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The Response to the Maryland Rape Case Is a Stain on the Right
We are all, justly, very sensitive to and sick of charges of “racism” being thrown around promiscuously at the right for any and every deviation from leftist orthodoxy. But just as we say to Muslims about terrorism, our ability to object with credibility depends on a willingness to police our own.
Our media, including many of our Ricochet luminaries are failing in that task right now by joining in the hysteria over the undoubtedly horrific rape of a 9th grade girl in Rockville, Maryland.
For the benefit of anyone who doesn’t know the story, it is fairly straightforward. The victim was allegedly forced into a boys bathroom at her school and brutally raped by two older boys/men. Reports I’ve seen state that one was 17 and the other 18.
So far we have a horrible, but local, crime. It has become a cause celeb because at least one (and perhaps both, reports I’ve seen vary) of the alleged perpetrators was in the United States illegally.
To get the obvious caveats out of the way: 1) this should never have happened and the victim deserves our sympathy and support; and 2) if found guilty the perpetrators should have the book thrown at them and if they ever get out of prison should be launched back to wherever they came from by catapult, preferably after being doused in gasoline and set ablaze.
My point isn’t about the victim or the perpetrators in this case, it is about (some of our) eagerness to make this case about something more than the victim and the perpetrators.
Racism is a species of what we used to call “prejudice” – the “prejudging” or having a negative presumption about an entire class of persons based on the behavior or attributes of a few members of that class. The two have become somewhat conflated in the public discourse for two reasons I think. First of all, back in the day racism to a significant degree took the form of widely held negative stereotypes about black Americans (e.g. all blacks are criminals), and second, frankly, the “racism” charge has been thrown around so much by the left at this point that it’s sort of taken over the field. It’s made it difficult to recall that it is really pre-judgment that is wrong – the tarring all members of a class/race/etc. with the negative attributes or acts of a few. The fact that some of the most problematic pre-judgment was at one time against blacks is historically contingent. That just happened to be the form in which the underlying pathology of prejudice most obviously presented itself.
My understanding of the position of the right has been that, while we object to the overuse of the charge of racism, we have accepted the quite reasonable view that prejudice is in fact wrong and that individuals should be judged on their individual merits.
That notion comports so perfectly with other ideas important to the right, such as equality before the law, self reliance and individual responsibility, and respect for legal process.
Yet for some reason, in the current environment, it’s become acceptable for even usually very sober and responsible voices on the right to take this case and treat it as representative of every illegal immigrant in America. That is pre-judging of the worst sort. Whether it is racially motivated or not is irrelevant.
In an effort to police our own we need to remember that facts still matter. Not everything needs to be a meme. Here the facts are as follows:
- Two men (allegedly) committed a heinous crime.
- At least one of them was an illegal immigrant.
- But the illegal immigrant population did not commit a heinous crime.
A couple of other facts worth remembering are that a) most illegal immigrants never commit a crime save crossing the border illegally, and b) illegal immigrants are in fact incarcerated at a much lower rate than native born Americans.
I know the major media, which is in the business of selling hysteria, will not keep these facts in mind, but among ourselves it would be nice if we could discuss this subject with some precision and remember what we’re actually talking about. It would be even nicer if our mandarins here at Ricochet with a louder bully pulpit than we puny mortals would take heed as well.
Published in Domestic Policy, Immigration
Is there a way for me to shut down my own thread? This has gone on long enough and strayed too far afield, IMHO. :)
Cheers,
Cato
Statist.
For a thread that has gone on as long as it did, it produced some good conversation.
It has been a crazy thread filled with so many different subjects. It has been a bit of an adventure to follow it. Though I have and have enjoyed it!
Anyone who’s interested in the arguments for all the things that have been brought up in this thread by the man who I get most of the ideas from, specifically open borders, anarcho-capitalism, and what I’ll call “war skepticism” (he calls it passivism, but it’s not what people normally think of as passivism). I highly recommend this interview that was recently released. They go through a lot of the logic in an entertaining way.
Obviously Minarchism requires this too, unless you’re going to get it by imposing the destruction of democracy on everyone.
I strongly, strongly, strongly disagree with his moral reasoning on his war skepticism and the consequences for unconditional surrender in World War I. But I don’t want this thread to be dragged out any further. So I will not outline my disagreements but I would like to give a very big thank you to @mikeh for sharing the video. It was very informative.
@catorand Just edit the post. Here are my suggestions:
So, you’ve been able to make a real world comparison between the two? I haven’t. and I’d fight, even to death, not to have to decide whether life being controlled by others is nearly as good as freedom. My default is freedom is better and worth striving for, even if it results in my death.
Is there a reason it cannot be both?
R>icochet! The home of civil, center-right conversation, that gets shut down if it’s off topic.
Only when you come into the equation, Larry. ;)