Monday, August 28, 2023

By focusing on the emotionalism of the story, they miss the substance

From Texas sends 10th migrant bus to Los Angeles after mayor decries move as 'political act' by Adam Sabes.  The subheading is The bus had a total of 39 migrants. 

For a year or more, governors of border states, to protest the crime and economic burdens created by Biden's catastrophic near-open borders policies, have been sending busloads of illegal immigrants to self-styled sanctuary states and cities such as New York and Los Angeles.  In comparison to the hundreds of thousands of illegals in each of the border states, the buses are merely symbolic.  A few hundreds of illegal immigrants or a few thousand at most in total over more than a year compared to millions.

Those on the left are outraged at having the crime and economic costs imposed on them and object on humanitarian grounds to other governors playing politics with the lives of illegal immigrants.  Fair enough argument.

Those on the right chortle at the moral and governance anguish of those on the left due to the clear hypocrisy of the left wanting the status of being a sanctuary city (or state) without wanting to actually bear any costs for actually being a sanctuary city or state.  

As political theater, it is entertaining but it does make a mockery of basic humanitarianism.  Keep them at the borders or let them in but don't bandy them about.

There is another way of viewing this though.  Our mainstream media pays little attention to facts, truth, logic, reason, or evidence.  They literally do not think particularly much.  They advance narratives and manufacture propaganda, often with complete sincerity.  They churn out cheap-to-write emotionalism while ignoring the expensive work needed to chase facts.  They have abandoned the engine of the Age of Enlightenment with its commitment to pursue Truth via the Scientific Method, Logic, Reason, and Evidence.

The article linked focuses on the hypocrisy of the Mayor of Los Angeles, Mayor Bass, in wanting to be both a sanctuary city but also not wanting to bear the costs of providing sanctuary to minuscule numbers of illegal border crossers.  

Texas has sent a 10th bus with migrants to Los Angeles on Saturday, days after its mayor harshly criticized the southern state for sending migrants.

According to FOX Los Angeles, the bus had a total of 39 migrants, which included 12 families and 21 children.

The 10th bus was sent five days after the previous bus, according to the outlet.

[snip]

The Los Angeles City Council voted in June to make the city a sanctuary city for immigrants.

Fair enough; hypocrisy warrants mockery.

But there is a substantive argument that does not garner much attention.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott when the ninth bus was sent when Tropical Storm Hillary was impacting the city, saying "LA has not extended an invitation asking for people to come. This is a political act."

Bass is of the same political party which has chosen the policies which have created the border crisis being experienced by the border states.  Those states can make exactly the same argument made by Mayor Bass in that those states have "not extended an invitation asking for people to come. This is a political act."

It seems to me that that is the core issue.  The mockery is fun and pertinent.  But the problem is that the Biden Administration has chosen to impose immigration policies with material humanitarian, crime, and economic negative consequences which fall largely on a few states, which happen also to be politically unsupportive states.

Governors from both affected and unaffected states appear to agree that the Federal Government policies should not create conditions under which non-citizens arrive illegally.  They should not be forced by the Federal Government and Biden Administration to extend "an invitation asking for people to come."  

Both Governor Abbott of Texas and Mayor Bass of Los Angeles are making the same argument that they did not invite these illegals to come to their state or city and they should not have to put up with it.

The news is not that the sanctuary politicians are hypocrites.  The news is that Republican and Democrat governors and mayors agree that the Biden Administration should not have an open borders policy.  

By focusing on the human emotionalism of the story (the mockery), the mainstream media overlooks the much more substantive news that Republican and Democrat governors and mayors can agree on something and that that is that the Biden Administration should not have an open borders policy.

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