You don't need a DJ to know which way the spin goes.
--Catherine King
by Jerome du Bois
pluggedin contributor and lobbyist George Diaz, Jr. continues his smear campaigns against Patrick Haab and self-control. In his latest squib, posted Thursday, May 19, 2005, he implicity draws a parallel between Sgt Haab and a delusional, white-supremacist murderer, which he creates by deliberating misrepresenting the murderer's words. It's a rotten thing to do, real dirty spin, but it helps Mr. Diaz's program --to expand the creepy mindset of racist paranoia and persecution among people of color, which I first pointed out in the Huevos piece. (Also see the sidebar on Border Security.)
Here I'll reprint Mr. Diaz's posting and fisk it, but before I do I would direct the reader to Ian Macpherson's column on the same pluggedin page. It's about issuing driver's licenses to illegal aliens. In it, he reminds everyone that Phoenix Police Officer Jason Schechterle was disfigured by the reckless actions of an illegal alien Mexican, who was unharmed. I had forgotten that fact, and was grateful, and saddened, to be reminded.
Here's Mr. Diaz's piece:
Target On Latinos
"A few needless illegals"
OK, I was wrong. I admit it.
I believed the passage of Proposition 200 would give people license to act irrationally. After all, after Californians passed their similar Proposition 187 violent acts against Hispanics increased by 21 percent.
I also believed that not prosecuting Patrick Haab would create an environment of lawlessness. After all, federal immigration law (8 U.S.C. §1324(1)(A)) expressly prohibits a civilian from enforcing its provisions.
But then I read the motive that Steve Boggs had for murdering three Jack in the Box employees way back in 2002. Boggs told police in a letter that his motive "was to rid the world of a few needless illegals."
So see I was wrong. Here I thought that we're going to get worse and apparently it is pretty darn bad already.
Chew on this, were those three employees really illegal? And if so how did Boggs know? Would Boggs have confused newly elected Los Angeles Mayor [sic] for an illegal?
I am not sure what the status of those three poor souls was but I would bet the farm that Boggs did not know either. I am also convinced that the same fervor that consumed Boggs to murder three innocent fast food employees is driving the dehumanization of an entire race of people.
That is something that has happened several times in the last century and if it happens again I cannot afford to be wrong again.
Ok, first: the title. Target On Latinos. You know he's not referring to the discount chain's marketing attitude toward Hispanics. He's fear-mongering here: your back itches, ese, because it's being tickled by gunsights and laser scopes. Same with the scary quote, "A few needless illegals." Those disposable people, you know.
OK, I was wrong. I admit it.
I believed the passage of Proposition 200 would give people license to act irrationally. After all, after Californians passed their similar Proposition 187 violent acts against Hispanics increased by 21 percent.
would give people license to act irrationally.
Once again, as I point out in my earlier piece, Mr. Diaz purports to believe that many people have just been straining to unleash their irrationality, as if only the law counted, not self-discipline, not self-control. (Is this a problem you have personally, Mr. Diaz? Poor impulse control?) Which "people," though? Arizonans? Phoenicians? Mesans? Guadalupeans? Raeleans?
After all, after Californians passed their similar Proposition 187 violent acts against Hispanics increased by 21 percent.
I'd like to see the figures on that. He gives no hot link or citation, so I did some simple searching, and uncovered dirty spin, submerged facts, and false comparison, as we will also see below between Sgt Haab and the killer Boggs.
Proposition 187 was passed in 1994. It was temporarily enjoined within a year, and overturned in court in 1998. Its effective span, then, was about 12 months. This makes Mr. Diaz's figure of a 21 percent increase especially suspect, but more importantly, as any first-year student of social science learns, correlation is not causation. Ten thousand other variables operated in California at the time, including gang violence. Also, Mr. Diaz fails to note that, ironically, Prop. 187 inspired many California illegal aliens to get legal, if only to be able to vote against Grey Davis.
I also believed that not prosecuting Patrick Haab would create an environment of lawlessness. After all, federal immigration law (8 U.S.C. §1324(1)(A)) expressly prohibits a civilian from enforcing its provisions.
Well, Mr. Diaz, is there an "environment of lawlessness" surrounding us now? He provides no examples. I think there is, but it has nothing to do with Patrick Haab and lot more to do with Raul Garcia-Gomez, who murdered Denver detective Donald Young two weeks ago, and is on the run. It has more to do with Armando Garcia, who murdered Los Angeles Sherrif's Deputy David March three years ago and took off to Mexico, where the government protects him. It has more to do with that sonofabitch who disfigured Jason Schechterle.
He's right about the immigration law. (Look it up here. Scroll to the near the bottom.) Yet all charges by all US parties have been dropped. I'm glad. Someone else can look up that presumably lawful process. Mr. Diaz should have followed through on that, but he's sloppy.
Now he gets to the point about why he was wrong.
But then I read the motive that Steve Boggs had for murdering three Jack in the Box employees way back in 2002. Boggs told police in a letter that his motive "was to rid the world of a few needless illegals."
So see I was wrong. Here I thought that we're going to get worse and apparently it is pretty darn bad already.
Heck yeah, it's pretty darn bad, Mr. Diaz, and you are not only more than wrong, I think you're either lazy or deceitful.
Chew on this, were those three employees really illegal? And if so how did Boggs know? Would Boggs have confused newly elected Los Angeles Mayor [sic] for an illegal?
I am not sure what the status of those three poor souls was but I would bet the farm that Boggs did not know either.
I'd like to own a farm, actually. Chew on this news story from three weeks ago, Mr. Diaz, for the answers to your questions. One victim was a legal Navajo, the other two illegal Mexican aliens. Boggs knew this because his partner, Christopher Hargrave, had worked at the Jack In The Box for several previous months.
(And the name of the mayor of Los Angeles is Antonio Villaraigosa, Mr. Diaz.)
I am also convinced that the same fervor that consumed Boggs to murder three innocent fast food employees is driving the dehumanization of an entire race of people.
Boggs's "fervor" is racism. He hates nonwhite people. He didn't kill those people because of their immigration status, but because of their ethnicity and the color of their skins. He didn't care if they were legal or illegal. He didn't ask for green cards before murdering them. From Bogg's sentencing story:
Boggs and co-defendant Christopher Hargrave, 24, slated to appear in court in June, founded a militia, the Royal Imperial Guard, and pledged allegiance to a racist creed, prosecutor Robert Shutts said.
What Boggs wrote in his letter was simply legally savvy. He wasn't about to make any references to mud people. So Mr. Diaz attributes a false motive to the two murderers, because it fits his agenda, and thereby both trivializes the victims and ignores an alarming social phenomenon. He also chooses a twisted chucklehead as his spokesperson for the new Wild West, as if Boggs was typical. You shouldn't bring up dehumanization in this context, Mr. Diaz.
That [dehumanization] is something that has happened several times in the last century and if it happens again I cannot afford to be wrong again.
What you can't afford, Mr. Diaz, is to be dishonest and disingenuous in the age of the internet. That's insulting and dehumanizing. And dumb. And to compare Patrick Haab to that comemierda Boggs is simply defamatory. You owe him an apology, and you need to raise your standards of argument. Sloppy slander don't go 'round here.
CODA ON BLOGGING. Note to Phil Boas and Mr. Diaz: pluggedin is not a blog, but it could be. Out in Philly at the Inquirer they've got blinq.com, which has comments and trackbacks.
Mr. Diaz's latest screed could have included the same hot links I have --but then it would have been a different story, wouldn't it? It's as if you and Mr. Diaz still operate under the unidimensional restrictions of print, where you can make outrageous claims and hide certain facts; and then you pretend that others do, too: "when I close my eyes, you can't see me." So when someone comes along and easily tears apart the tissue of lies and distortions with a few hypertext links, it makes you guys look really lame.
You both might also want to brush up on basic journalistic drama. Mr. Diaz does not even mention in his piece that the day he published it, May 19, 2005, was the third anniversary of the murders at the Jack In The Box, May 19, 2002. Lame.
Posted by Jerome at May 21, 2005 07:50 AM | TrackBack