This place used to be quite different, no?

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Noah Abrams

Golden Member
Feb 15, 2018
1,041
109
76
You may deserve him. The majority of us certainly didn't vote for him.

Gaawwwd. You don’t even know what the meaning and connotations of the word “deserve” are. Did you by any chance go to a school where the teacher could not be fired, no matter how incompetent he or she was? You know like a government run public school
 
Nov 29, 2006
15,922
4,494
136
It's much the same with the Dreamers. They're not responsible for being brought here as children. They've been raised American, went to school with our own kids. None of that is their fault. Some have American citizen children who depend on them as breadwinners. Revoking DACA is every bit as cruel & stupid as screwing over the Salvadorans.

I agree with you that these are our own fault for not enforcing immigration laws in regards to illegals coming here. And i don't like the idea of deporting Dreamers. And correct me if im wrong but Dreamers are kids brought to the states by illegals? So if one were to deport Dreamers wouldn't you also be deporting their parents whom would still be illegal, otherwise they wouldn't be called Dreamers? Or do you keep the Dreamers and deport their illegal parents? That sounds just as horrible. To me the options in this regard are legalize both parent and dreamers, or deport the whole family so they are still a family unit?

I do worry, as others do, that legalizing these things just enables this activity in the future and never really addresses the issue or putting ones foot down and enforcing the laws we have. But you are right that this is our fault, but it seems no form of correcting our mistake is considered acceptable going forward.

I admit i don't know as much on these topics as someone who talks or reads about this stuff on a daily basis does. So i'm not attacking i'm just asking the hard questions :)
 

yllus

Elite Member & Lifer
Aug 20, 2000
20,577
432
126
I genuinely think most principled conservatives stopped posting here because it's impossible to defend the current state of conservatism.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
74,905
6,788
126
I suggest it was the dawn of social media, when the internet moved from nerd to mainstream. Where someone could tell a lie and there was no longer any journalistic filter between it and _everyone_. Therefore group-think and rampant stupidity spread like a contagion. Humanity was not prepared for mass communications. Though we have benefited from it, this is one of the little acknowledged costs. Our cultural mind-share has taken a step back, and devolved into something ugly. From intellectual reason to mob madness.

Time will tell whether we can weather this storm of... stupidity.
This is not unlike the argument of excessive immigration where immigrants come is such numbers they don't integrate. We are experiencing a massive influx of essentially ignorant Americans who are uneducated and unevolved as to what it meas to be a classical liberal in the founding father's sense voicing their backward opinion, so ignorant if fact, they don't even know their opinions and bigoted nonsense is anti-American.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Again, this is about people brought in as children who committed no action of their own volition. They know no other country than the country they were raised in and haven't even had a chance to pursue citizenship yet.
A temporary deferrment was a poor solution to the problem

Slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
Yes it is. So is an appeal to empathy or emotion.

And here you've compared them to criminals and drug addicts. Seriously?
Not what I said. You once again jumped to a conclusion that fits your narrative

Just stop.
You first
 

umbrella39

Lifer
Jun 11, 2004
13,816
1,126
126
I genuinely think most principled conservatives stopped posting here because it's impossible to defend the current state of conservatism.

This is the 100% truth but not according to any one of them that come back to tell us how they are the true victims in the country as evidenced by the P&N evil overlords that ran them out... Yes, the certainly got run out! No. They just ran out of anything of substance to post other than to repeat their usual victim BS... Oh and to apparently they come back to grab the cocks out of liberal hands and join circle jerks... So there's that, too... And the usual "I was a liberal before finding P&N" rinse, wash, and repeat... etc. etc. etc...
 

Amused

Elite Member
Apr 14, 2001
57,504
20,108
146
A temporary deferrment was a poor solution to the problem

Yes it is. So is an appeal to empathy or emotion.

Not what I said. You once again jumped to a conclusion that fits your narrative


You first

Yes, it is what you said. You compared empathy for innocent children who had no control over their circumstances to criminals and drug dealers.

"Empathy is a slippery slope. One could empathize with any criminal if you take in a broader context. I empathize with the heroin addict who robs a store or the veteran addicted to pain killers who raids a pharmacy. I empathize with the poor inner city kid who gets sucked into a gang and then murders someone."

You literally took a page from Trump's mexican immigrant speech.
 

Younigue

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2017
5,888
1,447
106
As a former party line liberal, I can see why you find it cruel (by the way, I am no saying we should deport them). I mean these guys came here as children due to "no fault of their own". Let me give some examples:

- Parents gamble away, the bank wants to foreclose on the house. Children live in the house too. Should we stop the bank from foreclosing on the house and removing the children from the house because it is "no fault of their own". What do you say?

Let me address the money issue. I encourage you to spend your money on the less privileged of the society, including undocumented immigrants. That would be charity and a good thing. It will do you good personally as a person too.

What you and I don't have is the right to stop a stranger, take his money and spend it on anything we like. That is govt money. The left seems to think the govt money is just some money out there. No, it is not. It is tax payer money. It is immoral to steal. In every culture, in every religion

Also you talked about compassion. Where is your compassion for the children and families (all law abiding citizens of this country) whose lives are being ruined because more and more areas are turning into ghettos? Where all sorts of crap is going on in schools and parents have no choice but to send their kids to those schools. I can go and on. Do they deserve some compassion? Maybe you live such a life of affluence (like most educated rich white liberals) that you have no idea what the illegal immigration is doing to this country.

As for the last line, I am hugely against corporate and military welfare too. As I have said, both the right and left are looting this country with both hands. The price to be paid maybe by this generation. If not, then most certainly by future generations. In a big way.

Also
ghetto's? So you're prejudice but just won't call it that. If you can't see that directing money toward the people rather than the wealthy and the corporations would benefit the people then you are a lost soul and an ugly one at that.

Fine, you don't want to deport them but you would have people in the country with no country of their own? How is that helpful? How does it make you feel better that banks and corporations and the wealthy are gorging on tax dollars and avoiding having to pay taxes? You seriously feel better about screwing the least of the people within the country in favor of force feeding (and let us not forget gleefully submitting to the rape they insist on subjecting you to) the greedy who sit there with there mouths wide open, not even having to chew because their mouths are orifices to a bottomless pit, while their multitude of hands grab and grasp more and more and more.

Sure there is a section of the human race that wants to find themselves in that same boat but the 1%ers won't have them. To join their ranks suggests they missed some on their way up. No one human being can honestly say they "earned' a billion dollars. No one human being even deserves that kind of money yet the government helps them get there and you're worried about ghetto's? I guarantee you, with or with or immigrants America is designed to have ghettos. You think immigrants are the cause? No, a country that watches its people fail is what creates ghettos.

Ever heard of failing up? That is how this immigration thing should be handled. If a policy is hard to stomach but is doled out in a way that allows dignity, that will pay off in the future. That's not even difficult math.

You're a Stop-Thinker. Don't want my tax dollars going to anyone I deem unworthy because my measly taxes join the pool of tax money therefore it is as though I paid it all in myself! The immigrants get none! End of thought!

You're in a hole with your arguments here. You come off as just a dick.

* Edit... Didn't read your whole post before responding. Regardless, I think going after corporations at this point should take the front seat over going after immigrants. That money alone could fund things that would help the masses... Yes, that would include people you'd rather not help but ask yourself if that's because you're choosing to be a prick.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
36,316
10,629
136
I agree about the previous split. But there are moderate posters that used to seem more right leaning, that come off much more left since Trump, like @Hayabusa Rider and @Jaskalas. Even some of the always conservative people come off more moderate in some threads since the election, like @glenn1.

We've also lost a lot of the really annoying right wing trolls like Spidey, ProfJohn, and TexasHiker.

I'll try the short version. Last time I enthusiastically voted Republican was 2004. The last tether being economics, I think. Then, for some reason, the economy was a hot topic here in 2008 and beyond. By 2012 I was musing over the future of automation, some radical economic solutions... and also recognizing that Republicans never actually offer up solutions. By 2014 I openly opposed their victory in the Senate. In October 2015 I listened to a masterful argument from the "left". Then 2016 forced me to make a choice, and so I did.

Trump barely registers in that regard, it was a long journey for a better understanding. Where I'd weigh and measure two sides... If there was one straw that broke the camel's back, it was Robert Reich and Inequality For All, shortly before Youtube blocked it. It spoke truth to things I always knew to be true but were trapped in Republican dogma. Reich successfully connected dots to them, forcing one inevitable conclusion.

Tl;DR: Republicans lost me in 2015.
 

Amused

Elite Member
Apr 14, 2001
57,504
20,108
146
Ding ding ding we have a winner!

That would best explain me. As I said in my previous post. Not only am I no longer defending/advocating for any current conservative or policy, I am in full scale rebellion against it. To me, it has become the face of everything that is anti-science, anti-intellectual and anti-fact. To me, the current conservative movement has been co-opted by nationalists and authoritarians who prey on the uneducated.

Maybe one day we can get back to discussing how much or little capitalism should be regulated and such. But right now, the batshit is all we can focus on if we want to save the free world.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Yes, it is what you said. You compared empathy for innocent children who had no control over their circumstances to criminals and drug dealers.

"Empathy is a slippery slope. One could empathize with any criminal if you take in a broader context. I empathize with the heroin addict who robs a store or the veteran addicted to pain killers who raids a pharmacy. I empathize with the poor inner city kid who gets sucked into a gang and then murders someone."

You literally took a page from Trump's mexican immigrant speech.
No I said you can extend the logical fallacy of empathy to any criminal, thereby making the appeal to empathy irrelevant.
 

Amused

Elite Member
Apr 14, 2001
57,504
20,108
146
No I said you can extend the logical fallacy of empathy to any criminal, thereby making the appeal to empathy irrelevant.

Yes, because innocent children are totally the same as criminals and drug addicts.

It is impossible for the children to be criminals. They did not break any law.

reductio-ad-absurdum-fallacy-by-the-offence-argument-invalid.jpg
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,686
136
Yes, because innocent children are totally the same as criminals and drug addicts.

It is impossible for the children to be criminals. They did not break any law.

reductio-ad-absurdum-fallacy-by-the-offence-argument-invalid.jpg

They go through this stupid & self righteous Church Lady routine every two years. Their leadership loves it, loves how irrational the rubes get over it, so they're trying to keep it as a permanent issue, one they have no intention of addressing in a constructive way. Why would they? It's a mindfuck that gets 'em votes, just like the rest of it.