The Pink Flamingo :: Tancredo, Ben Franklin, Assimilation & the Shadow of Violence

I am lumping a number of reports together to try to come up with some sort of perspective on things. The bottom line here is the fact that we are dealing with the ugly face of racism. I don’t care if it is Tom Tancredo or the little minuteman wannabe down the road. It is racism. And, it is the racism of fear or a different culture. As you will see farther down in the post, this type of racism is nothing new here in the US, and hails back as far as even the great Ben Franklin who was terrified of Germans coming in and changing the culture of the newly formed country.

I have been saying for some time that I fear someone is going to start shooting before this whole nasty mess is over. Things in Maricopa County, Arizona, lead by such good conservatives as Joe Arpaio, Rusty Childress, JT Ready and Russell Pierce are coming to a boil. I fear it is going to be ugly and people are going to die. When this happens, the usual suspects will line up and blame the criminal illegal immigrants. The problem is, the usual suspects are not accepting the fact that the whole white supremacist movement has been committing hate crimes against Hispanics for several year now – all in the name of promoting anti-immigration.

Where does it all end?

PRUITT FURNITURE FIGHT
Rusty Childress & His Racist Friends Join Pruitt Furniture Fight
Yesterday I reported the Feather Bastard’s most recent update on the Pruitt Furniture civil war. Now Rusty Childress has vowed to take his merry band of Biker racists and join the battle.
The first comment under the posting is terrifying and hints at the growing threat of violence.

We are under attack by marxists-guerillas sponsored by the Mexico government. This is an invasion by a foreign enemy. When a State is invaded, the Governor has a duty to declare War. See US Constitution, Article I, section 10[3]. No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”

TANCREDO NO LONGER HIDES HIS RACISM
His new ad is disgusting.

FEAR OF LOSING CULTURE
Rubin Navarrette has an excellent column about why people are so afraid of Hispanic immigrants.

“…Immigration restrictionists -- and by that, I mean those who want to limit all immigration, even the legal kind -- like to pretend they're so high-minded. Yet they can't help themselves. They always take the low road and harken back to the nativism that greeted earlier waves of immigrants. The restrictionists insist that what bothers them are merely practical concerns: that our borders aren't secure, that so many immigrants are coming into the country illegally, and that the new arrivals are burdening schools and draining social services once they get here. Really? If that's the extent of it, then why does the conversation quickly turn to the impact -- both real and perceived -- that immigrants have on American culture through everything from taco trucks to Spanish-language billboards. That seems to be the issue in North Dakota, where, according to a recent article in USA Today, towns facing tough economic times are nonetheless resisting a cultural transfusion that could save them. In Cooperstown, the locals opposed efforts to bring in a hog plant and a dairy, because those kind of dirty and hard jobs are likely to attract ... guess who? American kids who work at Starbucks? Nope…. It conjures up the alarm bells that Benjamin Franklin set off about German immigrants in the late 18th century, who he insisted could never adopt the culture of the English, but would "swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours." It popped up in the mid-19th century amid worries that Chinese immigrants were "unassimilable," which led to Congress approving the explicitly-named Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. And it helped welcome the 20th century when Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge warned that immigrants (read: the Irish) were diluting "the quality of (U.S.) citizenship" and others complained that Italian immigrants were uneducated, low skilled, apt to send all their money to their home country and prone to criminal activity….”

THE ASSIMILATION LIE
Migrants to assimilate into the American culture.

This brings us to the LA Times article about Immigrants being a bon, not a curse.

“…Watching the GOP presidential debate last week, it was easy to conclude that the greatest threat facing the U.S. is an influx of undocumented immigrants. Most of the candidates were, as arch-nativist Tom Tancredo put it, trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo. And every time they did, they seemed to get raucous applause from the audience. Why is it, I wondered, that so many people think that having millions of people come to the United States seeking a better life for themselves presents such a massive threat to this country? Obviously it is wrong for anyone to break the law, but the desire of foreigners to come here to work seems like the most benign sort of lawbreaking imaginable. Lots of other laws are broken routinely -- prostitution laws, speeding laws, tax laws -- and yet they are not the subject of heated exchanges at presidential debates. What makes illegal immigration so bad? There is no question that an influx of illegals puts pressure on public services, especially in the border states, and that issue needs to be addressed, perhaps with greater assistance from Washington. But it is hardly unmanageable, especially because illegal immigrants, while making use of some government services, also contribute a lot to society via sales taxes and other means without collecting Social Security, unemployment or other benefits available to legal residents. Studies of the net economic effect of illegal immigration show mixed results….”