Defining Apartheid Down
As if he hadn’t made a big enough fool of himself with this post libeling the Minutemen as “vigilantes” and Governor Schwarzenegger as a non-native “nativist,” Professor Bainbridge compounded the matter with a follow-up post that smears not only Arnold and the Minutemen, but everyone else who supports any enforcement of border controls, which means an overwhelming majority of Republicans and indepenents, and probably a majority of Democrats, as well. It’s bad enough calling people “stupid” simply because they disagree with you, but Bainbridge goes much further than that, dubbing those Republicans who support border controls as “the party of apartheid.”
First and foremost, I’m claiming dibs on “apartheid.” If it ever replaces Nazism as the scream of choice for the guy losing an argument, I’m claiming the associated rule as “Xrlq’s Law,” or at least “Xrlq’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law.” My name has to go on there somewhere.
Second, lest Xrlq’s Law prove true (and frankly, I’d rather it didn’t, as I’m sure Mike Godwin would agree with regard to his own law), I think now is a good time for a pop quiz on apartheid. Apartheid hasn’t been gone nearly as long as Nazism has, but apparently it has been gone long enough for certain law professors to have forgotten what it’s about. The following is a multiple choice question. All of the statements about the former South African apartheid state are true. Only one, however, has anything to do with the reason why the regime was described, by supporters and opponents alike, as a system of “apartheid.” Your job is to determine which.
- During the apartheid regime, South Africa held a huge percentage of the world’s diamonds.
- During the apartheid regime, Kim du Toit lived there, and so did Michael Jackson (the one-time radio guy, not the
allegedkiddy-diddler). - During the apartheid regime, the entire country of South Africa was south of the Equator.
- During the apartheid regime, South Africa maintained strict border controls to prevent a mass influx from neighboring countries, whose living conditions were far worse than its own, and also much worse than those of any country bordering the United States.
- During the apartheid regime, gold Kruggerrands were a popular investment.
- During the apartheid regime, South Africa was a predominantly Christian nation.
- During the apartheid regime, South Africa maintained a legal system of racial segregation that not only disenfranchised blacks but stripped them of citizenship altogether. It also prohibited blacks and whites from visiting each other’s designated areas without a pass, criminalized sex or marriage with members of the opposite race, instituitonalized employment discrimination, limited the amount of education blacks were allowed to attain, and generally maintained a system that would make the Jim Crow South blush.
- During the apartheid regime, South Africa, unlike most other African nations, never had a coup d’etat.
- During the apartheid regime, many white South African spoke Afrikaans, a dialect of Dutch, while others spoke languages like German or English.
- During the apartheid regime, South Africa maintained a constituitional system of checks and balances.
Bainbridge worries that a Republican Party that tolerates individuals who want immigration laws enforced will be dubbed the “stupid” party. I can think of few stupider things, politically speaking or otherwise, that the “stupid” party could do than to pander to illegal aliens and their supporters, who commit a grossly disproportionate number of crimes, drain a disproportionally large amount of public resources, and generally lower the overall quality of life in this country. For the Democrats to pander to them is equally immoral, but at least understandable in a Machiavellian sort of way. For Republicans to jump on this bandwagon is a lose-lose, as few of these guys were ever going to vote Republican anyway.
Hat tip: Non-nut and non-stupid Republican extraordinare Michelle Malkin.
UPDATE: Anyone who thinks the Professor only recently jumped the shark on this issue should read this January 7, 2004 entry, and my response.
May 1st, 2005 at 12:15 pm
The answer is 7. Do I get a prize? Amazing the connections people will draw when backed into a corner.
May 1st, 2005 at 2:01 pm
He’s a professor. You can’t expect him to mow his own lawn.
May 1st, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Sorry, no prize, just the smug knowledge that you’re overqualified to teach at UCLA.
May 1st, 2005 at 3:54 pm
I had a college professor who didn’t even know what an Afrikaaner was. I had to explain it was different than “African.”
Interesting that you bring up Kim du Toit. He has actually been accused by some moonbat of “benefitting” from the aparthied regime. Pretty difficult from the confines of a jail cell.
May 1st, 2005 at 4:48 pm
The apartheid regime also gave funding to abramoff and was also supported by various righties in the west. including our president.
May 1st, 2005 at 5:38 pm
What do you expect from a UCLA (spelled APOLOGIST)professor?
May 1st, 2005 at 5:44 pm
Professor Bainbridge says only obey the laws you a
Sort of embarrassed to have to correct a Professor but maybe Professor Bainbridge should review the definition of Vigilante? Perhaps when he understands the definition he can volunteer to educate President Bush. Because neither of them understand the…
May 1st, 2005 at 9:23 pm
Carter: Sr. Xrlq is a professor, too, and he mows his own lawn, not to mention fixing his own cars and just about anything around the house that happens to be broken. That excuse won’t wash.
John: was Kim du Toit imprisoned in SA? Why?
Actus: your quarter-truth was not among the ten options you had to choose from, wasn’t entirely true, and would have been among the nine incorrect (read: irrelevant to the definition of apartheid) answers even if were. No soup for you!
Flap: I expect much better from a conservative law professor at any major law school. Eugene Volokh teaches at UCLA Law, too, and I can’t see him saying anything half as knee-jerk or stupid.
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:25 am
Kim du Toit was arrested for protesting apartheid. I undertand it was not a long stint, but it makes me think he neither approved of, nor benefitted from apartheid.
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:00 am
My experience with law professors at major law schools is well: underwhelming. Volokh is OK – so I agree.
This being said by a former professor at USC School of Dentistry = Flap and having attended both Loyola and Southwestern Law Schools.
Have you ever been to SA? Lovely country and great beaches but watch out for the sharks!
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:33 am
Most of my profs were better, but then again, so is Bainbridge on most issues. For some reason guns, SUVs and border controls all turn an otherwise sensible conservative into an instant moonbat.
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Did you hear that KFI is erecting billboards in L.A to combat the KESQ Mexico ones?
Wonder who has photos?
E-mail them to Flap!!
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Michelle Malkin has it.
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:56 pm
“Did you hear that KFI is erecting billboards in L.A to combat the KESQ Mexico ones?”
I wonder if clearchannel owns those too.
Wasn’t at least part of south africa’s apartheid system a system of border controls imposed on the bantusans that they had carved out for black africans? Countries like Lesotho?
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Creating new quasi-country “homelands” was part of the apartheid system. Keeping out would-be immigrants from bona fide countries was not. To argue otherwise is to define the word apartheid out of existence. Every nation in the world practices some degree of “apartheid” with respect to noncitizens.
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:39 pm
” Keeping out would-be immigrants from bona fide countries was not”
I thikn the concept of ‘bona fide country’ in post-colonial africa is a bit of a joke. Specially when some of these — including, say, Lesotho, were drawn by south africans.
Of course, once we start getting into whether these borders were drawn by using the force of the ones now putting up the fence, we just open a can of worms…