Yes, lovely little rhetorical device leftists like to use on their opponents, isn't it? "See, these bad people are opposed to the same thing you are, therefore you're tarred by association with them." But don't try using that tactic back at them. They would absolutely bristle at any suggestion, for example, that their opposition to the Iraq war encourages al-Qa'ida, the same way they argue that opposition to illegal immigration encourages the KKK. Instead, they argue that the war in Iraq encourages al-Qa'ida, and that therefore the way to take away that encouragement is to stop the war. So in order for them to be intellecutally consistent, these same people would have to then argue that in order to take away the encouragement for the KKK, we'd have to put a stop to the asinine amnesty proposals that are being pushed by both parties over the opposition of the American people.



There's nothing racist about cultural concerns. It's perfectly natural and legitimate for people to want to preserve their culture in their own homeland. This is something the Left readily acknowledges for every culture on earth except our own, for some strange reason.

And for the record, I've never been to Miami, so I don't know how accurate Tancredo's comments are. But I do know that if his statement is false, it should be rebutted with facts, not blind invective based on empty PC rhetoric.

Our bristling may have something to do with the fact that the suggestion was made because opposition to the war originated with the left (a.k.a. members of the fifth column). I've noticed suggestions that leaving Iraq encourages al-Qaeda are sparse lately. Now that there is a growing number of Republicans/conservatives agreeing with "the left" it's safe to assume Democrats haven't been trying to kill Americans back in the homefront all this time.


You don't need to have been to Miami to slam Tancredo with "empty PC rhetoric". I am constantly reminded by "the right" that welfare and other social programs are abused by lazy people who take advantage of my bleeding heart. As a member of the party that thinks there is no reason for these programs, Tancredo is a walking contradiction by calling Miami is a third world country. If Tancredo has no problem equating bilingualism with low human development and dangerous brown people to gain the support of Confederate flunkies, I have no problem calling him a racist pig. White people don't have an exclusive right to preserving their culture in America:

Which, of course, he most certainly does not do. That statement is just gutter politics of the lowest variety. Much like that video you linked to by that immature little brat from The Nation.


Americans have an exclusive right to preserve their culture in America. This insertion of "white" and "brown" into the discussion is entirely on your end.

Like it or not third world country connotes low human development. You must have skipped right over the NewsMax article. Tancredo is the one feeling as though his life is in danger being around people who choose to speak Spanish, Jamic, and other languages.


Yeah, I'm sure you'd feel the same about The American Conservative showing up at a Democratic convention. What was that Blumenthal thinking, putting a camera in front of Tancredo supporters and letting them be themselves?


In case you're not aware, Blackstone, Hispanic culture is part of American culture. This is the angle making anti-immigration rhetoric a joke. English-speaking whites like Tancredo want immigrants to assimilate, but when they do, building an international city in the process that other immigrants can enjoy and where everyone is free to celebrate their own culture, guys like Tancredo feel threatened. It's not an immigration problem; it's his problem.

Now all you have to do is show where he equated "bilingualism" with either of them, as you disingenuously claimed.


In addition to lying about Michelle Malkin's book (she never once called for the internment of Muslims), trying to bait attendees into making racist statements (and failing pathetically), making personal attacks based on irrelevant private information, and engaging in the Left's favorite airheaded argument: characterizing those who want the laws enforced as "anti-immigrant". Actual honest argumentation, of course, was nowhere to be found.


If they're American citizens, then sure, it becomes part of the mix. The overall body of American citizens still have the right to further erosion of the culture that remains if they so choose. You would call that racist. I call it perfectly rational.

Why are you shifting the burden of proving Tancredo did not say what he said on me? Tancredo's just one of those people who think a bilingual nation is "disadvantaged". According to him: "Because America is unique in that it was founded by a set of ideas and ideals instead of tribalism or ethnicity, it is imperative that we demand allegiance to them—and a way to communicate them—to all who live here". Apparently bilingual people, indeed, a bilingual nation is incapable of communicating and sustaining the ideas this country was founded on. I don't know how he jumps to that conclusion, but it is leaps in logic like this one that makes pro-English education advocates look like xenophobes, whether or not they also think Miami is a third world country.


Sure Blackstone, she was just defending racial profiling in a book about the Japanese internment experience with a photo of a Japanese and a Muslim on the cover. She did the talk show circuit, appearing on Scarborough Country to defend internment and call on the White House to fire a Japanese detained during WWII, who was then Secretary of Transportation, because Mineta's experienced had "absolutely clouded his view of what needs to be done now". (Link) Poor misunderstood Malkin. I don't know how anyone jumped to the wrong conclusion.


I'd call it not making sense. That's what you're doing with this statement.

Then you need to read your own link a little more closely. Here are the two sentences that appear right before your quotation: "A bilingual person has an asset in his or her linguistic ability. A bilingual nation is disadvantaged - especially one that is already culturally fracturing." In other words, as is clear to anyone who isn't looking for an excuse to justify her hatred of him, bilingual people are fine, because they can communicated with those around them, but a bilingual nation consists of a large portion unable to communicate effectively with the rest. And that is indeed a problem.


I'd like to see that entire exchange, in context, because I'm willing to lay down hard cash that her reason for wanting Mineta out had to do with his actual views, and that she was just citing his experience as an explanation for those views. A column of hers that your link cites supports this view:




It's pretty easy, when there are legions of people whose only argument is to constantly strawman the other side.


Sorry you feel that way, but it's not my problem.

Unable to communicate with the rest of the country in what language exactly, Blackstone? English? Are foreign accents that annoying?


Excuse me, but how does experiencing internment and disagreeing with this policy disqualify Mineta? I thought having a first-hand experience of repugnant government policies makes Mineta an authority on the subject, certainly more than an author who can no longer stand by her book because of overwhelming inaccuracies in her "research". And are you actually supporting internment?

As for her column, gypsies, gays and other ethnic groups were rounded up during the Holocaust. This did not make Germany's—or the U.S.'s—policies less racist.


As opposed to a select few conservatives who should be able to insinuate anything they want without being called on it.


Must be that bilingual problem you and Tancredo agree on. Can't say I'm disappointed if this is the end of our exchange. Now if you'll excuse me I have a paper to write in Spanglish. Gotta do my part to fracture the country.

Yeah, we can see how its killing Miami now...

In any case I love these retroactive justifications for racist drivel.

It's cute that we're having this "discussion" about language, as if that were what Tancredo said, but third-world clearly makes a point that the problem is not that some people are speaking a Western European language that originated in.. Spain.

Fact is as long as we finance public education we have no reason to fear this anymore than we feared the German, Italian, and Polish immigrants.

Seeing as as communities they (and Hispanics) tend to learn functional English within a few years and fluency within a generation at most.

..but Tancredo can continue his crusade against bi-lingual menus.

Our Hero.


Oh I assure you your attempt to "define" American culture without recognizing the multicultural heritage that ensures we have no single culture and frankly never have....

makes no objective sense regardless of one's emotional state.

There are no inferior races. There are inferior cultures. As the neocons should be beginning to understand. I believe there are legitimate concerns when there is mass immigration of individuals from another culture. I also believe, however, that the hispanic invasion of the US cannot be compared to the Muslim invasion of Europe. The hispanics come from a much more tolerant culture than the Muslims of the Middle East. I have never met a second generation immigrant who did not speak English. The hispanics are assimilating. I think that has much to do with the fact that our system provides opportunity for all to raise above the station they were born in and all see the possibillity of reaching the American dream. Once again, the biggest losers are unskilled US workers; a group the Democrats once fought for. There does have to be immigration control to prevent wage deflation among our most vulnerable workers. Who supports the American worker nowadays?



Here, in France, the, pro-immigrant, Socialist candidate stated her fears that new immigrants would not peacefully accept the results of a free election.

No, Serbo-Croatian. Cripes, do I have to spell everything out?


You're just going around in circles with this. It's you who's claiming, based on cherry-picked quotes, that she said he was disqualified because of his experience, rather than his views. If you want to disgree with her further, I suggest starting another thread. This whole diversion was just your reaction to my calling out your boy for lying about her book.


It barely even began. You haven't even attempted to show that raising concerns about language barriers makes a person racist.



Just to repeat what I've had to say above, you race-baiters have done nothing to show that concerns about language are racist.


It's totally irrelevant where the language originated.


So you claim. Others disagree. I'm still waiting for you to show that they're "racist" for daring to disagree with your pronouncements on this.

And by the way, those earlier waves you mention didn't go on indefinitely. We finally put the lid on it in the 1920s. It may well have been a wise thing to do, even back then.



I don't want to be presumptous, so I'll ask you first, do you speak Spanish, enough to be able to communicate comfortably with Spanish-speaking immigrants in the U.S.? If not, then I daresay there may be a bit of a selection bias in what you're seeing, but I'll wait for your answer first.

In any case, even if you're right, the problem is that 2nd and 3rd generations from immigrants are being constantly replaced by new arrivals. I think that would tend to maintain the balkanization of society.

Yeah, please spell it out. I feel like I'm talking more than I need to, asking you to explain your views, instead of defending Malkin's ubiquitous views. Tell me why a nation where everyone, or a vast majority of the population, speaks English and one foreign language will stop speaking English. Please, go ahead and try. You agree with Tancredo so you must have some idea how this will come to pass.


Dude, will you just say whether you think internment is right or wrong? In WWII and/or now? You didn't have to defend Malkin's book and invite a "diversion".

For the record, Mineta is not my "boy". He doesn't have to be my "boy" because I disagree with Malkin. Besides, he's a little old, don't you agree? If you like chummy debate I can refer to Malkin as your "girl" from hereon out. You just need to ask and I'll play along letting you think you and Malkin got it goin' on.


I'm not responsible for your assumptions, Blackstone. I don't have a problem with teaching classes in English through high school and allowing a foreign language elective during high school. That's how it was for me and I did just fine. Factors like large classes hurt more than the language class was conducted in. I just think you need a little extra special something to believe all it takes is a bilingual America to destroy the Union.

Since hispanics come in all races it is pretty darn difficult to claim discrimination against hispanics is racist. What we are really speaking of here is cultural discrimination. There are inferior cultures.

I for one agree that strictly speaking this type of bigotry is not racism and we are using the term loosely.

I do not agree with the, rather silly, assumption of Hispanic cultural inferiority and think it just adds one most up to the scoreboard on my side that says legality isn't the only reason this is a debate.

Speaking of not making sense. Perhaps you could ask me a question based on an actual position that I've taken. A quote might help.


Maybe on a thread that actually deals with that subject.


You didn't have to defend an infantile videoblogger and invite me to comment on his lie. And I wasn't defending her book. I only pointed out that he lied about it. It's just part and parcel of the whole way your side goes about this debate.


Then what, pray tell, are you saying is racist about Tancredo's statements? I certainly haven't seen anything in them that pertains to race at all. That's just an "assupmtion" you keep injecting.

Since you found my earlier comment awkward and unclear*, hopefully this will be a bit more straightforward: Is it racist, in your view, for a nation to enact immigration laws out of a desire to preserve its culture?



I don't know if I'd go so far as to call other cultures inferior, but we do have a right to preserve our own, just as other cultures have a right to preserve theirs. So yes, there certainly is something more to the debate than legality itself. If that's all there was, then all we'd have to do is repeal all immigration laws, and that would solve the problem of "legality". But the debate pertains to the reasons why those laws exist. The validity of those reasons certainly are debatable, but to answer to the questions for debate on this thread, there's nothing racist about them.


*edited to add: Looking back over my posts, I just realized why my earlier comment was unclear: I left out a critical word. That should have read: "The overall body of American citizens still have the right to prevent further erosion...." Sorry, my bad.

I’ve been reading the defense of Tom Tancredo (and Michelle Malkin! ) with amusement, but anyone who doesn’t believe Tancredo is a stone cold racist needs to see who his friends and supporters are and where his interests lie.

John Tanton (who publishes the Social Contract Press, which is edited by Wayne Lutton, who the Center claims is an “ardent white nationalist.”)

Fred Elbel, who wrote the following:

Joe McCutchen, of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens
Sources
SPL Center
CO Confidential

I'm sure there are many, many more white supremacist/racist organizations who share a mutual love affair with Tancredo and will spend millions of dollars to support him.

I not a big fan of Tancredo's, but has he received actual support from these people and groups, actually associated with them, or do they just claim to support him? I hardly think it's news or controversial that racists would support someone who wants to stop illegal immigration. The question is whether the reason for doing so is racist, and I don't see any credible reasons here so far.

I don't want illegal Kosovars, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Chinese, Israelis or anyone else. Just sensible border control, sensible immigration policy, and deportation of illegal alien criminals. Seems simple and very non-racist to me.

I haven't read Malkin's book, but I do recall reading of Japanese in Hawaii who had loyalties to the empire first and foremost. She lists a few of them here.Many were convicted of treason, of course many, many more of those interned were innocent of everything. Since most of us, in our lifetimes, have never experience a real nation-vs-nation war, I don't think it's as easy to judge the past when the "germans" or the "japanese" were really, truly the enemy. Even the Soviets were seen as victims to their government.

As far as racist language in this debate, Pat Buchanan wrote an opinion piece on this topic, and he didn't even use code words, just came right out and said it. See here.

Um, yes. Seriously, yes, he has received actual support (quite a lot, actually), yes, he has associated with them and has been booked as speaker for several events. Read Bill Winter's report (linked in my previous post).

Oh, and FYI, Pat Buchanan's sister is working for Tancredo's campaign. Birds of a feather...

Thanks, I figured as much, but am usually skeptical. That press release definitely had some spin there, but there is at least smoke if not fire. As I said, I'm not much of a fan of Tancredo, but when the freaking POTUS abandons his citizens on this issue, you have to take all the help you can get. It's a shame that such a fringe guy is one of the few proponents of some of this common-sense legislation.

And yes, I knew about Bay Buchanan supporting Tancredo...As much as Republicans have disavowed Pat Buchanan, that just doesn't help.

Well golly gee, Tanton's also pro-abortion, so that means Tancredo must be pro-abortion!

Either that, or it just may be possible that two individuals can agree on an issue while being divided on other issues. As for the various allegations - and allegations are exactly what they are - of the racial views of John Tanton and others, Tancredo has already responded (scroll to the letter at bottom): "If there are people motivated by racism who consider themselves supporters of immigration reform and my efforts in the Congress, I do not want nor do I need their involvement."

Bottom line, he's not a racist, and he doesn't need to waste his time and resources responding to every single alleged statement or position taken by anyone who's ever been at all associated with him, just to prove this point to people who are flat-out desperate to pin the racist label on him because they're completely unable to formulate any kind of rational argument against his positions to save their lives.

And by the way, since we have a couple people here now who've developed a fixation on Michelle Malkin, I thought I'd link to her latest column, seeing as how it's quite a propos of this discussion. So to answer the debate questions, it seems there is a certain amount of - if not racism, at least bigotry - in this debate. The only thing is, most if it isn't where the fingers are being pointed.

As Malkin asks, "Imagine if Miss Mexico were booed, heckled and subjected to chants of 'USA, USA' if the pageant had been held here."

Let me quote the racist Barbara Jordan:



Let me quote another racist, Cesar Chavez:



The people most hurt by illegal immigration are the unskilled workers whose jobs they compete for. These unskilled workers are disproportionately black and hispanic. Historically the party of labor has opposed widespread immigration in order to protect wages. It seems no one stands for Joe Six-Pack anymore. Open immigration policies are most harmful to current unskilled Americans. Pro-business Republicans and diversity at all cost Democrats are making the working man's life tougher by the day.

This thread is about the motive behind oppostion to illegal immigration, and like I said before if anyone thinks sympathy for the low-income American worker is behind the anti-illegal immgrant crowd I've got some land in Florida...

The "save the poor worker" is an old stump-speech line. Frankly the American laborer has far bigger things to worry about than illegal immigration.

I would disagree. Basic law of supply and demand, which an earlier generation of liberals understood, more workers, lower ages. Barbara and Cesar understood that quite well. They recognized that widespread immigration is deeply harmful to the unskilled worker who are once again, disproportionatel black and hispanic. Sorry, if this does not sit well with diversity at all costs world view.

It does not sit well with the macroeconomic view. It is true that a surplus of labor depresses wages, at least to the minimum level (another good reason for minimum wage policy), but the economic stimulus to other areas of that business sector and the economy as a whole tend to balance it out.

The days when the poor are marshaled to fight the poor are thankfully over, if the anti-immigration camp wants footsoldiers to achieve their own ends they can look elsewhere.

American labor has real battles to fight, thanks.

3.)Is hostility towards amnesty or a process for illegals to gradually earn citizenship at its core, racist? Why or why not?

Not racist at all unless the same people are against legal immigrants from Mexico, Central America etc. which I believe they are not.

Its about fairmness – why should someone who cuts the line be rewarded while the rest wait their turn?

And beyond that does anyone really think that many of the people who cut the line are going to pay $5,000 dollars and wait for years to be “legal”.

I'm not certain how the "line" analogy is valid, as claims for legal entry and any proposal to help legalize those who are here illegally wouldn't necessarily be handled in a grouped situation. Will workers really process illegal ones first and then the forms for those waiting patiently? On top of that, the requirement to pay the $5,000 dollars and to make a journey back to their home country would seem to put them "back" in the line.

So, how many of the people who rant on and on about the rule of law in this instance are cheering the pardoning of a traitor? Doesn't that make the answer to this thread's question pretty obvious?

Traitor I think is difficult to substantiate. If you disagree, just Sun Tzu with me for a moment and pit strength against weakness, he is undeniably a convicted criminal.

The rule of law has never been the driving force behind the emotion of the debate.

The reason... maybe.

The furor, heavens no.