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I am surprised by the same thing. We have a legal process for crossing those borders, and if you circumvent that process you are a criminal. How is that controv

I am surprised by the same thing. We have a legal process for crossing those borders, and if you circumvent that process you are a criminal. How is that controversial? Separately, if you believe the process is bad, or borders should be open, or whatever -- by all means, fight for that using the frameworks we have.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
“If you [break the law] you are a criminal. How is that controversial?” What is legal is not necessarily moral or ethical.
- gaius 10y ago
  Sure, but a situation in which every individual picks and chooses the laws they agree with doesn't scale.
  - turar 10y ago
    I wonder what America would have been like if slavery abolitionists, women's suffrage leaders, and Civil Rights leaders took your advice.
    - gaius 10y ago
      All of those people campaigned for a change in the law, so my point stands.
      - turar 10y ago
        All those people participated in breaking the laws they saw as unjust. From Underground Railroad in the 19th century to sitting in white-only sections in the 20th. People hiding Jews from Nazis were actively breaking the law. The founders of the United States broke the British law. Edward Snowden broke the law. Nelson Mandela broke the law. Mahatma Ghandi broke the law. The list goes on and on.
jhpriestley 10y ago
So your viewpoint is that, if the law on the books criminalizes an enormous number of people who are not really harming anyone, then one should nonetheless support rounding those people up using whatever means necessary? I mean, I guess your view is consistent and makes some kind of sense. Selective enforcement of the law is a bad thing in many ways, and in an ideal world there would perhaps be no difference between "technically illegal" and an actually enforced crime. Perhaps disastrous policies like rounding up medical marijuana users, longtime undocumented residents, jaywalkers, "sodomites" before Lawrence v. Texas, miscegenators before Loving v Virginia, etc., etc., would "heighten the contradictions" and force civil society to legislate what it actually wanted to punish. I'm confused how you could be confused by the opposite viewpoint though. The opposite viewpoint is informed by millenia of the reality of law, which is that laws are often not enforced because they don't make sense, and a zealous enforcement of an existing law can be a radical, destructive break with an informal rule. For those of us who see this as simply part of reality, a given proposal to increase or decrease the enforcement of existing laws must be weighed against its practical effects. The proposal to enforce the immigration laws is controversial because it will cause an enormous amount of suffering, it solves no real problems, it will weaken the US economy, and it is motivated by racial animus and xenophobia.
geezer 10y ago
Did you ever violate speed limit and not pay a fine? I am guessing you did many times. If you had paid the fine, you'll be too broke to own a device to post this comment. It also means you circumvented the process and you are a criminal. It takes one to know one.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

“If you [break the law] you are a criminal. How is that controversial?” What is legal is not necessarily moral or ethical.

gaius 10y ago
Sure, but a situation in which every individual picks and chooses the laws they agree with doesn't scale.
- turar 10y ago
  I wonder what America would have been like if slavery abolitionists, women's suffrage leaders, and Civil Rights leaders took your advice.
  - gaius 10y ago
    All of those people campaigned for a change in the law, so my point stands.
    - turar 10y ago
      All those people participated in breaking the laws they saw as unjust. From Underground Railroad in the 19th century to sitting in white-only sections in the 20th. People hiding Jews from Nazis were actively breaking the law. The founders of the United States broke the British law. Edward Snowden broke the law. Nelson Mandela broke the law. Mahatma Ghandi broke the law. The list goes on and on.

jhpriestley 10y ago

So your viewpoint is that, if the law on the books criminalizes an enormous number of people who are not really harming anyone, then one should nonetheless support rounding those people up using whatever means necessary? I mean, I guess your view is consistent and makes some kind of sense. Selective enforcement of the law is a bad thing in many ways, and in an ideal world there would perhaps be no difference between "technically illegal" and an actually enforced crime. Perhaps disastrous policies like rounding up medical marijuana users, longtime undocumented residents, jaywalkers, "sodomites" before Lawrence v. Texas, miscegenators before Loving v Virginia, etc., etc., would "heighten the contradictions" and force civil society to legislate what it actually wanted to punish. I'm confused how you could be confused by the opposite viewpoint though. The opposite viewpoint is informed by millenia of the reality of law, which is that laws are often not enforced because they don't make sense, and a zealous enforcement of an existing law can be a radical, destructive break with an informal rule. For those of us who see this as simply part of reality, a given proposal to increase or decrease the enforcement of existing laws must be weighed against its practical effects. The proposal to enforce the immigration laws is controversial because it will cause an enormous amount of suffering, it solves no real problems, it will weaken the US economy, and it is motivated by racial animus and xenophobia.

geezer 10y ago

Did you ever violate speed limit and not pay a fine? I am guessing you did many times. If you had paid the fine, you'll be too broke to own a device to post this comment. It also means you circumvented the process and you are a criminal. It takes one to know one.