Skip to main content

Stephen Miller’s Uncle Calls Him a Hypocrite in an Online Essay

Responding to an NY Times article, I wrote several bits, one of which was flagged as a TimesPick, likely because the moderator thought it was particularly thoughtful:

The Times Pick
Irving Berlin wrote God Bless America, a song that grew from "his mother, who frequently spoke the words with an emotion he later said “was almost exaltation,” despite their poverty." Although that same song is often the sounding cry of anti-immigrant and nativist sentiments, its roots say so much about America and what it has means for many people, salvation.

It's sad that all reason has gone out the window, that we no longer appreciate the belief in America as the great melting pot, that great human generator, a home of the brave and land of the free. Even more so, study after study points to the benefits of immigration for us, the US, and that has been completely lost in the rhetoric of right-wing zealots. Stephen Miller’s Uncle Calls Him a Hypocrite in an Online Essay
Response to a Libertarian
@FrederickRLynch Thought police? McCarthyism? Those involve the state, which can inflict real horrifying damage. His uncle's opinion is no such thing. In fact, Miller's policies are not simply thought, they are policies enacted, damaging the lives of many people, traumatizing them, more akin to the scourges of government campaigns targeting disfavored groups.

As a political operative, Miller's actions are always open to question. Rather the opposite to your claim, not being allowed to critique the government would be truly fascistic, and of course, the current regime is edging closer and closer to it...
Response to a Denier of Immigration's Benefits
@CS It isn't just about jobs, although that might be your favorite strawman, it encompasses many things, primarily the importance of human rights (the right to belong, to be free from harm) and the belief in the value of immigrants as a social principle. Many feel deeply about this, as we are all children of immigrants, or know recent immigrants who cherish America for the opportunity and freedom.

As for other salient aspects, studies showing:
  • ...how immigration is tied to economic growth
  • ...how immigration is tied to reduced crime
  • ...how immigration is tied to increased government revenues
  • ...how immigration increase innovation, specifically and generally
Humanity and intelligence are on our side.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Meanings of Ender's Game

In response to an Ender's Game discussion (Goodreads), with a link from Reddit, I posted the following: Much of the Reddit stream seems to focus on military tactics, or the lack thereof, used by the Ender, but who reads Ender and thinks it about military tactics, except the 20-year old grunt that started the thread? For a book written in the 80's, then edited in the early 90's, it seems more prophetic, with its use of game immersion, remote military operations and portable computing. Then when you think about the use of children in military games, one can think somewhat more deeply about sociopolitical indoctrination.  The series itself becomes a broader exploration of empathy and foreign culture.  The criticism seems more like the problem of a man with a hammer, who thinks every problem is solved by hammering, but even worse, every problem is about hammering. An additional post, regarding suspension of disbelief: Some people commented on the suspension of disbelie...

Accomplishments of Mayor de Blasio (as of December 2014)

I realized that de Blasio's accomplishments go unnoticed, primarily because affluent white people do not benefit from them. The benefits the mayor has brought are often corrections to the abuses of Bloomberg's, along with prior mayors', policies: Policing The NYPD conducts fewer stop-and-frisks. The city dropped its stop-and-frisk appeal. NYPD officers are starting to use body cameras. New York police officers are being retrained. Carrying a small amount of weed will probably result in a ticket, not an arrest. Teenage inmates are no longer put in solitary confinement at Rikers Island. The city has settled with the “Central Park Five.” Poverty There are 23 new homeless shelters in the city There's a new rent subsidy program for homeless families. More public housing units are available to homeless families. Traffic Pedestrian deaths are at a record low. The speed limit was lowered from 30 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour. There are harsher ...

The Right to Write - NYTimes.com

In an article,  The Right to Write - NYTimes.com , I commented on the right to write, since writers are sometimes questioned on the validity of their writing, e.g., Harriet Beecher Stowe with Uncle Tom's Cabin: One, people always have the right to write, but readers concurrently have the right to reject said writing. Much personal criticism of depictions from writers is whether the depiction seems valid or plausible, but even that is an exercise in empathy, since it requires one to experience that depiction ideationally.  Two, there is a streak in Americans, and maybe anyone, that states that you cannot understand 'my pain', usually the death of a child or some horrific personal lose. Over a longer term I have sensed that people most easily accept empathy if it is expressed by someone with similar experiences, an aspect I believe is part of human nature. I find both irksome, since they deny empathy.