@manhandler said in Keep that mask on your face you dirty human.:
@bi4smooth Hmm. Well, I will say that, although I normally agree with everything Raph says, I think he's being a little heavy on you, not sure what happened between you guys. I'm am also a centrist, and I did not vote in the last election. Trump let me down. With all this vaccine stuff, and Biden is worse. But even though I do educational videos about Christianity, Christianity is better than the alternative anarchy. Whether we like it or not, Christianity has laid a safety net for our society to prosper, and that's why billions of people wanna be here. And I'm fine if they do. It's not like the first Americans came in legally... But Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. And we are paying taxes for law enforcement to protect us from them. Because they are violent. It's the gray between the lines and the law, but violent people are a problem for others and we don't have anarchy. That's what it comes down to and it can be unfair but we're working on it. This is the country that everyone wants to come to. And it usually doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat. But Democrats are like Golem, and we will not allow it.
@raphjd and I are like adopted sisters - raised in the same Republican Party, but now locked in an argument about what it means to be a "True Republican" 
The thing is, I am a scientist - and I apply the "Scientific Method" to my politics as well... when new information comes in, I'm not afraid to look at old assumptions (even firm beliefs) and question them.
Case in point: I was all-in on the War on Drugs in the 1980s... but it didn't work. You cannot look back at a 50-year-old campaign of trying to stop illegal drug production (while all-but ignoring the mental health crisis that is the demand-side of illegal drug use) - and call it anything BUT and abject, complete, and total failure. We need a new approach.
Another: I was fully in favor of GW Bush's approach to pumping money back into the economy when Lehman Bro's went bankrupt and $Billions literally disappeared out of our economy. Looking back, the idea was good, but the execution (trying to distribute it through private banks) was an awful idea. It made the whole program take FOREVER to show the full results, propped up the very industry that put us INTO the mess to begin with, and we didn't get guarantees from the banks that they'd actually LOAN OUT the money, resulting in most of it being "hoarded" as "paper profits" for corporations who had just taken huge "paper losses". Trump's idea to put the cash directly into people's - working people's - hands was a much better idea... and it quickly showed! (Sadly, the Dems looked at that and said "do it again, daddy" - and the result is going to be an overheated recovery and inflation).
As I've stated here before: I'm not arguing that Mexico isn't a problem... I'm arguing that putting up a wall won't do anything rational or reasonable to help solve the problem. (If a rain storm comes, it makes sense - at first - to close your doors. But not so much if there is no roof on the house to begin with! Most illegal immigration is not people walking across the border. Yes, many do get here that way... but MOST come in legally, then overstay - or come in via ports, airports, and other 'border-ish" locations. Seriously, you think walking thru the dessert is the smart way to sneak into this country? Putting up a wall is akin to plugging a leak in the middle of the dam, while ignoring all the water spilling over the top.)
I'm not a know-it-all... I don't know the best way to handle immigration at the Southern border... but I do know that the left-wing idea of "open borders" is a catastrophically bad idea, and the right-wing idea of closing the borders is equally bad (and would be economically devastating!).
So how do you fix it? You try different things (at the same time), and look at what works... expand those programs that work (even if only a little), and ditch the programs that do not work... Scientific Method!
