Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[blackshoe]

You already have a government granted id number. Why do you need a name too? Get rid of names! :P

[blackshoe]

Jesse Ventura may know how to slam an opponent to the mat, Donald Trump may know how to get rich through creative bankruptcy, and Ben Carson is a fine neurosurgeon. They should all continue doing what they do best.

Do we really want to be governed by professional politicians? Or professional bureaucrats?

[kenberg]

Do we really want to be governed by professional politicians? Or professional bureaucrats?

 

It perhaps will not surprise you that my response is sort of mixed. Saying that Reagan "was an actor who became president" skips over a fairly active political life in between. There was reason enough to believe that if you agreed with is views, it would be reasonable to vote for him. Trump, and before him Ross Perot, present different problems. They have total contempt for professional politicians. I don't share this general contempt, although some individuals certainly earn it.

 

Analogies are always risky but: At various times I have thought a doctor treating me for this or that is not as good as I would like him/her to be. I switch to a different doctor, I do not go to a faith healer who thinks the entire medical profession is composed of quacks.

 

The Trump/Perot mantra runs along the lines of "We business people know what works, just apply the same approach to running the country". Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

 

Probably no one has been really prepared for the challenges of being president. Previous experiences can help, and they also can, for better or worse, develop a point of view. Dwight Eisenhower came to the presidency without previously (as far as I know) holding elective office. He had vast experience both in planning large scale operations and in being in charge of carrying them out. No doubt his life in the military also gave him a certain way of thinking through issues, and this can be an asset or a liability. Being president is not like being a general, not like being a CEO, not like solving a math problem, it is unique.

 

In short: There is no certain way to predict who will be successful as a president, but the arrogance of Mr. Trump is very troublesome.

[cherdano]

Do we really want to be governed by professional politicians?

 

I do. Take Larry Lessig as an example. I completely agree with his goals. But based on how is running his campaign, he would be a disaster as president.

 

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/26/9210417/lawrence-lessig-president

[PassedOut]

Interesting story about assistance from Mexico 10 years ago: When Mexicans crossed our border to feed Americans in need

 

I was serving as the No. 2 at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City in August 2005 when Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. The storm’s track posed no danger to Mexico, and we followed events like most expatriate Americans — aghast, but at a distance.

 

But not Mexicans. They were watching the same scenes of floating corpses and botched relief efforts in New Orleans. My chief contact at Mexico’s Foreign Ministry called to say the Mexican army had two field kitchens that could feed storm victims who had made their way to Texas, he said, and the navy had two ships that could help with cleanup efforts in New Orleans.

 

I told my contact the offer was very generous, noted that many countries had offered assistance, and added that the State Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency would decide which offers to accept. He said it was too late for that. The convoy had already left Mexico City on its way to the border, and the ships were ready to steam from Veracruz.

The Mexicans that I know (both legal and illegal) behave like those in this story. It's impossible for me to take a hard line against folks I know and respect, and I dearly wish that I could declare an amnesty myself.

 

In a way, the illegal immigration situation here reminds me of how it was necessary for gays to come out before their situation could improve. Most people don't like dumping on folks they know. But it's very difficult for illegals to come out openly because the consequences of doing so can seriously hurt family and friends too.

[mike777]

Regarding illegal immigrants, I think the big issue is the jumping of the queue.

Now if you are for open borders, fair enough then we do not need a queue.

 

I happen to be in favor of borders and a queue. I just wish to move it along faster.

 

 

As far as "dumping" on those who jump the queue, sure dump on them, otherwise just have an open border and no queue.

[PassedOut]

For many years, Mexican illegals were recruited vigorously by US employers. The employers enjoyed the competitive advantage of paying low wages to workers in no position to complain (or to attract the attention of the police), and the workers earned a lot more money than they could in Mexico, sending much of it back home to assist their extended families. For both sides, it was a classic win-win.

 

A similar situation occurred in the mid-1800s with the Chinese, and the Post has an interesting story today about the Supreme Court case that clarified the 14th amendment's "birthright citizen" provision: Donald Trump meet Wong Kim Ark, the Chinese American cook who is the father of ‘birthright citizenship’

 

It was the fall of 1895, and Wong Kim Ark was puzzled and alarmed as he bided his time on the steamship Coptic in San Francisco Bay which had returned him from a visit to China. His papers were in order. He had seen to that. The required statement, certification from white men that he was born in the U.S. and therefore a citizen, were in order. He had traveled to China for a visit and had little trouble being readmitted.

 

On this occasion, however, authorities denied him entry, returning him to the ship on which he had arrived, and from there to another ship, the Gaelic, and then to the Peking. For four months, the only certainty to Wong’s life was the tides on San Francisco Bay where he awaited word of his fate.

 

What he could not have known was that he was about to become a “test case” brought by the United States government, egged on by a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment, in an effort to undermine the 14th Amendment “birthright” provision which made Wong a citizen in the first place as the plain and simple language of the amendment said that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

 

For the Chinese in America, this was the “exclusion era,” a radical shift for the U.S., which for the most part, since its creation as a republic, had encouraged people to come to its shores. In the beginning, as America built its railroads, mined its gold and farmed the valleys of Northern California, the Chinese were welcomed as well in America. They streamed in by the thousands.

 

But as the Depression of 1873 took its toll on white working men, they began to look for scapegoats. Mob violence, arson, and overt racist derision swept through California, powered by slogan “the Chinese must go.” Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, designed to put an end to the flow of Chinese into the U.S. But that was not enough for the building anti-Chinese wave.

 

Thousands of children had been born to Chinese in the U.S. and birthright citizenship was the next target, just as it is today for many Republicans, notably Donald Trump, in their campaign aimed at the children they call “anchor babies,” whose parents enter the U.S. illegally just to make sure their children enjoy the benefits of citizenship. The U.S. is “the only place just about that’s stupid enough” to to do that, he has said, thus providing an incentive for illegal entry. Bills to do just what Trump is advocating have been around for years and have gone nowhere, and many, but not all, scholars believe such a change would need to confront the almost insurmountable task of amending the Constitution.

 

Young men like Wong were not called “anchor babies” by critics then, but rather “accidental citizens,” said University of New Hampshire legal historian Lucy Salyer, “citizens by the accident of birth” as the dissenting justices in Wong Kim Ark’s Supreme Court case would put it.

 

What he did not know was that “they were looking for some poor chump,” Salyer told the Washington Post, to make an example of, at the nation’s highest court. And that “chump” was Wong Kim Ark. So there it was, the intimidating-sounding case of The United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, a cook.

 

Yet he won.

It's interesting to note how current the dissent reads:

 

The dissent, written by Justice Melville Fuller and joined by John M. Harlan, challenged the premise that children like Wong Kim Ark were in fact, “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at all. “They seem in the United States to have remained pilgrims and sojourners, as all their fathers were,” he wrote.

 

“‘The true bond which connects the child with the body politic is not the matter of an inanimate piece of land,’ they wrote, ‘but the moral relations of his parentage. . . . The place of birth produces no change in the rule that children follow the condition of their fathers, for it is not naturally the place of birth that gives rights, but extraction … To what nation a person belongs is by the laws of all nations closely dependent on descent; it is almost an universal rule that the citizenship of the parents determines it — that of the father where children are lawful, and, where they are bastards, that of their mother, without regard to the place of their birth, and that must necessarily be recognized as the correct canon, since nationality is, in its essence, dependent on descent.”

 

While this feudal principle was common in other countries, the dissenting argument was an extraordinary claim for the nation of immigrants, that the citizenship of the child followed “descent,” a concept known as “jus sanguinis,” or right of blood, rather than the soil on which the child was born, a principle known as “jus soli,” or “right of the soil. And it never saw the light of day again at the Supreme Court.

So far, anyway.

[barmar]

It does seem like the 14th Amendment is overly simplistic. If a foreign family comes here for a 2-week vacation, and the mother gives birth to a child, should that child really be afforded citizenship? It seems like the condition of the parents being in the US when the child is born -- the reason they're here and the length of time -- should play some part.

 

But as it's written, that isn't really permitted. I believe "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", probably only excludes children of people with diplomatic immunity.

[PassedOut]

It does seem like the 14th Amendment is overly simplistic. If a foreign family comes here for a 2-week vacation, and the mother gives birth to a child, should that child really be afforded citizenship? It seems like the condition of the parents being in the US when the child is born -- the reason they're here and the length of time -- should play some part.

 

But as it's written, that isn't really permitted. I believe "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", probably only excludes children of people with diplomatic immunity.

I have a niece with dual citizenship, US and Japanese. From the Japanese viewpoint, she was supposed to choose one or the other at age 22, but few bother to do that. (Don't ask, don't tell.) But even if she simply gives up her US passport to placate the Japanese, she remains a US citizen. I don't want that to change for future generations.

 

Her husband is a Korean national who lives in New York City, but our niece spends a good part of each year in Italy. She is a scholar of Italian literature. (Her parents love Italy, and she traveled there growing up.)

[kenberg]

For many years, Mexican illegals were recruited vigorously by US employers. The employers enjoyed the competitive advantage of paying low wages to workers in no position to complain (or to attract the attention of the police), and the workers earned a lot more money than they could in Mexico, sending much of it back home to assist their extended families. For both sides, it was a classic win-win.

 

A similar situation occurred in the mid-1800s with the Chinese, and the Post has an interesting story today about the Supreme Court case that clarified the 14th amendment's "birthright citizen" provision: Donald Trump meet Wong Kim Ark, the Chinese American cook who is the father of ‘birthright citizenship’

 

 

It's interesting to note how current the dissent reads:

 

 

So far, anyway.

 

For me, the answer to the of Wong Kim Ark would be: The law when you were born said that your birth in the USA made you a US citizen. So you are a US citizen.

 

 

Nothing in this says that the wisdom of the law cannot be debated. But if the law made him a citizen, he is a citizen. As the excerpt from the article says, he had his papers, they were proper. To me, this means that even if the law were now to be construed, or misconstrued, to say such births in the future were not to confer citizenship, for Wong Kim Ark it was a settled matter.

 

The language of the amendment seems pretty clear. Maybe not wise, but clear.

 

 

Of course the law also says that crossing the border without proper procedures is illegal. That's also clear.

[PassedOut]

Of course the law also says that crossing the border without proper procedures is illegal. That's also clear.

Yes it is, and there was no such law when Wong Kim Ark's parents arrived, so the situations are similar but not identical.

 

The US has many laws that are very clear, but are not enforced. Some are eventually forgotten with disuse, but every so often one reads an amusing article listing anachronistic laws still on the books.

 

Other laws are crystal clear, like the speed limits on highways, but most drivers exceed those limits by an amount that the traffic police generally ignore. The drivers who go nuts with speed do get pulled over and fined. Those causing an accident while drunk can land in jail. But mostly, minor speeding infractions aren't serious enough to warrant action, although once in awhile a random driver does get pulled over and fined anyway.

 

And, of course, one sometimes sees drivers in the fast lane strictly obeying the speed limit. Since that is as fast as people are supposed to drive, why should they not? :rolleyes: No doubt the idea of illegals in the US drives those anal folks crazy.

 

In areas where US employers have heavily recruited illegal Mexican laborers, the authorities have mostly turned a blind eye to the infractions, understanding the importance of the workers to the local economy and the impracticality of mass deportations. Against the illegality (and that is clear), they balance the fact that the workers and their families cause fewer problems than native-born citizens and contribute mightily to the community.

 

I don't think that the illegality should be swept under the rug, but generally speaking that particular illegality is on a par with traffic violations. A reasonable and practical approach would be to locate illegal workers, make them and their employers pay small fines, provide the workers and any illegal family members with permanent residency permits (not automatic citizenship) and require that their employers treat them as any other employee.

 

In the rare situation where an immigrant commits a serious offense, that would not apply of course, just as serious traffic offenses demand severe responses. In the case of a serious offence by an immigrant, that would include revoking (or not issuing) a residency permit.

[mike777]

It does seem like the 14th Amendment is overly simplistic. If a foreign family comes here for a 2-week vacation, and the mother gives birth to a child, should that child really be afforded citizenship? It seems like the condition of the parents being in the US when the child is born -- the reason they're here and the length of time -- should play some part.

 

But as it's written, that isn't really permitted. I believe "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", probably only excludes children of people with diplomatic immunity.

 

 

To answer your question, yes the child is a citizen and should be a citizen. This is a good thing.

For some reason people think this is a bad idea. For some reason Trump and others think we now pay for this child the next 80 years. They view human capital as something worth zero. For some reason they think of this child being a leach the next 80 years rather than having potential to help make the USA great and exceptional

[mike777]

Yes it is, and there was no such law when Wong Kim Ark's parents arrived, so the situations are similar but not identical.

 

The US has many laws that are very clear, but are not enforced. Some are eventually forgotten with disuse, but every so often one reads an amusing article listing anachronistic laws still on the books.

 

Other laws are crystal clear, like the speed limits on highways, but most drivers exceed those limits by an amount that the traffic police generally ignore. The drivers who go nuts with speed do get pulled over and fined. Those causing an accident while drunk can land in jail. But mostly, minor speeding infractions aren't serious enough to warrant action, although once in awhile a random driver does get pulled over and fined anyway.

 

And, of course, one sometimes sees drivers in the fast lane strictly obeying the speed limit. Since that is as fast as people are supposed to drive, why should they not? :rolleyes: No doubt the idea of illegals in the US drives those anal folks crazy.

 

In areas where US employers have heavily recruited illegal Mexican laborers, the authorities have mostly turned a blind eye to the infractions, understanding the importance of the workers to the local economy and the impracticality of mass deportations. Against the illegality (and that is clear), they balance the fact that the workers and their families cause fewer problems than native-born citizens and contribute mightily to the community.

 

I don't think that the illegality should be swept under the rug, but generally speaking that particular illegality is on a par with traffic violations. A reasonable and practical approach would be to locate illegal workers, make them and their employers pay small fines, provide the workers and any illegal family members with permanent residency permits (not automatic citizenship) and require that their employers treat them as any other employee.

 

In the rare situation where an immigrant commits a serious offense, that would not apply of course, just as serious traffic offenses demand severe responses. In the case of a serious offence by an immigrant, that would include revoking (or not issuing) a residency permit.

 

 

This basically USE TO BE a non problem....they spent money here, they paid taxes and they did not get any social services. In other words everyone made a profit. They did receive charity so at some level there was help.

 

The problem came into being when many want/demand all the rights of being a citizen by jumping the queue. Guilt is a powerful tool.

[kenberg]

 

And, of course, one sometimes sees drivers in the fast lane strictly obeying the speed limit. Since that is as fast as people are supposed to drive, why should they not? :rolleyes: No doubt the idea of illegals in the US drives those anal folks crazy.

 

 

It's a little different here in Maryland than in the UP. I was going closer to 75 than to70 in the 55 zone. I was brashly in the fast lane where I clearly didn't belong as cars would come up to a few feet behind me and dart around the first chance they got. So I moved over. It is said that people here take posted speed limits as suggestions, but obviously not as suggestion they should take seriously.

 

I was in the UP, it was last summer I think. From what I could saw of the traffic, the speed limit signs actually mean something there. I found this very challenging to get used to, but Becky would "help" from time to time. I only got one ticket, and that wasn't for speeding

 

It's true that if the police suddenly took speed limits to mean what they say it would probably bring the region's business to a standstill. There is some analogy with enforcement of immigration laws but I would not really want to couple them strongly.

[kenberg]

I regard the general problem that Winston brings up (and I realize I am about to phrase it in broader terms than he staed) as very important: Where are we headed with our democratic process?

 

The first election I paid much attention to was in 1952, back when Joe McCarthy was riding high. So predictions of impending doom of our democratic ways are old hat to me. Still, it is worrisome. Apparently some new poll has Trunmp in first place, Carson in second, everyone else in the single digits. I found Carson to be the most likable of the guys on the stage. I don't share his religious beliefs but I have long ago given up expecting that. He seemed comfortable with himself, an attractive trait in anyone. But president Carson? No. Not president Carson, not president Berg. Actually the fact that I can't imagine him as president is another thing I like about him. But not a thing to like about a candidate.

 

So we seem to be thinking that the less someone has been involved in politics the better. This is a mistake.

[mike777]

Unfortunately Trump polling 20-30% of likely GOP Primary voters says more about those willing to actually come out and vote in the primaries than the entire Republican Party. Many who do not bother to vote in primaries.

 

 

Still it is early and Summer, perhaps once Fall comes and the leaves start to turn.

[barmar]

Yeah, polls at this point in the campaign are mostly meaningless. Anyone remember who was polling high in the summer of 2011?

[kenberg]

Indeed, early polling results are historically weird to bizarre. Which I guess is comforting in its way.

 

 

In the 1952 election that I mentioned I was an avid supporter of Pogo the 'Possum. I go Pogo. But I was 13.

[mike777]

Indeed, early polling results are historically weird to bizarre. Which I guess is comforting in its way.

 

 

In the 1952 election that I mentioned I was an avid supporter of Pogo the 'Possum. I go Pogo. But I was 13.

 

 

As I recall Pogo was very hard right wing and very anti-red communist

 

"Probably the most famous Pogo quotation is "We have met the enemy and he is us." Perhaps more than any other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition"

[PassedOut]

It's a little different here in Maryland than in the UP. I was going closer to 75 than to70 in the 55 zone. I was brashly in the fast lane where I clearly didn't belong as cars would come up to a few feet behind me and dart around the first chance they got. So I moved over. It is said that people here take posted speed limits as suggestions, but obviously not as suggestion they should take seriously.

 

I was in the UP, it was last summer I think. From what I could saw of the traffic, the speed limit signs actually mean something there. I found this very challenging to get used to, but Becky would "help" from time to time. I only got one ticket, and that wasn't for speeding

 

It's true that if the police suddenly took speed limits to mean what they say it would probably bring the region's business to a standstill. There is some analogy with enforcement of immigration laws but I would not really want to couple them strongly.

This is a temporary hijack, but I couldn't help but think of your post when I read this: Google’s Driverless Cars Run Into Problem: Cars With Drivers

 

Last month, as one of Google’s self-driving cars approached a crosswalk, it did what it was supposed to do when it slowed to allow a pedestrian to cross, prompting its “safety driver” to apply the brakes. The pedestrian was fine, but not so much Google’s car, which was hit from behind by a human-driven sedan.

 

Google’s fleet of autonomous test cars is programmed to follow the letter of the law. But it can be tough to get around if you are a stickler for the rules. One Google car, in a test in 2009, couldn’t get through a four-way stop because its sensors kept waiting for other (human) drivers to stop completely and let it go. The human drivers kept inching forward, looking for the advantage — paralyzing Google’s robot.

 

It is not just a Google issue. Researchers in the fledgling field of autonomous vehicles say that one of the biggest challenges facing automated cars is blending them into a world in which humans don’t behave by the book.

:D

[kenberg]

So far, the problem is seen as the robots not being able to adapt to the ways of humans.Give this a bit and the roles may be reversed.

 

I came fairly close the other day to having almost exactly the same problem as the Google car. I was stopped at a light, to my right was a lane for right turners. But for some reason the lane extends beyond, maybe fifty yards after the intersection. OK, sometimes people have no intention of turning right but don't realize the situation. They find themselves in tis disappearing lane. I'm easy. I let them in. But this time some guy was coming from way back at a high speed. How far back I don't know, but suddenly there was a car passing me on the right in this disappearing lane at maybe 40 or 45 as I am gaining speed up to maybe 30. Then the lane is gone and he is crossing into my lane, about to be where the front of my car will be in a moment. I am not talking of rudeness, I am talking of insanity. I applied the breaks firmly and, not by much, avoided the collision. Becky expressed appreciation but I wanted to express my own appreciation to the guy in back of me. He was pretty close and managed to not rear end me. I am guessing that he saw this guy whizzing past on his right and even if he did not know exactly what was about to happen he was already on his breaks before I was. I of course would also like to have thanked the motorist coming in on my right for the wonderful compliment to me alertness and ability.

 

No robots involved.

 

Continuing the hijack, I am a fan of John Sandford "Prey" stories, usually set in Minnesota. The most recent, Gathering Prey, spills over into the UP. I won't go so far as to recommend it, people like Sandford or they don't, but I got a kick out of it.

[kenberg]

As I recall Pogo was very hard right wing and very anti-red communist

 

"Probably the most famous Pogo quotation is "We have met the enemy and he is us." Perhaps more than any other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition"

 

One of my favorites: "If I could only write I would write a nasty letter to the mayor if he could only read". Pogo was not actually a deep thinker.

[mike777]

One of my favorites: "If I could only write I would write a nasty letter to the mayor if he could only read". Pogo was not actually a deep thinker.

 

:)

[gwnn]

PolitiFact on Donald Trump's statements:

 

True           0 ( 0%)
Mostly True    0 ( 0%)
Half True      5 (18%)
Mostly False   4 (14%)
False         15 (54%)
Pants on Fire  4 (14%)

 

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/sep/01/trump-truth-o-meter-fact-checking-gop-frontrunner/

[kenberg]

PolitiFact on Donald Trump's statements:

 

True       	0 ( 0%)
Mostly True    0 ( 0%)
Half True      5 (18%)
Mostly False   4 (14%)
False     	15 (54%)
Pants on Fire  4 (14%)

 

http://www.politifac...op-frontrunner/

 

I read The Manchurian Candidate long ago and see it from time to time on TCM. A senator (modeled after Joe McCarthy) is running for president and keeps speaking of there being X number of communists in the state department. X is truly a variable, changing daily. The explanation is that this keeps the issue on the front page. So the number has no relationship to reality, so what? Every time he comes up with a new number he gets attention and people are thinking there are communists in the state department, who cares about the exact number, and this candidate is the guy prepared to deal with it.

 

I have thought of that book/movie from time to time as I watch Donald. He says outrageous things. It gets him on the front page. So his numbers are wrong about how many people are out of work, ot how many illegal immigrants there are, or how much taxes we pay, or whatever. There he is on the front page. he's the guy.

 

 

Regrettably, this seems to work. I am hoping it has a time stamp on it, these things usually do. Kim Kardashian has come and (I think) gone without me really ever finding out who she is/was. Maybe Donald can follow her into oblivion.