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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
Here’s an analogy:
You live in a gated community that includes people of all races. The security guards fall asleep at the gate, allow some non-residents entry without screening, and are lax about patrolling and detecting non-residents walking around the community.
A non-resident “person of color” who was able to get past the gate rapes your daughter. Would your response be, “Oh, well, such interlopers do not commit crimes at a higher rate than the residents do, and it’s prejudiced to link this crime with the issue of interlopers getting past the gates”?
I know I would be asking questions such as, “How did this person get past the gate?” and “What is the point of living in a gated community if proof of residency is not enforced at the gates?” and “How do we prevent the entry of non-residents in the future?”
There’s nothing prejudiced or racist about that.
This. This explains that we have something going on that is much more abusive to our rule of law than the mere act of someone entering or staying in our country illegally.
And since I’m making harsh comments here, I must reiterate that I am married to a legal immigrant, so we know what it takes to get here that way. Just think about what types of adults come here illegally. Those who have no respect for rule of law, those who are ignorant of the issue, and those who know exactly what they are doing but see personal advantage to breaking the law. I suggest that those describe over ninety per cent of illegal immigrant adults.
I think you have this backwards.
Racism is about treating the individual with the smears of the class.
It should not matter if I look at data and come to the conclusion that certain races have a higher incidence rate for certain things. But if I look at an individual and assume that they characterize their race, than I am being racist. They may or may not, but that is not fair to the individual to pre-judge them based on my conceptions of the class as a whole.
I simultaneously teach my children to be wary of strangers while also teaching them to be polite and pleasant to anyone they meet. Somehow, my 5 year old can manage this distinction, but full fledged adults can’t figure it out on larger scales.
It is perfectly reasonable to use this rape as justification for the enforcement of laws that already exist. We have a logical and reasonable justification for our position. It is in no way uncalled for to use this case as a justification to enforce our laws on all illegal immigrants.
Thanks Bob, very good points there. I’ll add my “truth in advertising” here too. My ex-wife is a third generation American of Mexican descent. She is not “Spanish” – the Aztec features are prominent in her face, so she is truly Mexican. That makes both of my children half-Hispanic. Anyone wishing to slap the ‘racist’ label on me because I am 100% anti-Illegal had better have their hands up in a useful blocking position.
Robert, this is what’s known as “but for” causation. It is not wrong, but it is pretty remote. It is also true that if we launched a thermonuclear war and wiped out all life on the planet instances of crime by illegal immigrants would go to zero. So this is all the president’s fault. Two months in office and no thermonuclear war!
I know my example is reductio ad absurdum but that’s sort of the point. All events come with some kind of a chain of causality. At some point, linking “cause” to undesirable “effect” simply becomes too tenuous because while the “cause” in question is A cause of the undesirable effect, it is not THE cause and there are a lot of other considerations that factor in before you can just conclude that the best way to avoid the undesirable effect is to address that particular cause.
None of this is to say we shouldn’t enforce our immigration laws (or change them). It’s just that the simple logic of “enforce them and we won’t have this problem” is specious on a number of levels.
Oh well. Then I take it all back.
How is the argument specious if the action being suggested results in no more occasions for the argument?
My native Peruvian wife speaks Spanish but that is about the extent of her apparent Iberian attributes. Her features are more native South American or Asian-Pacific Islander. Thing is, our three children appear very European. Go figure.
It is specious because it both does too much and too little. The goal, or mine at least, is to prevent crime. More vigorous enforcement of the immigration laws will not prevent crime, and it will primarily adversely effect people who are not criminals. It is like trying to fix a car engine with a sewing machine. It is simply not the right tool.
Only if you perversely define the goal as “preventing crime by illegal immigrants” does it even begin to make sense and that is just bootstrapping. I will bet you dollars to donuts that that young woman and her family would have been no less harmed if her attackers had been native born.
The very fact they are here illegally means they are criminals.
I sew a lot. And I have young kids that sneak into my room and dump all my crap on the floor. Pins, needles, beads, thread… Its such a huge MESS.
It ALL has to be picked up, but there are better tools for some things than others. My very first tool used is a magnet. It picks up all the pins and needles easily and effortlessly so I can concentrate on the other items that that tool does not fix.
Illegal immigration and crime is like this scenario. We have crime. Some is caused by illegal immigrants. Some is not. But if I start trying to pick up all the little pieces by hand, I’m ignoring a very useful tool to remove much of the problem, exhausting my resources in fixing it the hardest way possible. Removing something that should be generally very easy to fix (illegal immigrants caught in criminal activities should be EASY to remove from the mix… not a drain on our resources) frees us to figure out the underlying cause for the rest of our crime statistics.
I think you have this backwards. You think the problem is “crime.” But the real concern, the reason we’ve heard about this case is because it’s a violent crime.
Would you agree that violent crime is a worse problem than general crime?
If so, wouldn’t a better use of finite resources be to use them dealing specifically with violent crime rather than just any crime, violent or not?
But they weren’t native born. And if they hadn’t been here, it does not follow that natives would have raped that girl in their absence.
I accept your logic, just not your factual premise — that illegal immigrants represent an outsized component of the criminal population.
The conversation is about what to do with illegal immigrants and whether it is justified to use this crime as justification for enforcing our laws.
Cato brought up crime. I was pointing out that removing crime committed by illegal immigrants by removal of illegal immigrants helps us deal with other crime.
But thanks for trying to derail the conversation.
No of course not, but this one case is not a basis to build a policy upon. Jeffrey Dahmer was a white male. Does it follow that we should exclude white males?
I can accept your skepticism in light that there is very limited and unreliable data on such and would appreciate a push for more thorough and consistent data that helps inform our policies.
There is no moral high ground. There is only winning and losing and the way to do it. The Left has shown this method to work and we need to seize and use it against them till we come up with a better method.
“Good news everyone! If we let this group of people in, they will commit a relatively small number of crimes!”
“But if we don’t let them in at all, they won’t commit any crimes here.”
“Racist! Look, a squirrel!”
I see this argument a lot and it is absurd.
Removal of white males is a violation of civil liberties because white males make up our citizenry.
Illegal immigrants are not citizens. It is not a violation of civil liberties to deport them and remove them from our population.
There is a clearly defined, legal, and identifiable criteria here that is supported by the laws of our country.
I’m not trying to derail the conversation. You’re he one who brought up exhausting resources trying to do things the hardest way possible.
All I did was point out that you have things backwards.
And what we’re talking about is political power of some over others. Do you really think all that matters is winning?
We should enforce our laws because we need to be a nation of laws. Its important that we are. We have immigration laws for a reason. If you don’t like the law, work to change it – just ignoring it should not be an option. (question: where does our government get the moral authority to tell me I have to follow all the laws while, at the same time, telling me why other people do not? This only leads to anger and contempt for the system).
We now have the absurd situation where our government wants to ignore the immigration laws, and in doing so, have collected young men who claim to be 17 or so (unverified – but being an unaccompanied minor helps your case – so people have lied about it), and placed them as Freshman in our high schools with our 14 year olds. This is colossal stupidity. This is government abdication of its duties to the citizens and to the laws of this country.
The argument still applies to violent crimes as it does to general crimes. If you can’t figure it out, that’s on you, not me.
When losing means the rape of 14 year old girls in a public high school bathroom, then yes, winning is what matters.
I wish this wasn’t stated so nonchalantly, like it was as easy to immigrate as filling out some paperwork and waiting a couple years.
For most of these people, it would be literally impossible for them ever to immigrate legally, especially while they were young and healthy enough to take advantage of the jobs in America that are harsh and pay relatively low wages.
When something is literally impossible when playing by the rules, what do you expect to happen? Them to say, “oh shucks, guess I have to let my family suffer in poverty.”? Or would you expect them to bend and break the rules because they are trying to do good for themselves and the people they love? If you were as desperate as some of these people and your choices were to live one way in your home country or to make 5-10x more if you can simply get a couple miles north, you might find it hard to “wait your turn” as well.
No, not at all. There are plenty of white males who immigrate to the United States. Perhaps there’s nothing we can do about our native white male population, but we could exclude the immigrants. One of them, somewhere, is going to commit a crime. I guarantee you.
I think that by trying to argue against me here, you accidentally made my point for me.
Arguing “If we enforced immigration laws, it makes it more unlikely this illegal alien who raped this 14 year old girl would be here to commit this rape.” poisons discourse in what way?