employers have broad rights to fire employees at will, including no reason or "he wore the wrong color shirt". That doesn't mean that if you have a dickhead manager who fires you because he doesn't like the color of your shirt isn't a dickhead, and if you defended that manager I would similarly consider you unfit to participate in civil society.
      - 15155 21d ago
        > They come with renewal expectations, assuming the situation hasn't changed What? Where is this expectation enumerated? An expiration date is in fact defined. I'm not sure where some legal expectation of guaranteed renewal could arise from. > unilaterally doesn't make you not an asshole if you actually exercise that right. "Asshole" is a matter of opinion, and rights aren't actually rights if you aren't ever able to exercise them. > if you defended that manager I would similarly consider you unfit to participate in civil society. Why have laws, borders at all by these standards? What's the point?
dcow 21d ago
I have good friends on an H1B. I've got plenty of amazing coworkers and teammates on it as well. At the same time, the program has been wildly abused. We don't need to go into the details I'll assume if you are trying to have a conversation in good faith here then you are well aware that companies abuse the H1B program to import literal indentured servants (to the point of there being covert rings that traffic H1B workers with fake credentials into the country) that ultimately aren't serving even the most remote interests of working class America and really just allowing companies to lower costs while increasing profits so boomers can get rich. We can have nice things until people abuse the system en masse. This isn't a new failure mode. So what do we do? I don't want good people disrupted. But I also morally disagree with everything the abuse of the H1B program represents. What's the solution? It doesn't seem that crazy to me that "tax the companies so they can't undercut local labor so easily" is a reasonable first pass. But we know how that went. I can't help but think if instead of shouting across the isle there were some amount of bipartisan accountability and shared understanding on the topic then the previous attempts by this administration to curtail the problem would have been more effective and we wouldn't be at a point where people have to take the gloves off.
cozzyd 21d ago
yes, I remember making fun of my british friends for brexit, and then ...
- ychnd 21d ago
  You probably don't realize, but there's a connection between Brexit and "Mr. Brexit".
deleted 21d ago
[deleted]
jpadkins 21d ago
I'll defend this administration in good faith on the policies I agree with (I disagree with most of the current foreign policy). In 2015, Trump took a position on excessive immigration and illegal immigration that made him very popular in the Republican primaries, even considering his very obvious character flaws. Like Ross Perot before him, there was a groundswell of support from people who (rightfully or not) feel like their country and their inheritance they are leaving younger generations was slowly being destroyed (the social fabric that makes America a great place was being shredded). This policy decision is a continuation of that political shift. This is, quite literally, Democracy in Action. The people wanted to see a change and elected a very unorthodox political leader to enact that change.
- scoofy 21d ago
  I’m not arguing policy here. My point is Trump is an absolutely terrible person who should be removed from office. It’s not the “I don’t like this policy” it’s “maybe do the policy without being an absurdly cruel person who treats others like garbage”

by scoofy 21d ago

15155 21d ago

> defending this administration "Leave to renew" has been policy for decades.

deleted 21d ago
[deleted]
foltik 21d ago
> isn't even trying to have a conversation in good faith. What about the sweeping halt of all legal immigrant visa processing?
- scoofy 21d ago
  Right, the point isn't that "Leave to renew" is some kind of horrible policy. Such bad-fucking-faith on display everywhere. The point is maybe signal to people that we will soon be pausing all visa renewals so people who trivially have good jobs and good records know they ought to literally just plan on moving out of their apartment rather than have to deal with paying thousands of dollars to have someone else move their shit overseas, just to maybe get their visa renewed right when their shit arrives and they have to do the same thing all over again. This would literally just helping law-abiding folks follow the law. But no, the cruelty is the point.
  - 15155 21d ago
    [flagged]
    - hvb2 21d ago
      > The terms were clear, visas are a privilege and not a right or automatic entitlement. They are. Yet can you tell me why you would need to pause all processing in order to retrain your people? Surely they do training all the time without pausing processing. Your passport is a right too, you wouldn't mind if they paused that request with no indication of when they might resume? And that's including when you're abroad and lost yours. If that happens to you, you'll happily hold the same position?
      - 15155 21d ago
        [flagged]
        hvb2 21d ago
        I meant that I agreed that visas are a right. > I am a citizen, so this isn't a good faith comparison. Oh, you still are. You'll get your passport, we just can't tell you when. That's what's happening here. These people aren't being denied, they're told to wait for an indefinite amount of time. But basically you're saying that you think this is outrageous if it were you, got it.
        15155 21d ago
        > I meant that I agreed that visas are a right. I've explicitly stated that visas are not a right - which is the legally-consistent opinion and basic English interpretation of the concept. (If visas were a right, why would denial be a possibility? If denial isn't a possibility, what function do they serve?) > That's what's happening here. These people aren't being denied, they're told to wait for an indefinite amount of time. What part of "these people" somehow makes them equivalent in entitlement to a nation's citizens - how is this even a question? Not agreeing that borders, citizenship are concepts generally doesn't make them magically cease to exist.
GeneralMayhem 21d ago
First, that's not what this is talking about. "Leave to renew" becoming "leave, and you will not be renewed" on a whim is insane, self-destructive cruelty. But also, it's only been "the policy" since 2004. That's technically "decades", but only just, and it was also introduced for idiotic pretextual reasons. The ostensible reason is that domestic State Department offices don't have the equipment to capture biometric data. Seriously. That's the argument. The law doesn't say "you have to leave to renew", it says "you have to get fingerprinted to renew", and conveniently there's nowhere in the United States that can do that, despite every police station in the country having that equipment at this point.
- 15155 21d ago
  [flagged]
  - GeneralMayhem 21d ago
    They come with renewal expectations, assuming the situation hasn't changed. Reserving the right to change the rules unilaterally doesn't make you not an asshole if you actually exercise that right. And government only functions if it's predictable - if it's a random-number generator (outside of processes that are explicitly lotteries), what is anyone supposed to do? Why would anyone engage with it? In most states, employers have broad rights to fire employees at will, including no reason or "he wore the wrong color shirt". That doesn't mean that if you have a dickhead manager who fires you because he doesn't like the color of your shirt isn't a dickhead, and if you defended that manager I would similarly consider you unfit to participate in civil society.
    - 15155 21d ago
      > They come with renewal expectations, assuming the situation hasn't changed What? Where is this expectation enumerated? An expiration date is in fact defined. I'm not sure where some legal expectation of guaranteed renewal could arise from. > unilaterally doesn't make you not an asshole if you actually exercise that right. "Asshole" is a matter of opinion, and rights aren't actually rights if you aren't ever able to exercise them. > if you defended that manager I would similarly consider you unfit to participate in civil society. Why have laws, borders at all by these standards? What's the point?

dcow 21d ago

I have good friends on an H1B. I've got plenty of amazing coworkers and teammates on it as well. At the same time, the program has been wildly abused. We don't need to go into the details I'll assume if you are trying to have a conversation in good faith here then you are well aware that companies abuse the H1B program to import literal indentured servants (to the point of there being covert rings that traffic H1B workers with fake credentials into the country) that ultimately aren't serving even the most remote interests of working class America and really just allowing companies to lower costs while increasing profits so boomers can get rich. We can have nice things until people abuse the system en masse. This isn't a new failure mode. So what do we do? I don't want good people disrupted. But I also morally disagree with everything the abuse of the H1B program represents. What's the solution? It doesn't seem that crazy to me that "tax the companies so they can't undercut local labor so easily" is a reasonable first pass. But we know how that went. I can't help but think if instead of shouting across the isle there were some amount of bipartisan accountability and shared understanding on the topic then the previous attempts by this administration to curtail the problem would have been more effective and we wouldn't be at a point where people have to take the gloves off.

cozzyd 21d ago

yes, I remember making fun of my british friends for brexit, and then ...

ychnd 21d ago
You probably don't realize, but there's a connection between Brexit and "Mr. Brexit".

deleted 21d ago

[deleted]

jpadkins 21d ago

I'll defend this administration in good faith on the policies I agree with (I disagree with most of the current foreign policy). In 2015, Trump took a position on excessive immigration and illegal immigration that made him very popular in the Republican primaries, even considering his very obvious character flaws. Like Ross Perot before him, there was a groundswell of support from people who (rightfully or not) feel like their country and their inheritance they are leaving younger generations was slowly being destroyed (the social fabric that makes America a great place was being shredded). This policy decision is a continuation of that political shift. This is, quite literally, Democracy in Action. The people wanted to see a change and elected a very unorthodox political leader to enact that change.

scoofy 21d ago
I’m not arguing policy here. My point is Trump is an absolutely terrible person who should be removed from office. It’s not the “I don’t like this policy” it’s “maybe do the policy without being an absurdly cruel person who treats others like garbage”