Most people globally aren't used to the American interpretation of free speech or gun rights. I don't want people coming here using their talents to politically remove my rights. I think this is a fair point to make.
I'm far more concerned by the people who are in power today who want to politically remove women's rights. Others are worried about those who are in power who want to remove gun rights.
Immigrants are very, very far down the list of people with power to disrupt our rights.
That should be perfectly acceptable and within the bounds of free speech in a democratic society. It's up to you to counter "bad speech" with other speech in the marketplace of ideas. At least that's what I'm told when I complain about all of the American racists and lunatics whose speech I'm supposed to hold sacred, while they try to undermine my rights and values.
I mean this sincerely, isn't the debate irrelevant? You either support those civil rights or oppose them. I don't want to put words in your mouth but I assume you oppose 1A and 2A. Why not just say it? We wouldn't have to waste time discussing ancillary nonsense.
I never said I supported undermining any particular rights. The phrase "use their capital and ability to politically undermine our civil liberties" implies engagement in the political process, which implies free speech, which (notwithstanding your semantic games) is already established as legitimate.
>I don't want to put words in your mouth
Yes you do, your comment here does so numerous times. So feel free to argue with the strawman, I'm out.
Not for people were considering allowing to join our society
Also free speech is a universal value, is it not? It should apply equally to everyone, everywhere, all the time, and in all contexts.
If so, why is it ok for one group to advocate for a change, but the similar advocacy from another group is not ok?
Just for introspection..
Leftists will scream about civil rights.
Right wingers will tut tut about high taxes.
Centrists will complain about both.
But the message is clear... Less government. More individual autonomy
I wouldn’t call that static.
(Except for that pesky Second Amendment)
I think the only determining factor is if you demonstrate a commitment to American values.
We do not need highly skilled authoritarians. I'd rather get the freedom loving farm worker from Mexico.
I'm a Republican if that matters. I have met enough highly skilled immigrants in silicon valley to know that many hold American values in contempt.
My own family migrated here so this is not xenophobia. Many of my own ethnic background actively misunderstand and misconstrue American values and should never be allowed to work here much less given citizenship.
I have much more in common with the Hispanic farm worker and would prefer to provide a path by which they can come legally through a vetting process which also prevents gang members from flowing in.
Also we obviously need a wall on the southern border. I feel like anyone who's been to the border will come to this conclusion if they're being honest with themselves.
Until the next amendment to it, be that in a couple of years or centuries
Tangentially - I find it fascinating how the originalists on the supreme court get fuzzy on what a "well regulated militia" meant at the time the amendment was written.
Well-regulated meant, at the time, in good working order. The militia meant, and still means, able-bodied men from 18 to 45. The right was granted to the people, not the militia.
Please make snide comments in good faith, at least.
Nobody is "fuzzy" - the left-most SCOTUS Justices don't make this argument, see Caetano v. Massachusetts.
Someone was even arrested for selling stainless steel business cards that had a particular bottle-tab looking design laser etched on it.
They don't define a firearm as something that can shoot bullets, they define it as (usually) the part that receives the ammunition/magazine, the "receiver", which becomes the serial-numbered portion of the gun. For some guns, it's a complicated, vaguely gun shaped object made up of welded and formed parts, for others it's something as simple as a piece of 1-2" steel tube threaded at one or both ends. This legally can be classified as a firearm and if you were to, for instance, mail it to someone across state lines, export it, sell it in some states or take it through airport security you would face jail time.
As an aside, this quirk is occasionally used by photographers and others who want hand inspection and chain of custody for expensive checked luggage, so they'll put an inert receiver in their suitcase and declare it as a firearm to the airline.
This gets further complicated by the other elements of the NFA banning machine guns and regulating short barrels, suppressors, and a couple other items. In this particular case we're talking about a specific, relatively simple aluminum receiver that can be made at home with a cheap mill or 3d printer, as it isn't pressure bearing. The ATF has deemed that this is, itself, a firearm and further, it can be modified into an illegal machine gun by drilling a hole near the top edge. In reality this does nothing, you'd need to go make or buy three-ish other distinct parts to modify a trigger group into one that supports automatic fire, as well as all the rest of the parts that make the bare receiver into a functioning firearm that can actually shoot.
As the laws are extremely complicated and subject to fairly arbitrary reinterpretation periodically, people somewhat routinely get in huge trouble for breaking them (they're enforced extremely aggressively). Some of those people are trying to poke the bear for fun, but some of them just don't realize that screwing an oil filter to the end of their rifle, or tying a shoestring to the trigger (of particular rifles) are all felonies with a 10 year prison sentence.
It's all a bit dystopian. It would be as if there were certain illegal numbers that you weren't allowed to tell your friends about...
If you remove a handful of neighborhoods with particularly bad problems, Americas violent crime rate is on par that of Europe. Given the number of guns in those safe areas, if would seem Americans are made of some good stuff.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-french-academic-payi...
So simply opposing immigration won't accomplish what you want, it will only be used as a weapon against you.
If you really want to keep your values, you need to find ways to attract more people who have the same values.
E.g. Cubans who run away have a good immunity against communism, that's why people who make it so easy to cross the border by foot, made it hard to enter by boats.
It’s a rhetorical question — this happens already and we handle it the way we’d handle your rhetorical question: shake our heads at the misguided worm brains, ignore it or confront them directly. But either way it’s not a threat to American civil liberties, the Bill of Rights is more robust than that.