So much of state politics is currently Republicans dog whistling made up issues to their base rather than any kind of evidence based policy.

> We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points. Among other elements, the message condemned “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.”

> Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of Latinos.

I guess it’s easy not to care about this stuff if you didn’t literally flee your homeland to get away from it.

You have a point with immigration! But you overplay your hand with the defund stuff. Democratic candidates who run on "defund" lose their primary elections everywhere except a tiny number of ultra-blue uncompetitive districts.

It’s not just the Twitter elite doing that—it’s a lot of folks who don’t necessarily want to defund the police, but just wanted an opportunity to call republicans racist. But the end result is that we went about a year invoking minorities to attack policies that the minorities themselves supported, which is gross. The underlying practice needs to stop.

That the primary system elevates fringe candidates is, yes, a problem. But those candidates lose.

Like I said, we have an exceptionally mobilized defund movement in Oak Park, with demonstrations, proposed ordinances, and candidate slates. They got slaughtered. We're a single-party municipality; being outed as in any way sympathetic to Republicans is fatal here. It came to nothing: liberals don't want to defund the police.

Faced with that, Democrats in 2020 did not treat the idea as "fringe." The put up the BLM signs on their yards and didn't say a word against the activists promoting defund. Aside from Joe Biden, prominent Democrats equivocated when confronted directly: Elizabeth Warren responded to a question about "defund" by saying "it's not the term I would use." That's not how you describe what you think is a "fringe" idea.

I’m not “trolling.” In the last few years folks have become too comfortable calling policies “racist” or “dog whistling” without being confident that minorities actually perceive them that way. I think this is itself racist and manipulative—a way of fluffing apparent support for progressive policies by vaguely invoking minorities—and needs to be called out as such.

Cross-border criminal activity is a real concern that affects real people. There’s a reason majority Hispanic communities along the border have flipped Republican in the last couple of years. Right now Abbott is leading Beto among Hispanics in reputable polls: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2022/01/29/abbott-r.... Waving your hands and calling these concerns racist “dog whistles” is not only lazy but disrespectful to a distinct community with its own interests and often nuanced positions.

Yes, you can get results from push-polling with heavily loaded wording and unsubstantiated, hyperbolic claims like "overrun with drugs and criminal gangs" and correlating police funding to public safety.

Yes, that's different from evidence-based policy.

Yes, the Texas state governement has enacted a program of disenfranchisement.

I care.

I think that's the part you need to expand on, because even if I knew 10 people who crossed the border for that stuff, I wouldn't really care that much.

So what makes you care so much, are there visible, arguably tractable second order effects resulting from this that I wouldn't be able to deny if I lived in Texas? And they're so bad to the Texan state that I'd too want this surveyed and enforced at all cost?

I’m personally impacted by the shipment delays. I currently await more than $250,000 worth of product ordered from Mexico, so questioning my motives with false equivalencies isn’t going to get anywhere.

To be honest, I probably need to be schooled on the whole thing. Generally, when there's issues at a local level, my gut reaction is I probably just don't understand the problem. But I'll also probably start by asking naive questions.

My first question is, it seems that yes there are lots of people trying to smuggle drugs or illegally enter the US for... Maybe working under the radar? Escaping Mexico?

And I can believe that it is a hard job to prevent this.

But it also seems to me like we made up the problem, why are we wanting to prevent the drugs and migrants in the first place?

For the drugs, seems we might as well manufacture them ourselves, make them in the US, label them properly, dispense correct dosers, list out side effects and risks, and tax their sales.

If people can get them through other channels, the demand for the Mexican one will reduce and that seems like it would naturally cause the smuggling to decrease. Or maybe, it wouldn't be smuggling anymore, just another import they self-declare and we tax, just like avocados.

For migrants, I'm curious what they're looking for. Are they running away from danger and trying to find safety? Are they looking for work? And why don't we want them? We're worried they resort to crime and theft? We don't have jobs for them? They bring anti-democratic values with them and promote things that we worry would eventually destroy our democracy and take away our freedom?

I think if any of those were true for migrants, I could see it being a harder problem. I'm not sure they are true though. But say they do lead to crime, violence, loss of democracy, loss of employment, and loss of freedom. If that's the case, it's definitely going to be challenging to stop so many people from entering such a big border. I get that. I guess I'm just missing that first link, do they cause all that trouble? Or are we just making up the problem?

Perfect time to shift blame upwards following the already ongoing shipping and supply problems. Endless aggressive expansion of the starve the beast tactic is bound to reach its limits eventually, and all that's left is outright attacking it.

Inventing a problem and proposing awful solutions is a proven election strategy.

Can you provide a justification/explanation/citation for this claim? I have been to Mexico many times as a fascinated tourist and layperson. As yet I have not gotten an "almost failed state" vibe. While there seem to be clear challenges facing the populace, things seem to proceed fine at a day to day level.

Of course the tourist locations are nice and don't give off an "almost failed state" vibe.

"Country Summary: Violent crime – such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery – is widespread and common in Mexico."

Heck, even Wikipedia does a good job covering it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Mexico

In my experience rather than having "nice tourist locations", it has the opposite: "dangerous crime locations". These are usually along the fault lines of cartel territories or in specific "sketchy areas". Mexico is nice for us non-tourists living in non-tourist places too IMO.

> 40 000 dead from direct conflict between cartels and government forces since 2006.

Just because it's technically unlikely that you're going to encounter the violence yourself, and therefore not give you a 'violence vibe' doesn't really have anything to do with how much violence there is.

40K is a gigantic number and will possibly be bigger than the Russian-Ukranian war when it's over.

If power of some armed groups rivals that of government, then it's a 'near failed state'.

We have the technology and wherewithal and hopefully 'learned lessons' to make progress on this.

The fact that this massive, organized violence exists, is to a great extent our responsibility for letting it metastasize.

Does this mean you stayed on cartel protected tourist routes, or did you have a chance to go "off the tracks" a bit?

The extent of violence and dangerous areas in Mexico is way, way overblown by certain news stations in America.

What exactly do you think "cartel activity" looks like? The fact that some random international tourist didn't witness any overt "cartel activity" does not remotely imply that it is not a problem in Mexico. These cartels have been in open war with the government for decades, police and military forces are regularly compromised, and frequently the cartels form defacto local governments when they take over towns. Pablo Escobar was one of the wealthiest people in the world when he went to war with the colombian government, mexico has similar issues.

I know it's a problem, but I also think english media depicts Mexico in a much more bleak light than it warrants.

I lived in the USA for many years - and not once, ever, did I see someone do anything racist. I also never witnessed, or even heard of through colleagues, of the police doing something wrong.

But clearly, systematic racism does exist, and, there are problems with the justice system.

And, it's a bit glib to suggest you'd directly see some kind of 'cartel activity' as a wayward tourist. Most violent activity is focused 'among players'.

Your point on 'way overblown in the American press' is definitely reasonable, in the sense that, the news will make people think that 'walking down the street in Mexico is on the whole dangerous' - when obviously it's not. In fact, it's generally safe.

That's not the issue though.

The relative level of violence, systematic corruption, lawlessness is very real and it affects many people in indirect ways.

Living in Russia is not dangerous. Especially if you don't say anything about the the government, there's almost 0% chance you're going to have a problem.

But watch videos of Russians being interviewed about the war in Ukraine - they are hesitant to the point of fearful in 'having an opinion'. There are certain thoughts, they are not allowed to have. If you can't read, write or talk about a thing, that thing dissapears. That's what oppression is: large swaths of people actually disagreeing with the government, but otherwise going about their business as normal.

In a 'safe country' you'll have no problem saying anything about anyone. The government, or criminals.

The next time you're in a Mexican city known to be controlled by cartel members, simply ask the question: "What do you think of so and so" cartel boss? You'll find out very quickly how pervasive influence is, and if you dig a little deeper, you might find out how systematically that corruption extends into quite a lot of small things - all the nooks and crannies.

Saying 'Mexico is no bad' is like saying Putin isn't a problem, because 99% of Russians don't directly suffer consequences. It's the 1% we are concerned about, and more broadly, the systematic issues that affect us all.

Mexico should be much richer and more prosperous than it is, and it will not evolve in a positive direction while it's partially a narco state. That affects everyone.

And, my comment wasn't meant to be as negative as it sounded. I live at the border. It's well known that the cartel regulates/protects Tijuana. A well visited Tijuana is a profitable Tijuana. They're not idiots.

I guess my personal assessment is that none of those are that big a deal to warrant so much inconvenience to most Americans crossing the border, including our trucking companies and their trucks.

You could just let people buy and consume drugs if they want, don't know why we took away that freedom in the first place.

Texans love guns, so not sure why we'd want to prevent them from entering.

Illegal migrants can also be deported after the fact, so I'm not sure you have to catch them all on entry, and a lot of them provide valuable cheap labor.

And even if we want to prevent some of that, I really don't know if it's to the point of having trucks wait days for an inspection or spending all that money on infrared, AI, and what not.

Let's take the 'no borders' situation - and throw in 'no drug regulation':

1) The immediate availability of narcotics would devestate the country within a few months. The opioid epidemic is already causing great harm, and that's something that was actually contained initially within the confines of the American medical system: you had do have prescription, from a doctor, and access a controlled substance. And even then - it's bad.

With fentanyl now available, which by the way, is the #1 drug of choice among recent opioid addicts because it's just 'much better' - we're seeing devestating results.

A completely liberal free for all would mean all sorts of things: energy drinks, candy, food, would be embedded with various drugs.

America is not 'burning man' - with mostly high responsible actors, doing stuff 'on the side' where it's not open, and not usually within 'arms reach'. Even the professionals who can 'handle their stuff' at burning man, were things to become as easy as coca cola to access, would fall under.

Within about 5 months, 5% of the population would be addicted to meth or opiods, it would be a massive public health disaster of epic proportions. And while organized crime might not exist, petty crime would skyrocket.

2) "Texans love guns, so not sure why we'd want to prevent them from entering."

Because guns are a controlled commodity for similar reasons. Every state has regulations. Do you want fully automatic machine guns, grenades, CS gas easily accessible to every baddie in America for a few dollars? It's absurd.

3) "Illegal migrants can also be deported after the fact"

No, they can't.

Illegal immigrants are not deported unless they have committed major crimes, because it's too expensive and politically untenable. 'Open Borders' would mean millions of people arbitrarily flowing into the US until the system was degraded to the point where there wasn't an advantage in coming to the US. When it has failed as badly as Brazil, well, people will stop coming.

4)

It's really absurd that people think laws, borders, rules etc. don't matter and are somehow arbitrarily limiting. Those are part of the fundamental building blocks of civil society.

Mexico is a broken state, the US is mostly a civil state, which is a delicate thing.

One of the first things to happen with 'open borders' would be the Cartels themselves using it as an opportunity to corrupt American politicians. Money is a very powerful thing, unrestrained it would corrupt Arizona / New Mexico politics and Justice System relatively quickly and the dominoes would start to fall.

That doesn't mean open borders, just don't force all trucks through a full inspection. Check papers, ask a few questions, randomly inspect a few, and inspect those that are more suspicious looking. Seems to have been working alright to me.

I also don't know why you jump straight to complete deregulation of all drugs. Coca cola can't put bleach in the drink and yet I can buy bleach. Alcohol doesn't show up in kid products, and THC isn't suddenly put in kit kat bars.

Also from my understanding, it wasn't contained to pharmaceutical, it was that over prescription made people who would have not taken opioid of their free will become addicted.

And there's definitely studies and papers on the counter effect of prohibition policies in actually making matters worse:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553...

This requires that the inspection station in Mexico is not spoiled by corruption. That is not a sane perspective.