Man goes to get green card, dies of cancer in ICE cell.

[The Yosemite Bear]

At first I thought this was let's appease China....

no, this is just beurocratic incompetence and rutine dehumanizing of those that they are taught to believe are "Enemies" and "Less then Human". Welcome to Fascism Lite.

[Adrian Laguna]

It just doesn't work that way. The whole argument I was making was based off of popular sovereignty, and since those are the terms under which the American citizenry can be condemned, it applies to all of them.

Yes and no. Popular sovereignty means that the people are responsible for the government's actions, but I said before responsibility does not necessarily lead to guilt.

Consider the example of a military unit that murders innocent civilians for shits and giggles, say it's a squad. The immediate command responsibility falls to the Platoon's Lieutenant, with further responsibility falling to every officer above the El-Tee in the chain of command. Does that mean we throw them all in jail? Can we say they are as guilty as those who perpetrated the crime? That depends on how they react when they find out. Swift punishment for the perpetrators is rather different than indifference, or obfuscating the facts, or just merely asking the men to not do that again.

Apply this to popular sovereignty, and if the government acts immorally the populace is blamed depending on whether they shrug their shoulders or cry out in protest and actively work to unseat the offending officials.

Of course, according to this the citizenry of the United States is in rather deep shit in the event of the Lizardmen deciding to use their superior technology to enforce international law (or something similarly fantastic), but I think it's important to differentiate between acceptance, passive or active, of the government's actions, and direct open opposition to them.

[FSTargetDrone]

It's not really feasible to execute or imprison half the population of the United States, so it seems to me the best corrective action would be disenfranchisement. I think everyone who falls under the above qualifications has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt they don't possess the decision making ability necessary to choose the leader of the free world. We deny minors the right to vote for the same reason, but even the most drunken junior varsity jock would have the intelligence to realize that a fight that leaves one of the other guys (or 1 million of them and 4 thousand of your own friends) dead was probably a bad idea, especially after learning that the pretenses it was started on were lies and the other guys actually posed no threat to them.

Until and unless the people who actually made the decision to go to war (that includes all the people who voted for it) in Iraq are held accountable, until an example is made of Bush and his Chicken Hawk toadies who decided it was a good idea to invade a country that had precisely nothing to do with an attack on the US while allowing the real perpetrators to effectively get away with it, the rest is academic.

But nothing will happen to Bush. He won't be impeached. He certainly won't be arrested. He, more than most, has the blood of all the dead allied forces and innocent Iraqis on his hands. He's killed more Americans than bin Laden did, and he's done so at greater cost. He and his yes men are the ones who started it all and none of them will ever suffer any consequences for leading the United States into an ill-conceived and unjustifiable war of choice. Oh, they'll speak of the Heavy Burden and the Thoughts For The Families Of Those Who Made The Ultimate Sacrifice, but he won't be otherwise inconvenienced in the least. No, Bush will retire to his Crawford Ranch and spend his time clearing brush and running a few miles each day. He'll have various functionaries work on his "library." He'll go to baseball games and take naps in the afternoon.

When we get him and the rest of his lackeys in The Hague, well, then we can have discussions about punishing the dim-witted mouth-breathers who voted for him.

There must be real consequences for a leader like Bush who does something like start a war in the way he did, for the reasons he did.

[Zed Snardbody]

It's shit like this that just drives me insane. ICE and CBP are allowing this man to die, because he over stayed a visa and sought to remedy the situation, all be it a bit late.

But when TSA uncovers a smuggling operation for illegals already in US territory that are being shuffled around by coyotes what do they do? Fucking ignore it because of inter agency bullshit.

They would much rather pull this kind of shit with someone who walked into their office and was doing something really professionally useful then deport someone who is cheep labor being moved around by human traffickers. Useless bastards.

[Glocksman]

This may surprise some people, but my position is that once you surrender your freedom (voluntarily or otherwise) and enter Federal custody, the Feds freaking owe you competent health care simply because you are no longer free to just walk out of your cell and seek it out on your own.

More simply put, the poor guy deserved to either be promptly deported (then his treatment would no long be a USG responsibility) or properly treated.

As it is, he got the worst of both worlds.

There's no fucking excuse for the malpractice exhibited in this case.

[Edi]

Glocksman nailed it in one. If shit like this happened here and somebody died in custody after being repeatedly denied medical attention when there was an obvious problem, the people responsible for it would at the very least lose their jobs and more probably also get jail time on top of that.

I have not heard of any problems as blatant as this anywhere in western Europe. All kinds of problems with clashes between police and immigrants, but no cases where medical attention has been systematically denied just because. The Belgian hepatitis patient mentioned in this thread is the only one I've seen reported anywhere. Whereas while this is extreme, similar cases have not been at all uncommon in the US. Just one more reason to stay the fuck out of there if at all possible.

[Thanas]

I have not heard of any problems as blatant as this anywhere in western Europe. All kinds of problems with clashes between police and immigrants, but no cases where medical attention has been systematically denied just because. The Belgian hepatitis patient mentioned in this thread is the only one I've seen reported anywhere. Whereas while this is extreme, similar cases have not been at all uncommon in the US. Just one more reason to stay the fuck out of there if at all possible.

You cannot even compare the belgian case to this one.

In Belgium, hospitals, not a government agency, refused treatment to some poor sod. In the USA, a government agency threw this guy in the lockup, then pressured him to stop appealing and used force to do so, while the guy was in excruciating pain. Also, the the Belgian one resulted in a national scandal and plans to change government policy. Who is willing to bet this one will result in nothing?

[Edi]

True. Which just underscores the differences.