Okay, I’m really sick of the whole “we need immigration reform” debate. Not that I think we don’t need immigration reform, because we do. But not reform in the way the progressives (and some on the Right) are suggesting. Instead, I think we need more stringent reforms on illegal immigration.
But immigration reform is not what I want to write about today. What I want to write about is deflection.
Any time there’s a new story that an illegal immigrant killed someone, no one wants to discuss how that someone would still be alive if the current laws were strictly enforced. Talking about waving a magic wand and making all illegals legal won’t fix the problem. And saying that the criminal should have had easier access to become a legal citizen does not help make the point. The bad dudes are still going to do the bad things. This is not to say that all wannabe citizens are bad, but part of the reason it’s not super-easy to become an American is because the process helps weed out the bad ones.
Deflect. This is what the Left does very well, and the Right just lets them do it.
Another popular deflection tactic by the Left is to scream “RACIST!” Because clearly if you want laws to be enforced, if you don’t want criminals invading your country, you’re a racist hater. And the Right allows the accusation to stand. People are so afraid of being thought of as racist, even when their argument has nothing to do with race, that they back off rather than stand up and talk facts. Facts that have nothing to do with color.
But the best deflection the Left uses, in my opinion, is when they take words and make word salad out of them by changing the definition of the words. They attach a negative emotion to a word and then effectively make that word off-limits, politically incorrect, and people on the Right let them. A perfect example, and one that ticked me off and prompted this deflection rant, is an older story I came across while researching something else:
(CNSNews.com) – In emotional testimony before a House joint panel this week, a Virginia man recalled the death of his teenage daughter in 2007 – a death caused by an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk and who had been arrested twice before the crime, but was not deported.
“Two years ago this week, my 16-year-old daughter, Tessa, and her best friend Allison were killed as they were sitting at in intersection waiting for a red light to change,” Ray Tranchant said, as friends placed a photograph of Tessa Tranchant on an easel behind him.
Since his daughter’s death, Tranchant, a professor from Virginia Beach, has become an advocate for the enforcement of immigration law.
On Thursday, as Tranchant applauded local law enforcement in Virginia for its increased efforts to work with federal immigration authorities since his daughter’s death, he referred to individuals listed on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s database of illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds as “banditos.”
That comment drew a rebuff from Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.).
“Mr. Tranchant, can I share with you as the father of two daughters, I thank you for bringing your testimony here, but I suggest to you that if we refer to people as banditos, as you referred to them in your testimony, it does not help to solve the problem,” Gutierrez said.
Instead of listening to the man and showing some compassion for a father who lost his daughter, Mr. Gutierrez chose to chastise Mr. Tranchant for his use of the word “banditos,” a factually correct word, since the definition of bandito is “an outlaw especially of Mexican extraction or origin.”
And as if the chastisement of a grieving father over his perfectly valid word usage wasn’t enough insult, Gutierrez then switched to telling Mr. Tranchant and the Congressional committee members who said that existing laws needed to be enforced that they were missing the point. His point. His point was that enforcing the laws is a way to “target and to victimize and to scapegoat a community of people,” he said.
The third insult came with this statement by Gutierrez: “It makes for great political points but it doesn’t solve the problem and would not have saved your daughter’s life.”
It seems Congressman Gutierrez believes that if the illegal immigrant who killed Mr. Tranchant’s daughter had been deported after one of his previous arrests, he still would have been able to get drunk and drive in Virginia, thereby still killing Tessa Tranchant.
Just last month, Rep. Gutierrez deflected again. At another committee hearing, Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies had given testimony to the threat posed by having sanctuary cities in which she explained that a friend of hers had been carjacked and raped by an illegal immigrant. Several times, she referenced an interview Gutierrez had with Telemundo where he called the killing of Kate Steinle “a little thing.”
Gutierrez did not like Vaughan repeating his words. In his response to her testimony, he invoked his two daughters to address Steinle’s family, just like he did with Mr. Tranchant in 2009. Gutierrez then berated Vaughan, turning her testimony about sanctuary cities into being about her besmirching his reputation and exploiting Steinle’s death for Vaughan’s own gain.
Deflection. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the Right allowing these straw man arguments. I’m sick of the Right allowing the conversations to be steered by these false narratives.
