Yesterday I posted this comment on this post at ANTI-BVBL. What was my complaint? One of their posters praised a Washington Post editorial that included this paragraph.
In ethnic politics, symbolism matters. And recent Republican signals to Hispanics have often been crudely unwelcoming. During the 2006 congressional debate on immigration reform, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) grabbed the Republican microphone to call Miami a “Third World country.” The same year, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) darkly warned of illegal immigrant murderers as a “slow motion nightmare” greater than Sept. 11. A provision of the House immigration reform bill would have made it illegal for priests, ministers and volunteers to “assist” illegal immigrants — criminalizing a religious duty. Republican presidential candidates conspicuously avoided Hispanic forums during the 2008 primaries. Conservative shock radio, on its frightening fringes, can be overtly racist, referring to Mexican immigrants as “leeches,” “the world’s lowest primitives” and diseased carriers of the “fajita flu” who may “wipe their behinds with their hands.” Pat Buchanan sells books with this title: “State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.” (from here)
The implication, of course, is that Republicans don’t like Hispanics. The poster at ANTI-BVBL used this editorial to accuse Republicans of pandering to extremists. In other words, the author called Republicans bigots, but carefully skittered around using that word.
Frankly, I think the author, Michael Gerson, wrote a bigoted article. When ANTI-BVBL praised such trash, they joined in the same behavior.
In my comment, I pointed out that Americans have every right to protect their cultural heritage. Democracy is an invention. Just like any other invention, democracy requires experience and expertise to operate, but we are we doing? What would the people who call Republicans extremists have us do? They would have us open our borders and let anyone who wants enter our nation. Would they give strangers the keys to other people’s homes? Who knows? As it is, they insist on giving the children of illegal immigrants a free education, and they insist subsidizing the health care of illegal immigrants. What reason do we have to doubt that they would happily and self-righteously allow illegal immigrants to vote, even to the point of printing our voting ballots in a dozen languages?
Yet to complain of such rapacious stupidity is extreme. Thus Moon-howler promptly answered my comment with this reply: “You are the bigot because you come here and look at us all as one rather than individuals who have united on a blog to exchange ideas.” What can I offer in defense? I ask my readers to consider Moon-howler“s own words. He and his fellow blog compatriots have and are united. If Moon-howler does not want to be associated with ANTI-BVBL‘s other bloggers (Elena and Alanna seem to the only others in the last couple of weeks.), he can blog on his own blog. He can at least put up a page that describes the views of the individual authors and what the website is about. As it is there is nothing — nothing except what each author posts that distinguishes one author from another.
Nonetheless, Moon-howler did offer “positive” advice.
Why would any minority want to be a Republican? I have yet to even understand the Log Cabin Republicans. In order to get people to join, you have to offer something for them to identify with, appeal to their belief system. That is the place to start–not with platitudes or trotting out token Latinos or blacks. (from here)
What are we to make of Moon-howler‘s helpful advice? It seems Moon-howler thinks Republicans need is to start thinking like Moon-howler. Otherwise, we are evil, stupid, bigoted or some other such thing. And, of course, Black and Latino Republicans are just tokens. So there is no reason treat them with any respect. Perhaps, that is why Democrats so readily and enthusiastically trash the reputations and character non-WASP Republicans. How else can you explain why such tolerant souls so readily call others bigots?
Citizen Tom,
At this point, the children of illegal immigrants, if they are born here are called US Citizens. And, the children of illegal immigrants who themselves are ‘illegal’ are required to be educated under the Supreme Court Case Pyler v. Doe
The Court’s opinion can be read here -
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0457_0202_ZO.html
This is the law.
Additionally, I don’t believe you are a bigot. Furthermore, I respect your opinions which are often eloquently stated.
I see outreach efforts made by Republicans in Prince William County which are great. But nationally there are issues and the examples in the quoted paragraph at the top of this thread by Buchanan, Tancredo etc… aren’t attracting any Latino voters to the party.
Alanna – We all have the right to interpret the Constitution, not just the Supreme Court. Given that some of the Court’s decisions have been rotten to the core, we have an obligation to exercise that right.
The Constitution is quite clear about birth and citizenship. It is also clear that the Federal Government has certain responsibilities with respect to the enforcement of our borders. There is nothing in our Constitution that requires the People to pay blindly pay taxes support other people, not even their children.
What some greedy employers have set up is a scam that encourages cheap, unskilled labor to cross the border illegally. These employers get hard workers on the cheap. The American public gets to partially underwrite cost of this cheap labor by providing these illegal laborers “free” services.
That is a good deal? For whom?
As a member of the American public, I am tired of bending over for the benefit of a few greedy employers. The fact illegal immigrants have children here does make their children American citizens. Nonetheless, the obligation to raise these children still remains with the parents. Yet for some reason, we are all suppose to look the other way and not question the right of these children’s parents to be here. That is just plain dumb.
Some bank robbers have children. Some bank robbers are on the run. If we could find that bank robber by finding out where his or her children went to school, do you think we would look the other way? Not likely. Yet that is the kind of idiot nonsense we are suppose to accept with respect to ILLEGAL immigration. Otherwise, we are insensitive bigots.
So I have a few questions for you. Instead of listing the people you have decided to call bigots, why don’t you simply admit that employers should not be hiring illegal immigrants? Instead of trying to attract sympathy for illegal immigrants, why don’t you admit that some greedy employers are working the system to screw their fellow citizens?
3 people sharing a blog–what a concept! The 3 admins on the blog do not necessarily share the same ideas. It was an intentional move on our part.
Perhaps you aren’t a bigot, even though you called everyone on Anti one. Perhaps you just make sweeping generalizations and have bad blog manners.
And it is Ms. Moon-howler.
I believe you left out an important component of the article I posted. It was based on Senator Mel Martinez resigning from the Senate, and HIS expression of concern regarding his own party, the Republican Party, and their behavior towards Hispanics and the immigraton rhetoric. You may want to include that tid bit in your block quote, I believe it gives a more accurate picture of the op-ed by Gerson.
Alanna – You have given me an idea. You may not like what results, but thank you.
Moonhowler – Sweeping generalizations? What did you say about token Latinos and blacks?
Actually, I don’t recall calling anyone a bigot, but I won’t quibble. Undoubtedly, you feel I skittered close enough to that point that you feel I called you one. What is more to the point is whether I said anything untrue. Did I? Also, exactly how am I suppose to feel about all the nasty things inferred about the people I associate with?
Elena – I said nothing about Senator Mel Martinez for three reasons.
The first is that the article really had nothing to do with Martinez. Gerson just used Martinez as an excuse. I know next to nothing about Martinez, and I saw no reason to investigate. So why should I talk about him?
The second reason is that I don’t consider the views one Hispanic any more relevant than I consider the views of the few people Gerson cited as being representative of Republicans.
The third reason is that I did not consider what Gerson had to say truthful. That is not to say that Gerson deliberately lied, but I don’t consider Gerson’s opinion of those Republicans he cited as accurate. As I said, Gerson wrote a bigoted article. The article reflect nothing more than his personal biases. If I did not respect the accuracy of what Gerson had to say about the other Republicans in his article, why should I consider what he had to say about Martinez as accurate?
Let’s consider the one relevant aspect of Moonhowler’s complaint. What is a sweeping generalization? A “sweeping generalization” is another way of saying a “hasty generalization.” It involves “making assumptions about a whole group or range of cases based on a sample that is inadequate (usually because it is atypical or just too small).”
Because I complained about a post by one author on your blog, Moonhowler went ballistic. Presumably, that makes me bigot. Yet you all share much more in common than most members of the Republican party. So if what I did was wrong, what about what Gerson wrote? Was that also a sweeping generalization?
I have been a member of the Republican Party for years. Are there bigots in the Republican Party? I expect there are a few. Even so, there are far more minorities, and those people are made welcome.
One of these days you may wish to read a history book about the Republican Party. In the fight to end slavery and to keep slavery from being spread into the North, Abraham Lincoln and many others formed the Republican Party. Southern Democrats defended slavery. Then as now, the Democratic Party got the Supreme Court to intervene on its side of the issue. As a result, it got very difficult to avoid that little debacle we now call the Civil War.
Latter, when Democrats sought to defend segregation, Republicans again fought Democrats. Contrary to the popular mythology spread by the Liberal news media, Republicans took the side of ending segregation.
In recent years, there has, however, been a switch. Many Southern states now have a majority Republican governments. This historic switch from Democrat to Republican in the South has provided the Democratic Party an opportunity. Because of the Republican Party’s strong support in the South, it is easy to call the Republican Party racist. The technique involves another logical fallacy, guilt by association.
Why is the Republican Party more popular in the South? Conservatism is more popular in the South, not racism. Therefore, the Republican Party’s strength in the South merely reflects the Republican Party’s historically Conservative ideology. As much as some of you may want to complain otherwise, the Republican Party is not a party of bigots. What ties Republicans together the belief in Constitutional government, government based upon Law, not the whims of men.
What ties Democrats together? With the exception of one observation, I will happily let you all explain that. What have I observed? I fear Democrats read the Constitution about as carefully as some people judge the character of their fellow citizens. Living constitution? When the whole purpose of our Constitution is to constrain the powers of our leaders, what good is a constitution that says whatever our leaders want it to say?
Old Fashion Liberal,
Greedy employers, a porous border, a non-enforcement policy, an inconsistent immigration policy, congressional neglect, and basic incompetency by our feral government for the past 20 years. All of these, plus are responsible for our current situation.
So you ignore a problem for a couple decades and then what? You want to abdicate responsibility? You want to blame others for our mistakes? All I suggest is we take ownership over the part of this situation that we created.
CitizenTom,
I’d advocate changing the birthright citizenship clause as part of an overall immigration reform package that acknowledges our culpability.
Alanna — We did not ignore the problem. We have tried an amnesty once already.
No law works perfectly. We have laws against mugging people in dark alleys, but people still succeed in mugging others. Because some muggers succeed, do you advocate letting the muggers we catch go. Do you blame their victims for allowing themselves to be mugged?
There are at least three culprits: the politicians who lied to us, the greedy people who bribed them, and the illegal immigrants who knowingly broke our laws coming here. If you want to add yourself to the list, go ahead. Nonetheless, I don’t consider myself culpable. I just want the culprits to be held responsible for their bad behavior.
I doubt the wisdom of changing the birthright citizenship clause. I just want our immigration laws enforced, and the Federal Government is not even trying.
Changing the birthright citizenship clause would require a Constitutional amendment. Why would you want to tie a Constitutional amendment to the passage of a Congressional reform package? You would just create an extremely difficult hurdle for any reform package.
Greedy employers and such have fought immigration enforcement for more than just a few decades. Without the birthright citizenship clause in another four or five decades we could have permanent underclass of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generation illegal immigrants. Because of their birth status, such people would effectively be serfs or slaves.
We have employers perfectly willing to exploit other people for as much as they can. Without the birthright citizenship clause lawbreakers would bequeath the foolishness of illegal immigration to children who had no choice in the matter. I don’t think that is a good idea.
I am aware of the historical reversal of republicans vs democrats. It does revolve around slavery first and then civil rights. Thanks for the history lesson but I was already well aware of these factors. You and I will simply have to disagree on why makes a Republican and makes a Democrat. This conversation is more appropriate face to face then a diatribe on a blog.
I believe you were the one to name call first Tom on anti.
Elena — I responded to what you wrote by suggesting you look into a mirror. Whether or not you are a bigot is between you and God.
What does bigotry involve? The problem is one of bias, a refusal to perceive things as they are. Instead we adjust reality within our mind until truth becomes what we wish it to be. That, of course, is a form of madness.
Did I simply call you a name or did I attempt to correct you for name calling? What is the truth?
In Romans 3, the Apostle Paul reminds us “There is no one righteous, not even one.” I suppose that means that amongst other things we are all in one way or another bigots.
What is an advantage of humility? When we serve God first and foremost, we must discard our vanities, our self concerns, and our biases. Then we come closer to seeing ourselves and the rest of creation as it is.
I suppose that to be bereft of all bigotries would be a blessing. Should I find out first, I will be happy to let you know.
Gee, thanks for the sermon Tom. Pretty sure I’m not a bigot Tom, and thanks for being so kind as to leave that judgement between me and G-d.
you said:
“What does bigotry involve? The problem is one of bias, a refusal to perceive things as they are. Instead we adjust reality within our mind until truth becomes what we wish it to be. That, of course, is a form of madness. ”
Therein lies the crux of our dilema Tom, your reality vs my reality has led us to two very different conclusions.
Leaving it to God has nothing to do with kindness from me.
So you are pretty sure you are not a bigot? You are almost certain. Hopefully, you do retain some doubt.
Consider bigotry in the extreme. Until recently most societies maintained slaves without a qualm.
The existence of slavery raises a question. How do slave masters convince themselves that they are not bigots? How could they be so blind to their bigotry and the wrongness of it? What took the blinders off of the eyes of the people of our nation? Was it a sermon or two? Did it make a difference who gave the sermon? And what did He have to do to get our attention?
The politicians lied to us? It’s been 23 years since we original offered amnesty. Additionally, until 2001 the US immigration policy allowed people to adjust their status AFTER arrival, through workplace sponsorship, marriage, etc… So, basically our policy was come on in and then hopefully you can obtain legal status. Now, the suggestion is we round up and deport those people. Doesn’t sound particularly fair to me.
Plus if the ‘feds’ were the gatekeeper and they abdicated their responsibility who’s fault is that? If I look at motivation, action and attempt to assign blame. I understand the motivations and actions of the undocumented immigrants, it’s the lack of motivation and inaction by our government that I have an issue with. How I turn that around and say the greater fault lies with the ‘illegals’ is something I don’t really understand.