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Are Asians and Hispanics Really Just a Fifth Column for Big Government?
I don’t know, really, whether it would be good or bad politically for Republicans to tackle immigration reform this year. Some say it would be divisive and distract from the party’s Obamacare critique. Others argue that waiting would inject the issue into the 2016 GOP presidential race.
Generally, however, I am in favor of implementing good policy ideas ASAP. And reform that would legalize undocumented workers and create a more-skills based system would be a big net plus economically. (Timing-wise, as Reihan Salam argues, passing a jobs act for the long-term unemployed might be of higher priority.)
Columnist Ann Coulter apparently doesn’t want that sort of immigration reform today, tomorrow, or ever. But’s it’s not just a piece of legislation she’s against. Coulter is pretty much dubious of all immigration, full stop.
Immigrants — all immigrants — have always been the bulwark of the Democratic Party. … This is not a secret. For at least a century, there’s never been a period when a majority of immigrants weren’t Democrats. … The two largest immigrant groups, Hispanics and Asians, have little in common economically, culturally or historically. But they both overwhelmingly support big government, Obamacare, affirmative action and gun control. … At the current accelerated rate of immigration — 1.1 million new immigrants every year — Republicans will be a fringe party in about a decade … why on Earth are they bringing in people sworn to their political destruction?
1.) Of the 11 million illegal aliens, only 80% are Latino, and only 40% or so might actual seek citizenship. And probably less than half of those will vote. So amnesty might provide Dems with an additional 1 million votes. How would amnesty have played out in the 2012 election? Sean Trende: “Using these numbers, not a single state would have cast its votes for the electors of a different candidate in 2012. In fact, in 28 states, the president’s margin would have increased by just a half-point or less.”
2.) I have been worried that fears of a further influx of unskilled Hispanic labor would metastasize into undifferentiated restrictionism. Well, here we are. So now (some) conservatives don’t want the brainiacs, either? According to a Harvard study, immigrants generally account for about a quarter of the US workforce engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.What’s more, according to Pia Orrenius of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, immigrants accounted for well over 50% of the growth in employment in STEM-related fields between 2003 and 2008. So we want those foreign PhDs only if they are big 2nd Amendment supporters?
3.) Such a static way of viewing the world. Maybe Republicans will always have electoral problems with low-income immigrants. But can’t Republicans improve their showing with them — not to mention those Hispanics and Asians natives and immigrants in the middle and upper class — with the same set of pro-growth, pro-mobility policies that might appeal to all Americans? A CBS News report earlier this year points out that Hispanic households earning more than $100,000 were actually more likely to call themselves Republicans than Democrats, but warns that “if over the long term Hispanic voters see a distinction between the parties based more heavily through the lens of group attachments, economics matters less” Republicans won’t be able to make much progress.
And that scenario seems far more likely to happen if Republicans treat Hispanics and Asians as a fifth column for Big Government rather than voters to be persuaded by policies that appeal to their concerns and by politicians who see them more than just a category in a poll’s crosstabs.
Published in General
JP’s sources are ultimately opinions because they are couched in questionable science. There are only estimates, and JP’s sources are the estimates on the low end, to better make his case, no doubt. But they aren’t definitive, and he’s not even bothering to project into the future, pretending that these numbers are somehow fixed when common sense tells us that they will continue to expand. Since the man is purportedly intelligent, I take these omissions as deliberate and self-serving. As to the number of Hispanic who will eventually wish to become citizens and how many of those will vote, it’s pure speculation. So ultimately these are simple assertions on his part, with some razzle-dazzle to impress people with feeble minds of which there are very few here.
I’m from Texas. Attended Catholic schools there. My mom is a public school teacher who focuses on students with behavioral disorders. My job has a lot to do with public policy, so I’m not just rolling into the thread to troll or insult people. I’m just calling it like I see it.
No different than anyone here. Are you claiming some special knowledge that others don’t have by virtue of your state of residence (I live there two months a year BTW) or your interaction with discrete populations. There’s nothing special about your knowledge when it comes to this debate, sorry to say. And we all call it like we see it.
The commenters here, if not all of Ricochet, are suffering from a serious echo chamber problem. Jim has no reason to respond to anyone here because the answers are not serious. They consist largely of emotional responses that appeal to the biases of other commenters.
Really, now. All of ricochet are in an echo chamber. Got it. We need to listen to you because we have never been exposed to your groundbreaking ideas.
They came here illegally and that’s their problem. I don’t feel sorry for them in the least, they have a better life here apparently. They are the lucky ones. Maybe Owl would do better flying to Mexico and helping those unfortunates. Preaching to people you don’t know about their level of ‘charity’ is pretty arrogant.
It’s always as if it is our fault when an illegal alien is deported, or if they otherwise face burdens related to their illegal status. I’ve never understood this, and would love an explanation for it. It seems it has to do with the way liberals infantilize minorities, treating them as helpless victims with no agency.
Works for me. ·1 hour ago
at least a 25 year moratorium on Muslim immigration.
Some of you may not be Birchers, but I recommend taking a look at Bircher language just to see how easily it is to mistake the discussion here for it.
What words do they use that we should avoid so as to keep you from associating ‘some’ people here with Birchers? Do they use verbs, nouns, prepositions? Do they have a subject-object grammar or is it more verb-first like German? Are there particular words or phrases they are known to use, like some kind of dog-whistle code? Or is it that you see the JBS as a code word for radical right-wingers? That’s what communists do, so you are sounding like a communist to me. Communists hate Birchers so you must be one, right? Go back and look at how the communists talk and you will see why one could mistake your political roots.
James Pethakoukis rarely comments on his own posts. He’s just that type of guy. Go to his page if you don’t believe me. I don’t know why he bothers posting here. It looks to me like he has contempt for Rico’s.
We need to remember that Mexico had a socialist revolution 100 years ago that has shaped its unstable politics.
Why not simply use the immigration laws of the country of origin for immigrants ? That works for me, Especially with Mexico
Does it matter if we reform the law? It is not being enforced or obeyed now. Why do we think it will be enforced or obeyed in the future? The whole discussion is a waste of time and money and a distraction from the problems that do matter.
This constant refrain from the AEI /WSJ that immigrants are a “net economic plus” for America really needs to stop. This statement might be true IF we could guarantee that their presence wouldn’t change the the fundamental laws and economic system of the country. However, given the fact that they vote consistently and overwhelmingly for socialism will certainly harm the economy. No economic model could ever take this effect into account. So all the “studies” cited are, like most economic and sociology studies, worthless.
To take their argument to its logical conclusion: If we had completely open borders, one billion people from India and China (to name two) would come here in short order. America would look more like China and India politically and would suffer accordingly.
But if we must regress to ipsedixitism, even Milton Friedman acknowledged that in a welfare state immigration could very easily turn into a net economic negative.
“Generally, however, I am in favor of implementing good policy ideas ASAP” quoth the writer. The smugness of these “centrists” is really difficult to bear isn’t it? Does he imagine that we knuckle-draggers oppose “good policy”?
“Pragmatism” in a political discussion is like a mental cancer that just can’t be cured it would seem.
And his use of the word “generally” there is precious. When does he oppose good policy implementation? When he’s feeling naughty?
James: everyone who has ever had a political thought wants to implement “good policies.” We disagree on what constitutes “good.”
The Republican Party is not a conservative party and it never will be. No matter how serious the issue, the Republican Party will always fail. A new conservative party will sooner or later need to be established.
I would generally agree except to say that any immigration bill passed by a Republican House, also acceptable to Democrats, would be a tactical disaster. That needs to be stopped. Long term, I’m not sure it matters much, given the demographics.
That should be the rallying cry: “What difference does it make now?!”
Owl, if there is a more condescending, insulting comment series on Ricochet than yours, I’ve yet to read it.
Regarding JP’s participation I don’t think it has anything to do with the tone of the comments which outside of Owl’s self righteous firebombing have made for a nice discussion.
I frequent JP’s threads and I don’t recall a time where has participated and interacted with membership. That isn’t a charge or insult. All of our Main Feed contributors interact in different ways and to different degrees. Nothing in my membership agreement says I am to expect a response from an author when posting a comment on their work.
Owl,
Why is it verboten for us to be as hard nosed and ruthless as the Canadians or Australians? No country in the world pursues a more masochistic, obviously detrimental immigration program as we do. Review my earlier comment – we bend over backward for those self-selected individuals that prefer to ignore inconvenient laws, we know, in the aggregate, that this subsection of the immigrant population is going to be a drag on our productivity and social services programs for generations to come, yet we do everything in our power to pander to them rather than those ethnic groups that routinely sweep our Intel and Westinghouse Science Prizes, national spelling bees, etc. What is the intellectual justification for such a policy?
Let me add that I admire Ann Coulter immensely, but she is all wet on this issue: Asians are by no means a constant Democratic constituency in the same sense that Central Americans are. Right now they vote Democrat because they want to be good Californians – pro gay rights, pro-choice, etc. Wait a few years until the social issue wars fade and they get tired of being on the short end of the stick economically, by reverse discrimination policies, etc. They will be very receptive to the correctly framed Republican appeals.
There is no better way to blow your credibility than to try to educate conservatives on the facts of immigration reform.
Inevitably, the conservative approach proves better: more practical, more humane, better for America (see: Frank.) This is obvious to anyone exposed to the ideas on both sides. (That 30-45% of America supports amnesties is no counter-argument. a higher percentage has never heard the Conservative ideas. A lower percentage is motivated by something other than the general good.)
Don’t get me wrong: please keep trying. I am eager to hear any facts or arguments that I don’t yet know. It’s just that you need to lay off the arrogance if you want to keep your credibility.
I referred to “conservative ideas” on immigration above. That got me thinking: what exactly do I mean? Here’s my attempt at the conservative principles on immigration.
I’ll give you a pro-JP example of not “implementing good policy ideas ASAP”. I might be open to some type of “amnesty-lite” compromises in the future. I am absolutely opposed to them now because I do not trust that the current executive branch will faithfully implement the law as drafted. The only laws I would currently entertain are ones that reduce the opportunity for mischief.
I’m sorry but who are you exactly and how old are you?
Just read the other comments and I still stand by my comment.
Um, PracticalMary – who are you referring to?
Nothing needs to be done about illegal aliens except deport them unless and until workforce participation of Americans increases to 1970 levels. Too many here use unemployment and welfare to subsidize their lifestyle.
There’s a school of thought that occasional moratoriums are good for the immigrants themselves. A lot of people who have studied the issue very well point out that those fabled immigrants that came through Ellis Island didn’t assimilate all that well, and stayed in their own ghettos… sometimes by choice… and continued to speak their native language for decades, sometimes even raising their kids as such. After the immigration limitations implemented in the 30’s, those immigrant families… some of them into their third generations… had to assimilate or go back home (and close to 50 percent of immigrants from this period did return to their home countries… you never learn that in school). Right now we admit almost 1 million legal immigrants a year. Between 1936 and 1945, we let in fewer that 500k total. Cut off from fresh waves of people from the old country, immigrant families and ghettos had to assimilate. They had no choice. So, we’ve been through this before, but apparently, we’re stupid and have to re-learn our lessons over and over again.
Some thoughts:
1. The quality of arguments in this thread and often appearing on Ricochet demonstrate the “paranoid style” common among Birchers. When Jim posted, the responses mostly featured attacks on him, his affiliations, or the methodology behind the evidence he cited. Of these, the first and second are irrelevant unless one adopts a “paranoid style” in which disagreement from settled dogma is, itself, evidence of bad faith on Jim’s behalf. One can then decry the “stink coming off AEI” as somehow sufficient reason to ignore the arguments. One might as well look for communis’ in the post office or witches in Salem.
2. As for the sources, no one here has mounted a sufficient argument for why they are bad or why Jim should not conclude what he does from them. Calling them mere “opinions” without illustrating how you reached that conclusion is quite ironic. The methodology demonstrated at Pew and the Harvard study is incredibly rigorous. Did you not understand the methodology? Surely, you read the sources before tossing them aside…?
(Sorry for delay of this post, but the wife comes first!)
3. My arguments very much had to do with the thread. I pointed out that the arguments in this thread showed little faith in conservative arguments. Somehow, Hispanic and Asian immigrants are simply so enthralled by government that no conservative arguments can ever persuade them to vote for Republicans. I explained that this point of view is fatalistic and likely the result of anxiety over the “zero-sum” nature of the no-growth economy and the desire to keep out vote competition rather see opportunities in new Americans.
4. To explain the opportunities, I explained that civil society groups are the best options for conservatives. They can use voluntary organizations to integrate new citizens into the American way of life and provide services that normally they have to petition from the state. If the primary contact of a person is with their community rather than state largesse, then they are likely to become more conservative–since they want to protect the community from state intrusion.
What I meant was from the first sentence on he doesn’t know, obviously hasn’t been around, hasn’t really considered the arguments. Later he says legalize…Why we keep losing the ‘culture’ war and the Left still holds MSM…
5. The biographical material was merely in response to someone else who had mentioned their experiences in Texas. I wanted to share mine as a way of showing that we had a similar background.
6. If conservatives want to succeed electorally, they need to have a message for all Americans and not just the base. That doesn’t mean blanket amnesty or passing laws that reward big business with cheap labor. But the fact that these laws are bad does not mean that any arguments opposing them are good. The recommendation of mass deportation and whispering of bad faith reflect poorly on the state of conservative ideas. If this is the best that can be mustered, then it’s no wonder that the big business lobbyists are winning the argument.
I can only recommend thinking hard about strengthening community bonds, volunteering to help new families, and demonstrating conservative principles in action and during daily life. I mean “little ‘c'” conservatism in that one gains a greater sense of national pride by engaging in local civic life, a la Tocqueville. This “c”onservative way of life promotes the “Conservative” as well, but that means welcoming new Americans, not fear and loathing.
1. The quality of arguments in this thread and often appearing on Ricochet demonstrate the “paranoid style” common among Birchers.
Parroting Richard Hofstadter’s long-discredited characterization of conservatives does nothing to strengthen your argument, which is little more than name-calling.
2. As for the sources, no one here has mounted a sufficient argument for why they are bad or why Jim should not conclude what he does from them. Calling them mere “opinions” without illustrating how you reached that conclusion is quite ironic. The methodology demonstrated at Pew and the Harvard study is incredibly rigorous. Did you not understand the methodology?
Let me ask you this. Do you really believe it’s possible to count millions of people who are for the most part trying to hide within a vast country accurately? Any methodology however ‘rigorous’ is simply an elaborate method of estimation and most social scientists worth their salt will admit that this type of study cannot be definitive. There are other studies out there, which most people who are familiar with this debate know of (apparently you and Jim don’t) This one says it’s between 20 and 39 million. A Bear Sterns study claims at least 20 million illegals, and there are other studies. So you can educate yourself using a search engine instead of relying on your friend Jim to tell you everything.