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Regression
I have to say, I was surprised to see the whole immigration debate has died down a bit. Oh, I’m sure there are still some smoldering paleo-cons in back rooms creating new “Tancredo” bumper stickers at a furious rate. But by and large, the explosion of xenophobic hysteria that I expected to dominant the next few election cycles, at least, has faded into the background.
So, with that in mind, can somebody please inform Senator Tom Coburn that killing people trying to cross the border–if they are not posing any direct physical threat to another person–is not okay? In fact, is murder?
Thanks.
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9 Responses to “Regression”
Of course, everday that the government continues to refuse to enforce existing immigration laws and operates a de facto open border policy, the credbility of the immigration reform crowd will continue to go down.
If President Bush and the Democrats in Congress were really serious about laying the ground work for future immigration reforms, they would have a plan for improving their credbility.
Instead, the Democrats plan seem to be to win enough seats in 2008 so that they can screw over middle class and working class Americans without concern for the political fallout.
David, just out of curiosity, could you tell me just how much of the opposition to amnesty/open borders etc. do you attribute to racism/xenophobia? All of it? Most of it?
You see I believe that both forces are at work in some of the opposition, but I believe that it is a minority of the opposition. Certainly xenophobes and racists can’t be pleased, but I believe the vast majority of people who oppose these policies do so on a “law and order” based manner or are worried of the effect on social services. When seeing someone who opposes amnesty I tend to assume this is the reason and only with evidence begin to think that it was race-based, but I fear you may make the opposite assumption.
I don’t think that its 100 or 0% race-based in any person (well, maybe for Klansmen its 100% race-based, but by and large it isn’t). I think some measure of xenophobia (conscious or no) is at least part of the motivating factor behind most people’s position (“law and order” is the prototypical example of racial “code words”–it was specifically developed as a covert signal to White southerners in the post-Jim Crow era by politicians who no longer could just say “White power!”).
It is extraordinarily difficult to explain the sudden explosion of anti-immigration sentiment in America–in terms of its quickness and its severity–without at least some reference to racial/xenophobic factors. It matches up way to well with classic racial stereotypes (“Brown people are taking my jobs!” “Other ethnic groups are going to swarm America!” “They’re all criminals and thieves, it’s them or us”). The rhetoric is so overheated (the Colorado State Senator who said giving illegal immigrant kids emergency healthcare services is “training the next generation of terrorists”, e.g.) and the public image is so race-skewed (Latinos are the only face put on this issue, even among the people who claim this is a security issue and should theoretically be more worried about Muslim immigration than Catholic) that it is difficult for me not that think race/xenophobic are not extremely important, if not controlling, factors.
Although the extreme reactions to immigrants do eventually contain elements of racism, I think it’s primarily an element of xenpphobia that is at the heart of this.
There is a general fear of having the typical American no longer be a white Protestant male.
The fear of change affects us all, in minor or major ways. I hate it when I set out to shop at a store I’ve patronized for years only to discover that it’s now a Rite-Aid or a Starbucks. I’m unsettled by the change.
When reaction to change goes to the extreme, it brings out all the latent capacity for anger and hate in ourselves. It could be racism in one case, sexism in another, something else in a third instance.
To the extent that racism does play in reaction’s like Coburn’s, racism is just the weapon of convenience in the effort to preserve the status-quo and the fear of anything that threatens it.
IMO.
I think more of it than many might think is simply related to economic insecurity. People are not only worried about their economic future but that of their children, other family members and friends.
I saw the reporting about the Coburn whine and couldn’t believe it.
Well actually, after reflecting I *could* believe it, because the perception of some of our august citizens and legislators is that all non-citizens have no rights within our borders.
And Coburn also seems to be of the opinion that evidence of wrongdoing isn’t really required — if you are running away from the authorities you must be guilty, and guilt of any crime allows the use of deadly force.
There has been no xenophobic hysteria currently among the public (if you say there has been, you are lying), and it is ridiculous to expect something that doesn’t exist now to persist far into the future.
A radioactive barrier wouldn’t tie up anybody on our side and would incontestibly put the blame on intruders for resulting injuries or deaths from radiation. Would work for south Korea, would work for Israel, would work for us, too. Would work for the Middle Eastern oil fields, for that matter.
Not that we’ll do it, but at least that was a better response than the howling we have encounteredfrom the Usual Suspects at any unusually harsh remark from anybody exploiting immigration reform.
Not true about the “cause,” which is simply your superimposition of your political myths and delusions for reality, much less in this case, where there in fact has been no “sudden explosion” (neither rapid, nor much larger than before) of sentiment long held by the public and merely demonstrated when the recent immigration bill was subject to a vote.
The public wants immigration reform. The public is not overwhelmingly anti-immigrant and fact a large fraction — a majority, even — may be in favor of citizenship “paths” for all or nearly all immigrants, which is generous. Any desire for reform in terms of evaluation or a points system as opposed to the dippy Sixties “family reunification” nonsense is a sound improvement and anyone mischaracterizing this as xenophobia or racism (as is true with reduced numbers of future immigrants, or merely enforcing what laws exist now) is not only dishonest but is self-betraying moral or mental problems.