Carnegie Mellon student with one semester left learns his visa was revoked
cbsnews.com
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That sentiment sounds nice, but it's kinda messed up: it implies non-citizens should have more rights and privileges than citizens (i.e. be insulated from the consequences of elections). It's like, if someone loans you their car, insisting they shouldn't be able to ask for it back because you didn't have say in the decision.
Ultimately, if you're actually for democracy, you have to be fine with policy changing in whatever way the electorate decides it should change.
Why did you go from “fewer rights” to “more rights”, skipping right over “the same rights and privileges, at least around things like not being kicked out unexpectedly”.
It's equivalently messed up to do something like say "You can borrow my car on Thursday to drive to the doctor" and then wait for the person to show up on Thursday only to say "Nope - changed my mind".
Basically - cooperation requires honor. It requires that parties value that the things they say they will do are the things they actually do.
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My biggest problem with the current administration is that - regardless of what you might like or dislike about their policies - I think it's impossible to argue that they are honorable.
They explicitly do not value what they say. They are dishonorable - in the rawest, most traditional meaning of that statement.
That behavior inevitably leads to strong social backlash from the other parties involved. Some psychology studies strongly hint that this is literally built into us: We value punishing bad behavior even if it means loss more than we value accepting it at a gain.
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” —- attributed to Ben Franklin
(The US is a federal republic, not a democracy)
That's a tricky line, because it's on the path to: "You have the 'freedom' to vote for whoever you like, just as long as they're a Communist who will loyally implement Communist policies."
Personally, I don't think many people in the US are actually committed democrats. They're mostly partisans committed to their party/ideology, and there's a lot of maneuvering to confuse people that their party's policy is set in stone ("constitutional/constitutionally required") and entrench it against democratic action.
Well, yes. Ideological stability is arguably a desirable property (even if you disagree with specific aspects of it) but regardless of that it is a stable attractor. Practically speaking, if your system permits people to run on a platform of dismantling the system, it will soon be replaced by one that doesn't permit that. You would do well to accept that, and choose carefully the immutable terms on which you would like to base your government.
Isn’t the communism boogeyman tired at this point? Perhaps we have a disconnect if I’m arguing human rights and you’re arguing economic systems as what the fight is over politically.
Yeah, but what are they? The devil is in the details.
> Isn’t the communism boogeyman tired at this point?
It's not a boogeyman, it's a clear and obvious example of "democracy" without actual choice, the apotheosis of "what electorate wants and the votes communicate are no longer relevant."
Immigration policy was the single largest policy issue of the Trump campaign. No, you can't play this game. No one is surprised that this is the policy. Everyone heard what he said about immigrants.
What I think you're trying to say is that some people fooled themselves that this was all a bit[1], and that he wouldn't actually do the things he was very clearly and very loudly saying he would do.
But he would, and he did, and now he has. And that's on you, not some fiction you told yourself about the candidate.
[1] Not the only such area. See the embarassing mess in Bill Ackman's twitter output over the past week.
What's next? Mass deportation of tourists?
The US has two classes of visas: immigrant and nonimmigrant visas. Student visas are the latter along with things like tourist visas. People here simply to go to school on student visas are not immigrants.
Maybe if your politics are far left, but nationwide polling showed that he was consistently trailing Clinton. Even diehard Bernie supporters would admit he was left of Clinton, and considering that there are Republican candidates as well, it's laughable to claim he was a "compromise" candidate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for...
So you take national poll numbers, apply a handwavy fudge factor for "mainstream news channels favored Clinton and denigrated Sanders", and conclude that Sanders is the "compromise candidate"? Doesn't seem very rigorous. It also doesn't address the fact that Sanders was the left-most candidate, and there are republicans to the right of him and Clinton. On a spectrum of Sanders, Clinton, and whatever other Republicans there are, there's no plausible case to be made that Sanders is somehow the "compromise" (median?) candidate. Finally, the" mainstream news" denigrated Trump as well, arguably more. Does that make him the "compromise candidate" even more?
The studies I saw focused on the negative sentiments toward Clinton:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/why-does-sand...
and section 3 of https://sbp-brims.org/2016/proceedings/PO_139.pdf
Would you like to revise your comments now that you understand your assumptions are misplaced? I suggest you do a lot more reading into the sentiments depicted by mainstream news sources on each candidate before replying.
But I'd hope the university would figure out a way to be flexible on this topic. The students (and alumni) are watching; it's a good opportunity for the uni leadership to step up and get creative with a novel challenge.
Nothing odd here. It seems to be the new normal:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/11/australian-w...