Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
from the quotables dept
This week, officials in Nice reacted in the worst way possible by threatening to sue people sharing photos of the fashion police doing their anti-burka duty. Some of the conversation turned to refugees, and Uriel-238 won most insightful comment of the week by getting serious about things:
We decided that proper and reasonable treatment of refugees was important after the Napoleonic wars, and the standards for such treatment remain enshrined as a testament to humanity in the Geneva and Hague conventions.
Hospitality and fair treatment of refugees is not a duty that one nation owes to another nation, it's a duty that each of us, as individuals who benefit from national laws and identity, owe to all other individuals, considering that but for the grace of God (or your luck and fortune) you could also be outlawed by your own state and pushed out of its borders... or just executed and cremated in a mass oven.
Of course, thanks to George W. Bush's administration the Geneva Convention doesn't mean as much as it once did, and we will have to relearn why we created and ratified it in the first place.
So you can choose to vote against allowing refugees into your borders. You can choose to deny others sanctuary when their own have turned against them and the trains are getting packed and the ovens are on day and night.
But when fortune turns around, and it happens to you, or your grandchildren or your descendants down the line, when they become the persecuted, when the death camps are cooking once again, you had best hope that the people controlling those borders are kinder, more empathetic or more honorable than you are.
In second place, we've got an anonymous response to the airport stampede caused by applause mistaken for gunshots:
I guess this proves that despite 15 years of focus and nearly unlimited funding, the war on terror has not achieved its goal: the public in general is still terrified.
Arguably more so today than 15 years ago.
I'm aware that terrorists are still active, and yes, unfortunately they do at times succeed in attacking airports and other public areas. But I think too much (if not all) effort in that war on terror was focused on making a show of trying to find and stop the next terrorist (mission impossible), and not enough in reassuring the public.
When I'm scared, I don't want you to tear apart my bedroom and try to find the monster! I want you to acknowledge my fear, reassure me, and help me put things into context and perspective. I want to be informed in an open and rational way about the danger, without exaggerations or hidden agendas, so I can cope with it in my own way.
Instead, what the 'security theater' has done is actually reinforce the fears of the public beyond reason: Lots of noise. No perspective. No context. No open and transparent communication.
And I'm worried there may very well be a hidden agenda...
For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start out with a comment from Derek Kerton calling the Copyright Alliance out on its at-best incomplete explanation of the purpose of copyright:
Incorrect
"copyright law is predicated on the theory that creators are incentivized to create new works by the prospect of reaping the economic fruits of their creative labor, which in turn benefits the public by increasing the number of creative works available for their enjoyment"
The objective is not so that the works are "available for our enjoyment", but rather that such works will eventually be fully ours, aka, Public Domain.
They act like the mid-state is the end game. It is not.
Next, after the EFF criticized Microsoft's lack of meaningful response to Windows 10 privacy concerns and one commenter accused them of relying on "second-hand knowledge", JMT wondered what other sort of knowledge they'd be able to have:
Which is kinda the whole point, since the first hand knowledge is being jealously guarded. When you mess with people's privacy but won't be up front about exactly what you're doing, expect to be called on it.
Over on the funny side, we start out on our post about Slate's really bad advice about running your own e-mail server, where we also pointed out that the comments were full of IT experts saying it was a bad idea. That One Guy won first place for funny by suggesting Slate solve this problem by jumping on a hot blogging trend:
Well, only one way to respond to that: Shut down the comments and claim that they're doing so because they care so much about their readers that they want to dump them elsewhere.
For second place, we return to the refugee debate, where sorrykb delivered a smackdown to any argument that boils down to everything being the refugees' fault:
Yeah. Stupid refugees should have been born into a wealthy stable country. What were they thinking.
For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with a comment from Mark Wing discussing self-driving car fears that go beyond the trolley problem:
The real danger of automated cars is that they'll get hacked by Russians and drive you straight to a GOP rally.
And finally, after one anonymous commenter recently asked what happens to a lawyer who is found guilty of fraud perpetrated upon the court, another offered a perfect response:
He gets a job in Congress.
That's all for this week, folks!
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Zombies, It takes a lot to kill them.
He gets a job in Congress.
Sounds like we still have a lot to look forward to from Prenda.
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I long for the sweet release of death so being executed doesn't sound that bad. At least I would know everyone else has it bad when a Western govt. starts doing that.
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Re:
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Two kinds of refugees
those who want to leave their reality behind for a better, more peaceful and safe place to live.
the second are those who want to bring their reality into yours so you end up having a worst and more dangerous place to live.
The difficulty at times is determining which is which.
A former refugee made the following statement, "Send them back to their original land if they want to bring the problems of that land to here. I escaped to here to be free and safe,"
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Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
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Re: Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
The only thing refugee means is that they are "supposedly" running from persecution, war, or violence. What sort of stupid logic helps you to think that just because they are now refugees that they stopped being human and now ignore their own culture, beliefs, or desires?
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Re: Re: Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
/s
Refugees tend to be far more cut off from everything back home than regular immigrants, having been uprooted, forced out of their homes and cities.
Most every wave of immigrants has brought some of the overseas troubles with them. Everything from old world organized crime gangs to acts of war. (Think of the Fenian raids - Irish-American militias attacking British army forts, customs posts and other targets in Canada. Or the IRA fundraising in America in modern times.)
And yet those past waves of immigration have been on balance very good for the country.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
You are making the fool mistake that their CULTURE is equivalent to their POLITICS! Yes, Culture will influence a persons politics but there is no fucking way to know which direction it goes.
There are all sorts of politics in EVERY culture. But bring it they damn sure do! It's all they know!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
The country is better AND worse of for it.
I certainly enjoy the food that cultures bring, but I sure as fuck do not enjoy their refusal to understand our culture, or to learn our language, or their disrespect for our laws and customs.
You see, it has to work both ways, and the only thing I keep seeing is that Americans are required to respect everyone ELSES culture while no other culture is even ASKED to respect the American culture.
I want other cultures to mix into America, but I always ONLY want the people of that Culture wanting to MIX in as well. And lets face it, just like the Mexican waving the Mexican flag on American soil, they are NOT looking to melt, they are wants to displace non-mexicans and vote in candidates that will rob from those with more wealth than them. It's a lose-lose proposition.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
Also, I don't think there's any refusal to learn English. Anyone living here would have so much easier of a time if they did learn the language. You may not know this being a native speaker who probably doesn't know any other languages, but English is just about the hardest language to learn as a second language. And if you're working a minimum wage job, you're not going to have much spare cash to go buy Rosetta Stone, and you won't have much spare time to sit down and really learn the language.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
Again, that applies equally to EVERY wave of immigrants.
Most fit in. The vast majority of their children fully assimilate into society. The bits of culture they bring with them get woven into the vast tapestry of American culture. Sure, you'll still get entire groups - Quakers and conservative Mennonites for example - who refuse to assimilate and stick to their own languages. As long as they follow the law and don't harm others and don't scare the horses, it's not a problem.
And of course there are those who reject American culture simply by refusing to accept that America has always been multicultural. Again, see mirror for details.
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Re: AC#3 - Two kinds of refugees
And what do you mean by "Americans are required to respect other cultures"? Have you been charged with a crime for not respecting someone else's culture?
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...Those that divide refugees into two kinds, and those that don't.
And yes, the people here are always afraid of the new culture, that it won't fit in. And for a while there are conflicts, eventually we figure out how to let everyone fit in.
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More Bullshit
Look at the EU right now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/as-france-deals-with-a-new-normal-people-say-we-are- afraid-we-dont-feel-safe/2016/07/16/fd072c04-4af7-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_story.html
Not only that...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911
Nations are going so far to help these refugees that they are now sacrificing their own for it. I tell you what Uriel... move out of your house and give up your job for the refugees. They will need jobs and homes too... and since there are not enough to go around someone has to give something up. Yes the economy could EVENTUALLY absorb them, but we are exploding past that rate at insane speeds.
Selling your nation out to refugees, is the same as selling your family down the river. I wonder how many Europeans now regret their support of these "Poor Refugees" now that several of their daughters are being raped. Look on the bright side, at least they can now have abortions to prevent the dilution of their race, now it can just be wiped the fuck out.
The price tag for this foolishness means someone has to pay, and since the refugees have nothing, guess who pays?
Every nation gets the government it deserves! We are destroying ourselves, EU is destroying itself and are begging to follow suit!
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Re: More Bullshit
'But when fortune turns around, and it happens to you, or your grandchildren or your descendants down the line, when they become the persecuted, when the death camps are cooking once again, you had best hope that the people controlling those borders are kinder, more empathetic or more honorable than you are.'
Every nation gets the government it deserves! We are destroying ourselves, EU is destroying itself and are begging to follow suit!
Absolutely right! That's why if you voted for someone that lost, and the other person who's ideas and policies you disagree with made it in instead, suck it up, you still got the government you deserve!
Didn't have a good option available, such that you don't agree with any of the choices? Deal with it, it's your fault for not voting properly!
Politicians acting contrary to what they claimed they would do, such that even if you did vote the 'right' person in their either acted in a way that you didn't want them to or their efforts were nullified by all the other politicians? Too bad, it's still your fault!
Government agencies lying to the public and the ones supposedly in a position of oversight, such that the lawmakers have no idea what they're doing 'in the public's name' until someone brave enough comes forth to (almost literally) trade their life for informing the public? Tough, they(but more importantly you) should have known anyway and stopped them!
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Re: Re: More Bullshit
This is dishonest. A nation is not equatable to an individual. Perhaps this is why people hate the idea of "Every Nation getting the Government it deserves" quote.
While that quote is 100% true, it is foolish to indicate that it applies on an individual basis. At the individual level, SOME gets the government they deserve, NOT ALL, however a Nation is a complete package.... in its entirety it gets what it deserves!
We all stand together or we fall together. And from my position... I see very little standing together, most of us agree on most things, but we have allowed the corruption of government to separate us all far too much! What is worse is that most people no longer even know what corruption is because we have all grown up with so much of it around that we accept it like nothing is wrong.
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Maybe "deserve" is not a good term for this.
Saying that anyone, or that any group (all of which are falsely sorted) gets the government they deserve is going to be unfair.
I certainly didn't get the government I was taught I was getting when it was explained to me in primary school. Was I, as a child, supposed to disbelieve my instructors? Did I not deserve to be informed of what the system actually is? Why was I only taught the ideal of what it should have been, but coached in terms as if that's what it was? (And we still teach our children the same ideology, only more so.)
No, we get the government we get. We get the mess made by our fathers and ancestors, because they couldn't think of all contingencies, or because they didn't know the full of human nature. Or, as in our recent generations, they imagined the end times were at hand, or just didn't care.
We only get to try again, and hope that what we can leave our descendants is better than what we were given, ourselves. Or not, and hope the next regime learns something from the failure of this one.
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Re: Re: More Bullshit
Every nation get the government that manages to lie or force its way into power.
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Almost all changes of government have a minimal role back of government powers, and those roll backs are usually temporary.
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I cannot understand why people fail to get the logic behind this quote. People will never stop trying to abuse power, there for we must also tirelessly distrust and constantly change the diaper that is government.
People often foolishly think we can play set it and forget it with government. Not possible. Government is the very embodiment of idle hands being the devils workshop. They have more than enough time on their hands to plan corruption.
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Re: More Bullshit
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"at least they can now have abortions to prevent the dilution of their race"
So you watched Conspiracy too?
Here in the US, we spend more on overpriced military toys (still neglecting concussion armor for our troops on the ground) that we're not even using, so I think yeah, the US could afford to furnish the Syrians with benefits while they get themselves established. If we prioritized that above, say being ready to bomb the fuck out of Iran.
But we want to be ready, don't we.
Yes, we do like to plead scarcity too. We can't afford it. It's the way we to justify exiling...or evacuating the alien. I take you picked up that bit too?
If you're saying it's a matter of austerity, you're barking up a tree in the wrong grove. The cost of facilitating refugees is tiny compared to some of the crazier subsidies in our budget.
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Crap. My cut and paste failed.
So you watched Conspiracy too? Everyone at Wannsee spoke as if races were a known thing, human beings neatly divided into tidy categories. I thought Stuckart's position (in contrast to Klofer's) was notable. While everyone else at the table regarded the Jewish race much the way negrophobes regard black Americans (simpler, more primal, animalistic, bestial) Dr. Stuckart regarded said:
Your line, what the party rants on about is how inferior they are, some sub-species, and I keep saying how wrong that is! They are sublimely clever. And they are intelligent as well. My indictments to that race are stronger and heavier because they are real, not uneducated ideology. They are arrogant and self-obsessed and calculating and reject the Christ and I will not have them pollute German blood!
These days, our study of human genes has taught us better. We are each a genetic blend of countless strains. Human races are as manifold as specimens. But it's conspicuous to me that some people still cling to the notion that we can divide people up into a handful of tidy categories, and blame all our problems on the imaginary menace of one or two of them.
Regarding Syrians are raping non Syrians, [citation very much needed]. I suspect, more often the reverse is happening. Overpaid US GIs were notorious for taking advantage of German widows prostituting themselves to feed their kids as the allies moved into Germany. Those refugees are poor and desperate, and probably way less armed than the people who's lands they cross into. Easy prey.
Typically, though, we take any group of people we hate and imagine them taking our jobs and raping our women. That seems to be the go-to way we dehumanize them.
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Re: Crap. My cut and paste failed.
I do not hate the refugees, but hey... what a sublimely clever way to call me out on it right? I mean why would I ever block them unless I hated them right?
Lets make it clear you are the very black that you accuse the kettle of, you just make the accusation from a pseudo high place to make it appear as though you are morally superior.
Everyone should treat everyone with respect. Most of what you say is not wrong... until you use it to justify blind importation of a culture that has been bread since birth to hate everyone not them!
Let me assure you, you might hate America and the Conservatives or Liberals enough to import an oppositional culture, but that culture is purely non-compatible with the ideas of Liberty. In fact, most cultures are not compatible with Liberty.
Hell, America is no longer compatible with Liberty. We are shitting our freedoms and liberty out faster than a sour cream burrito with extra guacamole and ghost pepper hot sauce.
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Re: Re: Crap. My cut and paste failed.
That's the sort of Stormfront claim inevitably backed by quotes from the Koran - ignoring the fact that the Bible contains all the same quotes. And ignoring a whole lot of "Christian world" history, much of it disturbingly recent. By your standard *Christians* "have been bred since birth to hate everyone not them." Should we keep them out of the country too?
Sure, there are a few in ANY culture or religion who take the hatred to heart. See mirror for details. All the more reason to support those fleeing from them.
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Re: Re: Re: Crap. My cut and paste failed.
There are only two laws give.
Love thy God with all they heart.
Love they neighbor as you love yourself.
The rest of the stories in the Bible are just stories about how much we humans never got it, will continue to not get it, and how most of us will never get it either.
Now based on those two commandments, where can you find the justification for slavery, arresting prostitutes, criminalizing homosexuality or any sexuality in general, stoning people you disagree with, putting the innocent in jail, ostracizing those you politically disagree with, or just murdering everyone you hate.
Let me assure you, it is the institution of humanity that creates these problems.
Every religion has people that claim they are a member when they actually do not believe. In fact, the majority of ALL religions have false followers.
Humanity has been and will always been the problem. We just use religion, ethics, science, or secularism, as an excuse to treat others like dirt! You know it, I know, they know it, but everyone refuses to acknowledge it!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Crap. My cut and paste failed.
Heck, even the New Testament shakes its pom-poms for slavery, criminalizing homosexuality, treating women like chattel, etc.
Everything that you've stated there applies equally to both religions. And equally to the "old world" be it Europe, Asia or Africa. Nothing has changed between previous waves of refugees and this one.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crap. My cut and paste failed.
The very purpose for God staying out of Human affairs is to provide proof TO US of how evil humanity is without God.
The Bible is a mountain of difficult to understand text. Christ only backed those two commandments when He spoke about the Commandments of the Father.
The rest you read about in the Bible are just documentaries of how humanity corrupted them. "Broad is the path that leads to destruction and many there shall be that go by it, and narrow is the path that leads to salvation and few there will be that find it." I am paraphrasing Christ on this, but you get the idea.
The bible supports SERVANTS... NOT SLAVES!!! I am a servant of God, but not a slave. I will be before those that I served in heaven but behind those that served me.
The Bible says to Cherish your wives, and to care for the women, children, elderly, and infirm. Go back and read again... look at which parts are just stories of how bad humans are and which parts are where God or Christ gave humans the power to decide these for themselves. And do not confuse the Decisions that GOD made to destroy with decisions that men made to destroy. Also do not be a tool and assume where females were approved to be taken as wives to be the same as okay to rape and pillage them.
the vows to marriage are "do you take....?" and asked of both persons. Only a corrupt individual twists these things to mean it is okay to rape, but there are plenty of those corrupt individuals, just the same.
We sit upon the rock as a test of if we truly care or not and how much corruption we will take on to get through life.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crap. My cut and paste failed.
Your defense applies equally to Christianity and Islam.
> The bible supports SERVANTS... NOT SLAVES!!!
The Bible - both testaments - make it crystal clear that its talking about slavery. Complete with lots of details about how to treat your slaves, the rules for selling your daughter into slavery etc.
You sound like you're using a Bible translation that tries to gloss over the inconvenient bits, substituting "servant" for "slave." I'll bet it also uses "handmaiden" instead of "concubine" or "sex slave."
> Also do not be a tool and assume where females were approved to be taken as wives to be the same as okay to rape and pillage them.
Of course not! Deuteronomy 21:11-14 clearly states that when you take a woman as booty while pillaging, you have to wait a month before you rape her. (After which its up to you whether you marry her or let her go.)
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What God allowed to happen
And a lot of them like to believe that Christianity endorses their lives, the suppression of women's rights, attacking gays, sometimes violently, and purging the heretic, the mutant and the unclean.
You can call them corrupt and twisted and wrong all you want, but there's way more of them than you, and they think you are corrupt and twisted and wrong.
And yes, Christians right here in the states used the bible to justify slavery and Christians right here in the states used the bible to justify war and Christians right here in the states used the bible to justify attacking the meeker of our own. Christians right here in the states still continue to use the bible to justify trying to license who gets to have sex with whom.
So don't even begin to try to extol the superiority of Christianity over other faiths.
Maybe the Unitarians. They're not so bad.
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Re: Re: Crap. My cut and paste failed.
Yeah, I'm still waiting on those facts.
I do not hate the refugees, but hey... what a sublimely clever way to call me out on it right? I mean why would I ever block them unless I hated them right?
More, I was pointing out that you're saying the same things before that were generally said in hatred. When the second guy calls the ring precious, it's coincidece. When the third guy uses the very same word, it might be something about that damned ring.
You may not intend your position to be one of hatred, and really, I believe that. But it smacks of the same train of thought that's been used before to make some of the darkest decisions in recorded history.
I get your fear of scarcity and strange untrustworthy people. But they need help. And our problems of scarcity don't come from them or trying to help them. And the barbarians on this side of the fence are just as untrustworthy as the barbarians on that side, perhaps more so.
Lets make it clear you are the very black that you accuse the kettle of, you just make the accusation from a pseudo high place to make it appear as though you are morally superior.
Oh do go on! Please elaborate and be specific, though.
Incidentally, I know I'm not above prejudice. We are all bigots. But that is why we need to create policy that effects everyone equally. You cannot ban policies of Islam without banning the same policies when they are Christian. And you still have to ban them again when they appear in a non-religious context.
Everyone should treat everyone with respect. Most of what you say is not wrong... until you use it to justify blind importation of a culture that has been bread since birth to hate everyone not them!
That describes so many cultures, including the colonials that settled here and massacred the natives and pushed the survivors ultimately to tiny reservations where we begrudge them every right and amenity. As I said, we westerners have proven at least as barbaric.
You make it sound like you believe alien cultures are a virus against which we have no resistance. Indeed, we've been exposed to countless cultures, and are quite immune. We've been influenced by them all in that we choose the bits of culture that we want. Often better for it, at least if you like jazz and blues and rock-&-roll. Your average American isn't going to hear some lines of the Koran, go through a horrible transformation and turn into a berserking terrorist for it.
In fact, the reverse is more likely true once they get a taste for Xboxes, rap music, TV sports and greasy McDonalds food.
Let me assure you, you might hate America and the Conservatives or Liberals enough to import an oppositional culture, but that culture is purely non-compatible with the ideas of Liberty. In fact, most cultures are not compatible with Liberty.
I hate no country, but some administrations certainly piss me off. But the United States has adapted, like Rome, a culture of pluralism. Granted, we haven't done it very well, and we seem eager to forget that each of us once were strangers in a strange land. But pluralism is certainly what we intended. We owe the next wave of immigrants at least the hospitality given us when we were the immigrants.
The notion was that if you want to keep others from partaking coffee and booze (for example), you do so only in the confines of your private backyard. We've tried making temperance into law -- a movement that was strongly religion-based -- and it only made things worse. (In many ways similar to the way the current War on Drugs only makes things worse.)
And the Democrats and GOP are oppositional cultures. They hate each other more than they like their own platforms, and would rather kill a law they agree with if it was written by the other guys. It's one of the problems with our legislature that has them deadlocked almost all the time.
Hell, America is no longer compatible with Liberty. We are shitting our freedoms and liberty out faster than a sour cream burrito with extra guacamole and ghost pepper hot sauce.
With that, I agree with you, but it's a different issue than immigrants and refugees, and one our Constitutional Framers warned us about in remarkably accurate terms. That our law enforcement and our affluent are their own castes above us peons doesn't change that there are others in worse straits than us, who we can afford to assist.
Though depending on how the election goes and the aftermath, some of us may well be looking to escape our borders before we are found.
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Re: More Bullshit
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I suppose we should thank you for coming right out and declaring yourself a Nazi.
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oil dollars paid for what?
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Re: oil dollars paid for what?
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