Here's another excerpt from my new American Conservative article (not online yet) on why elite thinking about immigration is so vapid:
- It is unfashionable to admit publicly the existence of group statistical differences. The endless campaign in American society against stereotypes has reached the point that simple acts of pattern recognition are in disrepute and demand reflexive debunking by citation of whatever contrary example is available. "Any exception disproves the tendency" appears to be the rule.
- The media's dislike of reporting on averages is exacerbated by its love for man-bites-dog stories. The illegal immigrant who graduates from Cal Tech is news because it's new: it doesn't happen very often. In contrast, the consistently dismal performance of Latino students on average -- by twelfth grade, immigrants are five to six grade levels behind Anglo whites, while even American-born Hispanics trail by three to four grade levels -- isn't news because it's boring and depressing.
- Among the privileged, if a tree falls in the forest but it's not reported in the New York Times, it never happened. For example, the best estimate is that the Latino crime rate is roughly triple the Anglo white rate, which would not come as much of a surprise to anybody who doesn't live in a cave. Yet, because the major media won't note differences in mean crime rates by ethnicity, this fact is considered outside the limits of acceptable discussion of immigration. ...
- That the chief supporters of "comprehensive immigration reformer" -- the White House, corporate America, Democratic Party chieftains, the Catholic Church, race racketeers (such as the National Council of La Raza), the educartel, and big media -- represent more or less what a Sixties radical would have decried as The Establishment does not raise doubts in the minds of contemporary wordsmiths. God may not always be on the side of the big battalions, but public intellectuals are these days. ...
- Open borders enthusiasm often reflects covert hostility toward African-Americans. Hispanic illegal immigrants are slowly pushing African Americans out of the most expensive cities, such as
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13 comments:
why elite thinking about immigration is so vapid:
The Potlatch Principle: the more conspicuously you can ignore reality, the more you prove either your power or your purity of heart or both. White elites are running a feast at which they give away what belongs to their own race.
"The Latino influx can create a temporary dip in the crime rate..."
While part of the dip may be temporary, for reasons you've noted, Hispanic violent crime rate is about 3 times white rate, but black violant crime rate is 6-8 times white rate, so replacing blacks 1:1 with Hispanics ought in theory to permanently halve the rate.
Of course, east-Asian violent crime rate is 1/3-1/2 the white rate, so ideally you replace everyone with east-Asians, including the whites! And female violent crime rate is 1/10 male rate, so replacing male inhabitants with female ones is even better.
One of these points is not like the others, one of these points, doesn't belong...
Immigration reform is one of the biggest carrots that the GOP uses to motivate the white lower and middle classes to vote Republican. If illegal immigration were actually stopped, and affirmative action ended, there would be no reason for the majority of white people in America to ever vote for the GOP again. Only the rich and the Christian fundamentalists would still like them, and I think that the Christians would soon see that they too are being played with and lied to by politicians pretending to care about issues like abortion and school prayer. Notice that 6 years of Bush in office and 4 years of a Republican-dominated Congress have produced no changes in the federal government's stance on any of the issues relevant to the GOP's largest constituencies. Only the rich have benefited.
However, I am not going to accuse all GOP politicians of favoring the rich and not caring about the white lower and middle classes. While it's tempting to believe that the GOP politicians are being so soft on their main issues because they perceive that the persistence of those issues is crucial to their party's survival, it seems more likely to me that nothing is happening simply because political correctness has gotten so out of hand that even the Republicans are slaves to it now.
In either case, while affirmative action could go on forever with no ill effect on the Republican Party, immigration reform would indeed be a disaster. Since the Democrats in general are the ones in favor of greater amnesty for illegals and higher admission rates for legal immigration in general, we can be virtually sure that the next generation of immigrants will be the most Democratic we've ever seen .
White crime rates are artifically inflated by classifying nonwhite "Hispanics" who perpetrate violent crimes as "white." If Mexican and other "Hispanic" criminals (virtually all of whom are nonwhite) weren't classified as "white," blacks would officially commit violent crimes at roughly 10 times the white rate, which of course they do in fact.
Visit the Wisconsin "sex offender registry" or that of other large or medium states, do a generic search for common "Hispanic" surnames, and marvel at all the mestizos, pure Amerindians, and even blacks with Spanish surnames, who are defined as "white."
the consistently dismal performance of Latino students on average -- by twelfth grade, immigrants are five to six grade levels behind Anglo whites, while even American-born Hispanics trail by three to four grade levels -- isn't news because it's boring and depressing.
...and offensive. Actually, the media reports the gap all the time. It's just reported as de facto proof that we're discriminating against Hispanics - or that we're not trying hard enough to educate them. Note that they never mention that, by that logic, we must be trying too hard to educate Asians and Jews.
crime rate is roughly triple the Anglo white rate, which would not come as much of a surprise to anybody who doesn't live in a cave. Yet, because the major media won't note differences in mean crime rates by ethnicity, this fact is considered outside the limits of acceptable discussion of immigration....
I recall seeing a map of the US showing the crime rates of various states not long ago. The states with the highest rates used to be in the "Deep South." Now, it's the states in the Southwest. My guess is that the crime rate is even higher than statistics show, because crime in the barrio is probably massively underreported.
That the chief supporters of "comprehensive immigration reformer" -- the White House, corporate America, Democratic Party chieftains, the Catholic Church, race racketeers (such as the National Council of La Raza), the educartel, and big media -- represent more or less what a Sixties radical would have decried as The Establishment does not raise doubts in the minds of contemporary wordsmiths.
Well, the 60s radicals are the establishment now - and I can't wait 'til they start retiring.
ah, so pro-immigration types are racist now?
Let us not forget that Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League are also pro-immigration as well as "the White House, corporate America, Democratic Party chieftains, the Catholic Church, race racketeers (such as the National Council of La Raza), the educartel, and big media."
ah, so pro-immigration types are racist now? - mutt
Well, many of them are. You don't think La Raza's motives are racist? Or MALDEF's?
If opposing immigration because it imports millions of people not like me is racist, then isn't supporting immigration because it imports millions of people just like you racist, too?
I'd even say it makes such a person even more racist, because he's the one trying to change the country and trying to change the status quo.
I don't know that the elites are racist. They're something far worse - Neofeudalists. They support immigration because of its oppressive effects on American citizens and because it holds down wages. Next to that motive, racism is irrelevant.
Let us not forget that Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League are also pro-immigration as well
Well, church groups of all kinds, including many Protestant groups, have been massively pro-amnesty.
One of the effects of this push for open borders has been to change my opinion of non-profits in general. There are scarce few anymore that don't take your money and use it to promote their political agenda. Even my local United Way has been up at the state capital in recent years promoting in-state tuition for illegal aliens.
I've gone back to school recently, so my finances are tight anyway, but I've pretty much stopped giving to any charity at all. When I do start giving again, it'll only be to charities that explicitly support my political views.
Has anyone stopped to think about the effect of EMIGRATION of the talented fraction of third world countries? We're decanting the human capital of these nations, and leaving the sediment.
Europe had as many 80 IQ people as India or anywhere else in the Third World until the Industrial Revolution made it virtually impossible for the stupid to prosper enough to afford a family. People who couldn't learn to do factory work productively didn't reproduce. Third World societies never had a sufficient concentration of smart people with capital and the ability to get government out of their way.
Make the intelligent fraction of India stay there and give them an incentive to see the dumber ones not breed and watch what happens.
Modified Social Darwinism. it works.
the Industrial Revolution made it virtually impossible for the stupid to prosper enough to afford a family. People who couldn't learn to do factory work productively didn't reproduce. - rajneesh
Well which cam first: the chicken or the egg?
A population cannot get more intelligent without the genetic mutations that will make them more so. In a society like India, where it seems gene flow would be severely interrupted by the rather rigid caste system, that would be slowed down significantly.
So I'm not sure I buy that. It seems intelligence would be as valuable - or even moreso - in helping people prosper even as small-time farmers. Intelligent Scandinavians and Volga Germans managed to do well as farmers in very, very difficult conditions - in Russia and in the northern reaches of the American midwest.
It seems to me that where intelligence makes the biggest difference is in the move from a tribal society to a more urban one.
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