Omnibus Politics Thread: Campaign 2016 EditionFollow

HE WILL NOT BE QUESTIONED. Dylann Roof killed more than the whole banned list combined, and he's hardly an isolated example.

Edited, Feb 15th 2017 11:35am by lolgaxe

Note that arguing a case based on A doesn't mean that B isn't valid. It just means that A presented an easier case and lower-hanging fruit. It's simpler to get the ban lifted by arguing the immediate harm caused to the states than it is to prove the motivations of the administration. Sort of like how any lawyer is going to try to get a case dismissed on technical merits before trying to convince a jury that their client isn't guilty. The order was sloppy and left easy opportunities to argue against it without having to debate whether it was in violation of the First Amendment but that doesn't mean it wasn't in violation.

Also depends on how you define terrorism. I mean, I would certainly consider lynching and other forms of extrajudicial homicide to be acts of domestic terrorism. I assume this is not a widely accepted view on the right, however.

It certainly doesn't help that argument that the Administration repeatedly referred to the EO as a Muslim ban.

I don't think "We won't serve black customers from Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama or Tennessee -- but we'll serve black customers from the other 44 states" is a compelling argument for it not being racially motivated. It's not a question of whether or not you've universally banned a group, it's a question of whether that group is the (near-)exclusive focus in the areas you HAVE targeted. With the exemptions given in the order for "religious minorities" from Muslim-majority nations, that would seem to be the case.

Neat, he banned himself.

We're allowed to look at context here. The EO was authored by Bannon and Miller, and Bannon in particular has long advocated for blocking immigration in general, and Muslim immigration in particular. This is not a new stance for him, and including green card holders in the ban was at his insistence.

The "extreme vetting" that they supposedly put in place was exactly what the Obama Administration had already implemented*, so much so that they had to scramble around and come up with "tell us what social networking sites you use and your passwords for those sites" in order to add anything at all to what was already being done.

*Bowling Green Massacre, never forget.

Pizzagate is just projection. It all makes sense now...

I don't think that's a great analogy to use though, for a few reasons. A better one would be equating it to greater policing efforts in high crime areas (or in this case, high terrorist organization activity). This prompts people to argue that since the highest crime areas also tend to have a disproportionately higher black population, that this constitutes unfair police actions targeting black populations (we've had this discussion a couple times).

Obviously, some are going to accept that argument and some are not. But IMO, it's the same kind of reasoning in both cases, and, not surprisingly, the same people will come down on each side. You either see the targeting to be based on the identity of those living in the area, or based on the activity contained within that area. I don't think we'll ever be able to bridge that disagreement. I would hope, however, that each "side" can at least acknowledge that the other honestly does see it from their own perspective, and judge their motivations on that fact. Even if you think that restricting travel from these countries is a "ban on Muslims", or even just unfairly impacts Muslims more than other groups of people, that does not mean that the intent of the order is to accomplish that. We don't all walk around through life trying to figure out ways to hurt people. Sometimes, an order to prevent travel from countries identified has being hotbeds for anti-US terrorism is actually just about that terrorism, and the disproportionate impact is just an unintended (or in this case, unfortunately necessary) side effect.

That's a pretty fine hair to split.