Subject: Re: STOP ENGAGING WITH FASCISTS
So they...want to change the law.

No, they don't. Or at least, not the substantive law. The person who says that it's better to let ten guilty people go free than convict an innocent person be convicted isn't arguing that the law needs to be changed to make legal the things the person is guilty of. They're saying that the process for enforcing the existing law needs to balance two competing goals - punishment of the guilty and protection of the innocent.

People who advocate against draconian immigration enforcement are making the same balancing of enforcement argument. That we should balance the competing benefits of improved location of aliens with a criminal conviction against the damage caused to the families and communities by deporting people who are otherwise law-abiding.

That takes care of your Jean Valjean point because literally no one wants to see someone serve a punishment they do not deserve...

But people differ greatly about what punishment people actually deserve. If two guys get into a drunken bar fight over the football game, the local prosecutor can either just lock them in the drunk tank and let them go in the morning without charges - or prosecute them both for a litany of assault and battery charges and put them in jail for five years. What's appropriate - what's just - isn't always black and white.

So when an ordinary hardworking guy who's got a citizen wife and kids, but was brought to this country when he was eight illegally, doesn't have authorization to be in the country....what's the just punishment? Banishment and permanent separation from his family? People who place a higher priority on the other side of the balance than you do would say, "absolutely not" - that's too severe a consequence. You might disagree. But unless you acknowledge that their positions on various aspects of enforcement policy stem from prioritizing the impacts on the folks like that guy (just like your position stems from prioritizing the potential apprehension of aliens with a criminal record), you're not going

If one wants the laws to be different, then discuss how the laws should be different.

They don't only want the laws to be different - they want the enforcement policy to be different. They want the enforcement policy to differentiate between aliens with violent criminal convictions and aliens who don't have those. They want the procedures to make sure that aliens without violent criminal convictions don't get sucked into the enforcement process. They want the administration of the laws to strike a balance between enforcement and mercy that is different than what we see today.

In many instances, the process of applying the law is often as important (and sometimes more important) than the words that are written in the statute books. Nearly all law enforcement bodies have extraordinary amounts of discretion on how to handle people that aren't that bad. The real baddies have to be handled a certain way - but justice for the people that are basically good people but have done something wrong that isn't a major crime usually depends on the application of discretion, not the language in the law.

...because right wingers are racist, sociopathic morons who can't possibly have any empathy for them thar brown and quarrr folks, amirite? And then proceeds to ask you how to "convince" these presumably hate-filled morons that they're wrong. All the while standing on the highest Virtue-Signaling Mountaintop digitally available, lol.

And I think you would agree that this is not an effective way of arguing their point? That you don't find it to be a constructive basis for conversation and dialog? That you don't regard it as persuasive when someone doesn't make an effort to try to make arguments that at least acknowledge your value system?

No one's ever going to be able to have a constructive dialog with you (or conservatives on this issue generally) unless they acknowledge that conservative beliefs on immigration enforcement involve placing a very high value on enforcing rules, punishing violation of laws, and maintaining order. But the converse to that is that you're never going to be able to have a constructive dialog with progressives unless you acknowledge that progressives place a very high value on proportionality of impact and on minimizing harm to people who have committed wrongs that are not serious crimes, especially when those folks lack resources to protect themselves.