Why is everybody so concerned with migrant family separation?

[fantome profane]

There's still a lot more to do and that was just one example. How about preventable diseases in African countries that are hardly being addressed. Hundreds of thousands die from easily preventable causes like unclean drinking water and no TB vaccines. You're just addressing a red herring and missing my point.

Then start a thread about preventable disease in Africa. Tell us what positive constructive actions we should take. Petition your government to put more money into foreign aid. Start a gofundme page. Do something.

You accuse others of being more concerned about this issue than that one. But it seems evident from your posting that you are more concerned about this issue than disease in Africa. It seems like this was literally an afterthought on your part.




If you saw a child, a single child, falling down a set of stairs, how would you react? If you saw an adult, a person of authority, deliberately push a child down a set of stairs, would you measure your concern to make sure it was proportional in relation to preventable disease in Africa?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This is a fallacious strawman and most of your post is just a repetition of this strawman. I never said anything about prioritizing actions. I simply talked about what we should care about. And even if I was talking about prioritizing actions based on this approach, this would only refer to larger global and political issues, not everything we do in life.

Nor does your point negate what I said at all. Even if I was acting hypocritical, i'm still rationally justified in caring way more about much larger issues.



They should care about the millions of children dying every year from preventable diseases a lot more than a few separations. I care about more important and substantial issues.



Another fallacious strawman which is the same as your first point essentially. Again i'm not saying everything in life needs to apply to my approach on how much to care about large political issues.

No strawmen; your argument really was that ridiculous.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

First, your figure for deaths from car accidents is either meaningless (because you don't specify the time period over which the "1.3 million" deaths occur), or absurdly exaggerated (because the annual number of deaths is much, much less than that).

Second, who are you to tell people what they should be concerned about?

Third, you have not demonstrated that the concern most people are showing for the families is politically motivated because you have not supported your reasoning with empirical evidence. You are merely speculating.

Fourth, your calculus for how much you feel others should be concerned about things is overly simplistic. For one thing, you again fail to provide empirical evidence that those responding to the family separations are not responding also to other matters, such as suicides.

All in all, your argument fails.

... fifth... perfect world fallacy. It is possible to be concerned about two issues at once. I can care about road fatalities AND justice issues at the same time.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Then start a thread about preventable disease in Africa. Tell us what positive constructive actions we should take. Petition your government to put more money into foreign aid. Start a gofundme page. Do something.

You accuse others of being more concerned about this issue than that one. But it seems evident from your posting that you are more concerned about this issue than disease in Africa. It seems like this was literally an afterthought on your part.




If you saw a child, a single child, falling down a set of stairs, how would you react? If you saw an adult, a person of authority, deliberately push a child down a set of stairs, would you measure your concern to make sure it was proportional in relation to preventable disease in Africa?

It's a pretty standard tactic whenever anyone starts bringing up issues that fire up the ol' cognitive disonance. Pick any issue that requires people to address anything that makes them uncomfortable, and watch the "yeah but what about [insert bad thing here]?" rhetoric fly.

A really skilled practitioner can build a completely circular ring of such responses so that they never have to do anything.

"Immigrant family separation? But what about road accidents?! Spend money making roads safer? But what about homeless vets? Spend money housing homeless vets? But they're not in imminent danger, what about sick people in Africa?! Spend money on aid to Africa? But what about our own sick people! Spend money on medicije for sick people?! If you care so much about people, what about immigrant family separation?!" And so on.

 

[metis]

I don't accept your emotional appear of "THINK IF IT WAS YOUR KIDS", Well let me tell you, I already did, and I'd rather have them separated than die.

That's a false dichotomy in the vast majority of cases, and you can try and justify your opinion all you want by making such claims but I simply do not believe you have the kind of empathy that you claim, sorry to say. To try and justify it on the basis of some other higher death rates is illogical and immoral, imo.

I don't buy your excuse, and I'm quite familiar with what's been going on and why, so my opinion does not reflect any naivete on my part. You've made your bed, now you can lay in it instead of fabricating excuses.

 

[stvdv]

Maybe study the Holocaust and see that this same exact tactic was used by the NAZI's, although they obviously took it much further.

According to an ICE spokesperson a couple of weeks ago, they estimate that about half of those trying to get in are likely legitimate refugees trying to save their families, including their children. Wouldn't you do the same if push came to shove? Would you want to be separated from your children?

The Trump administration created this mess, and now it's up to them to fix it. IMO, to defend the administration's actions is utterly deplorable, thus showing so little empathy even towards infants.

Thanks for mentioning this. Hitler came to my mind too when reading all this. He took it much further. BUT not in the first years though. Better nip it in the bud IMO

 

[stvdv]

15 jul 2018 stvdv 017 70

That's a false dichotomy in the vast majority of cases, and you can try and justify your opinion all you want by making such claims but I simply do not believe you have the kind of empathy that you claim, sorry to say. To try and justify it on the basis of some other higher death rates is illogical and immoral, imo.

I don't buy your excuse, and I'm quite familiar with what's been going on and why, so my opinion does not reflect any naivete on my part. You've made your bed, now you can lay in it instead of fabricating excuses.

I agree. Correct said "lay in it", I could never "sleep in it". I would say "sorry" even before laying in it [We all make mistakes; the great ones can admit mistakes IMHO]

 

[serp777]

No strawmen; your argument really was that ridiculous.

It was a complete strawman. And great response by the way. Assertions are so effective.

 

[serp777]

Then start a thread about preventable disease in Africa. Tell us what positive constructive actions we should take. Petition your government to put more money into foreign aid. Start a gofundme page. Do something.

You accuse others of being more concerned about this issue than that one. But it seems evident from your posting that you are more concerned about this issue than disease in Africa. It seems like this was literally an afterthought on your part.




If you saw a child, a single child, falling down a set of stairs, how would you react? If you saw an adult, a person of authority, deliberately push a child down a set of stairs, would you measure your concern to make sure it was proportional in relation to preventable disease in Africa?

Again, this isn't a thread on doing something. It doesn't matter what you pick as the example as long as it the number of deaths significantly outweighs family separations. You're arguing with the example, not the point. The point is that if we're going to be concerned about something, it should be about the more impactful things in terms of a national or global political issue. In fact I think you could solve family separations relatively easily and we probably should but that doesn't mean im going to invest emotional energy when more serious issues exist. I would vote on fixing it, but I wouldn't really care that much. I similarly don't care about the 15 people who die a year from eating tide pods because other issues are so much more significant. I can't care about everything, so i think it makes sense to care about the most impactful things.

If I were to try to fix something, it would be something much more substantial like childhood lukemia. Again, the example doesn't matter. You're just bringing up an irrelevant red herring by addressing my motivations, which are completely separate from the point. Its like a lot of you can't deal with the points i'm making, so you just attempt to point out my alleged hypocrisy or some supposed problem with my motivations.

But it seems evident from your posting that you are more concerned about this issue than disease in Africa. It seems like this was literally an afterthought on your part.

Because the whole point of this thread is that i'm pointing out that people are overly concerned with family separations when there are vastly more serious issues. if we have finite emotional energy, shouldn't we devote it to the most impactful things first? I'm being wholly logical here.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It was a complete strawman. And great response by the way. Assertions are so effective.

Exactly what about my post do you think misrepresented yours?

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Thanks for mentioning this. Hitler came to my mind too when reading all this. He took it much further. BUT not in the first years though. Better nip it in the bud IMO

That's the real problem with Hitler comparisons. People always reply "But So and so hasn't killed 6 million Jews! You're being completely hyperbolic!"

The point, of course, is to get people to realise the similarities BEFORE So and So kills 6 million anyone, but it can be an uphill battle.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I forgot to include that the 1.3 million figure is referencing the global car accident deaths per year. The point was just to pick a large number to demonstrate how much more significant certain issues are.



Who are you to tell people whether they can tell people what they should be concerned about? I'm a human being with opinions and so that gives me the ability to comment on what people should or shouldn't care about. I'm sure you and many others think we SHOULD care about migrant family separation. Anyways your whole point here is a red herring fallacy.



I didn't claim that most are concerned about migrant family separation because they are looking to score political points. I'm sure people are genuinely concerned. This is a straw man. I said it was politicized, meaning that CNN and other news organizations as well as democratic leaders in the house and senate were using it to score political points. This got it hyped up and in the attention of the public eye. It was a very convenient tool to blast Donald trump on his aggressive immigration tactics.

If you want evidence that family separations are more prevalent, I could get you the recent number of google searches for migrant family separation vs suicide. Furthermore, you can absolutely look at twitter and news outlets and clearly see the focus is on migrant family separation, and not on vastly more important issues like cancer, or suicides, or a plethora of other things. You can also just look at how many news articles have been posted recently about it. I'm not going to be able to get you some peer reviewed paper though, but we can make a reasonable conclusion based on the social media footprint. I'm not saying this would be certain proof, but any reasonable person would accept that currently, the focus is likely on migrant family separation. Its a fad.



I didn't claim it was a bulletproof calculation. It was a decent approximation to show the relative importance generally speaking. I actually even gave a justification or why it wouldn't be that simple by specifying that migrant family separations have less impact than deaths. Regardless, they also certainly aren't responding to other matters proportionally as much. If you look at twitter posts regarding suicide and twitter posts regarding family migrant separation for example, you will see that migrant separation is much more popular currently.

I just don't see any justification why we should care about 3000 people when there are millions dying. THe millions dying should take priority.

I guess my question is, why can we not care about ALL of them? Is there some set limit of things we're allowed to be concerned about at one time?

Maybe it seems like a "fad" to you that people are caring about this right now, but perhaps it's because it is happening right now. Are you also surprised that people are talking about Trump's meeting with Putin as it is happening right now?

 

[SkepticThinker]

This is a fallacious strawman and most of your post is just a repetition of this strawman. I never said anything about prioritizing actions. I simply talked about what we should care about. And even if I was talking about prioritizing actions based on this approach, this would only refer to larger global and political issues, not everything we do in life.

In post #46, you said this:

I didn't say its needed. I'm not justifying Donald trump's actions. I Just don't understand why we should care about this issue when there are so many other important issues that should take precedence. The public is hysterical and obsessed with this relatively inconsequential issue currently.

So it seems that you are, in fact "prioritizing actions."

Nor does your point negate what I said at all. Even if I was acting hypocritical, i'm still rationally justified in caring way more about much larger issues.



They should care about the millions of children dying every year from preventable diseases a lot more than a few separations. I care about more important and substantial issues.



Another fallacious strawman which is the same as your first point essentially. Again i'm not saying everything in life needs to apply to my approach on how much to care about large political issues.

 

[Jumi]

Sure enough, people complain about pointless killings too although those might be rare where I live and don't touch on us as much as cancer from second hand cigarette smokes or bowel cancer from meat products.