Defense in Depth, A Guest Post by Bill and Caitlin Walsh.
So, I recently asked a leftist a question: “Two people cross the Mexican border. One is a 40 year old man, the other a fourteen year old girl. What should happen next?”
Seems like a pretty simple question, right? “They should be interviewed by border patrol to find out the situation,” right? I mean, I understand that there might be a couple of things to clarify in between here, but….
Well, the left has learned something from the Socratic method: Not to fall for it. They have learned NEVER to respond to a question with a straight answer. They know full well that their position is utterly indefensible if it can be fleshed out honestly, and they know that a conservative asking questions is likely attempting to force them to do exactly that. That’s a losing game for them every time. And the smart ones know it.
So we get the first dodge: I need more information! What people, where, how, under what conditions? (This is predictable, but actually part of my plan.)
Me: You don’t have it yet. Are you saying the first thing that should happen is that they should be interdicted by border patrol and interviewed in order to get that “more information”?
Second dodge: I don’t understand! You’re asking what should happen if they get stopped by border patrol?
Me: No ifs. It was a simple question, do you think they should be stopped and interviewed?
Third dodge: I think the border should be secure if that’s what you’re asking! (This one is particularly tricky, because it *sounds* like he answered me, when he really didn’t).
Me: So, you’re saying that they should be stopped by border patrol and questioned?
And this is as far as it makes sense to go with this, because it has become clear that he’s simply NOT going to answer the question. If you find yourself in this situation you can play it from here as you wish, because *you’ve already won!* You have demonstrated, to the impartial observer, that your conversational opponent is not having a discussion in good faith.
Should they have actually, accidentally *answered* at any point, here are some follow-up questions you can ask that they will also refuse to answer, things like “How will you determine whether they’re related?” and “Where will you house them while you wait for DNA tests to come back?” and “Given that 40% of the children crossing the southern border are being trafficked, do you think they should be housed together with their traffickers?” and “Do you think that it might be useful to have physical barriers to redirect them toward available interviewers?” We can keep this going, but you get the point. It’s not like they’re answering them.
So we’ve got some basic “arguing on Facebook” methodology. But it actually has a lot wider applicability than that. See, every leftist politician has said something like “I support secure borders”… But what does it MEAN when they say that? They don’t support physical barriers, they don’t support funding CBP, they don’t support deporting people when caught, they don’t support funding detention facilities, the don’t support appointing more immigration judges… in short, they support NO ELEMENT of secure borders. So, when they say “I support secure borders”, they mean exactly what Benjen Stark pointed out; Anything before the word “But” is bullshit.
They thrive on glittering generalities that don’t—CAN’T—peg to anything specific. You want to get past that, you need specifics. And ANY specific WILL destroy them.
So, here’s what I have learned about illegal immigration, in particular in the past few years. I am going to focus solely on southern border crossers here, (Because visa overstays, northern border crossers, cruise ships, etcetera, also happen.) I know some of you are more knowledgeable than me, so please give me more specifics in the comments.
It begins at the beginning: you’re a Honduran uneducated laborer, you want to go to America for a better life.
You know the chances are MUCH better for you if you have a child with you. So, you go get one. The kid isn’t related to you, it’s just some neighborhood kid that you kidnapped to help you get past ICE; it’s not like anyone is investigating a missing Honduran kid! (at least, not after Obama declared the 2009 constitutional crisis a “coup.”)
Unfortunately, on your way across Mexico, the kid gets stolen from you by sex traffickers. (Google “Tenancingo”, seriously.) Oh well, no problem, it wasn’t your kid anyway. There are kids that rent themselves out to assist border crossers. You pony up the thousand dollars and pay one of them.
Then, in Juarez, you make contact with Juan the coyote. Juan is a cartel affiliated smuggler (read: serial-raping, mass-murdering, mass-grave filling psychopath). Sometimes he smuggles fentanyl, sometimes he smuggles people. Some of those people pay him, others are property. But you prepared well, and you meet his price.
He prepares you for the crossing, and tells you what to do if you get intercepted. Just say “Asylum”. That’s all.
Unfortunately, you DO get intercepted. When you meet ICE, they see that you have a child with you. Most of the time, that means they just wave you on, because they haven’t got room at the child detention facility (can’t have kids in cages, don’t you know). But you get unlucky again. They take the kid to child detention. Everyone at the ICE office knows him by name, so maybe it wasn’t a good investment. Fortunately, Juan told you to say “asylum”, so ICE takes you to a place where they finger-print you, ask you some questions, and then give you a court date 5 years out. Then they release you. Cool!
So, you call up Juan again, and he directs you to a Western Union office and a bus station.
You go where he tells you, and spend the next 5 years working in the “shadow economy”. Some days, you get work as a day laborer, others, you steal someone’s identity and work in other menial jobs. Sometimes, you send money home. It’s life.
Then your court date comes up. You know good and well that you have no legitimate claim to asylum, so you don’t go. The court issues a deportation order. But they don’t have any idea where in the country you are, so nothing happens.
You spend the next 10 years the same way you spent the first 5. Working as you can.
Now, you hit it unlucky again. ICE catches you in a random sweep of the day laborers location. They process you, see that you’ve been in the US for 15 years, and now you have a child here. (Didn’t spend ALL your time at work.) Well, they’re not *heartless*; they ignore the deportation order, and release you.
That is the reality of the southern border at this time. It’s one of the more spectacular examples of two things. One is “sabotage”, and the other is “defense in depth”. “Sabotage” is when one deliberately makes a system not work, and “defense in depth” is when one creates a series of barriers that one must cross to accomplish a goal. So, here’s what I mean by that. The Democrats have obfuscated and complicated the process at literally every step, to such a degree as to make the entirety completely nonfunctional. At every level. Why are illegal immigrants not caught more often? Because Democrats won’t hire more agents, and won’t agree to building physical barriers. Why are those caught not detained? Because Democrats will not build more detention facilities. Why are more illegal immigrants not simply returned? Because democrats have created a complicated asylum process. Why does it take 5 years to process an asylum request? Because Democrats stonewall immigration judge appointments. Why do so few illegal immigrants get picked up by internal ICE? Because Democrats refuse to respect the rule of law. Why are they, even AFTER being issued deportation orders and caught by ICE not deported? Because Democrats don’t want to “separate families”.
At every level, in every way, the Democrats in Congress have aided human traffickers, sex slavers, and mass murderers, over decent humans. This situation is irredeemable.
This is a particular example, and it’s stark. But it goes this way with EVERY issue. Ask a leftist the very most basic question you can, and you will never get an answer. Try “What imbues a human life with value?”, and you’ll get a pile of hard luck pregnancy cases, and some very impolite descriptions of your character. Ask “What characteristics define a woman?”, and you’ll get called a transphobe. (Matt Walsh has made much of his career out of this.) Ask “To what standard should we keep those that simply decline to work?” and you’ll get called heartless.
This isn’t an accident. They KNOW that they can’t actually defend ANY of their positions, so they deflect from actual discussion OF those positions.
And here is where OUR failure begins, and where Donald Trump has shown us the way. We need to stop letting them get away with it! We need to start pointing out that their policies have led to tens of thousands of child sex slaves being brought across their unmonitored border, that the minimum wage leads ONLY to generational poverty, and benefits virtually no one. We need to keep asking the questions, and ignoring the obfuscation. We need to STOP pretending that they have “good intentions”, because anyone that is willing to lie to bring about their goals CANNOT mean well.
When you lie to someone, it’s always done for a single reason. When you lie, it’s always because you know that, if you told the truth, they wouldn’t do what you want them to do. Lying is ALWAYS an attempt to steal the choices of the person you’re talking to.
They think they’re wiser, of course, the right person to be making these choices over the benighted and misinformed. But if it were that… why can they never answer simple questions?
Keep asking them. The obfuscation is all the response you need.
According To Hoyt 
And by all means, get in their faces and make demands.
They aren’t likely to comply with demands, but it’ll rattle them; and people tend to make mistakes when rattled.
Keep harping on the large statistics of child trafficking. “How do these policies prevent child trafficking?” “How do you keep these children from being further victimized?” “How can you tell if they’re related without a DNA test?”
I would use a cross examinational method and put it as “So you support the sex trafficking of children across the border, right?” When he denies that, “so you actually would support measures to reduce or stop trafficking of children like…(list)?” Then when he tries to weasel out of that, then “since you don’t support any measures to stop it, you DO support sex trafficking”….when he says he doesn’t, then “so what measures would you implement to stop it?” etc….pin them down…
Never underestimate the capacity for weasel wording these people have. And their always present backup plan: scream and shout, pout and cry, call your opponent a bigotracistsexistphobism-evilbadbadstraitghwhitemormonmale!
There needs to be a critical mass of normal people that see such poor behavior, and this is key, condemn it in a real and consequence laden fashion. If there are no consequences, it is just a waste of your time, often enough.
But when there are…
It is a mistake to think that Leftists see sex trafficking as a problem that must be solved. They see it as a simple supply/demand issue. They are the demand, traffickers deliver their supplies.
See the thousand Big Name lefties busted by the ill-fated #MeToo debacle. Talk about friendly fire…
And remember that you’re not really aiming to persuade them but the bystanders.
Right at response two, the correct response is “So how long have you been a groomer?”
Exactly. You can’t have a logical discussion with leftists. They have descended into true evil. Instead, just refer to them as groomers and Pedocrats. Remember, there’s a reason we see story after story about Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, but nothing about Gislane Maxwell.
Speak. Question. Get in their space and make them lie to you. Yes.
If only my lefty loved ones could follow a coherent argument without getting emotional.
I find that my MIL and her daughters are quick to resort to name calling and even tears when face with the slightest pushback to any position they have been brainwashed into by the two minute hate casts on the nightly news.
Last week when they ganged up on me because I dared tell my MIL that rich people are paying most of the taxes in this country and that congress is responsible for the tax laws that give them the “loopholes” she is concerned about. I had numbers and facts. They had feels. Lots and lots of feels.
My hubby says they “only” do that to defend Mom because they don’t want her to feel stupid because I don’t agree with them.
I disagree. They are doing it because they only know stupid slogan politics. And also they’re brainwashed. They are immune to discussion and reason. I’ve known them for 50 years. But I still try when I hear something especially ridiculous because other members of the family have told me they appreciate someone pushing back even gently. Everyone else is afraid to not agree with them 100%.
But I have known liberals who you can have a reasonable discussion with. It is interesting and fascinating to talk with someone who has a completely different take on things. People like that often have good ideas or information that I may not have. The free exchange of ideas is a magnificent thing.
Alternatively, they’re doing it because it WORKS.
Why bother forming a strong argument when you can win by throwing a fit?
Absolutely.
You get more of the behavior you reward.
So much this. We get “You think we’re stupid!” With the tears. Um. Do they realize we were once 20 – 29 ourselves? Apparently not. I’m getting to the point of stating “Carter was our generations mistake”, not that either of us voted for him, “Biden is yours”.
Regarding Climate Change “Gee. When we were growing up, civilization was prematurely bringing on the next ice age. You are welcome. At least there are not rivers catching fire anymore.” Closer to home. “You can now eat fish caught out of the Willamette and the Columbia. You are welcome.”
Truth be told. We only have to live with the mess for the next 30 or 40 years (if we’re genetically so disposed and lucky). They have to live with the mess for the next 80 or so years (given same genetics and luck).
Then SHUT UP. OTOH I rarely get to state either as I get talked over. (Nieces … Our son, thank goodness is as conservative as we are.)
Remarkably, their “solution” for their proclaimed “climate crisis” is the same one they pushed when they screaming about the doom of an impending ice age; global totalitarian socialism.
Those grounded in reality know that the Earth cooling would be far more damaging to life than warming. We are in a geologically cool period right now and the geological record shows that life thrives when the Earth is warmer. It is the cold periods that result in life suffering and mass extinctions.
Locally we have had two black bear videos on the west side of town. Makes sense as the areas are either in the actually hilly portion of town nested on the east side of the coast range, or barely in the valley, again east foothill side of coast range. The “excuses” as to why seeing black bear NOW? The infringing on “their” territory (not anymore than in the last 60 years or more, just FYI). And/or the Wild Fires. Wrong side of the valley. How about VIDEOS actually capturing bears? That the blame on raccoon damage, just might have been bear? Not that raccoons are out and about. But still … More cougar sightings on video too. South Hills, Pleasant Hill, areas and neighborhoods, expected, they are following deer. River neighborhoods, shouldn’t be unexpected, but people are. Again? Displacement or more video cameras?
One wildlife that has been seen a lot more of over the last 60 years, is Eagles and Osprey. Neither used to nest along the Willamette. Both now do.
There’s always the option, when they come up with some idiocy, to ask in an incredulous voice, “Wait, you actually believe that?!?”, and if the answer is “Yes!” laugh, shake your head and walk away. A bit cruel? Yes, but deservedly so.
“Are you actually stupid enough to believe that, or just lying?”
Embrace the wonderful healing power of “and.”
You’ve already won?
Nope, ’cause there are no impartial observers.
Nope, ’cause, based on the number of crossings in the last 12 months, 49 criminal aliens crossed the border during the time it took to have that discussion.
I’ve just found out that the term “hate speech” originated with the Soviet Union under Stalin pushing for a hate speech rule in the UN that would require member states to punish speaking in favor of democracy and capitalism. Let’s see them defend that, though The NY Times has consistently followed the party line and might be proud of it even though they don’t want it said out loud.
Stalin is one of their main role models to the point that it is blatantly obvious to anyone who actually pays attention.
If ‘communism has never been tried’ because ‘Stalin was a right winger who hijacked the revolution’, than the traces of ‘sucking up to Stalin’ in their behavior paint leftists as right wingers who will ensure that the Revolution never results in true communism.
Why do they always let right-wingers take over?
:cheers:
Concur with all. Your example is ‘perfect’ and happens on a daily basis down here in Texas… dammit.
Our little church sponsors a missionary couple in Honduras. We had a chance to ask the lady her opinion on illegal immigration. You could tell she was conflicted, but her comment was:
About 15% of incoming Honduran immigrants truly need asylum; they will die if they go back.
About 15% are hardened career criminals who should be bounced back at once. Being a missionary she couldn’t say, “with extreme prejudice,” but the feeling was there.
The rest are neutrals, mainly hoping to get work. Handle on a case by case basis…if our government would bother…..
Motives are everything, they always are! Lie, cheat, steal are the modus operandi of street urchins and Democrats, that is who they are! Strike the chords, one is their inhumanity, call it faux-caring callousness. Second chord is insincerity, the ability to lie and obfuscate with ease. The third chord is their inability to show gratitude, it is said that, if the devil had the ability to show gratitude, he would no longer be the devil, but he can’t so he is fixed in eternity with only his resentment.
Final thought: no person who entered this country illegally should ever be allowed citizenship much less the right to vote.
Quibble. Give them a path to citizenship. Our citizenship process can be unnecessarily stupid already. The legal way, I mean, not the skip all barriers can just hide under the radar way.
Make the path torturous and fraught. Make it difficult. Make them have to work for it. But make sure the path WORKS. For those with the grit, determination, patience, and intestinal fortitude to walk it.
For the ones that come here legally, make the path easier. Much easier. Vet all applicants, yes. Take all the funding from the stupid useless government departments and make sure CBP has the staff and support they need, the veterans the same, etc. But have enough judges, clerks, and suchlike to handle the influx of people and toss back the problem children that we don’t need.
We WANT legal immigration. I’d happily take more Sarah Hoyts, Peter Grants, Hong Kong freedom protesters, and anyone with the honest will to become Americans. In a hot heartbeat. Its the ILLEGAL stuff that needs to die in a fire.
“We WANT legal immigration.”
Nope. They don’t. Legal immigration is a myth. What they really want are indentured servants. People who are locked in with their employer. People who work cheap and can’t complain or quit.
Illegal immigration is just more of it. Serfs. That’s what they actually want.
Granted, they don’t; they want serfs/servants/slaves, exactly as you noted. but I believe Dan was speaking for himself (and for me, for that matter), not for “them”.
Yes. And The Phantom is also correct: they really don’t want legal immigration, and it might as well be a myth the way it is practiced today.
I was going to say that the ones more likely to be the pedos and/or the ones yearning to enslave others are at the top of the pile, but that is not precisely true. There are plenty at the bottom that jealously look at those above, thinking of what they’d do to them if only they had the power to do so.
Those like us? We’d just like to be left alone and will happily extend the same grace to others. Kind of hard to be a tyrant when you don’t really care what your people do, so long as it harms none but the ones doing the deeds themselves.
To leave us alone is apparently outside the boulds of what “Our Betters” want to allow. I suspect (and hope; I never claimed to be a “nice person”) that won’t work out as they imagine:
https://thecorporateasylum.com/resource/the-men-who-wanted-to-be-left-alone/
“Gauchistes, marxistes, a la lanterne” may well become the call in the near future, much as I would regret it, only wanting to be left alone…
Bob, Dan, one of the things I was initially amazed by when I first moved to the USA, upstate NY, was the open and accepting nature of 95% of people I would meet. Canadians generally are a cold bunch of suspicious, judgemental bastards, and Americans typically are not.
That’s why Canadians like to winter in the South and Southwest. It isn’t just the weather.
Americans, take heed to this foreigner: you are more ill-served by your government and your media than you can imagine.
OMG. You think New England is welcomin? Dear Lord, Canada MUST be h*ll.
I know, right? Come to the South. Come to Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee. Take a tour of the best barbecue places in the South. Best service of any restaurant in the world, tastiest food, and the people aren’t arseholes, all the ones I’ve been to.
Just make sure you don’t tell the Quebecois. Tell them we’re all racists and stuff down here, they shouldn’t come. But the rest of Canada, the trucker convoy people, all the good folks up there? More than welcome. Even if they talk funny, heck, we like weird accents.
Just don’t be surprised if you come back with a Southern accent. I’m told it’s infectious.
I have one in my head. My mouth just won’t get the message.
It’s just as well. Hearing you say “moose and squirrel” just wouldn’t be the same.
People are pretty standoffish around here. Polite, y’know. Good manners. Please and thank you.
You know how people will sometimes spontaneously talk to you in the store, on a street corner, at the gas pumps? Americans do that all the time. Here in Canada? Nope. Never happens.
So yes, upstate New York is warmer and nicer to live in than Toronto. (New York City is not. Those people are all crazy.)
Personally I like Phoenix about the best of all the places I’ve been. So easy going.
They are indeed; we’ve lived here since 2007 (originally from MD) and I’m still sometimes surprised (pleasantly!) when a stranger driving past waves to us.
As with any other large country, it depends where you go
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Upstate NY ain’t New England.
FDR’s maternal grandfather is reputed to have said, “Not all Democrats are horse thieves. But I have yet to find a horse thief who is not a Democrat.”
The Reader strongly supports your final thought. He would add that their children shouldn’t either. He thinks they should be allowed the opportunity to leave and attempt to enter the process legally if they desire.
So… I really shouldn’t participate in this discussion, because my first answer to the question was “Shoot the man, send back the girl.”
“Catch them and ask them questions” is a much better way to start.
Both would work. Unpalatable though it is, your first answer would work much better. And faster.
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And … guarantee the perp does not do that, or anything, again. At least I presume “Shoot the man” means the permanent terminal version of “shoot”.
Anything less would just be a waste of ammunition.
If we did immigration like we used to… Ellis Island, 2 week quarantine, sponsor-required… Life would be simpler for everyone not in the Democrat grift mills.
Consequences for the sponsoring organization (and believe you me, there will be organizations) whose designee breaks the laws within a certain period. Major laws, deport with prejudice and black mark for the org that sponsored them. Vet them honestly, and make sure there are meaningful consequences for bringing in trash.
The left rabidly hates the USA and wants to “fundamentally transform” the USA into a Marxist people’s republic. They think open borders facilitates that end, which is why the scream “no borders, no walls, no USA at all>”
The Democratic Party is systematically destroying the underpinnings of the Constitutional republic, as now Lincoln is targeted for erasure from history:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/05/theyve-come-for-lincoln.php
Let’s not mince words. They are aspiring totalitarians who can only be considered fundamentally evil.
Quite a few of my Howe relations got killed in the Spirit Lake Massacre, IIRC. Inkpaduta basically followed the protocol for a spree killer, not a warrior, although he used Lakota customs to cover that.
The only downside to erasing Lincoln would be that his evil would also be erased. He was the prototype of the tyrannical “American” President: imposing an income tax, imposing a military draft, printing unbacked paper money, arresting political opponents, and of course invading and occupying sovereign states by military force.
And before anyone talks about slavery, he wrote in a famous letter to Andrew Greeley:
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. ”
So by his own words he didn’t care about slavery, just about remaining in power over those states that no longer wanted to be in the union.
Twitter is allowing open and express calls for assassination of conservative Supreme Court justices:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/05/abortion-the-schrodingers-cat-of-public-opinion.php
“Freedom of Speech”
Unless of course you are one of America’s oldest newspapers and you are speaking truthfully about things that reflect negatively on Democrats or their narrative, like Hunter Biden’s laptop and Biden family corruption.
Nonsense! It was all done by private corporations!
… that just happen to be moving in lockstep with the left’s agenda.
Businesses, government and street thugs – er, I mean activists – all working together…isn’t that comforting?
Well, it does sort of remind me of something…starts with “fasc” and ends with “ism,” but I’m sure I’m just imagining things.
Hey! Did you hear Drumpf’s rhetoric is kinda sorta fascist if you twist it the right way, and that one time he spoke on a stage that sort of looked like a Nazi rune? HE’S HITLER! GET HIM!!!!!!!
Which is priceless given that Obama did his nomination acceptance speech on a stage that was built to look like Mt. Olympus. Talk about Nazi-like imagery.
Jesse Ventura’s famous quote: “Win if you can, lose if you must, but ALWAYS cheat.”
The left knows of the desire of a decent person to be kind to others, and have been using it against us for a long time. The real reason they do this is because it works. By being confrontational, abusive, and playing the victim, they shut down most people’s attempt to discuss an issue.
I’ve been thinking about a way to respond that is both solid, and does not require them to agree to it. Call them ground rules, if you will:
1. I do not need your permission to hold any of my opinions.
I’m not asking for your approval of anything I believe.
I don’t care what you think of me. (This removes power of Social Media to cow you into submission.)
When you resort to violence (physical or mental), I am willing to escalate until you are unable to continue.
(Notice that none of these require your opponent to agree.)
(I am not promoting violence, merely pointing out that it is one of their go-to positions)
The Elites are tyrannical by nature, and their Minions (Left-leaning common people) are just the water carriers.
All of us who have IQ of a turnip are aware where this is headed. Decide now what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
Make that last one ‘we who have more IQ than a turnip’.
Or as I like to put it, ‘enough functioning brain cells to form a quorum’.
Both of which rule out the potted plant in the White House.
Apropos of nothing — if people want some Regency background music that is unusual, Brilliant Classics has a long YouTube video of the complete flute/guitar duos of a obscure/popular Italian composer named Giuliani, who died in 1829.
I’m not clear that these are early music flutes and guitars on the recording; but it is the kind of music that amateurs could play together from sheet music, and it is very very pleasant stuff.
Guitars were often considered a “lady’s” instrument, in the 1800’s, because the ones in Anglophone countries were smallish.
This musical instrument museum has a Regency guitar in it, which is one of the earliest modern guitars surviving in England.
http://minim.ac.uk/index.php/explore/?filter%5BlegalBodyName%5D=%22Royal%20Pavilion%20and%20Museums%20Brighton%22&filter%5BLevel_1%5D=%22Stringed%20instruments%22
You will notice that the slightly earlier guitars in this collection look like lutes.
Fascinating! Thank you for posting this.
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You want to see a Catch-22 nightmare, try viewing the US Immigration system from the -legal- immigrant side. I did, and it is a horror show. Capricious, unlawful, tyrannical, impenetrable, and ultimately in my case, futile.
All you law-abiding Americans probably have a pretty hard time imagining this. You’ve never seen anything like it. As a thought experiment, consider what your life would be like if any random clerk at the DMV had the power to throw you and your entire family in jail and then dump you off on the Mexican side of the nearest border point. And they -want- to do it.
Okay? That’s what it’s like. You got a house, a dog waiting for you, your job needs you, your kid is at daycare? Too bad so sad, because YOU are going to jail and then Tijuana. Right now. Just because.
That possibility, that threat, is always there. They really do that type of thing, all the time. Which is why I live in Canada instead of Arizona. In Canada they can’t deport me because they didn’t process my paperwork.
But in a wider view, pretty much ALL government is like that. Only insiders know the hidden ways and secret handshakes that make the machinery clatter along. Taxes, building permits, regulations, all of it.
Which is why Canadians drive to America when they need something medical right away. It costs a lot more, but you can’t spend money when you are dead.
I thought that was the whole point of Canada’s ‘free’ socialized health care — make you wait until you don’t need health care any more. Saves ’em loads of money and keeps health care ‘free’. Americans wait 3 hours for an MRI scan; Canadians wait 3 months. I hear there are more MRI machines in Philadelphia than all of Canada.
I saw a Canadian couple on one of the Mike Holmes construction shows who couldn’t afford to fix their house because they were paying $18,000 a year for the wife’s ‘free’ health care. The drugs authorized by the government bureaucrats didn’t do her any good so she had to ‘voluntarily’ pay for ‘optional’ drugs that actually worked. Mike found A GAS LEAK they didn’t even know was there.
I remember that episode.
Yes, there are -many- conditions that require drugs which are not covered by government health. Drugs generally are not covered except for welfare cases. There are plenty of things not covered, and it is exceptionally difficult to get those services/products in Canada.
And yes, I’m sure there are more MRI machines in Philly than in all of Canada. They don’t cost that much money, really. You can get an 18 wheeler with an MRI and all the ancillary equipment for a million bucks or so. There are plenty of companies all over the USA that deliver MRI services to remote locations on a schedule, or even on demand.
But not here. The reason is LICENSING. I looked into leasing one of those trucks, I figured I could make a million bucks a month running around Ontario shortening those waiting lists. But no, that is not allowed. They will not give you a license.
Why? Because every MRI done represents a new patient with a new diagnosis that has to be treated. The choke point is imaging. So they just rationed imaging, and saved themselves billions a year. The fact that there is no private medical capacity to take the overflow is considered a feature, not a bug. Good people wait in line, bad people try to jump the line by using their eeeeevile wealth to pay for care that the poor can’t afford. Make the rich wait. That’s the deal.
Now, if you explain that to a Canadian Normie or a Leftist, they will scream at you that you’re a liar. The government would NEVER do something like that. But that’s what they do.
So in Ontario if you need an emergency MRI or CAT scan of the brain, heart, knee, whatever, and you don’t have three-to-six months left to wait, you either go to Buffalo or you get your good friend the large animal veterinarian to put you through his horse scanner.
Vets have MRI machines in Canada.
This is one of the things that I’ve had a hard time trying to work people through the logic. There’s…some kind of missing brain block that happens when you talk about certain subjects.
“So, I recently asked a leftist a question:”
Well there’s yer problem…
I must rant again. I’m sorry, but it must be done.
There’s no longer any point engaging these lunatics in a discussion. There hasn’t been for about 20 years.
This year they’ve started rushing the stage when the comedian makes a joke they don’t want to hear. That’s going to get worse. Dave Chappelle will be doing his concerts behind bullet-proof glass pretty soon, if they don’t kill him first. JK Rowling needs presidential-level security to go out and buy milk.
You don’t talk to that. You shun them, and that’s only when you can’t get away with punching them in the face.
I know, you’re hoping the Normies notice the raging lunacy of the Leftie response to your question.
Normies notice $7+/gallon gas. They notice if the store has no bread in it. They care if their internet is slow, or their TV reception is bad. Normies step over 1/2 dead foaming-at-the-mouth druggies on the sidewalk and keep on with their day as if nothing happened. If the frigging sky was falling, Normies would not know until the pieces started hitting them.
So I’m forced to say that talking to Lefties in the hope that the Normies will notice is a waste of brain cycles. The Lefties are playing nuclear chicken with the Russians right now AND threatening to kill members of the Supreme Court as a distraction from the gas prices that the friggin’ Normies finally noticed.
I asked a Leftroid a few questions last week:
“Why should NATO get involved in a war between two non-NATO countries?”
“Why isn’t the UN doing something about the war in Ukraine? Isn’t preventing wars the main reason for their existence? What are they, just a bunch of useless self-important windbags?”
“Why do you hate Ron DeSantis? What has he said or done that’s so horrible? Give me an example. Or do you just hate him for the things his enemies say about him?”
Well, obviously you’re a RACISSSSTTT SEXISSSTTT TRANSPHOBE WHO WANTS TO ENSLAVE ALL WO…ummm…BIRTHING PERSONS!!!!!
At least, I assume that was the response…
“I’m getting a drink.” (Walks away in a huff)
Best possible action; I believe I’ll do the same. Cheers, prosit, skal, or whatever boats your float! 🙂
OK, wait; on re-reading I believe I misinterpreted your comment. That was actually the libtards reaction to you, not yours to me, wasn’t it? (Oy. I need more coffee…)
Yup, that was it. Could have been clearer.
Nah, the quotation marks made it clear enough; that’s what finally tipped me. My problem, not yours.
Much less uncontrolled in public, aren’t they?
C4c
c4c