You didn't respond to most of what you quoted from me. I don't understand why you bothered.
K.Rose in Message 746 writes:
The number you're citing, let's call it [3.8-5] million since 2021, is the total number who entered illegally, most of whom were apprehended.
Incorrect on the 3.8-5 million. The 3.8-5 million is the number that have either been released into the USA’s interior or have successfully evaded the Border Patrol.
I think I've shown you enough citations and charts to indicate that the information I provided is reliable. Where are your numbers coming from? I think it likely you're still misinterpreting "apprehended after a border crossing" as if it were instead "successfully evaded apprehension after a border crossing." I think that if you try to find data supporting your numbers that you'll come to realize your mistake.
This is why the border states were are overwhelmed,...
The border states
*are* overwhelmed, just not by the numbers you're citing. It's hundreds of thousands successfully evading apprehension or successfully applying for asylum and being released into the country pending a hearing that is often years off. It isn't millions.
I'm not trying to minimize the problem. Hundreds of thousands is still a very serious problem. I'm just trying to be accurate about it.
...and this is why they sent the migrants to sanctuary cities where they would be welcomed (sanctuary, after all). But this exposed the abject hypocrisy of the sanctimonious sanctuary cities, who are now crying foul.
If I say yet again that the border states should not be left to bear the burden alone of the influx of hugely increased numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, will you stop replying as if I'd never said this? I believe it's the responsibility of the federal government to arbitrate a burden sharing agreement amongst the states. Congress could pass laws, or the president could issue executive orders. Longer term, commissions to study solutions could begin work, etc.
The states could also try working it out amongst themselves. Before Florida sends a plane full of immigrants to Martha's Vineyard they could try calling authorities in Martha's Vineyard and negotiate arrangements. Likely Martha's Vineyard (town next to the airport is Edgartown, population 4000) would suggest the Boston metropolitan area (population over 4 million), Worcester (about a million) or Providence (1.5 million) as better potential destinations and propose they contact the authorities there. Just plopping immigrants down on a tiny coastal island is grandstanding. Why not Hilton Head? Because they're Republican, of course.
Not sure what your overall point is regarding the current border situation as it relates to the 2024 election.
Someone else raised the border issue. I'm just correcting misinformation.
Also, it seems that you understand that there’s a border/migrant problem, but the existence of an idea of a potential solution renders that problem solved, and is therefore nothing that people should be worked up about.
I guess if I did have a point it would be that getting worked up over false or inaccurate information is a waste of time and can even land you in jail, as a number of people found out after January 6th.
Either way the country is understanding, more and more every day, that there is a big problem and it’s going to be a big factor in the election, and charts and number games aren’t going to win the day.
You don't like charts and numbers? Are you sure? You sure seem to like numbers when you claim that between 3.8 and 5 million migrants accomplished permanent entry into the country since 2021. You just don't like numbers when they're on a chart showing that your claim is wrong.
People want to know who’s going to do what.
The first question you want an accurate answer to is, "How many migrants we talking about here?"
Note that I'm not saying this isn't a serious problem. I'm saying your numbers are wrong.
You replied four times to my
Message 682, but I'm going to reply to all of them in this message.
From
Message 747:
K.Rose in Message 747 writes:
Where do you see a "from each according to his abilities" in social programs?
Wherewithal is forcibly taken from the wealthy (who have the ability to amass wherewithal) in the form of taxes, and that wherewithal is distributed to those in need.
As I said recently, people who would prefer their tax money not be spent on certain programs are not being forced to pay for it. If that were true then practically all taxes are coercive of someone.
But the social safety net *is* intended to provide assistance to people in need. It has nothing to do with socialism or communism or state ownership of the economy.
The social safety net is based on communist principles.
Then churches and charities are based on communist principles?
When charities and churches help people it isn't socialism,
Of course not, because the wherewithal distributed by the church has been provided willfully and charitably to the church. This is morals-based capitalism in action.
You're making it up as you go along.
...and when governments help people it isn't socialism, either.
It most certainly is! Quite obviously, the wherewithal that the government is distributing to those in “need” has been forcibly confiscated from those the government defines as having the “ability” to provide.
Taxes are not forcible confiscations.
Your
Message 748 is about racism. I think you said everything we to need to know about your attitudes about other races, so I'll move on.
Your
Message 749 is about voter fraud:
K.Rose in Message 749 writes:
You outline a number of fraud cases in #658, and you can add to that a Heritage Foundation sampling of voter fraud that found 1500 proven instances of voter fraud with 1276 convictions.
Instead of saying "#658" you can say "[msg=658]", which gets you
Message 658. Hover over it, then click on it. Amazing, huh!
In
Message 658 I did say that the Heritage Foundation was an outlier, but at 1500 cases and 155 million votes cast, that's a fraud rate of 0.001%. How serious a problem is 1 out of every 100,000 votes being fraudulent?
Even if we assume the problem is ten times worse than that, that 1 out of every 10,000 votes were fraudulent, how serious a problem is that? How much effort are you willing to put into solving a problem that occurs so infrequently? Aren't our efforts better spent elsewhere, like on increasing the percentage of people who vote?
And no case of systemic fraud has come to light. Almost all cases are one-of, like a family member voting for another family member, perhaps deceased, or a felon voting.
Actually, there was one systemic case. A congressional election in North Carolina had to be rerun in 2019 after it was discovered that in the 2018 election political operatives working for the 9th district Republican candidate had tampered with mail-in absentee ballots. Operative Leslie Dowless and his assistants gathered up absentee ballots from voters by offering to put them in the mail, after which they filled them out or altered them, adding false signatures if necessary. Dowless had served time in prison for fraud back in the 1990's, but the Republican candidate hired him anyway because of his success with get-out-the-vote efforts. Dowless was sentenced to six more months in prison but died (lung cancer) before he could serve his sentence.
We've mentioned audits before, and it was the statistical audits that brought the fraud to light. The number of absentee ballots cast for the Republican candidate were well outside the range of statistical possibility, and the North Carolina State Board of Elections refused to certify the results and later held an evidentiary hearing where details of the fraud came out.
To repeat myself, people from all parties and all backgrounds have been screaming about voter fraud and election integrity for years...
Yes, you're repeating this already rebutted and untrue statement. Hysteria about voter fraud is being driven by the Republican party. Your own numbers say how infrequent a problem it actually is.
And once again, charts and number games aren’t going to win the day.
Why are you denigrating numbers? You're using numbers yourself. Whether its the border or elections or whatever, how are you going to tell if you have a problem without numbers?
Let's use Phat's grocery store shrinkage problem as an example. If shrinkage is .1% then management will find that acceptable. But if shrinkage is 10% then management will view it as an extremely serious problem because grocery stores operate at about a 1% profit margin. Numbers matter. It's really weird that you're arguing they don't.
People will doubt the integrity of the system until we reach concurrence on system integrity controls.
People will doubt anything that people they trust (but shouldn't) cast aspersions at, and that includes the integrity of our elections. If you believed in numbers and charts and statistics you'd understand the 2020 election was not stolen.
--Percy
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