Earlier this month, on August 11, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution demanding the FCC investigate the relationship between "hate speech in the media" and hate crimes. Amnestied illegal alien-turned-City Supervisor David Campos was the most vocal sponsor of the resolution.
It was always obvious that the Obama Administration's "Hate Crimes" hysteria is actually aimed at repressing opinion. But what is "Hate Speech"? According to the San Francisco August 11 resolution, it is words "intended to offend" some group. This is not limited to advocating violence—but also specifies "creating a climate of hate towards vulnerable groups".
The San Francisco resolution quotes various studies by the National Hispanic Media Coalition about an alleged rise in hate crimes against Latinos and how this is tied "hate speech" in the media. (More on this later.)
Who are these "vulnerable groups"? Guess what—they aren't whites, men, or Protestants. But they do include "African Americans, Asian-Pacific Americans, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, women, Lesbians, Gays, Transgendered people, and people with disabilities".
But, most of all, the Board of Supervisors is concerned with the "negative coverage of Latinos and the immigration debate". They breathlessly repeat the debunked claims of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and the National Hispanic Media Coalition "that a correlation exists between an increase in hate speech in the media and an increase of hate crimes committed against vulnerable groups".
How big an epidemic is hate-speech related violence in San Francisco? According to the San Francisco Police Department's own statistics, a grand total of no (0) anti-Mexican Hate Crime in 2008 and one (1) in 2007. The SFPD does not say exactly what type of crime these were, but given the hissy fit the city is throwing over hate crimes, it's a safe bet if they were murder, rape, or serious assault, we'd hear about it.
While few hate crimes occur in San Francisco, plenty of crimes occur due to criminal illegal aliens. Yet in 1989, San Francisco passed a sanctuary city policy that "prohibits city employees from helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with immigration investigations or arrests unless such help is required by federal or state law or a warrant".
Many cities try to hide their sanctuary policies, but in early 2008 San Francisco actually lunched an ad campaign to let all illegal aliens know they have nothing to worry about. A spokesman for city mayor Gavin Newsom bragged: "We have worked with the Board of Supervisors, Department of Public Health, labor and immigrant rights groups to create a city government-wide public awareness campaign so that immigrants know The City won't target them for using city services."
The ad campaign paid off, sort of. On June 22, 2008, illegal alien and MS 13 member Edwin Ramos murdered San Francisco resident Tony Bologna and his two sons.
Ramos had a long criminal record, including two felonious assaults—one against a pregnant woman. Less than three months before the murder he was arrested on gang and weapons charges. But he was neither charged nor reported to immigration authorities.
One of the most outrageous aspects of the city's system was that it specifically protected known illegal alien drug dealers from deportation. Last June, the San Francisco Chronicle reported,
"San Francisco juvenile probation officials—citing the city's immigrant sanctuary status—are protecting Honduran youths caught dealing crack cocaine from possible federal deportation and have given some offenders a city-paid flight home with carte blanche to return." [Feds probe S.F.'s migrant-offender shield, By Jaxon Van Derbeken, June 29, 2008]
Former Narcotics Unit Captain Tim Hettrich was quoted as saying that illegal alien drug dealers "pass themselves off as juveniles, with a three-day growth of beard and everything else. It's frustrating, some of them have been arrested four or five times…That is one of the big problems with being a city of sanctuary."
One of these illegal aliens was Alexander Izaguirre who stole Amanda Kiefer's car, and then tried to run her over with it, and fractured her skull last year.
Kiefer only recently discovered that Izaguirre had been arrested for dealing crack cocaine just four months earlier. But the city put him on its "back on track" program, which helped give him a job (which it is illegal in and of itself) and expunged his record.
Kiefer asked: "If they've committed crimes and they're not citizens, then why are they here? Why haven't they been deported?" [San Francisco D.A.'s program trained illegal immigrants for jobs they couldn't legally hold By Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2009]
Even after Kiefer's case, the San Francisco District Attorney who runs the program, Indian-Jamaican California AG wannabe Kamala Harris, still defends it, saying that, save for Izaguirre, all the other illegal aliens whose records were expunged were "following the rules" and deserved to be let free even after prosecutors found out about their status.
After a spate of negative publicity over the murders, San Francisco revised its policy so city officials can report illegal aliens who commit felonies.
But David Campos—the same supervisor who sponsored the Hate Speech resolution, and former teenage illegal alien himself—wants to create an exception to allow juvenile illegal alien felons to avoid deportation.
This would have protected the Bolognas' killer, Edward Ramos, who was arrested for two felonies at the age of 17.
It gets even better. The City of San Francisco is not the first entity to ask the FCC to investigate "hate speech". On January 28, The National Hispanic Media Coalition sent it a "Petition of Inquiry…In the Matter of Hate Speech in the Media".
The NHMC seems to be the driving force behind Campos' crusade against Hate Speech. It is cited in four parts of the resolution. In fact, the language and definition of hate speech (words like "vulnerable group", "climate of hatred") come straight out of the "National Latino Policy & Issues Brief" [PDF] on Hate Speech and Hate Crimes by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and the NHMC. It takes a very broad definition of hate speech to include words like "criminal illegal aliens". In fact, it specifically cites criticism of San Francisco's sanctuary policy as an example (links added):
Analyst of Hate Speech from The John & Ken Show
EXAMPLE
"And this is all under the Gavin Newsom administration and the Gavin Newsom policy in San Francisco of letting underage illegal alien criminals loose" (from the July 21, 2008, broadcast].
TARGETS
Vulnerable group: foreign nationals (undocumented people).
Social institutions: policy and political organizations (city policy and mayor's office).
FALSE FACTS
The sanctuary policy preceded Gavin Newsom's tenure as San Francisco's mayor, and neither Newsom nor the sanctuary policy supports "letting underage illegal alien criminals loose."
FLAWED ARGUMENTATION
Guilt by association is used to make the hosts' point. Undocumented youth and those who are perceived as their endorsers at the institutional level are stigmatized by being associated with criminality.
DIVISIVE LANGUAGE Criminalized undocumented youth and their perceived validators (Gavin Newsom and the sanctuary policy) are depicted as a threat to San Francisco citizens, setting up an "us versus them" opposition.
ANALYSIS
The language depicts the hosts' targets (undocumented people, city policy, and Mayor Gavin Newsom) as dangerous, criminal, and collusive, in addition, the focus of that policy (undocumented people) becomes reduced to "underage illegal alien criminals."
This is self evidently absurd, but now that using flawed reasoning in opposition to illegal immigration is considered hate speech, I'll briefly dispense with this nonsense lest I be accused of a Petitio Principii fallacy.
"Undocumented people" is, of course a politically correct euphemism for illegal aliens. If they are a "vulnerable group", then so are thieves, con artists, and rapists.
Illegal alien criminals is a redundancy and San Francisco's policy explicitly calls for letting illegal aliens loose; so that is Gavin Newsom's policy. I guess the NHMC thinks "criminal illegal aliens" means those who also committed other crimes; and being let "loose" means not actually putting them through the justice system. But the fact that if illegal aliens, after they are tried for their local crimes, are not reported to federal immigration officials. That is letting them loose.
Again, "undocumented youth" are ipso facto criminals, so associating them with "criminality" isn't guilt by association; as they all are criminals. Criticizing an elected official's policies vis-à-vis an illegal aliens isn't "guilt by association" unless you are accusing the mayor of being an illegal alien himself. And it's a bit of a pot-kettle-black thing for the NHMC to accuse others of "guilt by association."
If using the words "illegal aliens" and "criminal illegal aliens" is divisive, then ICE officials in the Obama administration are guilty.
As for us vs. them, pretty much all politics pits different interest groups against each other. If John and Ken are guilty then San Francisco is putting the progressive right-minded thinkers and the underclass "us" against patriotic American "them."
This would be laughable—if it weren't parroted by politicians and the Main Stream Media. This is not limited to the People's Republic of San Francisco. For example, Sen. Robert Menendez, (D, NJ) sent the same request to the FCC as San Francisco. Even Barack Obama made the phony argument on the campaign trail.
The hypocrisy demonstrates just exactly what the real agenda behind the cries against "hate speech".
It's not about protecting Hispanics and immigrants from "hate crimes". It's about protecting Treason Lobby politicians like David Campos from criticism for their failure to defend American citizens from illegal aliens—and, ultimately, it's about a totalitarian drive to suppress all patriotic dissent.
"Washington Watcher" [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway.
