Erosion of America’s Moral Credibility
President Nayib Bukele visited the White House and met with Trump. I’m torn about this. I’ve always thought Bukele was the best thing to happen to El Salvador, but the conversations they reportedly had in the Oval Office make me wonder if I’ve been naive.
You have to ask what drives a reporter to leak something like this. Sure, money’s probably a factor, but I bet it’s not the only one. A president telling another he plans to ship American citizens to a Salvadoran prison? That’s the wildest thing I’ve ever heard.
Then there’s Trump ignoring the Supreme Court ruling that clearly ordered him to facilitate the return of the gay barber deported to El Salvador. His administration keeps doubling down on the lie that this innocent man was a gang member, refusing to lift a finger—checks and balances be damned.
Some folks might say I’ve got TDS—Trump Derangement Syndrome, as they call it these days. Honestly, I don’t know how to respond to that. It’s a non-argument.
Are we saying it’s fine to toss out due process? Is that the new vibe? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? What about the Constitution we claim to love? Don’t we get why checks and balances exist? Didn’t we ditch kings for a reason?
Some people are totally fine with a strongman calling the shots. It’s like they want to be infantilized. Is “tell us who to be” the new ethos?
Where I stand, we’re carpet-bombing America’s moral credibility. We’ve got no high ground left, so maybe we should stop lecturing other countries on how to run their affairs.
Trump telling Bukele to build five more “gulags” between smiles and handshakes should freak everyone out. But nope—sycophants and folks asleep at the wheel just shrug. It’s another Tuesday.
MenO
The way I see it the US lost all credibility under Obama & Biden and Trump is restoring sanity and normal programming. Criminals and terrorists go to prison or are deported. Citizens have rights, illegal invaders do not.
This "gay barber" was found by two Courts to be part of a proscribed terrorist group - MS 13 - and had no right to be in the US in the first place.
It is entirely proper to summarily deport him to his nation of citizenship - El Salvador.
The whole "due process" argument is BS. He had plenty of due process and its far from clear he deserved any of it.
The Due Process Clause is for the benefit of citizens, not illegal alien terrorists.
I'd be fairly sure that enemy combatants committing war crimes in wartime are not entitled to due process.
So the Supreme court is anti-american? Why would the supreme court look at the evidence and say.
Nope, this guy is innocent.
Why would a right leaning Supreme Court declare him innocent?
I see this ending really bad. We are reaching the point of "loyalty testing" > justice.
Have you actually read the Supreme Court decision?
It does not say what Trump haters are saying it says.
I've made a mistake in my post, and I will fully acknowledge it. Although I'm clearly talking about the gay barber, I did not give his name, thus you and @Shainemata think I was defending the guy who did have "due process" and got affiliated with MS13.
There is holes in that story, but I wasn't referring to that one in particular. I did go back and look at what the Supreme court is saying. In that case, specifically that case, they've not declared that man (again, this is not the gay barber I was talking about) innocent.
We've been talking about two different people Andrew.
Now, Shainemata has been very good at adding clarity to the whole conversation. I'm grateful to him for that. But, as you can see from my response to him. I'm still not at ease.
In my post, btw, I was talking about this guy.
This is Rogan discussing it. Hardly a left wing outlet. He's a Trump supporter, as we know.
I wouldn't blame Bukele for this. He made a deal with the US, to host people and it's the US's job to make sure it's a justified deportation. El Salvador has no jurisdiction to overwrite US courts or authorities decisions. Obviously things are not so simple, as there's always more complexity regarding every decision, but this is how I see things.
The US disregarding court ruling is a huge abuse, needles to say.
I must accept, he is literally just providing a service.
what else can I say. I hate this shit.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 does not specify any due process. It favors expediency over elaborate legal procedures. In this regard, there was due process according to that law.
However, the law does specify that the war must be declared on a foreign nation. It may possibly be challenged on that basis. Two things could come of this. The first is that the law is challenged and the Supreme Court issues a ruling that gangs are not valid targets of the Alien Enemies Act. But the elaborate legal process can still take years to argue. The second possibility is that Congress changes the Alien Enemies Act to include or exclude gangs as valid targets of the law. Neither is something that happens quickly, particularly in the present political climate.
As far as checks and balances go, the Judicial branch has no power over how the Executive carries out a war, and has refused to attempt it. Ultimately the argument will hinge on upon whether declaring war on gangs, as stated previously, is a valid war. If not, then that changes things.
As far as innocent until proven guilty, the deported persons were already in the immigration process, which already is an admission of illegally entering the country. This is where things get murky when combined with a war declaration. There is an admission of guilt combined with wartime powers. You could argue that the guilt does not include admission of gang affiliation. But it's evident that this has little effect.
Ultimately, due process is slow. And I'm sure that due process is already taking place with legal challenges. It is not unique to this situation. It is common for people who are alleged to have committed a crime to be imprisoned until their trial convicts them or sets them free. In this case, the deportees will remain in prison until the legal process works out what to do. So far, nobody has pointed any legal precedent that applies to these circumstances. These are just facts.
In my personal opinion, the impact that this has is deterrance of any aspiring immigrants from entering the country illegally for risk of being declared a foreign enemy and being shipped to El Salvador. And it also encourages people already in process to self-deport, if their claims for asylum are tenuous. Therefore, I think it is to Trump's present advantage to have these mistaken deportations sensationalized in the press as it suppresses the desire to enter or remain in the country illegally. In this regard, sensationalizing these deportations is more helpful to Trump.
Thank for your adding clarity to this conversation. You seem to make a lot of sense to me. It's really about deterrence, above anything else.
I'm afraid though we are playing with fire here. Most people don't apply nuance. We are feeding the flames of Xenophobia, hoping it won't burn down the houses.
Let me ask you. How does sending American citizens to El Salvador make you feel?
In general, sending American citizens to a maximum security prison in El Salvador would be excessive.
In particular, we aren't just talking about any ordinary American. If they are affiliated with any of the international gangs, I could see how that would be appropriate. If they are in prison in the United States or El Salvador, I don't see that it makes much difference where they are kept. The distinction is that these gangs are terroristic in nature. When they target you, they don't just kill you, they also target your family, friends, or others who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody is safe from them. They terrorize everybody.
I'd be less inclined to send out a domestic gang member.
I'm also sympathetic to people who are mistakenly identified as gang members. I am well aware that the legal process can go wrong by imprisoning people who are innocent. This is why I don't give too much weight to "due process". Due process can also convict innocent people. In fact, you should want people to be convicted without due process, when required by law, as it can be appealed and overturned. It's much harder to be set free when you were convicted with all due process. Anybody sent to El Salvador by mistake is tragic. One can only hope that a good attorney can get them released.
We must also be careful about having false compassion. We can't have more sympathy for criminals than for their victims. So when you ask about deporting Americans, are you asking about people who commit or participate in horrendous crimes, often multiple times? What can you do with people like that? One can only hope that they come to regret their actions and learn to be better people. But that will have to be between them and God, because they certainly have not proven that they can be trusted amongst humans.
this is why I'm worried. It's easier for people to dismiss my concerns by presenting my position as if I'm advocating to let criminals roam free.
But, I don't think the best way to kill rats is to burn down the house.
The Aliens enemies act opens the door for being too imprecise to actual tackle the problem without massive collateral damage. This has always been my fear.
Of course I want safe streets, of course I want gang members in prison. But, without due process we are likely to screw the pooch, as we have already. The story of the gay barber even had Rogan speak out on this very subject, and as we all know, he's very much a supporter of the current admin.
Actually the Alien Enemies Act does NOT require war to be declared on a foreign nation. That is just one of 3 options. The others are directly applicable to criminal terrorist gangs invading the USA and are the basis of Trump's executive order.
What are the others?
There's a huge difference between "orange man bad" TDS and principled criticism of specific policies from some kind of philosophical foundation. The man is a jingoistic ass, an economic ignoramus, and unwilling to admit wrongdoing even in patently unconstitutional acts which deny due process to inflict cruel and unusual punishment.
Meanwhile, I'd argue US moral credibility has been crumbling since the end of the Cold War and the ongoing search for new enemies while bureaucracy and cromyism seek new ways to leech off society.
https://x.com/lee19389/status/1912251922834211288
#hive #posh
I think sending those in prison for life to El Salvador is genius. This will be a harsher sentence even though it is life and highly doubtful more of a deterrent. When you break the law you lose all rights and no longer a member of society so who cares where they go. People are generally too soft and discuss feelings these days and why the world is such a mess. The death penalty solves all these problems if there is no doubt. I think differently because I live in a violent country that does not have harsh enough sentences for rape and murder and would love to make prison a proper deterrent that criminals would think twice before doing any crime.
I'm not defending criminals my friend. I do think that terrorist need to feel the shaft of consequence.
My point is that we need due process to make sure innocent people don't get caught in the crossfire.
Due process is about finding out the truth, applying justice. Its not about being too soft on crime.
That is fine because you are innocent until proven guilty but these days guilty and you prove your innocence it seems. There has to be the correct process and only those who are beyond any doubt are the ones sent away. Let me check out the video. I may have watched it already so let me check.
look at the JRE video i shared.
Yes mistakes cannot happen because there is no going back once you have been processed. If this story is true then it is clearly an injustice and even more reason they have to get it right or not do it at all.
I'm concerned about America's moral credibility taking a hit. Trump's actions, like ignoring the Supreme Court ruling and discussing shipping citizens to a Salvadoran prison, raise serious concerns for me. I think the country's lost its moral compass, and it's hard not to notice.