Miscellaneous News

PanAsian said:

The feeling's mutual. I find your mischaracterization of adult criminals, not just from seeking asylum, accompanying minors as a situation to be facilitated very disturbing. That's aside from condoning abuse of the asylum system.

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I can understand if you are resentful of illegals just walking across the boarder if you and/or your family had to go through the long and often difficult US immigration system to get there legally.

However you should not allow that to blind you to the needless, and indeed, deliberately inflicted, gross human suffering those migrants families are subjected to.

There is zero need to separate families, no other nation, ‘civilised’ or not, does this to my knowledge.

It is not necessary or reasonable, and the only reason it would is done is to create examples to try and dissuade others from trying to cross. The UN has a few laws on such matters if I recall.

If I were you, I would be a hell of a lot more concerned about living in a country who’s government thinks such behaviour is acceptable, than about poor and desperate people trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.

After all, it’s not like the US government has never rounded up people because of their race and shoved them in concentration camps before is it?

In the current political climate, how confident are you that you and your family won’t even up on the wrong side of these US government cages one day if Trump does something monumentally stupid towards China or North Korea?

Rather than channeling Fox News, I would be far more mindful of Martin Niemöller’s words if I was in your position.

solarz said:

First, how are they criminals? Second, read the UN convention on refugees, of which the US is a signatory, then tell me what is being abused here.

Finally, how is keeping families together facilitating anything, except perhaps human decency?

I find it very disturbing that you support taking children away from their parents because of your dislike of what the parents do.

Again, this is not a immigration issue. There is a process for refugees, and this process does not include ripping children away from their parents!

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First off I never said that I support taking children away from their parents because of my dislike of what the parents do. That's your misguided rush to judgement and misunderstanding of both my position and the reality of the situation.

It is very disturbing that you cannot separate your personal sympathies for unsubstantiated claims from people breaking the law and putting children in danger versus how to systematically and practically deal with such situations on a large scale.

You are ignoring the complexities of the issue and pretending as if there are no fake relations presented by illegal border crossers including criminals (criminal aside from illegal border crossing) accompanying minors claiming to be family. How to verify those claims, what to do prior to verification of claims, what to do after verification of criminality (again aside from illegal border crossing). Read the earlier posts in the thread.

You are insisting on blind belief of the illegal border crossers' claims without any application of common sense regarding processing and verification and the differing context at each stage of the process.

Note that you have not provided any substantiation of your claims of magic solutions from anywhere in the world despite calling for it from the other side of the argument.

PanAsian said:

First off I never said that I support taking children away from their parents because of my dislike of what the parents do. That's your misguided rush to judgement and misunderstanding of both my position and the reality of the situation.

It is very disturbing that you cannot separate your personal sympathies for unsubstantiated claims from people breaking the law and putting children in danger versus how to systematically and practically deal with such situations on a large scale.

You are ignoring the complexities of the issue and pretending as if there are no fake relations presented by illegal border crossers including criminals (criminal aside from illegal border crossing) accompanying minors claiming to be family. How to verify those claims, what to do prior to verification of claims, what to do after verification of criminality (again aside from illegal border crossing). Read the earlier posts in the thread.

You are insisting on blind belief of the illegal border crossers' claims without any application of common sense regarding processing and verification and the differing context at each stage of the process.

Note that you have not provided any substantiation of your claims of magic solutions from anywhere in the world despite calling for it from the other side of the argument.

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So you're saying because we can't verify that those kids are really their kids and that the parents aren't really criminals, we should separate the kids from the parents until we can?

What kind of logic is that?

Only a tiny fraction of asylum seekers have been found to be criminals or fraudulently claiming to be parents of accompanied children. You would have every family separated on account of that? Why?

Even if the adults might be criminals and fake parents, unless they exhibit harmful behavior toward the children, why would you not keep them together until you can verify their claims? While in detention, they are under surveillance. Action can be taken at any time if there is any threat to the child.

American policies have recently driven a lot of asylum seekers into Canada. Funny enough, we've been able to handle them without separating them from their kids.

plawolf said:

I can understand if you are resentful of illegals just walking across the boarder if you and/or your family had to go through the long and often difficult US immigration system to get there legally.

However you should not allow that to blind you to the needless, and indeed, deliberately inflicted, gross human suffering those migrants families are subjected to.

There is zero need to separate families, no other nation, ‘civilised’ or not, does this to my knowledge.

It is not necessary or reasonable, and the only reason it would is done is to create examples to try and dissuade others from trying to cross. The UN has a few laws on such matters if I recall.

If I were you, I would be a hell of a lot more concerned about living in a country who’s government thinks such behaviour is acceptable, than about poor and desperate people trying to make a better life for themselves and their families.

After all, it’s not like the US government has never rounded up people because of their race and shoved them in concentration camps before is it?

In the current political climate, how confident are you that you and your family won’t even up on the wrong side of these US government cages one day if Trump does something monumentally stupid towards China or North Korea?

Rather than channeling Fox News, I would be far more mindful of Martin Niemöller’s words if I was in your position.

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I am aware of the valid downstream and bigger picture concerns you raise regarding the more extreme behaviors of the current US administration. Yet longstanding neglect of the just as valid downstream and bigger picture concerns regarding illegal immigration is part of what brought about and continues to drive support for the current US administration and its more extreme behaviors. There are implications for many third parties who are all exploiting the situation for their own ends.

solarz said:

So you're saying because we can't verify that those kids are really their kids and that the parents aren't really criminals, we should separate the kids from the parents until we can?

What kind of logic is that?

Only a tiny fraction of asylum seekers have been found to be criminals or fraudulently claiming to be parents of accompanied children. You would have every family separated on account of that? Why?

Even if the adults might be criminals and fake parents, unless they exhibit harmful behavior toward the children, why would you not keep them together until you can verify their claims? While in detention, they are under surveillance. Action can be taken at any time if there is any threat to the child.

American policies have recently driven a lot of asylum seekers into Canada. Funny enough, we've been able to handle them without separating them from their kids.

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I can talk past you too same as how you have been avoiding having an actual discussion and justing repeating your points, making presumptuous accusations, and talking past me.

You have been saying that even after adults have been found to be criminals they should still be kept together with the unrelated children they showed up with, no exceptions. Now you are saying in addition to that, thereby providing opportunities for established criminals to prey on children instead of pre-empting them, the target country also has to be an omniscient and omnipotent Big Brother in order to intervene just in time.

What kind of logic is that?

You have never addressed the conundrum of how the immigrants are fleeing such inept, hostile, and corrupt environments yet the target country has to rely on these inept, hostile, and corrupt environments to verify their stories. Not to mention the conflict of interest in how some of these inept, hostile, and corrupt environments can benefit from successful emigration to the US.

As to whether Canada is handling "a lot" of "asylum seekers" (fleeing domestic violence requires specifically migrating to North America) well, see how it goes when a dozen million illegal immigrants have been operating in the country for decades and hundreds of thousands more come every year. Established criminals can easily hide their crimes against children rather than be noticed, forget about being dealt with, especially if the authorities aren't actually an omniscient and omnipotent Big Brother and only has shoddy means of verification.

PanAsian said:

I am aware of the valid downstream and bigger picture concerns you raise regarding the more extreme behaviors of the current US administration. Yet longstanding neglect of the just as valid downstream and bigger picture concerns regarding illegal immigration is part of what brought about and continues to drive support for the current US administration and its more extreme behaviors. There are implications for many third parties who are all exploiting the situation for their own ends.

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The problem with chasing after scapegoats is that scapegoats are not the real cause of the problems they are being scapegoated for to begin with.

Study after study have show that migration bring far more benefits than harms

Far from being a burden, overwhelmingly migrants help to boost both the economy and uplift the living standards of locals.

Think of all the low paying and unpleasent jobs that migrants perform, which locals would not do, or at least would not do for the same money.

The real reason behind Trump’s rise is that he was willing to shamelessly lie to tap into middle America’s growing discontent.

The reason for that isn’t because some dark skinned illegal ‘stole’ crappy jobs no local would do, but rather the stagnation of real income growth for all except the top 1 and 0.1%.

The western free market capitalist economic model that America sees as one of its core ideological pillars is failing; it is rotting from within as the richest and most powerful American individuals and corporations have amassed wealth and power to rival nations, and are being cheered on by the American government and (privately owned) media to exploit every last nouce of that power to further their own economic advantage. As they exploit that advantage to grab an ever increasing share of the overall economic pie for themselves, it is leaving the rest with less and less.

But no matter how much America ‘punishes’ all those scapegoats, in the end it does nothing to address the underlying problem, so the source of all that popular resentment and anger is only going to grow, demanding more scapegoats in the future.

Even if Trump builds his wall and it actually magically completely solves the illegal migration and drugs problem the US blames on its southern neighbors, do you think that will make middle America get more of the share of the nation’s wealth? Do you think America is going to be doing some collective deep soul searching and making fundamental, painful changes; or would it be more likely a new Trump would pop up to point the finger of blame at someone else? Maybe all those Asian Americans who are doing so well for themselves? After all, Asian Americans are actually the ones taking more than their ‘fair share’ of the places at Ivy League universities, and then going on into high paying professional jobs much coveted by white Americans...

That’s the point of Niemoeller’s poem - that once they get away with scapegoating all of society’s problems on one minority group, it becomes so much easier for them to do the same to another group when the original scapegoats have been eliminated and all of society’s ills did not magically disappear with them.

While there is little that individuals can do to change the overall problem with the failing US economic model, and poisonous political games; we as individuals could at least not join our voice to that of the riled up rabid mob baying for the blood of the first innocent scapegoats.

Chinese police assisting Croatian police in handling issues related to Chinese tourists in Dubrovnik.

plawolf said:

The problem with chasing after scapegoats is that scapegoats are not the real cause of the problems they are being scapegoated for to begin with.

Study after study have show that migration bring far more benefits than harms

Far from being a burden, overwhelmingly migrants help to boost both the economy and uplift the living standards of locals.

Think of all the low paying and unpleasent jobs that migrants perform, which locals would not do, or at least would not do for the same money.

The real reason behind Trump’s rise is that he was willing to shamelessly lie to tap into middle America’s growing discontent.

The reason for that isn’t because some dark skinned illegal ‘stole’ crappy jobs no local would do, but rather the stagnation of real income growth for all except the top 1 and 0.1%.

The western free market capitalist economic model that America sees as one of its core ideological pillars is failing; it is rotting from within as the richest and most powerful American individuals and corporations have amassed wealth and power to rival nations, and are being cheered on by the American government and (privately owned) media to exploit every last nouce of that power to further their own economic advantage. As they exploit that advantage to grab an ever increasing share of the overall economic pie for themselves, it is leaving the rest with less and less.

But no matter how much America ‘punishes’ all those scapegoats, in the end it does nothing to address the underlying problem, so the source of all that popular resentment and anger is only going to grow, demanding more scapegoats in the future.

Even if Trump builds his wall and it actually magically completely solves the illegal migration and drugs problem the US blames on its southern neighbors, do you think that will make middle America get more of the share of the nation’s wealth? Do you think America is going to be doing some collective deep soul searching and making fundamental, painful changes; or would it be more likely a new Trump would pop up to point the finger of blame at someone else? Maybe all those Asian Americans who are doing so well for themselves? After all, Asian Americans are actually the ones taking more than their ‘fair share’ of the places at Ivy League universities, and then going on into high paying professional jobs much coveted by white Americans...

That’s the point of Niemoeller’s poem - that once they get away with scapegoating all of society’s problems on one minority group, it becomes so much easier for them to do the same to another group when the original scapegoats have been eliminated and all of society’s ills did not magically disappear with them.

While there is little that individuals can do to change the overall problem with the failing US economic model, and poisonous political games; we as individuals could at least not join our voice to that of the riled up rabid mob baying for the blood of the first innocent scapegoats.

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There is plenty of rhetoric unduly scapegoating illegal immigrants, just as there is a lot of rhetoric unduly justifying illegal immigrants, but it appears that is more the focus of my exchange with Solarz, not the focus of our exchange here.

You are giving a more detailed but incomplete picture of the problem (or situation if you prefer a more neutral term). Illegal immigration is indeed an integral part of the situation, as you already pointed out, I would point out thereby it is not just a scapegoat.

As you have stated illegal immigrants participate in the economy. Their participation in the economy perverts and stagnates several processes of creative destruction/renewal.

Illegal immigrants providing cheaper labor than otherwise possible permits obsolete modes of production and otherwise uncompetitive businesses and industries to persist or even profit, thereby rewarding/allocating financial resources to undeserving bosses, companies, and industries that should otherwise have failed.

The opportunity cost at the same time prevents the development and rise of the replacement modes of production, companies, bosses, industries, jobs, and workers.

As part of an already skewed economic structure illegal immigration thereby disproportionately rewards the existing upper echelons of society while disproportionately burdening the lower echelons of society, exacerbating existing wealth and opportunity gaps among the existing population.

The upper and lower echelons of society are also disproportionately burdened by the social costs of illegal immigrants with cultural gaps, loss of community, competition for housing, schooling, healthcare, etc.

The upper echelons reap the benefits of limited social exposure, more ample and lower cost personal human resources i.e. housekeepers, gardeners, etc while the lower echelons have to deal with inundation in their social environments, more competition for work, dilution of earnings and benefits.

This is not scapegoating illegal immigrants but objectively assessing their impact via their entrance into a system that is already flawed.

In some ways this is analogous to a country spending less to import arms instead of investing more to develop their own arms industry. Or foreign intervention and black market weaponry availability to competing factions in a civil war. The fact that illegal immigration deals with people complicates the picture but does not alter other practical aspects of their impact.

PanAsian said:

As part of an already skewed economic structure illegal immigration thereby disproportionately rewards the existing upper echelons of society while disproportionately burdening the lower echelons of society, exacerbating existing wealth and opportunity gaps among the existing population.

The upper and lower echelons of society are also disproportionately burdened by the social costs of illegal immigrants with cultural gaps, loss of community, competition for housing, schooling, healthcare, etc.

The upper echelons reap the benefits of limited social exposure, more ample and lower cost personal human resources i.e. housekeepers, gardeners, etc while the lower echelons have to deal with inundation in their social environments, more competition for work, dilution of earnings and benefits.

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That's simply BS. The upper echelons are the one's taking advantage of exploiting the illegals for cheap labor and place the blame on them after profiting so much. I don't get why some of the lower echelons place the blame on the upper echelons for this immoral exploitation? Because deep down it is about race. Many (not all) White Americans felt threaten of illegals coming here and changing the demographic and ways of life that could come with it. Remember the Pilgrims were the original illegals in this land before they settled and started to multiply and replacing the indigenous population and over taking their land.

NO I'm not trying to start a race debate or yelling, rather I am pointing out to the obvious from what I've gathered from many friends and family members discussion of this sensitive topic.

This Elon Musk had just shown his true colors by tweeting and accusing the British cave diver as pedophilia living in Thailand just because he doesn't think Elon's submarine rescue would be impractical.

Elon Musk Lashes Out At Thai Cave Rescuer, Baselessly Calls Him A 'Pedo Guy'

Elon Musk went on a bizarre rant against a British diver involved in last

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went on a bizarre rant against a British diver involved in

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after the diver mocked the billionaire tech entrepreneur’s proposed plan to help with the mission.

Vern Unsworth

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on Saturday that Musk’s idea to use a kid-sized submarine to transport the 12 boys out of the cave where they were trapped was “just a PR stunt.”

“He can stick his submarine where it hurts,” said Unsworth, who had a “pivotal” role in the rescue by helping authorities pinpoint the boys’ location,

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. “It just had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like.”

The 47-year-old Tesla and SpaceX CEO didn’t take the criticism too kindly, lashing out at Unsworth in a series of now-deleted tweets Sunday in which he baselessly accused the diver of being a pedophile.

“Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves,” Musk tweeted, later adding: “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”

Musk later doubled down on his unfounded accusation against Unsworth.

Twitter users swiftly condemned Musk’s allegation, calling the remarks “outrageous” and “unhinged.”

Hours later, Musk deleted his tweets about Unsworth without an explanation.

Representatives for both Tesla and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment. HuffPost was unable to reach Unsworth for comment.

Thai officials rejected Musk’s submarine, ultimately adopting a complicated course of action involving underwater stretchers and water pumps to successfully rescue all 12 of the boys and their soccer coach.

“I assure you that the equipment [Musk] brought to help us is not practical for our mission,” Narongsak Osottanakorn, head of the Thai search operation,

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last week. “Even though the equipment has state of the art technology, it does not fit our mission in the cave.”

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