Quick update on Pearce's email

In my most recent post, I wrote of Rep. Russell Pearce's latest email misadventure. Paul Stiles, the author of the economics/stock market-focused blog, The Novice Bear. Mr. Stiles had taken issue with some of Pearce's assertions regarding the free markets and the economic effects of strict enforcement of immigration laws and mass deportation of illegal immigrants.


I asked Mr. Stiles to forward Pearce's email to me, and he graciously did so.


Mr. Stiles wrote a brief note - 173 words, including salutation and closing - to Pearce at Pearce's AZ House email address. While his note was certainly critical of Pearce, it was civil and succinct.


Pearce replied with a somewhat longer note - 1865! words, not including the salutation and closing because Pearce didn't bother with either one. Notwithstanding the lack of normal courtesy (no salutation or closing), Pearce's response wasn't uncivil per se, but it certainly wasn't succinct. His response was more than 10 times longer than Stiles' initial note.


Yet, buried within all of Pearce's assertions, nativist rhetoric, unsupported statistics, and more than a few self-congratulatory pats on his own back, was a complete absence of a response to Stiles' original criticisms.


Mr. Stiles wrote things like "[i]llegal immigrants are the epitome of free markets", "[y]our legislation is an artificial restriction on free markets and your state's economy will suffer for it", and "I cannot for the life of me why a legislator would deliberately shrink his or her own economy, especially one with such a rapidly ageing population."


Besides the material quoted in my previous post, Rep. Pearce responded with phrases like "[u]ntil the day I die, I will insist that 'illegal' is 'illegal' ", "ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: Amnesty: Winning the Jackpot for Breaking the Law! Enforcement not Reform", and a laundry list of the various anti-immigrant legislation and referendum questions that he has authored or co-authored.

Other sections of Pearce's letter include a "myths and facts about HB2779 [Employer Sanctions Law]" piece, credited to Pearce, but reading like a press release (to be fair, though, I could easily see him writing such a press release.)

In my previous post, I wrote that Rep. Pearce's writing was "unprofessional." That may have been a mistake.

His writing is also lazy.

His reply to Mr. Stiles' correspondence not only was unresponsive to Stiles' criticisms, it actually read more like a 'copy and paste' mash-up of different nativist screeds and Pearce's campaign bio, only a small amount of which may have actually been written by Pearce himself.

I won't post the entire email here for two reasons -

1. At nearly 1900 words, it really is too long. In addition, it's loaded with the kind of grammatical errors that I make only when I'm writing at 2 in the morning after a long day (12 hours) at work.

2. It's utter crap. Not that I've never posted crap here before, but it's *my* crap. Not somebody else's.

Having said all that, if there is any significant demand for it, I'll post larger sections of the letter (though you can probably find most of his stuff on various white supremacist websites.)

Maybe Rep. Pearce could find the time to take a writing course to help improve his writing, perhaps at one of the community colleges that he wants to cut so desperately. He should do *something* to improve his writing, especially that which goes out under the auspices of his seat in the legislature.

I don't care if he embarrasses himself, but he's embarrassing the entire state with his written (and other) rantings.