Stalin famously said, “a single death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic.” This is the statist bean-counter’s view of human life. Humans are sort of like widgets, existing to serve the needs of the state. It is a view antithetical to that expressed in the Constitution, which pivots around each person’s value in the eyes of God:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I thought of Stalin’s words when I read what Nate Silver, the statistician, had to say about the fact that an illegal alien allegedly set a woman alight on the New York City subway. Just to get the facts straight, the illegal alien was kicked out of the country on Trump’s watch and sneaked back in on Biden’s watch. He lived for free in a homeless shelter while somehow managing to support a $ 30-a-day drug habit, in addition to drinking heavily.

Over the weekend, this man allegedly murdered a woman on the subway by setting her on fire. Then, he sat and watched as she burned. If you want to know how she died, read the following tweet, but I warn you that it will haunt you in your dreams:

The victim, incidentally, still has not been identified because her body was so badly burned.

Bill Ackman points out what most Americans instinctively understand: That poor woman was burned alive in the most horrific fashion because of the Biden administration’s open border.

The alleged killer who is here illegally. Public domain.

Nate Silver, however, has a different take, which can be summed up thusly: “Hey, it was bad, but crime happens in big cities, so people shouldn’t get their knickers in a twist about the alleged murderer’s immigration status.”

I don’t mean to pick only on Nate Silver because his approach to the issue is typical for Democrats. They love to point out that illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than Americans or legal immigrants, which kind of overlooks the fact that every one of them is a criminal by virtue of being here. I also doubt the continuing validity of those statistics given crimes at the border that don’t go into the database, as well as the increasing aggression and geographic spread of Latin American gangs such as Tren de Aragua.

The problem with the bean counters’ claims about overall illegal alien crime rates is that it’s irrelevant whether illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes. What matters is what the legal world calls the “but for” test:

The but-for test is a test commonly used in both tort law and criminal law to determine actual causation.  The test asks, “but for the existence of X, would Y have occurred?” [Hyperlinks omitted.]

The article quoted above notes that the doctrine has some issues, which is true. The primary one is what the article calls the “Tenuous Relations Between Actions.” Thus, if you look hard enough, you can always connect things.

For just one example, think of the famous proverb, “For want of a nail,” which goes back in one form or another several hundred years. This is the most familiar version:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

If you want a “tenuous relation,” the journey from the missing nail to the lost kingdom is a long one.

However, the journey from someone being allowed—nay, encouraged—to break into and remain in our country to that same person burning a woman alive, raping and beating a woman to death, or illegally driving and killing an off-duty police officer is a very short journey. Indeed, it’s a journey of one step: The illegal alien’s presence in this country was the direct “but for” cause of someone’s horrible, violent, painful, and entirely unnecessary death.

Additionally, that presence was the result of three Democrat policies: The open border, the administration’s refusal to arrest and deport illegal aliens, and the sanctuary cities that shelter all illegal aliens.

It’s not complicated. Americans intuitively understand that illegal alien crimes fall squarely within the “but for” test. That’s why every time an American citizen or legal resident suffers a robbery, rape, assault, negligent death, or murder at an illegal alien’s hands, Americans become stronger in their resolve to end this plague.

This is also why Americans overwhelmingly voted for Trump, rising far above the margin of fraud and pushing past votes the Democrat media propaganda machine invariably swings to the Democrat candidate. And, of course, this is why Americans support mass deportation. They also understand that it’s not a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act for the American military to line up at the border with their guns pointing outward into Mexico (and, if need be, Canada) to halt the invasion.

The Democrat party’s bean counters need to stop thinking like Stalin and start thinking like Americans.