Horrifying Republican response to Bishop's sermon

Politicians do politics.....what a novel idea.

I'd say that much of the recent strand of authoritarianism is coming from the progressive left and from the politics of identity, grievance and intersectionality; and from a younger generation that seems very psychologically and emotionally fragile.

Both the (far) left and the (far) right equally capable of authoritarianism eg Stalin vs Hitler. The rise of authoritarian leaders across the globe is frightening when married with surveillance and technology. It is, however, not unsurprising given the constant bad news on almost every front. Unfortunately humans attempt to seek safety in the apparent certainty of authoritarian messaging.

Part of Trump’s appeal is his absolute certainty*. He’s never wavered from that because his narcissist ego thinks he is right all the time. He has the certainty of a toddler who only sees clear boundaries eg good/bad.

Anyhow, in a recent exercise with some 18 year olds, they uniformly thought an online forum comment about using bear spray on someone breaking work rules was threatening and even obscene. Not a single person interpreted it as possibly joking. Made me wonder if constantly living your life through texts and online has reduced nuance and shades in communication exchanges. In turn, this has fed into more entrenched positions about gender. But certainly good intentions about trigger warnings and removing any potential offense seem to be leading to infantilising young adults.

*To be clear, my position is that Trump’s election is a terrible inflection in the world and whilst I despaired over the Democrats inability to see the damage genderism was doing to women and girls I wanted Harris to win for the sake of the world. All we can do now is hang on for the next four years.

Now, in the country my brother lives in, you can only move there if you have a job in place, and only jobs with a real shortage, like nurses, can hire outsiders. They also almost always have a time limit of how long they can stay in the job (5 years, say,) their spouses if they have them cannot work, and the only way to become a citizen is through marriage.
This sounds a bit like the Middle East. I don't know how I feel about those rules - they definitely seem to benefit the country a lot more than the migrant - but I suppose they must have sufficient take-up or else they'd have to relax them.

Also Switzerland. Happy to have educated immigrant workers but you can’t buy a house and if you lose your job you have to leave.

Only if Asian grooming gangs are ever proved to be 4800% more likely to commit sexual assault than white men, would it become acceptable to ban male immigration from Pakistan

This is bonkers logic.

Two academics doing thought exercises and a marginal hopeless candidate. There is no one with any power or any chance of attaining any power advocating for open borders. The Democrat Party is constantly being accused of supporting such a policy in electoral misinformation campaigns. In the post I was replying to it was implied that there is a political movement that has to be appeased. There isn't.

I’m not sure that’s because he has compassion and mercy for them, I think it’s more likely to be a political decision, because he and his supporters are opposed to anything woke.

While the result in this case would save children, most of the rest of what he proposes is nasty and would hurt people.

The idea is that the should only be hiring non-citizens if there is a real shortage of qualified people.

I don't fully understand why this is so controversial either. The reverse seems to me to be a very capitalistic, even exploitative position - make the candidate pool as big as possible so you can get the best person for the cheapest possible price. It also ends up harming the countries that already have less developed economies, because they can't afford to retain their young skilled workers and it perpetuates a cycle of poverty or stagnation (yes, many overseas workers send money back home, but that doesn't address the skilled worker shortage).

I think perhaps the issue lies with some people considering relaxed immigration laws to be a moral imperative (stemming from the perception that people from less economically developed countries will necessarily have a lower quality of life) - which doesn't sit well with me, since this feels like a white saviour mentality. But I do think many people believe this, if only subconsciously. Their mental picture of an immigrant isn't usually someone from the US or Switzerland or another wealthy country. And it makes sense for people who do believe this to get angry at those who want tighter border restrictions, because it means you are depriving people of a chance at a better life.

(To be clear, I'm talking about economic migrants - refugees would be a different topic).

Now, in the country my brother lives in, you can only move there if you have a job in place, and only jobs with a real shortage, like nurses, can hire outsiders. They also almost always have a time limit of how long they can stay in the job (5 years, say,) their spouses if they have them cannot work, and the only way to become a citizen is through marriage.

This sounds a bit like the Middle East. I don't know how I feel about those rules - they definitely seem to benefit the country a lot more than the migrant - but I suppose they must have sufficient take-up or else they'd have to relax them.

Aren't there?

https://politicalresearch.org/2024/10/02/case-open-borders

https://socialism.com/fs-article/the-case-for-open-borders/

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/open-borders-for-sustainable-future/

There are no "open borders people".

Yes it's interesting. A lot of countries have rules like that. The idea is that the should only be hiring non-citizens if there is a real shortage of qualified people. TBH I find it odd people think this is problematic.

Now, in the country my brother lives in, you can only move there if you have a job in place, and only jobs with a real shortage, like nurses, can hire outsiders. They also almost always have a time limit of how long they can stay in the job (5 years, say,) their spouses if they have them cannot work, and the only way to become a citizen is through marriage.

Most countries don't accept anyone who wants to be an economic migrants, they want some ability to evaluate them, do some checks, and especially, to make sure their skills fit with what is required.

This is a bit of a tangent but it's quite interesting going to a country with strict immigration rules like Australia or New Zealand and hearing people openly sharing this opinion. People also freely complain when they feel too many new people (regardless of skillset or country of origin) are arriving in too short a space of time - older generations remember a time when they had more land between themselves and their neighbours and lament the fact the growing population forces them into closer proximity.

I find myself surprised by the huge variety in cultural attitudes on this front and how opinions and policies that are seen as perfectly logical and sensible in one country are seen as fascist and xenophobic in another.

I think there have been attempts to regularize people in the past., and maybe in some cases it has happened?

The worry as I understand it is that if it becomes a thing that's done regularly, it encourages more illegal migration and entry into the workplaces.

Most countries don't accept anyone who wants to be an economic migrants, they want some ability to evaluate them, do some checks, and especially, to make sure their skills fit with what is required.

I can imagine it might even be tricky if they used a sort of grandfather clause that people who had been in the US before a certain date could apply to be regularized without going back to their country of origin - you'd need people to prove how long they'd been there.

And frankly, I think the open borders people would still call that racist somehow.

...she is surely entitled to ask the most powerful person in the country to have compassion and mercy. After all, Trump claims to be a Christian.
I think Trump is showing compassion and mercy! He's freeing children from a lifetime of medication and unnecessary surgeries.

Quite.
I don't think they can hear themselves.

Pretty sure that everyone on the left would agree that regularising migrant labour would be a good thing. My post was an explanation, not a defence of the status quo.

Of course it doesn't have to be illegal immigrants, but probably has to be largely migrant workers. The word 'necessarily' there is from the point of view of employers that want to maximise their profits with cheap non-unionised labour.

If it is, then you are running your country incorrectly.

Another option is to regularise them. Slap them all with a small token fine for coming illegally, background check them, deport those who have criminal records (whether in their own country or otherwise), and give the rest work permits.

And then mandate that employers check eligibility to work.

Their cheap exploited labour

It's not in any way progressive to support a status quo in which people are invisible to the State, cannot unionise, cannot go to the police if they are victims of a crime, etc because they are here illegally and fear being deported. And it's certainly not progressive to use "but the economy" as an excuse for this.

I thought the Left were supposed to oppose capitalist greed, not facilitate it.

Their cheap exploited labour is necessarily factored in as essential for a functioning economy.

Are you saying that it's impossible to have a functioning economy without the exploitation of illegal immigrants? Or have I misunderstood?

Zero illegal immigrants in the USA?
That would mean about 12 million workers suddenly disappearing - largely from the menial positions that she cited. Farms, hotels etc would not have enough staff to operate. Their cheap exploited labour is necessarily factored in as essential for a functioning economy. MAGA don't understand - but employers do. Apart from a minority with criminal records, the deportations are just for show.

In what way was it political?

The class of people who commit 98% of sexual violence despite making up 50% of the population is males. All males.

Sexual offenders are overrepresented amongst males 48-fold compared to women. A man is 4800% more likely to sexually assault you than a woman is.

Only if Asian grooming gangs are ever proved to be 4800% more likely to commit sexual assault than white men, would it become acceptable to ban male immigration from Pakistan (the gangs in question are actually composed of a particular subset of Pakistani Muslim male, so it would not be appropriate to ban women nor men from all of Asia). This won't ever be proven because grooming gangs exist amongst all races, including white men. The Rotherham grooming gangs got away with it for so long because the safeguarding professionals were more scared of being called racist than they were of letting girls down. One of the lessons that should have been learned after Rotherham is that no one is above suspicion. No class of men should be deemed untouchable, including the ones who want to be women.

Illegal immigrants by definition shouldn't be here: not because they might rape, but because they've either been trafficked or are criminals (they broke immigration law), and neither of those circumstances is acceptable. If someone is an asylum seeker, they aren't an illegal immigrant by definition.

Conflating sex with race and national origin is racist. Having a lot of melanin in one's skin is not the same as having a penis.

You are correct the number should be zero for all:

Zero men allowed in women's spaces.
Zero girls raped by Pakistani gangs.
Zero illegal immigrants allowed into a country.
Particularly ones with criminal records.

These are rational positions held by normal people not far right .

Only deluded leftists are still calling these far right positions everyone else knows the game is up.

"The fact that generally not one of those posters is usually prepared to admit their personal numbers for acceptable collateral of female people harmed is telling"

I do not see the difference between this argument and that put forward by the far right when it comes to Asian grooming gangs ('how many kids do think it's acceptable should be raped by a gang, before you accept that we should stop/reduce immigration from that part of the world'?) or the Trumpers in the USA using the murder of a young woman by an illegal immigrant, to make a case for 15 million deportations.

I think that it is always important to restate this when posters make declarations about it all being a ‘moral panic’. The fact that generally not one of those posters is usually prepared to admit their personal numbers for acceptable collateral of female people harmed is telling. They talk about ‘moral panic’ and yet lack the moral courage to quantify the effects of the demand for tolerance.