The Tipping Point ~ Part II: The Descent of Tom Harman – Born Again Immigrant Basher
09. Jun, 2008 
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By Vern Nelson
OC Voice Columnist
In the first Naked Gun film, Lieutenant Frank Drebin, while impersonating an umpire in a major league 
baseball game in order to prevent an assassination, finds himself at a loss what to do when the batter swings and misses. After a long, uncomfortable silence, feeling a thousand expectant eyes fixed upon him, he finally stammers, hesitantly, “…Strike one?” And the crowd erupts into cheers.
Immediately Drebin is transformed by the crowd’s approval into a super-umpire. Inspired, he begins shouting and singing out calls with dance moves and acrobatics, driving the delighted fans crazy:
“STEERIIIIKE TWOOO!!!” There is no middle ground or gradual change as there would be for you or I; the public’s roaring approbation transfigures him instantaneously from mute uncertainty to no-hold-barred showmanship, wallowing in the fans’ adulation for the rest of the game.
It was just like that for Senator Tom Harman when he first discovered the awesome crowd-pleasing power of anti-immigrant rhetoric in mid-2006: the assemblyman known most for his solid environmental record, who had never before been noticed to mention immigration, transformed himself overnight into Orange County’s foremost defender of Anglo-Americans from the encroaching brown hordes. “It is the single most hot-button issue in the district!” he enthused to Laguna Beach’s Coastline Pilot.
California Coalition for Immigration Reform president Barbara Coe, whom I met at a small Mayday Minuteman rally in Santa Ana, tells me, “Tom is the greatest! He not only says the right thing, he gets out there and does it.” Pooh-poohing the appearance of insincerity in his suddenly discovering this issue in the heat of a nailbiter primary against wingnut Diane Harkey, she attributes his metamorphosis to a “very convincing presentation” her group gave him at a meeting around that time.
In columns he regularly generates for the other local papers, Harman regurgitates the usual, easily-debunked canards on immigration familiar from such firebrands as Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh.
He repeats the common claim that undocumented immigrants cost taxpayers $10 billion a year, but in fact they pay-not just sales taxes, income taxes, and property taxes (through their rent), but also $8.5 billion a year to Social Security and payroll taxes (from immigrants with false SS cards, who will never receive the benefits.) Most Americans don’t realize that the undocumented aren’t eligible for welfare, Medicaid, food stamps or state health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office concluded last year that the taxes undocumented immigrants pay easily exceeds the cost of services they use.
Then there’s the old imaginary immigrant crime wave: In fact, studies have shown clearly that immigrants commit less crimes than native-born citizens; and Justice Department statistics show that noncitizens account for only 6.4 percent of the incarcerated-far from the one-third Harman claims.
Harman boasts now that he has “penned more bills against illegal immigration” than anyone in the legislature, and this is probably true. He hit the ground running this legislative season with his Senate Bill 3; an amazingly radical and fascistic bill, it fortunately has no chance of passing.
SB3 would make any undocumented immigrant in California, whether on “public or private property,” guilty of trespassing and subject to large fines and lengthy imprisonment. This would transform all state and local police into immigration agents and is more radical than anything that Minutemen leaders like Jim Gilchrist have proposed, placing Harman on the fringes of the debate; and his other bills are no better.
Although figures like the new Harman insist their opposition is only to illegal immigration, it’s easy to see that he really is, as moderate Republican Congressional candidate Ron St. John observes of his immigrant-bashing opponent Dana Rohrabacher, an “opponent to any immigration, who’s in the ‘enforcement-only’ camp, treating the 12 million undocumented workers here as an invading army and offering a militaristic solution that would depopulate the country.”
As Harman 2.0 continues to fantasize out loud about “sealing the borders using technology like laser beams, drones or sound detectors, and then dealing with the twelve million currently here,” hate crimes against Latinos skyrocket, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids of the type welcomed by Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor grow in their frequency and cruelty across the nation, incarcerating hundreds of Latino immigrants for lengthy terms just for trying to feed their families.
Harman’s newfound passion may win him votes among the hardcore Orange County Republican faithful, but he’s incontestably contributing to the climate of hate and fear that is making millions of lives miserable and solving no real problems. Heck of a job, Tommy!
Next installment: On healthcare? Useless as a stick in the mud!
Vern Nelson is a pianist and composer who plays Friday and Saturday nights at Baci Italian Restaurant in Huntington Beach.
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Hmmm…name one democratic party candidate that opposes neo-liberal “free trade” policies that enslave peoples in poorer countries throughout the world and come back to harm our own workers?
How to organize globally? Lots of ways. Google it to get started. Or instead of wasting time filming the Minutemen, unless you are starved for mindless entertainment, go to any corner where day laborers look for work and introduce yourself. “Step by step, brick by brick…” That’s a song you should know:)
Yes, boss, all of this is true. It IS absurd to call a person feeding their family, a person providing our economy’s desperately needed cheap labor, “illegal.” And US economic imperialism IS certainly at the root of these folks’ home countries’ impoverishment. And global union organizing WOULD BE a wonderful thing to see in the coming decades. My purview here was more modest – an 800-word-max essay on a certain Senator Tom Harman’s malign record on these issues (and then responses to whatever the readers throw at me.)
The sentiments and ideals you express in your last paragraph are beautiful ones to keep in one’s heart. But I’m just trying to be pragmatic here, seeing how we can make things a little better right now, and also attempting to change the minds of some folks who might not be quite as empathetic and liberal as you and I. I’m not too confident we can get rid of US economic imperialism this year, but getting rid of some of the more destructive characters in our public life and replacing them with more thoughtful, constructive public servants – that’s a possibility!
Not cavalier at all, I’m eager to know how I could help “global union organizing” begin and take root. Its time has certainly come.
Ok, well, I hope that we can end the personal arguments and stick to the broader issues in the future. I have a question or two for both of you, since I think that you are both wrong in making differentiation between “illegal” and “legal” immigrants.
How can any American take that contrived “difference” seriously after the manner in which our country was founded?
Also, neither of you take into account USA economic imperialism as a compelling force for emigration northward. As long as that exists, the “guest worker” or other “reform” measures like those promoted by Kennedy and McCain are hollow gestures toward the rights of immigrant workers, who will be used as indentured servants by those programs. That’s great for the corporations that support Obama and McCain, but more bad news for immigrant and non-immigrant workers alike. That’s why millions of immigrant rights activists opposed those bills. Wouldn’t it be better for workers to get global in their union organizing (IWW style, not SEIU pro Wal-Mart style) and force workers’ rights guarantees across geographical, economic, ethnic and workplace borders?
More important, how does a line drawn on a map end a person’s right to eat or to move freely? Is that in the Bible?
Dr. Lara (#3) what’s that category of logical fallacy again, where you carry a grudge so far that you decide to oppose anything the other guy says, even going to the extreme of calling up a politician’s office to ask his staff a loaded question like “Are you really against all immigration?” and taking whatever you hear as fact rather than judging by the politician’s record?
What’s it called when, lost and bereft of moorings, one is so desperate to find one’s place politically in one’s county that one shifts within a month or two from attacking Debbie Cook for being “too liberal” and overly concerned with the environment, to excoriating her for her oil investments and for not getting involved against the war earlier, to carrying water for an unprincipled rightwing demagogue like Tom Harman?
I believe Aristotle called it, “jumping the shark.”
Leaving aside the condescension of your schooling us on what “strawman argument” and “ad hominem” mean—this is not your freshman philosophy class—let’s see if I am indeed guilty of those two “logical fallacies.” 1) Is it fair to call politicians like Harman, Rohrabacher, Tancredo and Mimi Walters “anti-immigrant” when they admittedly never neglect to use the word “illegal” (my so-called strawman) and 2) Did I ever call Harman a racist, or imply that he was a racist, or otherwise indulge in an ad hominem attack, and even if I did would it weaken my argument against him? I predict we’ll find that I in fact average exactly ZERO major fallacies every 375 words (and how very anal-ytical that was of you!)
ANTI-IMMIGRANT OR JUST ANTI-ILLEGAL?
Our immigration situation is a problem—not our biggest problem, but a problem nonetheless—which is crying out for serious solutions, not divisive rhetoric. First, this economy’s need for cheap labor, driven by our love for low prices and our reluctance to punish big business or abridge their profits, is not going away any time soon; neither is the abysmal state of the Mexican and Central American economies which drive responsible fathers and mothers up to America to feed their families. So for the forseeable future we will have millions and millions of low-wage Latin-American workers in this country, who would rather be here legally than illegally.
Second, having that many millions of folks here undocumented and in legal limbo creates all kinds of problems for society—it’s a security risk in this age of terrorism for one thing, and the workers themselves are abused and taken advantage of as we find out whenever ICE comes down on some midwestern slaugherhouse or LA sweatshop.
Third, there are relatively serious politicians of both parties, here and in Washington, who try to ameliorate the crisis with measures like “pathways to citizenship,” “guest worker programs,” and simple drivers’ licenses for the undocumented. These measures are always resisted to the death by the, let’s call them the nativist politicians, who cry “Amnesty!” and offer no constructive solutions beyond what St. John (as I quoted above) calls the “enforcement-only camp, treating the 12 million undocumented workers here as an invading army and offering a militaristic solution that would depopulate the country.”
Actually this argument, on whether it is fair to claim that these politicians who constantly rail against “illegals” are really against Latin-American immigrants period, has been raging on my own blog, the OrangeJuiceBlog.com. When one commenter took St. John to task here, http://orangejuiceblog.com/2008/05/ron-st-john-the-orange-juice-interview/#comment-56676 , claiming that Rohrabacher is “strongly PRO-legal immigration,” St. John sardonically responded (in words that, translated to state policy, could fit Harman perfectly) :
“Wow, that is news. I was misled by the William Kristol article singling him out on this issue, and the Rohrabacher Wikipedia page, and by the twenty years in Congress when he has never introduced or supported any pro-legal-immigration legislation.
“One way that Congressman Rohrabacher could be more forthright about his strong support for legal immigration would be the next time agriculture lobbies are complaining about crops lost to labor shortages he could say ‘Let’s establish increased work visas so we can let the new legal immigrants pick the fruits. I am strongly PRO legal immigration.’ When you say ‘Let the prisoners pick the fruits, we don’t need millions of foreigners’ it sort of fails to give the full picture of how strongly you are PRO legal immigration.
“If Congressman Rohrabacher sponsors or co-sponsors one single bill to increase legal immigration, I’ll admit I’m wrong and promise not to run against him again in 2010. I’ll even settle for a simple ‘yes’ vote for lifting the cap on H-1B (professional workers) visas. Anyone who is strongly PRO legal immigration should be willing to take a leadership role on that issue.”
And more recently, commenter “Joe,” a legal immigrant who knows from experience how difficult it is to get an H-1B, Green Card and citizenship, retorted to one of our many strident “anti-illegal” commenters (http://orangejuiceblog.com/2008/06/the-descent-of-tom-harman-part-ii-of-v-re-birth-as-an-immigrant-basher/#comment-58846 ) “How about instead of whining about ‘protecting the border’ making it easier to immigrate legally? How about asking the anti-immigrants in Congress (who are really anti *any* immigration, but for the most part, like you, play that down because the public doesn’t like that) to increase the quotas for H-1Bs, as, for example, Microsoft’s Mr. Gates asked for; to increase the quotas for Greencards? Did you know that it currently can take 10 years for *legal* immigrants to get a Greencard? If you are oh so much for legal immigration, you should be all over Congress to increase the quotas to speed that up.
Until then, you are just a hypocrite racist who bashes illegal immigration but really wants to stop all immigration and just pays lip service to legal immigrants.”
So I feel I’m on solid ground when I describe these politicians who rail against immigrants while doing zero to ease the crisis, anti-immigrant. Politicians will call their position whatever sounds most acceptable, hence anti-abortion becomes “pro-life” while pro-legal-abortion becomes “pro-choice.” They shouldn’t be allowed to define themselves in the pretty terms they choose, but we should describe them the way we see them behave.
No doubt when you called Harman’s office the charming young Rumanian-American Emmanuel answered the phone as he often does. (Emmanuel who is often so pleasantly perplexed about the Senator’s actual positions – I hope I don’t lose him his job.) Well, does it really need to be said that when we speak about immigrants here we are talking about Latin-American immigrants?
AD HOMINEM? AND IF SO WHY NOT?
Did I ever call Harman a racist? Let’s see… no I didn’t! That’s not a word I use much, too easy to throw around and too hard to define. You claim that when I wrote that Harman has “transformed himself overnight into Orange County’s foremost defender of Anglo-Americans from the encroaching brown hordes,” I was cleverly “tarring” him as a “crypto-racist,” and you jump from that to rail against me calling Harman racist—your own strawman—and hey! It looks like it worked: You’ve evidently convinced commenter #5 that’s what I was doing!
I don’t know if Harman and Rohrabacher are personally racist, but their policies are, and their policies and rhetoric give comfort and encouragement to the thousands of racists who live amongst us in the Orange Coast area, WHICH YOU WOULD KNOW IF ANY OF YOUR EMBRYONIC CANDIDACIES HAD EVER PROGRESSED TO THE POINT OF ACTUALLY KNOCKING ON VOTERS’ DOORS, Richard!
A heck of a lot of Republicans, and some Democrats too,will tell you, if you listen and they trust you, that they’ll vote for anyone who will help rid their streets, hospitals, and public places of Spanish-speaking brown-skinned people. Who they have no way of knowing their legal status. Of course they’ll keep throwing in the word “illegal,” but it’s obvious listening to them that their problem is they feel the America they know is under attack by people who look and speak differently from them.
What I will call those politicians is DEMAGOGUES: they encourage, stoke and utilize the basest instincts of their constituencies to keep and consolidate their own power. And maybe we should be happy that they don’t accomplish much. My harsh taskmaster, editor John Earl, only allowed me 800 words in my column (I’m testing my limits with this comment) but I could have written twice as much on the horrific but thankfully doomed laws that Harman and his allies have tried to pass against immigrants.
Although there will always be a few token Lupe Morenos who join in the hysteria against their own countrymen, the vast majority of Latin-Americans, whether US citizens, legal immigrants or undocumented, know in their hearts and from experience that this is all driven by anti-Latino racism. When demagogues from Lou Dobbs to Tom Harman spew forth their b.s. about crime waves, social services drains, and illegals “taking their jobs” (jobs that white adults would never do, that white teenagers used to jump at) it is all Latinos who take the brunt of white rage. When draconian measures like all the recent “DUI checkpoints” in Costa Mesa come down, all you have to do to be pulled over and harassed is to look Hispanic.
***
THEN, as I drove along brooding on your screed, I also thought to myself, is an ad hominem attack actually a “logical fallacy?” Maybe in your textbooks it is, but in my common-sense mind, it’s just bad manners and usually unproductive in a debate.
And then a few miles later, I got to thinking, why the hell shouldn’t I be able to use ad hominem attacks in a piece of opinion journalism anyway? This is probably the perfect place for it. I am not sitting across the table from Tom Harman engaging in a civilized debate on the issues (if I were I would be more polite.) He is a public figure who I am convinced has become a force for evil, and I am trying to make that case in a four-or-five-part series of articles, and I fervently hope that his opponent Ginny Mayer confounds all expectations, becomes a viable candidate, grabs onto the coattails of Debbie Cook, Steve Young and Barack Obama, replaces this guy and gives us some decent and thoughtful representation in the state senate. So attack and insult him I will here! Andale! Arriba!
IN CONCLUSION
Richard, you have sure wasted a lot of my time here, and everyone else’s, and I hope you’re proud of yourself. If I’d been guilty of all the foolishness you perpetrated over this past Spring, I would have sentenced myself to a year of silence. Posting hostile, ignorant, anonymous comments in defense of Republican demagogues under silly names like John Robinson doesn’t count. Quiet now, Professor. Gently you go into that good night.
(Finally, on the miniscule chance that “John Robinson” is not Richard Lara, then that’s some egg on my face Robinson! But I hope there was enough response there for you, you who have waited so patiently. I haven’t bothered comparing IP addresses, but you should know that there is an OCC philosophy professor who writes EXACTLY like you, who has been harassing me for a while, and half a dozen mutual friends are convinced that you are him. Don’t worry, you’re not missing much if you don’t know him. And thanks for the few kind words in your comment.)
Mr. Nelson,
I am still waiting on your response
#6. So the child, who is a citizen, gets food stamps. Okay, that still comports with what I wrote and what I read in this comprehensive, extensively documented essay: http://mediamattersaction.org/reports/fearandloathing/online_version
Some believe that undocumented immigrants benefit from federal programs such as food stamps, Medicaid, SCHIP, and welfare. In fact, undocumented immigrants are ineligible to receive these benefits; anyone seeking to obtain them must provide proof of legal status.25 Since the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, even documented immigrants are ineligible for most forms of public assistance for the first five years they reside in the United States or until they attain citizenship.26 While there are some social services undocumented immigrants do use — public education for children, for instance — contrary to the rhetoric one hears on cable news, they also support government spending through the taxes they pay.
Nope, still not sorry I opened my mouth. Will answer #3 in the morning.
Paula James, what are you attempting to say? Would you like to try again?
Mr. Vern Nelson you clearly know nothing about food stamps. My cousin attempted to apply but was told he would have to whittle down his IRA to $2000. Of course the IRS would severely penalize him for any early withdraw. However, from reading the fine print he learned that he does NOT have to be a citizen to receive benefits so long as he has a CHILD who is a “citizen”! AKA Anchor Baby. So please do not say illegal immigrants do not receive any kind of aid.
The Racism argument does not work anymore. Try thinking out of the box. You only describe yourself with your accuations.
Americans see for themselves the negative impact that ILLEGAL immigration has on their communitites. And furthermore, “You don’t speak for me” and your statements are an insult to all of Americans of Latino decent. You would never know by my name. Stop with the Racist comments.
And by the way GROW UP!
“John Robinson” aka Richard Lara, I will respond in detail when I have more time, later today or tomorrow.
Mr. Nelson, why are you using logical fallacies – such as the strawman argument – where Person A weakly or inaccurately states/describes the position of Person B, then proceeds to kick that position around?
What strawman? How about the charge that Senator Harman is against ALL immigration, not just illegal immigration – i.e., he’s really just a nativist hiding behind The Law.
Earlier, describing him as a defender of Anglo-Americans against “brown hordes” is yet another way to tar him as a crypto-racist, again, hiding behind The Law and using it as a bludgeon against people of other races.
Which, of course, is another logical fallacy – that of the ad hominem attack.
In fact, when I called Senator Harman’s district office in Costa Mesa to learn where the Senator stood on legal immigration—which I was told he supports, I learned about the demographics of his own organization and was informed that he currently has and has had in the past numerous individuals on staff who are foreign-born immigrants who have legally naturalized to the United States, not to mention individuals of different races and ethnic backgrounds—so much for being a racist.
The op-ed is about 750 words long, thus the author is averaging at least one major fallacy every 375 words.
When we criticize others, we tend to reveal much more about ourselves than we do about the target of our criticism. People only use logical fallacies for two reasons: (1) They are ignorant of logic or (2) They are trying to be deceitful. And, clearly, Mr. Vern Nelson is not a stupid, ignorant person — which leaves option two as the likely explanation.
Critics of the highly successful 1990s federal welfare reform legislation (which saved taxpayers billions and helped the needy while moving them into paying jobs) called the proponents “racists.” Critics of the Three Strikes Law (which has dramatically lowered California’s violent crime rates) called the proponents “racists.” And now critics of enforcing our nation’s border security are called “racists.”
Mr. Nelson—while I enjoy many of your regular posts you have attempted to demonize a person using the venom of salacious and baseless fallacies which I believe went too far this time.
Ever hear the expression “straw man argument?” Ever get as far as the sixth paragraph above? You have a lot to learn, HA!
We should let in all the immigrants who want to come here. There is no such thing as overcrowding. We shall pay for all the social services necessary. Raise taxes as much as necessary. We shall bear the burden of all the world’s people.