Vox Popoli

Mara Liasson poses a stumper:

Critics of the bill as amnesty have to answer the question, What would you do with all the illegal immigrants here if you’re not going to deport them all?

Um, deport them all. I find it amusing that the anti-American pro-migrationists continue to assume that no one wants to deport them all. There’s certainly a lot more people that want to deport every single illegal alien – and possibly more than a few of the legal ones – then want to continue occupying Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps it’s time to contemplate a single-issue anti-migration party. Once America is assured of remaining America, we can then argue over what America should do. Because otherwise, Republicans and Democrats are opening up the discussion to Mexicans and a myriad of other alien voices.

As you read this, do keep in mind that Merkur is the one accusing me of “feeble semantic evasions”:

“It’s true, you never said any such thing. What you said was that the two other bloggers said it couldn’t be done without killing people. Obviously a complete strawman! I stand corrected.”

Thank you. Unfortunately I didn’t specifically support their arguments – I said it couldn’t be done without a disregard for their lives and dignity. I also didn’t say that the two other bloggers said it, and only one of them actually said it, and that was IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EXAMPLE THAT YOU GAVE. So unfortunately your strawman still stands.

Yes, there’s a massive distinction between “disregard for lives” and “considering the costs in human lives” and “killing people”. It’s almost as big as the difference between the synonyms “impossible” and “unrealistic” that Merkur was previously complaining about. Of course, if one does not kill people, THEN THE COST IN HUMAN LIVES IS ZERO. Because I only referred to the one other blogger who Merkur admits made the statement, not only is there no strawman, it raises real questions about whether Merkur even understands what a strawman argument is.

Merkur’s quibbling is particularly stupid because what the other blogger was saying was that there is no other way to deport large numbers of people WITHOUT DOING IT IN THE CONTEXT of the Nazi example, without doing it in the murderous way that the Nazis and Communists did. I not only rejected that contention from the very start, but have even cited current examples that prove it to be false. Of course, once I cited the Iranian example that proved my case, Merkur began distancing himself from the very statements he has been defending and quoting and echoing, though apparently not “specifically supporting”, from the start.

Allow me to demonstrate the vacuity of your feeble semantic evasions. It has been empirically proven that a man can pole vault 6.14m – would it be impossible for “Vox Day” to pole vault 6.14m? Clearly not; with a high level of commitment, focused through an intensive training schedule, with the right conditions in place, it has been demonstrated that it is physically possible for “Vox Day” to do this. Is it realistic to expect “Vox Day” to pole vault 6.14m? Absolutely not; he is highly unlikely to be able to commit to this task, would probably not be able to fulfil such an intensive training, and cannot depend on the right conditions being in place. So it is possible, but it is unrealistic.

I shall certainly allow him to demonstrate away, as by doing so Merkur provides a nice analogy to show how he is dancing madly away in an attempt to avoid having to provide an answer.

The question I asked was not whether “Vox Day” could be realistically expected to pole vault 6.14m, but HOW HIGH CAN “VOX DAY” BE REALISTICALLY EXPECTED TO POLE VAULT? This is the answer that Merkur has repeatedly refused to answer, because he knows that doing so will destroy the last vestiges of his argument. We already know that we are currently pole-vaulting the equivalent of 110cm without even trying, we know that the Iranians are currently pole-vaulting the equivalent of 3.36cm, so how high can we realistically be expected to vault?

Merkur won’t answer.

Moreover, the pole vault is an imperfect analogy because the height has to be surmounted in a single go. Deportation is more akin to lowering the bar by the height of the bar cleared previously. So “Vox Day” doesn’t have to pole-vault 6.14m, he only has to vault 3.1m twice, which is less than the Iranians have already managed. Or 1.5m four times.

I’m not evading the question, because there isn’t a question to evade. Practical issues do have practical answers, “Vox”, but you don’t seem to understand the practical implications of mass deportation. Your risible proposal to hire a lot of buses as if that’s the only component of a mass deportation scheme shows that you have little to no understanding of what you’re talking about.

“There isn’t a question to evade.” That’s not just evasion, it’s an outright lie. Of course there are other practical issues. There always are. The aliens have to be identified. The bus drivers have to be hired. The contracts for provisioning the buses have to be awarded. Congress doesn’t even have to pass a law, it merely has to leave the states and localities alone to do what they want. But all of these issues are easily resolved in theory, and in any case, Merkur characteristically avoids spelling out what he believes to be the practical implications he mentions. It’s so much easier to simply assert that I don’t understand the complexity of logistics, which should provide regulars who were here two summers ago no little amusement.

Since Merkur so enjoys picking nits, I’ll note that I never said anything about hiring buses, but rather proved that the government could afford to PURCHASE 80,000 expensive 12-passenger luxury coaches, complete with sleeping berths and TV lounges, for less money than they are currently losing on the illegal alien tax-benefit delta in a single year.

It is possible, it isn’t realistic, and in most cases it does require an approach which disregards the lives and dignity of the deportees. The reason it is unrealistic is not because it is logistically impossible, but because to carry it out would require certain conditions to be in place which are simply not in place – just like a pole-vaulting Vox.

I first note Merkur attempts to sneak a weaselly insinuation that human lives are somehow at stake despite his awareness that they’re not. And obviously, we’ll avoid the “most cases” that require disregarding “the lives and dignity” of the deportees and utilize one of the cases which he admits do not. Although I suppose that an approach which involves comfy coaches and catering might lead to a risk of increased heart disease; perhaps we should equip the TV lounges with a PS/2 and a DDR dancepad too.

However to ask such a question would only compound the vacuity of your reasoning – for it is not a question of what is physically possible, but a question of whether you would even pick up the pole to begin with.

Merkur here is referring to the “certain conditions which are simply not in place”, which involves the politicians currently in office. But this brings us full circle, since the entire discussion began with George Bush’s declaration that the deportation of 12 million illegals was “unrealistic”. Merkur’s argument boils down to a tautology: our politicians say we can’t deport aliens because our politicians say we can’t. Brilliant stuff, clearly it’s way over the average individual’s capacity to comprehend, let alone mine. If mass deportation of criminals is “unrealistic” as long as George Bush is in the White House and anti-American politicians control the House and Senate, whatever could the solution to that intractable problem possibly be?

So, last chance, Merkur. You’ve avoided answering the question twice already. You’ve split hairs, lied and made demonstrably false accusations. You’ve been empirically proven conclusively wrong. Now, you have three choices. You can either admit you’re wrong on this issue and survive to fight the next one, you can answer the question of how high “Vox Day” can be realistically expected to vault and list those practical implications that show my lack of understanding, or you can go away.

I don’t really care which option you choose, but don’t bother with any more evasions, obfuscations and accusations, they’ll simply be deleted.

Oh dear, I forgot that it’s Iran’s turn to be Hitler:

More than 70,000 Afghans who were in Iran illegally have been returned in the past month, the United Nations said on Monday, as talks were under way between the neighbours over the controversial deportations…. The talks in Iran were to focus on how the deportations were carried out and also the treatment of deportees, it said. There have been reports of returnees being separated from their families in the drive to get them out. Tehran has said it wanted one million Afghans repatriated by next March. The 70,000 who have been sent back started returning from April.

70,000 per month = 840,000 per year = 6.7 million in eight years. Obviously there’s no evidence whatsoever that George Bush’s statement that deportations are “unrealistic” is false.

Other than, you know, the mass deportations taking place right now. And incredibly, it’s being done without the mass slaughter that some have insisted is inherently a part of any such involuntary mass transportation, the daily busing of 23.5 million American school children notwithstanding.

On a tangential note, doesn’t it strike you as just a little bit strange that one million Afghans should prefer the very hellhole of Islamic repression that happens to be the neocons’ preferred next target of liberation occupation instead of the shiny new US-installed democracy?

UPDATE – Thomas Sowell shares his thoughts on what is “unrealistic”:

Back in 1986 it was “unrealistic” to round up and deport the three million illegal immigrants in the United States then. So they were given amnesty — honestly labeled, back then — which is precisely why there are now 12 million illegal immigrants.

The question that no one is either asking or answering is this: if deporting 12 million aliens in eight years is unrealistic, then precisely what number is realistic? I note that an affirmative answer of any number above zero means that deporting 12 million aliens is merely a function of time.

What else is new:

Even after the complete falsehood of her charge against Paul was pointed out, and acknowledged by her, Malkin still did her best to wriggle out of it by trying to weave a very tenuous connection between Paul and the Truthers.

What’s interesting about this isn’t the fact that Me So Michelle never bothers to do her homework – that’s not exactly news – but what it demonstrates about her priorities. The regulars here who happen to like Malkin always point out that she’s anti-migration, which is certainly to her credit, but notice here that she was going out of her way to attack one of the foremost anti-migration Republican presidential candidates, either because she is more pro-occupation than anti-migration or because she’s more interesting in licking the boots of those who are more likely to win the nomination than support a candidate who shares her position on migration. Either way, it’s not exactly edifying.

Faux conservatives often attack libertarians and genuine conservatives as being left-liberals; I started getting emails accusing me of being a liberal Democrat from the first time I criticized the Bush administration. But merely understanding the concept of blowback does not indicate any specific political ideology.

Fighting terror through financing terrorists:

It is a little-known fact that international aid to the Palestinian territories has actually risen since Palestinians elected a Hamas government in January, 2006. According to International Monetary Fund and UN figures, the Palestinian areas received a total of $1.2 billion in official aid in 2006, up from $1 billion in 2005.

America’s contribution rose from $400 million in 2005 to $468 million in 2006. Aid from the European Union and other international organizations also increased handsomely, and the UN has called for still greater increases in aid in 2007.

I wonder if George Delano’s double-secret plan to install democracy the Middle East will work as well as his double-secret plan to push through a conservative domestic agenda. And you know, I kind of think it will. Apparently we’re now fighting terrorism by giving the terrorists so much money that they’ll start eating rich and fatty foods that will cause their early deaths from heart disease.

I also wonder if all the purple-fingered occupation enthusiasts will be any less enthusiastic about democracy when the Iraqi people vote the local equivalent of Hamas into power… assuming they haven’t already done so.

I continue to find this sort of hysterical Medvedian reaction to be most amusing:

When the Nazis regime is the only regime you can think of to compare to your present situation, red flags should go up. It’s hard to separate the lesson Vox thinks we should learn from the Nazis from all of the other “lessons” that led to this one. And if we’re really learning the lesson of Nazi deportations, then we’d have to pay attention to how they did it: placing people in cattle cars so crowded that it was not possible to sit, much lay down, and transporting them for days, sometimes even for weeks, without food or water.

Okay, so if we know it takes four years to identify and transport six million people in inhumane conditions, how much longer will it take to do it in air conditioned, beer-and-pizza provisioned comfort? 50 percent longer? 150 percent longer? The point is that it can be done. And how is it hard to separate one lesson of the National Socialist regime from another, does this emo-brain also have the impression I’m advocating an invasion of Poland, launching rockets at London and a Non-Aggression Pact with Stalin’s corpse?

This guy doesn’t even seem to realize that he has EXPLICITLY conceded my point, his paroxysms of outrage notwithstanding. THE HISTORICAL EXAMPLE OF THE NAZI MURDERS SIMPLY PROVES THAT WHAT GEORGE BUSH SAID WAS IMPOSSIBLE IS, IN FACT, POSSIBLE. That doesn’t mean that Americans harbor any desire to hurt anyone and it doesn’t even mean that we have to transport people like the Germans did. In fact, that wouldn’t even make any sense, since we don’t want to harm any aliens, we just want to send them safely home.

If we’re going to not do things simply because the National Socialists did them, then I suggest that we begin by not financing public schools and not invading other countries. And I note with no little amusement that if George Bush or anyone else claims that mass deportations are impossible, this must, by definition, make them Holocaust Deniers.

UPDATE: “That may be a rational argument, but I can’t imagine it’s one anyone wants to make.”

Yes, it’s much better to make an irrational one. “It’s unrealistic to transport millions of people because the Nazis did it and they were bad people and we’re not bad people so therefore we can’t.”

Ted is frustrated:

You must be very lonely? I say that as one who spends every spare minute criticizing Bush from the right – and I have no friends left at all. Conservatives simply will not condemn the one man responsible for the entire mess, and I find that infuriating. He’s the one who has ruined the country, and the people I talk to hold it against me for being so critical.

And just after I read your column, I read one by some talk show host in Palm Beach who is also critical of Bush. His name is Andy Martin, and this nut’s inital step in rectifying the problem is:

“First, Republicans should ever so politely jettison the religious right, and let some religious adherents migrate to the Democratic Party. Why not give Democrats a few headaches with ‘values voters’?”

Now I’m not Christian, but I’m not insane either, and I’m starting to believe that a whole lot of conservatives are just as insane as liberals.

This just proves Scott Adams’ point: people who don’t need people are the HAAAPPPIEST people. Seriously, politics is not the personal and it isn’t life either. If you spend all of your time criticizing Bush, I wouldn’t want to hang around you either and I’m probably in complete agreement.

While Cedarford would no doubt agree with Mr. Martin’s take on the situation, it’s completely stupid. The religious right accounts for 23 percent of the TOTAL electorate and accounted for 35.2 percent of Bush’s support in the 2004 election. Republicans not only can’t win without them, they can’t survive as a party without them.

And this is exactly why 2008 would be an excellent time for them to withdraw en masse from the Republican Party.

Not indoctrination:

First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year.

Just in case you needed another reason to homeschool your kids. Although Gore’s secular apocalyptic flick clearly can’t be very effective propaganda if it needs so many showings in order to take. It brings to mind the old adage about the lady protesting too much.

It occurs to me that this sort of thing never seems to come up in discussions of why women appear have a greater tendency to hit a professional wall after a while:

Michelle Haltigan, a highly successful advertising executive known throughout the San Diego area for her striking physical attributes, will continue to get by on looks for six more years, it was reported Monday.

Sources report that the 23-year-old Huntington Beach native will be able to coast effortlessly until late 2004, when her appearance will no longer be sufficient to guarantee preferential treatment in her professional and personal life.

I know several women who have always gotten a leg up in their personal and professional lives because of their physical attractiveness; you probably do too. But now that we’re all getting older, that attractiveness is rapidly fading in relative terms and so they’re no longer likely to get the benefit of the doubt that they’ve always received, even if they haven’t necessarily depended upon it.

This obviously doesn’t apply to all women, there’s no shortage of ladies with unfortunate appearances who have not only had to succeed on their own job-related merits but also overcome the handicap of being unattractive as well. I just wonder if this might partially account for the tendency of some previously successful women to hit a wall in their professional lives in their mid-thirties.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But it’s an idea worth contemplating, anyhow.