According to the US Border Patrol Criminal Alien Statistics, from 2017 to now-ish (7+ years), slightly more than 200 cases of homicide and/or manslaughter were committed by criminal aliens.
Although the statistics vary somewhat and report differing measurements, one study spanning 2009 to 2020 (11 years) found that 1,363 were fatally shot in mass killings by firearm alone. Given that most mass shooters are white (52%) and male (97%) with a median age of 34 years, why is so much money being spent to harass and deport migrants? Obviously, young white males are a far greater threat. Why isn’t Trump rounding them up and putting them in detention centers, conveniently avoiding due process?
Gentle reminder: I am neither republican nor democrat. If I haven’t said something to anger you yet, do not feel slighted or that I am willfully ignoring you. I promise, you will have your turn.
While the typical response to these figures is to blame guns, I do not. I do not expect firearm control legislation to fix our violence problem any more than the surfeit of anti-drug laws has stopped people from turning to drugs to stem the tide of pain and despair in our society.
Side note: If we focus instead on stemming the tide of pain and despair in our society1, we will probably go a long way towards fixing all those other things.
The influx of migrants is, in great measure, due to our myopic, chest-thumping fantasies about when, whether and how to manage drug use.
A cute saying that I first became aware of in the early 90’s goes “The beatings will continue until morale improves”. It was popular because, absurdly illogical as it is, that mentality seems to be the foundation on which most of our culture is built. This mentality is neither ethical nor efficacious. So, alas, the beatings continue because morality has not improved.
It is especially important to note that the influx of migrants is, in great measure, due to our myopic, chest-thumping fantasies about when, whether and how to manage drug use. Through history, it has nearly always been the case that despite the public hype, drug laws almost never have a sincere target of helping people and they succeed even less often. While we don’t see in the US the gangster-era effects brought by Prohibition, South and Central America are intimately familiar with them. Even when people actually need help with a drug problem, the thing most likely to stop them from seeking help is the drug laws themselves. Saying that only the “dealers” will be punished will dissuade them even further rather than giving them incentive.
If you really want more people in the world to be healthy, happy and free from suffering, legalize all drugs, with a realistic and flexible plan for managing the expected troubles due to things changing so massively so quickly.
Or, keep beating on people.
But, do not pretend that the USA is some innocent victim here.
There are other ways to live.
Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals. Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.
- Doing this would require, at a minimum, allowing people to decide for themselves how to find joy. The current deep state wants to ensure that everyone is handed a list of approved sources of joy from which to choose, most of them carefully chosen to never, ever, provide competition for the feeling of being in church. Anyone caught seeking joy in other ways is subject to at least economic censure if not jail time or worse. I suppose those outcomes are in some sense more ethical than a beating, though the beating is likely to impact a lot less of the victim’s life. Can we just treat everyone with dignity and respect? Why is that so hard? ↩︎