The Nation Glares at Arizona...really?

Washington Post columnist (and reliably doctrinaire leftist) Katherine Vanden Heuvel wrote a column titled "The Nation Glares at Arizona." Basically she took Arizona's immorality as a given, and devoted herself to tactical issues.

Heuvel allowed any number of frothing Tea Party comments to be entered, as you'll see if you click on the link--but she censored out mine, which was considerably less frothy. Here it is--see what you think:

Katherine Vanden Heuvel’s arguments against the Arizona law are as follows:

1. 22 years ago Arizona’s Republican governor rescinded observation of Martin Luther King Day. He also defended calling Black kids “pickaninnies.”

2. Several other cites and/or states outside Arizona have declared boycotts of Arizona.

3. The Arizona law is “culturally insensitive (or openly racist).”

Let’s examine each:

1. This is supposed to “prove” that all of Arizona’s Republican legislators are racists, have always been racists, and always will be racists, because of some things one of them did 22 years ago.

Arguments like this are symptomatic of the isolation of ideologues from those with opposing views. It appears that VDH simply has never had to defend her ideas against anyone who doesn’t already agree with her.

And even if Arizona’s current legislature turned out to be racist, that isn’t an argument against this law—only against trusting the motives of its creators. But the logic and factual basis for a law don’t depend on the motives of its crafters—they depend on the logic and factual basis of the law itself.

Attacking the character of your opponent is a common dirty trick—Republican campaigns use this as a matter of course; but don’t be fooled—Demos do too, as VDH demonstrates here.

Debaters call this the ad hominem attack.

2. Boycotts: How is this a moral argument? From a leftist point of view, would boycotts of “sanctuary” cities justify opposing illegal immigration? Of course not. Therefore it’s simply a declaration of power: Surrender, Arizona. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

3. “culturally insensitive.” This is a Medieval syllogism. Illegal immigration is nonwhite. Anyone who opposes anything that nonwhites want is racist. Therefore resistance to illegal immigration is racist.

But as with #2, this is never applied the other way. For example, I know about white racists—as the descendant of what Southerners would call White Trash, most of my paternal line qualified.

Though to be fair to them, they did say that when the last of them to live in slave times was ordered to beat a slave, he’s take him behind the barn and beat the ground with a stick while the slave yelped. So for the time that ancestor was a good guy.

But since then I did a stint of teaching in ghetto schools, and that’s when I met such bigoted racists that they put my folks to shame.

Likewise, I find that people like Van Den Heuvel have zero respect for Anglo American culture. Every other culture on Earth (well, if it’s nonwhite), sure. You bet. But Anglo culture? It is to be destroyed as quickly as possible.

I always thought claims like this exaggerated the truth—nobody could hate their own society like this. But over the past four years I’ve read so many statements gloating over the coming destruction of Anglo America by a rising tide of nonwhite reproduction that I’ve come to realize sometimes even knuckle-dragging Southern whites aren’t totally lying.

Of course there’s the claim that it’s impossible to be insensitive to the group in power—as in only whites are racist. Everyone else is just defending themselves against the monstrous evil that is white folk.

But when I’ve been the only white person in the room—and I have on more than one occasion—then who’s in power? Or walking down the street in the part of town where the main street is named Martin Luther King Blvd.? Does an elderly white person in such a situation feel in power then?

I’ve traveled in 17 countries. My circle of friends includes people from half a dozen nations. But my parent culture is Anglo American, and I like it, I want to come home to it, and I don’t want to see it destroyed—and I find all the comments in this thread that accuse anyone who objects of being a racist, automatically—well, that’s truly “culturally insensitive.”

These aren’t one way streets—and everyone should apply to themselves the principles they expect others to uphold. Van Den Heuvel does not.

Arizona, illegal immigrants, and crime rates

Right wingers claim illegals amount to barbarians at the gates, terrorizing Americans with violent crime. Left wingers claim they're just honest "undocumented workers" who wouldn't harm a flea.

Where's the truth?

I just fact-checked relevant competing claims about Arizona crime rates with www.factcheck.org and www.politifact.com, two of the best sources for nonpartisan, thoroughly researched fact-checking.

It looks at though there hasn't been an big overall increase in violent crime in Arizona during the period of greatly increased illegal immigration.

BUT--this is based on reported violent crime; it doesn't separate out crime committed by illegals; and it doesn't include non-street crime, such as Social Security identity theft that may not show up until you apply for Social Security--and then could require years to start getting payments because the SSA can't tell who's who.

AND these state conceal a crucial fact beyond the fact that they don't tell you what part of crime illegals do.

This is the fact that every single crime committed by illegals wouldn't have been committed if illegals weren't in the country.

And the stats conceal crime locations. Traditionally you find high crime areas in poverty pockets ridden with high concentrations of unemployed people--especially young men--lots of drug dealing, prostitution, illegal gambling etc. Middle class people can and do avoid such areas.

But crime associated with illegals also occurs all along the border, often far from the poverty pockets. It occurs in drop houses in middle class neighborhoods. Their migration routes can take them through normal residential neighborhoods.

And because they're illegals, they tend to under-report crime even when they're the victims, or witnesses to the crimes.

Also, because they're illegals, they're more likely to be off the grid--hence harder to catch. Some borracho runs his car into yours and flees. The license plate is stolen. The car was bought for cash and isn't linked to the guy. That crime is less likely to be solved.

Moreover, crime stats don't account for ranchers who can't safely leave their homes at night and whose property get trashed and burglarized. Littering isn't a violent crime, nor is being menacing to your children.

From all this I conclude that whatever the crime rate caused by illegals, 100% of it is unacceptable and could be avoided if we had proper control of who's in this country. I also conclude that the impact of crime done by people off the grid has a disproportionate negative effect on society. And I further conclude that nonviolent crime by illegals may not show up for decades, and often has a more adverse affect on middle class society than crime localized in urban slums.

Finally, their presence here, competing with unskilled American laborers of all races and ethnicities, providing scab labor that helps amoral employers bust unions and drive down wages for everyone, stuffing schools with kids who are way behind American kids even without taking language into account, using ERs for primary care, having citizen children who immediately go on welfare, all burden society beyond the tip of the iceberg represented by violent crime.

Arizona's anti-[illegal] immigrant law and the Washington Post

The Washington Post printed an editorial denouncing Arizona's just-signed illegal immigrant law, titled “Arizona's shameful 'immigration' bill.”

The writer, A.J. Dionne, is one of the Post's mainstay left-of-center columnists and a practising Catholic. The Post published hundreds and hundreds of comments, including many foaming-at-the-mouth denunciations of Arizona's government, and many others by Tea Party types--but it censored out my comment.

However, you can read it here, and see what the Post believes violates its editorial standards (and maybe let me in on the secret, since I can't figure out what led them to delete this):

The closest thing to a valid objection to this law is that it’s discriminatory, because it employs profiling.

That’s fine with me. It just applies statistical probability to real-life practical situations. But it is a good thing for our society to be—and to be seen--as color-blind.

So here’s how to achieve it: deploy a universal biometric ID database. This is doable today, & other rich countries are starting to implement one. It doesn’t even require a card you’d have to keep on you.

For example, Fujitsu has been selling palm readers for years. We all have a unique pattern of veins in our palms. This reads it. You can’t fake it, you can’t alter it, & you can’t erase it (short of cutting off your hand).

So—we implement universal biometric ID. Then, whenever you interact with a government agency—cops, hospital, school, whatever—or an employer—you just hold your hand over a reader for a second. If you’re in this country legitimately, cool. If you aren’t but need emergency medical help, we’ll help—then deport you. If you have legal American children, you can choose to take them with you or send them into the foster care system. Your choice.

After someone’s deported, make illegal re-entry a felony.
The readers are small & easy to link to the database using wifi, so every cop car can have one.

Of course all this presumes that you believe in countries & borders & stuff—and that this still-majority- white country has a right to exist, & has a right to decide who gets to come here. And that it’s worth offending pro-illegal-immigration-Latinos to do so.

1. Countries & borders: Every single rich country has many, many millions of people from poor countries trying to move there.

Shallow people look at the situation & say “Oh those poor deserving nonwhite people! Let us take them in.”

It never seems to occur to them to figure out why they want to come here. Honestly it’s a form of chauvinism—assuming that we’re so wonderful everyone’s dying to be us—that our “job magnet” trumps their entire culture.

But most people like their own people & culture. They only want to come here because they’re starving. And why are they starving? Because there are too many of them.

The world’s population has QUADRUPLED since 1900. Today the human race is growing at the rate of 140 more people every single minute. It’s even faster in the poor countries, because rich country natives mainly have small families (except for Catholics & some other religious groups).

Take Mexico. Please. Mexico had just 20 million people in 1940. That number QUINTUPLED in just 60 years. Mexico can’t remotely employ that many people. Or feed them, for that matter.

And here’s the kicker: we didn’t do that to them. They did it to themselves, under the domination of a primitive religion (which, by sheer coincidence, A.J. Dionne shares)—a religion that forbids any form of contraception, & which insists that even a 10 year old child raped by her stepdad carry the fetus to term (this is a current case in the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico; you can find many other such cases in Latin America).

Another case: Haiti. Its population zoomed from 3 million in 1950 to 12 million (including Haitian expats) in 2010—quadrupling in 60 years.

So—in what bizarre world are we morally obligated to take in such countries’ overpopulation that we had no part in producing?

Only if you don’t believe in countries. We’re just one big world. Of course the people of every single other country believe they’re countries. And if you’re in another country & wind up in a jail there, are you gonna call the UN? Or your church? Not likely. You’ll call the American consulate. And if that’s true for you, then you do believe in countries in general & ours in particular, & anything you say to the contrary is what’s known in philosophical circles as hypocrisy.

2. Does America in particular have a right to exist? First, let’s clear up the myth of Mexicans being the original inhabitants of the Southwest. Um, it was the Hopi, Navaho & other Amerindian tribes. I’d love to see a Mexican make this “it’s ours really” argument in front of a bunch of Amerinds.

Plus most Mexicans are mestizos—part Spaniard, part Indio. So part of most Mexicans has to go back to Spain. I don’t know whether it’s technically feasible to put someone in a blender & separate out one set of DNA from the other.

And I’m 3/32 Cherokee—so some of me gets to stay. Yay.

But face it: every country on Earth is squatting on top of someone else’s earlier territory, except for the highlands of Kenya where humanity originated (thus every American is actually an African American BTW).

3. And who has a “right” to come here? No one. Who should come? Folks with skills we need with clean criminal & medical records. But given the unemployment rate of American unskilled laborers—peasants need not apply.

BTW Latinos comprised 0.5% of America in 1940. Now they’re 14%. Who voted for that?