You can view Prof. Haidt’s Ted Talk about his book here<\/a>.<\/p>\nLooking at the San Francisco case in light of both Prof. McBrayer and Prof. Haidt’s thoughts, it becomes clear why a lot of the “fact checking” about Mr. Trump’s, or anyone else’s, statements about immigration and crime are bound to fall short. The fact checkers are focused on harms and fairness. For people looking across the other foundations of moral thought, the most often expressed sentiment is “What part of illegal don’t you understand?” And so now it makes sense why a fact check that seems perfectly simple turns into a convoluted exercise in comparative crime rates – because the analysis is blind to the fact that, not only are some types of crime more severe than others – murder is much worse than jaywalking – but there are aggravating circumstances around crimes committed by illegal aliens.<\/p>\n
If you start with the premise that, like lightning strikes, crime is a terrible but random phenomena that can be analyzed dispassionately then it follows that there’s no moral difference between crimes committed by illegal aliens and by U.S. citizens. Characterizing these crimes differently is unfair, because drawing a moral distinction between people here legally and illegally is unfair. This is why the Post, and other publications use “unauthorized” or “undocumented” as euphemisms for illegal alien, and many news outlets don’t report the immigration status of criminals.<\/p>\n
Conversely, for someone who views crime as not only a “harm” or “fairness” issue, but a respect and loyalty issue, there is a moral difference. Crimes committed by anyone are terrible, but crimes committed by someone who lacked the respect for our country\u2019s laws to come here illegally, and who were abetted by a city policy that lacked loyalty to the American public by releasing them to commit more crimes, are especially terrible.<\/p>\n
Are there circumstances that a liberal would say aggravate a crime? Yes, which is why I think they support hate crime laws, because targeting a crime victim based on their personal characteristics is unfair. And significantly from this viewpoint, looking at the legal status of criminals would be unfair.<\/p>\n
This, then, is why the majority of fact check attempts on Mr. Trump’s statements are doomed to fail – because they are based primarily on a moral view that emphasizes fairness and harm, and thus ultimately excludes the moral facts that a majority of Americans hold true about illegal immigrants and crime. As FAIR’s President Dan Stein noted last week<\/a>: “The question should be, ‘in what way does illegal immigration improve public safety for Americans?'”