Here, I’m using Rachel Maddow’s very public rant about immigration as an illustration of how injecting racism into everything is bad for our country. Last week in considering immigration, Rachel Maddow stated that “the arguments against are really racist arguments.”
Not alone, Ms. Maddow represents some of the worst trends in this country in discussions of immigration reform, and other reforms, including Obamacare that have hijacked the language of ethics and morality in order to justify political and legal actions that simply put may not be supported by the country and its citizens.
Where is the intelligence in alleging that because most of the lawbreakers in the immigration issue in Ms. Maddow’s opinion, and perhaps factually, are Mexican, which is not a race but a nationality that a law that penalizes lawbreakers is racist, or that not passing a law to protect illegals is racist?
Is Ms. Maddow trying to be provocative by alleging racism? Where was her outrage when our young people who are facing double-digit unemployment were subjected to the President’s ill-thought out executive order that granted amnesty to illegals, arguably mostly Hispanic young adults that wiped out their law-breaking records (illegals not only here illegally, but with false ID, driving without licenses, being paid off the books, a whole host of behaviors for which citizens are disciplined) and leveled the competitive playing field with our young, unemployed citizens by defining them as citizens for the purposes of school and employment?
In Obamacare, I don’t recall Ms. Maddow alleging discrimination of any kind, whether by race, or age, or other protected class when it came to the change in policy that will now burden young people with higher insurance premiums because the formula that permitted insurance companies to charge based on a 5 to 1 ratio, charging old people as much as five times more for insurance as young people based not on their age but the fact that in general they get sick more often, is now changed to a 3 to one ratio by the PPACA. The money insurers won’t get from older people, they’ll distribute impacting younger (males) the most in terms of a financial hit.
Could it be that in the case of Obamacare codifying and legalizing the traditional imposition of higher insurance premiums on the old (insurers can charge as much as three times more to old folks) that Ms. Maddow, the champion of non-discrimination didn’t view the imposition of higher insurance rates based on age as discriminatory, in spite of the fact that older people are the ones charged more, because the fact is that many older people do need more and more expensive care than younger people?
Well, has anyone asked Ms. Maddow how a law that will impact more illegal Mexicans than other nationals, because statistically there are more illegals from Mexico than elsewhere is any different?
It is alleged here that straining and reaching among the few hostile elements of our society to FIND racism or sexism, or ageism serves nothing except to insert racisim into everything, ultimately creating a sharp divide among the races and doing little for addressing pressing issues in our country. The conversation is dumbed down when anything that includes a benefit or cost to anyone of a particular race is suddenly viewed as racist.
The argument is usually avoided by elitists like Ms. Maddow who frequently support laws that negatively impact one group but are seemingly designed to improve the lot of some other group. For instance, you didn’t hear Ms. Maddow object to the essential health benefits, which we’re all paying for as insurance companies spread out the costs among everyone, that are skewed in favor of women’s screenings over men’s. Suddenly silent, Ms. Maddow?
We didn’t hear any allegations of racism on June 26, 2013, in response to an article entitled “Administration Renews Commitment to American Indians and Alaska Natives,” where you’ll read about how the individual mandate tax does not apply to certain “American Indians and Alaska Natives.” Suddenly silent Ms. Maddow?
I don’t recall any outrage expressed against Obamacare for discriminating against families by neglecting to include a limitation on employee premium increases that covered employee family members on their insurance, an instance that has already occurred where now a breadwinner and his family can no longer afford the same insurance coverage. Suddenly silent Ms. Maddow?
An intelligent dialogue about immigration reform that excludes addressing the essential fact that illegal immigrants are here illegally, is doomed to favor those who broke the law to get here over all others, of every race, who have lived in this country or hope to live in this country as citizens.
Finally, it is argued here that the too-easy application and allegation of racism belittles the issues of racism and inures the public from experiencing outrage and responding to real issues of racism, or sexism, or ageism.
Obviously Rachel Maddow is not alone in her approach. This is my response to her use of the bully-pulpit to, in my opinion, presume that anyone who is for different policies from hers is somehow less moral or ethical. It’s nonsense.
