Letters
to the editor: In response
In
her Sept. 17 letter to the editor, Christine
Eyre decided to attack the credibility of
Dr. Matt Taylor instead of his arguments.
Angelika Meyer cited Dr. Taylor's views
in her Sept. 15 article on SB-60, which
gives illegal immigrants the right to obtain
a driver's license in California. Christine
committed a clear ad hominem fallacy in
her reasoning, going after the person, not
the argument.
Dr.
Matt Taylor is a tenure-track assistant
professor of Communication Studies at Cal
State Long Beach. He is a rhetorical scholar,
critic and skilled debater, as well as the
director of the nationally competitive CSULB
Forensics, or Speech & Debate, Team.
When it comes to argumentation and debate,
his credibility, scholarship and expertise
speaks for itself.
While I agree with Christine in pointing
out that the news article focused only on
the views of those supporting the bill,
I disagree with her assumption that all
illegal immigrants should be punished because
some "may be" terrorists. To say
so would be a hasty generalization. Those
who might be terrorists, criminals, or under-age
people, who want to buy tobacco and alcohol,
can easily obtain a driver's license, whether
it is legal or illegal. We might as well
abolish all drivers' licenses for everybody,
because there might be some legal residents
or even citizens who "might" be
terrorists.
Christine's
opinion inherently assumes that illegal
immigrants are evil people who like to lie
and forge documents. Racist and classist
immigration laws aside, most of the people
affected by SB-60 are hard working civilized
individuals who are working their backs
off to support themselves and their families.
Politicians
and interest groups that oppose SB-60 would
not support cracking down on illegal immigrants
and kicking all those two million people
out. A crackdown would destroy California's
agricultural industry and force those big
Republican corporations to pay minimum wage
or higher to their employees. Many companies
depend on the near-slave labor of illegal
immigrants. They will never support the
internal enforcement of immigration laws;
yet, they will oppose a law that attempts
to make the lives of their employees easier.
The reality is that there are two million
illegal immigrants in California, and they
are here to stay. You can either recognize
them as people who have rights, or you can
advocate a crackdown to remove them.
--
Usama Kahf,
Graduate student Communication Studies
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