It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018
WaPo identifies the man as Luis Bracamontes, who — after he'd been deported twice — killed 2 California law enforcement officers. In the video, Bracamontes laughs about the killings and says he wishes he'd killed more of those "motherfuckers."
One way to counter this intense presentation of the illegal immigration issue is say it's the "Willie Horton" approach, which good people are supposed to understand and know to be racist.
“This was a classic example of racial cuing,” Claire Jean Kim, a political science professor at the University of California at Irvine, said in a 2012 PBS special. “The insinuation is, if you elect Governor Dukakis as president we’re going to have black rapists running amok in the country. It’s playing to white fears about black crime.”...
[Trump's new] video was discussed at length by [CNN's Chris] Cuomo and Don Lemon on Wednesday. After pointing out that “much of the footage” in the ad “comes from Fox,” a network often praised by Trump and once helmed by [Roger] Ailes, the “Willie Horton” ad creator, Cuomo called both ads “grossly distorted, bigoted, but also effective.”...The argument is that people are too afraid of crime, and we need to calm down and discount our primal reaction because to be virtuous we ought to discount our fear because we understand that some portion of it comes from inappropriate racial sensations. Nudged to restructure your feelings, watch Luis Bracamontes again and tell me whether you felt more calmly rational about the problem of crime in America.
ADDED: I see I used the word "discount" twice in the penultimate sentence. Too late to spruce that up. So let me say why that word was so important to me. It seems to me that the criticism based on the old Willie Horton ad is intellectually interesting, but not practical in use. Let's say Trump's ad activates something in the evolved human nervous system that we call racism or tribalism or xenophobia when we're conscious of it, but we're also properly afraid of crime, and there is something real about drug cartels and gangs that has something to do with poor control of our border. What am I supposed to do with that — downgrade my fear, take 10% off, 20% off, whatever part I estimate is the instinctive racism that a moral person would want to take out of the decisionmaking process?
I suspect that those making the argument that Trump's ad is a "Willie Horton" move don't mean for us to make a precise adjustment and consider the issue of border control after discounting the part of our thinking attributable to racism. I think they too are attempting to produce an excessive and emotional reaction. They would like us to think Trump is deliberately stimulating racist impulses in the deep reaches of the human psyche, and that makes him so despicable that he must be completely opposed. But that offers nothing to those of us who have — after discounting for racism — a genuine, justified fear of crime.
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253 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 253 of 253Robert Cook said...
Where in what I have said can you infer I encourage low-wage jobs? You can't, I know you can't, you know I know you can't.
You encourage no jobs.
The true minimum wage is 0.
We find this out every time the minimum wage is increased.
The only way to truly increase wages for everyone is to cut taxes and regulations so small businesses can grow.
As is happening now.
Illegal immigration is an economic and civil issue and should be discussed as such. But since we live a world 30 second sound bites and 140 words or less that is not going to happen. The talking heads probably don't have a clue anyway.
The real long term problem is not the "bad dudes", it's the second grade educations.
“CNN doesn't think you should even say "illegal immigrant: "Why 'illegal immigrant' is a slur" - CNN”
Apparently CNN has dropped to 7th place in cable ratings, behind Hallmark Channel made-for-TV movies. Wonder where they would be if they weren’t buying eyeballs at almost every commercial airport in the country.
Blogger Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...
It isn't static. New estimates are as high as 30 million illegals in the US.
You're confusing velocity with acceleration.
I hear you Mike- I was just very surprised at its use of the word "illegal".
Althouse wants us to assume the Dukakis posture.
Lets ask her
If Luis Bracamontes blew away Meade
Would you refuse to ask why he was here in the first place?
> Bracamontes, a Mexican citizen who had repeatedly entered the United States illegally over the years, faces the death penalty if convicted in the killings. His wife, an American citizen, faces life in prison.
George H.W. Bush did not use the Willie Horton issue in his campaign. A group supporting Bush did.
I'm not sure that's an important distinction. But the fact that Al Gore was the first to raise it during the primary campaign is very important. And invariably forgotten by Democrats.
Willie Horton was the real victim in all of this.
You mean the former Detroit Tiger great left fielder? That's actually what I was thinking.
You're confusing velocity with acceleration.
You are confusing a bad argument for a good one. Even if there were little or no acceleration, the distance covered continues to grow.
Wonder where they would be if they weren’t buying eyeballs at almost every commercial airport in the country.
Coerced viewership is their real value to the billionaires pulling the strings who want to see to it that American labor is put in its place.
It can't be racist since Mexicans are caucasians aren't they?
Does anybody know (Yes, I am otherwise occupied and do not plan to find the answer myself.) if the commonly cited statistics about crime include convictions? Convictions and charges?
I ask, because it would seem convictions would be artificially low if illegal alien criminals refuse to appear for their criminal trials. And it does appear a significant number of people like the criminal in this video have a substantial number of arrests but not nearly so many convictions.
Is there clear evidence on this issue, if it is an issue?
tim said..
You are confusing a bad argument for a good one. Even if there were little or no acceleration, the distance covered continues to grow.
I assume BBotK is referring to the Yale study that uses modeling to estimate a larger number of illegal immigrants that the 11M commonly asserted from census data.
A different estimate is not evidence of growth. One estimate didn't "grow" into the other. It's just a different estimate
As I said upstream, the Yale study shows the same "growth" pattern that the Census analysis does -- a large increase in the illegal immigrant population for 10 years up to 2007. Since 2007 the illegal immigrant population has not substantially changed. Credit the great recession for that.
People ask why this is pertinent. Robert Cook answered that question, but I'll answer it again. This is pertinent because it establishes that we are not in a crisis. What we have instead is a structural problem. Structural problems aren't solved by shouting about caravans and terrorists, or deploying U.S. troops to the border. As the other statistics I've gathered show, the large bulk of illegal immigrants are not recent arrivals at all.
Buwaya picked up on the one fact that is worth considering -- is the uptick in border apprehensions a sign of another large scale increase (as opposed to just normal fluctuation). If that is true, then a border crackdown at least has a logical justification.
Birkel:
It seems none of our govt agencies will release statistics on crimes by illegals as a % of all crimes. In fact, I am not sure they even track it by legal vs. illegal.
Some enterprising Dick Tracy perhaps will go and look at the last 100 people arrested for murder in let's say California or Texas and classify the 100 accused as to legal status. That could be a resonable way to put an end to the back and forth as to whether illegals commit less crimes than a legal resident. My bet is that illegals commit way more serious crimes than their % of the population.
It seems none of our govt agencies will release statistics on crimes by illegals as a % of all crimes.
There were studies (can't recall the organization) claiming that illegals were no more likely to commit crimes than illegals. But those studies controlled for ethnicity, economic status, etc., which really begs the question. Essentially the study says that the crime rate for, say, poor Mexican immigrants is similar whether they are illegal or legal immigrants. But it could (and probably is) still far higher than in the overall population. So stopping illegal immigration will still lower the crime rate.
Henry said...
People ask why this is pertinent. Robert Cook answered that question, but I'll answer it again. This is pertinent because it establishes that we are not in a crisis. What we have instead is a structural problem. Structural problems aren't solved by shouting about caravans and terrorists, or deploying U.S. troops to the border. As the other statistics I've gathered show, the large bulk of illegal immigrants are not recent arrivals at all.
Our structural problem is a political class that works for wealthy globalists and is trying to erase our borders.
The crisis is that the same political class clings to power for two reasons.
First the globalists have a lot of money and bought both parties for a series of decades.
Second they hold power because of voter fraud and illegal voting in concentrated urban centers.
Immigration is just the fulcrum this battle is being fought. It is a crisis because one side wants to import enough poorly educated and politically compliant Central Americans to replace the other side.
Some structural problems have more evidence than others.
Robert Cook said...
"Oh, come on! You're more likely to die in a car crash than be murdered by an illegal alien, unless you're Kate Steinle or Mollie Tibbetts or those cops in California or one of the other hundreds of victims of illegal aliens."
There are tens of thousands of fatalities from automobile accidents annually in the U.S.
Illegal immigrants are not a significant cause of increased murder or violent crime rates in the U.S. each year.
11/1/18, 10:54 AM
One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. -- Josef Stalin
And you wonder why people call you a commie, Bob!
...
Robert Cook said...
"So you're in favor of providing low-wage proles for the corporatists, Bob?"
Hmmm...poor reading comprehension, or dishonest debate tactics? Where in what I have said can you infer I encourage low-wage jobs? You can't, I know you can't, you know I know you can't. This is why I choose B: dishonest debate tactics.
FAIL
11/1/18, 12:38 PM
Speaking of dishonest debate tactics, you rarely or never *say* anything, preferring to converse by asking leading questions. That way nobody can pin any concrete position or belief in you. I find that dishonest.
Many able-bodied welfare recipients do work...at jobs that do not provide a living wage.
Many others on welfare are short-term recipients. (I have known a few people in my life who have had to obtain government assistance. In each case, they needed the assistance for short periods of time, and did not renew their applications for assistance once they found jobs.)
In short, one cannot make a simplistic assumption about who receives welfare, for how long, or why they need it. I can tell you from witnessing those I have known who received assistance, the money and/or benefits provided is paltry, either barely sufficient or outright insufficient to meet basic needs"
If you are unable to earn a "living wage" perhaps you need to make yourself worth more to an employer. Still, illegals manage to earn enough to buy food, find housing, buy a car, pay utilities, in short, live roughly the same as those on welfare. If they can do it, so can welfare recipients. Curb illegal immigrants from competing for those jobs and there will be a labor shortage and with that an increase in wages.
Henry said...
Some structural problems have more evidence than others.
Some people post more confirmation bias than others.
Your position has no support either electorally or factually.
The United States since it was founded has inspired a wave of freedom and prosperity that is a complete historical out lier. The globalists have been trying to erase our country longer than it has existed. Immigration is just one of their fronts.
Your problem is with any border enforcement and the fact that ~70 percent of the country is in favor of ending illegal immigration.
Supporting illegal immigration is a purposeful act to replace a citizenry that has turned away from the globalist elite.
Every single politician has come out against illegal immigration. They were just liars and traitors. Like Paul Ryan. He is gone and will be a footnote in history of the failure of the GOPe right next to his traitor running mate Mitt Romney.
Trump is the first honest politician on the subject of immigration to publicly lead this fight against the globalists and their tools who are trying to destroy our country.
I don't think anyone really knows how many illegals are here so to say that it is or was a structural problem, one is probably relying on questionable and/or partisan driven data.
A thought experiment for Henry: Trump proposes that since immigration is a federal obligation that the federal government take all (and the cost) illegal aliens serving time in state prisons and transfer them to federal prisons. Let them do their time in federal prison and be deported immediately upon completing the last day of their sentence. How many Blue States would try to decline the offer?
My question remains.
Does "commit crime" refer to convictions only? Or does "commit crime" refer to those arrested? Does fleeing the jurisdiction therefore mean the criminal did not "commit crime"?
I would not expect anybody to know, frankly. I have not seen the question answered.
If you are unable to earn a "living wage" perhaps you need to make yourself worth more to an employer. Still, illegals manage to earn enough to buy food, find housing, buy a car, pay utilities, in short, live roughly the same as those on welfare.
And send I think the average was $500/mo home.
Henry: This is pertinent because it establishes that we are not in a crisis. What we have instead is a structural problem. Structural problems aren't solved by shouting about caravans and terrorists, or deploying U.S. troops to the border. As the other statistics I've gathered show, the large bulk of illegal immigrants are not recent arrivals at all.
You're welcome to label the problem anything you want, Henry. If you want to say that 10s of millions of illegal alien residents in a country can't be a "crisis" because it's instead a "structural problem" of long-term residency...well, whatever. That doesn't make it something other than what it is, or make the current "camp of the saints" clown show into a non-problem.
No, "shouting about caravans" won't solve the structural problem. It can, however, lead to solving the caravan problem. (As in, no nonsense enforcement of both immigration and refugee law, which would mean "no, you can't settle in the United States".) And solving the caravan problem is a small but necessary step in keeping the "structural problem" from becoming worse than it already is. Which is certainly the prudent thing to do, regardless of whether the illegal population is static or increasing at any given time.
We have a deep structural problem precisely because the smaller "caravan" problems of the last 30-odd were not fixed in timely and prudent ways, and they were not fixed because of deliberate actions to prevent or overturn any possible fixes. It's always "but the real problem is over there!", as if that gnarly "real" problem arose out of nowhere when no one was looking, an ineluctable act of God or nature, nothing at all to do with this discrete, solvable part of the problem right here, right now. So hey, it's a waste of time to fix any fixable part of a problem, because we all know that, when it's actually in a fixable state, no problem or part of a problem is ever actually the *real* problem. The *real* problem is always something that requires ushering in the millenium to fix. No amelioration is possible. Holes that are being dug must continue to be dug deeper. Somehow solving the *real* problem requires that we never, ever stop digging.
Venezuela’s Health Crisis Is Crossing the Border
Desperate refugees spread malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue and tuberculosis to neighboring countries as health-care system implodes
Via Insty:
Brazil needs help. Venezuela is going, Nicaragua is next. Honduras isn’t looking too good, either.
We aren’t ready.
And there’s 40,000 kpcases of measles in Europe.
Not okay to darken the WH pic but okay to not only do the photoshopping to George Zimmerman, but to create a whole new class of race: white hispanic.
P.S. I love the new ad.
@Birkel
"Does "commit crime" refer to convictions only? Or does "commit crime" refer to those arrested? Does fleeing the jurisdiction therefore mean the criminal did not "commit crime"?"
Most of the statistics are hard to find if not impossible, and a lot are out of date, but the only ones regarding crime I can find refer to convictions, not arrests.
I understand the difficulty in trying to collect the numbers, but it is almost as if the government is playing hide and seek with the pertinent information.
What numbers are out there are generally individual studies which are partisan towards one side or the other. Total costs of our illegal immigrant problem range from 2 billion to over 100 billion per year. You decide.
To anyone looking to evaluate the costs of illegals in the country I recommend the FAIR estimate. A partisan anti illegal group, but they justify their numbers pretty well. The are several refutations just as partisan that will help.
You're never going to get a true cost, but I've never seen a net positive number.
And that doesn't include the costs to a civil society. Mostly it's not a monetary cost, but the impacts are huge imo. There are a few studies on the civil impact of non assimilation in Europe, but it is hard to quantify.
Henry@9:19 with 3 assertions.
#1- "increase in violent crime, but even so..." Oh, BUT... sorry, no. Next!
#2- "number of illegal immigrants... mostly static" More weasel words, qualifiers, and hiding the ball with fake news.
#3- "most illegal immigrants are long-term residents" Exactly! That's the problem! They should be seasonal and sent back home once the crops are harvested, not setting up communities of indigent foreigners dependent on American taxpayers to support them while they vote for Democrat party members to keep the border open and the government benefits flowing.
"What this guy Kavanaugh drank 35 years ago in high school disqualifies him from being on the Court."
"It's racist to call attention to an illegal alien who committed horrible crimes."
-same people
Virgil Hilts@10:11 Sounds like you are thinking about the Time/Newsweek cover of OJ Simpson.
One more thing. The 2 billion per year number doesn't include the costs of anchor babies because, well, because they are citizens! The 100+ billion number estimates that cost at near 50 billion.
Somebody stop me. The FAIR estimate of 113 billion is based on 12.5 million illegals. I've seen 30 million brought up in this thread. We just don't know. You do the math.
Let's stop this 7-10,000.
Then we stop the next 300. Then we stop the 500 after that.
Then we stop the next 10,000.
And strangely...the 'structural problems' go away a bit at a time, Henry.
Now to fix that 'structure', I would suggest temporary work visas.
I am happy to exploit more Mexicans legally and provide our employers some cheap workers...but I demand accountability from both the Mexicans AND the employers. They won't be quite as cheap and they won't be quite as exploited. Americans compete on a slightly leveler playing field.
The real long term problem is not the "bad dudes", it's the second grade educations.
The sad truth is that most of them are ignorant peasants, and behave as such.
I would love for Trump to set out this Executive Order:
Any Illegal Alien will be naturalized as quickly as they can be processed with a new temporary green card. This status
-is revoked if you commit a felony.
- will allow you to stay legally.
- requires you to voluntarily waive your voting rights for ten years.
This puts illegals desires for a regularized situation against the Democrats demands of having voting peons.
Trump farts and deplorables lick his ass.
What makes you think our economy is actually fixed?
Surging GDP, less unemployment (historically low in some cases), record tax collections (not necessarily a good thing I agree, but evidence of an improving economy), better trade deals, lower tax rates, healthy stock markets, the return of interest rates, the fact that Obama is trying to take credit for it, and the left's refusal to admit it is happening.
Trump farts and deplorables lick his ass.
Quick..somebody make a bumper sticker....
"Structural problems aren't solved by shouting about caravans and terrorists, or deploying U.S. troops to the border."
But they might be solved that way. A long-suppressed public desire can break through with the right "crisis", which should not go to waste, to quote a different politician.
I suspect that in this case the crisis was on the way to being manufactured by the progressives, just like the children in cages thing. The point of course was to create photogentic agitprop for the election. Trump responded by shouting, while that lot was still >1000 miles away, making it clear that the exercise would be counterproductive. And creating an opening, perhaps, to do something about a structural problem.
TBD.
"The sad truth is that most of them are ignorant peasants, and behave as such."
They are not ignorant. They are unskilled. And they drive wages for US workers down. This is well documented.
@Fido
"I am happy to exploit more Mexicans legally and provide our employers some cheap workers..."
The problem with that is you create a permanent underclass. Serfs if you will.
A lot of people think that if higher wages have to be paid to fill low skill jobs that we will have to pay much higher prices for products. That is a myth. Agriculture is one example. If the $8 paid to the average illegal were raised to $15 to attract American workers food prices would increase about 1.2% for the items affected. (That is assuming a 31% cost of labor).
Low labor costs increase income disparity. This also speaks to buwaya's point about why we see so much pushback against Trump.
Full employment like we have at present changes the game I'll admit.
Fun fact: There's a statue of Willie Horton in downtown Detroit. (It's a statue of the baseball player Willie Horton, located at Comerica Park, home of the Tigers.)
It is not a perfect solution but does try to deal with a wide variety of disparate needs and wants.
@pacwest
The convictions aspect makes any discussion of rates of criminality by illegal aliens nonsensical.
How many DUIs are avoided within those statistics by illegal aliens ignoring the courts?
Therefore, anybody using those statistics is lying or (charitably) ignorant.
One way to estimate the number of illegals would be to use the amount of payroll reported to the govt with either stolen or phony social security numbers.
Something called the Bipartisan Policy Center reported the "IRS estimates that undocumented immigrants pay over $9 billion in withheld payroll taxes annually."
So let's do the math: $9 Billion at 7.2% payroll taxes means the illegals had total payroll of $125 Billion. If I use $25,000 per year as their average earnings, that means this payroll tax money came from 5.0 Million illegal individuals and that 5 million does not include their kids and wives etc who may not work and those who work under the table.
I am guessing there are closer to 20-25 million illegals here today.
"It is not a perfect solution but does try to deal with a wide variety of disparate needs and wants."
Agreed. It is complex from an actuarial standpoint alone. If you throw in humanitarian aspects it become nightmarish trying to reach a solution. I tend to throw much more weight to the numbers side of the equation. Realize the savings, and then decide what you want to do with the windfall.
And try to avoid weasel words like "structural problems". Not a cut at you. I know you were just responding to Howard in good faith.
@Birkel
Yep. I'd go with lying.
@Henry:
I'm not sure if you live in a heavily Hispanic population, but I assume you don't if you think there isn't a problem with illegal immigration. I do live in a heavily Hispanic area and let's assume for the sake of argument that you are correct that the illegal population is static. The problem with this static population is that the vast majority DO NOT assimilate.
That is why we don't have a "Little Mexico" area anywhere (we have Little Tokyo, Little Manila, Little Saigon, e.g.). Because all of Southern California is practically Mexico North. You can drive into some areas and think you are in Tijuana.
It is completely exploitative by both the illegals and their enablers here in the U.S., aka the Left. It is ultimately destructive to our national identity and our national sovereignty.
As a Californian I can not find any information on whether illegal immigrants who were issued state drivers licences has stepped up and actually bought car insurance. Not one study other than a minor report from the state insurance commission saying illegals issued drivers licenses don't seem to buying car insurance because its "too expensive" and maybe the state needs to start subsidizing that too. Jebus, this state is really fucked up.
"Reminds me of Michael Dukakis. Where is he now?"
Gumming his oatmeal in Brookline MA.
The Left has a problem with facts. Facts are inconstant with feelz.
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