Arthur E. Sowers is a resident of Harbeson.
Recently, this newspaper published a letter by Frank Daniels, titled “Why do Dems aid immigrants over citizens?” Daniels’ letter explained the relationship between the title and the letter with a convoluted argument that an “atmosphere” of hate toward Donald Trump came from biased media that is “more supportive of illegal immigrants and criminals than (it is) of American citizens.”
Daniels’ letter also said, in short, to ignore any rhetoric against any Republican who supports Trump. The rhetoric is from Daniels, not me. And, if he was aiming at my letters, he certainly refuted none of what I said. I cited my sources, used facts and explained my reasoning. Daniels is living in a “fantasy bubble,” instead of reality. Here are some facts. The Chatham House think tank’s website has this summary article on how Trump is doing: “Donald Trump’s poll numbers suggest his popularity is waning.” The Pew Research Center’s website has this article: “U.S. Image Declines in Many Nations Amid Low Confidence in Trump.” And the anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest movement is growing, as shown by the article, “MAP: Minneapolis General Strike Movement Spreads to 250 Cities on Friday.”
Here is my point-by-point refutation of Daniels’ letter. The first thing I did was copy the whole question as presented in the title of his letter and paste it into two artificial intelligences: ChatGPT and Aria (which is built into the Opera browser). I got very nice, similar, very balanced and reasonable arguments that equally represented both major “pro” and “con” sides without actually answering the question.
Being that when I ask an AI a political question, I often get back both “pro” and “con” arguments, rather than yes or no answers, I then decided to ask the two AIs the following modified question, so I could leave out the “Dems” word: “Do immigrants get aid unfairly and preferentially over citizens?”
Aria gave this key sentence as part of an approximately 250-word response: “In summary, while there are instances where immigrants do access public benefits, the notion of them receiving aid unfairly or preferentially over citizens is not supported by the data.” ChatGPT gave these two key sentences as part of an approximately 300-word answer: “Short answer: generally no — immigrants do not receive aid unfairly or preferentially over citizens. The perception is common, but the policy reality is more restrictive and uneven than most people realize.” The rest of the answers were detailed and credible. If you have an open mind, you should be able to duplicate on your own what I did. If you get a different answer, write a letter and send it to civiltalk@iniusa.org. Otherwise, I would have to claim that Daniels’ letter title is both a falsehood and a scapegoating fallacy.
In the early part of his letter, Daniels refocused more carefully on “illegal immigrants,” instead of just “immigrants,” as in his title. Thus, Daniels connected illegal immigrants to criminals. It sounded to me like Daniels thinks only illegal immigrants commit crime. So, I consulted — this time — the Gemini AI with these exact two sentences: “Can you give me a best effort and credible estimate of crime rates for: a) immigrants, b) illegal immigrants, and c) born in America citizens? And give me three top quality references with URLs or ways to cite them?” And, within half a minute, the AI came up with a high-quality answer that begins with this sentence: “While exact crime rates can vary by data source and the specific year studied, a consistent body of empirical research indicates that both legal and undocumented immigrants have lower crime and incarceration rates than native-born U.S. citizens.” (The report is a free download, titled “Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas.”)
Based on this, I would conclude that crime rates would go down further if we deported Americans and kept the immigrants. Otherwise, I would have to conclude that Daniels is perpetuating a falsehood that is common among people whose anti-immigrant prejudices were cranked up by Trump’s demagoguery, or they had some kind of xenophobia to begin with.
Daniels swept under the rug this nasty fact: The real hate actually comes from Trump, who intensely and openly dislikes Democrats, liberals and immigrants in general, plus dislikes “garbage people” (e.g., Somalis), anything that competes with his lust for absolute power and anyone who disagrees with him. Trump also hates, to various degrees, many foreign countries (from Latin America to Iran) as much as the “liberal half” of America. It is a fact that political violence from the right and far right is much worse than from the left. Here is just one of many studies on the internet that backs up that fact: “The difference between Republicans and MAGA Republicans is violence.”
JPMorgan Chase recently “debanked” Trump, and in retaliation, Trump is suing the company. The unfairness is asymmetrical. You mess with Trump, and you could be in deep trouble. But Trump can mess with you, and you can’t touch him at all. Trump also hates and ignores at least parts of our Constitution and democracy. This is revealed by a continuous stream of actions and statements over the last decade that makes him look more like a cruel, vindictive and petty medieval king or a corrupt banana republic dictator than a president.
Daniels probably does not realize — and may deny it himself — that it is really he who hates America. I remember, going back for years, that Daniels’ letters almost always contained narratives that were anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, anti-government, and that is at least half of America! It is curious to remember that he, and several other letter writers, complained years ago about electric vehicle mandates and COVID-19 lockdowns as things being “shoved down our throats.” How ironic that it seems that, now, it is both Trump and Daniels who are shoving themselves down everyone’s throats.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
