Yes, 100%. I grew up in Europe, and have been in the US for the last 10+ years, with all of my family still in Europe. I think this gives me reasonable feel for the "situation on the ground."
The best way I can describe my social circles in the US and EU is that in the US, we still have "principled freedom", where there (still) is a majority of people that understand the original ideas of the founding fathers, and can imagine that things could theoretically be different (the word used for this is "tyranny", which sounded super weird when I first came here).
In EU, I see a total disconnect with any foundational principles or values. Worse is that the population would 100% disagree with you on this, but when you probe "what are these values and why are they there," you get mostly circular reasoning based on some neo-liberal viewpoints. Furthermore, people just can't imagine ever losing their freedoms. This makes Europe essentially like the frog in the pot on the stove. If you mention the word "tyranny" to Europeans, they basically think you're a crackpot.
I have seen things change a teeny bit with the war in Ukraine, where folks get at least somewhat concerned, but the concerns are still about an external boogyman. Nowhere is there any realization that big government, with a lot of unelected bureaucrats, typically becomes the enemy of the people because "power corrupts."
The max that is happening here, assuming the poster is referring to the current administration's policy to remove undocumented aliens from the country, is that some operational mistakes unfortunately will be made since an estimated 10 million people entered the country illegally in the last four years.
It is my hope and belief that any such mistakes would be swiftly corrected, and that the undocumented people that are impacted by this policy are treated with dignity and respect, while still encouraging legal immigration into this country. Furthermore I would expect that the odds of a US citizen or otherwise legal resident to be arrested and deported to be virtually zero.
If you'd stop the ad-hominems and suggestions of malice you'd more effectively make your case.
I'm not going to play this game of me investing my time in random links posted to this discussion, but as a once time exception:
- The first link claims a man got detained where ICE thought he had a fake ID but where he was actually a citizen. From the article: "It is not clear where the construction is located and efforts to find contact information for Venegas were not successful. Efforts to reach ICE representatives for comment were not immediately successful." So we have an unsubstantiated claim in an online publication. Is it true? Maybe. If it is, then the worst claimed here is that someone one detained. Not even arrested, let alone anything worse than that. This certainly does not rise to the claims you're making. If the article is true, this is likely an operational mistake that was corrected soon afterwards.
- The second link claims that the mosquitoes in a new temporary detention facility amount to torture. Do I like the optics of the facility? No. Do I want people in detention to get treated with dignity? Of course. The claim of torture is quite extraordinary though. If the facility is not up to standards, I have trust in the system that it will get closed.
Regarding the first point, you are leaning heavily on euphemisms ("detained") to make your case.
Regarding the second point, you purposefully picked the least offensive part (the mosquitoes, as opposed to the starvation, the sleep deprivation, the quarters tigher than in concentration camps), to misrepresent what is happening here.
It is exactly behavioral patterns like these that make it hard to assume good faith argument.
This will be my last reply in this thread. We're not going to agree and you keep implying bad faith. I'll reply to one last factual point, and forgo replying to the continued implication of bad faith.
> Regarding the first point, you are leaning heavily on euphemisms ("detained") to make your case.
No, "detained" is a precise legal term that is used in the article in the intended legal way. It's a step prior to arrest, where an officer has stopped you for some probably cause. When detained, you are not allowed to leave, while the officer checks what's going on. The result can be that you are free to go, or that things escalate to an arrest (you are taken in custody).
The best way I can describe my social circles in the US and EU is that in the US, we still have "principled freedom", where there (still) is a majority of people that understand the original ideas of the founding fathers, and can imagine that things could theoretically be different (the word used for this is "tyranny", which sounded super weird when I first came here).
In EU, I see a total disconnect with any foundational principles or values. Worse is that the population would 100% disagree with you on this, but when you probe "what are these values and why are they there," you get mostly circular reasoning based on some neo-liberal viewpoints. Furthermore, people just can't imagine ever losing their freedoms. This makes Europe essentially like the frog in the pot on the stove. If you mention the word "tyranny" to Europeans, they basically think you're a crackpot.
I have seen things change a teeny bit with the war in Ukraine, where folks get at least somewhat concerned, but the concerns are still about an external boogyman. Nowhere is there any realization that big government, with a lot of unelected bureaucrats, typically becomes the enemy of the people because "power corrupts."