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Deconstructing the Outrage - Victor Davis Hanson
The Corner on National Review Online ^ | April 28, 2010 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 04/29/2010 11:03:16 AM PDT by AuntB

I have been trying to collate all the furor over the Arizona law, much of it written by those who do not live in locales that have been transformed by illegal immigration. These writers are more likely to show solidarity from a distance than to visit or live in the areas that have been so radically changed by the phenomenon.

On the unfortunate matter of "presenting papers": I have done that numerous times this year — boarding airplanes, purchasing things on a credit card, checking into a hotel, showing a doorman an I.D. when locked out, going to the DMV, and, in one case, pulling off a rural road to use my cell phone in a way that alarmed a chance highway patrolman. An I.D. check to allay "reasonable suspicion" or "probable cause" is very American.

On the matter of racial profiling: No one wishes to harass citizens by race or gender, but, again unfortunately, we already profile constantly. When I had top classics students, I quite bluntly explained to graduating seniors that those who were Mexican American and African American had very good chances of entering Ivy League or other top graduate schools from Fresno, those who were women and Asians so-so chances, and those who were white males with CSUF BAs very little chance, despite straight A's and top GRE scores. The students themselves knew all that better than I — and, except the latter category, had packaged and self-profiled themselves for years in applying for grants, admissions, fellowships, and awards. I can remember being told by a dean in 1989 exactly the gender and racial profile of the person I was to hire before the search had even started, and not even to "waste my time" by interviewing a white male candidate. Again, the modern university works on the principle that faculty, staff, and students are constantly identified by racial and gender status. These were not minor matters, but questions that affected hundreds of lives for many decades to come. (As a postscript I can also remember calling frantically to an Ivy League chair to explain that our top student that he had accepted had just confessed to me that in fact he was an illegal alien, and remember him "being delighted" at the news, as if it were an added bonus.)

On the matter of equality, fairness, and compassion, it is even more problematic. Literally thousands of highly skilled would-be legal immigrants from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe wait patiently while others cut in front and illegally obtain what others legally wait for — residence in the U.S. Meanwhile, millions of Mexican-American, African-American, and poor white citizens have seen their wages fall because of competition from illegal aliens who will work for far less compensation. It is a bit strange that those of the upper classes are outraged over Arizona without empathy for entry-level U.S. workers or lower-middle-class taxpayers who end up paying the most for illegal immigration. But then, those who express the most moral outrage often are the least sensitive to the moral questions involved (see next).

On matters of Mexico's outrage: The Mexican government has a deliberate policy of exporting human capital on a win/win/win/win logic: Dissidents leave central Mexico in a safety-valve fashion; Mexico saves on social services; remittances come back as the second largest source of foreign exchange; and a growing expatriate, lobbying community becomes nostalgic and fonder of Mexico the longer it is absent from it. To hide all this, the Mexican government usually plays the racial prejudice card, although most arrivals from Oaxaca will tell you that racism is more perncious in Mexican society than north of the border. This is a government, after all, that cannot provide the security, legal framework, or social services for indigenous peoples in its central interior but has no such problems when it is a question of attracting affluent North Americans to live in second homes along its picturesque coasts.

There is plenty of cynicism involved — not on the part of the exasperated voters of Arizona, but rather from domestic political, religious, ideological, and ethnic interests that in patronizing fashion seek new dependent constituents; from Mexico that in amoral fashion censures others for the sins it commits; and from a strange nexus between corporate employers and ethnic lobbyists who see their own particular profit and influence enhanced through the ordeal of millions of poor aliens, and the subsidies of the strapped and now to be demonized taxpayer.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: aliens; arizona; ruleoflaw; vdh
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The citizens of the United States stand with Arizona.

Keyword on FR: Immigrationpoll

1 posted on 04/29/2010 11:03:16 AM PDT by AuntB
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To: AuntB

It outrages me that our Country is being invaded illegally and Americans won’t even stand up for their own Country! And the long gone ‘free press’, are even more intimidated than the citizens. What a pathetic bunch of Wussies, with a P.


2 posted on 04/29/2010 11:09:40 AM PDT by Freddd (CNN is down to Three Hundred Thousand viewers. But they worked for it.)
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To: AuntB

“On matters of Mexico’s outrage: The Mexican government has a deliberate policy of exporting human capital on a win/win/win/win logic: Dissidents leave central Mexico in a safety-valve fashion; Mexico saves on social services; remittances come back as the second largest source of foreign exchange; and a growing expatriate, lobbying community becomes nostalgic and fonder of Mexico the longer it is absent from it. To hide all this, the Mexican government usually plays the racial prejudice card, although most arrivals from Oaxaca will tell you that racism is more perncious in Mexican society than north of the border. This is a government, after all, that cannot provide the security, legal framework, or social services for indigenous peoples in its central interior but has no such problems when it is a question of attracting affluent North Americans to live in second homes along its picturesque coasts.”

That says it ALL in one paragraph.


3 posted on 04/29/2010 11:14:56 AM PDT by NeverForgetBataan
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To: Freddd; All

“It outrages me that our Country is being invaded illegally and Americans won’t even stand up for their own Country! And the long gone ‘free press’, are even more intimidated than the citizens. What a pathetic bunch of Wussies, with a P.”

See

Obama replaces Andrew Jackson on the $20 Bill
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2503185/posts


4 posted on 04/29/2010 11:15:32 AM PDT by AuntB (Illegal immigration is simply more ‘share the wealth’ socialism and a CRIME not a race!)
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To: AuntB

It’s simple really.

Redefine my nation, I redefine your face!


5 posted on 04/29/2010 11:16:05 AM PDT by The Toll
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To: AuntB

Thanks for the post. VDH is always Windex on the brain.


6 posted on 04/29/2010 11:17:23 AM PDT by throwback ( The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid)
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To: AuntB

Victor Davis Hanson is very good.


7 posted on 04/29/2010 11:17:35 AM PDT by b4its2late (It is easier to beg forgiveness than get permission.)
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To: AuntB

When Byzantium(eastern Roman Empire) could not control it’s border’s from the marauding tribes of islamic turkmen, Byzantium ceased to exist.


8 posted on 04/29/2010 11:20:48 AM PDT by gitmogrunt (don't repeat history by playing nice--nice with islamists and illegals.)
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To: blackie; SwinneySwitch; bcsco; All

VDH ping!


9 posted on 04/29/2010 11:22:17 AM PDT by AuntB (Illegal immigration is simply more ‘share the wealth’ socialism and a CRIME not a race!)
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To: AuntB

Excellent article. Only Mark Steyn can top it.


10 posted on 04/29/2010 11:24:18 AM PDT by tips up
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To: gitmogrunt

“When Byzantium(eastern Roman Empire) could not control it’s border’s from the marauding tribes of islamic turkmen, Byzantium ceased to exist.”

It’s happened in this country before.

Obama replaces Andrew Jackson on the $20 Bill
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2503185/posts


11 posted on 04/29/2010 11:24:47 AM PDT by AuntB (Illegal immigration is simply more ‘share the wealth’ socialism and a CRIME not a race!)
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To: Freddd

Once the Illegals are Legal, then the whole merry-go-round begins again - people who are legally in the US won’t put up with what they went through before. So, a new wave must come in to “do the work that Americans just won’t do.”

BS


12 posted on 04/29/2010 11:25:14 AM PDT by Sioux-san
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To: NeverForgetBataan

Mexico’s Official “Guide For The Mexican Migrant”

In 1994, the Government of Mexico produced this 32-page comicbook-style “How To” guide containing information to aid Mexican citizens seeking to cross the border illegally into the United States.

See Mexico’s helpful Guide For The Illegal Aliens posted by Freeper VU4G10 here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2501521/posts?page=32#32


13 posted on 04/29/2010 11:27:55 AM PDT by thouworm
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To: AuntB
The new tanning tax in the Obami health care disaster bill is a case of racial profiling against whites, since they are the overwhelming majority of consumers of that particular service.
14 posted on 04/29/2010 11:42:07 AM PDT by frogjerk (I believe in unicorns, fairies and pro-life Democrats.)
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To: AuntB

VDH is brilliant as always!


15 posted on 04/29/2010 11:42:39 AM PDT by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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To: AuntB

I quite bluntly explained to graduating seniors that those who were Mexican American and African American had very good chances of entering Ivy League or other top graduate schools from Fresno, those who were women and Asians so-so chances, and those who were white males with CSUF BAs very little chance, despite straight A’s and top GRE scores.

######

I knew somebody who applied to Harvard for a PhD fellowship, and at the time was living in a predominantly black section of Baltimore, teaching at a local public school, and taking night courses at Morgan, a historically black local college (then.)
Harvard or Mass. had a no-photograph policy for applications, to avoid ‘racial bias, hahaha’; so when Ken arrived for his interview, he noticed that the interviewer was quite upset and asked him why. The interviewer said “you were given the black fellowship.” Ken thought he must have meant an endowed chair by somebody named Black. Then he realized, he had been profiled, and Harvard thought they had found a bright student of the desired color.

The laugh was on Harvard. Ken was a white graduate from Yale and [whisper]{Jewish.}


16 posted on 04/29/2010 11:44:59 AM PDT by maica (Freedom consists not in doing what we like,but in having the right to do what we ought. John Paul II)
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To: AuntB

to paraphrase “ich bin ein Arizonian”.


17 posted on 04/29/2010 11:55:30 AM PDT by algernonpj (He who pays the piper . . .)
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To: AuntB

Its a phony controversy. If you’ve traveled at all you know that in any country in the world, if you are a foreign visitor there, you are required to carry your papers with you at all times. You will be asked for them frequently by all kinds of people, cops, bank tellers, hotel clerks, government clerks, and heaven help you if you don’t have them on you.

And US law here is the same. If you are a foreign visitor you have to have your passport on you, on your person, if you go out of your domicile.

Secondly, with respect to Mexico:

I’ll believe in Mexico’s sincerity when they ease their restrictions on Guatemalans and Hondurans crossing their southern border. Is our prosperity built by access to cheap foreign labor? I’ll believe they believe that when they open their borders to cheap central american labor. They don’t believe it when it applies to themselves which means they don’t actually believe it.

Mexico has the largest quota of legal immigrant visas of any country in the world, by far; its not even close. They have yet to justify why the largest quota in the world isn’t enough. When they offer Hondurans the legal exemptions they seek for themselves, I’ll believe they are sincere.


18 posted on 04/29/2010 11:58:27 AM PDT by marron
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To: Freddd
And the long gone ‘free press’, are even more intimidated than the citizens.

The MSM is hardly "intimidated". They have willingly taken the side of the illegals, in service to their corrupt political agenda.

19 posted on 04/29/2010 12:20:18 PM PDT by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance on Parade)
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To: AuntB; 1_Inch_Group; 2sheep; 2Trievers; 3AngelaD; 3pools; 3rdcanyon; 4Freedom; 4ourprogeny; ...

Ping!


20 posted on 04/29/2010 12:26:35 PM PDT by HiJinx (~ Illegal is a Crime, it is not a Race ~)
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