Trump: Dawn of the 3rd Party

I think you got me wrong.

My problem with Trump's plan isn't with the idea of attempting to reduce risk. In fact, I think the same thing with gun control, climate change and other issues. I am ok with paying some prices (not necessarily monetarily) in order to reduce risks or try and make things better (such as with ObamaCare). I may not necessarily agree with HOW to do it, but I do appreciate the attempts.

My problem is that I think the proposal lacks a concrete plan of action and functionally leads to an indefinite ban based on a religious test (however you'd even do that). And the actual solutions are undefined and, at best, seems no better than current proposals for gun control (which have been argued as being ineffective).

In some ways, it isn't an attempt at doing something, it is an attempt at AVOIDING having to do something.

 

For example, let's take this to Gun Violence. Let's say we agree that gun violence is a problem in the US.

We disagree on the solutions (such as background checks).

If I was using the Trump argument, I'd say "I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of firearm ownership in the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on."

Now, I know, I know, 2nd Amendment - which is certainly an "effective" argument and why most other developed countries have been able to implement better gun control than the US. It is an important part of the debate, btu I want to focus on the logical construction of the argument itself here.

The "ban all guns until we figure out what's happening" is not different than "ban Muslims from coming" from a logical standpoint.

We are saying, in both cases, that the solutions are not obvious, thus we should do SOMETHING in the meantime that will put a stop to it.

Re: Acceptable risk in this comparison: "Is a Sandy Hook/Columbine type attack a year or every few years an acceptable risk?" It seems like US lawmakers has seemed to answer that with a resounding YES.

Of course, I think you'd be right to complain this could mean we NEVER get guns back again. You'd be right to argue "If we ban all guns temporarily, what is the criteria for when we get them back?"

And for me, these same arguments apply in other applications of this sort of proposal: if something is meant to be temporary, you MUST define the terms, and even then there's a grave risk of it becoming permanent.

(Man, I feel like a Libertarian now.)

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Note: I am not saying I want to ban all guns and it'd certainly be unconstitutional based on current understanding of the Constitution.

 

Not necessarily.

The title is "preventing Muslim immigration." Which can be done either with an Immigration Ban on Muslims, a Ban on ALL immigration, a Ban on Muslims entering the country, killing all Muslims etc. All sorts of different levels of things could conceivably achieve the intended goal.

Additionally, why did the campaign manager also include tourists then and answer with "everyone" if it was, in fact, originally intended to ONLY mean immigration? And why use the word "entering" instead of "immigrating?"

Anyway, I don't want to nitpick on this point. You asked where I got it, I showed you.

 

Deleted last post, misread context Will give better reply.

Ok, read the whole thing.

"The sample was drawn utilizing online opt-in panels of respondents that have previously agreed to participate in survey research. Potential survey participants were recruited using from multiple sources using a dynamic sampling platform for verification, real time profiling, and random selection based on project requirements. This multi-sourcing model increases reach and capacity, improves consistency and minimizes bias."

Seems like a highly suspect methodology.

Surveys of this type are notoriously bad at getting any useful information.

600 people, opt-in, online survey, self-selected from PREVIOUS agreement to survey research (note: these types of things are usually for money), and self-proclaimed Muslims living in the US.

Talk about an unreliable mess of junk.

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Trump said:



Some discussions about this poll:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...to-the-u-s-has-a-very-bad-poll-at-its-center/

"We'll start with the Pew data. Trump doesn't link to it, so it's not clear what exactly he's looking at. The polling firm has found that Muslims across the globe are overwhelmingly opposed to the Islamic State and in 2007 that Muslims were much less likely to view suicide bombings as justified than five years prior. Pew also found a partisan split in which Republican Americans were far more likely to hold negative views of Muslims than Democrats. In 2011, they learned that U.S. Muslims almost never consider suicide bombings to be justified."

http://bridge.georgetown.edu/new-poll-on-american-muslims-is-grounded-in-bias-riddled-with-flaws/

"This survey should not be taken seriously. It comes from an organization with a history of producing dubious claims and “studies” about the threat of shariah, and was administered using an unreliable methodology. Its proponents seize upon its shoddy findings, exaggerating and misrepresenting them to American audiences, and falsely claim that the survey data represents the views of Muslims nationwide."

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This survey is also directly contradicted by Pew's own research:
http://www.people-press.org/2011/08...rowth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/




Of course, it doesn't stop Trump from saying:

"According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing "25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad" and 51% of those polled "agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah.""

Which attempts to tie the Pew Research group's name to the suspect findings made by Center for Security Policy.

See how the sentences are crafted to be true in of themselves (the first being very vague, and undefined as to what "great hatred" means so there's no way to verify the claim), while the latter uses actual "statistics" from the questionable "study."

 

I wholly think that the current trump rhetoric, even if nothing is done with it, ALREADY is making things worse. But that's a somewhat different discussion.

I do. I find it objectionable from a humanitarian standpoint, from a moral standpoint, from a Libertarian standpoint, from a logical standpoint and even from a Constitutional standpoint.

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But in your case, would you say that part of why it's not objectionable to you is because you do not believe the Constitution applies to non-Americans?

 

I believe, much like the No Fly List potentially does, that Trump's plan potentially violates the 5th Amendment.

This, incidentally, has kind of happened before, not only with the whole Japanese internment camps stuff, but also with the Chinese in the 1800s.

There's precedent for this sort of thing not being OK in regards to Congress in House Resolution 683, passed in 2012, which reads, in part:

"Whereas, on May 9, 1881, the United States ratified the Angell Treaty, which allowed the United States to suspend, but not prohibit, immigration of Chinese laborers, declared that Chinese laborers who are now in the United States shall be allowed to go and come of their own free will, and reaffirmed that Chinese persons possessed all the rights, privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the citizens and subjects of the most favored nation;

Whereas the House of Representatives passed legislation that adversely affected Chinese persons in the United States and limited their civil rights, including—"

(1)

on March 23, 1882, the first Chinese Exclusion bill, which excluded for 20 years skilled and unskilled Chinese laborers and expressly denied Chinese persons alone the right to be naturalized as American citizens, and which was opposed by President Chester A. Arthur as incompatible with the terms and spirit of the Angell Treaty;

(2)
on April 17, 1882, intending to address President Arthur’s concerns, the House passed a new Chinese Exclusion bill, which prohibited Chinese workers from entering the United States for 10 years instead of 20, required certain Chinese laborers already legally present in the United States who later wished to reenter the United States to obtain certificates of return, and prohibited courts from naturalizing Chinese individuals;

(3)
on May 3, 1884, an expansion of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which applied it to all persons of Chinese descent, whether subjects of China or any other foreign power;

(4)
on September 3, 1888, the Scott Act, which prohibited legal Chinese laborers from reentering the United States and cancelled all previously issued certificates of return, and which was later determined by the Supreme Court to have abrogated the Angell Treaty; and

(5)
on April 4, 1892, the Geary Act, which reauthorized the Chinese Exclusion Act for another ten years, denied Chinese immigrants the right to be released on bail upon application for a writ of habeas corpus, and contrary to customary legal standards regarding the presumption of innocence, authorized the deportation of Chinese persons who could not produce a certificate of residence unless they could establish residence through the testimony of at least one credible white witness;

Whereas in the 1894 Gresham-Yang Treaty, the Chinese government consented to a prohibition of Chinese immigration and the enforcement of the Geary Act in exchange for readmission to the United States of Chinese persons who were United States residents;

Whereas in 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii, took control of the Philippines, and excluded only the residents of Chinese ancestry of these territories from entering the United States mainland;

Whereas, on April 29, 1902, as the Geary Act was expiring, Congress indefinitely extended all laws regulating and restricting Chinese immigration and residence, to the extent consistent with Treaty commitments;

Whereas in 1904, after the Chinese government withdrew from the Gresham-Yang Treaty, Congress permanently extended, without modification, limitation, or condition, the prohibition on Chinese naturalization and immigration;"

Note: The same resolution does state that it is not intended to make any constitutional claims - which makes sense, since House Resolution are not, by definition, statements of constitutional intent.

Note also the timeline of what happened with the Chinese there. It was intended to be temporary and limited in scope with simply SUSPENSION, then continually expanded and extended, even to the point of denying naturalization to legal immigrants, until it was made permanent in 1904, 22 years after the original Exclusion Bill was drafted.

Honestly, anyone currently supporting the current ideas of Trump would gain insight by looking at this historic precedent for a very similar action and its outcomes. Will the US then, in 2200, pass a resolution indicating regret for similar policies enacted against Muslims in the 21st century?

Secondly, the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom, which seems to be violated if laws can be made that apply a religious test (a religious test also potentially violates, in spirit, Article VI of the Constitution).

Here's a NY Times article discussing some of these:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/opinion/trumps-anti-muslim-plan-is-awful-and-constitutional.html

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Finally, we have spoken about foreigners and American citizens, but have not discussed immigrants who are not yet citizens, as well as lawful permanent residents who are not citizens - both of which seemed to be categories that would be denied re-entry into the US under Trump's plan if they were to leave even temporarily. For example, I am a legal permanent resident, but I am a citizen of Canada. If I was Muslim, I would not want to leave the country right now for fear not being allowed back in.

It also seems a "reasonable" extension that if you want to deny initial immigration to Muslims, that you should also deny future naturalization of any Muslims already in the country legally - and indeed, this is exactly what followed with the referenced Exclusion Act above in relation to the Chinese.

 

Already discussed this earlier, but long and short is that I don't think individual instances of failure is reliable evidence of systemic problems, nor does it specifically point to what could be better. This is an example of results-oriented analysis, which is not always correct.

For example, Player A is playing Player B in a game. Player A makes a decision that has a 95% of probability of winning the game and loses. Does this suddenly mean Player A made the wrong decision? That he should necessarily change his approach? Of course not. In many things in life, it's possible to be doing all the right things and STILL be the wrong side sometimes.

Of course, the question is how often is this stuff happening and whether it is symptomatic of a larger actual, underlying problem - which is what I was asking about. What is the actual problem with the vetting process? How do we improve it? Every time I ask this question, I never get a real answer, only that "here is an example of where it didn't work."

"Stuff happened" is basically all that is said here. Even a 99.99999% perfect vetting system may have this result - at what point is "enough scrutiny?"

Anyway, don't want to get too long-winded, the last 3 or 4 pages have already been making this point to Storm, so please refer to those posts.

 

You know what, nevermind, back to not engaging you. You always claim to be open minded and want to stick to facts but you always end up posting this stuff instead of actually discussing what we are talking about.

Honestly, I just feel trolled by you half the time.

I make numerous researched, cited posts and you reply with single sentences with points I already discussed and sweeping generalizations that have nothing to do with the discussion and just serves to divide and antagonize rather than facilitating discussion.

 

I look forward to it - I have enjoyed our discussions thus far

In particular, I want to know if you still think the Center for Security Policy's research is valid.

 

My reaction is because of the lack of substance I find in the response (for example, none of my concerns with the constitutionality has to do with "right of immigration" but whether the standards for said immigration can be constitutional if it is restricted based on race/religion/gender, etc. using specific historical examples of when this has occurred in the past to which you replied with one sentence that did not address any of those concerns) but more specifically the aggravation I felt with the quoted section (for reasons I already explained).

Take care.