National Review gets attacked by The Wall Street Journal editorial page on immigration, and NRO writers are taken aback by how slipshod and dishonest the WSJ is. What they don't seem to realize is that this is how they write all the time.
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When Wingnuts Fight
25 May 2007 10:00 am
Comments (15)
He's basically saying that accepting large numbers of immigrants would undermine America's unique culture.
If he really believes that, he should get divorced from his Chinese wife and get her deported.
I don't see why they can't both be slipshod and dishonest--these are the The Corner and the WSJ editorial pages we are discussing here, two outlets not exactly known for putting quality ahead of ideology.
On the other hand, the NRO writer here is John Derbyshire, who regularly blasts creationism, the Iraq war, and other conservative mainstays. If J-Pod or Jonah Goldberg comes out and says that the WSJ is full of it, then I'll be a little more impressed...
"Me, I was... well, no, not foaming at the mouth, but gaping in wonder at such a concentration of smug rich-guy arrogance on display all in one place."
"I'm shocked --SHOCKED! -- to learn that there is gambling going on here."
Capt. Louis Renault
Casablanca, 1941
What color is the sky in these guys' world? I've modified a trillion or so pixels scoffing at the Left's blithe indifference to actual human nature, but Gigot & Co. take the biscuit. It's pretty routine now to mock the WSJ editorial crowd for believing that there is no such thing as a nation, only an economy. Well, there it is. You saw it. That is what they actually, literally believe. We kick around phrases like "arrogant elites" pretty carelessly, but here they are, out in the open, brazen and unashamed.I believe I actually heard the soft click of the light switch as the light bulb blazed into glorious radiance above Derb's head for one shining moment, before fading into the dull glow of his patented "I love America despite knowing virtually nothing about it" brand of Tory nativism.
NRO writers are taken aback by how slipshod and dishonest the WSJ is. What they don't seem to realize is that this is how they write all the time.
The great thing about this passage is not that the second "they" is ambiguous, but that it makes sense either way.
in a dispute between narrow libertarianism and know-nothing conservatism, i'm going to have to side with the former
Sounds like Derb is coming out and saying bigotry is a justifiable reason to restrict immigration. Maybe he and his crowd should read Bob Novak's take on the issue.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/399253,CST-EDT-NOVAK24.article
Mr. Noah, Derbyshire may blast *some* wingnut nonsense, but that's just internal squabbles. He's been a whackjob for quite some time.
Didn't Derbyshire admit in a rare moment of candor a while back when the immigration wars first started heating up that he in fact was an illegal immigrant at one point? Overstayed a visa or something. Evidently he managed to get his green card or eventually. Their gleeful hypocrisy can be startling sometimes.
I was wrong, it was an artilce from 2003.
http://www.olimu.com/Journalism/2003/Texts/Straggler03-IWasIllegalAlien.htm
too many steves: that's a LogicalFallacy; the current situation is far different from what it was then.
Dan the Man: I wasn't aware that culture was a racial/country-of-origin characteristic. Pardon me for not being up on my left ideology.
Four Points:
1) On immigration, the WSJ editorial board doesn't even try to be intellectually honest in the least. They quickly resort to claims of nativism, and dishonestly conflate low-skilled illegal immigration with skilled, legal immigration all the time.
2) Most WSJ readers know the WSJ editors are full of it on this. See, for example, the letters to the editor on OpinionJournal.com after one of the WSJ posts one of its pro-open borders editorials or columns; last time, I counted 16 letters con and 1 pro.
3) John Derbyshire is a bad opposing example. A better one is Peggy Noonan's: Slow Down and Absorb
Open borders? Mass deportations? How about some common sense instead? If only she could make the WSJ editorial board sit quietly and read it.
4) I had high hopes for the WSJ editorials when Gigot took the helm. He is not a nutter (anyone remember him debating Mark Shields on the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour on PBS?) and was also one of the WSJ's better writers, with his Potomac Watch column. My sense is that he is too hands-off as a boss, and lets editors who more strident than smart (e.g., Kim Strassel, the idiot Stephen Moore) get their way.
They quickly resort to claims of nativism, and dishonestly conflate low-skilled illegal immigration with skilled, legal immigration all the time.
They quickly resort to this because the economic claims opposing "mass immgration" (the term critics use to describe America's current immigration inflows -- about 1/3 the net rate of the America of 1900) are so weak.
Comments closed June 08, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
I'm not up on this entire feud, but just having read the Derbyshire piece, he sure looks like the slipshod and dishonest one. Or at least, he looks like the asshole. He's basically saying that accepting large numbers of immigrants would undermine America's unique culture. Right, that's how we got this great culture -- keeping out all the Chinese and Mexicans and Irish and Italians.
Posted by too many steves | May 25, 2007 10:09 AM