Two crimes. Two tragedies. Two judgments.

Unfortunately, sometimes, we Americans don't get it. We allow ourselves to be diverted into thinking we know the point, thinking we know what's important, but we allow the emotion of an issue to obscure logic completely.

In the first case, a Tennessee State athlete was killed by a suspected drunken driver, who also happens to be a suspected illegal immigrant.

Metro police said 24-year-old Victor Benitez was drunk as he ran a red light at the intersection of Old Hickory Boulevard and Nolensville Road, killing 22-year-old Joycelyn Gardiner.

Right-wing pundits have labeled this another example of why illegal aliens are the embodiment of evil. Look what an illegal gets you. Just another example of a death that could have been undone if we would just get our borders under control.

Fair enough for the moment. On to the next tragedy.

In Austin, during and near a Juneteenth celebration, a 40-year-old Hispanic man (no word as to his 'legitimacy') was beaten and killed by a mob of black people after the driver of the car he was in hit a 4-year-old girl in an apartment complex. The man tried to intervene as the mob beat the driver, so the mob turned on him. Killed him.

Commander Harold Piatt of the Austin police homicide unit swears up and down this wasn't a hate crime, although by definition, regardless of intent, it really was. We don't have the ability to know for sure that the mob would have beaten somebody of the same color for the same thing; however, the viciousness of such an act should absolutely point prosecutors in the direction of hate-crime law.

However, would we really deduce publicly in this case that Juneteenth celebrations should be eliminated? See what Juneteenth gets you! If we would just get better control of our secondary holidays, David Morales would still be alive.

That's what the far-right would tell you if you just follow their logic.

However, like Geraldo Rivera tried to explain to Bill O'Reilly in this clip regarding a similar case, the problem in the death of Joycelyn Gardiner absolutely, first and foremost, was that Victor Benitez was drunk, if he in fact was. If he doesn't drink, he almost certainly doesn't run that red light and definitely doesn't kill this woman.

Drunken driving is totally not the exclusive domain of illegal immigrants. It's the exclusive domain of people who drink and drive, as ridiculously simplistic as that sounds. However, drunken driving is the problem in this case, and no amount of emotion, no amount of furor, no amount of pleading for a fence along the Texas border changes that fact.

It's basic problem solving. Basic reading comprehension, and it's like I've gone to wacko world when I hear people suggest otherwise. It's sixth-grade logic.

If on the other hand, one wants to reason that illegal immigration is bad, I can hang with that reasoning. If one wants to suggest that an illegal immigrant should be deported on first offense, again I have no problem with that. If one wants to try to convince me we should build a fence, I don't have that big a problem with it as long as I don't have to see it.

However, don't insult my intelligence; I can handle multiple but different concepts and arguments at once. Don't make me wonder whether public funding for public education has been a colossal waste of time these past 40 years or so.

The problem in the tragic death of this 22-year-old woman in Tennessee centers on drunken driving.

Everything else is a diversion, an insult to other families who have lost loved ones in similar drunken-driving incidents and an insult to the intelligence of millions of Americans who are able to comprehend that drunken driving and illegal immigration are both significant issues without requiring right-wing pundits to tell us that absolutely everything bad has something to do with illegal immigration when it involves an illegal immigrant.

We get it that the person is here illegally and that isn't necessarily good. Frankly, that is totally debatable, no matter how much the far-right would have you believe otherwise. However, that young woman lives if he doesn't drink and drive. Hell, using the logic of the Bill O'Reillys of the world, I can go get hammered right now, hit the road and not cause any problems because I'm here in America legally.

We're not that dumb. I hope.