“A bad poem on an old French statue is not an immigration policy.” writes Kathy Shaidle. She’s linking to Mark Steyn and Brenda Walker on the subject of the Statue of Liberty and its famous Emma Lazarus poem. Mark Steyn was responding to something Mark Krikorian said

Much of the way we think about immigration today is shaped by the experience of Irish coming here in the mid-19th century and Jews at the turn of the 20th century. These two immigrants streams are the only major ones that bear any resemblance to the poem’s “tired,” “poor” and “huddled masses” fleeing for their lives, never to look back. For sure, the Irish and Ashkenazim have had an outsized influence on America, if no other reason than they helped shape the character of the newly industrializing cities of the East Coast, but their numbers are a small share of our nation’s historical immigration flow. And yet too many open-borders folks see in every one of today’s immigrants someone fleeing the Potato Famine or being chased out of Anatevka by the Cossacks.

This doesn’t necessarily translate to a specific policy position. You could, for instance, take from this insight the lesson that our immigration policy needs to be more like that of the Persian Gulf states, where large numbers of foreigners come and go to work but aren’t incorporated into our society (I’ve argued against that view here and elsewhere). Or you could conclude that we’ve outgrown the mass-immigration phase of our nation’s development and it’s time to move on. But in either case, we need to disenthrall ourselves from the mythology of the Mother of Exiles.

I’ve written about the Statue of Liberty here, saying

“This whole thing is very strange. Imagine a hypothetical foreign country with immigration problems explaining its policy this way: “We used to have sensible immigration laws, but someone built this damn statue.” You’d think they were mad.”

Barry Ritholtz, television commentator and Big Picture blogger, replies in the Comments, continuing our discussion on whether or not “Diversity was a major factor in the mortgage meltdown:”

We live in very different worlds.

Mine is data and numbers and statistics and facts. In the investment world, by how well your theories of what is really going translates into an investable theme; you are judged by performance, not rhetoric.

Your world is all soft theory and suppositions and squishy reasoning and hard-to-prove causation. In my world, it would be described as “not actionable in the investment realm.”

I am happy to visit, but the commute is a bitch.

Funny, though, but I’ve presented 95%+ plus of the “data and numbers and statistics and facts” in this discussion. Barry had only one set of numbers, and when I pointed out how they were too narrowly specified and we’re generally irrelevant, well, he had shot his wad in the data department and was forced first to make concessions, then to go back to this kind of innumerate bluster.

By the way, Barry, did your “investment world” do a really bang-up job of assessing the value of all those mortgages issued in, say, Riverside-San Bernardino in 2005? (Numbers that were readily downloadable from the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database by October 2006, well before the crash?) Maybe, just maybe, your peers were missing a piece of the puzzle intellectually?

(more…)

As the Rev. Ted Pike noted on Sunday in Conservatives Go After Holder the Attorney General’s catastrophic performance before the Senate Judiciary committee on June 25 has stimulated a number of important new opponents of the Hate Crime Bill to emerge, including Rush Limbaugh.

(Pike also reported late yesterday that the Hate Bill may indeed be attached to the 2010 Defense authorization bill, apparently because the Democrats are not confident they can get it throught the Senate on its own.)

Californians, however, would be well advised to listen carefully to the soliloquy at the Hearing by their Senator Feinstein (here, on right) – Minutes 50:30 -54:00.

Feinstein did not bother to ask any questions about this very dubious legislation but instead listed why she demands it:

• Washington will be able to bully the States into more aggressive prosecutorial interpretations of their own Hate Laws (which, deplorably, 45 States have). This of course renders null any assurances given about the administration of S.909 itself – many of the State laws are broader and more loosely written.

( …“this bill presents the caution to States, to Counties, to look deeply to see if a crime of violence , in fact, is motivated by hate, not to dismiss it…” Minute 51)

• Feinstein quite explicitly wants to be able to use state power to harm the holders of particular opinions, if given the opportunity because they commit a crime. At Minute 52 she launches into a ramble about a (hypothetical?) lesbian couple leaving a bar, one being followed and raped:

“This would give the Federal Government to look into this crime, to see if it is motivated by Hate”

In other words, raping a heterosexual woman would not be punished as severely as raping a lesbian, because there is a public policy interest in utilizing the latter situation to attack those hostile to homosexuals. (Otherwise, why bother? Rape is already a serious crime, even in California.)

• Feinstein is drooling to use the law to attack opponents of the destruction of America by mass immigration. In less than 3 ½ minutes she twice brought up violence committed against immigrants by those resenting their presence.

“An Asian couple, on a beach at Tahoe gets beaten up. Why? Look deeply into that.” (Minute 51:30)
“I come from a State where the immigration debate has, some of it, has been a part of Hate, and people have been beaten up because they happen to be Hispanic, they happen to be standing on a street corner where somebody doesn’t want them…” (Minute 53:15).

Of course, if the transformation of a community is annoying the natives point to the degree that violence ensues, a more rational (and democratic) course might be to stop the transformation. But Feinstein sees it as a chance to repress.

Since Attorney General Holder’s testimony, it has been on the record that this legislation is about privileging certain communities, and withholding its protection from others - such as soldiers or Christian Ministers. But carefully evaluating the comments of Senator Feinstein (and Cardin and Schumer as well) reveals that there is a group which also sees it as a chance to surreptitiously position the Federal power to opportunistically attack and differentially punish the holders of certain opinions.

With that in mind, and presuming that there is to some degree consensus amongst the state’s Democratic leaders, Californians should be deeply alarmed by remarks by Karen Bass, Speaker of the state’s Assembly. A recent interview produced this gem:

How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?

“The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair”

Madam Speaker PATT MORRISON ASKS | KAREN BASS The Los Angeles Times June 27 2009

“I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist” !!! When one of a major state’s senior office holders thinks like this, where can politicized judges and ambitious prosecutors be expected to take S.909 if passed?

A valuable account of what can happen is here.