November 23, 2015

"The number of Facebook posts I've seen like this... has me concerned for this country's educational system."

Says John, showing this:



Which way is that argument supposed to cut?

68 comments:

Magson said...

I've seen quite a few like this too, posted by people who want to argue that we should allow all the Syrians in.

One even mentioned that she knew it ended up "badly for those receiving the refugees" but still thought it should be done.

Nevermind that for over 100 years the Indians actually kept people from settling until the plagues started. The Pilgrims literally moved into the houses of those who'd just died of plague and were only allowed to settle so as to be an army vs the inland tribes who'd not yet been plague-ridden. So.... refugees, brought in to be an army, and eventually those already there were 92-97% wiped out, depending on which research paper/estimate you're using...... and they think this is an argument FOR allowing the refugees in?

AllenS said...

Let the Indians tell you about unrestricted immigration.

BAS said...

That we should not let migrants in?
If the Indians knew then what they know now, shouldn't they have scalped everyone?

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Disregarding the overlaid written "message," there are so many historical inaccuracies in the picture. Yes, it does give grave doubts about our educational system.

JAORE said...

Logic is not a strong suit of those that post this image. Hmmmm ..... wonder where they (largely) fall on the political spectrum?

Bob Boyd said...

"Alls I said was 'Put a fish in your corn hole.' I mean....how was I supposed to know?"
- Unknown Native American

Henry said...

This has come up before. The argument pretends to be an analogy, but it really isn't. It is, instead, an attack on standing. It works like this: Because European colonists were immigrants, their descendants have no standing to criticize immigration policy. The eventual destruction of Native American cultures by European colonists is common knowledge and thus serves as ironical reinforcement for the attack.

Put simply, the literal analogy suggests "be grateful that your ancestors were allowed in" but the visceral meaning is "you have no standing to complain, so shut up."

Hagar said...

The "Syrian" refugees in question would be coming from U.N. refugee camps, where they would have been held for some time and fillig out papers, etc. for "screening." It does not matter so much how good the screening is; that there is screening at all and it takes time and effort is enough to make most baddies "self-screen," since for them it would be easier to get fake documents. Or they can go to Mexico or Canada and walk in from there, considering what the Obama administration has done to our land border security.

This is a fake uproar; people are upset, and rigtfully so, but do not know exactly how to express it, so they throw a fit about something.

Bob Ellison said...

I'm a native American adult who is still angry that the political class of Amerindians has more rights than I and my sons have. I grew up in Arizona, where Amerindians have lots of land, lots of special rights, and lots of sovereignty, and as a group, they shit all over their special things. We public-school white kids were force-fed the great native American history that really wasn't great.

And stop it with the European culture replaced Amerindian culture. There are blue coyotes howling at the stars all over Scottsdale. Boo hoo.

phantommut said...

The actual message is "Be naive, kindhearted, welcoming sap and have your culture obliterated by a ruthless, puritanical, invading culture."

The problem is this is a mutation of the original meme trotted out, which was the "Baby Jesus was a refugee; you hillbillies would turn back baby Jesus" family of images and slogans trotted out by the anti-Conservative Good Folk of the Internet.

Because accusing the Right Wing Religious Wingnuts of hypocrisy is an itch that just can't be scratched enough.

At some point some hipster with an ironically poor grasp of irony made the connection of religious (nay,puritanical) immigrants who happened to be white being welcomed in the New World by Rousseau's (he was French, you know) Noble Savages and thought that was just a delicious sauce to add to the ridicule stew.

If that seems muddled it is, but the thing is, these memes aren't about changing minds, they are about signalling that you belong to the Correct Tribe. Once enough of the tribe starts chanting something, no matter how stupid it is, the rest of the tribe feels like they need to chime in just so the rest of the tribe knows that they're all on the same page.

Let's face it, at this point in time our "culture" is a cargo cult worshiping the wreckage of the Enlightenment. And it could very well get worse.

MAJMike said...

That Thanksgiving graphic should serve as a lesson as to what happens when a nation loses control of it's borders. Texas in 1836 is also a good lesson in failed border control. Santa Anna was merely attempting to enforce Mexican law and began the process by which Mexico lost about 50% of it's national territory by the 1850's to an unchecked invasion by illegal aliens.

Sebastian said...

"Which way is that argument supposed to cut?"

Faux question, right?

It's supposed to cut against Americans, particularly conservative patriotic Americans who like their country fine as is (or was, until recently).

Prog logic goes like this: because you immigrated to destroy one culture, you must now let in others to destroy yours.

Brando said...

If you favor letting more Syrians in and you want to convince anyone, you don't try and shame them--all the "baby Jesus" and "Indians!" memes aren't going to move someone who is afraid terrorists are going to try and infiltrate the refugees. Instead, explain why terrorists wouldn't be coming via refugee camps because the screening is severe, and why that risk is overblown.

But then, this isn't really about convincing anyone--social media is never really about that. Instead, it's about signaling to your friends that you have the right opinions, that you're on the right side, and you can sneer and troll the opposition.

Henry said...

To expand on my earlier comment, the subtext for these agitprop images is not history, it's identity politics. It's very similar to the Yoga story actually. Once you define your ideological opponents as the inheritors of "colonialism and western supremacy" (to borrow a phrase), you have no need to respect their viewpoint. The logic that John brings to bear on the purported analogy is just one more example of colonial supremacy, and thus, invalid.

traditionalguy said...

Obviously a religious test of faith was the essence of Bradford's Pilgrim family' s survival of harvests.

The Indian gods did not help them.Read his eyewitness account in Of Plymouth Plantation

And the Syrian Christians are welcome to the feast. Just leave the Murderers of Christians in Syria.

Renee said...

Clueless about the King Phillip's War??? Warring tribes couldn't unite against colonists. Colonists used their guerilla tactics against them.

From my understanding, the tribes were recently decimated by illness prior to yhe Pilgrims. The Pilgrims would have been slaughtered, if the tribes were healthy to do so.

Laslo Spatula said...

This Thanksgiving just be thankful that Charlie Sheen wasn't sucking YOUR cock..

Gobble Gobble.

I am Laslo.

TreeJoe said...

Because all political arguments nowadays boil down to either "You are for this" or "You are against this"...

There is no room in acceptable dialogue for the middle ground; the, "I am for this so as long as we do xyz" argument. Nope, that means you took a side.

This applies to both extremes: the far left wants to argue as if they want unrestricted immigration, even though they are for common sense restrictions. The far right wants to wall off the country and, if a refugee crisis gets worse from people stranded, well that's not our problem.

Our country gets stronger for steady, well assimilated immigration. Unfortunately, over the last several decades we have had some significant breakdowns in assimilation. We are weaker for it - both in our own country and in our ability to absorb large amounts of others.

JAORE said...

"This Thanksgiving just be thankful that Charlie Sheen wasn't sucking YOUR cock.."

Sure.... but it's pretty far down the list.

Hagar said...

The Obama administration will be quite happy to have a futile argument about a few tens of thousands Middle East refugees that, under this program, could only come here in government supervised planeloads or shiploads, while millions of "undocumented Democrats" walk unhindered in over our southern border.

The "Syrians" cannot walk into this country like they do in Europe, though that is the filmclips the MSM choose to accompany their reporting on this issue.
Speaking of those clips, looking at them, it does not look like these are the "poor and unfortunate," but more those with a little more "get up and go" that the Middle Eastern countries badly need to keep at home, if they wish to ever get out of "the poorest countries in the world" category.

It is like after Viet Nam; those who left - for the U.S. or elsewhere - were not the die-hard Vietcong.

mccullough said...

Irony is not a synonym for hypocrisy

Unknown said...

All I know about history was learned while making a "hand Turkey" in kindergarten...

The Godfather said...

Speaking of refugee screening, here's a State Department briefing for the press a few days ago:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2015/11/249613.htm

It doesn't make me feel a lot safer.

Fabi said...

The Indians had a formalized and sovereign nation with borders, as well as written and enforced immigration laws? Who knew!

Anonymous said...

phantommut: At some point some hipster with an ironically poor grasp of irony...

Is there any other kind?

Hilariously inapt analogies, snarkily delivered, are as close as a Facebook emoter ever gets to higher-order thinking.

Shame that output of "prestige" press pundits are becoming indistinguishable from that of social-media feel-mongers.

If that seems muddled it is, but the thing is, these memes aren't about changing minds, they are about signalling that you belong to the Correct Tribe. Once enough of the tribe starts chanting something, no matter how stupid it is, the rest of the tribe feels like they need to chime in just so the rest of the tribe knows that they're all on the same page.

That's why the right's continuing to argue with them as if they were amenable to reason, or attempting to defend themselves against the left's accusations, is so foolish. The left went into "never apologize, never explain/MUH FEELS!" mode a long time ago. (Toward the opposition, that is. Haven't quite got the hang of "never apologize" toward internal opposition, hahaha. But conservatives desperately need to adopt the "stop fucking apologizing" part of the strategy.)

Let's face it, at this point in time our "culture" is a cargo cult worshiping the wreckage of the Enlightenment. And it could very well get worse.

Nicely put. And yeah, it's gonna get worse.

Levi Starks said...

Some small irony that America as it exists today as a desired location for refugees is because it was subjugated by Christians many centuries ago. And where are the refugees arriving from? Nations that were subjugated my Muslims nearly a thousand years prior to that.

Curious George said...

"...a picture of Native Americans..."

Native Americans? Bullshit. They were no more native than the Europeans. They just migrated earlier. From Asia.

Fernandinande said...

Hmmm, nice fresh dog meat.

Curious George said...
They just migrated earlier. From Asia.


And apparently from the S. Pacific

rcocean said...

Yeah,the Indians helped out the migrants. They had a policy of open borders.

How'd that work out for them?

Oh, my God, the irony.

Anonymous said...

The Indians are still kicking themselves for aiding and abetting the migrants.

Calling Red Skins Native Americans is as silly as calling them Indians, is more repulsive than calling them Red Skins.

There was no America when they first arrived. America was named by a white man who has never left his own Italian hometown. A white men's construct. A name for white colonists, white slave holders...

Now, who should name this land of the Red Skins?

cubanbob said...

These refugees are not coming directly from Syria. They are coming from Turkey. Turkey is a Muslim country and is sufficiently large to take in it's former Imperial subjects. Other than the Christians from Syria there is no reason to do for the Muslims what the Muslims won't do for their own.

traditionalguy said...

The Pilgrims had peace treaty with the Indian tribal Chief. The problem that arose was that the the Indians grew corn and the Pilgrims raised free range cattle that ate the Indian's corn. The Indians would kill the trespassing cows and the Pilgrims would kill the Indians and the Indians would gather together and attack the Pilgrims who would gather together and attack the Indians.

The winner was the one who had the most people living at the end of the year.

walter said...

"Let the Indians tell you about unrestricted immigration."

and ambiguous borders..

Ahmad Al Mohammad, 25, who blew himself up, may have entered Europe as part of the migration of refugees from war-torn Syria. He was born in Idlib, Syria, and had been issued a Syrian emergency passport after landing on the Greek island of Leros, according to CNN.

We'll see on this one. But do we know about the family origins of the others?


Regarding Obama's firm stance:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/18/the-obama-administration-stopped-processing-iraq-refugee-requests-for-6-months-in-2011/


By the way, courtesy the trotted out Obama sub, Sloe-Joe:

"Let’s also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help.
To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists’ hands."

1) "Vast" majority?
2) "say there is no way you can ever get here"? Pause = never?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

That's why the right's continuing to argue with them as if they were amenable to reason, or attempting to defend themselves against the left's accusations, is so foolish.

Exactly. The response to emotional rhetoric isn't carefully reasoned dialectic. In most cases the best response to emotional rhetoric is "bugger off."

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

The Indigians had no laws to obey or break. Where were they written?

Rusty said...

Curious George said...
"...a picture of Native Americans..."

Native Americans? Bullshit. They were no more native than the Europeans. They just migrated earlier. From Asia.


You don't honestly think the Inuit chose to live in the Arctic, do you?


They were joyously invading, killing and exiling their neighbors before the white man showed up.

Pettifogger said...

Re 1836 Texas, a mostly fair point though some of the gringo immigrants were legal under Mexican law. That brings up the issue of assimilation. Mexico moved in the direction of requiring assimilation (it required immigrants to convert to Catholicism), but the effort was inadequate.

The melting pot is what let this country survive heavy immigration, but the clerisy now works hard to frustrate the melting pot and promote instead a cultural mozaic. Many Muslim immigrants, by all appearances, come not with the intent to assimilate but to set up a parallel culture. That way lies disaster.

Virgil Hilts said...

I kind of like the idea (implicitly suggested by Bob Ellison) of putting the Syrians on the reservations. I can imagine the protest song:

They took the whole Syrian nation
Put us on this reservation
Took away our Sharia life
Can’t shoot gays or beat my wife
Took away our Arabic tongue
And taught new wave feminism to our young
And all the IEDs we made by hand. . .

You get the idea. I don't have time to finish it.

Etienne said...

Using the Pilgrims to promote your cause is racist.

Just how many Native Savages died in the face of unchecked migration?

(as I sit back and watch the internet melt)...

dbp said...

It is all about virtue signaling: Obama wants to be seen as the enlightened good guy for letting in 10,000 refugees--never mind that his inaction is the cause of the refugee crisis in the first place. Other leftists want to convince each other that conservatives are hypocrites, for reasons that don't stand up to much (if any) scrutiny.

walter said...

Also..note the lumping together of "refugee/migrant". From a humanitarian perspective, very different categories.

exhelodrvr1 said...

DO you trust this administration to adequately screen them? Don't see how that can honestly be answered yes.

robother said...

No doubt the tribal elites took the long view of the positive economic effects of European immigrants: in another 15 generations these will be the whales (the great white whales?) coming into to drop their children's college money in our casinos. So, its all good.

DavidD said...

Imagine that instead of ever helping European settlers the native tribes had always tried to kill them instead.

How long do you think it would've been before England--or Spain in the southern part of the continent--had mounted an amphibious invasion in force à la D-Day?

Lauderdale Vet said...

"the State Department in 2011 stopped processing Iraq refugee requests for 6 months after the Federal Bureau of Investigation uncovered evidence that several dozen terrorists from Iraq had infiltrated the united States via the refugee program"

...pausing the refugee processing wasn't a moral crisis in 2011. Why is it one now?

What's with all the hullabaloo, anyway?

DavidD said...

And speaking of the Spanish, I still remember how, when I took a U.S. History course at San Anonio College after growing up in Ohio, I learned about all the Spanish colonial activity that had occurred in the Americas between 1492 and 1607 (Jamestown) or 1620 (Plymouth).

I seem to recall hearing something about conquistadores; hmmm.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Which way is that argument supposed to cut?

Neither.

It's like all internet memes, it's mostly about showing how clever the meme maker is.

Although, lately I've noticed that people on social media have devloped a tendency to sort of dogwhistle with posts like:

Syrian Refugees

What's wrong with people?! I go on Facebook and I see people cheering for the needless deaths of innocent men, women and children! I weep for our world!


And then sit back while people from both sides of the aisle jump in saying hear, hear! My only explanation is that they must be deluding themselves into thinking that all the affirmation is for what they really think and not based on the way different people are interpreting a vague statement.

Bob Boyd said...

Lauderdale Vet said "...pausing the refugee processing wasn't a moral crisis in 2011. Why is it one now?
What's with all the hullabaloo, anyway?"

Same reason there's a hullabaloo about Trump's 9/11 comment.
Dems don't want to talk about Obama's foreign policy, the resulting Syrian Refugee crisis or how it led to the Paris attack.

They want to talk about how Republicans are xenophobes, Islamophobes, racists, etc. With a little luck they can maneuver the Republican Congress into using the power of the purse to oppose Obama on Syrian Refugees. Then they can portray them as extremists who want to shut down the government.

hombre said...

So the argument is what, that we should be as short-sighted as the Native Americans were?

Great! We can end up on reservations living in dhimmitude after we've cleared away the wreckage and buried the bodies from terrorist attacks.

Levi Starks said...

On a side note, I would argue that it wasn't so much the pilgrims/European immigrants that subjugated the Indians, rather it was technology/knowledge. So long as they were able to exist in a bubble of ignorance they would probably have continued to live as "savages" however technology that allowed accurate navigation and travel possible burst their bubble of innocence. Additionally the Indians were not stupid, and recognized the Europeans possessed knowledge and technology that would make their lives easier, and were eager to share that knowledge.

Hagar said...

There is something to be said for the idea that rather than taking in the refugees - at least the males of fighting age - we should give them AK-47s and send them back to fight for their country.

Except that by this time it will take a lot more than AK-47s, and - given this administration's record - I would not myself be very enthusiastic about going to war under this administration, if I still were of military age.

Birches said...

One of my Native cousins posted this meme, but with John's correct framing of the issue. I found it hilarious, since no one else who was posting it seemed to "get" it.

Jupiter said...

John Althouse Cohen said (on the linked Facebook entry );

"Since the historical experience for Native Americans was a very bad one, you should expect American citizens who take your analogy seriously to have a negative reaction to whatever you're analogizing to European colonialists. If that isn't the reaction you're hoping to provoke, then it's time to stop and think about whether this is something you really want to post to the internet."

So, apparently, JAC recognizes that the lesson to be taken from history is, do not allow foreigners who despise your culture to occupy your territory. Also, apparently, this is a message JAC hopes his fellow Americans will not come to understand.

Why does your son hate us, Althouse? "Cause we don't want to let him marry his boyfriend? Does he know what those Syrian refugees think about him and his boyfriend?

Fernandinande said...

elkh1 said...
Calling Red Skins Native Americans is as silly as calling them Indians, is more repulsive than calling them Red Skins.


Many Navajos call themselves Indians; I hope you can correct them.

And most tribes call(ed) themselves something along the lines of "The Good People", e.g. Dinè (Navajo for Navajo) means "Children of God".

There was no America when they first arrived. America was named by a white man who has never left his own Italian hometown.

Bad White Men shouldn't go around naming things! I gather you're not speaking of Amerigo Vespucci, because he did several voyages to the ... Americas.

"Your pappy was a traitor and your mammy was an Indian maid boy
Your pappy was a traitor and your mammy was an Indian maid boy
We know all about it and we don't want a half breed around boy
Tomorrow by sunrise, better be outa town boy

Half breed, they're hot on your trail boy
Half Breed but you'd better not run
Half breed you'd better get a gun boy
Better get a gun and stand boy
Better get a gun and stand"

Real American said...

Maybe the Indians should have had a few more reservations.

Anonymous said...

Any one of these photos would be more apropos to the Syrian refugee situation.

Clyde said...

How'd that work out for the Indians?

Etienne said...

That's right. Christians come to America, the red savages die in huge numbers.
Islam comes to America, the Christian savages and their slaves die in huge numbers.

It's all right there in the Bible...

Dominus veniet et perdet omnibus ita scriptum.

Rusty said...

Additionally the Indians were not stupid, and recognized the Europeans possessed knowledge and technology that would make their lives easier, and were eager to share that knowledge.

Our native American brothers were eager to acquire the new technology in order to make war on their neighbors. Almost without exception.

Rick said...

Brando said... [hush]​[hide comment]
If you favor letting more Syrians in and you want to convince anyone, you don't try and shame them--all the "baby Jesus" and "Indians!" memes aren't going to move someone who is afraid terrorists are going to try and infiltrate the refugees. Instead, explain why terrorists wouldn't be coming via refugee camps because the screening is severe, and why that risk is overblown.


This is less about terrorists infiltrating than it is recreating the European circumstances that have led to not just terrorism but also increased violence like the Rotterdam sex scandal and honor killings.

Here's an interesting read:

https://reason.com/blog/2015/11/23/who-are-the-european-jihadists

The upshot is that terrorists acting in Europe tend to be second generation immigrants of parents wholly against their participation. It seems to have more to do with lost or disaffected youth than anything else, which explains why so many of them have confounding backgrounds (the Paris woman was a night club partier, one of them seems to have been gay, for example). This suggests even an immigrants honest renouncing of all violence or radicalism doesn't matter much since they can't control their children's beliefs.

The question is whether we want to create these circumstances down the road. I think it's telling our political leadership won't even discuss it.

Skeptical Voter said...

Well I can see that those of you who actually studied history (rather than, like most progressives believing that history started on the day you were born) have asked the existential question Sarah Palin style: "Hey Chingachchook, how did that all work out for you?"

Okay to get that Chingachchook reference, you'd have to have read James Fenimore Coooper's "The Last of the Mochicans". But the special little snowflakes that put that poster together don't read "ancient" literature either.

exhelodrvr1 said...

http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/23/u-s-officials-cant-ask-syrian-refugees-key-questions/

Birches said...

It seems to have more to do with lost or disaffected youth than anything else, which explains why so many of them have confounding backgrounds (the Paris woman was a night club partier, one of them seems to have been gay, for example).

The 9/11 guys were also living it up at strip clubs. If you can't stay sin free, well, here's your Get Out of Jail Free Card, just jihad your way to salvation.

MacMacConnell said...

I don't believe Obama is a Muslim, but what has he done that a Muslim wouldn't.

mikee said...

Rush Limbaugh has a historically correct Thanksgiving tale, and it was the abolition of their socialist principles that enabled the Pilgrims to have such bounty as to allow a feast of thanks to God, including their neighbors the Natives, as well.

Aid to refugees had little to nothing to do with the Pilgrim success. Elimination of common land plots and common food storage, and establishment of personal landholding and property rights won the day.

TWW said...

I reject the premise; that there is a class of people who should be deemed 'Native Americans' with rights somehow superior to all others. Native Americans, in the context used, are simply peoples who crossed a land bridge from Eurasia and migrated from what is now Alaska to the 'New World' before Europeans crossed the Atlantic and settled here. In a real sense, they were immigrants as were the peoples who came after.

Jim S. said...

Ummm...do the people who make these Facebook posts know that Thanksgiving was (and is) about giving thanks to God? That it was not about thanking the Indians? I'm not sure their point survives the correction.

ken in tx said...

Santa Anna was a military dictator who abrogated the Mexican constitution of 1824. Three Mexican provinces rebelled against his coup, but Texas was the only one to prevail. Hispanic Texicans fought alongside Davy Crockett and others to defeat Santa Anna. It was not a White Americans taking over Hispanic Tejas thing.

Whether this argues for open-door immigration or not, I don't know.