Those would be rational arguments. Calling counter arguments racists, or dismissing them because you label the person making as a racists and xenophone, are not.

I just happen to think you are wrong. The undocumented population is somewhere around 4-5%, the percentage of the jail/prison population that is serving time for rape or murder that are also undocumented is much higher, well over twice that rate.

Ultimately I don't think it should matter if illegal immigrants commit more or less of certain crimes than another segment of the population. What should matter is if building one would have enough benefits to justify the cost. Personally I think we do need to strengthen border security, but I think there are better ways to do it than building a wall. I'm not arguing for a wall, I'm saying labeling and dismissing arguments for a wall as racists is bull****.

I hate conservative politicians, and with few exceptions I can't stand conservative political commentators.

There is a natural affinity between Trump supporters and libertarians. Both groups seem indifferent to whether proposed policies will actually work.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong"

Citation(s) needed for the bolded.

Also you might look into how many people are here illegally who crossed the border vs. overstaying some kind of visa. It's very dubious that a wall would have a measurable effect on illegal immigration - and impossible to argue the economic benefit would be worth the astronomical cost. It's just an emotional trigger for people who hate illegal immigrants.

I could but it would take too long, and it really isn't the point I'm making.

This is my point. Dismissing arguments by calling or inferring the people giving them are racist, xenophobes, misogynists, or whatever else. This is what I mean when I say PC culture is shutting down debate and is a problem.

PC Culture is not shutting down the debate on the Wall. Morons who think a multi-$trillion wall is going to make much difference in immigration one way or another, and refuse to ever listen to reason, is shutting down the debate.

Generally when otherwise sane, relatively intelligent people won't listen to reason, it's because strong emotional biases have blocked that out. The people who desperately want a Wall have a strong emotional bias against illegal immigration. They are unconcerned with how effective the wall might actually be or whether it will be worth the cost. It just feels good.

Maybe we should stick to spending $90B on a bullet train that will never work.

Good explanation for voters choosing Hillary over Bernie.

Bullet trains work all over the world, why won't this one?

Obstructionists.

I'm sure it'll work in the sense that it'll get you from point A to Point B. Granted, it'll be about 4x slower than Southwest Airlines and will never bring in enough money to sustain itself, let alone justify the $90+ billion investment, but why sweat such minor details?

Uber and the like and driverless shared cars could make trains a lot more feasible. LA-Frenso I'd still just drive now, because how do I get to the train station and how do I get around Fresno? But if I could summon a driverless car at both ends of the trip, it might be a lot different.

I'm not saying it won't be cool to have, but it's an enormously stupid use of resources, particularly when you think about the strain that public employee pensions are going to place on California's finances.

If the goal is to do something about climate change, there are a hell of a lot of ways to spend $90 billion that would be higher yielding than high speed rail. Likewise, if the goal is to improve California's transportation system, there would also be much more efficient ways to spend the money.

High speed rail is being built in large part because Governor Moonbeam (who I actually generally like) wants a legacy project. There's no way to justify it from either an economic or public policy perspective.

Mebbe. It's hard to estimate the value of something that could have an impact for like 100 years or more.

It wouldn't be my first choice for addressing climate change though, as you might guess from my undertitle.

More Trump supporters, less trains plz

De-rail the thread?

Emotional biases works the other way too - progressives will want to believe there's no cost involved in our prison or social welfare systems, there's no crime being committed, no exploitation being done.

Feds will step in to fund the trains if CA slaps TRUMP signs on them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/op...id-to-say.html

That is why it is best to provide a cite so you can separate what you think is true from what is actually true.

Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus supporting Trump

Black Trump supporter arguing with BlackLivesMatter protesters

Black Trump supporter calling out MSNBC for race baiting

Legal immigrant for Trump

Maybe, just maybe, his positions have nothing to do with race. You can make comments about some people who enter the country illegally or criticize some people who support #BLM without being racist.

With few exceptions any opinion articles about misogyny, racism, xenophobia, comparisons to Hitler are utter garbage.

A few anecdotal minorities who support Trump means nothing. Scan the faces at his rallies. They're at least 99% white.

Keep fighting that Hitler strawman too.

lol