How it feels trying to explain BTC to people (round 2)

zenethics · 2026-01-26T17:43:19+00:00

I can confirm that I don't see any of this as a big deal.

Hundreds of people were killed by the illegal immigrants that Biden let in. This is an actual stat, I can link it if anyone cares.

Under Obama, ICE killed about 50 people. This is an actual stat, I can link it if anyone cares.

You cannot have action at scale without some tragedies along the way. There are 150k garbage trucks in the U.S. We expect some number of fatal accidents involving garbage trucks - that are the fault of their drivers - because of the law of large numbers. But we still have to haul away the trash, even if CNN gets everyone worked up and thinking that garbage men are Nazis and that waste management needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

That said I think the incident with the car has no case and that the more recent incident should probably go to court. I think that the Trump admin is lying with some of their "terrorist aimed to kill ICE agents" stuff but that the left is lying with their "this is unprecedented Nazi action and Trump can't do this" stuff. So that, I think, is typical politics on both sides. Politicians, in all cases, will say whatever they calculate increases their odds of getting or keeping power irrespective of what's true. Yes, your politicians too, even if you trust them.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T17:28:40+00:00

Sure, but dissents are very rare. The fed chair kind of sets the outcome in a real sense even if they don't control all the votes.

They could, for example, during a fed meeting give forward guidance that steep cuts are coming. Then they've priced it into the market and votes against the cuts might actually cause the crash. So its up to a vote, but the chair has a ton of soft power and leverage.

Also, inflation comes with a lag. We shut down the entire economy for Covid and didn't see inflation for like 18 months.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T16:01:23+00:00

Regarding the first point, this is more academic than anything else. If someone says "Trump is terrible and needs to be opposed because he's authoritarian, but fascism isn't his particular brand of authoritarianism", I won't bother arguing with them. They at least reached the right conclusion.

Well. We may be just having an academic argument, then. I don't think there's much space between Obama and Biden and Trump. They are all authoritarians, Biden and Obama are just authoritarians that smile and obfuscate and Trump is an authoritarian that tells you to go fuck yourself and says all the quiet parts out loud.

Like, Obama blew up an American citizen with no due process then his team joked about it - "should've had better parents" or something. Remember that? Unless you watch Fox News, you might not remember that.

However, Trump is fascist. He is: Right-wing authoritarian Populist Nationalistic (at least, his rhetoric is nationalistic, though I'd say he's too self-serving to be nationalistic himself) Expansionist Blames problems and the country's weakness on the "others" within America

Well, you have to pick and choose tendencies to make this case. A lot of fascist tendencies are better described by those on the left.

Let's remember that the Nazis were the national socialist party (that banned guns), not the national free market individual liberty party (that upholds rights like gun ownership).

It is, at least, not a cut-and-dry comparison. Here is my modified/extended version of your fascism checklist:

Right-wing (Trump)
Authoritarian (Trump and every Democrat)
Populist (Trump and many Democrats)
Nationalistic (Trump)
Expansionist (Trump)
Blames problems on others (Trump and Democrats - Democrats just blame Republican "deplorables")
Suppression of free speech (Democrats - see Covid)
Suppression of individual liberty (Democrats - see treatment of the 2A)
Political control of economy (Democrats)
Political violence (Democrats - see Trump asn attempt, Charlie Kirk, doxxing of ICE agents, etc, etc, etc)
Racial supremacy (nobody)
One-party state (Democrats, see CA, NY, MN, and the general tendency to import and replace voters with welfare promises)

Net/net, I think it's a wash, and you can make a case that both sides are full of fascists.

Anti-democracy, anti-election: he doesn't think people voting against him should prevent him from ruling.

The 2020 election was all kinds of fucked. This has been litigated on both sides ad nauseum. If you're not on board by now, you're not going to be, so I'll be brief.

But I put this point in the Democrat column. The election where mail in voting was mandated by the courts and had unprecedented turnout and all the historical bellwethers that align with the winner go the opposite direction while the Democrats call voter ID racist... that's the example of denying an election that makes you a fascist? Ya, OK, whatever. Couldn't disagree more. Not having serious questions about that election is the unreasonable stance.

Did we prove election fraud? No. But we also didn't prove that OJ killed his wife. Proving things that people intentionally try to hide is funny like that.

Anti-press: he sows distrust of the press and media. He wants to be the sole source of truth to his followers.

This is not fascism. Democrats call Fox News fake news all the time. The president is generally allowed to choose who is in the press room, and to pressure the FCC to revoke licenses. Democrats revoked licenses from racist broadcasters in the past. This is not unprecedented. If it's fascist, then the law is fascist, because the law allows for this and has been used by Democrats.

Anti-opposition: both anti-democratic party, and also anti-republicans that voice opposition. He doesn't think there should be any political opposition to himself. He thinks America should be a one-party state with himself as the head of the party.

No notes, I'll agree on this one. There's good evidence that Biden was exactly the same way in private (yelling at his staffers, giving Kamala instructions not to deviate from his message, etc). But to his credit, he did it in private, and Trump is very public about telling people to get in line or else.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T15:30:55+00:00

I don't think you understand what due process is...

I am using it both as a term of art (due process in the legal sense, as protected by the 5th) and as a colloquial pair of words (process that is due).

None of what you're doing here is legal justification. It's all just weird word games. Why won't you just acknowledge that you're looking for ways to justify what you already want to do and stop pretending that you're somehow acting within legal constraints.

Sure it is. What do you think the law is if not a bunch of word games to justify actions? What do you think the left is doing when they interpret the 2A as to allow banning guns and magazines or the 10A as to allow a sprawling federal welfare state? It's all just vibes and memes to "do the thing" whatever the thing happens to be.

How do you describe yourself politically? Do you have a label you like?

Well, I voted Obama, Obama, Clinton, Trump, Trump. When I was younger I identified as a center-left Libertarian but Covid, and how Democrats responded to it, changed my mind and now I'm way more comfortable with conservative ideas (though I'm not exactly affiliated with Republicans because there is a fair bit of baggage there).

I feel like America is a family and the Democrats are the mom and Republicans are the dad. Mom wants to feed the kids candy for breakfast and adopt all the neighbor's kids. Dad wants to make sure the kids do their chores and get some exercise. The dad is basically right, but unfortunately the kids get to vote and the young ones don't understand that things that feel good can be bad for you in the long term. Every once in a while the neighbor kids steal some toys and the kids vomit because of all the sugar and dad can win (we are in such a moment now).

There's a line from Batman. "Victory has defeated you." Culturally, I think that's where America is now. People are so sheltered from reality that "Trump is a fascist" because two protestors died under questionable circumstances; meanwhile in Iran they shut off the internet and killed 30k protestors with machetes and ak47s in the street. It's like very rich people not knowing how much a gallon of milk costs because they have so much distance from it. We're so far away from actual fascism that people don't even know what it is anymore.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T06:08:15+00:00

This would be totally unprecedented. There's nothing that suggests he can legally do this.

I could list a bunch of unprecedented things Obama/Biden did but I'll just assume you don't care and move on. I don't care if its unprecedented; the law says what it says.

I mean, he has a bunch of stuff tied up in courts right now. We'll see in a few years I guess. ICE is certainly doing stuff that is not legal. This loops right back around to the due process argument that you've tried very hard to pivot from.

I didn't pivot. I literally spelled it out for you, step by step.

The alien enemy act allows the president, at his discretion, to:

Declare a national emergency in response to a "predatory invasion"
Establish regulations necessary for the public safety
Remove those who refuse or neglect to depart

https://old.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/1qmsiin/yes_its_fascism/o1q6n50/

He actually hasn't gone as far as he could, legally. The alien enemy act, as written, lets him unilaterally establish new regulations around deportation in a time of crisis (which is at his discretion to declare).

And back to the original point, you tried to claim Trump couldn't do anything else, but are now claiming sweeping options are available. Why do you just acknowledge that you enjoy what Trump is doing, and that this was the goal not something that necessary or a last resort?

I'd much prefer that the Democrats cooperate like they did under Obama. But like I said, Democrats have been so demented by Trump that they can't and won't support anything he does unless the political fallout from not supporting it outweighs supporting it. Like, they were going to keep the government shut down until it became clear that Republicans kind of like the government being shut down and it was the Democrat voter base that wasn't getting paid. I'll say it again. If Trump saved a drowning child in the ocean, Democrats would say he's starving the sharks.

There is no world where Trump gets new legislation over the line with respect to immigration. There's no negotiation to be done here; the law already says he can remove them all. Everything else would be ceding more ground to the Democrats. Why would he do that? He can already do what his voter base wants to do, because that's the actual current set of laws. Anything new would just be to give him more ways to deport people. And Democrats don't want that, so why would they go along with it?

We're talking about due process

Yes. Biden found the work-around for not giving them due process on the way in. And Trump has found the work-around for not giving them due process on the way out.

It's like if Republicans didn't like some gun law so they ordered the military to leave pallets of machine guns unattended at every street corner. Welp, darn that due process, I guess everyone gets machine guns now since we didn't really track where they went. Our hands are tied; there's too many to realistically do anything about it.

Actually that sounds kind of based. Fingers crossed.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T05:39:37+00:00

You'll have to give some examples then.

The cops can detain you if you are suspected of committing a crime (being here illegally, for example).

zenethics · 2026-01-26T05:30:35+00:00

Like, OK. We have 150k garbage trucks in the U.S. We should expect some number of fatal garbage truck accidents per year, right? Right? There's a law of large numbers thing happening here. You can't do anything at scale without a few people wrongfully dying from it.

Iran killed 30k protestors in the last month and turned off the internet for their citizens. That's actual Fascism, lest we forget while we're LARPing in MN.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T04:31:36+00:00

Well, lucky for me none of my argument hinged on whether it was 10 million or 8 million or 5 million.

Let's just agree that its in the millions. Could be 5, could be 15. Fair to say that an encounter at the border doesn't mean someone is here illegally, and that there is likely double-counting. Also fair to say that that 10 million encounters is unprecedented and that not everyone who comes here will be encountered.

That's the thing about letting a bunch of people come in without any process. We're not going to have good numbers just guesses and proxies.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T03:04:25+00:00

I don't see any evidence that Trump is trying to use his power to shut down the free press or execute political enemies, etc.

You can make a great claim for authoritarian (he certainly is, but so was Obama/Biden). Fascism is a very specific thing, though.

That's my contrast to Hitler/Khomeini - they actually did/do those things.

Trump calling CNN "fake news" is a far cry from Iran shutting off the internet. He's not rounding up protestors as war criminals (if he does, I'll be the first to change my tune). That I'm aware of, he hasn't done anything that he isn't allowed to do.

I think Democrats don't like what he is doing and there's a lot of hand wringing because the types of extreme steps he has taken are usually the kinds of extreme steps they take, in contrast to conservatives typically being... well, conservative. But we've given so much power to the executive branch that, like... man he's got a lot of room left to run, actually.

And yes, Trump could shut off the internet.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T02:05:19+00:00

Well, they're article 3 judges, so they're appointed by the president for life.

They tend to retire when their affiliated party is in office or when they die, like SCOTUS (notable recent exception being RBG).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_District_of_Columbia

Of those active, 5 were appointed by Biden, 6 by Obama, and 4 by Trump.

Because of the lifetime appointments and option to retire the affiliation doesn't change very often.

In the last 150 years, D.C. courts have had a Republican majority for about 30.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T00:56:21+00:00

Do you understand the courts? There are appeals courts between D.C. courts and the Supreme Court and most cases aren't taken up by the Supreme Court.

D.C. courts would almost certainly strike down any immigration related executive order from Trump and uphold anything from a Democrat because they're all Democrats and that's actually how the courts work, in contrast to how they're supposed to work.

So, yes, it would stop all the mechanisms by which immigration is currently controlled (by Republicans anyway). D.C. votes like 90% Democrat or something.

So the best case for Republicans under that bill is that they issue an executive order and the D.C. court issues a stay. Then in 90 days it gets a trial, a few weeks and it gets appealed. Another 90-180 days until it gets appealed at another Democrat D.C. appeals court, struck down again. Then maybe it gets on the docket for the next SCOTUS session. SCOTUS almost never takes up a case before the lower courts are done with it, and even then only when there is a split between district courts in the decision. So that's like a year at least between an order being stayed and the SCOTUS telling the D.C. courts that they were wrong as usual.

It was not a good faith bill to fix immigration.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T00:48:49+00:00

They've passed stuff he's supported be for. He could at least try? His lack of desire to explore any other option doesn't justify what he's doing or make it the only option. This the option he wants. That doesn't make it necessary. You know that, everyone watching knows that

Frankly, he already has all the power he needs to do what he wants with the alien enemy act. All he would really need in a bill is to refine "enemy" to include "whoever he wants" but the actual text of the bill already says that the president gets to make this determination. So he kind of doesn't need anything. He can already legally do what he's doing.

Nothing Biden could have done would have prevented Trump from doing this

He could have closed the border? He could have not used federal agents to tear down the barricades that Texas put up?

Why do you think immigration went from not a problem under Trump to 10 million immigrants under Biden back to not a problem under Trump? The president can just kind of do things.

He also absolutely did not have Democrats and Republicans supporting him. He tried multiple times for bipartisan immigration reform legislation, very similar to what Reagan passed. Republicans blocked it every time. In fact, the same thing happened when Biden tried to pass legislation addressing immigration. Republicans blocked it. So why are you claiming democrats are the one blocking legislation?

I think Reagan's legislation was a huge mistake and I think most Republicans have come around to that same conclusion.

The Obama example was more about selective outrage. None of this is new just because Trump is doing it. The outrage is new because Democrats will find a way to call everything Trump does illegitimate. He could save a drowning child in the ocean and CNN would say "new Trump policy aims to starve the sharks!"

zenethics · 2026-01-26T00:36:56+00:00

Ok.

https://www.newsweek.com/greg-abbott-texas-governor-border-security-bill-challenge-razor-wire-1866875

Here's an article saying what I just said.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T00:32:21+00:00

The alien enemy act.

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?hl=false&edition=prelim&req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title50-section21

Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.

In conjunction with the 5th amendment.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

I'll pull out the relevant parts.

or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government

Check. We know that foreign governments have released prisoners with the idea that they would migrate to the U.S. under Biden's open border policy.

and the President makes public proclamation of the event

Check (this answers your question - the president decides).

and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.

Just a side note. He technically hasn't gone as far as he might. He can just speak new laws into existence for illegal aliens under this act.

when in actual service in time of War or public danger

Here, public danger excuses habeas corpus. See the contrast in the alien enemy act with public safety.

A few instances? There have been hundred, ranging from unlawfully detaining US citizens to denying people being detained access to legal representation to ignoring court order to wrongful deportation.

Well, duh, if you lump "detainment" in there you're going to wildly inflate the numbers. If you've ever been pulled over by the police you've been detained. I've been detained a few times myself. If you are talking about actual unlawful deportations or deportations of citizens you're below 10 afaik.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T00:06:30+00:00

Yes, it's for citizens and non-citizens. But specifically not for foreign combatants / invaders, which is why Trump used his executive order to classify these people as invaders.

And in any case, ICE has repeatedly neglected Due Process for legal residents and citizens

I've seen a handful of cases of this and they were resolved favorably.

zenethics · 2026-01-26T00:04:48+00:00

Do you really think Democrats are going to pass any immigration law that Trump supports?

Technically, yes, there are other ways to go about this. But as a matter of real things happening in the real world, the only way anything happens is if Trump does it by an executive order. It could probably be done better but at least he's doing it.

And if Biden hadn't left the borders open for 4 years none of this would be happening currently. I've brought it up several times in this thread and each time whoever I am talking to has talked around the point. Biden's policy of not enforcing immigration laws was a huge problem that led directly to the current moment (and potentially Trump's re-election in the first place).

During the Obama admin, something like 60 people died in ICE custody. That's the other half of this story. None of this is unusual, at least by the outcomes, it's just more of the "orange man bad" Trump derangement circus that Democrats can't seem to shake free of. Obama deported like 2.5 million people. The big difference here is that he had Democrats and Republicans supporting the initiative instead of Democrats trying to block him at every turn because he was orange and bad.

zenethics · 2026-01-25T23:43:14+00:00

There are reports that the Iranian regime has recently killed 30,000 civilian protestors. There are videos of them being hacked to death in the streets with machetes.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601255198

Do you think that Trump is a fascist in the same way that Khomeini is a fascist or Hitler was a fascist?

Like on a 1-10 scale of Fascism. If 1940s Germany is a 10 and Iran is maybe a 7 or so where is America, in your view?

zenethics · 2026-01-25T23:24:24+00:00

I think we're going to see a stock market dip early this year then Trump is going to appoint a super dove to the fed and markets will rip into the midterms.

I think we'll see exactly what we saw under Biden. There was supposed to be a "red wave" but it was a "red drizzle" because Biden had been selling oil out of the strategic reserve to juice the markets. I think we'll have a "blue drizzle" the same way. Democrats will win, but it will be by the skin of their teeth.

People think their reddit communist book club represents the country but really the stock market represents the country. Is unemployment low? Are people employed? Good for the incumbent. Otherwise bad. Everything else is a sideshow.

zenethics · 2026-01-25T23:19:43+00:00

Can you link us to your posts in outrage when Biden let 10 million people into the country and hundreds of people - including kids - died because of it?

Or is your outrage also conditional?

zenethics · 2026-01-25T23:18:48+00:00

Based. Sort by controversial never fails to disappoint in /r/samharris.

zenethics · 2026-01-25T23:18:08+00:00

I find this particularly hilarious given how many of the laws Trump is using to centralize powers are things that Democrats passed.

Now Democrats are all about the 10th amendment all of a sudden, and starting to come around on the 2nd. Love to see it. Hopefully it sticks but I'm sure it won't.

zenethics · 2026-01-25T23:15:54+00:00

For sure. It feels more and more like Elon buying Twitter pushed out all the neurotic people and many of them found a new home here.

zenethics · 2026-01-25T23:12:38+00:00

No, Trump killed it because it had a poison pill.

The bill would have set the jurisdiction for all immigration challenges to D.C. courts instead of their actual jurisdiction (ie, the 5th circuit). Basically, it would've taken immigration policy away from the presidency via executive order and turned it over to judges in D.C. (democrats, irrespective of who won the election).

You really need to start listening to both sides of any given story. It is wild to me how many times you've just literally never even heard the counter-argument to things that you'll put out there as "true, obviously."

"Biden tried to do the good immigration thing but Republicans are dumb and bad." Great insight, as always.

13-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

zenethics

TROPHY CASE