There Ought To Be A Law!

The NY Times reports good news about immigration and manages to conflate it to their own editorial ends:

In 14 of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, including Boston, New York and San Francisco, more immigrants are employed in white-collar occupations than in lower-wage work like construction, manufacturing or cleaning.

The data belie a common perception in the nation’s hard-fought debate over immigration — articulated by lawmakers, pundits and advocates on all sides of the issue — that the surge in immigration in the last two decades has overwhelmed the United States with low-wage foreign laborers.

Really?  My impression is that people calling for tighter control of our borders are worried about a surge in illegal immigration.  Conflating that with legal immigration, including the H1B visa program, is absurd.

Doc Drezner summarizes the study.

Hainmueller and Hiscox are arguing that material self-interest does not explain attitudes about immigration.  The findings suggest one of two possibilities:  simple prejudice, or concerns that low-skilled immigration negatively affect overall U.S. welfare. 

And from the Times:

Americans are inclined to welcome upper-tier immigrants — like Ms. Kollman-Moore — believing they contribute to economic growth without burdening public services, the study found. More than 60 percent of Americans are opposed to allowing more low-skilled foreign laborers, regarding them as more likely to be a drag on the economy.

Comments

[Clarice]

We conflate, you decide?

In any event with college grads and middle manager types finding themselves unemployed, you can bet that the pressure to reduce the visas for highly skilled workers will increase.

[Danube of Thought]

believing they contribute to economic growth without burdening public services

Well...yeah. Is that too much to ask?

[Gmax]

Well if there is an open border there is no difference between the two types of immigration, well other than the crime, and driving with insurance and burden on the education system and hospital system I mean.

[Frau Ein- und Auswanderung]

Right, Gmax. That's why newcomers, legal or not, are all now simply called immigrants. It makes it easier and saves ink.
Recently I saw that an arrested criminal was called an entrepreneur by his family.

[Ignatz]

--The data belie a common perception in the nation’s hard-fought debate over immigration — articulated by lawmakers, pundits and advocates on all sides of the issue — that the surge in immigration in the last two decades has overwhelmed the United States with low-wage foreign laborers.--

It is hard to imagine the intellectual torpor required to write a sentence that stupid.
I predict a parabolic career for Ms Preston at Pinch's Times.

[anduril]

It seems there's a renewal of media attention with regard to sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Here are a selection of links that will hopefully be informative and, in one case, maybe even a bit entertaining:

How to Save the Catholic Church

What Went Wrong?

Cardinal Bertone correct in linking clerical sex abuse and homosexuality, says psychiatrist

Should gay priests adopt?

[Neo]

Julia Preston needs to find some friends in Texas or Kansas prairie land.
Her metro-partisan viewpoint is truly stunted.

[Boatbuilder]

Ignatz--That sentence is not the product of intellectual torpor. It, like the rest of the article, is very carefully and knowingly crafted to misrepresent the issues, facts and concerns involved to support the editorial position of the Times and the liberal preconceptions of its readers.

You are absolutely correct about her future career path at the Times, however.

[nathan hale]

It's kind of the text book reason, why Ingraham coined 'the but monkey' to refer
to statements, that are internally contradictory

[Extraneus]

This is just code to their acolytes. Everyone reading this knows it's a lame attempt at slight of hand, but since it's the NYT (!), it signals the faithful that it's ok -- and correct -- to do the same.

[Strawman Cometh]

OT, but I started a lyric for daddy and the Euro-stuck:
♫ Take the train to Spain, ♫
♫ and then get on the Plane. ♪

[Pagar]

There is a law --it's called Obamacare.

It causes DemCare's Secret $1.62 Trillion Immigration Time-Bomb

As for the H1B Visa Program, it should be suspended until unemployment is reduced to the 5 % level. It becomes harder and harder to believe that most positions filled by H1B Visa holders could not be filled by Americans.

[Jen]

I can't believe what a third world shit hole the formerly united states has become. What are we united as? Multiculturalism is an oxymoron. What a mess. Doesn't anybody read Putnam or do they enjoy everybody "hunkering down" and avoiding each other?

[Clarice]

I love this from Small Dead Animals--linked by Instapundit

Cleanup on gate eleven
Sometimes the answer is right under our noses:

Here's a solution to all the controversy over full-body scanners at airports.
Have a booth that you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on you.
It would be a win-win situation for everyone and would eliminate this crap about racial profiling. This method would also obviate the need for a long and expensive trial. Justice would be swift and quick.
This elegant solution would also benefit people flying standby:

I can just see it now: You're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter, an announcement comes over the PA system, "Attention standby passengers, we now have a seat available on flight number...."
Posted by EBD at April 16, 2010 9:01 PM

[Ignatz]

--Ignatz--That sentence is not the product of intellectual torpor. It, like the rest of the article, is very carefully and knowingly crafted to misrepresent the issues, facts and concerns involved to support the editorial position of the Times and the liberal preconceptions of its readers.--

BB,
I started out thinking that as well, but she claims that all sides believe that immigration, per se, overloads us with low wage workers, so she's even attributing that to lefties who are gung ho on immigration, illegal and otherwise.

[RJ]

In 14 of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, including Boston, New York and San Francisco, more immigrants are employed in white-collar occupations than in lower-wage work like construction, manufacturing or cleaning.

That settles it. I'm getting my next accountant from that crowd of dudes hanging around outside of Home Depot.

[tommy mc donnell]

its not immigration, its colonization. to be an immigrant you have to come here according to the laws of the country. this colonization was started by the political left after carter lost the election. the left knew they could never take over the country as long as whites were a majority. they couldn't out baby the whites fast enough so they they started bringing their supporters in from abroad. its racism folks!

[Strawman Cometh]

as long as whites Americans were a majority.
FIWY

[Diondrum]

"as long as whites Americans were a majority.
FIWY"

Brilliant! So pithy that it doesn't make any sense what so ever. Bravo! It's like a Miro painting that has three lines and a dot.

[Strawman Cometh]

Di,
Have another toke.
I'll hold mine.

[anduril]

the left knew they could never take over the country as long as whites were a majority.

i think there was a bit more to it. it was a cultural thing. the left wanted to dilute the christianity of the country as well.

[Clarice]

Oh, yes, How to forget the animists and Moslems from South America.

[anduril]

Oh, yes, How to forget the animists and Moslems from South America.

Narcisolator broken?

This is bizarre. Obviously, the Moslems come from the Middle East, North Africa, and South and Central Asia, very few from South America. The animists come from Africa and parts of Asia, also from Haiti (Voodoo) and a few other places in the Western Hemisphere.

Leftists definitely support immigration from all around the world for the purpose of breaking down traditional Christian culture. American Thinker has a good article today that gives background on the theoretical underpinnings for this movement: Cultural Marxism in Education: The Gathering Revolt. The idea is that through immigration the opposition to Leftism will be less cohesive, that the culturally dominant sector of American life will be increasingly unable to assimilate and inculturate a large and increasingly diverse immigrant population into traditional anti-leftist American values.

One traditionally leftist group that has always supported immigration "reform" has been the Jewish community. Curiously, Norman Podhoretz in his latest book, Why Are Jews Liberal? sneers at opponents of reform as "nativists." However, Michael Medved, in his comments on Podhoretz's book at Commentary Magazine, addresses the explicitly anti-Christian attitudes of this influential leftist grouping:

For most American Jews, the core of their Jewish identity isn’t solidarity with Israel; it’s rejection of Christianity. This observation may help to explain the otherwise puzzling political preferences of the Jewish community explored in Norman Podhoretz’s book. Jewish voters don’t embrace candidates based on their support for the state of Israel as much as they passionately oppose candidates based on their identification with Christianity—especially the fervent evangelicalism of the dreaded “Christian Right.”

...

Anyone who doubts that rejection of Jesus has replaced acceptance of Torah (or commitment to Israel) as the eekur sach—the essential element—of American Jewish identity should pause to consider an uncomfortable question. What is the one political or religious position that makes a Jew utterly unwelcome in the organized community? We accept atheist Jews, Buddhist Jews, pro-Palestinian Jews, Communist Jews, homosexual Jews, and even sanction Hindu-Jewish meditation societies. “Jews for Jesus,” however, or “Messianic Jews” face resistance and exclusion everywhere. In Left-leaning congregations, many rabbis welcome stridently anti-Israel speakers and even Palestinian apologists for Islamo-Nazi terror. But if they invited a “Messianic Jewish” missionary, they’d face indignant denunciation from their boards and, very probably, condemnation by their national denominational leadership. It is far more acceptable in the Jewish community today to denounce Israel (or the United States), to deny the existence of God, or to deride the validity of Torah than it is to affirm Jesus as Lord and Savior.

...

The anti-Christian obsessions of American Jews lead not only to skewed perceptions of our true friends and enemies but also to anomalous definitions of “Jewish issues.” Much of the communal establishment insists, for instance, that their support of same-sex marriage and “abortion rights” expresses timeless Jewish values. Why and how? In 3,000 years of well-documented tradition prior to, say, 1970, there was not the slightest hint of any sort of endorsement of homosexual coupling. Moreover, Jewish law has always frowned upon abortion, authorizing the procedure only in extreme cases where the welfare of the mother is profoundly threatened.

...

Those who seek to liberate the bulk of American Jews from their reflexive and self-defeating liberalism must do more than show the logic of conservative thinking. They should recognize that Jews, like all Americans, vote not so much in favor of politicians they admire as they vote against causes and factions they loathe and fear. Jews fear the GOP as the “Christian party,” and as the sole basis of Jewish identity involves rejection of Christianity, Jews will continue to reject -Republicans and conservatism. Podhoretz poignantly describes the way many Jewish Americans have adopted liberalism as a substitute religion. A more positive, engaged attitude with our real religious tradition would lessen the resentment toward religious Christians and, in an era when even Albania, Moldova, and Iraq have built functioning multiparty democracies, introduce for the first time in nearly a century a true two-party system to the Jewish -community.

Strangely, Medved doesn't mention immigration as a characteristic issue for leftist/liberal Jews, but it is. Not only liberal Jews are avid supporters of liberal immigration policies, but Neocons are as well. For example, Clarice exhibits very nearly palpable hostility to any suggestion that restriction of immigration, especially from Third World areas, would be in the national security interests of America. In addition, I have personally been told by Jewish acquaintances that they view non-Christian immigration to America as "good for the Jews."

Fortunately there are Jews like Michael Medved and Dennis Prager who recognize that America's Christian character is not only not a problem for Jews but is truly "good for the Jews," and who do a wonderful job in getting this message out.