4-13-06

The Language of Debate
The most frustrating thing about being an intelligent conservative is watching the conservative press and Republican figures allow themselves to be placed on the defensive time and time again.  Democrat and pseudo-progressive demagogues use every rhetorical fallacy in the book to switch the argument.  They proceed from unproven premises and accusations ("Bush Lied" is a fave, despite the fact that even assuming they are correct in their belief that there were no WMDs found in Iraq, they have yet to show that Bush was aware of their absence and knowingly disseminated falsehood).  They proceed from outright falsehood (another fave is "President Bush cut funding for levee improvement"—Bush backed a bill that would have allocated several billion for levee improvement that was subsequently cut by Democrats and liberal Republicans under pressure from environmental and humanitarian groups).  They use ad hominem, ad populum and tu quoque attacks more often than they ever express supported opinion.  But, by far the worst thing (in my mind) that they do, and they've done this since the second Reagan Administration, is change the language of debate.
          This has never been more apparent than it has been in the recent illegal alien debate.  That's right:  illegal aliens.  They're not "undocumented workers."  Nobody lost their I-9 or forgot to file their W-4.  They are foreign nationals living here illegally and working here illegally, and most of them came here illegally.  You can't even call them immigrants, illegal or otherwise, because the vast majority of them wire most of their income to their home countries with the intention of moving back there in a few years time. 
          But to hear the Dems (and the new-new Republicans) talk about it, you'd think that every conservative in the nation was picking up a gun and hunting down everyone with a funny accent.  They've changed the language.  No longer is the discussion about people willfully violating the laws of the nation they've entered, it's about "poor immigrants seeking a better life".  No wonder they were able to fill city streets with registered aliens and second and third generation Americans.
          Well, I call bullshit.  I call bullshit because it proceeds from false premises.  It's not racism for a nation to want its borders secure.  It's not favoritism for a nation to have immigration quotas when they have a limited number of clerics to process the immigrants.  It's not mindless nationalism for a nation to want some show of loyalty or intent to assimilate before granting access without let or hindrance to that nation's resources and services.
          I call bullshit because you don't get to change the debate in the middle (it's either a straw man or red herring fallacy—I haven't decided yet).  This isn't about creating new laws or allowing "amnesty" to people who've been breaking our laws for years.  This isn't about closing the borders completely so there is no chance of new immigration.  This is about controlling our own borders and not serving as a money farm for another nation.  This is about enforcing laws already on the books and enabling the agencies created for that job to do so.  This is about waking up and deciding that we are a sovereign nation with laws, borders, and all that implies.
          I call bullshit because it flies in the face of everything the Democrats have done in the past regarding immigration.  Where was this outpouring of Democrat support ten years ago when Bill Clinton ordered the US Coast Guard to aggressively enforce territorial waters against Cuban refugees?  Where is this love for "our oppressed brothers in other countries" every time ICE opens a shipping crate full of Chinese refugees in a Pacific harbor?  You don't get to have it both ways.  You either want the borders flung open or you want them controlled.  You can't just open one tiny section of the borders and call that "progress" when you're closing all other borders to REAL IMMIGRANTS, real people who really want to come to America to actually become part of the nation and raise an American family.  That's real racism.
          And I call bullshit.