What's Wrong With Me—According To Muller (1)
01/03/2007
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When he was writing What's Wrong with the World G.K. Chesterton used to amuse himself by telling lady visitors that he had "been been doing 'What is Wrong' all this morning."

This is me writing what I think is wrong with me, by the standards of Eric Muller, who has posted the following list of things I wrote that thinks might display "invidious racism and hate" but with no explanation why. Of course, I'm just guessing, because he hasn't said.

"How are Americans supposed to tell the difference between Meiji and Taisho? ... Does that mean that the internment of the Japanese wasn’t so stupid after all?" — National Origins Quotas or Moratorium?

The United States got lucky, partly as a result of the 1924 cutoff—most of the Japanese emigrants came to America before the era of fanatical Japanese militarism—i.e., in the Meiji period, roughly speaking. Immigrants to Brazil, I pointed out, had come later, in the Taisho era, and were much more fanatical. Japanese-Americans were largely very loyal, despite the strains put on them by internment. If they'd been like that Japanese-Brazilians, there would have been trouble.

  • Why This Is Invidious—(My guess)

Americans should know the difference between Meiji and Taisho era Japanee, just like they should be able to tell Sunnis from Shiites from followers of the Seventh Imam, from—aargh. Anyhow, it's wrong not to know.

And it's always wrong to take the American government's side in defense of internment. It Just Is.

Next one:

"Of course, there is a simple answer to these problems: a National Origins system. Discriminate in favor of immigrants from civilized, culturally compatible countries. Alternatively, don’t have any immigrants at all." — same article

  • Why This Is Invidious—(My guess)

It's wrong to say that other countries aren't civilized or culturally compatible. It's also wrong to call for an immigration moratorium.

Of course, many countries are uncivilized. And the idea of an immigration moratorium, no immigration at all, is explicitly intended to be color-blind, because the US Government is likely to be unwilling to distinguish between civilized and uncivilized countries.

"Do you realize that if you made all the guns in the U. S. vanish, New Mexico, Texas, and California would vanish the same day? The Mexicans would just come and get them." — Reconquista, Terrorism, and Gun Control
  • Why This Is Invidious—(My guess)

It's wrong to suggest that Mexican Government, Mexican Army, and Mexican people want the Southwest.

Perhaps I should have said that Canada will retake Vermont. But Canada doesn't want Vermont, or even Maine. Mexican irredentism, on the other hand, is a fact of life.

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