July 4, 2011

The hunt for the Great Bright Illegal

The hunt for the Great Bright Illegal continues. Everybody who is anybody keeps proclaiming that we are lucky to be getting all these highly talented illegal immigrants from Mexico, but, as the decades and generations go by, it's hard to come up with very many names of high achievers to anecdotally illustrate the bromides.

A couple of weeks ago, the NYT Magazine made a big whoop over a reporter named Jose Antonio Vargas, who won a share of a Pulitzer Prize for being part of a team of Washington Post reporters who covered the Virginia Tech mass murders of 31 students (by an immigrant, of course, but that part usually gets left out). Not surprisingly, Vargas is gay. More surprisingly, he's an Asian, a Filipino. That's pretty weak when you can't even find a Mexican after decades of trying.

Now, the Chronicles of Higher Education has a long article by Amherst professor Ilans Stavans, that might be a hoax because it fulfills so many stereotypes that sophisticated observers have noticed:
Academic Purgatory 
An illegal immigrant earns a Ph.D. Now what? 
By Ilan Stavans 
Jorge Arbusto isn't the type of person who seeks the limelight. In fact, for years he has thrived in the shadows. But ask him today what he wants, and his answer is unequivocal: to be recognized.
A sweet, passionate, steadfast student originally from Mexico, Jorge (his name has been changed for this article)

I'll say. "Jorge Arbusto" is Spanish for "George Bush." That raises questions about whether the whole article is a hoax intended as satire on the cult of the illegal alien, but the tone is so authentically maudlin that that seems unlikely.
may be the only undocumented immigrant to successfully defend a doctoral dissertation in the United States.

Wow. Tens of millions of illegal aliens over the years and a grand total of one Ph.D. from that vast population? Wow. That's such a miserably low a level of achievement that even I can't believe it's true. But, the takeaway lesson is that it's close enough to be true that nobody except me questions it.
Certainly he is among a very small group. Yet his case poses questions that not only affect thousands of undergraduates today—some sources put it at around 50,000—but also challenge our ideas about hard work, the choices that colleges do or should make, the value of education (for students and society), and, yes, that thorn in our political side—immigration and the Dream Act, which is still stalled in Congress.

So, what kind of dissertation did Jorge Arbusto write? Did he solve the problems of fusion energy generation?
Having defended his dissertation on Spanish-language popular culture, Jorge received his Ph.D. in Hispanic studies this past spring.

Swell.

Not surprisingly, the mystery man is gay:
He left Mexico to escape a dangerously homophobic atmosphere.

This is a weird new theme in Diversity Talk: the assumption that we need to have open borders to protect homosexuals from the homophobia of Mexicans. Your Lying Eyes points to a bizarre NYT article by Sam Dolnick entitled For Many Immigrants, Marriage Vote Resonates that tries to tie together, somehow, the Wall Street-funded triumph of gay marriage in the New York legislature with the Carlos Slim-funded NYT's campaign for illegal immigration amnesty:
Gay Latino immigrants like Gamaliel Lopez, a native of Mexico, came to this country because they could not imagine an openly gay life at home. They found acceptance in some ways — Mr. Lopez says he can express his sexuality without fear in New York — but they also felt as if they entered the country with two black marks: one for being an immigrant, another for being gay.

Uh, are gay/immigration articles not factchecked because it would be heresy to doubt anybody's assertions on such sacred topics? A Google search on the words Gay Mexico brings up 212,000,000 pages starting with a Gay Mexico Map. Mexico City has a population of 18 million -- there's no gay district there? In John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (set about 1963), Dorian Greene (get it?) of the French Quarter tells Ignatius that Dorian's gay party is going so strong that 
"Several people will be completely ruined after this evening. There's going to be a mass exodus for Mexico City in the morning. But then Mexico City is so wonderfully wild."

The Derb points out in the comments on Your Lying Eyes that Mexico instituted gay marriage in 2009. 

Obviously, Mexico is full of lunkheaded machos, but why importing millions of them into the U.S. makes American gays less likely to be bullied is unclear. If Mexico is full of dim, mean, homophobes, how is letting millions more dim, mean, Mexican homophobes into America going to make America better? (I have a different suspicion: that affluent gays like having lots of poor young men around who come from a culture that says a maricon isn't defined by who he goes to bed with but by what he does there.)

Back to the article by Ilans Stavans about Jorge Arbusto. I had never heard of Professor Stavans, but it turns out that he's an extremely energetic Mexican-American. He's only 50 and he's published 25 books. Granted, I've never heard of any of them, even his The Essential Ilans Stavans, and his career seems mostly testimony to the huge demand among academics for something, anything by Mexican immigrants.

But he clearly shatters the stereotype of Mexican immigrants as unintellectual and unmotivated. Let's find out more about him from his Wikipedia article, which begins:
Ilan Stavans (born Ilan Stavchansky on April 7, 1961, in Mexico City) is a Mexican-American, essayist, lexicographer, cultural commentator, translator, short-story author, TV personality, and teacher known for his insights into American, Hispanic, and Jewish cultures. 
Ilan Stavans was born in Mexico to a middle-class Jewish family from the Pale of Settlement, his father Abraham was a popular Mexican soap opera star. 

74 comments:

  1. Reticent Man7/4/11, 1:21 AM

    lol. Love the ending Steve.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome ending. I never saw that coming. NOT.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now what?

    I would have a suggestion. But so far no one has asked me. I think it was a rhetorical question anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  4. OT

    NTY: Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks

    Rula Giosmas is one of the beneficiaries. Last year she received a letter from Chase saying it was cutting in half the amount she owed on her condominium.

    Ms. Giosmas, who lives in Miami, was not in default on her $300,000 loan. She did not understand why she would receive this gift — although she wasted no time in taking it....

    Before Chase shaved $150,000 off her mortgage, Ms. Giosmas owed much more on her place than it was worth...

    “I used to say every day, ‘Why doesn’t anyone get rewarded for doing the right thing and paying their bills on time?’ ” said Ms. Giosmas, who is an acupuncturist and real estate investor. “And I got rewarded.”


    Just the latest chapter in the war being waged against responsible renters.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey, Steve - - - You're not related to the justifiably famous Steve Hamilton by any chance?
    You know, the old pitcher from the NY Yankees who used to throw "The Folly Floater."
    Opposing batsmen who flail away at this loping pitch of Mr. Hamilton's when it came in at the ferocious speed of over 45mph.
    They would either pop it up or swing right through dead air, hitting nothing but dazed mosquitoes. That Steve was even taller than you are --- at 6-7!

    ReplyDelete
  6. If you want a laugh, do a Google image search for "Ilan Stevens."

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lead editorial today in the NYT:

    "New anti-immigration laws in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina are cruel, racist and counterproductive."

    A little over the top even for the NYT?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Gay illegals are more likely to be on board with everything the left wants, unlikely to have religious hangups with the left's agendas, also less likely to get into trouble, more likely to get a job, pay their way, etc. They're diversity squared! The more diverse the better in this loony leftwing mind, so they are the poster children of everything the left currently wants.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Miguel de Icaza may not be an illegal, but he couldn't take up a job at Microsoft in '97 because he had no degree and so didn't qualify for an H1-B visa.

    ReplyDelete
  10. HAHAHAHAH....super post Steve!

    ReplyDelete
  11. This stuff writes itself, does it not?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Brit Rob

    My apologies as this is totally off topic and out of date.

    Why didn't the FRANK LOMBARD case

    get more coverage on the right

    wing blogosphere?

    I know why it didn't in the MSM.

    Duke University, white on black

    but protected minority.

    Again my apologies.

    ReplyDelete
  13. why do you think it is that these large, powerful institutions, controlled by the upper class, continue to want to put immigration in a good light?

    ReplyDelete
  14. The media, they love to take advantage of our ignorance of other countries, don't they? I mean even people who vacation in Mexico don't really know what goes on there. So, told Mexicans are old-school homophobes, people accept it, no doubt because Mexicans are primitive and religious and shit.

    They could write the same about France, Thailand, even New Orleans or anywhere save SF and it would be accepted.

    ReplyDelete
  15. OT: Steve's prophecy comes true:



    NY Daily News, 2011: Gay mecca of Christopher Street overrun by black, Latino drug dealers, prostitutes, violent youths

    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/07/03/2011-07-03_chaos_on_christopher_iconic_village_stretch_overrun_by_drug_dealers_prostitutes_.html


    Steve Sailer, 2009: "A black-led four-race coalition is an inherently fragile thing."

    http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/10/liberal-crack-up-in-district-of.html

    ReplyDelete
  16. Caudillo Mellish7/4/11, 7:27 AM

    The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama have all had Jewish or half-Jewish presidents. And I'm not even counting Woody Allen in "Bananas."

    Don Francisco, the most popular TV personality in Latin America, was born "Mario Luis Kreutzberger Blumenfeld" in Chile.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Working as a script supervisor, I meet a lot of television writers. Out of about 1100 currently working TV writers (an incredibly competitive field that requires an almost off-the-charts verbal intelligence), I know of a total of seven with Spanish surnames. (I'm sure there are more, but not many.)

    Two are Puerto Rican (javier grillo-marxuach, jose molina).

    Two are Cuban. (Rene Echeverria and Silvio Horta)

    One is half-Cuban, half upper class Mexican. (Roberto Orci of Transformers fame or infamy.)

    One actually has a Chicana mother...and a white father, both Stanford graduates. (Natalie Chaidez)

    And one is a bona fide Mexican citizen...with German Jews for parents (his grandfather was Hans Beimler, a famous commissar of the International Brigades who shipped his family to Mexico before getting killed defending Madrid from Franco.)

    If you're interested, you can google image search them and see that collectively they look about as mestizo as the cast of a Mexican soap opera.

    I think Steve's commented on it before, but given that Hollywood is in Los Angeles and that the TV and film industry has all sorts of programs meant to identify minority talent and foster diversity (shows actually have "diversity slots" where the cost of a minority writer is borne by the network and doesn't come out of the show's budget), it's astonishing how few Mexicans there are at any level of the entertainment industry. (there are a lot more blacks, a surprisingly large number of them from military backgrounds.)

    ReplyDelete
  18. How much you wanna bet that "Arbusto's" thesis was about gays in popular media in Mexico?

    I wonder if seeking asylum based on homophobia will be the new way to get into the US like pretending to be gay was the easy way to avoid the draft.

    So the thinking is that Mexicans need to move to the US to avoid homophobia, and usually end up settling in black neighborhoods, known for their homotolerance?

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymasaurus Rex7/4/11, 8:47 AM

    "A couple of weeks ago, the NYT Magazine made a big whoop over a reporter named Jose Antonio Vargas, who won a share of a Pulitzer Prize for being part of a team of Washington Post reporters who covered the Virginia Tech mass murders of 31 students (by an immigrant, of course, but that part usually gets left out)."

    Actually none of the articles I read about Vargas even mentioned for what story he was awarded the Pultizer, lest the few readers with memories stretching back all the way to 2007 recall that the VT Massacre was caused by an immigrant.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I have taught an ACT prep course for an organization dedicated to helping first generation, low income college students which, in my area, means Hispanics. I've had really good success at raising test scores; each year their math and English scores were close to the national mean (while starting far below the Hispanic mean) and their reading scores were far above the Hispanic mean, while still below the national average.

    In four years of scores, I've had four kids (out of 75) who had scores that translated to 650 or higher per section (28 or higher on all four sections). Two of them I know were illegal (they told me) and they are both at Berkeley, both doing well in STEM majors. One of the other two is at Columbia degreeing in English, so is definitely legal. Not sure of the other.

    When we talk about the Dream Act, those are the only kids I'd consider letting in. But what I think is an even better idea--for these kids, upon graduation, why not give them a job overseas, working for an American company? If they did that for three or four years, the company could then legitimately sponsor them for citizenship.

    There may be some technical reason why this won't work but I think the reason we don't discuss it is because advocates want full citizenship instantly for everyone, no matter ability or education. That would be legislation worth investigating.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Don't forget the great Cesar Millan who snuck across the border at age 21 despite knowing zero English and having few friends here.

    His methods may be controversial, but he's largely self-taught and came to a lot of very powerful insights through sheer observation of dog behavior.

    I'm fresh out of names after him, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  22. "Jorge Arbusto"

    That made my day right there.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Perhaps we can give him honorary citizenship on condition that he joins ICE and helps us track down other criminals.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Directed by M. Knight Shyamalan.

    ReplyDelete
  25. What a great post.

    My guess would be that the Jorge Arbusto name is meant to be a scathing commentary on power.

    ReplyDelete
  26. "Diversity", itself a term made up to provide a rationale for sex and race discrimination, really is a moving target. The millions of Mexican illegals (or, more certainly, their born-in-the-U.S.A. descendants) will provide valuable support for Democrat politicians. Why not try the same thing with gays? Despite the cooing references to gay couples adopting children in the MSM, male homosexuals do not "reproduce" (by adoption, by purchasing babies from "surrogate mothers", etc.) at anywhere near the rate that heterosexuals do. So why not import them? Each one is a guaranteed vote for a Dem politician. "The government elects a new people."

    ReplyDelete
  27. Get Off My Lawn!7/4/11, 10:52 AM

    In much of Latin America, especially the more affluent countries like Mexico, Argentina and Chile, life for middle- and upper-class gays is not too bad. Legalized gay marriage notwithstanding, general social acceptance is not at the level it is in big US cities, but they are not likely to be physically threatened as long as they don't flaunt their homosexuality in the wrong place or bring home poor men for sex.

    For people in the lower half of society, there is much less tolerance. The physical dangers may be exaggerated for amnesty purposes, but it would be misleading to imply that, because there is lots of gay tourism in Mexico and because they have lots of glitzy discos (for those who can afford them), things are as relaxed as they are the USA or Western Europe.

    I'm not at all suggesting that we should admit Mexican (or any) homosexuals as refugees just because of their sexual orientation. I'm just pointing out that a country put on a tolerant face for tourists and foreigners while remaining deeply conservative in its sexual attitudes. Judging Mexico by the Mexico City and resort town elites is like judging Turkey based on what you saw at Bodrum.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Jewish, Gay, Mexicans---the new voting block for liberals.

    ReplyDelete
  29. poultry inspector7/4/11, 12:56 PM

    You know, as I read through that piece, I sort of knew it was going to have a good punchline.

    ReplyDelete
  30. This is classic: a Mexican Jew pushing gay Mexican immigration as the quintessential American issue. Beyond parody.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Stavchansky"

    Ha ha.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Today, victimhood is less about victimization by another group than belonging to a certain group. Even if you belong to that favored 'holy victim' group and suffer--for whatever reason--, you're a sainlty victim. So, if gays and black africans indulge in unsafe sex and spread HIV--even though they're victims of their own behavior--, they are seen as holy victims deserving of our love and compassion. And if we say, 'but they did it to themselves', we are 'racist', 'homophobic', and mean-spirited.

    ReplyDelete
  33. "New anti-immigration laws in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina are cruel, racist and counterproductive."

    "A little over the top even for the NYT?"

    Nah, rather mild considering it left out 'homophobic' and 'sexist'. What about the gay guy who won the pulitzer or all those nannies working for rich fols? Aren't they victims too?

    ReplyDelete
  34. you can't make this stuff up -- and then they go and do it anyway!

    They might be cribbing from The Office; after the series suddenly outed their taciturn, dull Mexican guy Oscar as a homosexual, they gradually developed him into a slightly pretentious liberal-aesthete.

    ReplyDelete
  35. It seems that the gays at the New York Times want to increase the availability of low-wage cabana boys. Perhaps they have discovered some new kinds of jobs that americans just won't do.

    ReplyDelete
  36. "Hollywood, Broadway, pop or classical music, and top schools are not exactly dominated by white conservatives of the 700 Club."

    So, postmodern art is the fault of liberals.

    Matchpoint conservatives!

    ReplyDelete
  37. Anonymasaurus Rex7/4/11, 2:28 PM

    "Mexicans may not be culturally creative/productive but doesn't that make them similar to white c[o]nservatives? Hollywood, Broadway, pop or classical music, and top schools are not exactly dominated by white conservatives of the 700 Club. There's Nashville and Nascar but country music is local-yokel stuff and Nascar is just dumb. Most white cons like what mexicans like: loud dumb hollywood movies, WWE, monster car smash ups, and etc."

    1. "Conservative" is not an ethnicity. Like liberal, it is a set of attitudes, an approach towards life. Many families have both conservative and liberals.

    2. The audience for professional wrestling actually skews Democrat.

    3. Income and educational attainment rates are roughly similar for both Democrats and Republicans. If conservatives are somewhat less likely than liberals to be in Hollywood, they are obviously contributing in some way to earn their money. The same is not true for illegal immigrants. They and their descendants consistently earn less than the rest of us.

    4. I'd wager that the IQ of the average country music listener is at least a few points higher than that of the average rap music fan.

    5. Having grown up in the South, I can say with some certainty that white Southern "local yokels" did not listen to country music nearly so much as you'd think. 80s new wave, grunge, indie, etc. were all more popular than country, even in the poorest white high schools.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Drawbacks said...

    Miguel de Icaza may not be an illegal, but he couldn't take up a job at Microsoft in '97 because he had no degree and so didn't qualify for an H1-B visa.


    Yeah, it is such a shame that a man who is clearly a mestizo transsexual was not allowed into the US so he could deprive Mexicans of his undoubted abilities.

    Have I understood you correctly?

    ReplyDelete
  39. I have to say that I sometimes suspect Satan to mess with the news himself. I'm short of more plausible explanations. Just look at with this guy is writing in the article Steve linked to:

    "It is time for America to recognize the human tragedy beneath the debate over immigration. That means following through with some kind of comprehensive reform plan that will recognize the complexities that Jorge's story raises. But to do that, America needs a conscience, because behind every immigrant's ordeal is a story worth paying attention to."

    Americans have no conscience if they don't let in people who shouldn't even be in the country in the first place? Deport this guy, pronto. He clearly is not worthy of citizenship.

    "Have we dismantled not only the Dream Act, but also the American dream?"

    Give me a f#@king break. The only time I hear anyone talking about 'the American Dream' these days, it is to hammer the PC talking point du jour. It's pure manipulation by tricking Americans into feeling guilty.

    ReplyDelete
  40. "Mexicans may not be culturally creative/productive but doesn't that make them similar to white cnservatives? Hollywood, Broadway, pop or classical music, and top schools are not exactly dominated by white conservatives of the 700 Club. There's Nashville and Nascar but country music is local-yokel stuff and Nascar is just dumb. Most white cons like what mexicans like: loud dumb hollywood movies, WWE, monster car smash ups, and etc.

    We make fun of how most creative Mexicans are actually Jewish or white, but couldn't liberals joke that most intellectual and creative whites are liberals and Jews and NOT white conservatives whose minds are embodied by likes of Sarah Palin?"

    I've made the exact same point. When will Steve write a post about that?

    Oh wait, he won't. Gotta pay the bills.

    ReplyDelete
  41. But then, 99% of conservative intellectuals have also been Jewish in the past 20 yrs... despite the fact that most Jews are liberal. Oy vey.

    ReplyDelete
  42. "Gay illegals are very unlikely to father children. For that reason alone they are more desirable than most straight illegals."

    No. When it comes to illegals, they are all undesirable, period.

    People like you, with their ostensible reasonableness, are part of the problem.

    And yes, I do see it as a problem.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Mexicans may not be culturally creative/productive but doesn't that make them similar to white cnservatives? Hollywood, Broadway, pop or classical music, and top schools are not exactly dominated by white conservatives of the 700 Club. There's Nashville and Nascar but country music is local-yokel stuff and Nascar is just dumb. Most white cons like what mexicans like: loud dumb hollywood movies, WWE, monster car smash ups, and etc.

    Good, then keep your asses up North where you belong and stop moving to Southern States.

    But there's a reason why Southern economies like Georgia or Texas are leading the nation in job growth, compared to union-heavy Northeastern states.

    And, assuming that you'll just discount all of the Presidents born in the South, we still have Robert E Lee. If the US ever gets into a real war I guarantee you'll be begging for the services of white southern soldiers and officers.

    A bunch of effete Northeastern Liberals and acquisitive-minded cosmopolitan Jews certainly won't save you, that's for sure...

    ReplyDelete
  44. Straight Outta Northampton7/4/11, 4:32 PM

    Before reading it, I suspected the doctorate might turn out to be in something useless. Too bad the suspicion was so emphatically confirmed. That this is being publicized by a Judeo-Mexican specialist has to be a glitch in the matrix so I'll just ignore that. It shows an impressive degree of obliviousness to the venerable, utterly routine phenomenon of the PhD surplus (remarked upon roughly 2,000 times per year in the Economist, Time, US News), not to mention the expected outcome for the wider education-industrial complex when the crunch finally hits them. Is there any guild-mentality faculty member, *anywhere*, who's seriously going to the mat for guaranteed employment at a public or quasi-private university for each and every postdoc? Prof. Hombre almost gets me angry... They're knowingly exploiting for cheap labor the Mexican prey (who runs the twice-weekly undergraduate seminar about telenovelas I suppose), then the management not only 1. feigns surprise but 2. plays it up for vanity!

    You're right, this is either a brazen red herring deserving outright, sustained mockery, or the mother of all academic satires.

    ReplyDelete
  45. "The "likes of Sarah Palin" are only conservative in the sense that they favor conserving the "gains" of the New Deal, Great Society, the Sixties cultural revolution, etc."

    Okay, but Paleocons aren't exactly the most creative folks around either.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Country music has a lot of sub genres and it's popular with all kinds of people.

    And rural and suburban white folks (conservatives) are themselves diverse. They are well represented in every state except perhaps HI and CT.

    American literature, music, arts and culture have always been filled with patriotic Constitutional conservative types.

    OTOH the Evangelical conservatives do maintain their own culture.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Miguel de Icaza - Hmmm, not much mestizo in his family tree I suspect.

    ReplyDelete
  48. The Lewis-Sebring Chair of Chicano Explication is getting a lot of flack, but ain't he in the rat race too? For a while this Professor Ze'ev Hernandez here was doing the job (we believed) other Mexicans wouldn't do; yet now, after he strove to establish himself, what is Big Ed doing? Importing university-level intellectuals from the under-tapped markets of Latin America, that's what. Like the SEIU and UAW he is acutely aware of the "writing on the wall" [Daniel 5:1–31] and trying to get above the next wave, lest it wash away his political viability. If a swarm of undocumenteds is inevitable you wanna be on the side of the ones conversant in *English* pomo gibberish instead of, you know, the other kind. Let the Zetas and MS-13 enroll at Hampshire or UMass.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Miguel de Icaza - Hmmm, not much mestizo in his family tree I suspect.

    Miguel looks very much like Lou Reed. Pretty safe bet that he has Jewish ancestry (and little, if any, mestizo).

    ReplyDelete
  50. Well, John Derbyshire's pretty good:

    http://www.ilw.com/articles/2008,0227-Derbyshire.shtm

    ReplyDelete
  51. David Davenport7/4/11, 8:06 PM

    But what I think is an even better idea--for these kids, upon graduation, why not give them a job overseas, working for an American company? If they did that for three or four years, the company could then legitimately sponsor them for citizenship.

    Jobs are scarce these days.
    Why not give an older stock American that job? Why do recent immigrants, even if legal, deserve special privileges?

    As another poster said, why not have your immigrant special favorites earn their citizenship working for ICE or the Border Patrol?

    ...but couldn't liberals joke that most intellectual and creative whites are liberals and Jews and NOT white conservatives whose minds are embodied by likes of Sarah Palin?

    Which one is smarter and which one has the fatter ass, Sarah Palin or Debbie Wassermann Shultz?

    4. I'd wager that the IQ of the average country music listener is at least a few points higher than that of the average rap music fan.

    Check out country rapper Colt Ford:

    No Trash in My Trailer

    ReplyDelete
  52. Anonymous says: "Jewish, Gay, Mexicans---the new voting block for liberals."

    Liberals? The GOP is hot strategizing for them as we speak.
    Gilbert P.

    ReplyDelete
  53. What I find interesting about all the talk about illegal immigration is, I'm not aware of any other country where it is so taboo to discuss the subject without vituperation. Last year I watched a lot British election coverage on C-SPAN, and after Gordon Brown's blasting of an old woman about the immigration remark, all three major parties couldn't outdo one another fast enough to argue for immigration restriction in the debates. I thought to myself, this would never happen in the US, the first time any candidate criticized immigration here, the media would crush them with charges of racism and force them to "recant". I guess this is still one more argument for the superiority of the parliamentary system.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Mexicans may not be culturally creative/productive but doesn't that make them similar to white cnservatives? Hollywood, Broadway, pop or classical music, and top schools are not exactly dominated by white conservatives of the 700 Club. There's Nashville and Nascar but country music is local-yokel stuff and Nascar is just dumb. Most white cons like what mexicans like: loud dumb hollywood movies, WWE, monster car smash ups, and etc.

    We make fun of how most creative Mexicans are actually Jewish or white, but couldn't liberals joke that most intellectual and creative whites are liberals and Jews and NOT white conservatives whose minds are embodied by likes of Sarah Palin?


    Touche...

    ReplyDelete
  55. "Okay, but Paleocons aren't exactly the most creative folks around either."

    It's kind of hard to participate in creative fields when you are ruthlessly discriminated against for your views and don't have an ethnic support network to stick up for you.

    ReplyDelete
  56. this is almost as bad as mexican movie directors guillermo del toro and alfonso cuaron, who, if you simply changed nothing about them but their names, to say, kevin smith and colin ferrell, you just end with up with more of those dreaded boring white guys. i mean seriously, tell me del toro is NOT just some fat white nerd with glasses at comic-con.

    we should start changing people's names to spanish to make them more vibrant!

    ReplyDelete
  57. I used to be a professional classical musician. There are a few reasons that conservatives sensu stricto aren't common there:

    1) Classical music is packed with immigrants, since American orchestras pay far better than, e.g., Ukrainian or Korean orchestras. Koreans are a particularly odd case b/c music is full of them, but they have no job prospects back home.

    2) Classical music pays a lot worse than selling propane and propane accessories. Most regional orchestras pay < $40k and only have a few openings a year. For instance, before I quit, I took an audition where ~120 people showed up from all over the country. Most had graduate degrees from good conservatories. It paid $37k.

    3) The few good jobs in classical music are in large cities.

    That said, it may be selection bias, but a large majority of homeschooling families I've known have had classical music lessons. Teaching a homeschooling group is bread and butter for a friend in non-triangle North Carolina, for instance. And even liberals in classical music are people who talk liberal but act conservative. Classical music is about the only field left where you win jobs purely on merit (auditions behind a screen, etc.)

    Going beyond our immediate circumstances, classical music was created by Italian and French aristocratic patrons, particularly ecclesiasticals, so it makes a particularly bad example for demonstrating conservative cultural stasis. J.S. Bach, flaming liberal or fundamentalist? Yeah.

    -bb

    ReplyDelete
  58. Why not give an older stock American that job? Why do recent immigrants, even if legal, deserve special privileges?

    Um, because it's a job that would otherwise go to a Spanish speaking native? Which I kind of thought was obvious.

    And they don't.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Watching This Week on Sunday it was good to see George Will strongly defending the Constitution while discussing the latest Time article. Providing some balance to the debate. But the second segment on immigration was completely one sided. Everyone being very pro, and very confused. Will still seems to think deportation is impossible, but doesn't think about attrition. Then give anyone graduating with an advanced degree (I hope he meant STEM, not liberal arts) citizenship. I don't see what this has to do with Mexican immigrants, but that hasn't stopped news reports constantly mixing the two. It seems this is going to be the next big media push after the gay marriage victory in NY.

    ReplyDelete
  60. I used to be a professional classical musician. There are a few reasons that conservatives sensu stricto aren't common there...Classical music pays a lot worse than selling propane and propane accessories."

    It's the affordable family formation (AFF) argument which Sailer often makes. Conservatives enter artistic fields at lower rates because the paycheck is less reliable and often fails to support a family.

    The education and income of conservatives is on par with liberals. Conservatives are simply allocating their talent differently.

    "Last year I watched a lot British election coverage on C-SPAN, and after Gordon Brown's blasting of an old woman about the immigration remark, all three major parties couldn't outdo one another fast enough to argue for immigration restriction in the debates."

    It may yet happen here. A few more years of 9% unemployment, plus the coming reduction in welfare and unemployment checks. I think pressure to enforce our immigration laws may yet be brought to bear on Democratic politicians when the poor, especially blacks, have their welfare checks cut back and are forced into a job market where they're competing with illegals. When it happens it will happen so quickly you won't know what hit you. Politically, blacks are fiercely conformist. If a few of them become pro-enforcement, they all will.

    By the way, your interpretation of the British election is not my own. Most of the British pols seemed to be paying the same sort of lip service towards immigration sanity that Americans are used to getting. IIRC, the Liberal Democrats' position was for visas that restricted immigrants (or guestworkers) to certain cities, as though the labor market weren't an open one and as if the government would ever actually bother enforcing settlement restrictions.

    The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, is barely British himself, and, like Obama, appears to have no innate loyalty to the people of the country he wants to lead. His father was half Russian, his mother was Dutch, his wife is Spanish, and his children have Spanish names (Antonio, Alberto and Miguel).

    ReplyDelete
  61. "If the US ever gets into a real war I guarantee you'll be begging for the services of white southern soldiers and officers."

    Why, are y'all better at pushing buttons?


    "But there's a reason why Southern economies like Georgia or Texas are leading the nation in job growth, compared to union-heavy Northeastern states."

    Yeah, lots of blacks and Mexicans baaaaw-haaaaw-haaaaw!

    ReplyDelete
  62. Most white cons like what mexicans like: loud dumb hollywood movies, WWE, monster car smash ups, and etc.


    I do? What's your basis for this claim? It sounds to me like you're just projecting your own biases.

    ReplyDelete
  63. Paleocons aren't exactly the most creative folks around either.

    As measured by what?

    ReplyDelete
  64. We make fun of how most creative Mexicans are actually Jewish or white

    I don't think that Ilan Stavans is creative. Do you?

    We make fun of how the most powerful and influential Mexicans are white (European Jews are a subset if whites) because it illustrates so neatly the HBD point about racial differences.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Interesting points about classical music. It does seem to be an upper-class / retired liberal gilded ghetto, so to speak, since consie working-age stiffs will likely be turned off by the Third World pay that orchestral musicians get, together with the stiff competition and huge amount of practicing that only the most dedicated would be able to invest. Talent can only help so far.

    Competition from Asians also turns many Americans off from the field. Asians, as pointed out before, don't seem to care about their social lives or get "bored" as much. Also, since classical music is alien to East Asia, they tend to stay over here. In fact, a relatively large number of male American classical musicians are married to Korean women.

    White homeschoolers are simply the closest thing to Asians that we have in this country.

    In addition to which, one big reason classical music is a liberal left-wing ghetto is because consies have been crowded out of academia by leftists who push avant-garde crud that the average person doesn't want to listen to. Consies who dabble in classical music are limited to listening to or performing the greats (Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, etc.) but have no choice at landing a professorship if they are at all conservative, especially in composition. "You want your music to sound 'beautiful'? What sort of outdated, reactionary attitude is that??" This is why you don't have any modern-day Mozarts or Beethovens any more; their music is considered "outdated".

    ReplyDelete
  66. Looking at that picture, I think it's clear that Stavans is about as Jewish as he is Mexican.

    ReplyDelete
  67. OK, but WHO reads the NYT? Mostly up-scale urban women, concentrated in NYC, but also around the East Cost. That's the audience for the NYT.

    And you can see the attraction for mass immigration among White collar, upscale professional women. Cheaper help, as Colin Powell noted (illegals do all his housework). No need for a "kitchen b*tch" beta male husband -- single motherhood with an Alpha who did not stick around is much easier with cheap, disposable labor. Lots of illegals push the anti-White guy feelings of most white collar professional White women. "Diversity" sorts out the "true Alphas" (women are always seeking to discover this) from posers-pretenders. And the natural compassion and emotionalism of women can run into overdrive.

    Look at the article. It's not aimed at men. Its aimed at promoting empathy/feelings for "poor downtrodden illegal alien Mexicans" who are also "gay! Gay! Gay!" against those icky/awful/unsexy White guy bigots. [White women love, love. LOVE gays, their model of what non-dominant Alpha men should be.]

    ReplyDelete
  68. "Last year I watched a lot British election coverage on C-SPAN, and after Gordon Brown's blasting of an old woman about the immigration remark, all three major parties couldn't outdo one another fast enough to argue for immigration restriction in the debates."

    For years and years, politicians in the UK have claimed that they would reduce immigration and then done nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  69. David Davenport7/5/11, 7:14 PM

    Um, because it's a job that would otherwise go to a Spanish speaking native? Which I kind of thought was obvious.

    A Spanish speaking native of what country?

    Are you suggesting that only a Spaniard or "Hispanic" can speak Spanish and negotiate with "Hispanics" competently, perhaps because there is something innate about being "Hispanic"?

    Please explain your logic here.

    Following yout logic, a German-American should be hired to do business with German firms, a Chinese-Anmerican to negotiate with overseas Chinese, etc. ... a set-aside quota for every hyphenated American ethnic group.

    "Mitch," you might point out that Jewish Americans have set the example here. American ambassadors to Israel are always Jewish.

    ReplyDelete
  70. American ambassadors to Israel are always Jewish.

    Are you sure? It's an easy thing to check.

    Here is the list of US ambassadors to Israel in chronological order.

    James Grover McDonald
    Monnett Bain Davis
    Edward B. Lawson
    Ogden Rogers Reid
    Walworth Barbour
    Kenneth B. Keating
    Malcolm Toon
    Samuel W. Lewis
    Thomas R. Pickering
    William Andreas Brown
    William Caldwell Harrop
    Edward P. Djerejian
    Martin S. Indyk
    Edward S. Walker, Jr
    Martin S. Indyk
    Daniel C. Kurtzer
    Richard Henry Jones
    James B. Cunningham

    Looks like only 2 Jews out of 17, who served combined 7 years out of 62. Most of the rest appear to be good old WASPs.

    ReplyDelete
  71. We make fun of how most creative Mexicans are actually Jewish or white, but couldn't liberals joke that most intellectual and creative whites are liberals and Jews and NOT white conservatives whose minds are embodied by likes of Sarah Palin?

    Newsflash:

    Liberals are obsessed with Palin. Libertarians and Corporate Whotes love her. Every single conservative including me criticizes her or avoids her. She along with Glenn Beck and other talk show hosts are an embarassment and not genuine conservatives. Adios amigo.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Anonymasaurus Rex7/6/11, 10:47 AM

    Truth, the reason why Southern states can maintain economic growth in spite of large minority populations is because they're not inclined to kowtow to their silly demands. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama have all recently passed major immigration enforcement laws. Most states allow illegal immigrants to attend public colleges. Some states even grant them in-state tuition. So far as I know, only two states - both in the South - don't allow illegals to attend college at all.

    It isn't just the size of your minority population - it's how you govern them.

    ReplyDelete
  73. "It's kind of hard to participate in creative fields when you are ruthlessly discriminated against for your views and don't have an ethnic support network to stick up for you."

    As I recall, Ray Charles wasn't even allowed to enter through the frontdoor of halls he played at. Jews were at one time discriminated at all levels of society. Yet, blacks made great gains in music and Jews made great gains in academia--even before the civil rights movement.

    White male cons still have tons of freedom to make it in the arts/culture sphere. They just don't have the talent.
    And those who have talent gravitate to liberalism because conservatism is associated with the dumb Christian Right.

    ReplyDelete
  74. David Davenport7/6/11, 5:00 PM

    James Grover McDonald
    Monnett Bain Davis
    Edward B. Lawson

    ... etc.

    Ok, my mistake. I should have checked before posting.

    However, I will point out that, following "Mitch's" logic, the US Embassy to Israel should be stocked with recent Jewish immigrants to the USA.

    Also:

    That new US ambassador to Israel
    by JEFFREY BLANKFORT on MARCH 17, 2011
    Like 2 Retweet 0


    It would be nice if just once we could have an ambassador to Israel that represented exclusively US interests. ZOA Welcomes Nomination of Daniel Shapiro as U.S. Ambassador to Israel:

    The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) welcomes the nomination of Daniel Shapiro as the United States Ambassador to Israel....

    ZOA President Morton A. Klein said, “I have known Dan since his days on Capitol Hill. Although we did not always agree on every issue relating to Israel, one thing was always clear – Dan was deeply committed to Israel’s safety and security and strong U.S.-Israel relations. He speaks fluent Hebrew, his beautiful daughters all have Hebrew names, and his parents would openly admit that they’re 'kvelling!'
    "... In addition, Dan is exceptionally bright and understands the facts surrounding the Arab war against Israel."

    { 9 comments… read them below or add one }

    pabelmont March 17, 2011 at 10:45 am

    Nice to have a US rep in Israel who reads and understands Hebrew, that (generally) foreign language (to Americans). As Barack Obama’s personal ambassador to Israel, I’m sure he will do just fine. I wish I could say that I think he will do as well as an ambassador for the American people as a whole, but that is not his job.


    (Not his job? --DD)
    ...

    That new US ambassador to Israel

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, at whim.