Seriously, So Many People Upset About Illegal Immigration Are Just Racists.

A vigilante group has been compiling a list of illegal immigrants in the state, for what must have been some time, and (allegedly) with the help  of state officials with access to medical information, social security numbers, birth dates, and much more. What a disgusting action.

Though my very last post was about immigration, I thought I would return to the topic, because this recent news (the list was sent out as early as April 4, but the story only broke in the last few days) has injected yet another obvious criticism of the reprehensible anti-immigrant position into my little brain.

What, precisely, is the problem with the illegal immigrants? I mean that question in the sense of, "What is the central concern with their being here?"  Is it the fact that they broke the law in entering the country?  Is it the fact that they are immigrants as such, legal or illegal? Is it because they are brown? Or is there some other unidentified quality which I have not thought of that (especially) conservative people have a deep problem with, that makes them do things like spy on other people purely on the suspicion that they are "illegal immigrants?"

At least for the group who created the aforementioned list, Concerned Citizens of the United States, breaking the law seems seems not to register as a big problem.  Or at least we  must assume it is not a big problem because A) they invaded the private lives of at least two legal citizens, and 1300 other human beings, without their consent, and a case could easily be made that this breaks a number of laws, B) they in all likelihood used illegally obtained information from government officials in drafting the list, and C) I surmise (though cannot as yet prove) that the members of CCUS support the racist law about to take effect in Arizona, which is almost certainly unconstitutional, and hence illegal. If CCUS, or any anti-immigration person or group has a serious problem with the fact that the sans papiers in this country are here illegally, they ought to think carefully about A, B, and C above before they give in to hypocrisy entirely.

Or, if they insist on breaking the law being a crucial factor in their anti-immigration stance, they must explain why passing an unconstitutional law in Arizona, and possibly in Utah, is acceptable and crossing the border without papers is not.  Or how spying on people and invading their privacy is less bad than risking your life to cross the border just to get a better wage. Talk about a pioneer spirit! Honestly, we ought to dedicate this Pioneer Day to undocumented Mexican immigrants.

What could be worse to a rabid right-winger than passing a law that conflicts so obviously with the founding document of the United States that they hold so irrationally dear? Apparently crossing the border without papers.  But what could give this illegal entry such a punch for those who hold this position? I submit to you that the only explanation i can come up with is straight racism, conscious or unconscious, institutional or individual.

Last time I checked (which was never - I am being facetious), it was an uncommon occurrence for a Utahan to cross the street when they saw a pasty-white teenager donning an over-sized t-shirt bearing a red Maple leaf. The same cannot be said for a dark teenager in a shirt with the Mexican flag on it. What I mean to point out is simply that racism packs the kind of irrational punch needed to drive people to create a police state where no one by definition could be reasonably suspected of being an illegal immigrant, but nevertheless everyone is.  Racism against Latinos of all varieties has the force to convince people that invading privacy is less of a crime, in fact a necessary crime in order to prevent workers from seeking higher wages, regardless of artificial modern borders. This is the kind of racism that could never be directed against any North American nationality except Mexicans.

So, like in my last post, I implore those of the anti-immigration persuasion to either revise their position, explain to my why it isn't racist, or simply admit to being a racist. Any one of these three options is better than maintaining a deceptive (both self- and otherwise) stance.
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This post starts with a question.  Incidentally, I hope will not make my girlfriend Mel mad, who hates articles started with questions that the author then proceeds to answer, as though what ought to be good writing were reduced to an extended round of Trivial Pursuit. I don't think she'll disapprove because I don't answer the following question.  I can't answer it - only a religious zealot would dare do that.

Suppose you ask an opponent of "illegal immigration," someone to whom the elimination of this alien species is of the highest importance, but who also believes deeply in, say, Mormonism, the following: "If given the choice between converting an "illegal" family to the LDS faith but letting them stay in the US, or deporting them back to wherever but not converting, which would you choose?" If they choose converting and letting immigrants stay, they are giving up their commitment to the law.  If they choose not converting and deportation, they are putting the law above God.

This is absolutely a question set up to pin such an ideologue in a corner, but it nevertheless nicely brings to the fore the sometimes stupefying antinomy inherent in specifically religious right-wing conservatism. What are those in such a category really concerned with?  What God tells them to do?  What morality tells them to do?  What money tells them to do?  Or what the law tells them to do? These things don't align as often as the many adherents to such a "position" think. Furthermore, when defending some policy or stance on an issue, they often appeal to God, morality, money, or the law without properly analyzing how their appeal affects another commitment.

I am most familiar with the ins and outs of higher education in Utah, so it's easiest to look through that lens, and through that lens one can see clearly the issue of in-state tuition for "illegal immigrants."

This is how the issue is almost always phrased - "in-state tuition for illegal immigrants." But right off the bat there's a problem. That is not at all what the issue is, at least in Utah.  Not just any undocumented person can get in-state tuition.  The policy only applies to the children of undocumented parents who have attended a high school in Utah for three years, which drastically affects how we ought to analyze things.

Who is responsible for these undocumented students being here, in a legal as well as a moral sense?  As a matter of fact, the undocumented recipients of in-state tuition have not broken any law.  Or if they have, it is an unjust and reprehensible law.  And certinly they can't be held morally responsible for the following reason: these students were brought into this country by their parents, as children, and at a maximum, as teenagers, else they could not have attended high school for three years in Utah.  They were not brought of their own volition, and they were not adults when entering the country illegally.  Any laws broken were broken by their parents.  Unless, of course, one reverts to the thinking that a person can be deemed either "legal" or "illegal" simply because of who they are or who their parents are, and not because of their actions, or some specific legal rule broken by those actions.

Really, isn't that exactly what we do, in a wild reversal of the entire history of the rule of law?  Simply by being the children of folks who have chosen to break a law and based on no action whatsoever, ultra-right fear mongers confer a "illegality" onto innocent children, a status which stays with them even into their adulthood, based purely on the actions of someone else.  Perhaps I speak too narrowly, since it isn't only these fear mongers who do this wicked labeling, but many and perhaps most of the people who take any kind of a position on immigration.  I, for one, refuse to treat innocent children in this way, and I refuse to think of adults brought here as children as "illegal," though they may be technically sans papier. Clearly, undocumented students are not at all responsible for their status as undocumented, and any policy that fails to take that fact into account is  a bad policy.

But what about all the money that we could be saving or even making by charging them non-resident tuition?  Let's do some extraordinarily easy math - something that many pontificators and jelly-brained ultra-right legislators seem to think is malicious voodoo.  How many "illegal immigrants" are there in the higher education system? About 400.  For the sake of ease, and because I already know the numbers, I will assume that they all attend UVU, and are full time students, so all of the following is certainly an underestimate since several of the institutions in the Utah system of higher education have a higher percentage of operation costs originating from taxpayers than does the home of the Wolverines.  At any rate, this gives us a total taxpayer expenditure of about $536,800.  Less than half a million dollars.  Less than five percent of the total student fees collected at UVU. Less than one percent of the total tuition revenue at UVU. Less than one-thousandth of one percent of Utah's entire budget for 2011.  That someone has a serious problem with this on a financial level is absurd, and as a matter of fact, there are some estimates that disallowing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants could cost the state up to $1.5 million if those taking advantage of the current policy cannot afford to pay out-of-state tuition and hence drop out.

Let's not forget that, again from the perspective of money, these immigrants provide profit for parasitic capitalists, pay sales tax on everything they buy and pay property tax (since more than likely they rent and thus have the owner's property tax factored into their monthly bill), and hence fund state governments.  In other words, they create large amounts of value that can then be greedily extracted from them. So much for the "money" arguments.

"Illegal" can be analyzed from a non-religious conservative perspective as well, and from here, the racist and bourgeois foundations of opposition to "illegal immigration" become even more apparent.  Among conservatives there is constant talk, as we all know, of individual achievement, entrepreneurship, self-reliance, and individual rights and autonomy.  Can't we see all of these conservative virtues among the immigrants who choose to voluntarily subject themselves to excruciating trials - shady coyotes, possible death in the deserts of northern Mexico, imprisonment, life as a permanent outsider, among many others - all in order to be able to provide for themselves and their families by working themselves to the bone?

And, by the by, the next time someone speaks or alludes to the phrase "They took our jobs" as a way of criticizing illegal immigrants, I will punch them in the goddamn jaw.  These people did not take anyone's jobs.  If any former meatpacker or farm worker has a problem with losing their job or getting lower wages, they should take it up with the sick capitalists who seek out the most desperate and bare human beings to exploit in order to drive wages down to maximize their own profits.  Immigrants didn't take your jobs - capitalists gave them to someone else, and your vitriol should focus on them.

So, religious conservatives, what is it?  What precisely is your problem with "illegal immigrants" and especially with  undocumented students? It seems that none of the common arguments hold up under minimal scrutiny.  Revise your positions. Embrace what can be shown. Or just admit to unbridled racism.  At least that would be more honest.

Police, UVU, and every gun nut with a double phallus

Despite closing my inaugural post with an invitation to the public to decide for me what I would write about, I have, in a brutal flagellation of the democratic spirit, decided to usurp my (as yet nonexistent) readers and write about a thing that was a "thing" recently on UVU’s campus.

Nick Moyes – ugh.

Recently, the aforementioned president of the UVU College Republicans, was harassed by the UVU police who, in absolutely classic fashion, made up rules and then claimed Moyes was breaking those made up rules. In particular, Moyes was carrying a visible firearm in a holster on his hip (which firearm I have seen on multiple occasions and felt entirely comfortable with.  Nick is a stable and intelligent guy).  Another student saw the gun, was worried about said murderous device, and went to the campus police to alert them to the situation.  That student’s ignorance of Utah law and Utah culture notwithstanding, the police responded by claiming that Moyes was required to keep the weapon hidden (he isn’t) and that he could be charged with disorderly conduct (he can’t) by pointing out to the police that they were in fact ignorant of the law (which they were). Best of all, he managed to record the entire altercation with a portable video device and quickly posted it on YouTube.

In a pathetic attempt to write a decent opinion piece on an issue of import, the Daily Herald asked several days later whether carrying a firearm in plain view ought to be permissible on a Utah college campus.  Notwithstanding the decrepit sloppiness of both the prose and the thought in the article, it made me think about a few things.  First, the absolute irrationality of Utah gun law.  Here, I am speaking not about Utah’s seeming obsession with the second amendment and protecting it at every turn, and neither am i speaking about how important it is to keep guns out of the hands of both the inexperienced and the insane.  What I mean to point out is the stupidity of the laws on their own terms.

For instance, carrying a firearm openly in public is permissible, but only as long as the gun is unloaded, which leads to at least two questions – first, if the gun can’t be loaded while being carried in public, what good it in terms of self defense?  Does the carrier plan on bludgeoning an assailant with it? (Mmm…pistol-whip…delicious)  Second, if the gun can’t be loaded, then what is the real reason for carrying it? I suppose it’s nice to have big metal dick strapped to your belt, but is there anything more to it than a classically Freudian display of egotistical, semi-sexual power?

Another Kafkaesque paradox in Utah law – in order openly carry a gun on campus, that is, have it be visible to others, one must have a concealed carry permit.  This is not a rule for any other public venue – you could buy a gun and have it in a visible holster in a grocery store with hundreds of people around to witness it – but if it is on a campus, a visible gun requires a concealed carry permit in order to be legal. Bizarre to say the least. Absurd to say the most.

There are two things, really, to say about this issue once one disregards the amount of attention that the predictably egotistical Moyes has both asked for and received as a result of this incident (several news agencies have interviewed him and the Herald is not the only source to support him in his position). Gun law in Utah is both (and I use this term consciously) fucked up and backward. Does anyone really think that a law requiring a concealed carry permit to display a weapon on a campus will prevent someone who intends to abuse that weapon from doing so? Even with the strictest gun control laws, an insane person with a wish to destroy and end the lives of as many innocent people as he/she wishes will be able to do so regardless of the laws governing who can and cannot have a weapon. A person wishing to kill will find a way, whether it is the black market or a legal purchase, to get a gun and murder with it. (Or build a bomb, etc., etc.) But – and this is the crucial point – these are not the things which strong gun control laws are trying to prevent, at least not as far as I am concerned.

What do I mean?  Well, no law will prevent a crazy person from acting crazy and killing people. But banning the sale of handguns would indeed prevent a significant number of accidental shootings, and it is these which are the most devastating and preventable.  A six year old who accidentally shoots their friend while showing off daddy’s unlocked but loaded Glock would not be far less likely to make this innocent but deadly mistake if handguns were illegal. In other words, Utah gun law is stupid not because it does nothing to prevent the malicious usage of firearms (which it doesn't), but because it does nothing to prevent their innocent abuse, and it is only the latter prevention that really matters at all.

A few leftists revolutionary friends of mine complain that gun control laws prevent honest use of guns to fight against an oppressive system, be it totalitarian government or all pervasive totalitarian capitalism, and this is a position which I can only assume that many ultra-right-wing uber-capitalists share. From my perspective, being in the position of a revolutionary means that you are already committed to breaking lots of laws; why not be in favor of gun control laws that will actually prevent stupid ten year olds from killing other ten year olds, and be simultaneously committed to breaking those laws for the purpose of revolutionary activity. 

This is not a right/left political question either.  If we seriously look at the fervor of anti-government sentiment in the United States, it is obvious that the Tea Partiers are much more likely to start blowing shit up and shooting people than the leftists? Hell, they are the only ones to have actually committed significant terroristic civil disobedience (McVeigh) since the Weather Underground.  This is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue.

So I am put in the perplexing position of both supporting gun control laws and advocating that those who feel the need to break those laws should do so. Moreover, I am perfectly OK with being in this paradoxical position. Paradoxes suit me nicely.

As far as the incident at UVU is concerned, there was no especially heinous incident. The police were intrusive and wrong, and harassed a student.  But this is no different from the police harassing Daniel Sabin for playing his guitar on campus when they had no right to do so.  The issue, really, is with the infantile UVU campus police overstepping their bounds and abusing the students, as they have so frequently done for many reasons and over many years. What do I think about the UVU police altercation? Anyone can have their unloaded extra cock strapped to your belt as often as they want – but don’t pretend what happened had anything to do with Utah’s gun laws. 

Newlin starts blog, sky falls

I am an internet blogger! Troglodytic masses! - that pallid light spilling out of your monitor shall henceforth be produced by my words blowing a load of greatness all over your faces, rather than that wicked cool YouTube video of the Argentine gnome your friend Twittered about last week.  That Shit is old, and this Shit is new. Get with it.

Here's the idea. I need to write more, and I need to write better. The only way to accomplish these goals is, obviously, to write regularly and frequently, and to receive criticism, especially from all of my friends who write better than me. So, this blog is a way of accomplishing these two things. 

I hereby commit, under penalty of becoming a public internet loser, to write 500 words every other day without exception, on some topic of importance to me, be it local news and politics, Marxism, cultural theory, feminism, atheism, or any of the many other -isms through which I pretend to be an academic and an intellectual. And you, my adoring if somewhat sticky readers, are to comment and tell me what an idiot I am, or what a genius if it is warranted, or what is even more likely - an idiot savant whose genius derives from his stupidity.

I ask you, readers of all things blogish, what should my first subject be?  What would you like to hear Newlin rant about for eight-to-ten paragraphs?