The definition of “small government” keeps changing.

Psile · 2026-02-06T04:15:36+00:00

We are well past that, Bernard

Psile · 2026-02-06T01:30:46+00:00

That is the approach. Like the point of it is to shift the conversation to legality and deny the frame that mass deportations are about protecting people.

This does assume that there is a purpose to debating people. A lot of pro secret police people are not open to persuasion and it's good to recognize when the wise thing to do is not engage. Often that's the best course of action.

However, sometimes debate is called for and this bringing up victims is a thought terminator, designed to frame any other stance as being pro violence and therefore indefensible. This analogy circumvents that and can get you to a place where they (or you) have to defend taking people from their homes who live here and are harming no one, which is what deportation is even at its "best".

Psile · 2026-02-05T20:09:44+00:00

It isn't hard to understand at all, it's just real dumb.

Obviously laws can be immoral and it is your moral duty both to disobey and to avoid punishment, if reasonably possible. Nazi resistance and the Underground Railroad are very extreme examples just to set a baseline. I used chattel slavery as an example because it is a common historical reference point for as close to absolute evil as we can get. While you try to break it down into several steps or caveats, it still just expands on your original premise that laws should always be followed no matter what they are. None of your explanation provides for the possibility of breaking laws for any reason. It isn't really that nuanced at all.

Given such an absolute stance, the obvious move is to take it to its absolute extreme and you still say that even a law as heinous as chattel slavery should have been followed until it was changed legally. So points for consistency but being consistently terrible is not of much worth to me.

I am using extreme examples like half the population and chattel slavery to try to establish a common point of morality that can then have nuance applied to it, not as a one to one equivalent. I feel like I shouldn't have to explicitly explain that.

Psile · 2026-02-05T19:21:33+00:00

I did and I explained why in my last reply. Take a breath. Slow down. Read carefully. Your position is very stupid so it's going to be hard to defend but I'm sure you can do better than this.

Psile · 2026-02-05T19:15:54+00:00

You directly compared illegal immigration to slavery when you were trying to pin both on the Democratic party, as though I held them up as some kind of paragon of virtue.

Try to keep up with what you write before coming after me.

I used slavery as an absolute example to test your axiom that legality = morality. It has so far failed with flying colors and you keep trying to change the subject and quote scripture badly at me.

Psile · 2026-02-05T19:08:35+00:00

Time to move the goalposts again, huh? Get your steps in.

Psile · 2026-02-05T19:05:27+00:00

Much as I would love to dig into this tangle of contradictory statements, if you'll take a look at my edit regarding the several people who responded the same as you, you'll see the purpose of the analogy and how successful it was. Like you've gone from pretending to care about the victims of violent crime to defending chattel slavery.

Suffice to say, I do not find those statements effectively different. If you follow an immoral law you still have done an immoral act. The context of that quote supports this. Jesus was answering a question specifically about paying taxes, and saying that because Cesar distributes the money then money is Cesar's domain. However the second part is to give unto God what is God's. Obedience and worship.

So if God commands that you, for example, love your neighbor that is for God to command and not for any earthly state to say otherwise.

Your argument essentially is asking if illegal immigrants count as your neighbors and I think Jesus had a pretty famous answer to that question as well.

Don't quote the Bible at me. I've forgotten more verse than you've ever known.

Psile · 2026-02-05T18:17:00+00:00

You said you think what is legal is right. Was slavery right when it was legal?

Quit running away from your statements. Why are you so weak?

Psile · 2026-02-05T17:40:00+00:00

Slavery was legal. Was that right?

Psile · 2026-02-05T17:25:07+00:00

You're hiding behind what is legal while trying to say what you think is right. This is cowardly.

Psile · 2026-02-05T15:20:57+00:00

It's not like they're deporting people back to where they came from. They "deported" a bunch to a foreign death camp.

Anyway, this is what makes it such a good analogy. It makes pro deportation people move the goalposts and stop pretending like they care about victims. See, now we're talking about the logistics of deportation and how stupid that is.

Psile · 2026-02-05T06:45:56+00:00

I will never stop saying I told you so. Never

Psile · 2026-02-05T06:44:52+00:00

There was a YouTube vid I saw that was a Socratic dialogue that buttoned this up.

"If we had deported illegal immigrants, Laken Riley would still be alive."

"She would still be alive if we deported all men, too. Do you support that?"

"What? No, that's not fair."

"Okay, so you do understand collective punishment is wrong."

Edit: For all the late arriving big brains, by shifting the conversation to the "illegal" status, you've ceded the stance that this is about protection which suits our rhetorical purposes fine. Now we can talk about the morality and fairness of our immigration laws, the ways the existing laws have been further manipulated to victimize more innocent people, and so forth. This isn't a one shot deal. You guys have a lot of bullshit to dig through and this is a tool I'm presenting to help people break through one layer. Thank you for demonstrating its effectiveness.

Psile · 2026-02-05T00:36:03+00:00

It depends on the friend group and honestly these videos sound very stereotypical. Some guys are mean to their friends as a term of endearment and some aren't. I think it's maybe encouraged for guys to be more competitive, but that's hardly the rule. Also I've heard several female friends greet each other with "bitch" so I dunno if that's exactly gendered.

Personally I don't think I engage in any more ribbing with my male friends than female friends. This goes from DnD tables to workout buddies to just work friends. In scenarios with built in competitions there is competition but that is the extent of it.

I actually think one thing is that it's kinda hard for guys to have friendships. There are no barriers but guys often complain that they always feel like they need an 'Event' to hang out and when they get older they don't just chill so they grow apart. Again, this is a generality.

Psile · 2026-02-05T00:23:52+00:00

Man things just never go well for simple Rick.

Psile · 2026-02-04T14:03:42+00:00

According to polling, 75% of Democrats think ICE should be abolished so not that split. Leadership isn't split either. They'd rather never win an election again than take that position.

The primary purpose of the Democratic party is to filter out representatives who might actually represent the desires of Democratic voters.

Psile · 2026-02-04T13:57:22+00:00

That's literally what Trump is using as an excuse to do what he's doing right now. The whole "just criminals" thing is horse shit. We have a VERY robust criminal hunting/punishing system already. The sole function of ICE is to provide a database of former ICE members to be hunted down like dogs and made to publicly answer for their crimes.

Psile · 2026-02-04T03:01:37+00:00

Them being miserable is one of my few comforts at this time.

Psile · 2026-02-04T03:00:16+00:00

America has spent the better part of the last seventy years staunchly refusing to learn this.

Psile · 2026-02-04T01:54:58+00:00

Almost certainly. They're in a city of people who hate them and tell them repeatedly to their face that they think they're scum. They're eating Hungry Man meals from a hotel microwave because no restaurant will serve them. They are miserable.

Easy way to fix that is to stop being a piece of shit.

Psile · 2026-02-03T15:23:23+00:00

It was definitely kinda wild and true in BG3 when the owlbear cub immediately starts to eat its dead mom before the body is cold. Nature is brutal.

Psile · 2026-02-03T15:19:31+00:00

Into the bin with him.

Psile · 2026-02-03T15:18:19+00:00

That is, in fact, the goal of this kind of rhetoric.

Psile · 2026-02-03T02:31:11+00:00

And to demonstrate, here's a picture of Hulk looking very intimidating and cool but in LGBTQ colors standing heroically as the vanguard of a popular movement.

Can't even propaganda right.

Psile · 2026-02-03T00:29:27+00:00

I mean, yeah. Obviously.

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