ICE officers and their right-wing supporters claim they are enforcing laws against illegal immigration. While most Americans support controlled borders and deportations, polls indicate disapproval of the violent and cruel deportation methods used under Trump, highlighting a divide on execution despite agreement on policy goals. Then there’s the question of whether the laws are just in the first place.
Law Enforcement
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Bigger picture. Bigger picture. Why is this happening? What political goal is it achieving for Trump? And for the democrats? Trump needs a red-meat issue he can wave in front of his base. This is his “Willie Horton,” feeding off any number of racist tropes. For the democrats, it gives a few of them a chance for a photo-op arrest so they can get more funding for their campaigns. The bigger point here is that neither side’s leaders (for the most part) gives a rat’s ass about the immigrants themselves. It was the same thing with all the trans argle-bargle.
Meanwhile … we still don’t have universal health care, we still don’t have an environmental policy that’s going to keep us from crossing the CO2 tipping point, we still have a whole batch of economic crises simmering in the background (housing, retirement, secure employment) that will be coming due in a decade or two. And when they do, the immigration crisis will be solved because no one will want to come to this country illegally because all the jobs will be gone and it will be too expensive and dangerous to live here anyway even with a job.
I’ll attempt to engage honestly with this! I think this is a symptom of a world that is changing at ever-greater speeds and many people sense that we’re headed very quickly to a future where scarcity is much more pronounced than it is today. So each little fiefdom of people is trying to ensure that it is the one that ends up on top of the heap.
AI is the most likely way we move into a “mostly” post scarcity world, that is the best chance we have at getting Universal Health Care and less expensive housing. If you’re not sure, imagine a future where the number of human doctors, human homebuiders, human farmers, etc is completely irrelevant … where the only-ish scarcity is real property like land. And who knows, maybe that too will become post-scarce given enough time ..
“the law, in its magnificent equality, forbids rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the street, and stealing bread” (Anatole France)
If you are rich enough, it doesn’t matter that you committed perjury by significantly overvaluing your property for one form and undervaluing it for another. Only the middle class pays back interest and penalties for something like that.
Pretty much Ted’s Russia.