Bay 12 Games Forum

Asylum-seekers are handled differently, these are people trying to improve their own finances by working for less than is legal, off the books.  That almost entirely helps the rich and corporations who hire them, slightly helps themselves, and is done at the expense of actual citizens (including legal immigrants!!)

It's persistently a net economic boon, and their stress on public services are notably less than citizens or documented immigrants, rol. As well as being a boon they're willing to uproot their lives and then risk life and limb for.* By and large it ain't costing us shit except for the abuses coming out the companies exploiting it, and it damn sure ain't our enforcement efforts that are improving the situation on that front. Rather the opposite, 'cause I guaran-damn-tee you those folks like little more than a prospective employee unwilling to go to the cops or lawyer up for a wage dispute.

If our asylum seeker system was itself worth a shit, we'd have solid reason to mention it, but, y'know, like other parts of our immigration system it ain't worth near as much as it damn well should be. Maybe could be without the anti-immigration folks doing everything they can manage to fuck immigration legal and otherwise, but that ain't what we're dealing with right now.

The exploited population ain't who we should be shitting on, here, basically, even if they are fitting into below table economies (not that that shit isn't plenty common elsewhere, yet oddly no one seems to raise a fuss about it). They're neither the primary cause, nor is what they're doing morally questionable (well, unless you're on board with pissing on the however many times great grandparents of what's close enough to the entire country it barely matters, or chunks of our country's citizenship, too), particularly to any extent worth a damn.

Shit on what's making things bad enough they're seeing cause to leave, shit on the businesses giving incentive to come (or hell, figure out a way to make it less attractive for the employers in question, preferably without causing everything else involved to come out worse), shit on the people making it a nightmare to come legally, and so on. Once all that mess is dealt with, folks still trying to dig through holes can be something to fling the next round of shit at.

* This, incidentally, is the heroic bit, to the extent anything is. It's considered that because it's seriously the exact goddamn thing most of our ancestors did, or close enough the only people it matters to are those actively trying to shit on people doing what they think is their damnedest to improve the lives of them and/or their family.

I wonder if the NRA would support arming Hispanics in LA? After all, an armed populace is the only safeguard against government tyranny, or so I've been told.

Eh, if they're anything like their predecessors giving minorities guns might actually be the fastest way to get them to support gun control :V

How is it again that Trump is Teh Hitler for allowing ICE to actually enforce the law? It's not like they're deporting Hispanic citizens, just the people who aren't even supposed to be here in the first place. Just like literally every other country on Earth, including the ones they're being sent back to, will do. The only difference here is in scale.

this is ICE we're talking here, ten bucks they actually are nabbing up and trying and/or managing to kick out hispanic citizens

... also pretty sure a lot of what Teh Hitler did was enforcing the law, too, for what that's worth.

Yeh, true enough. Still, not terribly many ways to get that data without letting loose the hounds, y'know? There's also ways to depress usage besides making something illegal, which... given the state of the US legal system regarding drugs in particular I can't help but think something would have to try real goddamn hard to actually top alcohol with that taken out of the equation, so far as societal level harm goes. Proper regulation and quality control could probably do a hell of a lot to blunt dangers even if freer usage increases them, too.

... really, it's probably annoying the hell out of some researcher or another out there. Stateside's royally fucked up treatment of drug laws and its pisspot penitentiary system has to be throwing all sorts of variables off for some poor bastards. Soft sciences hard like big tom on new intake day ;_;

snip

Nah, re: 3, decriminalize most every recreational drug less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco (or whatever other legal recreational drug you can rustle up, I guess), or criminalize alcohol and tobacco, is a fairly common position, at the absolute least for rhetorical usage.

... mostly 'cause it's blatant hypocrisy to criminalize things less dangerous than something we consider legal, or refuse to make illegal things that are, often enough significantly, more dangerous than things we classify as illegal, unless you're trying to make some kind of argument outside the harm factors involved*. Makes no gorram sense for weed that's bloody close to harmless on an interpersonal level to be illegal and mere possession and use able to net you decades behind bars when you can buy goddamn alcohol that's competitive with non-suicide firearm deaths just on the roads at the corner store.

Anyway, re: 2, counterpoint tobacco, by and large. The anti-lungkiller campaign has been doing a pretty damn good job of breaking tobacco usage's back in the US, and so far as I've noticed criminal production and distribution, especially organized, hasn't seen much of an expansion. Prohibition was a really, really shitty attempt at curtailing something's usage, heh. Though from what I've half-heartedly noticed recently-ish, it still apparently managed to crack the stateside drinking culture pretty hard... which was pretty damn needed at the time.

It's still decent reason to be leery about making use of a particular substance illegal, though. Just also happens to be one of the stronger supporting points for legalization, too -- legal domestic weed farming would tear giant chunks out of a whole mess of criminal organizations, as the perennial example.

So far as 1 goes... if not being as harmful as something legal isn't sufficient reason to let something be legal, what is? It's not like something being illegal means it should be illegal, unfortunately. No small amount of things that can put you in a jail cell for incredibly stupid, poorly thought out, often enough incredibly unjust, reasons.

Something being less harmful than a legal substance might not be a necessary or sufficient reason on its own to make the substance legal, but it's really quite a strong supporting point. "This stuff does less damage to our society than stuff we say is okay" is a pretty solid reason not to throw people in jail over it, basically. Particularly if the jail time is going to cause more damage than the substance use itself, which is really, really likely.

* _{uh, which you can, but those arguments tend to rapidly turn racist as all fuck or still fall in the favor of legalization... which should surprise no one paying attention considering shitting on blacks and/or poor people is exactly what got the US much of its current drug law}

It was 300/month on the EBT card, yes. Never got around to looking up details, though, so don't ask me the hows or whys, all I know is that was the amount and I kept having to holler at family that no, I wasn't going to max it out every month by buying significantly more than I could actually eat. Quick check of time stamps on old homework places the time around the 2012-2013 range. At the time I was flat unemployed, point of applying not even attending school (going back actually caused me to lose the aid after a bit, heh).

Also yeah, never mind double the food budget, it was better than triple what I had been living off of, and even with significantly improving my diet I still had a good chunk of it left. Possible the best I've ate for a period of time in my life, ha, and that without actually using much of it.

Though I... guess it might not have been SNAP? In retrospect, I wasn't paying attention to the name beyond thinking of it as food stamps. Any case, for whatever reason they were giving a single unemployed person three hundred a month for food. Had assumed that was low end, 'cause gods know single/no income basically means you're fucked in florida so far as assistance goes, but if what y'all are looking at is the normal, apparently something odd was going on. Huh.

Throne of Magical Arcana, what are you doing. You've named one of your major countries Shaq, and now I'm having flashbacks to the 90s and getting a vaguely terrifying image of a nation existing on the top of a hundreds/thousands of feet tall bald black man. Also pointedly not imagining other options.

Why, random book, why must you name your geographical regions the same as old basketball players ;_;

E: "The boldness of the Kingdom of Shaq." Shaq's shack is known for its boldness.

But I suppose I can't complain about people making bad decisions, because the government also gives people cell phones and whatnot, too, which is hardly the most effective way to spend money to improve things.

hey, missed this

It apparently needs to be stated, but a cell phone is literally one of the most cost effective things you can give a low income person in this country. It's just about one of the best damn ideas you can have in a modern economy to try to help someone support themselves. It's next to impossible to get a job without a means to call or be called by employers. Giving someone the means to find aid services (from financial assistance to, y'know, ambulances), job search, keep directions on tap, and so on (e.g. a net capable phone) is one of the biggest aids you can possibly give them, and while things like libraries and job centers exist, they also have hours and limited seating.

You're talking a sub 200 dollar investment* that is at least as valuable as friggin' transit, very much possibly significantly moreso depending on the area. Cell phones being a waste is frankly right-wing propaganda freakishly disconnected from the realities of a modern economy. The things are the exact opposite of a waste, and to a huge degree.

* Incidentally, SNAP lower/lowest allowance for a single person was 300/month a few years back, here in florida. So you're talking less than a month's worth of food for what will last months and quite possibly be the only way the person can find and keep a job, or get an education, or make sure their kid doesn't die to a medical emergency, or on, and on, and on.