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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I am very pro-immigration. I think mass deportations is one of the stupidest ideas imaginable.

However, I have also been schooled on this issue by people who are legal immigrants. And people from states like Arizona.

For you and me, immigration isn’t that big of a deal. For people who came here legally, it really pisses them off to see people in here illegally. I’m not going to try to put myself in their heads. But I do have to respect their position.

Not all of the people who consider immigration a big issue are manipulated rubes.

And on a broader point, the hierarchy of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and those of us who are of the “elite,“ have to stop assuming, without basis, that whoever disagrees with us is deluded or stupid.

We are very often just as stupid and deluded as a lot of these people. When you look around this country and see the most grievous policy errors, it almost always comes from technocrats who think they know what is best for everyone.

Humility would win a lot more elections, and a lot more minds. On the other hand, having a pompous and incompetent educated “expert” class repeatedly tell everybody what to do, and fuck it up, degrades the credibility of expertise, and respect for science, logic, and reason.

The main obstacle to any legislation on immigration, legal and otherwise, are Republicans who want to use it as a political issue. You know this, or knew this and forgot. I understand why some people get upset about illegal immigration. But it is 100% clear that a huge part of the reason that it is a problem is that the Republican Party does not want to solve it, in order to exploit it politically. Someone so attuned as yourself to political hypocrisy and policy fecklessness would ordinarily be bothered by this, but, as we were just discussing, hypocrisy only seems to bother you when it comes from Democrats.