Fight on the Right
On May 25th, Linda Chavez wrote a column - "Latino Fear and Loathing" - about how opponents of the immigration bill are racist. Keep in mind that this is coming from a conservative. People became upset. To show you why, here are a few highlights:- "What is said today of the Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans and others was once said of Germans, Swedes, the Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews and others. The only difference is that in the past, the xenophobes could speak freely, unconstrained by a veneer of political correctness. Today, they speak more cautiously, so they talk about the rule of law, national security, amnesty, whatever else they think might make their arguments less racially charged."
- "Where once the xenophobes could advocate forced sterilization and eugenics coupled with virtually shutting off legal immigration from "undesirable" countries, now they must be content with building walls, putting troops on the border, rounding up illegal aliens on the job and deporting them, passing local ordinances to signal their distaste for immigrants' multi-family living arrangements, and doing whatever else they can to drive these people back where they came from."
After a huge backlash - predictable, since she compared immigration bill opponents to eugenicists (among other things) - Chavez wrote the following column on National Review Online, where she mildly backed off of some of her comments, but then proceeded to call NRO contributors racist. Here is their response.
It'd be great if supporters of the immigration bill had better arguments than simple ad hominem attacks. I think this debate shows the differences between the two sides (even on the right!) clearly.
Interestingly, the other big fight on the right also involves NRO. They have taken issue with the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal (another conservative bastion), who are very much in favor of the immigration bill. Anyhow, NRO challenged the WSJ to a debate about it and the WSJ refused (after a prolonged period of public silence), saying it was nothing but a "publicity stunt".
posted by JM @ 5:07 AM
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