—> ICE / Immigration / Nation grapples with ICE killings

[superrific]

You know, I've given this a bit of thought lately. I actually don't think it's true that "many of these people are perfectly capable of thinking critically for themselves." I am not a psychiatrist or a psychologist or a scientist or even someone with the slightest shred of knowledge or credibility on such, but it's been my thesis lately that if one day we had some scientific capability to study and measure right wing ideological inconsistency, we'd find literal physical mental disability (apologies if I'm not using the proper terminology on that). I genuinely believe that a vast number of Americans don't have the mental faculties required for adult level critical thought. Whether it is genetic, environmental, or something else, I don't know. But I do very much believe that for someone to be so profoundly ideologically inconsistent, as so many on the right wing have shown themselves to be- and we have an example of multiple of them here on our board- their failings surely must be more biological and physiological than political.

There have been studies of right-wingers by psychologists and psychiatrists. Plenty of them. The findings aren't uniform but tend to converge around personality factors over mental faculties. It's not that right-wingers can't reason. It's that they are drawn to unstated axioms in their syllogisms.

For instance, look at Calla on this thread. He jumped directly to "marxists and communists are anti-American." That's likely because his personality has features like: 1) if something goes wrong, someone must be to blame; 2) outgroups are inherently suspicious. Those are personality issues.

Here's some reading on the point, just to get started.

Authoritarian personality - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Note that defects that appear intellectual (e.g. "Right-wing authoritarians tend to accept what their leaders say is true and readily comply with their commands" looks like a failure of critical reasoning) can also be explained as personality features. I'm not qualified to address the difference between personality and capacity except on a superficial level, but the point is that jumping to lapsed critical faculties is not necessarily justified.

I know this, but I am still often guilty of using the rhetoric of incomprehension over the rhetoric of submission. That's in part because in an intellectual milieu, they are basically the same because we assume that consistency is important. So when we say of Alito, "he's not capable of grasping this point," we aren't necessarily saying he's stupid. He could also be motivated not to accept the point. If you assume that he's trying to be consistent -- and indeed, this is an axiom of what would be considered ordinary judicial reasoning -- the two mean the same thing: he's not consistent. Whether he's not grasping or not acknowledging is unobservable.

But in a political milieu, we have learned that consistency is completely unimportant to many people. In that case, the difference between faculties and personality has bite. They might understand that their view is indefensible, but personality wise, their behavior is much more determined by submission than consistency.

Edit to note: my keyboard is having some issues so I guess my Ctl-C on the URL didn't work. Thus did I paste in something else that is very interesting, weird and worthy of discussion in own right, but not related to this topic at all.

 

[superrific]

I love how people say it's organized left wing agitators that are on our streets. As if all 10s of thousands of us who were out there Friday in -15 weather were paid protestors. Yeah, we're organized, trying to protect our friends and neighbors. I have friends and neighbors who are out there, seeing other friends and neighbors, on the streets, because their friends and neighbors are getting murdered and kidnapped, be it people with a pending asylum case, documented immigrants, or US citizens. Every time someone mentions stupid shit like "leftist groups" it becomes clear they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

But yeah, we're organized.

But you were wearing masks! Who funded that? Where's the money coming from for the whistles and the hats and the boots?

Of course they don't know what they're talking about. They don't care.

 

[finesse]

You are excellent at whataboutism. Do you see people as socialist and marxist, who wish to change our fundamental way of life, as anti american or not? I didn't say they didn't have a right to their views. I don't really expect a straight answer because I believe that is hard for you.

You can be both or either and not call for an overthrow of our system but work within it. That is not anti American at all. It's the very essentials of being American. Is that straight enough?

Recall that it's the right taking every advantage to overthrow the checks and balance that made us America.

 

[ZenMode]

Of course citizen should not be intervening or interfering in what law enforcement is doing with other citizens, but a citizen exercising their constitutional rights to assemble, video record, and legally carry isn’t intervening or interfering. Nor is attempting to help another citizen who has been pushed and has fallen, but who is not being otherwise apprehended. Which is exactly what was happening- per video evidence from multiple sources and multiple angles – when Alex Pretti was murdered.

So, ICE was clearly focused on the woman, for whatever reason, and I don't, in principle, mind Pretti making an effort to help her up but, again, you can't get between law enforcement (even those that you really, really dislike) and someone they are trying to detain or arrest.

Also, Pretti is clearly not just "trying to help her up". If he was, he would have recognized that ICE agents were trying to get him away from her and he would have let go and moved. His grip on her is so unrelenting that he's literally dragging her across the ground as ICE is pulling him.

He intended to cause problems by getting in the way and not allowing ICE to get to her. A dumb idea when you're armed.....

 

[nycfan]

 

[theel4life]

It’s Donald Trump’s Administration.

Bovino and Noem are acting as Trump wants.

They know this. Just don’t want to admit it.

 

[ChapelHillSooner]

I'm so glad I don't know who the hell "Ignored Member" is that just posted lmao, and I agree fully with Pence, I don't think anyone disagrees that violent & dangerous undocumented criminals should be arrested, tried and deported.

Yes but not really a mention that that is not what is happening. That implicitly leaves the impression that ICE’s actual goals matches its stated goals.

 

[Callatoroy]

Why? Is it just ingrained in you from an older generation who grew up during the red scare?

You seriously think democratic socialists like AOC and Bernie are "anti-American"?

Red scare? lol. Yes, I believe the path AOC is on (not as much Bernie), Mamdani is on is anti american from the view that they oppose our immigration laws, they believe in wholesale wealth redistribution, and they push identity politics. Those things conceptually are anti american imo.

 

[BlooVooDoo]

You are excellent at whataboutism. Do you see people as socialist and marxist, who wish to change our fundamental way of life, as anti american or not? I didn't say they didn't have a right to their views. I don't really expect a straight answer because I believe that is hard for you.

What is the fundamental change in our way of life that socialists want to enact?

 

[nycfan]

 

[Callatoroy]

You can be both or either and not call for an overthrow of our system but work within it. That is not anti American at all. It's the very essentials of being American. Is that straight enough?

Recall that it's the right taking every advantage to overthrow the checks and balance that made us America.

Would expressing support for Cuba and Maduro change your opinion as to whether or not that was an anti american group?

 

[nycfan]

 

[BillOfRights]

 

[ZenMode]

law-enforcement have to be able to handle that without killing people.

Yep and I don't believe the shooting was justified, but a gun changes the whole dynamic of the situation.

 

[Callatoroy]

What is the fundamental change in our way of life that socialists want to enact?

lol. What does any socialist / marxist want?

 

[nycfan]

 

[CFordUNC]

So, ICE was clearly focused on the woman, for whatever reason, and I don't, in principle, mind Pretti making an effort to help her up but, again, you can't get between law enforcement (even those that you really, really dislike) and someone they are trying to detain or arrest.

Also, Pretti is clearly not just "trying to help her up". If he was, he would have recognized that ICE agents were trying to get him away from her and he would have let go and moved. His grip on her is so unrelenting that he's literally dragging her across the ground as ICE is pulling him.

He intended to cause problems by getting in the way and not allowing ICE to get to her. A dumb idea when you're armed.....

You clearly have not watched any of the videos of the incident. The woman whom the ICE officers pushed to the ground was on the opposite sidewalk- on the opposite side of the street. The agent literally sprinted across the road to push her- not attempt to arrest or detain her, but shove her.

Pretti was very clearly standing on that same side of the street, video recording on his cell phone. When the woman was pushed to the ground, he went to help her up. "Are you ok?" were his last words. It's on video, man. Like, we have it on video! There's no ambiguity.

You can bootlick, or hand-wave, or twist yourself into a pretzel to try to do whatever this weird thing is that you are doing, but the good news is, you are in a very small minority of American citizens who have watched the footage and who have come to your conclusion that there was anything that Alex Pretti did to instigate his execution. I'd recommend you not find yourself on the wrong side of history on this one.

 

[Callatoroy]

Yep and I don't believe the shooting was justified, but a gun changes the whole dynamic of the situation.

Not in the context in which it played out.

 

[finesse]

Red scare? lol. Yes, I believe the path AOC is on (not as much Bernie), Mamdani is on is anti american from the view that they oppose our immigration laws, they believe in wholesale wealth redistribution, and they push identity politics. Those things conceptually are anti american imo.

If there has ever been a group that pushed identity politics in America more than white Christians, I can't imagine who it would be. I agree that they are anti American. Btw, real Americans did without immigration laws until the late 19th century when the bigots wanted to keep the Chinese out.

 

[rodoheel]

Red scare? lol. Yes, I believe the path AOC is on (not as much Bernie), Mamdani is on is anti american from the view that they oppose our immigration laws, they believe in wholesale wealth redistribution, and they push identity politics. Those things conceptually are anti american imo.

Bizarre. Even if I agreed with those characterizations (which I don't) I cannot think of anything more American than advocating to change our laws through democratic process, whether you agree with the desired change or not. That would have been like saying in 1950 that welfare or the Civil Rights Act were "anti-American." (Which some of their opponents probably did say, and it was just as ridiculous then as now.)

BTW saying that "identity politics" is "anti-American" is particularly laughable. Ever since there has been a thing called "politics," there has been identity politics. In the US, the south in particular has seen nearly constant racial identity politics from the early time of the republic through now.