The My DB Has More Strawmen Than Your DB Thread, with a side order of How California’s New Immigration Law Affects Screening Policies
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The amount of control / power / $synonym is what the small is talking about. That was pretty obvious to everyone except you.
Oh hey look, you've said that I was right. That you/abarker used a word to mean something specifically different pulled out of the right-wing propaganda speak. So when I also use the word with its actual meaning to point out that you should be careful what you wish for, I am still right.
Man this thing where I just claim I'm right because one small piece of your argument has to bend to something I've pointed out sure makes arguments easy, no wonder you guys do it all the time.
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I never understood the whole brouhaha in the USA about protecting illegal immigrants. Either make them legal or deport them. Law can't operate in this gray area where things are broken and regulated at the same time. Then you get shit like this.
"Legal" and "illegal" isn't an absolute. Breaking one law does not mean that you are breaking others or are not contributing to society, or that you lose the protection of the law.
They entered the US illegally. But it's not a felony. It's not even a misdemeanor. It's not a crime at all. It's just not allowed.
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Man this thing where I just claim I'm right because one small piece of your argument has to bend to something I've pointed out sure makes arguments easy, no wonder you guys do it all the time.
Amazing. Your trollish stamina is truly something to behold.
right-wing propaganda speak
Ah, yes, the wise centrist. Sure, blame your aggressively illiterate trolling on your ability to resist propaganda.
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The amount of control / power / $synonym is what the small is talking about.
I don't have actual data to back this up, but it seems reasonable to me that there would be a correlation between "size" in the control/power sense and "size" in the number of government workers sense. Fewer workers would, in general, be less able to assert control/power over the populace. Certainly there could be exceptions; a small-size government could be a big-control/power government if its few workers were concentrated in police, domestic intelligence and related functions. However, if the structure of a government is unchanged, just reduced in size, it is likely to also be reduced in power/control.
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I'm just shocked that so many people naively believe that no one in power will abuse that power regardless of how many branches of government are removed.
Wait ... what?
Nice strawman.
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I don't have actual data to back this up, but it seems reasonable to me that there would be a correlation between "size" in the control/power sense and "size" in the number of government workers sense.
Yeah, I would assume that, too. It's hard to beat the trolls down, however, when they refuse to admit they understand what you're saying and continue to bring up related but not really relevant arguments.
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Amazing. Your trollish stamina is truly something to behold.
It's really easy to keep it up when no one else bothers to come up with any sources to back up anything they say.
Nice strawman.
I agree, it's equally as made of straw as
"smaller government" = "less government intrusion on personal freedoms"
which ironically was my entire point. that a strawman has been created to make the word "smaller" appear to mean "less-controlling"
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Whether @abarker invented that meaning, or the public/media/political parties at large invented it, it is still nothing but a strawman assumption.
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I would probably be lumped in with the Religious Right by most people. I want a Federal government that keeps its B******ing nose out of stuff that isn't within the realm of Federal matters as defined by the plain language of our Constitution.
Yes!
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I agree, it's equally as made of straw as
"smaller government" = "less government intrusion on personal freedoms"
which ironically was my entire point. that a strawman has been created to make the word "smaller" appear to mean "less-controlling"
The world needs more freedom to allow the megarich to operate private armies with impunity while paying no taxes at all. Or was that not quite what you meant?
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which ironically was my entire point. that a strawman has been created to make the word "smaller" appear to mean "less-controlling"
Why is that a strawman? Why do you appear to speak English yet continue to be so confused?
You bringing up that argument is a strawman. His point was that sort of government was better than its opposite (presumably in some sort of moderation, a reductio ad absurdum argument here would be very boring).
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The world needs more freedom to allow the megarich to operate private armies with impunity while paying no taxes at all. Or was that not quite what you meant?
I think that's more like @flabdablet's position.
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His point was that sort of government was better than its opposite
ORLY? Because the line before that quote he saidit's not "smaller government" = "better government".
*sorry @dkf, replied to the wrong person while quoting @boomzilla
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So when I also use the word with its actual meaning to point out that you should be careful what you wish for, I am still right.
Let's do a quick thought experiment:
You claim that a small government with a large police force or military can have a large amount of control / power over its populace. However, what you fail to take into account is that the military or police force are part of the government in those scenarios. So having a large military or police force to control you populace means that you have a large government.
Your theoretical small government ceases to exist before it starts.
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Amazing. Your trollish stamina is truly something to behold.
Agreed. As is your trollee stamina.
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Oh god, nerds talking about politics.
Take a class in political science, or even conflict economics. You will make the world a better place, just by shutting up about these trivialities.
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ORLY? Because the line before that quote he said
Ah, right:
You misunderstand the argument apparently. It's not:
[smaller government] ≡ [better government]
It's
[smaller government] ≡ [less government intrusion on personal freedoms]
At least, that's the way I view it.
So, no, he didn't explicitly say it was better. I guess I inserted that value judgment myself. Nevertheless, you coming up with creative ways of interpreting smaller hasn't made any dents on his point.
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What is the difference between illegal and unlawful?
I often hear an unlawful act, so what is an illegal act? Dictionary.com defines the words as: illegal forbidden by law or statute. contrary to or forbidden by official rules, regulations, etc.
If something is unlawful, it means it is against the law, but not necessarily a criminal act; it can be a civil wrong, such as trademark infringement, for which the wrongdoer may be sued, but will unlikely face criminal prosecution.
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Whether @abarker invented that meaning, or the public/media/political parties at large invented it, it is still nothing but a strawman assumption.
Yes, because shorter phrases are never used to make communication easier. The meaning of words is never slightly abused. Nope, never. especially not in English.
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So, no, he didn't explicitly say it was better. I guess I inserted that value judgment myself. Nevertheless, you coming up with creative ways of interpreting smaller hasn't made any dents on his point.
See, even you had to admit, that last post was trolling gold
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Oh god, nerds talking about politics.
Take a class in political science, or even conflict economics. You will make the world a better place, just by shutting up about these trivialities.
If you don't care to read or participate, there are other threads.
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See, even you had to admit, that last post was trolling gold
Dude, you've had a lot of trolling gold in this thread. I have no shame in admitting that.
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Illegal immigration is the issue. Which is confused by people's misunderstandings of the basics and differences between international law, civil law, and criminal law, for example. There won't be any non-trivial discourse until these basic issues are settled.
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Flagged for pendantry. Next you'll be expecting people to use principal/principle correctly.
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Illegal immigration is the issue.
Not the issue in the subthread you replied to.
Which is confused by people's misunderstandings of the basics and differences between international law, civil law, and criminal law, for example.
Good luck trolling with that. Still, I'm not sure why any of that matters as much as you seem to think it does.
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Still, I'm not sure why any of that matters as much as you seem to think it does.
Whoosh?
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That doesn't answer my question.
You said:
They entered the US illegally.
Not:
They entered the US unlawfully.
So again I ask, how can something be illegal but not a crime?
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Good luck trolling with that. Still, I'm not sure why any of that matters as much as you seem to think it does.
There are no crimes in international law, except those established by treaties. And since illegal immigration is not a felony or misdemeanor, it is not a crime at all.
Not the issue in the subthread you replied to.
True enough. But there is no international law except for sovereign law, and laws established by sovereign treaty. This means, in particular, that a small government in the sense being discussed is doomed to fail as soon as a larger government demonstrates that the small government cannot maintain sovereignty (for example, by invading).
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[smaller government] ~ [less government intrusion on personal freedoms] ∈ [better government]
FTFM
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A fascist dictatorship would then be considered a larger government, irregardless of the actual number of people involved.
TDEMSYR
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It would have to violate criminal law to be a crime. Merely violating sovereign law or civil law is not a crime.
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There won't be any non-trivial discourse until these basic issues are settled.
But will there be civilized discourse?
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"Legal" and "illegal" isn't an absolute. Breaking one law does not mean that you are breaking others or are not contributing to society, or that you lose the protection of the law.
They entered the US illegally. But it's not a felony. It's not even a misdemeanor. It's not a crime at all. It's just not allowed.
You can argue they are sort of trespassing on a national level.
But whatever, the point is, either "legalize" them or kick them out. This sort of half-state where they are kind of tolerated but always with the Damocles' sword of deportation hanging over their head is just crap. Like they are sub-human.
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Umm, did you quote the wrong post?
Well, dang, looks like. It was @flabdablet's "keep your hands off my medicare" picture I meant to reply to. The most widespread picture, which isn't the one he used, is a photoshop.
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I'm all for removing quotas and making immigration to the US easier.
That's all well and good, but when government makes it difficult for businesses to create more jobs to accept that influx of immigrants, everyone, including the immigrants, suffers.
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OK - you are correct there.But I don't think @boomzilla or @abarker are exactly libertarian? Or are they?
Remember that Libertarian is a US political party and libertarian isn't the same thing.
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It would have to violate criminal law to be a crime. Merely violating sovereign law or civil law is not a crime.
You still aren't getting my question. Based on the link you provided, to do something illegally is to violate the law and commit a crime. To do something unlawful is to do something not permitted by law, but not necessarily commit a crime. By the definition you provided performing an illegal act is committing a crime.
You said that you can illegally enter the country. But you also said that it is not a crime. By the definition you provide, TDEMSYR. Are you seeking to change your position to be:
It is possible to enter the country unlawfully.
?
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I'm changing my position to "You are autistic."
Violating a law is not a crime unless that law is a criminal law.
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Remember that Libertarian is a US political party and libertarian isn't the same thing.
Remember also that libertarian-authoritarian (L-A) is one of many axes in the multidimensional political space. At a minimum, two axes (L-A and conservative-liberal (C-L)) are required to even come close to describing reality, and each of those has many sub-axes. The popular attempt to reduce everything to C-L is gross oversimplification.
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The most widespread picture, which isn't the one he used, is a photoshop.
Are you saying that @flabdablet's photograph is invalid, because a different photograph exists which has been photoshopped?
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The problem as I see it is that the US is simply too attractive as a destination for immigrants. The simplest solution to this is to mitigate as many things as possible which are attractive to immigrants. For example, tanking the country' s economy and instigating a military coup might drop the US a few places on the list of places to immigrate to...
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I think the canonical ‘abusive small government’ model is the spaghetti western thing where the people who are abusing their power basically have the smaller government completely under their own control.
My understanding of @darkmatter's position here is that if we were to decrease the size of the government, we would pretty much have to rely on that same government to carry it out, and there is the risk that they would remove all of their checks and none of their balances.
More abstractly, I think the suggestion is that the structure of a government is strongly correlated with its size, thus any comparison of differently sized governments that controls for how they are made up is invalid. However, the direction of the causal relationship is such that using ‘size’ as a proxy for ‘structure’ is likely to lead to sloppy thinking.
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My god, what have you done... you're not supposed to think logically about what I have suggested and offer a rebuttal based on the actual contents of my argument rather than insults and regurgitated propaganda.
How the hell am I supposed to troll that?
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And since illegal immigration is not a felony or misdemeanor, it is not a crime at all.
Yes, but so what (says me)? I mean...I guess if we were going to argue about that all day it would be a barrier, but we haven't been so...
law
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I think the canonical ‘abusive small government’ model is the spaghetti western thing where the people who are abusing their power basically have the smaller government completely under their own control.
Well, you are just asserting that it's really a small government at that point (population-wise). But I'm not terribly interested in movie governments.
How the hell am I supposed to troll that?
Calm down. You'll figure it out.
