Opinion
I’m currently reading Jeff Fynn-Paul’s excellent American history, Not Stolen: The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World. Call it a revision of revisionist history.
While not shying away from the sometimes grim truths, Fynn-Paul demolishes nearly every grievance-mongering talking-point of the left, from “genocide” to “stolen land”. Until the lamentable decades of the latter 19th century, most of North America remained in Indian hands, and what belonged to Europeans was mostly legally purchased from Indians. Massacres were rare and sporadic, and more Europeans were massacred than Indians — while both most often co-existed in peace for generations at a time. Even such enormities as the Trail of Tears were subjects of furious controversy even in their own time.
So, how did this idee fixee of Europeans as genocidal maniacs who waded in a tide of blood from 1492 onward come to cement itself in popular discourse?
Time and time again, Fynn-Paul shows how such claims are the brainchildren of a mere one or two crank “scholars”, usually Communications or Literature academics working well outside their own field of expertise and peddling crackpot nonsense. But crackpot nonsense is crack for the left, so, over the objections of serious historians, the ranting loonies are amplified and re-stated, until utter nonsense becomes “fact”.
Another nostrum that has become “fact” merely by dint of repetition is “low immigrant crime”.
With the Biden administration hauling in millions of “newcomers” (the latest euphemism for illegal aliens) from booming economies like Venezuela, Senegal and Haiti, we seem to be getting a Kate Steinle every day.
Among the recent atrocities committed by Our Greatest Strength is the savage murder of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley by Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan illegal alien released into our country by the Biden administration. The “newcomer” beat Riley so badly that he disfigured her skull.
You just know what the media-left response to this will be: “studies prove low immigrant crime!” OK, which studies? As it turns out, the “studies” are the diligent work of just one guy — a guy with a raging boner for open borders.
The one-man factory producing these studies is Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato Institute. (Take our country, just don’t raise taxes.) He fudges the data, slaps a false title on his report, and journalists copy his work like they’re Claudine Gay writing a thesis.
Remember the “study” that “proved” that “right-wingers are a bigger terror threat than Muslims”? It was garbage, almost immediately debunked. Among its more obvious fudges, it left out 9/11, counted only Muslim attacks on the American mainland, thus excluded hundreds of attacks against Americans overseas, and counted any violent crime committed by anyone even suspected of right-leanings as “right-wing terror”. But it told lazy, mendacious MSM journalists exactly what they wanted to hear, so they megaphoned it into conventional wisdom.
Ditto, “low immigrant crime”.
Thus, in its story on the murder of Riley, The New York Times cited “studies” showing “no causal connection” between immigrants and crime. Indeed, the Times said, studies “have concluded” that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.
The article links to 1) Nowrasteh’s sham study and 2) a 2017 Times story that cites Nowrasteh’s sham study.
That same day, the Times‘ Angelo Fichera ran a “fact check” on Donald Trump’s claim that “the United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime. It’s a new form of vicious violation to our country.”
Fichera’s ruling: “This lacks evidence.”
His proof:
“One recently updated analysis by Alex Nowrasteh.”
And so it goes, ad bloody nauseam.
Nowratesh claimed to find that “the homicide conviction rate for illegal immigrants in Texas in 2015 was slightly lower than the rate among U.S. citizens”. The problem is that he’s fudging the data with his definitions, every bit as much as the “right-wing terror threat” “study”.
Needless to say, his study is not merely off by a homicidal illegal or two. He — and others like him — aren’t even comparing illegal aliens to citizens. They’re comparing illegal aliens to a group that includes both illegal aliens and citizens.
As I pointed out in “Adios, America!” (and apparently will have to keep pointing out for the rest of my life): Texas’ crime data only counts illegal aliens who have already been caught and fingerprinted by the Department of Homeland Security.
You don’t need to be Einstein to realise that leaves out a whole lotta illegals.
How about we only count the murder convictions of citizens who’ve previously been fingerprinted by the Denver police? Why would we do that?
Obviously, a lot of the inmates originally classified as “other/unknown” will later turn out to be illegals. But all these Nowrasteh counts as “citizens.” He had his headline, so why bother updating the data?
Why not count the number of illegals in Texan prisons for murder? Because it would blow the “low immigrant crime” claim out of the water. Illegals by that count, commit 30% more murders than US citizens. Nowhere near “slightly lower”.
Bad logic also rules supreme in “low immigrant crime” claims.
The national crime rate declined since 1980, even as illegals poured in. Therefore, illegals cause crime rates to drop.
Cities with lots of illegals have low crime rates. Therefore, illegals are law-abiding.
If that sounds logical to you, consider this argument with exactly the same logical structure:
One September day, New York City was 65 degrees, the skies crystal clear, and 3,000 people were murdered. Therefore, cool, clear days cause mass murder.
Takimag
Actually, don’t even suggest that one to the left-media. They’ll grasp at anything to try and argue that Islam wasn’t to blame.