Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Salute to Chester A. Arthur!

Just in case you missed the big Chester A. Arthur celebration on President's Day, a hero to bigoted nativist xenophobes everywhere:
The Arthur Administration enacted the first general Federal immigration law. Arthur approved a measure in 1882 excluding paupers, criminals, and lunatics. Congress suspended Chinese immigration for ten years, later making the restriction permanent.
Personally, I'm a Sinophile -- they make great fireworks -- but in a democratic polity, the majority rules. And who knows? Maybe if Hearst hadn't ginned up fear of the Yellow Peril, we'd all be half-Chinese by now. (NTTAWWT.) Progressive tolerant types recoil in horror from restrictionist policies, but you liberals should think about this: If the Know-Nothings had had their way -- excluding the Irish rabble and other such Papist scum -- you'd have been spared Antonin Scalia, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly.

I'm just sayin' . . .

1 comment:

  1. Personally, I'm a Sinophile
    The irony is that, to read Evans, today's people bemoaning the human rights abuses and expansion into Tibet bear a striking resemblance to the nitwits in the State Department that aided Mao.
    The Chinese people, as such, are as lovable as any. That government of theirs, not so much. Do you even know if your blog is readable within the Great Firewall of China?

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