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We’re Against Emotionalism, Except When We’re Not
Conservatives have rightly taken pride in Neil Gorsuch’s calm and cerebral performance at his Senate confirmation hearings. Many commentators, along with Republican senators, have mocked Democrats for presuming to evaluate Gorsuch based on the outcomes of his cases. Did he “side with the little guy” or with big corporations? The correct answer, conservatives have correctly chided, is that justice is supposed to be blind. A good judge makes determinations based upon the facts and the law without regard to whether he personally prefers one party to another and without some social justice agenda to equalize the fortunes of little guys versus big guys. It’s not little versus big, sympathetic versus unsympathetic in a courtroom, but facts and law.
It’s a shame then, that so many conservatives are disregarding the virtues they laud in Gorsuch – prudence, careful weighing of facts, refusal to be swayed by emotional appeals – when it comes to a disturbing story of a rape in Maryland.
Reports indicate that a 14-year-old high school student in Rockville, Maryland (a suburb of Washington, DC) may have been sodomized and raped in the boys’ bathroom by two suspects. At least one of the suspects, according to Fox 5 in Baltimore, was an 18 year old who had recently entered the country illegally and was enrolled in the school as a freshman. The other, also an immigrant, is 17.
Emotional reactions to heinous crimes are completely understandable, but as Judge Gorsuch has properly reminded us, our feelings are not a good guide to justice. Neither are they a prescription for sensible policy. Quite the opposite.
If the evidence shows that the victim’s account is correct – that she was pushed into the bathroom by the two suspects and raped by both of them in a stall – the young men could be facing many years in prison and deserve to.
But many are rushing to link this inflammatory case – before we know the facts — to the larger cause of immigration restriction. White House spokesman Sean Spicer drew the link: “Part of the reason the president has made illegal immigration such an issue is because of tragedies like this. . .This is why he’s passionate about this. Because people are victims of these crimes. Immigration pays its toll on our people.” That is exploiting people’s anger, which is bad enough, and it’s false, which is worse.
There are good and bad arguments against immigration. I am sympathetic to some restrictionist points, but smearing immigrants as out-of-control criminals is shameful. High rates of immigration, legal and illegal, are not associated with spikes in crime. In our recent history, between 1990 and 2013, the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. more than tripled to 11.2 million. Yet FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined by 48 percent during those years. This included violent crimes like aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Rates of property crime fell by 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary.
As a survey by the CATO Institute shows, immigrants – both legal and illegal – are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. And when you exclude those illegal immigrants who are jailed for immigration offenses (i.e. just for being here illegally), the numbers really plunge. Looking at the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, CATO notes that illegal immigrants are 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. Legal immigrants are 69 percent less likely to be jailed than natives. White native-born Americans are more likely to be imprisoned than black immigrants, legal or illegal. The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley cites a Public Policy Institute study showing that while the foreign-born comprise 35 percent of California’s population, they represent 17 percent of the state prison population.
Some immigrants commit crimes. But as the data show, most keep their noses clean. About seven percent of our population is comprised of non-citizens, yet they account for only 5 percent of the prison population.
We don’t yet know the facts of the rape case in Maryland. But even if they turn out to be every bit as brutal as first reports indicate, the attempt to tar all immigrants with this brush – or to let emotional appeals dictate policy — is exactly what fair-minded admirers of Judge Gorsuch will resist.
Published in Domestic Policy, General, Immigration
I’m sorry – it is not. Mona’s cited example of her problem was with Spicer’s comment. He specifically mentioned illegal immigrants. Who these other ‘conservatives’ are who are emotional to her dissatisfaction go unnamed. The emotional responses on this thread have, from what I can tell, exclusively been aimed at illegal immigration. Respectively, neither Ryan’s comments nor yours have addressed this.
Are you sure?
“The immigration status of the other suspect, identified by police as Jose Montano, 17, of El Salvador, was not clear.” per Fox News.
…..Montano, who was charged as an adult, was born in El Salvador, where he lived for 16 years. ICE officials would not discuss Montano’s immigration status because he is a juvenile. per CBS News.
You actually don’t know that as a fact.
http://heavy.com/news/2017/03/rockville-rape-case-ice-illegal-immigrant-immigration-undocumented-jose-montano-henry-sanchez-spicer/
Reading the details of this attack makes we wonder: Do you think we can make a deal with North Korea to take these miscreants on for 20 years or so of hard labor in a N. Korean labor camp?
I’m going to venture an educated guess and say the 17 yr old is not here legally – if he were, they would likely find a way to let this information out because it would help their argument against the angry public. But they can use his age to hide his status – which they cannot do with the 18 yr old.
I think the problem is that we differ in out identification of what it is. It would seem that you and Mona are more seeing this as a tragic event that should not have any significant impact on policy.
Others seem to see this as more of part of a larger patter. Ben Shapiro in the Dally Wire wrote a piece that contradicts most of the statistics that Mona cites. http://www.dailywire.com/news/8873/does-illegal-immigration-increase-crime-and-ben-shapiro
Ice showed the violent criminals not held by sanctuary cities. ( I linked above)
A significant portion of the victims of these violent crimes would be better off if immigration laws were enforced.
It is not just this one horrific event, but that statistically a similar event and several violent crimes are committed by illegals every day. We may not get that number down to zero but we could make our population safer without violating the constitutional rights of any citizens.
Jay, I don’t think that was her point at all. Just after that rape case was announced, you saw a lot on twitter/elsewhere that sort of hyperventilated about illegal immigration in connection with this. As Herbert points out, it is much the same as what we see from the left virtually any time there is a school (or any other non-Islamic) shooting. The OP doesn’t say anything at all about Trump supporters – see, the point is, she actually doesn’t try to make that point in every article, but there are a few people here who read that inference into everything she says. It’s fair to disagree with her, but I don’t think it is fair (or helpful) to try reading her mind instead of taking her words at face value.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have the discussion – certainly, Mona’s and Ben’s positions should be hashed out. It’s the idea of using individual cases to make an emotional case – at best, it leads to inconsistency, but at worst, it leads us to ignore facts. Ben may be absolutely correct, and I’m certainly open to that. But think about other contexts… if a Trump voter punches someone in the face, that’s proof of the right’s violent rhetoric… this is something the left does, and although some people definitely advocate us doing the same thing, I’m of the opinion that we should err in the other direction. As I said, there are plenty of good arguments to support enforcing immigration without us trotting out the rape victims and the left trotting out the family getting torn apart or the promising college student getting deported.
Well, I think she is referencing general “outrage,” which you can see if you scroll through twitter or comments sections pretty much everywhere (including here). Mona likely reads the comments at NRO and elsewhere.
Also, the reason I said “immigrant” was because some of the numbers that were included in comments on the first page (and in the OP) tended to conflate both categories. Regardless, would it be less outrageous if this happened with citizens? Or legal immigrants? As I said earlier, I think the school policies that allow such a big age gap or don’t allow vetting of students may be legitimately problematic, but that’s an issue with the school policy, not immigration in general.
The problem absolutely is with immigration in general: a system that privileges foreign criminals over law-abiding Americans and floods the country with people from backwards nations who are hostile to American culture.
Sadly not listening to NTK because of Mona’s unyielding anti Trump stance.
Tired of the election, it’s over!
Of course not. But no policy change is even mentioned in the OP – only perhaps more vigorous enforcement of laws that already exist.
My goodness. Let’s assume the case plays out as suspected (if not, there are other examples). The outrage comes from knowing there was a chance this could have been prevented from happening at all using tools our government already has. I find this a valid reason to be angry, and it should effect policy. The outrage of racism brought us the Civil Rights act. Was that outrage wrong?
For you, Jamie, and Mona – what policy change have you seen that scares you?
That is reasonable. But her only specific example is from a member of the Trump administration. In that sense, Trump is the target. Sure – Spicer has the highest profile so why not use him. Quoting others from the “conservative” list might have blunted this a bit.
I agree that this one single incident should not be used to make policy. Whether you use Mona’s data or Ben Shapiro’s data, the end point is that there are tens of thousands of violent illegal immigrants in the country. Several States/Counties/ Cities are avoiding working with ICE to deport these people.
It would be nice if charts and statistics or raw criminal numbers could be the basis of the fight. How many rapes or murders of citizens by immigrants are we willing to accept?
As long as the left discusses broken families as the victims of enforcement, immigration hawks must show actual victims of crimes as the problem with non-enforcement.
It is an outrageous crime.
But part of the outrage is that our government is rushing to settle people throughout our country with zero verified information about who they are (added: who were not supposed to be here in the first place), and making the inexplicable decision to place 18 year old males in classrooms with 14 year old girls. The most important thing appears to be getting these people settled – the effect on the communities and schools doesn’t even seem to be on their radar!
There is risk inherent with these actions. The government doesn’t seem to mind putting us at risk at all, apparently. Also, the government is not really being upfront with what they’re doing. They haven’t disclosed this to us – most of what we’ve learned came via the media’s information gleaned through unofficial sources.
Exactly. And Broken, Schmoken! If families are broken up, let them be mad at the parents who broke our laws in the first place and put them in that position. Think Mexico would care if the situation were reversed? Ever see their immigration laws? We are the joke of the world. Let it stop right now.
None. But which of us has said that we’re scared about any sort of policy change? I’m happy to see our immigration laws enforced. Personally, I’d support a much more relaxed immigration system if we were able to get our entitlements under control and actually shrink the size of government. But we’re not very close to that, yet. I’m happy to have discussions about immigration, and about crime… but the point of the OP, and the point that I’m agreeing with, is that I don’t think we should trot out personal stories and use them to bolster our points. This is a tactic of the left, and we constantly argue against it (see the earlier point about Gun control, but heck, it’s used for virtually every issue!) When we engage in the same tactics, we weaken our own ability to combat the left’s inappropriate (and illogical) use of them – and, we give them what they want. Trust me, they would much rather talk about individual cases than the underlying issues.
Remember, the title for this OP was “we’re against emotionalism [subtext: we complain when the left does this with gun control, immigration, abortion, etc…] except when we’re not [subtext: in this case, we should rightly decry the crime, but also sensibly separate the issues].
Interesting, I didn’t read it that way at all. As you say, he’s certainly the most obvious spokesperson, so I didn’t really take it as an indictment of Trump in any way. It’s kind of funny how much our predispositions aid in how we read things, though, isn’t it?
I don’t know why we bother fighting this fight anymore. It’s just pure tribalism. It’s good when we do it for our issues, but it’s bad when they do it for their issues. People can’t see past their tribe, disappointing if unsurprising.
I think this is important, but I also think it is a local issue.
In my state (Washington), we are extremely relaxed about illegal immigration. Heck, criminal judges are required to inform every defendant of the potential immigration consequences (i.e. you could get deported) and advise them to seek legal counsel. As a criminal defense attorney, I was required to discuss the potential consequences that a guilty plea could have on immigration.
But while those issues do have a lot to do with how states chose to treat immigration issues, they don’t really have much to do with the broader national issue. One reason I wouldn’t rely on it is because another state might have different policies, which lead to totally different statistics. Does this prove that illegal immigration is not a problem? Well, if we go down that road… It seems better to focus on crime prevention on its own merits (crime is equally bad regardless of who commits it) and focus on immigration as a matter of national sovereignty and separation of powers (i.e. the executive doesn’t disregard the laws as written).
Amen to that. And if the families are so determined to be reunited, let them be so back where they came from.
Perhaps, though it is a minority. I still think it is sensible to point out that we need to be ideologically consistent. If our immigration arguments always boil down to one side saying “illegal immigration is evil and the source of all our ills,” and the other side saying “we should have open borders,” then we’ll get nowhere. But those are both caricatures. There are maybe a few proponents of both extremes… but I’d doubt that it is many of those reading.
As for the Mona hatred, people need to either get over it or stop reading. The woman is extremely smart and also rather observant. If we want to take it with a grain of salt because she doesn’t like Trump, that’s fine, but we’re doing ourselves a disservice if we read our own prejudices into everything she says. Same goes for all pundits on both sides.
There’s a story making the rounds on Facebook about a high school or college student who’s spent a year in Best Korea because he stole an item on a dare to bring home a souvenir, was caught and sentenced to 15 years hard labor. Get the State Department working on a trade deal.
Well… sort of. The problem with both of these statements is that the numbers don’t really make the case. If people want to show videos of Elian Gonzalez getting pulled from his home by armed officers, those people will win, because nobody wants to see that. If we tackle the problem in such a way to avoid that, we’ve got a much firmer ground. If we try to say that immigration is a crime issue, we’re fighting an uphill battle; the left can point to just as many (and likely more) examples of good families and people just trying to get by. Right or wrong, we sound heartless when we respond as Mike has to this comment. The better thing to do, as I said, is remain ideologically consistent. Immigration is a problem that we can tackle by priority. Start by deporting criminals, etc… etc… and go from there. Ideological consistency allows us to tie it in to other issues like healthcare, entitlements, budget, the economy, and so forth, without creating false bogeyman that the left can easily skewer. Let them be unreasonable.
I’m not so sure about that….
I’ve seen that poor guy on the news. He always looks terrified.
He has reason to be terrified. That’s what I had in view when I suggested we send these two evil people there.
Mona this post is so exasperating you’re going to turn me into a Trumpkin. First, illegal aliens are a self-selected subset of the population – they are people that have proven they are willing to ignore inconvenient laws. The factoid that they are not incarcerated as much as the general population is also easily explained away – a disproportionate amount of their crimes are against other illegal aliens [who do not report crimes] or the poorest segment of the native population that do not get more than perfunctory attention to their victimization from police. I’ve mentioned to you before I have personally eye witnessed several hit-and-run accidents by obviously Latino culprits and the police just shrug their shoulders. Read Victor Davis Hanson’s accounts of what illegal immigration has done to his community in regard to crime if you don’t believe me.
I’d also like to question how do we know this “undocumented” chap is really 18? My ex-wife was raped in Sharpstown High School in Houston back in the 1980’s by a Vietnamese Boat People immigrant who was 25, but claimed to be a teenager for the panoply of benefits given to minors. In Europe today one of the thousands of frauds and tragedies not commented on is the men obviously in their late 20’s/early30’s with crows feet, laugh lines, etc that are claiming to be minors in order to move to the front of the queue for asylum.
In this, I cannot agree. When the law is clear and the law is good (there is nothing immoral about limiting immigration), outrage is not self-serving or illogical. It helps to send signals that something is amiss and to animate and accelerate enforcement of the law. If this truly ends up as an illegal immigrant story, then two crimes were committed. The reasonable outrage is knowing the first could have been prevented.
The Left is generally illogical and immoral, and their outrage is very selective and at times paradoxical. But don’t throw the good away with the bad. Moral outrage does have a purpose. With all respect intended – I think both you and Mona are wrong in this case.