Ethics Train Wrecks are situations where nearly everyone involved—adversaries, victims, authorities, and usually reporters and journalists— behave unethically. This story is typical of the breed.
The October 22 student job fair at the University of California-Irvine included many organizations that cookie cutter liberal students have reviled since I was in college, but somehow it was the only the Border Patrol that was under fire from anti-immigration enforcement activists.
Protesters accused the federal agency charged with protecting U.S. borders of “unjust killings, …. racial profiling, use of force, and unjust violence.” The Border Patrol, leaving little reason to give us confidence in its general ability to brave more perilous challenges, allowed itself to be run off, and and to permit what may have been non-students to prevent actual students from gaining access to a job opportunity.
“We regret to inform the community that out of concern for the safety of CBP Recruitment Officers, U.S. Customs & Border Protection will no longer be participating in the UCI Fall Career Fair,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio in a statement. The perceived hostility on campus was accompanied by a Change.org petition signed by around 600 people, demanding that the agency be banned from the job fair. The petition claimed “having Border Patrol agents on campus is a blatant disregard to undocumented students’ safety and well-being” and is insulting to “mixed-status families.”
The petition, like the vast majority of Change.Org. petitions, was moronic—ignorant, irresponsible, silly and unmoored to reality.
The passengers on this ETW:
- The Border Patrol. Nobody can identify a credible threat, just the dumb petition, some signs and shouting students. It sure looked like the organization decided to let the protesters, a tiny percentage of the student body, chase them off to send its critics a “Screw you, we don’t have to put up with this garbage” message. That’s an unethical message, one that allows radical and noisy extremists to infringe on the rights of others.
- The protesters. I have yet to hear a single coherent, realistic, reasonable argument from any open borders, pro-illegal immigrant advocate. That’s why they just blather on about “immigration reform,” because reform sounds good to people who aren’t paying attention.
- The student critics of the protesters. “If you don’t like the Border Patrol, it still doesn’t give you license to demand their removal,” said Rob Petrosyan, the leader of UC Irvine’s College Republicans. Actually, it does, Rob. That doesn’t mean it’s right, fair, or intelligent, but they can demand that the agents wear pink ribbons in their hair, be armed with squirt guns, or walk on their knees. Adversaries of unethical movements have an obligation to be articulate, accurate and competent.
Of course, this is a Republican group, so I may be expecting too much.
- The University. The University of California has been encouraging an anti-American student culture for decades. UC Irvine is the same campus where The Associated Students of University of California backed a resolution to ban the American flag on campus because it represented “hate speech” and “made people feel very uncomfortable and unsafe.” Now, as the Border Patrol was being excoriated for doing its job, the University acted as if it had no responsibility or part in the episode. It was “prepared to take every step necessary to ensure their safety and the safety of the attendees,” said school spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon, adding that the university never received any threats to safety. It also never takes forceful steps to teach its students to eschew unethical demonstrations. Nobody’s forcing students to join the Border Patrol, but students who—idiotically—object to the existance of the agency should respect the rights of students who feel otherwise. [I may be biased because I was prevented from attending many classes by SDS assholes—sorry, can’t think of a better word—-who shut down my college for nearly a month in my freshman year. Before that, I crossed picket lines and got in the faces of slogan-shouting jerks, many of whom are now tenured professors indoctrinating students to be just like them.] The University also has admitted around 500 illegal aliens at Irvine, which is indefensible. A defensible number?
Zero.
- The non-anti-illegal immigration students. Weenies. The University community had an obligation to treat guests like guests, and open support from students was necessary to counter the hostility. These students, however, live on a campus (and state) where it is a social stigma to support the rule of law, and not to back California’s suicidal embrace of unmanaged change in demographics and the work force. In many social disputes, the victory goes to the loud, audacious, energetic and threatening. There is no virtue in being correct if you don’t have the guts to oppose bullies and fools.
- The petitioners and protesters, whoever they are. The petition calls the border an “arbitrary boundary line that serves to control migration.” How arbitrary? The Rio Grande is a river. Yes, borders delineate where a nation ends. What’s the alternative? It also states that the term “illegal immigration” is dehumanizing. No, it is accurate and descriptive.
On a student Facebook page supporting the petition, one can get a flavor of the quality of thought going into this debate. Writes one commenter:
“Students didn’t want Border Patrol there because it is an immoral, human rights-violating institution. This is about denouncing an organization that has ruined literally millions of people’s lives through detention and deportation, and has deported unknown thousands to their deaths in their home countries. This is a civil rights movement for everyone, regardless of citizenship. This is bravery.”
This is, in fact, stupidity. Law enforcement is essential; the commenter equates the rule of law with a human rights violation. He also intentionally blurs the line between refugees and illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol does not arrest and deport refugees. “Unknown thousands” translates to “We are making up facts to support an untenable position.
Finally, we have…
- The politicians, and you know who they are. They encourage this dangerous and irresponsible position to pander for votes, or, if they really support open borders, they are unfit to govern and untrustworthy.
_____________________________
Sources: Fox News, College Fix
Ethics Alarms 
Not much different than the FBI-JAG recruiting ban at many law schools during the time gay folks couldn’t serve openly. Oh, it provided a veneer of “human rights” but the fact is most campuses are overwhelmingly liberal and just didn’t like law enforcement or the military much. As such, any excuse to keep them far, far away.
These people are traitors. speech in support of open borders is hate speech against America. We ought not approve hate speech.
Double reverse sarcasm?
A right to engage in hate speech does not constitute an entitlement to approval.
It depends on who you hate.
If you hate Republicans, apparently it does qualify for such an entitlement.
Jack, why would you think Michael is being sarcastic? He has routinely advocated banning speech he doesn’t like on this blog.
I nave never understood him to advocate hate speech laws. Has he?
No, he specifically advocates restricting the speech of liberals.
EM has a provocative, tongue in cheek, devil’s advocate style that is sometimes too obtuse. I’ll check.
Well, more specifically, he supports banning pro-illegal-immigration speech, though I think this passage can be interpreted as supporting banning other types of speech as well:
“We have a right to be free of the threat of illegal aliens, a right to be free of the threat of an anti-American media hostile to our values and our country. We need to protect these rights. And we must do so by classifying pro-illegal immigration speech as treason, and punishing it as such. We must regulate the media to ensure that it does not promote anything hostile to America. For freedom of speech goes too far, as we have learned, when it protects anti-American speech.”
https://ethicsalarms.com/2015/07/03/an-open-letter-to-america-ferrera-in-response-to-her-open-letter-to-donald-trump/
Yes, I remember that. ME has advocated sedition laws, though never hate speech laws. He knows the difference. Both are 1st Amendment violations.
And both would fall under the umbrella of “advocating banning speech he doesn’t like,” which was my original assertion.
Agreed.
Prior to June 26, 2015, such a law would have been a clear violation of the First Amendment. After all, the scope of fundamental rights is defined by “this Nation’s history and tradition” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720-21, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997) (internal quotations omitted), quoted in In Re Marriage of J.B. and H.B., 326 S.W.3d 654 at 674 (Tx. 5th Ct,of Appeal 2010) Under the Glucksberg analysis, pro-illegal-alien speech and pro-illegal -immigrant speech is protected.
But on that day, the Supreme Court held that, ” new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations, often through perspectives that begin in pleas or protests and then are considered in the political sphere and the judicial process”. “[R]ights come not from ancient sources alone. They rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era”
I noted a new dimension of freedom to have a country safe from tyhreats to its national security. That is what illegal immigration us. Glucksberg is no longer the standard.
this is my better informed understanding.
So let me get this straight, Michael. Your argument is that the gay marriage decision sets a precedent for outlawing pro-illegal-immigrant speech?
This is a formerly undiscovered terrain of stupid.
The Supreme Court abandoned the notion that the scope of fundamental rights is to be determined by our Nation’s history and tradition.
“The Supreme Court abandoned the notion that the scope of fundamental rights is to be determined by our Nation’s history and tradition.”
1) It has never been the case that fundamental rights are determined only by our nation’s history and tradition.
2) Even if that were the case, in no way does it follow from that premise that you now have some imaginary right to be protected from speech you don’t like, and that this right outweighs the rights of others to free speech.
It is not speech that I do not like, but advocacy of actions that harm America itself. Illegal immigration clearly and directly harms America.
“It is not speech that I do not like, but advocacy of actions that harm America itself. Illegal immigration clearly and directly harms America.”
Some could say the same thing about climate denialism, burning the American flag, pro-abortion speech, anti-abortion speech, drug legalization advocacy, racist speech, etc. etc. etc. I typically hate slippery slope arguments, but you’re literally advocating that we suppress speech on a politically charged topic that many people disagree over.
Assuming we elect abject tyrants who hate pro-illegal-immigration speech to office, then elect a tyrant president who has the same views, who appoints a tyrannical Supreme Court who also share the same views–which is what would have to happen for your proposal to take place–what’s stopping the next tyrant from saying that pro-life speech “directly harms America” and needs to be banned?
Your proposal is anti-American, unethical, and impractical.
“The October 22 student job fair at the University of California-Irvine included many organizations that cookie cutter liberal students have reviled since I was in college”
Yes, tell us more about the Bronze Age. 🙂 What was it like to learn from Socrates?
Being more serious, this is part of the reason I’m glad I can attend colleges from the comfort of my home in the modern world. While it does mean that I am more or less self-taught, and I will ultimately have to work twice as hard to prove my worth after I graduate, at least I don’t have to put up with bullshit like this.
Get off my lawn!
No little commenter…this is bravery (or, decency, the word bravery should be reserved for actual acts of courage)…
You represent an idea I don’t like. Therefore I’ll engage you in an honest and vigorous debate. I’ll marshal my arguments, anticipate your arguments, keep an open mind, realize there are other opinions, expect and give respect, back my arguments by demonstrating that I understand both sides of the issue, and work for cooperation.
Perhaps, the commenter, when he/she/it said “This is bravery” meant cowardice, callowness, arrogance, oppression or obstruction.
Their real argument is that they hate America.
“Their real argument is [insert obvious partisan strawman argument].”
Well, I’m convinced!
What other possible reason is there to support illegal immigration i9n America, except hatred of America?
1. Business interests: cheap labor.
2. Democrats: votes
3. Hispanics: group, family identification
4. Everyone else: ignorance, stupidity, foolishness
Compassion for illegal immigrants? The belief that the benefits outweigh the harms? The belief that current immigration policies are overly restrictionist?
You can disagree with all of these arguments, but they’re not inherently “stupid,” and they certainly aren’t inherently hateful to America.
I didn’t say they were inherently hateful to America. But they are stupid, and mostly dishonest.
1. Compassion for lawbreakers is no justification for refusing to enforce the law or making law-breaking beneficial. The whole concept makes the rule of law impossible.
2. The benefits of allowing citizens of other countries, who show by their conduct that they do not respect our laws, to artificially lower wages and be exploited by greedy employers and corporations outweighs the need for any sovereign nation to protect its borders, regulate immigration to its needs and remain sovereign. Now there’s a theory.
3. The solution to laws we don’t like is to change the laws, not shrug off violations.
These are all terrible excuses, as I’m sure you know, but they appear to be the best advocates for illegals have. Any elected official, however, who supports any of them is either lying or unfit to serve.
“I didn’t say they were inherently hateful to America.”
I know, that was in reply to Michael.
I though so. It came across my blog administrator page as directed at me. Still, it’s a short jump from “obviously harmful to the country,” which it is, to “motivated by animus against the object of that harm.” I think Hanlon’s Razor applies, but I can understand why someone wouldn’t think so.
Racial profiling? Really? When the border that is leaking like a sieve is the one with…wait for it…Mexico? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “Mexican” a nationality…not a race? What’s really discouraging is that the “illegal immigration” these loonies are encouraging is being driven by a still-remarkably-strong economy that is slowly but surely being destroyed by largesse granted to the very same people whose border crossing they are encouraging.
“isn’t “Mexican” a nationality…not a race?”
Yeah, but “racial” is do-able when you get up in someone’s face, “nationalitial” just doesn’t make it. You gotta be practical about these things.
Gotcha. And, there is always “La Raza-ist” I suppose
I wonder if the La Raza-ists are willing to accept one-way tickets to Spain.
That is a good question, given that Castilian Spanish and Tex-Mex Spanish are often incomprehensible to one another.
Funny that Janet Napolitano, former head of Homeland Security, is now the President of the University of California (although I’m not sure what qualifications she has for either position).
I am not sure this is mainly about the open borders issue, which is certainly big enough, as it is about who gets to decide what organizations are permitted to enter academic institutions to recruit and what criteria to apply. I went to a strongly Catholic college, and the Central Intelligence Agency was among the organizations that came to recruit. I’m not going to argue the merits of the intelligence community here, nor frankly, is a recruiting lecture the place to do so. Several influential liberal students wanted the organization banned on the grounds that it was an immoral organization and did not belong on a Catholic school’s grounds. A lot of these folks overlapped those trying to push the Navy off campus as well, saying that a Catholic school should not host a military organization.
When it was pointed out that a job interview or recruitment was just an opportunity for students looking for work to find out more about what this organization was about, they typically countered with “then those students who are interested can go meet with the CIA someplace else. Not here.” When it was pointed out that some folks either needed the military’s financial help to go to college or genuinely wanted to serve their country, the usual response was “then that’s what the service academies are for. Let them go there. Teaching war doesn’t belong here.” Once in a while one of them would add, “It’s truly a shame that some people need to rely on the military for an education, and somehow we have to find other ways that don’t involve violence to get them here.”
What galls me most is that most of those kids from 20+ years ago who wanted to sharply draw a line between the Catholic school and the secular world didn’t know Vatican II from the Diet of Worms and never made it to Mass. I would dare say none of the folks now pushing the Department of Homeland Security off campus really give that much of a damn about the challenges real refugees face or the problems back in Central America that lead to this problem for the US. They were and are simply closed-minded liberals who don’t like what those icky military and law enforcement and intelligence people stand for and don’t want them around. So they paint on a moral gloss of being for faith or for peace or just “I CARE, dammit!” and decide everything they do, from disruptive behavior to vandalism to sometimes outright rioting, can’t ever be wrong because they are on the right side. It’s the ultimate lazy morals producing lousy ethics.
Ugh! To think my tax money supports this University. Maybe there are some students who’d like the opportunity to see what the Border Patrol offers but the nuvo-nazis try to shut out recruiting by the agency. Maybe the protesters should spend a semester at Patrice Lamumba University in Moscow.
I wonder if these people ever considered how many members of the Border Patrol are of Latino background themselves? Quite a few are, actually. What they really hate is the concept that American citizens with Spanish surnames are loyal to their country, first and foremost.
Most aren’t, however.
A lot of them have been in this country for many generations, Jack. There tends to be a world of difference between aliens from Latin America and Americans of Latin descent.