Tom Tancredo vs. Third World Miami, “Capital Of Latin America”
[Previously
by Marcus Epstein:
The Conservative Best-Seller That National Review Won`t,
Well, Review]
[VDARE.COM note:
Breaking news!
Congressman
Tom Tancredo
has been forced to cancel the speech discussed here,
which was to be given at the
Miami Rotary Club,
[send them
mail]
because of bomb threats received and the danger from
protesters:
“Both the club and
the restaurant were taken off guard by the reaction to
Tancredo`s scheduled visit, said club president Richard
Tonkinson. [send
him
mail]
“More than half of
the club`s members are foreign born, Tonkinson said, and
they were looking forward to grilling Tancredo about his
Miami comments.”
[Miami
Rotary decides to nix invite to Colorado congressman,
by Casey Woods, Miami Herald, December 13, 2006]
Also the staff at the
Rusty Pelican
restaurant, site of the Miami Rotary Club`s regular
lunches, revolted—apparently as a result of some form of
bigotry
on their part. [Tancredo`s
Miami speech canceled
| Restaurant cites bomb threats, worker gripes, by Anne
C. Mulkern,
Denver Post,
December 13, 2006]
We presume this
settles once and for all the question of whether
Miami
is part of the
Third World.
(Click here for
Michael Kinsley
once said that a gaffe is when a
politician accidentally tells the truth. Typically,
after the unintentional truth-telling, the media, other
politicians and assorted shakedown artists respond with
righteous indignation, demanding
not only an apology but also some sort of ritual
discussion about What We Can Learn from this
unpleasantness. The
gaff-er apologizes and offers politically-correct
legislation to show how caring he can be with other
people`s money. Sometimes, if the gaff-er
squirms and grovels enough, he can keep his job. But
he is almost always in a weaker position than he was
pre-gaffe.
Congressman Tom Tancredo doesn`t make gaffes—because he
always intends to tell the truth. During the last few
years, he has been
accused of racism, xenophobia and all the other
usual smear words whenever he criticizes mass
immigration and
multiculturalism. But, unlike most politicians, he
has stood by his convictions, never backed down, and
ends up more popular after each controversy.
The latest non-gaffe made by Tancredo occurred at David
Horowitz`s Restoration Weekend in South Florida.
Tancredo made a number of important points attacking
globalization and the
`proposition nation,`
and then made a quick aside that,
`Look at what has
happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country.
You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace.
You would never know you`re in the United States of
America. You would certainly say you`re in a Third World
country.` [Congressman
calls Miami a `Third World country,
By Lesley Clark, Miami Herald, Nov. 27, 2006]
Following the script,
congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Cuba) called
Tancredo “flat-out wrong“ and invited him to
take a trip to Miami. Miami Mayor Carlos Alvarez
[send
him
mail] and called
the remarks “outrageous“ and similarly invited
Tancredo to visit and
“see what a vibrant community we have.“
Republican Governor
Jeb Bush was less charitable: he reportedly called
Tancredo a `nut.` [Send
him
mail]
He went on to send a patronizing and clichéd
letter. [
PDF]
informing Tancredo of how many great schools and how few
ethnic enclaves there are in Miami, ending (of
course) with a postscript encouraging Tancredo to come
visit.
At this point, the
story diverges from the gaffe script. Tancredo responded
with an open letter [
PDF]
to Governor Bush. He noted that contrary to Bush`s
claims of
great academic achievement, only
45% of Miami`s public school students graduate high
school. In contrast to all the claims about
diversity being Miami`s and America`s greatest strength,
he noted that
`the tolerance of
cultural diversity in a city or a nation is admirable up
to a point, but when
diversity is worshipped to the detriment of assimilation,
it becomes a serious problem that undermines the civic
culture that forms the basis for our
democratic institutions and the
rule of law.`
Usually after a gaffe,
the
bien pensants claim that they want a real
dialogue about the underlying issue brought about by the
gaffe. Of course, what they really want is a monologue
about why there are
certain points of view that
people aren`t allowed to have. Tancredo did not
accept this. He concluded his letter to Jeb Bush: `We
should encourage the discussion of this issue rather
than castigate those who attempt to bring it to light.`
In addition, Tancredo
has appeared on numerous talk shows. And he is taking
the advice of Bush, Alvarez, and Ros-Lehtinen, and is
coming down to Miami on Thursday to give a speech in
Miami on the important issues this controversy brings.
[VDARE.COM note: Speech
cancelled on account of the threats—see above—but it`s
available on VDARE.com]
If we`re going
(finally) to be able to discuss the issue of diversity,
as Tancredo has urged, I would like to go a bit further.
Diversity can be good
in moderation—if what is being brought in is desirable.
Most Americans don`t mind a
little ethnic food, some Asian
math whizzes, or a few
Mariachi dancers—as long as these trends do not
overwhelm the dominant culture.
However, some
forms of
diversity are not desirable at
any level.
A few examples from
Florida:
- a
Haitian woman was arrested at Fort Lauderdale
airport last year when she tried to bring in
a dried human head for
Voodoo practice;
- a group of men
burst into a Miami Funeral Home in 1997,
forcibly performed Santeria ceremony on the deceased
and then shot the mourners.
These are not customs
that we want.
Of course, there are
many different parts of Miami that are quite nice. There
are plenty of beautiful gated communities. In fact the
wealthiest community in the country is there (Fisher
Island, where
Oprah lives). Similarly, there are
fabulously wealthy areas in Mexico City and in
Rio de Janeiro. [
There`s
Trouble–Lots Of It—in Paradise | Restless
locals call Miami a corrupt, exorbitant mess, and many
are leaving, by Tim Padgett , Time Magazine,
Nov. 19, 2006]
In Miami today, the
Spanish-language channel
Univision is
more popular than any other station. In 2002,
Governor Bush ran a campaign ad [
watch
it on Youtube] that started off by displaying seven
Latin American flags. Nowhere in the ad was an American
flag, any mention of the United States (or even Los
Estados Unidos) or a word of English.
In 2002, Zita Wilensky
was
fired from her job working in the Domestic Violence
Unit for not being
able to speak Spanish.
A number of Miami`s
boosters, including Time Magazine, have dubbed it
"The Capital of Latin America."
But why are
Americans supposed to like this?
Even the Cuban
immigrants, still
preponderantly white, law-abiding,
Republican-voting, affable people are not desirable if
they don`t assimilate. Perhaps a few Little Havanas are
manageable in a huge country, just as many Americans may
see a few isolated
Chinatowns as an exotic novelty. The problem is when
the Little Havanas become Big Havanas and the Chinatowns
become
Chinacities or even Chinastates.
The Miami Herald,
editorializing against Tancredo, engaged in typical
immigration-enthusiast triumphalism: `Call us what
you will, Miami is
the future that already has arrived throughout this
welcoming nation.`
If current mass immigration policies continue, this
statement is indisputable…except for the `welcoming`
part.
Miamians should have been allowed to have a say about
whether they
wanted their city to turn into the `capital of
Latin America.`
And Americans should have a say about whether we want
our future to look like Miami.
Thanks to patriots like Tom Tancredo, we may get it.
Marcus Epstein
[send
him mail] is the founder
of the Robert A Taft
Club and the executive director of the
The American
Cause and
Team America PAC. A selection of his articles can be seen
here.


