Drawing the Line

[forsyth]

Okay, so where do you draw the line between being fair-minded and not reading something because you can tell it's tripe?

I'm thinking, in this instance of a new book. One by Pat Buchanan, of the crazytown Buchanan's. I'm not going to link the book because I don't want to help it's google rank, but here's the title. "State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America" I mean, why not just title it "OHNOES! BROWN PEOPLE!"I I guess it might be worth reading so I can identify all the problems and know how to take its arguments apart, but that doesn't even usually work in political arguments. At least on the Internet, they always end up with attacks at me and not answering my questions when I'm posting links to articles that disprove what they're saying.

But on the other hand, that means I'd have to slog through 320 pages of crypto-racist bullshit like the summary. Stuff that's EXACTLY the kind of thing I was talking about the other day, the people who are all "America is great! But we're so weak we're going to be destroyed by a bunch of immigrants!"

"In this important book, Pat Buchanan reveals that, slowly but surely, the great American Southwest is being reconquered by Mexico. These lands---which many Mexicans believe are their birthright---are being detached ethnically, linguistically, and culturally from the United States by a deliberate policy of the Mexican regime. This is the “Aztlan Plot” for “La Reconquista,” the recapture of the lands lost by Mexico in the Texas War of Independence and Mexican-American War.
Comparing the immigrant invasion of America from across the Mexican border---and of Europe from across the Mediterranean---to the barbarian invasions that ended the Roman Empire, the author writes with passion and conviction that we have begun the final chapter of the Death of the West. Unless the invasion is halted now, Buchanan argues, by midcentury America will be a country unrecognizable to our parents, the Third World dystopia that Theodore Roosevelt warned against when he said we must never let America become a “polyglot boardinghouse” for the world."

Is it really worth reading the book, knowing that people are going to be quoting it, even when it's wrong, just to see if there's any new arguments in there, or should I just write it off as the same recycled bullshit that's patently wrong? And for the love of monkeys, where do they FIND these kinds of bullshit theories? Mexico is going to conquer the Southwest by having people move there because their lives in Mexico suck? THAT'S a "state of emergency"? Man. How can people think like that?

EDIT: As pointed out in the comments by shaneon, the bit about religion? Pat Buchannan is a Roman Catholic, like the majority of Mexicans.

Comments

[jokermage.livejournal.com]

Is it really worth reading the book, knowing that people are going to be quoting it, even when it's wrong, just to see if there's any new arguments in there, or should I just write it off as the same recycled bullshit that's patently wrong?

Don't bother. If there are any new arguments, the quote miners will probably dig them up.

And for the love of monkeys, where do they FIND these kinds of bullshit theories? Mexico is going to conquer the Southwest by having people move there because their lives in Mexico suck? THAT'S a "state of emergency"? Man. How can people think like that?

Start with some basic xenophobia and extrapolate. Ignore contridictory evidence along the way.

[leticia.livejournal.com]

Do you know of Google and nofollow?

"From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel="nofollow") on hyperlinks, those links won't get any credit when we rank websites in our search results."

Just an idle note which has nothing to do with your story. :)

[leticia.livejournal.com]

http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-nofollow (Which, if I remember right, will be a nofollow link because LJ has gone to nofollow in comments to prevent, hopefully, spam.

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

Holy racism, Batman.

[shaenon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that nut was in Time last week, talking about the impending Mexican conquest. At one point he talks about the good old days when the U.S. was "culturally united": "We spoke the same language, had the same faith, laughed at the same comedians."

Well, okay, I'll give him the comedy thing, because everyone knows Hispanic people don't understand laughter. But "the same faith"? As you can probably deduce from his name, his splotchy Irish face, and his eight siblings, Patrick Joseph Buchanan is of the EXACT SAME RELIGION as most of our neighbors south of the border.

This stuff makes my brain hurt.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Wow. So he is. I hadn't even considered that. Maybe he's been associating with fundamentalist protestants so long he's forgotten?

Or maybe he's just a xenophobic racist wack-job.

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

Or maybe he's just a xenophobic racist wack-job.

Whackjobs know no religious barriers! Except, y'know, the ones they decide they want to use.

Yeah, that sounded way better in my head.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

Truly, batshit insanity has no allegiance to gender, religion, race, sexual preference, education, nationality, or anything else you care to name. Different strands may be more or less dangerous, but they're still there.

[kalifla.livejournal.com]

<.<
Like this church.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Fred Phelps and is brood are a very special kind of batshit.