Yesterday, I made fun of Jonah Goldberg because he seems to not know what the fuck is going on. The trend continues.
Yesterday, I
pointed out that Jonah Goldberg says things apparently off the top of his head and then can't seem to back them up. He apparently is still free associating.
In his column today, Goldberg says things that remind me of the Bennett flap last year. I wanted to briefly summarize the controversy:
After Bennett's statement, there were three main camps:
1. People who misunderstood Bill Bennett and thought he was saying all black babies should be aborted.
2. People who pointed out that Bill Bennett wasn't advocating aborting all black babies, so everyone misunderstood his point as being racially insensitive.
and
3. People who pointed out that Bill Bennett didn't have to say "black" babies in his example to make his point; I understood exactly what he was trying to say, his example wasn't arbitrary, it was bigoted.
Today Jonah Goldberg wrote a column entitled What If Mexicans Were Crack?. Goldberg will most likely try to spin his way out of his analogy by saying that people are missing the point of his column; that people are reacting to the immigration issue in similar ways to the way they feel about the drug war. But if you examine his analogy in the same way as Bennett, Goldberg didn't have to use the examples he did. And one analogy crosses the line.
Goldberg could have said, "What if Mexicans were illegal drugs" or "marijuana" and still could have made his points. There are similarities in smuggling cargo across borders, whether it be human or otherwise, so he does have some basis in his analogy.
But he chose one of the most destructive drugs to describe Mexican immigrants, crack cocaine. And no matter how one feels about the legality of drugs as an issue, we all recognize that even in a legalized drug society, crack cocaine is a problem. It generally leads to self destructive and anti-social behavior. It often leads to violent and destructive behavior as well.
Here's where Goldberg crosses the line:
But the fact is, in all likelihood your average illegal immigrant, desperate to start a new life for himself and provide for his family, will be no less determined to sell his labor than a drug dealer would be to sell his goods.
Now, do I understand Goldberg's analogy, like I understood Bennett's? I do. He's saying that you can't stop immigrants any more than you can stop a drug dealer. It's supply and demand.
But he's also comparing the very best immigrants: the hard working, undervalued, best intentioned providers of their families, with those that take advantage of their customer's addiction without caring that the result of their actions are a drag on society. Let me reiterate that point: he's comparing the best immigrants to drug dealers. And Goldberg's drug of choice in his title is crack cocaine.
So what's my point? Am I saying Goldberg is a racist? No, I don't think Jonah Goldberg is a racist.
I think Jonah Goldberg is an asshole.