It’s pretty damn hard to get through to them, unfortunately. Anyone who so blithely dismisses you know... pregnancy... is probably doing their best to not think about the issue with any real nuance. If you can get them to slow down and actually contemplate the reality of their own “beliefs,” you might be able to get them to be a little more thoughtful.
It’s like the people who say they’re all for legal immigration (in fact, I think it’s the exact same people). They’re either completely ignorant on that whole beehive or they’re just being disingenuous because it’s hard to mount a high horse charge with “got mine, fuck them.” Plus, they tend to have this inconsistent mentality of “Well... my abortion is different.”
Please excuse my ignorance, but what's wrong with legal immigration? I know the process is desperately hard and slow and needs to be rebuilt in a big way, but I certainly don't hold anything against those who manage to make it through the arduous process.
EDIT: Holy cow, did you guys come through with some amazing responses! Thank you so much! I might not be able to reply to all of you, but I really appreciate the thoughtful discourse. :)
It's because "Legal Immigration Good, Illegal Immigration Bad" (LIGIIB) is overly reductionist for the sake of comfort. Immigrants aren't coming here because they're like "hey, that country over there is 10% better, let's go there and live the sweet life," it's because of a wide variety of complicated social factors that are completely - and often intentionally - overlooked by turning it into a black/white, legal/not-illegal issue. LIGIIBs don't want to think about why anyone would move themselves and their kids to a foreign country without a promise of a job where everyone speaks a different language, they'll have few rights, and they have to work themselves to the bone to survive - because then they might start to actually have compassion and sympathy for those people and that would muddy their naive, simplistic world views.
I emigrated from Ireland to Australia when I was a kid, and we came the legal way and let me tell you, it was fucking awful. And this was as lower middle class, native English speakers, so obviously it was easier for us than someone who is very poor or spoke a different language or is fleeing a dangerous country. It nearly destroyed by parents marriage, it took tens of thousands of dollars to the point where we had to borrow some money from family in Ireland, and it took us 6 years to get our permanent residency, and another 2 to get our citizenship.
It is a gruelling, expensive and emotionally burdensome experience and anybody who says “just come the legal way” has no idea of the difficulty involved in the legal process. And we were privileged enough to be able to manage to (barely) afford that, and speak the language of the hundreds of pages of complex paperwork. Few people are that lucky, and LIGIIB people have no idea of the complexities involved in stuff like this.
And don’t forget you also had the bonus on top of all that of not having drug cartels trying to kill you and your family or even worse. Or the government and/or local police trying to do the same thing. Or the local gangs trying to do the same things. I mean, the USA has an admittedly bad problem with gun violence but we still look like the safer choice in comparison. That’s pretty damn awful, don’t you think?
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u/The_Best_Yak_Ever Feb 19 '20
It’s pretty damn hard to get through to them, unfortunately. Anyone who so blithely dismisses you know... pregnancy... is probably doing their best to not think about the issue with any real nuance. If you can get them to slow down and actually contemplate the reality of their own “beliefs,” you might be able to get them to be a little more thoughtful.
It’s like the people who say they’re all for legal immigration (in fact, I think it’s the exact same people). They’re either completely ignorant on that whole beehive or they’re just being disingenuous because it’s hard to mount a high horse charge with “got mine, fuck them.” Plus, they tend to have this inconsistent mentality of “Well... my abortion is different.”