Hacker News Reader

Comment by lazyeye | Hacker News Reader

Why didn't the Republicans do the same? You're asking why the Republicans aren't corrupt like the Dems? I don't know, you'll have to ask the Dems. We just have to deal with the consequences.

And in terms of your "criticism" of their competence, it was just a vague smear with nothing of substance behind it. Not worth acknowledging really, particularly if your benchmark is the Biden/Harris admin where we had an autopen president in the early stages of dementia and a vice-president (the border czar!) so incompetent she was too scared to go on podcasts.

Strange how the Dems always seem to find "justifications" to reduce election integrity whether it's through illegal immigration or lax election laws (promoting election fraud, ballot harvesting etc), whilst lecturing everybody about the need to "protect democracy".

View on HN

It's not "corrupt" to serve the people. We have people living in this country for multiple decades for whom there are obstacles to citizenship. You've noted yourself it's good strategy (from numbers alone) to both help them live here and make them citizens.

... why didn't the Republicans do so? That doesn't sound like corruption, that sounds like good statesmanship.

And those "lax" election laws have worked for decades upon decades; the burden of proof is upon critics to show non-citizens are voting and the numbers just aren't there. Would you like some more lawsuits to prove that fact out, or are the ones the current President already filed (and then went on to win this ostensibly corrupt electoral system anyway) enough? Not interested in debating that topic since it's dead and buried in the ground.

Besides, the premise is flawed. it's not "reduction of election integrity" to make the government representative of the people who live here.

I just feel stupid having to argue the simple commonsense that it is the citizens only that should be allowed to vote, particularly after the influx of 10 million+ (likely much more) illegals in the last 4 years of the Biden admin.

You appear to have bookmarked my comments page, which you perhaps check regularly? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Could you do me a big favour? Could you delete my bookmark and not reply to my comments any more. I would really appreciate this.

Neither of us are saying non-citizens should be allowed to vote. My concern is the likelihood that requiring additional documentation not previously required deprives citizens the right to vote. Because it does (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-would-... , https://19thnews.org/2025/03/save-act-voting-married-women/).

... We do seem to disagree on whether the right approach to non-citizens living among us for decades is to try to suddenly send them away or to figure out why they're still non-citizens and maybe fix that though.

"Give me your tired, your poor," etc.

(It's not so much a bookmark as I keep checking replies to my comments and see you reply to them, then I chase that thread to see if you're carrying the same ideas elsewhere. Perhaps both of us could stand to keep the topics we discuss in this forum more on the topics of technology, business, and hacking.)

Please don't quote a couple of left-wing advocacy sites as if that's credible evidence. And yes you are arguing that non-citizens should be able to vote by consistently attacking any kind of approach that would manage the issue. None of the things I've argued are extreme or radical, simple common-sense in most countries I think. Anyway it would be great if you could stop replying as we are just re-hashing the same arguments repeatedly.

And you are arguing that citizens should be deprived the right to vote. Wouldn't common sense suggest that the current requirements are working, especially given that the guy who ostensibly got the election "stolen" from him got elected again? Where is the threat that demands tightening the requirements?

You are, of course, also welcome to leave the conversation if you feel it unproductive. It's neat how we are free to choose.

"Where is the threat that demands tightening the requirements?.." I've previously given you the answer to this question at least 5 times, if not more. I'II leave it there.

Not really. You keep asserting letting immigrants be citizens is some plot by Democrats to win elections demograpgically. The entire intellectual exercise is predicated on that being somehow wrong (as opposed to the rectification of dealing with the untenable tension that millions of people have lived here for decades without a path to becoming fellow citizens... A path that can be offered by an expedient as simple as fixing the law, not pouring more resources into failing to enforce a bad one).

You started this subthread with the musing "It[']s so strange how illegal immigration has been completely normalised in the minds of some people." It's normalized for the same reason school shootings (I don't like it, but ask any member of Gen Z: school shooting drills are as normal as your drills now) and Sunday football are normalized: when something goes on for decades, it's normal. We live in a country where the President's wife broke immigration law (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/melania-trump-modeled-...); are we expected to take him seriously when he leads a crusade against illegal immigration?

The GOP is looking at an ocean, seeing the law declares it's illegal for the ocean to be there, and trying to boil it (instead of doing the smart thing, adjusting to the reality, and building a bridge).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com