The New York Times' Phoney Indignation, Grown-Ups and Illegal Immigration

Image Credit: GongTo/Shutterstock.com
Image Credit: GongTo/Shutterstock.com
Image Credit: GongTo/Shutterstock.com

The New York Times professes alarm and indignation at the overbearing influence of corporate and plutocratic money in American politics. The paper’s Editorials have frequently denounced recent Supreme Court opinions permitting corporate funding for political advocacy. Nor have they scrupled to heap opprobrium on individual wealthy donors to politics.

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So on the Times own principles it is most alarming indeed that the selfsame paper has given over its Editorial authority to the service of Democratic politics, funded by the very deep coffers of the Mexican plutocrat Carlos Slim.Legacy corporate media figures, you see, never once suppose that when they say they want “corporate money out of politics,” they mean legacy media corporate money. That money is free to circulate and influence politics completely unfettered, because of course it serves healthy civic purposes — you know, like advancing the political agenda of Mexican plutocrats.

It is in this light that one ought to view the Times recent Editorial of supplication and adulation to the Democratic Party’s grownups — a group of five old, white, and mostly rich people, including two “Republican refugees,” seeking the Democrats’ presidential nomination.

Over on the childish (read younger and diverse) Republican side, where people care about such outmoded things as American exceptionalism, liberty and sovereignty, there is an unfashionable but sustained agitation against illegal immigration. The antics of the GOP frontrunner on that subject have thrown the legacy media into a combination of discomfiture and elation.

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Even though American Politics is becoming more and more like entertainment, we can’t have reality TV stars turn presidential candidate and criticize the favored policies of Mexican plutocrats, now can we?Of course, one should not suspect The New York Times of insincerity or cynicism. Certainly not. The abject coddling of Democrats is perfectly genuine.

The paper’s editors most decidedly do believe that grownup behavior consists in, let us say, promoting a Free Trade agreement as a chief diplomat and then repudiating it as a candidate; in deciding whether one supports or opposes gay marriage based on the outcome of an election; in alleviating poverty by means of policies designed to raise energy prices, flood the lower end of the labor market with new supplies of workers, and curtail the ability of religious charities to fund and staff their relief efforts.

Above all, it is very likely that The New York Times does agree, quite sincerely, with Carlos Slim that no American should ever raise a skeptical question about mass illegal immigration or the functional disintegration of American territorial sovereignty. Only bratty children object to those things. The Times believes in grownups.

This all reminds me of the discussion/debate Ann Coulter and I had at Politicon with Joe Klein and Cistobal Joshua Alex about immigration.

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Klein said it would be a good thing if America becomes a nation of mongrels. Coulter, of course, argued that we should stop all immigration until we assimilate those already here and then revert to the immigration policies of the 70’s. I offered my often stated position that we need to control immigration. Our immigrants need to play by the rules. We have an immigration policy. What we don’t have, and haven’t had, is anyone willing to enforce it. We won’t secure our border. State governments encourage the provision of government services to illegal immigrants. Local governments enact “sanctuary” programs for illegal immigrants, preventing their employees from reporting an illegal alien’s status. Right, these problems have been around for a long time. We’ve been having the exact same immigration conversation for at least 11 years.

We tried amnesty once before. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, made nearly four million illegals eligible for legal residency with the understanding we would control the border. That policy was an obvious failure because now there more than 12 million illegals to be considered for legal status, or as some say amnesty. If legal status is now given to these millions, then we should only expect requests for legal status from millions and millions more. We must not happen until the border and visa overstays finally controlled. Thirty years of false promises the border will be secured are enough.

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At our Politicon debate, Coulter also argued that illegal immigration is tolerated because the Democrats need voters and businesses want cheaper labor. She may have a point. We almost accomplished immigration reform in 2006. Senate Republicans reached a compromise on the status millions illegals in the U.S.The compromise would have treated illegal aliens differently based upon the length of time they have been in the U.S. But According to the Associated Press and Eleanor Clift the Democrats wanted a political advantage more than they wanted immigration reform.

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