James Frank Solís: When you can’t refute your opponent…

16 June 2006

When you can’t refute your opponent…

6:32 AM

You do what Josh Gryniewicz does, in typical leftist fashion. You call him names and mis-characterize his position, and engage in guilt-by-association rhetoric. Gryniewicz’s summation of the Minuteman Project is that it is a group of anti-immigrant racists. He writes: "The far right is trying to make a comeback, and it is using anti-immigrant hate as its wedge issue. As the narrow debate about federal immigration policy continues among politicians, the racist vigilantes of the Minuteman Project have become accepted as a legitimate voice in mainstream politics. These bigots and their less "respectable" far-right allies like the Ku Klux Klan and other neo-Nazi and white supremacist are making the most of it" (italics mine).

You see? People who oppose what is clearly Gryniewicz’s position on illegal immigration are not simply wrong. No, his opponents are racists. His opponents are not simply wrong about open borders, or limits on immigration. No, his opponents are simply anti-immigrant bigots. His opponent just doesn’t like immigrants, even if at least one of his opponents (e.g., The Dragon Master Gunner) is married to an immigrant.

And, of course there is the obligatory guilt-by-association. The Minutemen are deserving of being called racist because Gryniewicz is able to list some racists who also oppose illegal (and probably legal) immigration. The logic is simple: If the Minutemen oppose immigration, and these racists also oppose immigration, then the Minutemen are racists. Observe: "In a recent Time magazine article, Mike Martin, a member of western Ohio’s National Socialist Movement…bragged about harassing day laborers and disrupting a May 1 pro-immigrant rally in Dayton. ‘After the rally, the Klan called us,’ Martin said. ‘Now we’ve started working together more often.’" On Gryniewicz’s view, this is all that is needed to convict the Minutemen of being racists.

And don’t think you can get yourself out of Gryniewicz’s scope by pointing out that you oppose only illegal immigration. Gryniewicz has an expert who knows more about you than you do and will testify to the contrary. " ‘People talk about immigration as if race doesn’t matter, saying "No, I don’t have anything against immigrants or Mexicans, it’s just the illegal part of it I don’t like," ’ Gonzalo Santos, a sociology professor...told the Associated press. ‘But those are code words.’ " There you have it. Your talk of illegal immigration is just a code word to disguise your racism. Professor Santos doesn’t even have to know you. You could be a white guy married to a latina, and it wouldn’t matter. Santos knows that you are simply using code words. (And he probably pities your latina wife for not having figured that out by now.)

Neither will it work if you tell Gryniewicz that you yourself are a hispanic who opposes illegal immigration. You see, he has another expert who will tell you that you are being co-opted by these racist bigots. You are that "exceptional" hispanic that these bigots use to legitimize their movement. Because you are an exception, you don’t count as evidence that the Minutemen are not racists. The majority of hispanics are not with you. See how it works? Of course, what Gryniewicz and his logic-refusing socialist ilk don’t know is that actually you are what logicians (i.e., people who know more about logic than Gryniewicz) call a counter-example. And a counter-example defeats the sort of argument (a "universal affirmative") that Gryniewicz is trying to make. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he doesn’t know that. Shhh. Don’t tell him. Now that I’ve discovered him (thank you, Debbie) I hope to have him entertain me again.

H/T: Debbie Hamilton for the link to Gryniewicz’s socialist screed.

When you can’t refute your opponent…

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