Global Migration

For John, BLUF:  I picked this item because of the acronym:  "WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic)".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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What Cannot be Discussed

Here is the sub-headline:

Immigration and the North-South Conflict

From In My Tribe (Substack), by Blogger Arnold Kling, 3 December 2023.

Here is the lede plus three:

In his new book The Geek Way, Andrew McAfee quotes Marc Andreessen as having tweeted:

The most serious problem in any organization is the one that cannot be discussed

McAfee stresses that when top executives make it clear that a certain topic is taboo, there is a good chance that the firm is vulnerable on that issue, both financially and morally.  He argues that openness and transparency are better for the organization, even if in the short run it makes executives uncomfortable.

I think that we can interpret the political tension in the United States and Western Europe in Andreessen’s terms.  The political elites do not want to discuss the issue of how to handle large-scale migration of people from the global South to the global North.  Underlying this is an unwillingness to discuss cultural differences between the WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) and the rest.  And an unwillingness to favor the former over the latter.  Consequently, these leaders face populist revolts, surprising them with Donald Trump, Brexit, Geert Wilders, and the Irish anti-immigrant riot.

The Blogger then goes on to discuss the recent riots in Dublin, Ireland, over an Immigrant who knifed several people.

The Blogger then describes how the elites differ from the general population on immigration and how the elites try to stiffle discussioon of the subject, demonizing those from the proletariat who do not see immigration as a wonderful moral success.

One of the issues is the ability or willingness of new arrivals to assimilate into the existing society.

But people outside the progressive elites can see with our own eyes that immigrants from the global South into Western Europe are not assimilating.  Right-wing intellectuals use expressions like “invasion” or “great replacement.”  But their fears are not allowed to be discussed in polite company.  As Matt Goodwin has pointed out repeatedly, in the UK even the Tory party is unwilling to raise the issue.

I am optimistic that the assimilation model can still work in the United States. Immigrants from Latin America tend to believe in assimilation.  They do not belong to a Muslim culture that is hostile to ours.  But the Democratic left does not want to champion assimilation, because doing so would concede the conservative proposition that our culture is in some respects superior and worth assimilating into.

Agreed!  He then goes on to talk about illegal immigration.

What annoys many Americans is illegal immigration.  This in turn is encouraged by the perverse way that we deal with asylum requests

I differ with the Blogger in that what annoys me is that those trying to immigrate legally face large bureaucrstic hurdles, hurdles not faced by those who are jumping the Southern Border.  I have been following the plight of a Canadian woman who had previously lived in the United States, and worked here, and has children who live here.  Her path has been long, expensive and bureaucratic.  It is not a path that is a credit to Emma Lazarus and her words "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

A Rose By Any Other Name

For John, BLUF:  Is there any child, growing up, who doesn't question his or her name, hair texture, height, eye color or some other trait?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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America Ruined My Name for Me

Here is the sub-headline:

So I chose a new one.

From The New Yorker, by Author Beth Nguyen, 1 April 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

People have always told me not to change my name. Some insisted that they liked it:  Bich, a Vietnamese name, given to me in Saigon, where I was born and where the name is quite ordinary.  When my family named me, they didn’t know that we would become refugees eight months later and that I would grow up in Michigan in the nineteen-eighties, in the conservative, mostly white, west side of the state, where girls had names like Jennifer, Amy, and Stacy.  A name like Bich (pronounced “Bic”) didn’t just make me stand out—it made me miserably visible.  “Your name is what?” people would ask.  “How do you spell that?”  Sometimes they would laugh in my face.  “You know what your name looks like, right?  Did your parents really name you that?”

I have always envied Asian kids whose parents let them change their names or have separate “American” names.  Phuoc at home could be Phil at school.  But my parents refused to let me change my name.  They said that I should be proud of who I was, and they weren’t wrong, but they were so angry about it that I knew I should keep my worries to myself.  I didn’t want to reject my family’s Vietnamese culture, replacing it with all that TV commercials promised.  And so I stuck with Bich, or let it stick with me.

I sympathize with Ms Nguyen.  Having a non-standard name is a burden.  Growing up, before high school, kids would mimic my name, saying "Hi, I'm Cliff; drop over some time".  I was stationed at Clark Air Base in the early 1980s and the senior NCO at Base Operations eschewed his first name, Clifford, saying in his part of Pennsylania Clifford is a girl's name.  I have never fully settled into my name, sometimes using Cliff and sometimes using Clifford and sometimes my initials, CRK.♠

I wonder to what degree this is a major issue for Ms Nguyen.  She doesn't mention moving to Canada.  She doesn't mention returning to Viet-nam.  She does mention anti-Asian discrimination.  She doesn't mention the split between Cambodians and Viet-namese.  She doesn't mention the Hmong People.

I feel for Ms Nguyen, but, as Rick says to Ilsa, "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."  Beth Nguyen is a lucky woman, with two kids, I presume, a husband, and a flourishing literary career.  And the ability to write interesting short pieces.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  My Wife dislikes, actually, hates her name.  I try not to use it.

Bernie On ICE

For John, BLUF:  The United States is an experiment, and it is a legitimate question as to if immigration without assimilation can sustain the American experiment.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Bernie Sanders unveils ambitious immigration plan that offers a path for citizenship and dismantles ICE

From The Boston Globe, by Globe Staff Writer Jazmine Ulloa!, 7 November 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on Thursday proposed dismantling the federal agency that handles deportations as part of the most ambitious immigration plan yet by a Democratic presidential candidate — and the only one crafted with the guidance of young immigrants at the center of the national debate.

Like other contenders for the party’s 2020 nomination, Sanders would decriminalize border crossings and provide a pathway to citizenship for roughly 11 million people without legal residency in the country.  But he also went further, pledging to temporarily halt all deportations, end federal immigration raids and break up two federal agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, that have been at the forefront of President Trump’s family separation policy.

Denouncing what he called Trump’s demonization of immigrants, Sanders said the immigration proposal was personal because his father “came to America as a refugee without a nickel in his pocket, to escape widespread anti-Semitism and find a better life.”

In the back of my mind is the question of the role of culture in the political and economic success of the United States, which acts as a magnet, pulling immigrants from other, less successful nations.  To what degree does cultural dilution impact the success of the United States?  In order to sustain the success of the United States, which attracts immigrants, does the nation need to moderate immigration?

Regards  —  Cliff

House Dems Divided

For John, BLUF:  Well, it isn't as bad as when Democrat Jefferson Davis was leading the Confederacy.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Pelosi, Nadler tangle on impeachment, contempt vote

From The Hill, by Reporters Scott Wong and Olivia Beavers, 25 May 2019.

Here is the lede plus three:

There is growing daylight between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) over the best strategy for combating a Trump administration that is flouting a flurry of congressional subpoenas at nearly every turn.

The pair of powerful Democrats clashed in recent days over whether to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump and how soon to hold a contempt vote against Attorney General William Barr.

Nadler, spurred by frustrated Judiciary Committee members, has been privately pushing leadership for both an impeachment inquiry and a contempt vote immediately after lawmakers return from their weeklong Memorial Day recess.

Pelosi is still urging a go-slow approach, concerned that Democrats have not yet swayed public opinion about why such aggressive tactics are necessary. The Speaker is also pointing to a string of court victories over the Trump administration and business entities, bolstering Democrats’ arguments that the law is on their side as they methodically probe the president.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

It Wasn't Originally About Mr Trump

For John, BLUF:  But Mr Trump got swept up in it, which, I am sure, made him leery of the Intelligence Community.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Russia Hoax was originally aimed at Flynn, not Trump.

From The Chicago Boyz, by Mr Michael Kennedy, 4 April 2019.

Here is the lede plus three:

I am more and more coming around to the opinion of David Goldman and Michael Ledeen.

The Russia hoax was aimed at Michael Flynn and his role as a Trump advisor.

It was all about General Flynn.  I think it began on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, when Flynn changed the way we did intelligence against the likes of Zarqawi, bin Laden, the Taliban, and their allies.

General Flynn saw that our battlefield intelligence was too slow.  We collected information from the Middle East and sent it back to Washington, where men with stars on their shoulders and others at the civilian intel agencies chewed it over, decided what to do, and sent instructions back to the war zone.  By the time all that happened, the battlefield had changed.  Flynn short-circuited this cumbersome bureaucratic procedure and moved the whole enterprise to the war itself.  The new methods were light years faster.  Intel went to local analysts, new actions were ordered from men on the battlefield (Flynn famously didn’t care about rank or status) and the war shifted in our favor.

One can imagine the corporate Intelligence Community, centered in DC, not being happy about someone like Lieutenant General Mike Flynn ascending to the job of the President's National Security Advisor, especially someone not steeped in the ways of the Federal Government, someoe who was pledging to drain the swamp.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

France Has Its Critics and Prophets

For John, BLUF:  Here is a rundown on one of the "right wing" pundits in France.  France is a little unsettled at this time, which is probably not good, especially if the centre does not hold.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Right-Wing Pundit ‘Hashtag Triggering’ France

Here is the sub-headline:

The pop historian Eric Zemmour has fashioned himself as an evangelist of French culture — and become a driving force for French conservatism.

From the Old Gray Lady, By Ms Elisabeth Zerofsky, 6 February 2019.

Here is the lede plus three:

To follow Éric Zemmour around Paris this fall was to make a tour of the city’s slightly faded belle epoque salons.  In September, after his latest book, “French Destiny,” was published, Le Figaro, France’s center-right daily paper, where Zemmour is a columnist, hosted a talk at the Salle Gaveau.  A 1906 chamber-music hall, painted pale yellow and lined with parterre boxes, it is just two blocks from the presidential palace.  “I’m not going to introduce Éric Zemmour,” his presenter told the sold-out hall, noting that you would have to live at the very edge of the universe to escape him.

“I’m always intimidated when someone says something nice about me,” Zemmour replied.  “It happens pretty rarely.”

At 60, Zemmour is slight, with thinning hair and a spry energy.  In a normal week, he might be a guest on morning radio, discuss the death of Gaullism on his Wednesday-evening talk show and publish a column on the genius of the French language.  But when he releases a book — he has written three since 2014 — his frequent speaking engagements mean additional opportunities to expound on his preferred topics: the historical curtailment of French dominance and the elites who have destroyed what remains of French identity.  All this time in front of the public increases the chance that he will do what he is best known for:  defy the still-robust codes of French politesse. “I have the great fault of being unable to concede,” Zemmour says.  “I’m not glorifying being this way. I just can’t help it.”  It is a trait that ensures not only that Zemmour is to be found everywhere, talking, but also that everyone, everywhere, is talking about him.

In the lobby, before the evening’s program, Zemmour’s colleagues were chattering about his latest clash, the so-called affaire des prénoms.  On a talk show the previous Sunday, Zemmour went on a riff about the importance of a first name in signaling Frenchness, a longstanding obsession of his.  (In 2009, he publicly castigated the minister of justice, Rachida Dati, for naming her daughter Zohra.)  Zemmour concluded by informing one of the panelists, a young journalist with Senegalese roots named Hapsatou Sy, that her mother was wrong not to give her a French name — say, Corinne — to show that their family was dedicated to the task of assimilating.  Everyone laughed, but the producers cut the cameras and the conversation continued offscreen, where Zemmour told Sy that her name was “an insult” to France.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Appearing Jewish in Europe on Friday Night

For John, BLUF:  What a sad commentary on what used to be Europe.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Safest Country for European Jews? Try Hungary

Terms:

Kippah
Shtreimel

From Pajama Media, by Mr David P Goldman, 28 May 2018.

Here is the lede:

Last Friday evening I put on a kippah and walked half an hour across Budapest to the Keren Or synagogue maintained by the Budapest Chabad.  After violent attacks on Jews in German streets, the leaders of Germany’s Jewish community warned Jews last month not to wear a kippah or any other visible sign of Jewish identification in public.  The French community issued such warnings years ago.  Belgian TV could not find a single Jew in Brussels willing to wear a kippah in public.  I walked across Budapest four times (for Friday evening and Saturday daytime services), and no-one looked at my kippah twice.  At services I met Hasidim who had walked to synagogue with kaftan and shtreimel, the traditional round fur hat.  Whatever residual anti-Semitism remains among Hungarians, it doesn’t interfere with the open embrace of Jewish life.  There are no risks to Jews because there are very few Muslim migrants.

If only German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been half as tough on Muslim migration as President Donald Trump.  When it was, in the 1960s and 70s, Gastarbeiter from Turkey, things seemed to work well.  While the Germans did little to assimilate the Gastarbeiter, the Guest Workers played by German rules.  Now that there are millions of foreigners living in Germany, many refugees from the Middle East, the refugees are setting the rules.

One more chance for Germany to be a European problem; a fourth time in 150 years.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Illegal Immigration Goes North

For John, BLUF:  Illegal Immigrants squeezing out the homeless?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Camp of the Saints Heads for the Great White North

From PJ Media, by Mr Michael Walsh, 19 May 2018.

Here is the opening:

And you thought The Camp of the Saints was fiction:

With only 20 rooms vacant, Toronto is within seven days of evoking an emergency plan to house the growing number of refugees settling in the city after crossing the U.S.-Canada border, Mayor John Tory says.

“We could not, cannot and should not be doing this alone. If these daily arrivals continue, as we expect them to, to some degree or another, we will be in a position within the next seven days, where we will need to open an emergency reception centre,” Tory told a news conference Friday.

As of Thursday, there were 2,683 refugee claimants in the Toronto shelter system, accounting for 41 per cent of the shelter population.  At the current rate of arrivals, the city expects refugees will make up 54 per cent of the spaces by November.

If you are looking for the Kindle edition of the book, Camp of the Saints, it is here.

Further on the article reads:

Behold the Cloward-Pivening of the West: operating under the false flags of "diversity" and "tolerance," and demanding that post-Christian West "live up to its own book of rules" (Alinsky Rule #4), the cultural Marxists seek to destroy the political integrity of the European and the North American nation-states by flooding them with "migrants" (to where?) and "refugees" (from what?).

Blame Trump!

Yes, if the West doesn't stand for anything, if it believes it is the West only because of good luck and not because of a set of values that brings freedom and prosperity, then it deserves to go the way of the Wooly Mammoth.  If, on the other hand, Anglo=Saxon Privilege means inheriting a set of values that provides for limited government and property right and the right to vote your government out of existence, then there needs to be a system of acculturation of assimilation, so that the ideas and ideals are not drowned by immigration but are allowed to spread and enrich all, at the pace they can accept.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Who Gets Protection?

For John, BLUF:  Yes, the bureaucrats in the Federal government could be creating resistance to immigration, by slowing assimilation.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Regulators sue Albertsons for allegedly banning employees from speaking Spanish in front of non-Spanish speakers

From The San Diego Union Tribune, by Ms Morgan Cook, Contact Reporter, 3 May 2018.

Here are the first four paragraphs:

Albertsons grocery stores violated the rights of Hispanic employees in San Diego with a policy forbidding workers to speak Spanish around non-Spanish speakers — even when conversing with each other during breaks or helping Spanish-speaking customers, according to a new lawsuit.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Albertsons Companies, Inc., on Thursday in federal court.  The lawsuit accuses the Idaho-based chain of discriminating against Hispanic employees at San Diego-area stores, harassing them and subjecting them to a hostile workplace because of their race or country of origin.

“Employers have to be aware of the consequences of certain language policies,” Anna Park, an attorney for the commission’s district office covering San Diego County, said in a statement on Thursday.  “Targeting a particular language for censorship is often synonymous with targeting a particular national origin, which is both illegal and highly destructive to workplace morale and productivity.”

According to the lawsuit, the national grocery retailer is one of the country’s largest, employing some 280,000 employees across 35 states.  The company’s stores serve about 2,300 communities and operate under 19 well-known banners, including Albertsons, Vons and Safeway.

Yes, Albertsons and Vons are real supermarkets.

From Law Professor Gail Heriot, teaching in San Diego:

I can’t help but wonder if Americans would have a more favorable attitude toward immigration if the federal government hadn’t been zealously pursuing anti-assimilationist policies for so many decades.  Attempts to impose bilingual education and affirmative action are two of the biggest ones.  (Why identify with the majority if your one of your grandparents will get you diversity points?) But in a small way these “Speak English, please” rules are another example.  (By the way, the EEOC seems to be going out of its way to “interpret” the Albertsons rule to be more demanding than it really is.  It is not the intent of the rule to prevent Spanish-speaking employees from assisting Spanish-speaking customers in Spanish if they happen to be within earshot of an English-speaking customer.)

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Immigrant Sarah Hoyt on Illegal Immigration

For John, BLUF:  Come here and assimilate.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Rendering Unto Caesar

From PJ Media, by Science Fiction Writer Sarah Hoyt, 26 February 2018.

Here is the lede plus four:

Like many Americans these days, I go to church to be upset.  As in almost every other institution in the west, most mainstream churches have been taken over by leftists, gutted from the inside, and worn as skinsuits while the invaders demand respect.  This leaves many of the faithful believers thinking that they don’t have a place to go. I can’t prove it, but judging by my own family attendance is probably down.

This week the Catholics were assaulted with a letter from the United Conference of Catholic Bishops.

It said, “We are deeply disappointed that the Senate was not able to come together in a bipartisan manner to secure legislative protection for the Dreamers.  With the March 5th deadline looming, we ask once again that the Members of Congress show the leadership necessary to find a just and humane solution for these young people, who daily face mounting anxiety and uncertainty.

“We are also announcing a National Catholic Call-In Day to Protect Dreamers.  This coming weekend we will be asking the faithful across the nation to call their Members of Congress next Monday, February 26, to protect Dreamer from deportation, to provide them with a path to citizenship and to avoid any damage to existing protections for families and unaccompanied minors in the process.

“Our faith compels us to stand with the vulnerable, including our immigrant brothers and sisters.  We have done so continually, but we must show our support and solidarity in a special way.  Now is the time for action.”

From there she goes on to explain how the cow the the cabbage.

I am with Sarah.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Immigration—The Elites vs the People

For John, BLUF:  And the majority of voters dislike "chain migration".  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Shock poll: Americans want massive cuts to legal immigration

Here is the sub-headline:

Cutting chain migration even more popular than legalizing Dreamers

By Reporter Stephen Dinan, of The Washington Times, 22 January 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

A government shutdown is in the rearview mirror, but the outlines of a looming immigration deal remain murky with the sides still far apart — though the latest polling suggests President Trump’s bargaining position may be strong.

A Harvard-Harris poll taken in the run-up to the shutdown found Americans strongly support granting citizenship rights to illegal immigrant Dreamers.  But they also back Mr. Trump’s three demands for a border wall, limits to the chain of family migration and an end to the Diversity Visa Lottery.

Most striking of all is the public’s demand for lower overall legal immigration — a position that has little traction on Capitol Hill but one that is overwhelmingly popular across the country.

This is a hot topic these days.  In fact, Professor Walter Russell Mead had an OpEd in The Wall Street Journal, Monday, the 22nd—"Immigration Is Still Radioactive".  The sub-headline is "A debate between naive elitism and ugly nativism only impedes pragmatic reforms."

Using terms like "naive elitism" and "ugly nativism" are not helpful, especially the last term, which is particularly ugly. : It is like "former Nazi", from which there is no hope for reform  In the mean time this is a problem that is crying for a new analytic approach.

For example, what do the sociologists tell us about the loading factor.  How many immigrants from different cultures will it take to tip us politically or economically away from what works for us, from what makes us attractive to emigrants from other nations?  Or even creates emigration pressures?

For the political scientists, how much assimilation do we need for incomers to understand our political system and work within it.  Based on Cambodians living in Lowell, or Portuguese, this doesn't seem like a big deal, but is it?♠  There have been questions about how Somalis have settled in in the US.♥

The other thing that strikes me is how easily some sweep illegal immigration up into immigration as a whole, ignoring the issue of the adverse impact of scofflaws.  If you came in illegally, why would you conform to other laws about citizenship, or drivers licenses, or other things?  Further, allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country may work against our understanding of the legitimacy of refugees, who are a whole other category.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff
-2 Mon 0

♠  Why the references to the Lusitanians?  Because Portugal was, up until 1968, a dictatorship under Salazar (from 1932 to 1968).
♥  I am amazed that the best known Somali in America, here via the Netherlands, Ms Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been tagged as a right winger, because she is opposed to FGM.

Mexico's Migrant Problem

For John, BLUF:  What we lack is a consensus in the United States with regard to what we want from immigration.  What IS the American position?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A Flawed Asylum System in Mexico, Strained Further by U.S. Changes

This is from The International New York Times, by Reporter Kirk Temple, on 5 August 2017.

It seems that before President Trump started talking about building a Wall, Mexico was already getting tough on illegal immigrants and also refugees.  Some suggest this is from weaknesses in the Mexican immigration process and the organization executing the policy, "the National Migration Institute, Mexico’s immigration enforcement agency, and the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance, or Comar, the department that processes asylum petitions.? Here is an excerpt of two paragraphs:

These weaknesses are particularly glaring, advocates say, as some legislators in Washington push for a legal change that would require migrants to apply for asylum in Mexico if they reached the United States by traveling through it.  A bill pending in Congress “would allow the return of apprehended Central American refugees to Mexico, where they could apply for protection,” without the need for a bilateral agreement with Mexico, according to a summary from the House Judiciary Committee, which approved the bill last month.

Such changes “would undermine U.S. global leadership and violate American legal commitments, even if Mexico had a strong refugee protection system,” said a report published last month by Human Rights First.  “They are all the more dangerous because Mexico doesn’t.”

And here is Mexico's problem summed up:

Though the vast majority of northbound migrants from Central America still regard Mexico as a transit corridor to the United States, the country has increasingly become an attractive destination in its own right.

So, per The Old Gray Lady, it is all our fault here in the United States, because we are not accepting these economic refugees and also those fleeing violence and crime in their own nations.

I posted this article on another forum and did get this comment, off line, from a serving officer I know:

I'm reading your note on a wet afternoon aboard Soto Cano Airbase in Honduras.  I agree that we in the US aren't responsible for all of the crime and violence in Central America's Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador).  We are, however, responsible for some of it.  Our inability to limit the increase in demand for drugs (let alone stop or reduce it) in any meaningful way creates a massive economic incentive for criminal industry along our southern approaches.  In size, capital, and organization, the illegal drug industry dwarfs the capacity, capability, and desire of national and local governments to resist.

That is spot on.

This person then goes on:

Further, the street gang infestation that plagues these three countries (the so-called maras) was born in the US.  MS-13 and Barrio-18 were initially defensive organizations that Central American immigrants in Los Angeles' Rampart neighborhood created during the height of the 1980s gang warfare to resist the depredations of the Bloods, Crips, and Latin Kings.  We found, arrested, and deported these gang members to the Northern Triangle nations.  The effect was similar to exporting an aggressive, invasive species into an ecosystem in which it had no natural predators.

So, the immigration issue impacts the US, in many ways, big and small.  That said, taking the view that immigrants, legal and illegal, are all just universal believers in American values and should be given a driver's license, a SSAN and registered to vote seems to be both ignorant and short sighted.  While President Trump has disrupted the flow of illegal immigrants, even before the wall, more needs to be done to fix our immigration policies and laws.  And we need to work with Mexico and Canada on this.

Regards  —  Cliff

Jim Acosta the Racist Apologist

For John, BLUF:  He is so caught up in his Cosmopolitan world view that he has grown ignorant.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Can there ever be too much mocking of CNN Reporter Jim Acosta?

Absolutely, but we aren't there yet.

Jim Acosta, Racist Apologist for White Privilege

This is a very short piece in PJ Media, by Mr David Goldman, 3 August 2017.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Refugees, Then and Now

For John, BLUF:  Surprisingly, not everyone wants to come to America, to become an American.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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NYT Columnist Nicholas Kristof Says The Holocaust Is America’s Fault

From the web page Red State we have Mr Joe Cunningham commenting on statements by New York Times OpEd Columnist Nicholas Kristof.

Here is the quote Mr Cunningham zeros in on:

KRISTOF:  I think that we all think that Anne Frank and the European Jews were simply murdered because the Nazis regarded them as inferior, and in some sense that's true.  But it's also true that they died because mainstream America in some sense regarded them as inferior as well.

So, basically Mr Kristof is saying that when the getting was good, we failed to open our doors and arms.  As in 1939, when we turned away refugees aboard the MS St Louis, strangely a German liner, with 908 Jewish refugees.♠  They ended up back in Europe.♥

On the other hand, in 1939 there were no death camps such as Auschwitz, which at first housed Polish political prisoners, from May 1940.  Jews began arriving in early 1942.

There was no strong voice in the United States on this issue, except for some Jewish voices.  President Franklin D Roosevelt was not a strong supporter.  A proposal to bomb Auschwitz, first raised in 1942, went nowhere.

But, what lessons can we pull from this?  I think the war in Europe from 1939 until 1945 was different from what is happening in the Middle East.  What we are seeing in the Middle East is a civil war, not only between the Sunni and Shia, and all the smaller sects, but within Islam between those who would go back to the way it was in the 700s and those who would like to accommodate more modern ways of thinking.  To quote a friend of mine:

This is a war WITHIN Islam, among Muslims, over what they want their faith to be…what they want to keep or change about their culture.  This war is being played out in Pakistan (the murder of children, lawyers, those debate blasphemy laws, women) Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Saudi, Jordan, Egypt, etc…across the Muslim world and where Muslims have gone.

This is a religious war among the faithful.

This is NOT about economics or nation state dynamics.  Sure, politics are always involved, but as most of the scholars on the Middle East and ISIS state…this is about religious images, ideology, tradition, tribe, revenge.

And then, that is the rub. Our “influence” often is seen as our arrogant, mindless, interference.  What are we going to influence them to do about their religion and culture?  Sure we can offer one way to address these issues, we can even pose hard questions to them on these questions, especially the issue of tolerance.  But these are NOT issues that respond to jobs programs, pro democracy groups.

Bringing in refugees is not the German Gastarbeiter program of the 1960s and 1970s, nor the French welcoming immigrants from the Maghreb.  Those were immigrants coming to a place with some expectation of assimilation and accommodation.  The over 1 million refugees out of Syria and other locations in the Middle East may not see themselves as being assimilated.  That may mean a culture within a culture.  Are refugee camps in Europe and the United States the best way to deal with these displaced persons or should we be finding other solutions, closer to their homes, to which they may wish to return?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  As an additional piece of information, they were also not allowed to land in Cuba or Canada.
♥  On the other hand, there is the SS Navemar, which, in 1941, brought 1,120 Jews to New York City.

How We Dress

For John, BLUF:  Freedom is what it is about.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Westerners who don hijabs in Iran are a disgrace

Ms Sarah Hoyt, at InstaPundit, gives us this item by Amir Taheri in The New York Post on 3 July.

Here is the lede:

In Iran, do as the mullahs say, not as Iranians do.  This seems to be the motto adopted by a string of foreign dignitaries rushing to Tehran in the wake of the mythical “nuke deal” marketed by the Obama administration.

The article has a photo of Australian diplomat Julie Bishop wearing a head covering while in Tehran walking with her Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.

At raises a good question.  If, on the streets of Lowell we should accept women wearing the hijab, why should Westerners be expected to wear some version of the hijab when in Muslim lands?

Is this some sort of Gresham's Law of female conduct?  If Muslims are around should Western women dress as Muslim women would, rather than how they would dress normally?♠

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  I would like to be clear that I see this as a spectrum and not an either or situation.  Some of the ways women dress down town or in Walmart leave, in my estimation, something to be desired.  That said, this is the United States and they are free, within certain minimal rules, to dress as they see fit.  And that is important.

Racism

For John, BLUF:  All studies need to be questioned.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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"The surprising relationship between intelligence and racism"

A new study designed to examine the relationship between verbal intelligence and attitudes on race and racial policies offers some surprising results.

Or so says the headline writer for The Christian Science Monitor, for the article by Correspondent Husna Haq.

Here is the lede plus two:

Are smart people less racist than their less-intelligent peers?

That was the question asked in a new study that examined the relationship between verbal intelligence and attitudes on race and racial policies.

The findings may surprise some: While people who score higher on intelligence tests are less likely to hold racist stereotypes (such as imagining that people of another race are lazy or unintelligent), they're no more likely to support government policies that aim to reduce racial inequality.  For example, while 95 percent of study participants who scored higher on the intelligence test said that black and white children should attend the same schools, only 22 percent support school-busing programs.

That is one way to read the results.  Another way is that people who score higher on intelligence tests are less sanguine about the ability of government policies to reduce racial inequality.

It has been over half a century since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.♠  I had hopes for the Obama Administration.  In particular, I had hopes for Attorney General Eric Holder.  Sadly, he was the biggest disappointment, for me, in the whole Administration.  I continue to be hopeful about Mr Holder's replacement, Ms Loretta Lynch.

I believe we are at the point where the issue is jobs and assimilation.  Hispanics have an employment rate that is the same as the national average, but Black Males do not.  The Black Male rate is almost double the national rate.  Black Women are just under two percentage points off the national number, for men or women.

We need to improve Black Male employment.  That is the first step.

And then we need to help people assimilate.  The recent riot in New Mexico, against Candidate Trump, where the protestors displayed the flag of Mexico, is an example of a group that doesn't understand being American.  Frankly, you do better when you embrace the place you live, Nation, State, County and City/Town/Village.  Even I know that.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  But, we shouldn't forget the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which unleashed the voter registration drives that lead to major efforts at voter registration, and the high water mark of open resistance to Civil Rights in the South.

Becoming More Latin in Our Culture

For John, BLUF:  Maybe your milage differs.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The following is an OpEd by Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds in USA Today.

When leaders cheat, followers ... follow

The sub-headline is "The trust that underlies a law-abiding society is rotting away thanks to double-dealing in Washington."

Here is the lede plus two paragraphs:

The state is “a gang of thieves writ large,” economist Murray Rothbard is said to have remarked. I’ve always viewed that sort of comment with a bit of skepticism. But now I’m beginning to wonder.

I wonder more when I read things like this report from the Washington Examiner: “The CIA's inspector general is claiming it inadvertently destroyed its only copy of a classified, three-volume Senate report on torture, prompting a leading senator to ask for reassurance that it was in fact ‘an accident.’”

Here’s a hint: It very likely wasn’t.

Here is the money paragraph:

Being law-abiding for its own sake is a traditional part of bourgeois culture, and our ruling class has lately treated the bourgeoisie with contempt as well.  Which raises the risk that this contempt will be returned.

We enjoy the benefits of a free society because we have cultivated a bourgeois culture.

The piece raises some questions about Government performance and how that performance filters down to junior members of the Civil Service (or the Military) and eventually to how the Citizenry responds.  The phrase I like is “The trust that underlies a law-abiding society…”.  I don’t expect the police to try to shake me down and I don’t expect anyone to try and bribe me to get a liquor license here in Lowell, or a used car lot license, or a pawn shop license (I am a license commissioner).

Were this a partisan issue it would be easy enough to fix, come November.  But, I fear, it is not.  It is a culture change.  Not everyone.  Not even a majority.  But a trend.

Hat tip to Memeorandum.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Russians Have Landed

For John, BLUF:  I understand not making English mandatory (I had a terrible time with High School French), but I hope there is a cost benefit to having IRS information translated into five other languages.  There is no free lunch.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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In trying to track down some information at this IRS web site, Self-Employed Individuals Tax Center, I noticed we could read the page in several languages, in addition to English, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Viet-namese, and, interestingly enough, Russian.

Español
中文
한국어
TiếngViệt
Pусский

But, no Cambodian and no Portuguese.  Up here in Lowell we have the minority ignored of the minorities.

But, I am glad to see Russians and others paying their taxes.

Regards  —  Cliff

Best Sunday OpEd

For John, BLUF:  Anywhere.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Writing in Sunday's edition of The [Lowell] Sun, Immigration Rights Lawyer Marisa DeFranco lays out her view on immigrants to America, under the headline "Turn back the barbarians at our gates".

This is not about all immigrants, nor is it about all Muslim immigrants, but it is about the idea that immigrants should be able to dictate to the rest of us how we behave.  It is about our leaders not recognizing that there are cultural patterns that should not be acceptable in the United States.

Asking "How do our leaders get it so wrong?", Ms DeFranco ends her OpEd this way:

The fact that ISIS and al Qaeda dress their cause up in religion matters little to the end game, except in one dangerous way:  It lures our leaders to do exactly what those on the left are doing -- hurling insults against those of us who want to protect America as an existing sovereign nation and an ideal.

As a sovereign nation, our laws dictate against murder and mayhem in the name of religion, not the other way around.

This is what I know about American culture, Mr. Multicultural.  If you want to live in a place where all things such as terrorism, child brides, sex-trafficking, female genital mutilation, sex-selective abortions, rampant anti-Semitism and beheadings of dissenters are respected practices, you have lots of countries from which to choose.

But we will not let America morph into such a place. E pluribus unum isn't just some jargon on our coins. It actually means something:  out of many, one.  One unified culture that respects life, liberty, and the freedom of and from religion.

The barbarians will never be able to change what America stands for.

Amen!

And remember, this is a woman, a lawyer, who is fighting for the rights of immigrants.  But a person who knows how to make distinctions and draw lines.  And speak frankly.

Regards  —  Cliff

Learning to Trust the Legal System

For John, BLUF:  As we see here in Lowell, it is sometimes hard for immigrants to build trust for the agents of Government, especially the police and courts.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Presidential Candidate Donald Trump has taken a lot of heat for his comments about illegal immigrants from Mexico.  Yes, Mr Trump painted with a broad brush, and he shouldn't have.

However, Mr Trump opened a door to some fundamental issues, a door the Democrats tried to slam shut.  That door is what about where these illegal immigrants are from?  Someone coming to the United States, from Mexico, or further south, does not come with instant American values, with an American sense of, belief in, justice.  They have only a small fraction of the trust Americans have in the police and the courts.  How does that play out over the years?  How do we visualize them?

• Are they worthy citizens who are economic immigrants, looking for a better opportunity?
• Are they frightened citizens escaping the dangers of a culture where the rich and connected exploit the less fortunate?
• Are they the rich and connected?

I am guessing they are not the rich and connected, who can get visas and come in the regular way.  As for the other groups, there is a good chance they have been living in dysfunctional communities and wish to escape.  As we think about it, we should wonder about what cultural patterns they are bringing with them.  Are their ways of coping such that they cannot easily slide into an American way of life outside the shadows of an illegal immigrant culture.

A look at the disfunction in Mexico today is provided by Mr León Krauze and The New Yorker, in an article headlined "Los Porkys:  The Sexual-Assault Case That’s Shaking Mexico".

Here is the lede plus one:

For several centuries, the port city of Veracruz, located in the Mexican state of the same name, was known for its carnival.  Now, though, it’s known for corruption and terror.  The state has become territory for the fearsome Zeta drug cartel.  According to a study by Mexico’s bureau of statistics, eight out of ten people in the state say they live in fear.  At least fifteen journalists have been killed in Veracruz since 2011. During the same period, hundreds of other people have vanished.  Father Alejandro Solalinde, one of Mexico’s leading human-rights advocates, has called Veracruz “a factory of forced disappearances.”  To many citizens, there is little difference between the rich and the government, and between the government and the criminals.

In this climate, most people don’t come forward when crimes are committed.  In fact, in 2014, only one in ten was reported to local authorities, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography, also known as INEGI, after its Spanish-language acronym.  But in recent weeks, a man named Javier Fernández, whose daughter Daphne Fernández has accused a group of well-to-do young men of sexually assaulting her, seems to have sparked a mini revolt against the status quo.  (Her name has been published in numerous Mexican media outlets and she gave us permission to use it here.)  In seeking vengeance and denouncing the authorities for their handling of the case, Fernández has turned the story into a national outrage.

So, Veracruz, on the Mexican shore of the Gulf of Mexico, sounds more Medieval than Modern, in terms of justice for all.

The question for those advocating more open immigration and for the legalization of illegal immigrants, is how they see the US assimilating such immigrants into our culture, our sense of justice for all and our police and justice systems.  In asking this I am not saying that we systems are perfect or even near perfect.  What I am saying is that the qualitative difference may be such that those new to the nation can't accept it.  How do we help those people function as Americans, in an American system, rather than as Mexicans, thinking they are still operating in a Mexican system.♠

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Which is, I believe, an insult to the American police and legal systems.