To answer both Marcus and Markk:
Marcus wrote:This the 'the fentanyl crisis thread', right?
If you we referring to the thread I quoted Markk from, then no. Markk also wanted me to tell him the context of his own comment, and so I'll answer both. This was Jersey Girl's
Mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=159333&hilit=fentanyl
He ties the connection of his comments in that thread securely to illegal immigration by stating "in context with the OP." Yes, Markk is right that it was Nov 18th, not Dec. 14th, and I was wrong about that. Markk is now trying to claim there was all kinds of other stuff he was thinking about in that post, but what we're primarily interested in, is the continuation of the topic of mass deportations, that Jersey Girl started, and that Markk linked Fentanyl to in a very clear way. Markk fantasizes that none of us are concerned about fentanyl and only he is taking it seriously. This is not true, the main problem I have, at least, is that he dishonestly represented Trump's plan as one that would go after criminals first. Since this post, after clearly misrepresenting Trump's plan, he says that Trump is doing exactly what he said he would do.
Was this dishonesty on the part of Markk?
Yes. a whole lot of dishonesty. Had Markk looked around and found the data on Clinton in November, it's possible that he would have owned Trump's plans for work site raids and not tried to tie mass deporations to Fentanyl. He very likely knew that Trump planned the most draconian of measures -- they are draconian independent of whether Clinton also tried them -- and knew that it was a major point of his cheering peers to make them as draconian as possible, but instead misrepresented the plan as something that liberals would have some sympathy for. Surely liberals wouldn't be against ejecting Fentanyl dealers, would they? No, not in principal, as with all things there is theory and reality, and that would require a topic of its own, such as this one. That could be discussed here. The problem is, Markk started this thread as a red herring, as a way to escape his ties of Fentanyl to the necessity of mass deportation. That's what he's been doing since he brought it up the first time.
Now that he's discovered Clinton, he has a new excuse. Instead of, "Mass deportation cuz' fentanyl", it's "Mass deportation because Clinton did it too!"
this is the mark of a broken moral compass. Apologetics that shift to whatever they need to be to support Trump, his dictator.
Lets talk about Clinton for just one second. How well did the 90s reforms and Clinton's raids "fix the problem"? Apparently, it didn't fix the problem because here we are. If there was a president who was a hero of immigration, it was the unlikely painter, George W. Bush. If Markk is right, that "Clinton did it too!" then the entire Trump plan is to repeat history with something that won't work. George W. at least tried to make legal immigration more viable, something his fellow republicans have consistently refused to do and Democrats haven't succeeded in doing. George W. realized the problem wasn't getting fixed by draconian measures. Look, history is replete with bad things the US has done. Maybe Markk will suggest next that Trump should test nuclear bombs on islands of indigenous people because we've done it before. Or maybe we should claim somebody has weapons of mass destruction who doesn't and go wipe them out. In Trump world, the draconian measures aren't just the means, it's the rally cry, and that is surely going to lead to worse abuses. I see two possible outcomes here:
1) Republican messaging and support for openly being as cruel as possible will lead to historic human rights abuses.
2) The messaging will work as a scare tactic, and illegals will voluntarily leave in masses, which will still involve abuses but not as bad as mass detentions. If Clinton is the measure, a lot depends on what they are exiting voluntarily to face on the outside world. In this case, the best possible outcome is doing something we know doesn't work just to be cruel and the long-term problem remains as "bad" as ever.
Social distancing has likely already begun to flatten the curve...Continue to research good antivirals and vaccine candidates. Make everyone wear masks. -- J.D. Vance