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Posted on 03/11/2003 1:36:06 PM PST by madfly
A couple weeks back, I ended my commentary on the case of west Michigan housewife Janice Barton -- jailed for using the word "Spic" in a private conversation -- with the comment, "For it is not merely a far-fetched theoretical notion that they might use this new `politeness' puritanism to actually foreclose, shut down, stymie and disallow a vital public debate on issues of legitimate public concern by barring the very language by which their opponents may choose to express those ideas."
Can I come up with an example? Glad you asked.
I don't know that I've ever been as tempted to change my position on a major issue by a single, hour-long meeting of my newspaper's editorial board with a group of local residents, as I was last June 4.
Ironically, the change they got me to consider was one away from the position we had up till then held in common.
As a Libertarian, I have long spoken for open immigration. Why should governments limit the right to travel in search of more freedom? So long as immigrants understand and embrace our founding principles of liberty and a tiny government of limited powers strictly enumerated, God bless them and the more the merrier. Strength through diversity, and all that.
But back to that Tuesday afternoon last summer, when a group of local "Hispanic students" had asked for an hour's time from the Review-Journal editorial board. They had been offended by a column by free-lance education writer Ken Ward. In the column, Mr. Ward cited statistics that the population of the Clark County School District is becoming increasingly Hispanic; that this is being used as an excuse by the district to demand ever more money; and that (statistically) this is holding down district test scores because Hispanics show the highest drop-out rates of any ethnic group and tend to come from homes with the lowest level of family education (the best indicator of likely low academic achievement).
Mind you, all this data had been promulgated in an AP story on Census data. And it was and is being used by district Superintendent Carlos Garcia as justification for demanding ever increased taxpayer subsidies.
Predictably enough, a couple of gifted local high school seniors reading from earnest if naive prepared statements -- insisting that Hispanics only get "the crumbs of the crumbs" when it comes to education funding, and that "all we want is what every other immigrant group has gotten" (remind me again how many millions were spent, 90 years ago, on special "second-language" programs for the country's new Italian and Polish and Russian immigrants) -- turned out to be mere window dressing.
The real lectures to our staff about our "racism " and our abominable "lack of sensitivity" were delivered by tax-succored government school bureaucrats who are retained to run expensive special programs teaching Mexican kids in Spanish, and by Fernando Romero, a longtime agitator and 54-year-old executive for The Mirage, who categorically denies any "undocumented workers" are employed in the Las Vegas hotel industry.
These professional whiners insisted that neither Mr. Ward nor the rest of us should "lump together" the diverse Hispanic community, which includes American-born persons of Hispanic descent, legal immigrants and "undocumented workers."
I asked Mr. Romero if "undocumented worker" wasn't merely a euphemism for illegal aliens. He demanded that I stop using the term "illegal aliens," asserting that it offends him -- and that he's even offended by hearing it called a "euphemism."
I repeatedly asked -- since our guests had insisted we should not "lump together" all the diverse elements of the Hispanic community -- whether they would then join with me in calling for the rounding up and deportation of all illegal aliens.
And they kept avoiding the question. Doing everything short of covering his ears, Mr. Romero actually asserted at one point, "I don't know what an illegal alien is."
Funny, Mr. Romero's grasp of English had seemed real good up till then. So I explained to him that an illegal alien is someone who has entered this country, and remained here, without following the legal procedures set down by the U.S. Congress.
And then the real agenda started to become clear. High school bilingual education teacher Neftali Torres firmly asserted, "They're here, and that's that, and we have a right to educate them." Student Mariana Kihuen lectured us that, "Illegal aliens and residents and legal immigrants, they are all separate; they are three steps toward legal immigration."
But how is this any different from saying, "Bank presidents and bank depositors and bank robbers, they are all three steps toward becoming an owner of the bank." Are we really to be forbidden from drawing distinctions between these three types of people who you might find in a bank?
This insistence that I not use the phrase "illegal alien" to describe illegal aliens, it appears to me, is the key to what's really going on.
"They're not illegal until they've been found guilty in a court," Mr. Torres instructed me. "They're just undocumented workers."
"So if I hold up a bank, I'm not a bank robber till I've been convicted?" I asked him.
"That's right," Mr. Torres replied.
Ah. So a police officer who shoots a bank robber during the commission of his crime has committed murder -- has killed an innocent person, since the robber "hadn't been convicted of anything in a court of law." Interesting.
This is evil, dangerous and pernicious nonsense, a political masked battery hiding behind a gentle-sounding "let's not use offensive hate-speech" euphemism.
"Undocumented worker" is a euphemism purposely designed to create the impression the person in question has merely neglected to go downtown and finish filling out a few forms. In fact, an illegal alien is here illegally, and by law should and must be rounded up and deported, and the refusal of our Hispanic visitors of June 4 to acknowledge or embrace this principle despite my repeated requests that they do so surely reveals their true agenda.
Next time: "The use of derogatory word terms, such as `illegal aliens' ... etc. not to be used in future articles."
"That's right," Mr. Torres replied.
So, instead of robbing the bank, he made an "undocumented withdrawal"?
Unbelievable.
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Seems to me this is about money and power. Gov't money and power. Something these people seem to think they cannot get access to unless the illegals become legal and vote "their own" into office.
Interesting how "diversity" does not include beige people.
I agree....just as long as you keep it within your own borders.
This article has TOO much common sense in it Madfly..will this man run for office?
That shouldn't be too much to ask, since there aren't very many of us who fit that description.
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