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[martinuzz]

Har har.
I assume we'd just keep subsidizing the developing world with actual material aid, while getting bombed for our oh-so-horrible, not-quite-European standard of living for our poor.

Oh, is that inane and unfunny?  So was your "joke".

You are aware that the EU is a higher contributor to developmental aid than the US is, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_aid

[Rolan7]

Okay?  Your entire continent manages to give your neighbors more aid than one nation across the pond does.
That seems like the least you could do for being the primary perpetuators and beneficiaries of colonialism.

In all seriousness, I would wager that one of the "pros" (as seen from the GOP perspective) of withdrawing from the UN convention for human rights, is that the US no longer will be supplying said material aid (and can then redirect those resources for profit.)

Er, maybe there are some financial obligations for being in the Human Rights Council?  But I doubt they're significant compared to our total aid budget.

Just saying, the way you worded that makes it looks like we'd get to stop paying aid altogether, and that's not right.
Edit:  I mean we *could*, nobody's stopping us, but it's in our strategic interests...  Largely in that trying to keep the world from literally falling apart is in our interest, and it's nice that other nations are stepping up to help.

[martinuzz]

Okay?  Your entire continent manages to give your neighbors more aid than one nation across the pond does.

Note that all countries listed as donating the most as percentage of their gross national income are European, the US isn't mentioned in the top 10.
Developmental aid isn't quite related to subscribing to international human rights though

[Rolan7]

True, this is distracting from your joke about nuking our capital for backing out of part of a union (and having bad living conditions?)
Still sore about Brexit, huh?

[martinuzz]

I admit being sarcastic there.
Brexit sore though? Nah, Brexit will probably never happen anyways.   

[Rolan7]

I honestly hope not, heh.
No hard feelings I hope, I just took that joke a little personal.

Honestly, I've been out of sorts because of the children being taken at our border.  I've been trying to figure out what the official rationale is, but I can't even find a pretense.

I can poke plenty of holes in the exaggerated wailing and gnashing of teeth from Twitter-liberals etc, because they blow everything out of proportion, and yet...  Best I can tell, it IS horrible.  It's just that they claim 3 months of waiting at the border, when it's really 3 weeks, and that's still not a good situation.  Putting it lightly.

And I have no idea why the children are being separated, except for the obvious reason of discouraging immigrants.  Trump's administration sometimes denies it outright, usually "pivots" to the problems of immigration, never actually explains why this is happening.

I'm pretty much convinced that this is actually just a shitty intimidation tactic.  But it worries me that even relatively-balanced news sources aren't even giving me a glimpse into a rationale behind it.  I'm failing to understand the other side, and that's a problem.

So many of these people are legitimate asylum seekers, doing everything *correctly*....

Edit: To clarify, it's apparently like 1-3 weeks before you *get interviewed*, AKA when your children get taken and your family is put in US camps instead of camping next to the border, visiting every day to see if your number's up.  This went to shit as a direct result of Trump's "0-tolerance" policies.
The separation stage can take months, from what I read.

[Trekkin]

Honestly, I've been out of sorts because of the children being taken at our border.  I've been trying to figure out what the official rationale is, but I can't even find a pretense.

I think the official rationale is "our base likes it (and Trump primary voters do favor it) and nobody can stop us."

Nazi analogies are overused in referring to this administration, but I do think that the Third Reich in 1945 was one example of a broader phenomenon that happens when extremists attain uncontested power: the greedy people and the opportunists leave when the future of the movement looks less than rosy, which means there's nobody around looking at the medium-to-long term who could moderate the true believers and suggest a compromise between ideological purity and self-preserving practicality. The zealots are now free to act unimpeded, which of course makes things worse and accelerates the cycle. The end result is that extremist aberrations go utterly insane with increasing speed as their situation becomes more dire.

That spiral is where the Trump administration is now, I think. The party apparatchiks are long gone, the billionaires are mostly out (Mnuchin excepted), "adult in the room" John Kelly has been marginalized and the staff hemorrhage has reached unprecedented, job-fair-inducing levels. Everybody who might otherwise be inclined to contest Sessions' naked racism or Miller's general dysfunction is preoccupied with the Mueller investigation. There's just nobody left.This is the Trump administration's Wunderwaffe.

[martinuzz]

Let's just say that separating children from their parents, putting them in cages or cells, and ordering their guards to not even comfort them is inhumane, cruel, sadistic, deplorable, sociopathic and unexcusable, not to mention in violation of many articles of the Child Rights part of the Human Rights Declaration.
If Trump was leader of an African country, he would possibly now be on the most wanted list of the ICC for crimes against humanity.

[Egan_BW]

What are the chances that we can get that to happen despite him not being the leader of an African country?

[martinuzz]

Can't. Even though the US recognizes and subscribes to the ICC, they also passed a law that allows for military intervention to free any US citizen captured by the ICC.
Let's call it 'not-so-very-diplomatic immunity'.

I honestly hope not, heh.
No hard feelings I hope, I just took that joke a little personal.

No worries mate, my cynicism sometimes has that side effect, albeit unintentional.

EDIT: ohwait, apparently the US isn't even a state member of the ICC

United States policy concerning the ICC has varied widely. The Clinton Administration signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but did not submit it for Senate ratification. The George W. Bush Administration, the U.S. administration at the time of the ICC's founding, stated that it would not join the ICC. The Obama Administration subsequently re-established a working relationship with the Court as an observer.^[4]

[Egan_BW]

...Guess sometimes legal responsibility is a function of firepower, huh?

[Trekkin]

Can't. Even though the US recognizes and subscribes to the ICC, they also passed a law that allows for military intervention to free any US citizen captured by the ICC.
Let's call it 'not-so-very-diplomatic immunity'.

So make repealing the ASPA part of the Democratic platform for 2018/2020.

[misko27]

Brexit? Why would a European be scared of Brexit? So far that seems to have been going quite well for them, it's everywhere else that Europe is failing. At this rate, the only countries left in the EU will be Belgium, Macron (not France, just Macron) and Great Britain...

And as for the child separations, I am quite sure that there is no reason. His aides will make up a reason if you put them on the spot, but in truth it just seemed like the "hard line immigration" thing to do to a couple of his hardliner aides, and Trump took the hardliners over everyone else. But imo anything they come up with is retroactively nonsense. Hell, I bet they didn't even think it through very far, and Trump is just too stubborn to give up on a bad idea without turning into a 'win' somehow (by, for example, forcing funds for his border wall).

I remember reading in the NY Times the other day (I could find the article if you guys wanted a citation, incidentally) that both the Bush and Obama Administrations had considered the option, but both soundly rejected it as equal parts cruel and politically toxic. But by gawd that ain't stopping Trump, no sirree.

[Rolan7]

And as for the child separations, I am quite sure that there is no reason. His aides will make up a reason if you put them on the spot, but in truth it just seemed like the "hard line immigration" thing to do to a couple of his hardliner aides, and Trump took the hardliners over everyone else. But imo anything they come up with is retroactively nonsense. Hell, I bet they didn't even think it through very far, and Trump is just too stubborn to give up on a bad idea without turning into a 'win' somehow (by, for example, forcing funds for his border wall).

I remember reading in the NY Times the other day (I could find the article if you guys wanted a citation, incidentally) that both the Bush and Obama Administrations had considered the option, but both soundly rejected it as equal parts cruel and politically toxic. But by gawd that ain't stopping Trump, no sirree.

I think this ties into the earlier meta circle-"discussion".  I wanted to better understand the opposing viewpoint.  I want to be ready to refute it.  My Liberal Elite dad was hitting me with obvious bullshit to tear down Trump, when no bullshit should be required.  I really want to hear the arguments from INTELLIGENT Trump supporters.

Is this the advantage of a populist?  Is there literally no intelligent argument for their position?
On most issues I'm able to suss out a respectable viewpoint on the other side, and simply ignore the inane BS.  But on this, I'm honestly having actual trouble.

After three evenings I can't freaking find their best arguments.  I don't really know what they're saying.  That's a problem.

Or maybe even the Trump base can't defend this, I guess, but that seems like a dangerous thing to just assume.
This post actually doubles as calling out a RL friend of mine, actually.  Maybe he can explain this shit, at some point.

[Trekkin]

After three evenings I can't freaking find their best arguments.  I don't really know what they're saying.  That's a problem.

That is partly because they cannot implement immigration policy intended solely to deter immigrants, and that is exactly what this is. Thus the "it is very Biblical to enforce the law" message.