Right Wing Nation

I got a heads-up about a blog, Objectivist v. Contructivist, from (interestingly enough) the Contructivist. I’m not sure how he discovered me, or what prompted him to email me, unless he saw one of my submissions to the Carnival of Education.

Let me explain. This blog began as a newspaper column with a pro and con format. It has migrated to (ugh!) Blogger, and keeps the pro and con format. Personally, I think they should get more traffic. The latest issue is immigration, and I have things to address on both sides. I decided to quote and address them in the order given, and not mix them up. And since the Objectivist is first, I’ll address what he said first.

Debating US Immigration Policy
The Objectivist
CLOSE THE BORDERS
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
4/5/06

[ . . . ]

Taxpayers pay for this torrent through the nose and are unlikely to recoup these costs. In the ’90s, immigrants were significantly more likely to receive welfare of one form or another than the native population and they took more the longer they resided in the US. One recent study estimated that each year, the federal government loses $2,736 and the state and local governments lose around $3,823 per illegal immigrant household. The losses are probably higher in this state since immigrant families have more children than natives and since New York pays more than $12,000 per student per year (around $14,000 in Dunkirk). Given that there are at least 3. 8 million such households in the US, this is a loss of around $25 billion per year.

This is a problem any solution will have to address: that immigrants are a crushing burden on an already cracking welfare system — and this will later tie into what I have to say about culture and assimilation. Having said that, it also needs to be said that there are immigrants who come here to work hard, and not go on the public dole. This, at least to me, is a more important distinction than even whether they are here legally or not.

If these costs weren’t bad enough, immigrants also hurt low-wage native workers by driving down already-low wages for jobs.

This is somewhat debatable, but even stipulating that it is true, it neglects one very important point: lower wages translate into lower costs, which in turn translate into lower prices. This is most notably the case in produce (as in fruits and veggies) and housing. I’m not taking a side on this particular issue, but that does need to be said, and taken into account.

There is no reason we should leave the floodgates open. I doubt many upstate residents would want poor, undereducated, and unskilled persons moving into their neighborhood, especially once they realized that they clog the prisons and drag down standards at the local public school. The former can be seen in that in 1999-2000, nearly 30% of federal prisoners were foreign born and the latter in that the dropout rate for foreign-born Hispanics was around 45%. This preference is, and should be, strengthened by the fact that many of the Spanish-speaking immigrants have a different language and culture, and a critical mass that prevents them from having to assimilate quickly.

When you’re coming from a largely corrupt society that has a high tolerance for violent crime, and when you have no pressure put on you to assimilate, but instead “celebrate” your alienation, what else could be the outcome? But again, this will tie into what I will say later about culture.

apologists also argue that nothing can be done about illegal aliens already here. Given how little weight this argument is given in other contexts (for example, cheating on taxes) and how little effort was made at enforcement (for example, in 2004 only three companies were fined for hiring illegal immigrants), this argument is laughable.

I disagree. Our courts are already overburdened by criminals. Something other than “kick them out” has to be implemented, because “kick them out” will result in nothing but criminals being freed to walk the streets. However, note that we have gone here from close the borders to eject the illegal immigrants. These are two entirely different issues.

Instead, the US should consider constructing a continuous fence along the Southern border and begin to deport illegal immigrants.

I agree that a fence, or heightened security, is a must. And though I disagree with massive deportation for pragmatic reasons, I do agree that selective deportation is necessary. Eject those on the public dole and those who engage in violent crimes, and bar them from re-entry. However, the most important issue here, in my estimation, is open borders — because it is a national security issue. It is for this reason that I say close both borders, and not just the southern one.

The number of legal immigrants should be sharply curtailed and should focus on those who add to our country because of their education, skills, or wealth.

INS policy makes it far too difficult for those who want to come and work do so. The INS is largely incompetent, and needs to tighten the screws on educational institutions (which issue I-20s), since currently, the INS will give anyone with an I-20 a student visa. The quota system currently in place is outmoded, and serves no useful function, other than to bar immigrants from entry. Good people who want to come realize the American dream should be able to do so. The INS must stop being the deportation police force, and actually start screening applicants and allowing good people in. Now, for the Constructivist.

The Constructivist
REIMAGINE OUR BORDERS
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
4/5/06

Many Americans have memorized the closing lines of “The New Colossus” (the 1883 poem engraved on a pedestal at the base of the Statue of Liberty), but few are aware that when Emma Lazarus wrote the poem, the U. S. was in the middle of a decades-long debate over the Naturalization Act of 1790.

Can we please stop bringing up irrelevant past sins as if they were in some way relevant? It is dishonest and unfair to paint anyone who does not believe we should be flooded with illegal immigrants as racists. Please? Thanks.

Republicans’ interests and loyalties are divided between deferring to the demands of their corporate sponsors for further freedom to import cheap labor and placating their authoritarian populists who call for building a tortilla curtain (in Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s memorable phrase) around the American dream.

See the last comment. Also, if the author actually read many conservative bloggers, or listened to conservatives, he would know that many of us are as concerned about the nothern as the southern border. Note that the Minutemen also deploy on the northern border.

Never mind the astronomical costs and consequences of building, maintaining, and staffing a “Great Wall of America. “

Never mind the costs of the disastrous War on Poverty, and propping up those who aren’t interested in coming here to work. But as I’ll say in a moment, that’s a culture issue which I think is at the heart of this debate.

Which legislators will sponsor a New American Dream bill that supports workers’ right to form unions, imposes harsh penalties on corporations that import illegal immigrant labor, expands opportunities for legal immigration, offers paths to earning legal status and citizenship for otherwise law-abiding undocumented workers, and commits America to harboring all legitimate refugees and asylum seekers?

Forget the unions. This is 2006, not 1936. Stalin is dead, the USSR is gone, and communism is discredited. But if you mean by “expands opportuntities for legal immigration” that we should make it easier for good people to immigrate — provided that extensive background checks are done — then I agree. We should. If, on the other hand, you mean give immigrants before they are naturalized expanded “social service benefits” (read: welfare), then no, I violently disagree. Again, it’s that culture issue I’ll get to here in a moment.

Promoting a non-contiguous constitutionalism based on time-tested principles and precedents

The author veered off the issue, so I’ll steer it back on course, that culture issue I think is at the heart of this debate. It isn’t racism (after all, David Duke is mostly in line with Code Pink, ANSWER, Cindy Sheehan, those anti-Semitic faculty at Harvard who published that paper recently, and the anti-war protesters, not conservatives).

No, let me rephrase that. The problem is racism, the racism of La Raza, MEChA, fed by the anti-Americanism of ANSWER and other radicals, the racism that proclaims as its goal to “reclaim” Aztlan, the racism of multiculturalism and identity politics that enables and encourages it.

If you leave the campus and go out into the real world and talk to real Americans, and if you ask them what about immigration most concerns them, the answer you will get is the violent anti-Americanism of the recent protests, and the Mexican flags.

If you want to come to America and be an American, you don’t wave a Mexican flag. Those who did have no interest in ever being Americans — only taking advantage of what they can get here, but can’t across the border.

The culture issue is assimilation, the necessity of assimilation to the health of the nation. And by assimilation I mean assimilation to the ideals upon which this nation was founded (equality of outcome and welfare were not among them). Work, personal responsibility, taking care of yourself and your family.

As long as the liberal left encourages the multiculturalism that prevails, immigration will continue to rankle. You see, Americans have never swallowed the multiculturalism line, and we never will. That doesn’t mean you can’t come here and speak Spanish — though it does mean you must learn English — and that doesn’t mean you can’t come here and eat ethnic food — just go to Jasper, Indiana to see how assimilated and ethnic you can be. It does mean that no, if you’re going to circumcize your daughters, or force them to wear veils, or live in a ghetto and never learn English or proclaim primary allegiance to Mexico by waving Mexican flags, we don’t want you.

This is the first day I went to the range in 2006 (it’s a public outdoor range, you see — not someplace I’d be inclined to visit when it’s 15 degrees and there’s a foot of snow on the ground). I didn’t do very well — I’d had way too much caffeine.

But it was fun.

This NASCAR entrapment story shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all, it’s just one more attempt by the liberal elite to demonstrate how stupid, bigoted, evil, and dangerous Americans are. Remember this little gem from Jane Smiley the day after the 2004 election?

Why Americans Hate Democrats—A Dialogue
The unteachable ignorance of the red states.
By Jane Smiley
Updated Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004, at 6:24 PM ET

I just want to make sure you saw the subtitle there: “The unteachable ignorance of the red states.”

The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry.

If you don’t vote for liberals, you’re ignorant. There we have it. But it does get nastier:

Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states.

. . .

Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you—if you don’t believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell.

And of course, we have to have the Christian bashing. It’s a mandatory part of any liberal diatribe about the ignorance of Americans,

Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate all critical thinking, and accept a simple but logical system of belief that is dangerous to question. A corollary to this point is that they make sure you understand that Satan resides in the toils and snares of complex thought and so it is best not try it.

So “critical thinking” and “complex thought” are liberalism, and conservatism is a “simple but logical system of belief.” Never mind that the fact don’t fit liberalism. Just call conservatives simple minded or stupid, and that’s enough — because of course this is a cornerstone, a tenet of liberalism. And my personal favorite from this idiotic woman’s diatribe:

The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do—they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable.

They’re the elite, doncha know, so they must teach Americans not to be ignorant — though she’s right about one thing. No, we don’t like to be told what to do. That’s a great deal of the motivation behind that Revolutionary War.

We have to give them more to think about than they can handle—to always appeal to reason and common sense

This was, I’m sure, unintentionally funny, since reason and common sense are antithetical to liberalism. Which example would you like? The one about how a murderer shouldn’t be executed because he’s black? Or how about more money for welfare and education, when the facts demonstrate that the War on Poverty is a massive failure, and there is no correlation between spending on education and educational success? Or how about screaming about the poor terrorists at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, and not being a bit concerned about terrorists beheading hostages?

But back to the original point: the smug elitism of liberals. It’s not just that they feel so superior; liberals love to be sneered at by those whom they feel are their betters. Consider this brief exchange I had with a liberal not long ago. She was telling me about her trip to NYC, specifically a very chi-chi pinky-up restaurant she visited.

“The waiter just sniffed at us and wouldn’t even respond!”

“And you didn’t leave?”

“It was wonderful!”

“Mmmmm-kay, then.”

Or how about this other exchange, when discussing Federalism:

“But what if Alabama reinstitutes slavery?”

What possible response is there to such an idiotic statement? None, but it does reveal just how much liberals despise Americans, and fear them. How else do you explain all this caterwauling and screaming about the “Religious Right” when women are being stoned for looking sideways at somebody in the sidewalk in the Arab world?

This NASCAR scamfest is just one more example. It shows how much more liberals fear Americans than anyone else. NBC could be doing a story on female circumcision or executions in the Muslim middle east, but no, it’s much more productive to show how dangerous and stupid Americans are — to validate liberals’ fears and fantasies.

It is this loathing of all things American that underlies some of liberalism’s most basic tenets, such as:

• Any American military power is evil unless it in no way serves the interest of the nation.
• Any expression of patriotism is bad, and must be countered with some statement of American sin, no matter how irrelevant.
• The UN and Europe — especially Europe, the only elite higher than American liberals — must always trump the US.
• Nobody but conservatives must be held accountable for their actions (you know, all those “mitigating circumstances” that remove responsibility from violent criminals).

So don’t be too hard on NBC. After all, what can you expect from such ninnies? Oh, and Rick Moran has an excellent piece on the same topic.

Actually, that’s putting it mildly. Media Matters is a leftist site that claims to point out inaccuracies in the media — when, in fact, all they do is spin and distort the media. Consider this particularly moronic example, where they say:

Ensor, Hume accepted without question claim that Bush’s NIE “declassification” was legal

Okay, idiots, we’ll spell it out for you: Commander-in-Chief. Bush can declassify and release anything he wants, and answers to nobody. Commander-in-Chief, you stupid nits.

Hat tip: Jawa Report.

Who else but the Bimbo Schlussel, and still ragging on Jill Carroll. This time, she’s quoting email from one of her moron fans, without checking anything first, of course. Why would the Bimbo check anything? She’s the idiot who demonstrated here what a stupid, nasty excuse for a human being she is. And fairly ironic that she’d call anyone else anti-Semitic, after showing her own Jew-hating ass.

Hat tip: Ace.

I would like to turn this theme into a variable width design. However, there’s a slight problem. I like the graphics that enclose the posts. But if you right-click on one and view background graphic, you’ll see that at the top of the post there’s one graphic (of a specific width) and the same at the bottom.

So if I want to keep the graphics and turn it into a variable width theme, I’ll have to first crop the top and bottom graphics so that I have four (with none of the white space in between), then see if I can place them at the right positions for each post — which I’m not really inclined to do right at the moment.

We’ll see. Usually, when I’m confronted with a problem like this, I’ll say screw it but an hour later, tackle it cause I just can’t stand not solving a problem.

Like I said, we’ll see. I’m at “screw it” right now.

I see the Bimbo Schlussel is too damned stupid to know when she’s lost and needs to just STFU. She sent Vinnie the same bullshit message she sent me (first, see here, then see here), and she’s just too stupid to breathe. Fair use, bitch. Can’t you read?

Fair use.

Let’s try that again, you stupid bimbo.

Fair use.

Unsurprisingly, she thinks Vinnie “threatened” her by putting up that picture of Jill Carroll. She’s such scum she’ll do anything to try to intimidate anyone who criticizes her. And she’s an anti-Semite as well — so make her first cousin not only to Fred Phelps, but Cindy Sheehan.

What a stupid bitch. So Vinnie, did you get the “Prepare to BE SERVED!” line, too?

LOL!

Comment or trackback, as long as you link to this post.

Trackback URI:
http://rightwingnation.com/2006/04/07/friday-free-thread-4/trackback/

Last free thread is here.

Showcase Carnival entries are here.