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Annnway, back on topic. Alas, quoting Card, said above:
"Easily the most influential of Borjas's critics is David Card, a Canadian who teaches at Berkeley. He has said repeatedly that, from an economic standpoint, immigration is no big deal and that a lot of the opposition to it is most likely social or cultural. ''If Mexicans were taller and whiter, it would probably be a lot easier to deal with,'' he says pointedly.
So, can we agree, Dragon, that you agree with this, and that the main concerns being raised about immigration from Mexico are being raised through ignorance of the beneficial financial effects of immigration and racism on the part of "natives" of the United States - before we went off on one about Muslims - just as nativists felt about Irish Catholics in the 1840s and 1850s?
Can we further identify this element of thinking in the statement:
At the same time, I believe there are differences in culture which both sides do not fully appreciate. When a person in a country where corruption is prominant, where a wink and a nod is a way of life, it is this way of life that can affect the way that person perceives things in another country, and as a result, how he chooses to behave.
And - and this is where the series of apparently random interventions coalesce into a structure - how does this coincide with the secret sale of arms to Iraq and Iran in the 1980s by the United States? Specifically, with the actions taken by a number of powerful, largely white, largely male, largely native citizens of the United States. Looking at this behaviour, one might start to think of your fellow native citizens:
When a person in a country where corruption is prominant, where a wink and a nod is a way of life, it is this way of life that can affect the way that person perceives things in another country, and as a result, how he chooses to behave.
Perhaps this explains the corruption among American citizens you and Michelle Malkin highlight in the conduct of the INS, here. After all, if your executive is regularly performing illegal and clandestine operations for monetary gain, why shouldn't you?
Fortunately, however, you are prepared to exonerate this behaviour, saying:
Who knows, maybe they rationalized that if we didn't do it, the Russians would?
So, it looks to me like you think it's OK to perform shady, illicit deals, as long as you are a) white and b) native - after all, if INS employee (a) had not taken bribes, INS employee (b) would have. This tolerance of shady, illicit dealing on the part of native US citizens seems much, in fact, like the approach of the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, the secret society formed to protect native interests against the Catholic menace in the 1840s which subsequently became the American Party. In fact, one might draw a line between the policy of that organisation to respond to any inquiries as to their leaders or fellow members - "I know nothing" - a habit that got them the nickname "know-nothings" - and the testimony of our own dear 40th President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan, to the Tower Commission - "I don't remember".
Presumably, passing neatly back to global terrorism, and thus to the Muslims, the same nativism informs the difference between, say, the Reagan adminstration removing Iraq from the list of terrorist countries in 1982 in order to provide it with tactical support and materials for its chemical and nuclear weapons programmes, and the Reagan administration refusing to accept the judgment of the United Nations in 1985 that iit was guilty of supporting terrorism in Nicaragua, using funds from weapons sales to Iran. I imagine that you see these incidents as perfectly justifiable because:
Everybody does it
Despite the deaths caused by these actions being, I suspect, far greater than the deaths caused by immigration to the US in the same period.
So. Nativism is not necessarily indivisible from racism - the Know-Nothings had the same colour skin, or thereabouts, as the Irish and Italians they sought to disenfranchise, although they would probably have thought of them as racially distinct. However, your particular strain of nativism appears configured to pardon people with white skin for their defrauding of the American peoople, their illegal actions and their support for terror, while looking at people with brown skin as, in effect, crimes waiting to happen:
I believe there are differences in culture which both sides do not fully appreciate. When a person in a country where corruption is prominant, where a wink and a nod is a way of life, it is this way of life that can affect the way that person perceives things in another country, and as a result, how he chooses to behave.
I don't know how much of this you wiill be taking on board, but enrieb reminded me usefully in the Policy that we have a responsibility to present arguments regardless of whether or not we believe that the person advancing the argument will listen. I very much hope that this will spur you to a bit of reference and examination, however, if only to refute my arguments comprehensively. |
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