Norm Matloff just sent out an email suggesting that his readers write to the Washington Post explaining that H-1Bs are not “the best and the brightest”--they’re the cheapest.
Norm Matloff writes

Enclosed is an editorial from today’s Washington Post, [Visas Needed | By keeping out needed high-tech workers, U.S. immigration policy pushes U.S. jobs abroad, March 25, 2008]outrageously calling for an expansion of the H-1B program. Recall that Bill Gates’ wife sits on the Post’s board.

I suggest that you write letters to the editor. To do so, go here and click Letter to the Editor. Keep it SHORT (250 words max). Let your draft sit for at least an hour, then revise it with a clearer head, before submitting.

The Post claims that most of the H-1Bs are “the best and the brightest.” That is false, as can be seen by the salaries: The median salary for H-1Bs in the computer area is around $60K, this in a field in which the top people make way over $100K.

From Lawrence E. Harrison’s article in The National Interest:

FUTURE GENERATIONS may look back on Iraq and immigration as the two great disasters of the Bush presidency. Ironically, for a conservative administration, both of these policy initiatives were rooted in a multicultural view of the world.

Since the 1960s, multiculturalism, the idea that all cultures are essentially equal, has become a dominant feature of the political and intellectual landscape of the West. It has profoundly influenced Iraq War policy, the policy of democracy promotion, international development agendas and immigration policy, with consequences for the cultural composition of societies.

But multiculturalism rests on a frail foundation: Cultural relativism, the notion that no culture is better or worse than any other–it is merely different. That’s doubtlessly good advice for cultural anthropologists doing ethnographic studies in the field. If one’s goal is full understanding of a value system quite different from one’s own, ethnocentrism can seriously distort the quest and the conclusions. But what if the objective is to assess the extent to which a culture nurtures values, attitudes and beliefs that facilitate progress toward democratic governance, social justice and an end to poverty, the goals of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights? The idea that some cultures are more nurturing than others of progress thus defined–and that this assumption can be measured and assessed–challenges the very essence of cultural relativism.[The End Of Multiculturalism, January, 2008]

In Republican Rome, a conquering general returning home would be greeted with a triumphal procession, much like a 20th Century tickertape parade down Broadway. Reputedly, a slave would stand behind the hero and whisper in his ear deflating words about how the general was only mortal and shouldn’t let this go to his head.

A papal coronation continues in the same vein. Wikipedia reports:

Traditionally, Papal coronations are thrice interrupted by a monk (some say barefoot) holding a pole to which is affixed a burning piece of flax. After it finishes burning, the monk announces, “Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi.” This is meant to remind the Pope that, despite the grandeur of the ceremony and the long history of the office, he is a mortal man.

We need similar ceremonies here in America. For about a quarter of a century, America had been on a winning streak and we, the luckiest people in the history of the world, came to believe that our good fortune was our birthright; indeed, that it wasn’t luck at all, it was our moral due, so ordinary rules of prudence didn’t apply to us.

We see examples of hubris everywhere: Bush and Iraq, Americans treating their homes like lottery tickets, financial institutions thinking they can permanently outsmart the risk-reward tradeoff, Spitzer and his whores, Obama and his minister, the list goes on and on. We can get away with anything.

For a long-term perspective, there’s alway Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings.

A drunk-driving illegal alien caused the death of a young American last August, and pleaded guilty on Monday in a weak plea arrangement. High school senior Paul Watry (shown at right) was killed in a crash in Lima, Wisconsin. He was a passenger in a car smashed by a stop-sign-running foreigner and died after two days in the hospital.

Paul Watry was a 17-year-old honors student at Port Washington High School, where he participated in the jazz band and theater productions. He also played guitar in a band he organized and planned to major in business at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater.

The killer, Mexican Eddie Carbajal-Lile had reportedly consumed 5-6 beers before driving and had numerous aliases. He looked rather cheerful in his booking photo, despite being charged with felony counts of homicide by negligent operation of a motor vehicle among other offenses.

However, the plea to which the killer agreed may result in only 10 years in prison. That’s not enough time for snuffing out the life of an innocent teenager with his whole life ahead.

Eddie Carbajal-Lile, 27, accepted a plea deal that could put him behind bars for more than 20 years, though the prosecution will recommend 10 years in prison under the terms of the agreement.

According to a criminal complaint, Carbajal-Lile ran a stop sign at county Highway V and state Highway 32 and struck a car with three teenagers inside Aug. 14, injuring two and killing Paul B. Watry, 17. Carbajal-Lile fled the scene on foot and was captured two weeks later in Ohio, authorities said.

“We could get more or even less from the judge, but I think the 10 years is fairly consistent with (fatal hit-and-run crashes) we’ve had in the past,” said Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco. “It’s not intentional, it’s negligent.”
[Illegal immigrant is guilty in fatal crash, Sheboygan Press, March 25, 2008]

What’s wrong with the District Attorney, taking the side of the killer? The plea agreement is far too soft for the terrible crime. (Contact information here for the DA.)

The greatest service to justice, however, would be for the nation to end the immigration anarchy that continues to kill innocent Americans.

Apparently one conservative university student, and one Minuteman volunteer claimed falsely to be the victim of  hate crimes. David Horowitz, who has had at least one friend murdered by the Black Panthers, who was forced to buy a gun for self-defense years ago when he changed from leftist to Republican, and who has to have massive security everywhere he lectures to protect him from violent leftist protesters, thought this credible. The SPLC’s conclusion–the “Far Right”–Horowitz isn’t really a member of the “Far Right” by any sane definition–should be embarrassed.

SPLCenter.org: Extremist Propaganda
Fake ‘Hate’ Crimes Embarrass Far Right

Several prominent right-wing commentators and anti-immigration leaders were humiliated last December after they rushed to judgment in a pair of unrelated but equally bizarre cases in which conservative activists filed bogus police reports claiming to be victims of violent crimes.

The first began when Princeton University student and anti-gay activist Francisco Nava, 23, showed up at a campus health center with a swollen jaw, bloody mouth and facial lacerations. Nava told police that two masked men had attacked him, repeatedly slamming his head against a brick wall while shouting at him to “shut the fuck up.” Nava further claimed that he’d been receiving death threats since the previous October, when he published a column in the student-run Daily Princetonian that criticized the free distribution of condoms on campus.[More]

But when is the SPLC going to be embarrassed? Fake hate crimes against minorities, women, and gays, are common, and provoke massive candlelight vigils on campus before they’re found out. Nava was questioned closely by police, who were able to quickly determine he was lying. That doesn’t happen so quickly when a member of a protected minority claims to have been attacked.

Real hate crimes, usually involving white victims and minority attackers, including rape, torture, murder, and even mass shootings, are either sent down the memory hole, or reframed as the result of white oppression.

And the SPLC supports all that, and has for years. When are they going to be embarrassed?