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Comment by maxforce | Hacker News Reader

To be left-leaning in the 60s and 70s was to be alternative to the mainstream. Today, to be left leaning is to be mainstream. Saul Alinksy's work has undoubtedly been a central tool in this transition. Here are some of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" which succinctly represent the behaviour of people today:

2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. 3. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. 13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals

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> To be left-leaning in the 60s and 70s was to be alternative to the mainstream. Today, to be left leaning is to be mainstream.

Not really. It's true that a position left of the center established by the balance of the parties in government is mainstream in the population, but that's because the parties in government have moved right relative to the population (the Republican party consistently, the Democratic Party merely on average as a result of the big rightward jump of the Clintonian "third way", from which there has been some subsequent minor movement back toward the left, with some ambiguous signalling that bigger moves in that direction are possible in the near future.)

Conservatives and religious people are unquestionably a very small minority and openly discriminated against within academia. What you're describing may be true of the US federal politics, what I'm referring to is more widespread change for example in academia, media and also policy globally. This reminds me of an article I read about a black christian academic reporting that he suffers greater discrimination for being christian then for being black: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confessi...

I just love this idea. If only I didn't get stares and outright contempt for my (leftist) political views. If only one of the two parties here in America actually ran on a social democratic platform (let alone further left) and won. If only there weren't literally ICE raids sweeping up undocumented people like its interwar europe. This position is just bizarre. Flat out bizarre. It serves only to stfile debate and keep the frame of rhetoric for anyone from the center right over squarely within "I'm in the minority, I'm the victim".

Can I ask you why you are against deporting illegal immigrants?

The illegal immigrants obviously understood it was a risk when they came, and any country is entitled to enforce its border security.

Practically every single other country in the world heavily enforces its border, and will also deport illegal immigrants.

And deporting illegal immigrants doesn't bar you from trying again to enter as a legal immigrant.

"practically every single other country in the world heavily enforces its border, and will also deport illegal immigrants"

True fact: When I moved to Norway, there wasn't a customs guard on duty when I got off the plane here. The passport was quickly stamped at the layover in Copenhagen, and that is the single stamp in it. I'm sure there are electronic records of my other travels within Europe: Only once have I had any checks getting into a country, and that was more because I was flying back from Amsterdam and they picked me to search for drugs.

It would have been somewhat easy for me to just come here, honestly. I didn't and went through immigration instead.

People within the EU can pretty freely find work in any country and live there as well, and outside the refugee crisis, I think this likely cuts down on illegal immigration.

i'm happy to hear about your pleasant experience, but norway deports illegal immigrants just as much as any other nation

https://www.google.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&site=&source=hp...

Hence not disputing the deportation, merely the level of border security.

The EU is an obvious special case because they have allowances for members of EU to easily travel between the countries.

And I can't speak for your one example, because that could have been a case of negligent border security. I could just as easily give an example of a person traveling to another country and having a lot of difficulty at customs, with them questioning why you are there, and forcing you to provide justification.

And also, if you happened to go to Norway as you say, staying there illegally, would you have felt justified to just live there indefinitely? Or do you agree the country has a right to deport you because you are illegally there and abusing the systems in that country.

"And also, if you happened to go to Norway as you say, staying there illegally, would you have felt justified to just live there indefinitely? Or do you agree the country has a right to deport you because you are illegally there and abusing the systems in that country."

I never actually considered it for myself, honestly. If I'm not working, yet not needing unnecessary assistance (except through trauma, nature's wrath, and so forth), I'm not sure there is an issue. It isn't about being justified or not, just that you don't have the level of interaction to really require much formality.

I'm not sure I can answer your question to your satisfaction, however. I'm a supporter of open borders, with minimal requirements to live somewhere legally (without getting all rights as citizens). I think health care, for example, is a human right and everyone should have it. Same with shelter and food. Beyond that, it is hard to "abuse" a system. Deportation should generally be used as a last resort (violent crime - first resort). Some other things are hard to abuse, and other things - consuming, paying taxes assuming quasi-legal work - contribute to society. To me, the proper response for most folks is to get them legal in a simple manner.

For the record, however, I've drained more resources than I've contributed at this point. Language classes were provided free of charge as was the civics class. I have health care on par with a Norwegian due to my immigration status. These things aren't actually drains on the system, though, they actually help folks adjust and a healthy population is a benefit for the government. I've not yet worked to contribute more.

I was just having this conversation with a lawyer friend this morning. I'm personally on the fence on this issue - I'm very much pro-immigration (my dad was an immigrant, as are both of my wife's parents), but I'm pro-legal-immigrant, and on some level think it's a smack in the face to those who work very hard to get legitimate visas when people just walk over the border.

My friend pointed out that U.S. immigration law - and its history - is basically institutionalized racism. Take a look at the countries in the Visa Waiver Program:

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

Notice a pattern? Basically, if you're white (or Japanese or South Korean), we have no problem with you being in the country. If you're any other ethnicity, fuck you. Canada gets completely visa-free entry, but Mexico gets nothing.

If you look at the history of immigration laws, almost all of them had an explicit racial bias to them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790 ("free white persons of good character")

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924 ("aimed at further restricting immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans, especially Italians and Eastern European Jews, and severely restricted the immigration of Africans and outright banned the immigration of Arabs and Asians")

It did get somewhat better with the acts of 1952 and 1965, which set up the current occupation/skills-based system instead of blanket national bans, but even they had some clauses that are pretty embarrassing in hindsight (eg. the 1952 McCarran act banned anyone suspected of associating with Communist, which among others included Michel Foucault, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, and Pierre Trudeau).

It's very hard to argue for these from a framework of justice and individual liberty, because they all operate under the assumption that incidental characteristics like where someone is born and what color their skin is are more important than motivational characteristics like do they want to be in the U.S, do they agree with American values, and will they be a contributing citizen here. If you believe in judging people based on what they do rather than who they are, it's a pretty tough argument that the illegal Mexican immigrant who works 14 hours a day cleaning toilets so she can give a better life to her children is less deserving of being an American than the guy who runs a website spreading hate.

It's easy to form an argument based on justice and individual liberty. Allow entry to people with low chance of staying illegally. Visa waiver enhances liberty for people that meet that probability in a bureaucratically implementable way.

Also, let's suppose our immigration system limits permanent residence intake to N people per year. Because all people are equal, why is it any better to accept N people from all nations instead of N people from fewer nations? Either way you're still depriving the same number of people the ability to live here. Unless you think people from country X are more worthy than country Y, you should regard substituting a Y person with an X as a morally neutral act. It makes practical sense to invite people we like the most, which for example might mean people that are not interested in enslaving humanity or who associate with that crowd.

because they all operate under the assumption that incidental characteristics like where someone is born and what color their skin is are more important than motivational characteristics like do they want to be in the U.S, do they agree with American values, and will they be a contributing citizen here.

If you had to leave the US forever, which of these places would you most and least want to move to? What would be your ranking of desirability? Canada, Mexico, Australia, Hong Kong, Lagos, Costa Rica, Belize.

For me, I would most want to move to Canada and least Lagos. I'd also prefer Costa Rica over Belize. And Australia over Hong Kong over Belize over Lagos.

What makes Australia and Hong Kong more desirable than Lagos and Belize? What makes Canada more desirable than Mexico? Why do all the liberals who hate Trump threaten to move to Canada and not Mexico? It's not the geography. It's not like Canada has better weather. It's the people. (People will say it is things like the government dysfunction or the culture or the language, but of course, those are just properties of a group of people, not the land).

We're more likely to have liberal immigration policies with regards from countries that we see as desirable places to live. That is because 1) being desirable places, most people in those countries won't want to leave, and thus we won't be overwhelmed by their numbers. 2) since those people have made their country a desirable place, if large numbers of those people move here, it won't decrease our quality of life. I won't fear a decrease in government quality or cultural alienation if a large number of Canadians move to the United States.

In other words, country of origin is heuristic that will correlate with do they agree with American values, and will they be a contributing citizen here. Could we find a better heuristic? Maybe. Do you have any ideas?

> To be left-leaning in the 60s and 70s was to be alternative to the mainstream. Today, to be left leaning is to be mainstream

The left isn't what it used to be: Ronald Reagan would be considered on the left today with his EPA-loving ways.

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