Piece on Stephen Miller

[_EAllusion]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020 ... -obsession

There's some new details in this piece on Stephen Miller that are worth reading over. In a more just world, he'd never get out of prison. In a slightly harsher one, he'd be hanging from the gallows.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

The irony of this bit, if true, cannot be overstated:

In one e-mail, Miller approvingly forwarded an article arguing that the U.S. should deport immigrants on trains “to scare out the people who want to undo our country.”

Anyway. Hang from the gallows? I sure hope MeDotOrg doesn’t see that. He might rip off your arms and punch you in the dick with them.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

He deliberately instituted a policy of torturing children to deter people from trying to migrate to the US. It's not hyperbole in this case to note that it is within the living memory of our oldest citizens that we just hanged people for this sort of thing. The Hauge is more civilized now, but that's where he belongs.

[_MissTish]

I saw this a couple of years ago, and, damn:


Bess Kalb
@bessbell
Oh man I can’t wait for the cinematic moment at the end of Stephen Miller’s life when his beautiful race war finally starts and he’s about to lead his White Pride Army into battle and one of his brethren grabs him by the arm and growls “Not so fast, Jew.”

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

He deliberately instituted a policy of torturing children to deter people from trying to migrate to the US. It's not hyperbole in this case to note that it is within the living memory of our oldest citizens that we just hanged people for this sort of thing. The Hauge is more civilized now, but that's where he belongs.

So, are you being hyperbolic, or do you really want to see Mr. Miller hung to death?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

So, are you being hyperbolic, or do you really want to see Mr. Miller hung to death?

- Doc

Neither. I'm noting that it was the case several decades ago that the prescribed punishment was being hanged to death. Think Nuremberg. I said what I want in my post, which is prison for life. This is due to the fact that I'm not a fan of capital punishment. If you believe in capital punishment, then your mileage might vary. He's operating on a crimes against humanity level.

[_EAllusion]

In the abstract, I appreciate that Stephen Miller isn't responsible for the systemic forces that placed a xenophobic sociopath in a role where he would do so much damage. How much do you blame the tiger for killing? But I think there are important reasons that you punish him harshly nonetheless. Anyone committing crimes against humanity is fortunate that they got in a position to be evil on that scale.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

He's operating on a crimes against humanity level.

I believe you stated in the past that we should have open borders due to your ideological stance on freedom of movement and trade? You can correct me if I'm over simplifying your stance.

Since Miller is a staunch anti-immigration sort and these follow-on questions are topical, how would you balance Conservative and your Libertarian views on immigration?

What are your views on our national borders being absolute?

If you were 'boss of the US' how would you have the borders, to include all points of ingress, patrolled and policed?

Finally, would you limit immigration to the US so assimilation could occur or would you allow as many people who wanted to come here to immigrate legally?

Follow on to the last question, if we were to allow unlimited immigration what do you think would happen to things like social services, housing, crime, the economy, etc? I guess, what kind of impact on the Republic do you think this would have?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

First, let's be clear that what makes Stephen Miller a monster is not some generic desire to reduce immigration or have tighter enforcement of immigration laws. It's doing things like torturing children en masse to achieve that aim. It's important to make this distinction because the preferred defense among a broad swath of conservatives is, rather than address the horror of what is going on directly, deflect to a strawman and say things like, "Sure, you think everyone who wants a border is racist."

Regarding your questions, Wisconsin and Illinois have a border with strict, absolutely enforced jurisdictional implications for what that means, yet there's no restriction on my movement inbetween the states. I am just subject to Illinois law when in Illinois. The first thing you need to do is distinguish "having a border" and restricting movement across that border. I don't think, nor do I know anyone who thinks, the US should not have a border. Texas is Texas and Mexico is Mexico.

As a political compromise, I would advocate for making the amount of time and red-tape it takes to become a US citizen much lower than it is now. I further would make the the criteria for becoming a US citizen broad enough that most people would qualify. Limitations would be primarily focused on people with a record that indicates danger, such as a prior history of serious crimes.

It's broadly popular to believe that becoming a naturalized citizen should be far easier than it is now, and it often shocks people to find out how narrow and difficult the current system is. And this is before Miller et. al. started grinding non-white immigration to a halt. These kind of reforms poll well when a little work goes into explaining them.

I would favor what is sometimes derisively called an "open borders" situation in that I think freedom of movement across the border - through customs check points - should be relatively open. Non-citizens want to come into America to visit and shop and work? Fine. It's not a big deal.

In terms of impact of this, I'd fully expect what the evidence already bears out, which is just a somewhat better economy, cultural blending where immigration exchanges are most dense, and minimal impact on crime, housing, government services, etc. I think immigration inflow will help offset population decline while not adding to the surplus global population that is causing tremendous environmental harm. This will help the US remain competitive with larger nations such as China and India and soon to be larger nations such as Nigeria. Loosely speaking, political clout on the world stage largely comes from economic clout and economic clout in a capitalist society comes from the number of participants in a domestic economy.

I'd further add, that the US's traditional openness towards immigrants - the US was an "open borders" situation for the first century of its existence - is one of its most important strengths and why it attained a dominant geopolitical status.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Would it be accurate to say that our national status would become a matter of becoming more like a municipality under your paradigm? I’d imagine if we were to allow unfettered immigration (minus serious criminals) we’d probably see a rapid dissolution of national identity and a reorganization of the states into something else, whether it’s an Aztlan or whatever. How do you see, at least here in the Western hemisphere, nation-states transforming, whether it’s a sort of hemispherical government, or into smaller self-governing states, if we were to open things up like you propose?

- Doc