I'll consider every situation as it is proffered to me. Care to argue with the results in El Salvador? 4000 murders a year down to 80, economic and public safety revolution. Consider Lincoln the 19th century of a Nazi/Fascist/Tyrant or whatever?
So, sometimes you'll insist on your rights and sometimes you'll give them up? I hope I don't have to explain the folly of that position. Re El Salvador, they did indeed have a big crime problem. Now they have a big violent dictator problem. I don't think they are in a better place.
I'll consider the situation, the applicable law and the wisdom of that law given the circumstances and make a determination. I guess you'll just have to explain the folly of that position. Laws/treaties/conventions are written in a time and place and lag real world considerations. I would imagine you would agree in the case of the second amendment right? It's true in lots of other circumstances as well. Re: El Salvador. The majority of the people of that country disagree with you. Explain yourself to the 4000 dead every year and the countless other victims of crime about how Bukele shouldn't have taken the actions he did and just let same **** which had been going on for decades continue. What about their rights? What about their right to not be murdered in their streets? Extorted? Raped?
The folly is that, when it comes to our civil rights, if you don't defend them all the time, they won't be there when you want them. So, for example, if we find a sneaky workaround to deny migrants due process here, some sneaky prosecutor might find a workaround to deny you due process later, citing precedent. Salvadorans can decide for themselves. And if they would give up their freedoms for a little bit of security, that's their choice. Or it was when they elected Bukele. I don't know if they'll have a mechanism to change their minds.
So, like I said, I'll take every situation as it's proffered and make a determination. Leftists attack our enumerated second amendment right via every conceivable avenue of attack available to them. If they could strip away the right in everything but name, they would. Spare me the moralizing. It was and is a recognition that ordinary judicial mechanisms wouldn't take the people of El Salvador where they needed to go. Do you disagree? should things have continued as they were via the ordinary judicial process? 4000 dead a year in a country of 6 million. Murder capital of the world. Widespread kidnapping, rape and extortion.... 10s of thousands fleeing every year.... now the safest country in the western hemisphere. The majority of ordinary citizens of El Salvador would tell you their lives are extremely materially improved in every regard from public safety and economic opportunity and beyond due to the disruption of that status quo but you'll sit there from the comfort of your home or office in the United States and moralize. You clearly have no idea.
El Salvador faced a massive issue and sacrificed civil liberties to solve it. While their problem was severe, it’s not necessarily our problem, so we should carefully consider whether it makes sense to mimic their solution. Let's consider some "facts". In 2017, El Salvador had a murder rate of 60 per 100k due to a major gang problem. President Bukele declared a state of emergency, and his massive crackdown was credited with the dramatic drop to 3 per 100k by 2023. Over 75k suspected gang affiliates were arrested and imprisoned in gigantic prisons. The sheer scale of these arrests crippled the gangs, but the cost was that thousands of innocent people were caught up in the mass arrests, and without due process, they have no legal means to seek release. Today, El Salvador has become an authoritarian state with no checks on presidential power. When crime rates were that high, I can understand why people were willing to give up their rights, accepting that some innocent individuals would be caught in the process. But should we adopt this type of solution in the U.S.? The U.S. had a murder rate of around 10 per 100k in the 1990s, and that rate has steadily dropped to about 5 per 100k. While it briefly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic (to 7 per 100k), it has since dropped again to around 6 per 100k and continues to trend downward. According to FBI data, approximately 15-20% of murders in the U.S. are attributed to gangs. Although data is limited, most of these murders are believed to be committed by domestic gangs. Foreign gangs account for roughly 1-3% of the total murders. While we have an issue with gang violence, it’s nowhere near the scale El Salvador faced. So, should we suspend due process, risk rounding up innocent people, and grant unchecked presidential power in an effort to reduce the current U.S. murder rate? If gangs account for 20% of the murders, perhaps the rate could be reduced from 5-6 per 100k to 4-5 per 100k. Personally, I don’t think we should at all be willing to sacrifice due process and basic civil rights to lower the murder rate by just 1-2 per 100k. p.s. We are likely able to reduce the murder rate more by giving up our gun rights (2A).
You're misunderstanding or intentionally misrepresenting the point. I didn't suggest the United States should turn into El Salvador regarding all things. I examined the theory that normal judicial processes/treaties/conventions cannot appropriately address every situation. I would suggest illegal immigration in the United States and much of Western Europe maybe such a situation.
Thanks. Good to have some fact not spin. Try this approach to voting and policy, MAGAs. What do you have to lose?
So what if the federal government labels you an illegal immigrant? What methods will you have to fight that claim? Remember there is no due process.
You said American due process cannot apply to illegals immigrants or you have suggested due process can't "address" illegal immigration whatever that means. I'm telling you there is no barrier anymore for a political regime in power having political motivations to label someone they don't like an illegal and deport them to a prison camp in El Salvador if there isn't due process for illegal immigrants. The due process is the part that confirms the executive branch of the federal government 's claim that you are an illegal immigrant.
In practice, we're already seeing an administration invoke "emergency" powers to deport immigrants without due process. This isn’t a theoretical debate - it’s happening right now. So again, my question stands: Do you support suspending due process, risking the detention of innocent people, and expanding presidential authority over deportation with minimal or effectively no judicial oversight - all in the name of reducing the current U.S. murder rate? If that's not your position, then maybe I misunderstood your point.
No - my problem is using immigrants as a scapegoat goat and vilifying them and branding them as murderers and thugs. Coupled with I don’t agree with deporting 8% of the USA - which will decrease tax income even further and harm the economy. There is a way to do things and then there is the Trump way - which is ham fisting everything and claiming victory regardless of all destruction caused.
I wondered how long it would be before MAGA started eating their own. Figured it would be women - the sexism is stronger than the racism.
I didn’t say that. May work better if you actually quote what I say (and in context). Instead of attributing bullshit you wish I had said to me. But I know that’s your style of discourse.
Lol re moralizing, but I won't go there. On the second amendment, my own personal view is I would remove the second amendment from the constitution entirely. I have more beef with our right to arms than I do with the actual arms. But, I think you're wrong about the typical leftist attitude about gun rights. I think most still want a right to guns that has a reasonable regulatory framework around it. I'll let you argue about that one with someone else because I'm an admitted extremist on gun rights. But your reference to the second amendment is an apt one. Gun rights advocates fight every attempt to regulate no matter how 'reasonable' and innocuous a regulation might seem, because allowing one change now might weaken their position to defend something more important later. The same is true for your right to speech, right to due process, and everything else. Again, it's up to Salvadorans what they do in their country. It's not my place as a foreigner to say what tradeoffs they can take. It would be doubly hypocritical of me as an American because most of the cause of their troubles is the United States. I don't think rolling with authoritarianism was the only way out of their predicament, but it was probably the fastest route. That speed has a price though, in democracy and civil liberties. As that dictatorship ages and wanes, if they haven't put in the work to build up their civil sphere, that lawlessness will be back. The slower route is cooperating with other countries to address their problems, work on reducing corruption, and hold to the principles of a democratic society. It would take decades and has risks so I can understand how it may not look appealing, but building a country on democracy is more stable in the very long term. (Its interesting to me that more and more of the conversations on the bbs these days revolve around arguing about the merits of fascism and democracy themselves. No longer can we take it for granted that people will think fascism is bad.)
