Bluster, Distortion and the Truth

Donald Trump has been saying extreme and hypocritical things about illegal immigrants recently, but when I heard Cardinal Dolan called him a "nativist" my first thought was that the Cardinal was misusing language as badly as Trump does, just in a different way. The original nativists he mentions were bigots and didn't care if the immigrants were legal or not. Many people against illegal immigration presently are Catholics, and many of the immigrants coming across are illegals. That means that many are lawbreakers, and some are criminals of a more insidious type. I have never met nor even heard of any conservatives in the immigration debate who are against legal immigration. Never.

This makes the Cardinal's attempted historical parallel inaccurate and, I'm sorry to say, that means he's either being either intellectually lazy or dishonest. Cardinal Dolan writes 3 or 4 articles in the NY Daily News each year, and I'm confused as an American Catholic as to why the Cardinal didn't take this opportunity to write something about this latest Planned Parenthood travesty.

So wouldn't it be nice if, to dispel any confusion, the true Catholic teaching would be stated somewhere officially, in the Catechism for example? Yes, and in his latest article on Stream, John Zmirak points out that it already is:

There is a Catholic teaching on immigration. It offers a brief and sane criterion for principled policy, which it codifies in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. … 

And:

Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens (2241).

Within the bounds of these two statements, Catholic laymen are free — indeed, we’re obliged — to argue about the proper application of this teaching in our own country and context. In the same way, we apply “just war” teaching to particular conflicts our nation faces. While we listen to the advice of popes and bishops, we know that they can be wrong, as some medieval popes were wrong to call crusades against Christian heretics or to wage war on neighboring cities.

After he quotes the passage, Zmirak goes on to parse the phrase “To the extent they are able …”:

This statement is broad enough that we could argue over it indefinitely. Theoretically, the entire population of the world could fit in the state of Texas, with several feet of wiggle room to spare. Does that mean that the U.S. is “able” to accept the entire world? Clearly not, because there are countless economic, environmental, cultural, fiscal and other factors that determine what we are actually “able” to do. All those points are things we must determine by rational argument and setting our national priorities by democratic vote. There is no secret “Catholic answer” to these questions; however, natural law principles can and should be invoked in our discussions of the matter. Such arguments are prudential, and the Church does not pretend to have the competence to answer them; if it did, we should simply ask Pope Francis to use his infallible authority to draw up the U.S. budget every year.

As we always say here, read the whole thing.  This discussion in this article represents the most sensible approach to tackling the sensitive subject of immigration and avoiding both extremes in the debate.

By the way, here's a good link for anyone who wants to get emails to help them read through the Catechism in a year. I just found it, and decided to subscribe to it. I already am using Daily Gospel which is another great email service for daily mass readings.

Hispanics are not "one issue voters"

Michael Barone explains why Hispanics aren't as supportive of Obama as they had been.

Two trends in polling also point in this direction. One is that Hispanic voters don't seem hugely preoccupied with immigration. The Pew Research Center reports that many more focus on education, the economy and health than the one-third who say immigration is "extremely important" to them personally.

The other is that the president's job approval among Hispanics has been falling sharply. He got 71 percent of their votes in 2012, but fewer than half approve his performance today.

It's not hard to see why. The sluggish economy has hurt Hispanics more than most Americans. Obamacare and big government policies have not helped them as they apparently have hoped.

This suggests that non-passage of comprehensive legislation won't hurt Republicans as much as predicted. And inaction, always the easier legislative course, would prevent a debate in which the cries of angry opponents, gleefully highlighted in mainstream media, could antagonize Hispanic voters.

The emphasis at the end is mine. I'm one of those "soft on immigration" conservatives, and while I understand the enforcement-first argument, I literally hate the rhetoric that often accompanies it. I cringe when I hear Rush say "All these people are going to be Democrat voters!!" Well, they are if you write them off that way. Yes, the media is disgusting in the way they bait Hispanics, but we're supplying free chum. The least we can do is keep quiet while Obama is melting down with his own base.

If we're going to say anything it should be to point out—as Barone does—that Obama didn't care about immigration reform when Democrats had Congressional super-majorities at the beginning of his presidency. All Americans—including Hispanics—are paying now for his ridiculous economic policies that he crammed through then, and they're paying attention to recent history now as his reign continues to crumble and stumble toward a close.

Jack Benny and Mel Blanc on Immigration Debate

The Answer Is No

The answer is "no"; that word works in English or Spanish. Bill Kristol's summary echoes my own opinion of what the house should do with the awful immigration reform bill passed in the Senate.

Sean Trende asks, in a thoughtful and data-heavy piece, whether the GOP has to pass immigration reform to be competitive in the future at the presidential level. The answer is no.

Meanwhile, with respect to the 2014 congressional elections, it's increasingly clear that allowing any form or permutation of the Senate bill to become law would divide and demoralize potential Republican voters. So if Republicans want to win House and Senate seats in 2014, John Boehner should kill the Senate bill—first refusing to take it up in the House, and also by making clear the House will refuse to go to conference with it. The House can still pass specific bills to address particular immigration issues this session (which presumably the Senate won't take up—but let Harry Reid explain his refusal to do so). But the key is for Boehner to kill "comprehensive" immigration "reform" in this session of Congress.

The primary and indeed sufficient reason to do this is of course because the Senate legislation is such bad public policy. But it may be reassuring to elected officials that doing the right thing won't hurt politically in 2014 or most likely 2016. And it's also the case that Republican presidential candidates can set forth whatever proposals they think right in 2015 and 2016, so they're not just saying no. But the House GOP, for the sake of party and country, should say no: No Capitulation, No "Comprehensive" Bill, No Conference.

I think the most offensive thing about the bill is the comprehensiveness. That's a big word which means bigness. The thing is as obese as Obamacare. Public policy would be served better by smaller "reforms", if you must call them that; Kristol calls them "specific bills to address particular immigration issues".

I am the 98%

...who don't care about immigration and who view the issue as a big distraction. Excerpt:

Actually, no major poll of the last year—no, not one of them—showed robust public interest in immigration. This month, CBS News asked respondents to name “the most important problem facing this country today.” Less than 2 percent came up with “illegal immigration,” while a dozen other concerns, led by “the economy and jobs,” of course, finished higher on the list. Over the summer, surveys from Bloomberg and Fox News found 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively, who identified immigration as a priority, with gas prices, the war in Afghanistan, health care, the deficit, education, and even nebulous concerns like “partisan politics” and “moral values” more frequently mentioned by the public.

The good, the bad and the ugly

It turns out that I completely agree with Jonah Goldberg. He states that the new Arizona immigration law is "ugly but necessary". I agree; many aspects of government fall into this category. Jonah mentions some:

I agree that there's something ugly about the police, even local police, asking citizens for their "papers." There's also something ugly about American citizens being physically searched at airports. There's something ugly about IRS agents prying into nearly all of your personal financial transactions or, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, serving as health insurance enforcers.

The way I see it, the Arizona law empowers police departments to fight crime. The criminals hate this more than anybody, so you will see them disappearing from the scene in Arizona, unless your eyes are fixated on protest mobs and Obama speeches. In other words, if you are concentrating on the bad and the ugly you will miss the good.

One of the reasons I'm proud to be a conservative is that most conservatives understand that something imperfect doesn't equal something evil. I don't want to spend four grand building a fence in my backyard. But I will so my 2-year-old doesn't run out into the street and get killed. So while the fence is an imperfect solution, there is absolutely nothing evil about it, and it's absolutely morally neutral for me to build it. Recently a friend of mine said the Obamacare plan is "evil". I don't like to say that because evil implies intent. I think it's wrong and wrongheaded and mainly because any good from it is drastically outweighed by its bad effects. But I resist saying it's evil because it opens a larger and less productive argument.

MCJ on Liberal Theocracy

Mr. Johnson comments on this mess.

What’s wrong with this?

In God’s eyes, there is no documented or undocumented, there is no legal or illegal, there are only his children. For evidence, look to the Torah, which mentions the importance of welcoming the foreigner in our midst more than 15 times.

Our inability to welcome the foreigner is creating division among us as brothers and sisters – among God’s children. As a result, people are hopeless, and there is injustice in our land – injustice that in our fear and ignorance we allow to happen.

I believe that God calls us to love all in the face of the fear and the injustice. We are people of faith, and we are called to sing the Lord’s song, and it is a song of hope. I am mindful of this call as our government engages in the debate on the future of immigration reform, which will affect an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants.

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. Take out the references to illegal immigrants and rewrite this thing to condemn abortion or homosexual marriage and you will be accused of inserting the Christian religion where it has no business. Imposing your morality, establishing a religion, call it what you will. And Uncle Sam don’t roll like that.

We are told over and over that the United States is not a Christian nation and never was. Fine. That being the case, either keep your reading of Christian principles out of public policy debates or keep your mouth shut when other people cite their reading of Christian principles in support of initiatives you oppose.

And that's why we like Mr. Johnson over here at Est Quod Est.

Why is he still Episcopal? Not that he'd get away from that kind of goofy thinking on immigration policy if he became a Papist. But we are Pro-life at least.