Our peculiar political class
Mark Steyn describes the strangeness of our political culture and its “sanctuary cities” in today’s dangerous world, where kids are executed on city streets:
In a New York Times report headlined “Sorrow And Anger As Newark Buries Slain Youth,” the limpidly tasteful Times prose prioritized “sorrow” over “anger,” and offered only the following reference to the perpetrators: “The authorities have said robbery appeared to be the motive. Three suspects – two 15-year-olds and a 28-year-old construction worker from Peru – have been arrested.”
So, this Peruvian guy was here on a green card? Or did he apply for a temporary construction-work visa from the U.S. Embassy in Lima? Not exactly. Jose Carranza is an “undocumented” immigrant. His criminal career did not begin with the triple murder he’s alleged to have committed, nor with the barroom assault from earlier this year, nor with the 31 counts of aggravated sexual assault relating to the rape of a 5-year-old child, for which Mr. Carranza had been released on bail. (His $50,000 bail on the assault charge and $150,000 bail on the child-rape charges have now been revoked.) No, Mr. Carranza’s criminal career in the United States began when he decided to live in this country unlawfully.
Jose Carranza isn’t exactly a member of an exclusive club. Violent crime committed by fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community is now a routine feature of American life. But who cares? In 2002, as the “Washington Sniper” piled up his body count, “experts” lined up to tell the media that he was most likely an “angry white male,” a “macho hunter” or an “icy loner.” When the icy loner turned out to be a black Muslim named Muhammad accompanied by an illegal immigrant from Jamaica, the only angry white males around were the lads in America’s newsrooms who were noticeably reluctant to abandon their thesis: Early editions of the New York Times speculated that Muhammad and John Lee Malvo were being sought for “possible ties to ‘skinhead militia’ groups”…
Three thousand people died Sept. 11, 2001, in an act of murder facilitated by the illegal immigration support structures in this country…four of the killers boarded the plane with photo ID obtained through the “undocumented worker” network at the 7-Eleven in Falls Church, Va. That’s to say, officialdom’s tolerance of the illegal immigration shadow-state enabled 9/11…19 foreign “visitors” had, between them, 63 valid U.S. driver’s licenses…
Newark is the logical end point of these policies…Newark’s official status as an illegal-immigrant “sanctuary city.” Like Los Angeles, New York and untold others, Newark has formally erased the distinction between U.S. citizens and the armies of the undocumented. This is the active collusion by multiple cities and states in the subversion of U.S. sovereignty…
Not only does the government’s inaction appear nonsensical from the standpoint of fighting crime and the threat of terrorism, the government’s inaction is unpopular as well. Rasmussen:
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters nationwide favor cutting off federal funds for “sanctuary cities” that offer protection to illegal immigrants. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 29% are opposed.
By a 71% to 16% margin, voters also favor a proposal that would require all foreign visitors to carry a universal identification card as proposed by another GOP Presidential hopeful, Rudy Giuliani. Seventy-four percent (74%) also favor the creation and funding of a central database to track all foreign visitors in the United States.
What happens when common sense and the manifest preferences of the electorate are routinely ignored by the political class? Just what we have now.