Tag: immigration

Welcome to the New Weimar Republic

Andrew

German Neo-Nazis putting the boot to migrants.

It’s not surprising that this happened. Nazis, neo- or otherwise, don’t like immigrants. That’s their thing.

What’s surprising is this:

But police said the asylum seekers started the confrontation – and later hurled bottles at the police trying to save them from a beating.

The migrants picked the fight, according to the police. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, but the police said so. Which tells us something about the police – they were prepared to spin fact against the migrants, or they were prepared to tell the truth about them, rather than waffling and saying “oh, both sides were reponsible” (Granted, this is a british journalist’s interpretation of the event).

Remember, these are Nazis we’re talking about. Germany has extended a significant degree of psychological effort to expunge Nazism from their consciousness. Der Polizei, as agents of the state, could be expected to have a bias against the Nazis, to assume that they started the fight. They’re Nazis. Nazis start fights. That was their thing in the Sturmarbeiten, Horst Wessel Weimar days before the Little Moustache took power.

But no, the cops say that 20 migrants picked a fight with 100 Nazis.

That means something. I don’t know what it means, but it means something.

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Thumbs Down/Thumbs Up, a Podcast With an Opinion

Andrew

Specifically, my opinion. In this inaugural episode, I get a feel for the land by getting all grumpy about Indians in Immigration arguments, and I say some jolly nice things about Richard Dawkins (I know, right?)

iTunes link here, so you can subscribe, if you’re into that sort of thing.

 

For Everyone Who Wants to Know “Why Trump?”

Andrew

This is Why Trump –Buzzfeed: “All You Americans Are Fired.”

At the same time, companies across the country in a variety of industries have made it all but impossible for U.S. workers to learn about job openings that they are supposed to be given first crack at. When workers do find out, they are discouraged from applying. And if, against all odds, Americans actually get hired, they often are treated worse and paid less than foreign workers doing the same job, in order to drive the Americans to quit. Sometimes, as the government alleged happened at Hamilton Growers, employers comply with regulations by hiring Americans only to fire them en masse and hand over the work to foreign workers with H-2 visas.

This does not constitute and endorsement of Trump, merely an explanation of what Trump is tapping into. It’s a pretty fair article, too – gives the companies a chance to respond to allegations, etc. – better than I would have expected from Buzzfeed.

I look forward to everyone saying how Buzzfeed is racist.

Please Stop Using The Indians in Immigration Arguments

Andrew

This tweet by Mickey Kaus reminds me of an irritating chesnut that pro-immigration types love to trot out whenever they encounter disagreement. It usually takes the form of

“Well, it’s a shame that the Indians didn’t think of border control!”

Or something equally smug. It’s stupid for two reasons:

  1. The Indians did think of that. Which is to say, they contested white overlordship of North America with everything they had. There’s hardly a state in the Union that was not wrested from the natives violently. Some more than others, but still. The idea that the Indians meekly welcomed the palefaces to America is just plain wrong. They fought. They fought hard. They just had too many material disadvantages to overcome.
  2. Why on earth would we want to emulate their results? So, in an argument about whether our immigration policy is letting in too many foreigners, you deliberately bring up the people from whom foreigners took the continent, as an argument for letting more foreigners in. Precisely whom is this supposed to persuade?

The answer, of course, is no one. It’s not an argument; it’s an exercise in social signalling. By saying it, you get to be one of the good, socially aware people, thus trumping any need to actually be right on a policy question. Because if you’re one of the good people, your opponent must be one of the bad people, so whatever he says is bad.

logic

His Imperial Highness Emperor Barack I, the Lightbringer, Has So Ordered

Andrew

As with Putin, one has to admire the chutzpah.

And expect the Left to argue that this isn’t that big a deal. That the order only applies to those who’ve been here already. That the order only applies to those who meat the “strict conditions” of deportation relief. That deportations have been up. That no one is being granted citizenship.

All of which is true, and none of which matters. The President is here deciding what the law is, and who the law applies to.

He doesn’t get to do that.

He doesn’t get to decide what the law is. He doesn’t get to ignore the divisiveness of the issue and force Congress to act.

He is not the superior of Congress. He is its equal.

Progressives are pretending not to care about this, because Democrat.

Authority, Misandry, and Mixing: A Few Links to Start the Week

Andrew

First, a nice Mark Steyn obit on Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston makes a salient point:

But, if you’re a feminist or a gay or any of the other house pets in the Democrat menagerie, you might want to look at Rahm Emanuel’s pirouette, and Menino’s coziness with Islamic homophobia. These guys are about power, and right now your cause happens to coincide with their political advantage. But political winds shift. Once upon a time, Massachusetts burned witches. Now it grills chicken-sandwich homophobes. One day it’ll be something else. Already in Europe, in previously gay-friendly cities like Amsterdam, demographically surging Muslim populations have muted leftie politicians’ commitment to gay rights, feminism, and much else. It’s easy to cheer on the thugs when they’re thuggish in your name. What happens when Emanuel’s political needs change?

Then, Reason’s Cathy Young continues her look at GamerGate:

GamerGate has been attacked over anti-feminist comments made by some of the movement’s sympathizers, such as provocative British tech blogger and Breitbart.com writer Milo Yiannopoulos. But far less attention has been given to extreme views on the anti-GamerGate side. Take writer Samantha Allen, whose decision to stop writing about videogames, apparently because of GamerGate, has been lamented by Brianna Wu as the tragic loss of a valuable voice. (Update: Allen contacted me to say she gave up videogame writing because of a Twitter harassment campaign in June/July, several weeks before the existence of GamerGate as such, even though Wu’s Washington Post column names her as one of the women “lost” to GamerGate.) A few months ago, Allen posted(and later deleted) a diatribe  on her Tumblr blog that opened with this declaration:

i’m a misandrist. that means i hate men. i’m not a cute misandrist. i don’t have a fridge magnet that says, “boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.” my loathing cannot be contained by a fridge magnet.

(It’s all downhill from there.)

Meanwhile, at Slate (no, really), Reihan Salam makes the case for slowing immigration down:

So if we want the Mexican and Bangladeshi immigrants of our time to fare as well as the Italian and Polish immigrants of yesteryear, we need to do two things. First, we need to spend a considerable amount of money to upgrade their skills and those of their children, as the world has grown less kind to those who make a living by the sweat of their brow. Because public money is scarce, this is a good reason to limit the influx of people who will need this kind of expensive, extensive support to become full participants in American society. Second, we need to recognize that a continual stream of immigration tends to keep minority ethnic groups culturally isolated, which is yet another reason to slow things down. No, this won’t suddenly mean that poor immigrants will become rich, and that well-heeled insiders will stop hoarding opportunities. But it will give us the time we need to knit America’s newcomers into our national community.

What connects these? Salam and Steyn point out that immigration can move faster than a society can handle it, and that can and will disrupt society. Young adds to Steyn’s warning to the left a troubling note: for some, to disrupt the society that gave them birth and abundance is a feature, not a bug. That they expect to remain in power afterwards makes them no stupider than Robespierre.