I’m located in the Vancouver area, southern BC. I have no ability to vote for a couple reasons… one, I’m Canadian, and two, I’m 15 
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Ouch. We deserve that. Very fine people on both sides, though. 
I am “almost” from Canada; born less than 2 miles from the border (downtown Detroit; same hospital Harry Houdini died in). I love Canada, and have been to many wonderful unicycling events there. Note that Canada is one of only two countries that have hosted more than two UNICONs!
10 posts were split to a new topic: Countries that have hosted more than 2 UNICONs?
This is kind of late, but interesting opinion here on children getting separated at the border from a veteran named Dennis Manning (not separated from Dennis Manning… the opinion is from him 
):
Opinion
When an American is arrested, they are separated from their children. Their children don’t go to jail with them. Why should someone who’s not a citizen have MORE rights than one who is?
Separation is done for the children’s safety, to keep them out of the reach of child traffickers and pedophiles, while also trying to figure out the family’s status either as illegal aliens or asylum seekers.
Your claim that his administration created this procedure is false. This procedure was already in place when he assumed the duties of president. This procedure has been in place for decades.
So how can he say he’s the least racist person ever? His repeated denouncement of white supremacy that is ignored by media, his First Steps program, his policies that amped up a mediocre recovery, creating more jobs for minorities and women, and his repeated attempts to establish better situations for all Americans.
Trump is doing nothing his predecessors haven’t already done. The only reason he’s catching heat for it is because he’s Trump.
Remember, not all those people claiming to be parents actually are. So until those children’s safety is assured, the agencies involved have to tread carefully.
So let’s can this talk of “Trump is the only president that has separated children from their parents”. It isn’t true.
Thoughts?
The term “Deporter in Chief” was actually pinned to Obama. So, yes, Trump didn’t start this. And two wrongs don’t make a right, either. Three “lefts”, however, do make a right.
Andrew, I appreciate your wish to understand these issues better. Our American standard of living is built upon the existence of an exploitable underclass. Instead of acknowledging the contribution of essential, immigrant labor, we instead malign immigrants. Neoliberal capitalism has made it impossible for subsistence farmers to survive in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, forcing them to emigrate. The real crime is how our system treats human beings.
Andrew, I agree with thieum: You need to offer up your own point of view.
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I don’t really agree that we automatically malign immigrants… but okay, sure. Anyhow, you can’t have everyone pour in. That is illogical and bad for the country. As I said previously, the USA is the bastion of the free world. You have some very powerful people trying to take it down. While I don’t think the country is perfect, I recognize that it has achieved one of the greatest economies ever and one of the highest levels of freedom. Capitalism has been tried and true - sure, it might produce some bad things, but every system does because that’s human nature. We’ve seen communism (or socialism, same thing different name; it’s what the Democrats are trying for) at work in the last century and it has resulted in unprecedented loss of life and liberty.
I will continue to stand by anyone who espouses freedom, equality, and prosperity. And frankly, right now, that’s the Republicans.
I know this is nit-picking, but in no way do I need to do so…
However, as thieum could tell you, I have. He requested it and so I gave it to him. I offered it to John as well, as seen a bit further up. Thieum and I did not engage in a conversation about it, which is what I preferred when I mentioned that I decided to pull out of the debate for several reasons. I added you to the PM in which I sent my opinion, but just for the record I’m not going to debate further and so a reply would be unnecessary.
Is Dennis Manning a member of this forum? I do not agree with him.
Paragraph 1: When a citizen is arrested and children are present, they aren’t taken away and deliberately “lost”. Police or other officials also do not abandon them in an empty house, on the side of the road, etc. They place them with family, or responsible adults who will look after them. In these border situations, the children a separated from the parents deliberately, in order to dissuade other immigrants from trying to enter. Poor records, if any, are kept. Right now apparently there are about 542 children in custody whose parents cannot be located. When a citizen is arrested, the kids aren’t put in jail (cages). Of course they are citizens as well. When they cross the border with parents, as minors, are they criminals?
Separating children from their parents for prolonged periods, especially under the age of 2, can cause permanent psychological damage. I’m not a psychologist; you can choose to read about that or not. Suffice it to say that it’s really bad, for the kids, in many ways. For many of the youngest ones, the effects will last the rest of their lives.
Paragraph 2: Bullshit. Children are separated for political reasons, to terrify people from bringing their children to the border. Many families are sent back to Mexico to await hearings, though I would assume they aren’t separated.
Paragraph 3: Yes, this “procedure” already existed. Why didn’t we hear about it then? Because it was done very sparingly, and on much smaller numbers of families. It was not done for political reasons. It was not done sloppily, without a way to reunite families. The Trump administration did it sloppy on purpose.
Paragraph 4: He can say he’s the least racist person ever because he’s one of the lyingest persons ever. If he’s not a straight-up racist, he cultivates the image of one deliberately. In other words, he plays one on TV. He can’t afford to lose the KKK vote, the white supremacist vote, the Proud Boys vote, etc.
Paragraph 6: Indeed, some of those people might not be the parents of those kids. How many? How do they determine this? Is it more or less than 10%? 5%? If they are “treading carefully” that’s a good thing. Maybe we don’t hear about that because it’s not newsworthy?
The Trump Administration’s child separation policy is nothing short of a crime against humanity. It is probably their worst deed of all, and the consequences will take years to play out. That one issue alone should be enough for people to consider voting for somebody, anybody else.
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I’m pretty sure that’s never been the case. We have never let everyone pour in without any limitation, and I don’t hear people calling for it. The term “Open Borders” only seems to be uttered by people who want less immigration. What about legitimate asylum seekers? People who aren’t criminals, but are running away from cartels or bad governments that want to kill them for whatever reason? And is it okay for the US government to “lose” their children, under ANY circumstances, ever?
WAS. We have a lot of repairing to do. I’m surprised the Statue of Liberty is still standing up. What powerful people are trying to take what down?
True enough. Straight-up capitalism; capitalism at all costs and without heart, is not a good thing. Capitalism for its own ends is not good for society. It must be tempered by a sense of community, responsibility and care for the world beyond just the bottom line. For example, if you’re an energy company that denies climate change, and paying scientists to back you up, is immoral. Or to use a smaller example, to poison communities with industrial waste, fracking or other legal activities that damage the environment, to reap big profits, is not okay. It’s capitalism, but it’s also wrong.
Go to the back of the class. Communism and socialism are not the same thing Democratic socialism is not the same as socialism. Stay after class until you understand the definition of each. Is the Veterans Administration a bad thing? Or is it a good thing that’s badly run? Or is it a good or bad thing in theory?
You name the party of voter suppression. The party that has deliberaty effed up the US Postal Service in the hopes of steering this election to the courts instead of providing a clear and transparent system of voting and elections that people can have confidence in. America is better when everyone votes. It would be even better if everyone took more of an interest to learn about all the people and things on the ballot, and took an interest in their local races, etc. but you gotta start somewhere…
Anyway, those are my opinions. And, now that I’ve figured out how to do the quoting properly, I still prefer doing these types of posts here rather than Facebook!
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Paragraph 7: how on earth did they manage to lose the parents of 500+ kids now? Just shows how much respect they have for other human beings.
Agreed. People here in Europe studied and compared the program and the ideas of Bernie Sanders. Fly him here and he would stand slightly to the right of Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron. That’s nowhere socialist, hardly slightly-left-leaning centrism. He just uses this term because he loves to freak out americans using the S word.
It’s still amazes me that years and years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, America’s right is still waving the scary red-commie flag towards any democrat who veers a little left from the center.
“If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.” – Winston Churchill (though some people argue that it’s a quote from Clémenceau originally)
Anyway, don’t worry @johnfoss, as @AndrewA is canadian and won’t vote in the US election this year. 
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Steps on the same ladder, sure, though full socialism is hardly different. If you knew your history you’d know that the disastrous regimes behind the post-WWII Iron Curtain were all “socialist” countries. Didn’t make them any better.
Anyways, the media says Trump is fascist. Is his actual platform fascist? Obviously not. I say the Democrats are trying for communism. It doesn’t matter if they take a while to get there. They’re high up the ladder already.
Of course, anyone who examined the facts would know that the Republicans have nothing to do with fascism (obviously the political spectrum is faulty, communism and fascism are not polar opposites) and they’re not heading in that direction.
Anyways, you keep making such ridiculous posts (with all due respect, of course ) that it’s hard not to reply to them. Please come join me at the back of class and we can share a root beer and discuss the pros and cons of learning on a 24" rather than a 20".
They are being separated because they are being charged with the crimes they committed, whereas, less people were charged with the crimes under previous administrations. Political purposes? I guess if you consider following campaign promises political, then it is.
Children kidnapped and traded into slavery is a big problem here in Mexico, so this sounds like a legitimate thing to determine before handing the kids back to their “parents”.
Haha. Looks like you need to go back to class too where the root beer is. The US is not capitalism right now. It’s cronyism and corporatism. Sweden and China are much more capitalist than the US right now. Sweden is socialist in just a few areas, and have to be pretty free market capitalist in the rest to not tank the economy.
No, both the republicans and the democrats fit in the more fascist part of the political spectrum. The dems sound more socialist on a few hot button issues their base like, and the republicans sound more free-market on a few hot button issues their base like, but overall they really are not a whole lot different.
These are the four candidate on the US ballot. I bet if people didn’t see the names next to the policies of each of these the race would be between Jorgensen and Hawkins, though this pandemic is showing us that people do love authoritarianism much more than I would have expected.
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20" is the only way to learn. I am not speaking from experience, since I learned on a 24". But I still know I am right. I see no reason to debate this issue further and will cease posting on this topic. Except if anyone posts anything ridiculous, then I will be forced to OWN them.
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Have you tried the 22"?
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Does Trump actually have a platform? Whatever it is, it’s blurry at best. I don’t call him a Fascist, he doesn’t use the word Fascist; but he sure seems to want to be one. I don’t see him wanting to be a President, or wanting to govern. He wants to rule. He doesn’t like rules. Laws are just obstacles to him getting what he wants. I don’t consider that an opinion, I consider it an accurate analysis of how he has behaved, at least since his racist landlord days in the 70s.
Democrats “trying” for Communism? Odd way to go about it. Socialized medicine is not Communism. Lots of countries have socialized medicine and healthcare is a lot cheaper in those countries. Including Canada? My impression of Canadians’ opinion about the healthcare system there is “meh”. That’s from 2001, when I had a brief encounter with Canadian healthcare in Toronto during the USA Uni Convention there. I got a good cut on my head playing unicycle hockey, we went to the nearby hospital, waited in line for a couple of hours and finally spoke to a triage nurse who could not estimate how much longer we’d be there, so my wife said “I can butterfly that” and we went in search of bandages as all the stores were closing. {There a part 2 to that story; I later learned that Darren Bedford, the convention host, had filled in for me in that hockey game, and then he got injured also. He ended up spending most of that night at the same hospital!}
I am in favor of the idea of Socialized medicine. Not for a Medicare Only type plan, but a range of options that allows work-based insurance, private insurance but also coverage that’s accessible to everyone, so costs can be shared, prices can be negotiated, and the hell of medical billing (hopefully) can be simplified. And lowered. Right now it costs way too much. Getting sick should not lead to a family losing its house. Anyway, that’s not Socialism, that is a socialized program. I’m not aware of anyone that wants socialized everything, including Bernie.
Hrrr? That’s like saying the Republicans have nothing to do with Donald Trump. They have hitched their wagons to the guy that acts like a Fascist dictator (milder version; shorten that to Fascist Dic). The Republican party used to have integrity, dignity, fiscal responsibility, respect. That party is hopefully still in there somewhere, but as long as IMPOTUS is around, whatever the Republican party was, is not what it is. 
Where is this root beer at the back of the class? I missed out on that at my schools. A nice A&W, properly served in an ice-cold mug! Then to compare 24" vs. 20" for learning. Unless you’re really short, I believe both are fine. People tend to get too wrapped up in the equipment while learning, looking for shortcuts. The best uni to learn on (within reason) is the one you have. At least if you were like me, and couldn’t afford anything else.
BTW, I notice you mention Miyata Flamingo in your profile, but seem to be a relative newcomer to the sport. How did you end up with one of those? I still love my old 24" from 1983, though almost every part on it has been replaced over the years…
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4 posts were split to a new topic: Where did AndrewA found his Flamingo unicycle?!
Previous administrations also didn’t deliberately, or merely utterly incompetently, neglect to gather enough information to reunite the families. This administration did this deliberately, and has admitted that they intended this to discourage people from coming to the border.
Absolutely, for those families lucky enough to be reunited.
I think you’re right about what the US is. Capitalism is still in there somewhere, but pure capitalism is not good without balance. China is interesting; we got to see it up close in 1993 and 2000. How can this supposedly Communist country look so much like Capitalism Gone Wild on the ground? It was such a dichotomy. 
Hey, stop mocking John please.
Seriously, though, I’m trying to phase out the argument because I don’t think it’s super useful. However, I don’t want to just leave people hanging, so I’m trying to slooowly stop.
Awww… @Canapin moved the Miyata posts…
I found it great to see an off-topic thread going off-topic on our common interest “unicyles”.
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