Polite Kid

Here's an article which asserts that without organized crime (which largely got started through the late-19th century wave of mass immigration), America would be a dull old place. So we ought to be grateful that the immigrant wave brought us such great cultural benefits as jazz, smutty movies (beginning with the 'nickelodeon), the gay movement, Las Vegas, and interracial clubs which made our country a 'better place.'
Lew Rockwell.com occasionally has articles which are of some worth. I don't agree with libertarians on many things, but I can see eye-to-eye with those who oppose and sound the alarm about a too-powerful central government, and about the decline in our civil liberties.
But this article which was apparently posted originally at HuffPo is one which illustrates the other side of libertarianism, which is nothing more than the adolescent hedonist argument framed in academic or pseudo-intellectual terms. The first libertarian I ever knew in real life was simply a druggie-hedonist who was still rebelling against his wealthy, conservative father and 'whatever else you got.'
Libertarians, being ideologues, are thus brothers to the liberals, who believe in fairy-tale constructs, utopian castles in the air, mythical lands where everyone is free from any external (or internal) restraint, and everybody is happy and harmonious.
The implication behind this particular article is that the original founding population of this country were a crowd of fuddy-duddies who did not want anybody to have any fun, and thus made this country a joyless, repressed place where (horrors!) there were vice laws and social mores that -- imagine! -- discouraged and occasionally punished antisocial and/or self-destructive acts.
So the false dichotomy is set up: which would you rather live in: a repressed, puritanical place where all pleasure is outlawed, or a wide-open lawless place in which libertinism is given free rein?
Most younger people would unhesitatingly choose the latter, the country with no restraints. Sadly, now even the older generations, who usually uphold the traditional, have fallen for the same influences. The fact is, though, that as I said, this is a false choice; it is not an either/or choice. No country existing now is perfectly libertarian (I doubt that such a place could exist) nor is any country as strict and oppressive as to curtail all vice and self-indulgent, self-destructive behavior. Such a place would, of course, be a police state -- unless the majority of the populace were devout people who exercised a great deal of self-restraint, and did not need to be coerced into behaving well. Even then, though, people are subject to the same temptations as any other human being, and it is this inherent weakeness that the libertines and those who profit from vice of whatever sort exploit.
At least the article verifies what I have generally believed about the unhappy effects of the promiscuous immigration policies of the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as the post-1965 wave of immigration. If you import people who have differing mores and ethics and behavioral standards, there will be a cultural clash and a disruption in morality as people are offered conflicting messages from different sources.
For years the media have been promoting sleaze and corruption, and the article not only notes the influence of certain cultures and ethnicities, but praises them for doing it, and calls it the 'betterment' of our country.
Pretty shameless.

Labels: Crime, Culture Clash, Founding Stock Americans, Immigration, Libertinism

Recently I posted about the role of immigration in the War Between the States. A few days ago, I came across an old book, The Human Side of American History, which was apparently used in the schools once upon a time. More to the point, it was written just on the cusp of the present Politically Correct era, so the material is presented in a way that may not fit the current template of how things were then.
The book is full of primary source information from people who were there at the time and place of certain historical events. One of the excerpts was from letters written by an eyewitness to some of the troubles, describing his experiences in the New York City draft riots of 1863.
This is something about which I have read very little, and it is somewhat jarring to realize how serious these riots were.
Rather than post the excerpt here, although it is not overly long, I posted it at the Forum where you may read it if you are interested.
Other links from the web, with witnesses' accounts:
Martha Derby Perry: Eyewitness to the 1863 New York City Draft Riots
also, here and here, where you can view images of contemporary Harper's magazines reporting the riots.

Labels: American History, Immigration, War Between The States

A commenter of mine took exception to my brief, passing reference to a spirit of resistance to Islamization in his country, the UK. Honestly, the blog entry was not about the UK as such, but merely referenced certain signs of resistance to Islam which I perceived. This caused offense to the reader, who commented on my 'paranoia and xenophobia' and scoffed at my rather emotional statement about Islam swallowing up the UK.
In my replies, I declared I was done with the debate, having said all I felt was worth saying. And my point in this entry is not to get yet another 'last word' in with my dissenting commenter, but to put some facts out there for any third parties who may have been reading the exchange of comments, and for any fence-sitters out there who are not persuaded that there is in fact an Islamic threat, involving much of the Western world.
My dissenting commenter cited the small percentage of Moslems in the UK, and denied that immigration was a threat.
It may be that Moslems are a relatively small percentage in the UK, but by the evidence of the stories I've linked and excerpted below, those few Moslems make a whole lot of waves, considering their small numbers, and they are making a lot of people jump at their command, so it seems:
16,000 say no to mosque
Sixteen thousand residents have put their name to a petition protesting against plans for a mosque and community centre in Dudley.
The dossier of signatures was delivered by Ukip Councillor Malcolm Davis to Dudley Council yesterday - the deadline day for objections.
Despite the overwhelming opposition to the project, the Express & Star revealed the �18 million scheme earmarked for land in Hall Street had been recommended for approval in "exceptional circumstances."
Police protect girls forced to convert to Islam
Extremist Muslims who force vulnerable teenage girls to convert to Islam are being targeted by police, Met chief Sir Ian Blair has revealed.
Police are working with universities to clamp down on "aggressive conversions" during which girls are beaten up and forced to abandon university courses.
The Hindu Forum of Britain claims hundreds of mostly Sikh and Hindu girls have been intimidated by Muslim men who take them out on dates before terrorising them until they convert. ''
Muslim pupils 'need their own showers'
Muslim schoolchildren should be treated differently from other pupils, the country�s most prominent Islamic organisation has said.
They should have separate changing rooms for sports and swimming, single sex classes for sex education, prayer rooms and new rights to Islamic worship, and different uniform rules, the Muslim Council of Britain said. ''
Now, we might dismiss the above stories as being isolated and anomalous. But how do we dismiss things like this:
Many British Muslims Put Islam First
The recent homegrown plot in Britain to blow up transatlantic flights will intensify the fear that the country's 1.6 million Muslims are rejecting political tolerance and free speech for a violent, radicalized version of Islam. There is a real concern that British Muslims do pose a threat to that country and its traditional values. So how prevalent are such radical views among British Muslims?
Some answers are provided by the most comprehensive survey to date of Muslim opinion in Britain. The results from NOP Research, broadcast by Channel 4-TV on August 7, are startling.
Forty-five percent say 9/11 was a conspiracy by the American and Israeli governments. This figure is more than twice as high as those who say it was not a conspiracy. Tragically, almost one in four British Muslims believe that last year's 7/7 attacks on London were justified because of British support for the U.S.-led war on terror. ''
40% of young UK Muslims want sharia law
Young British Muslims are more likely than their elders to support sharia law and admire al-Qaida, but three-fifths of 16-to 24-year-olds say they have as much in common with non-Muslims as with Muslims, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.
According to Jonny Paul, writing in the online edition of The Jerusalem Post, the survey, entitled "Living Together Apart: British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism" and carried out by UK think tank Policy Exchange, found evidence that young Muslims held more fundamentalist beliefs on key social and political issues than those over age 55. ''
And from the blog of Islam expert and scholar Daniel Pipes
More Survey Research from a British Islamist Hell
Here is another page with extensive links on Islam in the UK and Ireland
And from the blatantly leftist Guardian
Revealed: preacher's messages of hate
An undercover investigation has revealed disturbing evidence of Islamic extremism at a number of Britain's leading mosques and Muslim institutions, including an organisation praised by the Prime Minister.
Secret video footage reveals Muslim preachers exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to create a 'state within a state'. Many of the preachers are linked to the Wahhabi strain of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, which funds a number of Britain's leading Islamic institutions.
Britain: dhimmitude and the dole
With quotes from an Evening Standard article:
Four young British Muslims in their twenties - a social worker, an IT specialist, a security guard and a financial adviser - occupy a table at a fast-food chicken restaurant in Luton. Perched on their plastic chairs, wolfing down their dinner, they seem just ordinary young men. Yet out of their mouths pour heated words of revolution.
"As far as I'm concerned, when they bomb London, the bigger the better," says Abdul Haq, the social worker. "I know it's going to happen because Sheikh bin Laden said so. Like Bali, like Turkey, like Madrid - I pray for it, I look forward to the day."
From the IslamThreat blog, a link to videos of hatemongering imams
From the (British) USS Neverdock blog: a series of links on appeasement of Moslems in Britain
Dhimmitude UK
Melanie Phillips reports on the 'Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia'
Now this commission is calling for a law outlawing religious discrimination. The intention is clear � to make it illegal to tell the truth about Islamist extremism. For as the Muslim Council of Britain repeatedly informs us, it is Islamophobic even to refer to 'Islamic� violence. So it would presumably wish to make illegal, for example, the report in yesterday�s Sunday Times which chillingly informed us that, according to a Home Office analysis:
'�there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 British Muslims who actively support Al-Qaeda or related terrorist groups. These numbers appear to draw on intelligence, opinion polls and a report that 10,000 Muslims attended a conference held by Hizb ut-Tahir, described by the Home Office as a structured extremist organisation, last year. Although less than 1% of the Muslim population, the sheer size of the actual pool of potential Al-Qaeda recruits - those who go to meetings to express their support - represents a stark warning about the extent of the threat.�
Now although this is only a fraction of the Muslim community, most of whom are entirely peaceful and law-abiding, 10-15,000 is a hell of a lot of people in this country to support a terrorist war of religious conquest against it and the rest of the west. It presents a danger the likes of which this country has never seen before and which it plainly hasn�t got the first idea how to confront. Yet according to Muir�s commission, it would appear that even to say such a thing is 'Islamophobic�.
And while, as I have said, most Muslims would abhor such violence, it also remains the case that their community has done nothing to rid itself of the sources of the contagion. ''
Melanie Phillips is a mainstream writer who tends toward the neoconnish end of the spectrum; hardly a 'far-right' extremist. Yet she is articulating a degree of alarm. Is she xenophobic and paranoid?
And the very neoconnish Mark Steyn writes on the same general topic here:
Alas, the United Kingdom's descent into dhimmitude is beyond parody. Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (Tory-controlled) has now announced that, following a complaint by a Muslim employee, all work pictures and knick-knacks of novelty pigs and "pig-related items" will be banned. Among the verboten items is one employee's box of tissues, because it features a representation of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. And, as we know, Muslims regard pigs as "unclean", even an anthropomorphised cartoon pig wearing a scarf and a bright, colourful singlet.''
As usual, Steyn is writing in a flippant tone which may belie the serious subject here: the UK's 'descent into dhimmitude.'
I don't see how the evidence of the many links above can be dismissed. I don't see how any thinking person can deny that Islam is at the very least a serious problem for the UK and for all Western countries, because the exact same pattern is repeated in each and every Western country in which Islam has taken hold.
My irate commenter objected to my implying that there were British people who were 'xenophobic and paranoid' as he declared me to be.
Judging by the content of the many links above, I am inclined to think he may be right; the dissenting voices, which he deems, from on high, to be 'xenophobic and paranoid' are probably few and far between in the UK. It looks as though most of the citizens of the UK are fully on board with acquiescing to Islam. Perhaps I overestimated the extent to which the inconquerable spirit of Britain still survived. More fool me; I was hoping that there was still some healthy national spirit and desire to preserve the legacy of generations. Without that 'xenophobia' there isn't much chance of standing up to the militancy of Islam on the march, whether here, or in the UK or anywhere else.
Here are the words of some great Englishmen of the past on the subject of Islam:
Winston Churchill wrote in 1899,
"The religion of Islam above all others was founded upon the sword � Moreover it provides incentives to slaughter, and in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men � filled with a wild and merciless fanaticism".
John Wesley wrote,
Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it...have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind".
Maybe that 'xenophobic and paranoid' spirit is gone from Britain now, replaced by the new religion of 'tolerance' and openness and multiculturalism.
I think it's time, actually, to deploy a newly-coined word for those who ardently defend 'diversity' and multiculturalism. 'Xenophiliac' is the word some of us have used; I like it. It's a counter to the wheezy old 'xenophobe' label, and I like that it seems reminiscent of words describing fetishes, unhealthy fixations. I personally find the craving for endless 'diversity' and otherness to be a strange kink in some people. And history is on my side, as few countries have gone a-whoring after strange flesh as our modern Western liberal countries are doing. It's a mania. It's odd. It has no precedent in history, unless it might be in the old Roman Empire wherein they allowed numbers of barbarians from all over the Empire and undermined themselves in the process. But what else could be expected from an effete and decadent culture?
So it appears that I may have been wrong to imply that there was still a spirit of resistance in the UK, or still any 'taint' of a healthy ethnic self-consciousness. Or it may be that the problem is the inability to recognize a threat as a threat. If no threat is recognized, no response to it can be mobilized. Openness and tolerance in a society are much as AIDS is to the physical body; with AIDS, the body ceases to recognize invading cells, and forms no resistance thereto. And in the West, many of us stubbornly refuse to recognize a threat.
Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern,if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told." - Winston Churchill
This is true for us in America, too. As long as our programming in favor of 'tolerance' overrides our survival instinct, the odds are not in our favor. I am betting on the will of the American people to be strong enough to shake off the decades of liberal/leftist indoctrination. But as for the UK? I know my own country and my own people, but I don't claim a similar familiarity with Britain. So I have to defer to the judgment of others. If it's more important to the British people to prove themselves innocent of 'xenophobia' and 'paranoia' then so be it. At least as the country slides into full-blown sharia law and dhimmitude, which better heads than mine have predicted, then at least they can be proud of their lack of 'xenophobia.'

Labels: Dhimmitude, Diversity, Immigration, Islam, Multiculturalism

I didn't see the Tim Russert interview of Ron Paul on Sunday. Truth be told, I don't enjoy such programs; I don't care for the open bias of most of the interviewers and anchor people. When these shows are on, I am usually doing something else and cannot sit down for the length of the show. And I have little patience for watching the whole thing but for those who are interested, here is the YouTube link.
I prefer to read the transcript, although a transcript omits the nuances of the spoken word, body language, and all those other things which give us information about the conversation. But sometimes the written word is more reliable and it is easier to go back and re-read where needed.
Below I've excerpted the parts of the transcript that I found most salient to me. Obviously immigration and sovereignty issues are of paramount importance from my point of view, so these exchanges are of interest:
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about immigration because that's a big issue here, and there has been a profound change. Back when you ran for president, 1988, libertarian, you said, "As in our country's first 150 years, there shouldn't be any immigration policy at all. We should welcome everyone who wants to come here and work." You've changed your view.
REP. PAUL: And, and during that campaign, I remember I got into trouble with Libertarians because I said there may well be a time when immigration is like an invasion and we have to treat it differently. And I think, in one sense, with the welfare state out of control--see, my approach to immigration is somewhat different than the others. Mine is you deal with it economically. We're in worse shape now because we subsidize immigration. We give food stamps, Social Security, free medical care, free education and amnesty. So you subsidize it, and you have a mess. Our hospitals are being closed. Conditions have changed. And I think that we should have--and, and 9/11 has occurred. Why shouldn't we be looking at people coming in? So there's--this, this means that we should look at immigration differently. It's an economic issue more than anything. If our economy was in good health, I--believe me, I don't think there'd be an immigration problem. We'd be looking for workers and we would be very generous.''
Personally, I would like to see Dr. Paul take a harder line on immigration, and I would like him to say he favors limiting or decreasing legal immigration. But I think his approach of ending benefits to immigrants (he doesn't specify legal or illegal immigrants here) is a practical one, and if implemented, would discourage immigration and encourage many illegals to go home of their own volition. Does any other candidate propose anything like this?
It's good that Dr. Paul points out that he is not an 'orthodox' libertarian on this issue; if he were an open-borders libertarian I would not dream of voting for him. But he is a practical man, and his views are more conservative than libertarian.
The next question by Russert has to do with the 'birthright citizenship' or 'anchor baby' issue. Russert obtusely challenges Dr. Paul's constructionist bonafides because he wants to amend the Constitution on this issue:
MR. RUSSERT: You say you're a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and yet you want to amend the Constitution to say that children born here should not automatically be U.S. citizens.
REP. PAUL: Well, amending the Constitution is constitutional. What's a--what's the contradiction there?
MR. RUSSERT: So in the Constitution as written, you want to amend?
REP. PAUL: Well, that's constitutional, to do it. Besides, it was the 14th Amendment. It wasn't in the original Constitution. And there's a, there's a confusion on interpretation. In the early years, it was never interpreted that way, and it's still confusing because people--individuals are supposed to have birthright citizenship if they're under the jurisdiction of the government. And somebody who illegally comes in this country as a drug dealer, is he under the jurisdiction and their children deserve citizenship? I think it's awfully, awfully confusing, and, and I, I--matter of fact, I have a bill to change that as well as a Constitutional amendment to clarify it. ''
This is an important issue, and Dr. Paul has been consistent in his statements over the years on it, unlike Romney, Huckabee, or Thompson.
And then in this exchange, Dr. Paul shows that he is not just another politically correct panderer. He also makes valid points about the loss of individual liberty which resulted from the Civil Rights Act, and in that sense he is absolutely in sync with the more traditional American view on these issues. It takes courage to say these things, and in a time when political correctness is a real threat to the survival of our culture and our nation, Dr. Paul's willingness to speak the truth is rare, and should be commended. Which of the other 'conservative' candidates would say what he says? Not a one.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about race, because I, I read a speech you gave in 2004, the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. And you said this: "Contrary to the claims of" "supporters of the Civil Rights Act of" '64, "the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of" '64 "increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty." That act gave equal rights to African-Americans to vote, to live, to go to lunch counters, and you seem to be criticizing it.
REP. PAUL: Well, we should do, we should do this at a federal level, at a federal lunch counter it'd be OK or for the military. Just think of how the government, you know, caused all the segregation in the military until after World War II. But when it comes, Tim, you're, you're, you're not compelled in your house to invade strangers that you don't like. So it's a property rights issue. And this idea that all private property is under the domain of the federal government I think is wrong. So this--I think even Barry Goldwater opposed that bill on the same property rights position, and that--and now this thing is totally out of control. If you happen to like to smoke a cigar, you know, the federal government's going to come down and say you're not allowed to do this.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would vote against...
REP. PAUL: So it's...
MR. RUSSERT: You would vote against the Civil Rights Act if, if it was today?
REP. PAUL: If it were written the same way, where the federal government's taken over property--has nothing to do with race relations. It just happens, Tim, that I get more support from black people today than any other Republican candidate, according to some statistics. And I have a great appeal to people who care about personal liberties and to those individuals who would like to get us out of wars. So it has nothing to do with racism, it has to do with the Constitution and private property rights.''
The fact that Dr. Paul bases his views on the Constitution and private property rights is consistent with his principles. His opposition to the social engineering inherent in the Civil Rights Act is principled, and it's consistent, as he says, with the old-style Goldwater Republicanism. Only in our modern politically correct age would his views be considered beyond the pale.
And the next question was about the Civil War. I happen to agree that there was a better way to solve the slavery issue than by invading the South, sacrificing so many American lives, and leaving permanent scars on the nation. These days most people consider that war a sacred cause, and Lincoln a near-saint. From a conservative point of view, the war and the subsequent hypertrophy of the federal government have led to a deviation from the original intention of the Founders for this Republic.
MR. RUSSERT: I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn't have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was the--that iron, iron fist..
MR. RUSSERT: We'd still have slavery.
REP. PAUL: Oh, come on, Tim. Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I'm advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You, you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years? I mean, the hatred and all that existed. So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.''
Dr. Paul is obviously his own man; even his many and vehement detractors recognize this, but they try to make that into a negative; he is 'out of step' or a 'kook' or an 'ideologue' or whatever, and above all, he 'can't win.'
I think the people who say he can't win are just wishful-thinking or whistling in the dark. As much as many people are clamoring for a change, and lamenting the corruption of our political system, along comes a man who represents real change, and a return to Constitutional principles, and some shy away. I think we are seeing who is really serious about wanting change and getting the country back on track. Most people are inclined to prefer the 'devil they know', business as usual, even if they know deep down that more of the same may be fatal.
I sense that some are absolutely closed-minded towards Dr. Paul, and nothing can change their minds.
However for those who are open-minded and truly concerned to pick the right candidate, I urge you to take another look at Ron Paul. And don't accept second-hand information on what Dr. Paul stands for, or his record in Congress. It's so easy, in this age of the Internet, to search out these things for yourselves. There are a lot of incorrect statements being made about Dr. Paul.
I'll make it easy: here is the link to the Ron Paul archives, which I've posted before. I encourage the open-minded to read his archives, wherein you will see his positions on various issues, in his own words.
Watch the Meet the Press interview at the YouTube link or read the transcript if you prefer.
I will probably have more to say about the misconceptions about Dr. Paul in a later entry, but for now, it's almost Christmas and I plan to take a couple of days away from all this and turn my attention away from politics and the crises in our country to lighter and more comforting matters, like friends, family, faith, home.
It's the time of year to reestablish our ties to the really important and lasting things; that's what anchors us. And that's ultimately what all this is about: preserving those things.

Labels: Immigration, Political Campaigns, Republicans, Ron Paul

Martinez Says He's Not Backing Down On Immigration Reform
Sen. Mel Martinez told the Tampa Tribune editorial board today that he�ll continue pressing for immigration reform, despite the criticism his prominent role in the issue got him from the conservative wing of his own party.
[...]
Martinez said he put heavy penalties and requirements for earned citizenship in his bill last year, hoping to prevent the "amnesty" accusation. But now, he said, he realizes he can�t stop that accusation, so he�ll proceed regardless of the critics.
He even appeared to say he would put lighter penalties into his new version of the bill. But a spokesman later said that�s not what Martinez meant.
"Dealing with the 12 million [illegal immigrants] here, we all want to say it�s not with amnesty," he said. "Unfortunately, we allowed those who would call amnesty anything other than deportation to sort of define amnesty."
Realistically, he said, the country can�t deport all illegal immigrants here now, so the question is what requirements to impose to bring them to "a regularized status."
In his previous bill, "We had so many penalties and what not on these people, by the way, and trying not to make it amnesty, and it still got called amnesty. So this time around I�m going to be a little lighter on the sentences and try to just say call it what you willl. We�ve got 12 million people, we�ve got a broken-down system, we�ve just got to find a way to come to some sensible outcome."
And of course, in Martinez's universe, a 'sensible outcome' is citizenship for all.
Is anybody surprised by this? When Martinez was named as the choice for RNC head, we all knew this was part and parcel of the amnesty push. Putting a Hispanic face in that position was an important gesture to the 'Hispanic community.'
This article perpetuates the by-now urban legend that 44 per cent of Hispanics voted GOP in 2004:
The Republican share of the Latino vote fell from 44 percent in 2004 to 30 percent this year, according to FOX News exit polling data. With the Hispanic vote making up 8 percent of the electorate in 2006 compared to 5 percent in 1996, the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority in America will be essential to winning elections down the road, say Republicans looking to recover from this year's losses.
"We can do better, we need to do better," said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
"We believe that the party that captures and motivates and gets the Hispanic vote to turn out is going to be the party who wins the White House" in 2008, said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation�s largest and oldest Hispanic rights group.''
Steve Sailer debunked the '44 percent' myth, but that hasn't deterred the GOP from citing that phony figure again and again and again and again. As long as they can keep deluding the gullible GOP faithful into believing that Hispanics would be solid GOP voters, if only we cater to them, and pass the amnesty... And the dutiful media keep on repeating the falsehood of the 44 per cent, and speak of the GOP's need to 'win back' the precious Hispanic vote. Uh, you can only win back something you previously had, and neither the GOP nor George W. Bush ever had 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. And even if they did, (which they didn't) it would still mean that 56 percent of Hispanics did NOT vote GOP, doesn't it? But as long as they keep on exhuming that old lie, they can pretend that Hispanics are essential to the GOP's re-election and success. So on we go, with the amnesty juggernaut gaining speed.
But Martinez, Danny Diaz, and the rest of the Hispanic amnesty-pushers should be careful; they are weakening the argument put forth by the 'can't we all get along' crowd, who say 'Hispanic-Americans are just as angry about illegal immigration as the rest of us. They aren't in favor of amnesty.' Now this piece of propaganda was never persuasive to me; my own personal experience says otherwise. There might be the occasional Lupe Moreno who considers herself American first and foremost, but such pro-American Hispanics are the exception, it seems. For every Lupe Moreno, unfortunately there are many leftist Hispanics who call her and patriotic Hispanics like her 'coconuts' or 'racists. Speaking of those leftist Hispanics she said:
They've practically spit in my face. They called me a racist more than I can count. But you know what, it gets to the point where that word doesn't mean anything anymore. They are groups of hatred.''
How many elected Hispanics oppose illegal immigration and amnesty? Since supposedly most Hispanic-Americans oppose amnesty, it should be a piece of cake to name a few public figures of Hispanic ancestry who oppose it. Funny; I can't think of one, out of all the elected Hispanics, congressmen and women, mayors, governors, or whoever. Similarly with Hispanic pundits or journalists. Even those like Linda Chavez, who is half -Anglo, are pro-amnesty. Ditto Bill Richardson, the half-Anglo politician and seeming presidential wannabe, who is pro-amnesty.
Martinez's arguments are pretty hackneyed, such as 'we've got a broken-down system'. What a lame pretext for abolishing our borders. Our government deliberately refuses to control our borders, letting in millions of illegals, then says ''Woops! Oh look; our borders are broken, our system is broken! Guess we'd better abolish borders and give everybody citizenship, since obviously our system is broken and our borders are unenforceable.''
No; the solution is obviously to start enforcing our laws and protecting what is ours, instead of letting burglars and pilferers break in and run rampant, then recommending that we give away our prized possessions and heirlooms to the thieves 'because the locks are broken', and then give them the keys and the deed to the family homestead. But no; common sense won't prevail, with our current leadership; they are hellbent on not just giving away what our ancestors worked and fought and bled for, but giving it away to whoever can grab a piece of it, regardless of their merit , or their potential to appreciate it or make wise use of it.
And what kind of message is it when our elected officials say things like we 'can't' deport all those illegals who are here now (and by the way, Mel: there are way more than 12 million illegals here; we didn't all fall off the turnip truck, so don't insult our intelligence.) Any elected official who chants the 'we can't' mantra is a disgrace. America would never have come into existence if our forefathers had whined 'we can't' the way these weaselly politicians and party hacks do.
Martinez himself is an immigrant. So often we hear of how legal immigrants appreciate their citizenship, and don't support giving amnesty to those who cut in line and broke the laws to get here. But I just don't see much evidence of that.
There are and have been many worthy immigrants, among them my late lamented colleague, who blogged as 'Aussiegirl', and other patriotic immigrants like Balint Vazsonyi, the writer and concert pianist who truly understood and loved the American heritage and way of life. Vazsonyi and others like him understood that it was something of a privilege to be given residency here, and an even greater privilege to be granted citizenship. It's a truism that we seldom appreciate what we don't have to work for, or what does not cost us much in terms of effort or personal sacrifice. By giving American citizenship away to those who have proven their lack of regard for American laws and the American system, let alone for the American people, we are making it a thing of little value. Truly when we give citizenship away to virtually anybody who makes it across the finish line, we cheapen it immeasurably.

Labels: Amnesty, Borders, Immigration, Politics

This recent article discusses the phenomenon of black flight. We read a great deal about so-called "white flight", but what with the massive influx of immigrants, legal and illegal, in recent decades, it's not only whites that are fleeing, but blacks.
The media have succeeded in downplaying the stories of clashes between blacks and Hispanics in California and elsewhere, but there is no denying that the races, in general, don't get along. And blacks are not any more likely than whites (probably less so) to welcome the transformation of their neighborhoods and towns into Spanish-speaking enclaves.
The article describes the surge in the black population of Victorville, California, as blacks move there from the greater Los Angeles area.
The article does not deal with the white aspect of this situation: are white people then in turn displaced from towns like Victorville, as black people double in population there? One would think so, especially considering the increased crime which has accompanied the demographic change:
''Ken Jones, a high-school dropout who is learning construction skills, says his family moved from Los Angeles to get him away from gangs. It worked�he describes his life in Victorville as a "retirement". But he says gangs and crime are becoming entrenched. Between 2000 and 2006 the number of robberies in Victorville increased by 62%. "They bring their lifestyle with them," says Jim Melton, a youth worker.''
Of course they bring their lifestyle with them; this should go without saying. But it is an article of liberal faith these days that people have no intrinsic nature; they are mere products of their environment. If they live in an inner-city slum, that environment causes them to be more crime-prone and to be poor and undereducated. The liberal would never think it the other way: the inner-city slum is a slum because of the traits of the people who inhabit it. Poverty is a result of bad life-choices in many cases, not the cause.
So yes, people bring their ghetto lifestyle with them when they move to quiet little suburbs. And those quiet little suburbs will not be quiet for long.
And the immigrants who are now such a substantial proportion of California's population all brought their 'lifestyles' with them from Mexico or India or China or wherever they arrived from. So their presence will lead to a replication of the conditions they left behind. We see this happening, and yet some people refuse to acknowledge it, because it contradicts liberal dogma.
So blacks are fleeing the immigrant tsunami, and whites are fleeing the influx from the ghettos as well as from the third world.
Why is it that only whites are considered blameworthy for packing up and leaving a transformed area? So many of the articles written about "white flight" take a critical tone, and describe "white flight" as nothing but a manifestation of 'racism' and bigotry. Why is this? Most minorities and white liberals say that 'racism' is a white 'sickness' and that all whites are innately racist. Why, then, is it somehow necessary for minorities to be able to live in proximity to these 'racist' whites, and to be educated with them and work with them? Think about it: it makes no sense. Wouldn't blacks prefer to live among their own, especially since they complain that whitey discriminates against them and treats them rudely? Similarly with Hispanics and other immigrants: they complain of 'gringo' racism and general bad behavior toward them. Why on earth would minorities then complain bitterly when racist whitey does not choose to live among them? Why would they even resort to lawsuits and the use of government force to compel whitey to associate with them?
Another tenet of liberal faith is that separation is bad, immoral, and downright evil.
Why?
Why do blacks and other minorities want to follow 'racists' and remain in close proximity to them? Is this not irrational and counterintuitive? Separation is in some situations highly desirable and healthy for all parties, especially when relations are strained and clashes appear inevitable.
I realize the rationale that is offered for why minorities insist on requiring white people to associate with them. The rationale is that whites keep all good things for themselves and refuse to share the best with non-whites, so they must be forced to allow non-whites to attend their superior schools in their superior and more livable neighborhoods. Non-whites "know" that their schools and neighborhoods are inferior and dysfunctional precisely because whitey has monopolized everything good for himself, and cheated non-whites of their rightful share of all the good things.
White schools supposedly have more money and more resources and more 'pull' with authorities and so they are therefore better than mostly minority schools. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the students, the parents, the home life of the families, so says the liberal dogma. It has to do with 'discrimination' and "institutional racism."
The answer is more contact among the races and more money of course.
Blacks and other minorities see white flight as 'racism' and 'hate' because they think it is a deprivation of their lawful right to associate with whites, even forcibly.
So our controlled liberal media dutifully tsk-tsk about 'white flight', describing it as evidence of ongoing racism on the part of whites.
I've said before, and I believe, that people have a natural affinity for their own kind; people prefer to live among people similar to themselves. We are comfortable with people who have very similar values, customs, preferences, and standards. Like attracts like; birds of a feather flock together, as the old saying has it.
Given this natural affinity for those like ourselves, it is understandable that blacks and Hispanics want to live among their own and worship in churches with others of similar habits and customs. But yet, despite their very obvious preferences for their own, they still complain and raise a fuss at any sign of "white flight" or of any hint of separation or ''segregation''. Why this paradox?
I think they recognize, deep down if not consciously, that the 'better', more desirable neighborhoods and schools and towns ARE better and more desirable because whites tend to create more harmonious, livable, and well-functioning institutions and communities. They realize, although they would never acknowledge it, that they do not create livable places for themselves, but can only seek out what has already been created by others. I suppose this fact must surely foster a lot of resentment: imagine feeling dependent on someone you resent and even despise. It must be a very unpleasant state of being.
But my concern right now is: with the vast game of musical chairs that is being forced on us by our 'elites', what now, as blacks are being displaced by opportunistic immigrants, and whites are now being displaced yet again?
In the past, anyone choosing for whatever reason to become an expatriate might relocate to a congenial Western European country, or another Anglophone country. But now, all these countries are being transformed too, as our possessed rulers are engaged in this frenzied rush to third-world status.
Our enemies among the Aztlan 'reconquista' forces taunt us 'gringos', telling us to ''go back to Europe, Pilgrim!"
Unfortunately this is not a good plan at the moment, as the Camp of the Saints invasion is underway in the lands of our ancestors.
Most of us, in any case, love this country, or at least love our people, and would consider emigration only as a last resort. But where is there a place in this country that is still relatively untouched by the government-assisted invasion? My plan, before I realized how far-gone my country was, involved going back to Texas and finishing my life in the place where several generations of my family lived and died, and being buried with my kin in the family cemetery in south Texas. Now the handwriting is on the wall: it may be that the Trans-Texas Corridor will cut right through that part of Texas, through that very place where I had hoped to sleep one day. And even if it doesn't, the reconquista is practically a fait accompli there; one day I expect that the Lone Star flag will be replaced by the vulture flag of Mexico, and my ancestors' toils in Texas, and the blood they shed, will have been in vain.
So, I considered the Southeast, hoping that some corner of that area would survive with Southron culture intact. But that, too, seems unlikely as I hear of the all-out invasion of the Southeast; there is not only a large Mexican colony there but the 'refugee industry' is feverishly working to settle many exotic people in the Southeast. It looks as though the elites have decided that we old Americans can run but we can't hide. They are, I am convinced, out to foil "white flight" by ensuring that every place is as multicultural as every other place. No pristine corners of old America are to be allowed to survive intact. I find this all very creepy and malevolent. What kind of system wages war on its own people, and unleashes a planned invasion? I am convinced that there is method to this madness; it is not accident. It is chaos, but it is deliberately fostered chaos.
Where is there to flee? Do any of you live in areas which are still intact, or are we all under siege?
I know some of you have talked of relocating, feeling that the cause is lost, and there is nothing to do but move elsewhere. Some have considered Europe or other English-speaking countries; others insist that Europe is worse off than America. Still others have said the opposite is true; Europe has a smaller percentage of foreigners in their midst than we in America, and Europeans have the advantage of a strong national heritage, whereas we in the U.S. have in too many cases bought the 'proposition nation' propaganda or our own heritage is too mixed or too remote to have a strong identity as our European cousins have.
What's the future for us? Is it cowardly or defeatist or disloyal to consider moving, even within our own country?
Should we stand our ground where we are, or is it a lost cause? Where are the places which are likely to survive with enough of their original character intact?
If emigration is the best option, what is the best destination? I have mixed feelings about the appropriateness of running to another country; I think, ideally, Western countries should have very tight immigration policies. Each country should be for the historic people of that country; no country should be held responsible for taking in immigrants from other failed countries. I respect the right of a country to shut the doors to outsiders. Nobody owes it to us to take us in.
Some think that there should be a common overriding 'European' identity, with which many of us could align. But I don't think Europeans feel this way; they have strong national feelings. For instance, some have argued that it's fine for Polish people to immigrate en masse to say, the UK or Ireland "because they are white and they will eventually assimilate and fit in." I don't find that a compelling argument at all. Polish people are not just like British or Irish people, despite their white European origin. Poles have a strong national identity and Polish colonies in Ireland or Britain would be out of place. Polish people should remain in Poland and improve it, just as Mexicans should stay in Mexico and work to improve their dysfunctional country.
Likewise I don't think European countries should be expected to welcome American 'refugees.'
Personally I would never move to a country in which I would be a fish out of water, a country to which I could never assimilate. I think anybody who moves to a place with a different culture should plan to blend in fully, and if that is not possible, they should not go at all.
As for me, I will probably finish out my days in America; my ancestors came here 400 years ago, and some of them many thousands of years ago. I'm a little too old and set in my ways to emigrate but I respect the feelings of those for whom that choice seems the best one.
What are my readers' thoughts and experiences with relocating?

Labels: Anti-White Racism, Demographics, Displacement, Immigration

Back in the 90s, I spent some time living and working in New Jersey, and I have ex-employers and friends who still live there. I've been saddened to hear that New Jersey is now one of the more invaded states in the country, with a large illegal alien population as well as great numbers of legal immigrants, and sizeable Moslem colonies in Jersey City and elsewhere.
Today this news story appeared in the Newark newspaper:
Immigration protests draw 500 to Morristown
An estimated 500 people descended on Morristown this afternoon for dueling protests on illegal immigration and immigrants' rights. The crowd waved signs and at times chanted heatedly, but stopped short of causing any major disturbances.
Protesters grew more vocal as the afternoon wore on, with both sides waiting for Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello to take the stage. Police outfitted in riot gear with helmets, batons and pepper spray surrounded the stage, while a line of reinforcements arrived to barricade South Street.
Despite some heated exchanges between the groups and two arrests, the rallies were peaceful.''
Now I know Morristown fairly well; it was not far from the small town where I lived while I was in New Jersey. The town I lived in was a safe, prosperous, 'bedroom community' with many residents who commuted to New York City to work. Morristown was a short trip from where I lived, and I often went there on weekends to shop, see a movie, or go to restaurants. It was a pleasant town, not a big town, and there was not that much 'diversity' there, although I occasionally saw Hispanic people, possibly Puerto Ricans or Dominicans. Mexicans were a rare sight there at that time.
Now, however, it looks like Morristown is now 'enriched' with diversity, enough so that hundreds of illegals and their leftist accomplices rallied there today.
But the Star-Ledger's statement that the ralllies were 'peaceful' is not what I have heard; there was apparently an assault on two of the attendees who were protesting illegal immigration. The only source which seems to give an account of this violence is this one:
Conservative activists attacked at Secure Borders Rally in New Jersey
...As two of the participants were leaving, a male and female, their vehicle was attacked. The victims were pulled from their car and beaten and the vehicle was smashed and looted. Members of a violent Marxist gang, known as the ARA, had shown up at the demonstration to scream profanities and may have been involved in the attack.
This is not the first time that violent white Marxists and/or pro-illegal alien Hispanics have attacked conservatives at public demonstrations. It has primarily happened in Southern California in the past. Far left organizations, such as the SPLC, constantly say that conservative secure border activists will promote anti-immigrant violence with their "rhetoric." However, every instance of violence has been perpetrated against conservatives, not by them.''
Wonder why the mainstream media do not report incidents such as this one, in which the illegals or their leftist sycophants commit violence? You can bet that if any of the anti-illegal, pro-borders people assaulted anyone, it would be the top of the news on all the cable channels, and trumpeted in the headlines. And next would be a pious editorial lecturing about the 'growth of hate' and xenophobia, and the usual suspects at the SPLC would be quoted about the dangers of 'righwing hate.' But when the illegals and the lefties assault someone? It's seldom reported, or it's reported only by conservative sources and goes down the PC memory hole quickly.
Some people will object to the source I linked here, the Council of Conservative Citizens website. Why? Because the usual suspects on the left have called the group a 'rightwing extremist' or 'racist' group. Quite honestly whenever these self-designated PC policemen condemn groups like the Council, I take that as an endorsement of their soundness. If they have these leftwing Politically Correct groups denouncing them, they have to be telling the truth.
I invite readers to check the website's Statement of Principles; I found nothing there to disagree with.
But most of all I am disgusted that nice towns like Morristown, though thousands of miles from the Mexican border, are now 'border towns', with American citizens squaring off against each other -- over illegals. What is wrong with this picture, America? What is wrong with America and Americans when we not only fail to protect our borders, but when, even worse, we are warring against each other over the invaders? And make no mistake; that's what is happening. The invaders have us at each others' throats.
Some will think that's hyperbole on my part, but is it? So far, mostly the war is a war of words, but words often lead to actual violence. And the rhetoric has been heating up for years, with the leftists foaming at the mouth over 'hate' and 'racism'. Does it never occur to the leftists that their language and now their actions epitomize the very thing they claim to be opposing? Do they not see the hate in their own rhetoric and in their violence against fellow Americans?
The details on the assault in Morristown are not clear; it may have been illegals who did the attacking and beating; or it may have been angry young home-grown leftists, or some combination thereof. But even if it was illegals who did the actual violence, they are being given support and encouragement by American-born people. And those renegade 'Americans' should be held to account for it.
Not so very long ago I made a fairly innocuous comment to a female relative about how a certain department store was courting illegal customers by offering credit applications all in Spanish. Now if they were legal, surely they would not need Spanish applications, would they? However this relative of mine snapped at me saying ''I would rather the Mexicans than some of these sorry white people.'' And her comments were said with a lot of anger. I thought, again, what is wrong with this picture? My own blood kin is angry at me for saying something critical of illegals, and she is saying she prefers Mexicans to some Americans. How did it come to this?
Whenever Hollywood made movies about the War Between the States, the breathless narration during the trailer always said: ''Brother against brother! Families divided!" Actually I think there were few families actually divided, with one brother in blue and another in grey; maybe in the border states where sympathies were mixed; not in the South. However this incipient civil war will pit brother against brother and families will be divided; most families have some mix of those with conservative traditional values and loyalties, and those with liberal 'we are the world' multicultist delusions. And then there are the families into which immigrants will have intermarried, further clouding loyalties and increasing divisions.
This is part of the phenomenon I blogged about the other day, 'America our house divided.' When we have a good proportion of the population inculcated with the idea that all discrimination, even the most logical and sensible, is tantamount to 'hate', which merits the harshest of punishments, then our country hasn't got much of a chance to recover control and impose sensible controls on the invasion. And the fact that our fellow citizens, including sometimes even our own neighbors and relatives, think that those with traditional values are 'haters' and 'racists' means that there can be little accommodation or compromise; somebody will have to change their thinking. Either we will have to change and conform and become docile members of the multicult, or they will have to change their thinking and realize that they are the extremists and the haters. The latter does not seem especially likely.
The present situation seems untenable, especially with the continuing influx of ever more divisive immigrants who will further destabilize our society and further catalyze the disorder.
Now it's not impossible that some liberals or 'moderates' might have epiphanies, and might be awakened by the increasing chaos and disruption in our society, but there are too many who simply blame all the trouble on us, on those of us who are merely trying to preserve our country, instead of on the intrusion of the immigrants.
Even some conservatives say that they don't blame the immigrants. I can't count the number of times I've heard a 'conservative' say 'I don't blame the illegals, they're just doing whatever they have to do to survive; I would do the same in their shoes.' My response is 'Really? You would break into someone's home and steal and lie to survive?" Did people do such things en masse during the Depression, when there was real hunger and want? Even if they had, the illegals are NOT starving and their survival is not in question. If you want to talk about survival, it's we whose survival is in question; the illegals are sitting pretty. They have successfully broken into Fort Knox, otherwise known as the U.S.A., where they have the keys to the kingdom. They've got access to Uncle Sam's bank accounts, with a free ride guaranteed them and their offspring: handouts galore, free education, free health care, interpreters, citizens who lean over backwards to be 'sensitive', churches who cater to them and put them on a pedestal, politicians who pander to them shamelessly. Please don't insult my intelligence and ask me to see illegals as poor waifs who are struggling to stay alive in a hostile world. They are on Easy Street. It's increasingly we who are out in the cold, and our wishes ignored and our voices excluded.
It would be wonderful if the current madness in our country was the result of some physiological malady which could be diagnosed and cured tomorrow -- but unfortunately it seems like a sickness of the soul, a plague of self-hatred and of hatred of those like oneself.
The liberals, always great devotees of pop psychology, are always prattling about 'self-esteem' and the vital importance of 'loving oneself' as the key to all success and fulfillment. Yet they are at the same time preaching that as a nation, we have to hate ourselves and prefer all others over our own. It's just one more contradiction, one of many in the senseless liberal worldview.
Update: Here is a much more complete account of what happened at the Morristown rally, although it does not mention the assault. It does mention the disorder and the arrests, along with the names of those arrested. They are apparently all or mostly Americans, not immigrants, judging by their names.

Labels: American Culture, Immigration, Leftism, Liberalism, Multiculturalism, Societal Decay

I don't suppose there are many illusions to be lost regarding Rudy Giuliani and his immigration stance. However, he is saying
that it's the federal government's job to deal with illegal immigration, and not that of cities, states, or businesses. So he would not punish employers of illegals.
Giuliani told small-business owners he would not punish them for unwittingly hiring illegal immigrants.
Federal officials are "trying to put the responsibility for this on employers, on city government, on state government," the former New York mayor said during a conference call arranged by the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
"The simple fact is, nobody but the federal government can stop people from coming into this country illegally, and the federal government does a very bad job of that," Giuliani said.
He said no other presidential candidate will solve the problem.
"If you elect a Democrat, they're just going to open the borders, and more illegals are going to come in," he said.
"And if you elect one of my (Republican) opponents, they want to crack down on cities and states, and they want to crack down on businesses, but they don't want to solve the problem," he said. "If I become president, in a very short while, you will not be able to walk into the United States without identifying yourselves."
Further, we read how all the mainstream GOP candidates are busy accusing each other of being johnny-come-latelies on the border issue, and all accusing each other of insincerity in their newfound commitment to enforcing our borders.
It strikes me that in each case, it's the pot calling the kettle black. They are all play-actors and deceivers on this issue; none of them is committed to closing the borders.
In this discussion thread from The Stein Report, a commenter named Cynthia makes some good points, referring to Mitt Romney's claim of being ''someone who has fought to protect legal immigration but to stop illegal immigration stands up against anybody's in the country,":
How does Romney's position square with the fact that LDS leadership supports a wide open border?
Once again, I will point out that the MSM simply reflects the corporatist/fascist/socialist open border agenda and the fact that both Thompson and Romney are media darlings is very strong evidence that their new tough talk on immigration is understood to be nothing but pandering.
Those of us who have thoroughly researched the open border agenda understand that it is has been well organized and controlled by financial and political elites for several decades. These same elites are not going to allow any serious candidates a public forum if they haven't already signed on to the Establishment's agenda.
Neither Romney nor Thompson have ever attempted to publicly expose or derail the North American Union or any form of internationalism that undermines national sovereignty. This should be a major litmus test for those of us who work towards serious immigration reform.''
Cynthia makes sense. This is exactly why I am unpersuaded by all the tough rhetoric coming from these candidates, and I am convinced that were it not for Tancredo's presence keeping the immigration issue front and center, they would none of them be making these empty shows of false bravado.
As she says, if any of these guys were serious proponents of immigration restriction and opponents of globalism, they would not be the media darlings that they are, and they surely would be getting the same rough treatment which Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul have gotten from the party honchos and the establishment.
I am seeing increasing signs that a lot of people who were not thrilled with the 'top tier' candidates are now willing to settle for a Thompson ('he's not as bad as the rest') or Huckabee or even a Romney. Only if you believe the presidency is basically a meaningless position, and that another establishment neocon could not make our present situation worse, can you believe that these candidates are worth considering.

Labels: Candidates, Immigration

South changes and survives
We may not be Mayberry any more, but the sun keeps coming up every morning. Right here in the heart of the Confederacy. The South survived the change.
[...]
Now we're faced with another change -- a demographic shift of historic proportions.
I saw signs of this change years ago, when I took my son to the Outer Banks for our first North Carolina vacation. We stopped for gas in one of those classically Southern towns east of Rocky Mount, where tobacco plants hug the two-lane on the way to the beach. As I leaned against the car watching 99-cent gas fill the tank, I noticed a group of Latinos walking together across the street. Then I saw another group coming up a side street. Then a car of Latinos pulled up to the pump beside me.
"Toto," I said, "this doesn't look like North Carolina anymore."
Mind you, this was 1996. Which is to say that today's front-page stories about illegal immigration are documenting a change that has already taken place.
Bank of America's move to offer credit cards to folks without Social Security numbers isn't driven by a concern for social justice, or by some leftist plot to destroy this country. It's simply good business -- a practical move to deal with the reality on the ground.
Progress: Managing change
As a community, we can deny that reality. We can erect fences on the border, ban the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish, claim that illegal immigrants are taking over the country. This is throwing stones into the Catawba River to try to dam the flow.
That flow is a globalized economy. We like it when we can get our TVs cheap, when we can buy beer from around the world at Harris Teeter, when we send Valentine's Day flowers that come from South America. Most of us participate eagerly in that part of the change.
But that change, along with our Sony flat-screens and Bass Ale and long-stemmed roses, brings an evolving workforce. The question no longer is whether we stop that change or not. The question is how we will manage it. If we manage that change to benefit all North Carolinians, we'll call it progress.
So yeah, Mayberry is gone. Wishing for it to come back is wishing for Pillowtex to reopen. Is it the end of civilization?
Only if our response is uncivilized.''
The last sentence is very telling: opposing immigration is 'uncivilized' according to the writer, Mike Warner, who is apparently the self-appointed arbiter of such matters.
Mr. Warner, let me tell you what is 'uncivilized', since we are being openly judgmental here. (Hey, if you liberals who constantly denounce 'judgmentalism' can indulge in it, then so can I, without apology. Conservatives are vilified for making judgments, while liberals do so with impunity. So I'll take advantage of being labeled judgmental, and judge you, Mike, and all apologists for wide-open borders and willy-nilly change.)
'Uncivilized'? What I call 'uncivilized', first of all, involves masses of people invading a neighboring country in a stealthy, sneaky manner. Uncivilized means not only sneaking into another country like a common thief, then brazenly demanding things: loudly demanding the right to stay, in defiance of the laws of the land and of that land's rightful occupants. That's uncivilized. Uncivilized is demanding all the benefits which accrue to the rightful citizens and taxpayers of that country you have invaded and squatted in. Uncivilized is lying, stealing others' identities, defrauding with those stolen identities. Uncivilized is availing oneself of 'free' medical care in emergency rooms to the extent of bankrupting hundreds of hospitals in border states. Uncivilized is driving drunk, in defiance of more laws, and killing many Americans, injuring and maiming many others. Uncivilized is committing many crimes of violence in the country you have illegally entered. Uncivilized is making your hosts speak your language, while refusing to learn theirs. Uncivilized is spreading many exotic (and unnecessary, because preventable by civilized hygiene) diseases in the country you are illegally occupying. Uncivilized is loudly demanding your 'rights' from the very people you denounce and disdain.
I could continue, but I think I ought to point out some civilized attributes with which to contrast the uncivilized ones. Civilized peoples (and societies) do not passively allow far-reaching changes to overthrow what they have so carefully and diligently built and defended for centuries. Only uncivilized societies are passive and resigned to sitting inert and letting change wash over them. Warner and other liberals counsel passivity and resignation.
Such qualities are not historically characteristic of the West. In fact, what has set the West apart from the non-Western nations is that they/we are actors rather than acted upon, historically. The non-Western countries in many cases had an attitude of passivity, and were thus transformed without their active participation. There is a Hindu saying that it is easier to straighten out the crooked tail of a dog than to change the world. Often Eastern religions counseled this kind of resignation, whereas the people of the West set about trying to improve things. This is not to say that every effort at improvement was successful; sometimes Westerners overreached and sometimes there were unintended consequences. But whatever their shortcomings, Western peoples saw themselves as actors, not as passive pawns in somebody else's game. Now, modern liberals preach the inevitability of certain trends, like the all-powerful Globalization, and the implication is always that it is a force of nature; it is predestined, and to resist it is foolish and backward. Of course, with this magic Globalization comes mass movement of peoples; we can't expect to remain isolated, can we? After all, it's just one big global village, and We Are All One People. Who are we to fight the unstoppable forces of Nature, which demands that all barriers be dropped? Who are we to fight the tide of mass immigration? After all, the wretched of the earth are entitled to their fair share of our prosperity. So we cannot stop this tide, any more than King Canute could order the waves to retreat. So say the liberals among us.
As I've said before, when people pronounce the inevitability of the transformation of our country, they are telling us that we are really no more than insignificant ants in this far-reaching scenario, which is beyond our control. We are in essence the rape victim, being told to 'lie back and enjoy it, if you can't stop it.' And further, Warner does not just say that the change is inevitable, but that it is already an accomplished fact. So there. Give in and give up, is the message.
Interestingly, here is somebody else who believes in the inevitability of mass immigration:
Mr Gaddafi told ministers gathered for a conference on migration from Africa to the EU that resisting migration "is like rowing against the stream".
[...]He told the delegates in Tripoli that migration had complex historical and social roots and was a force of nature that could not easily be ignored.''
Hmm. He even uses similar metaphors: 'rowing against the stream' vs. 'throwing stones in the Catawba River to try to dam the flow.'
Regardless of who is saying it, this is a message meant to discourage action, and to encourage resignation.
How is this message of helplessness and hopelessness, this gospel of submission, consistent with all our deepest beliefs as Americans? Our traditional beliefs include the sovereignty of the people, the right of the majority to determine the fate of our nation. And yet we are supposed to meekly accept that we no longer have a say in the fate of our country, or its future? That we no longer have any right to say who enters our country, our national home, and who is allowed to stay here?
Mike Warner, and all others like him, are solidly outside the American tradition. He is preaching that America is no longer a Republic in which we, the People, are sovereign. He is saying that millions of Mexicans, El Salvadoreans, and whoever crosses our border in the dead of night, has more of a vote, more of a voice, than we do. He is saying that they, the immigrants, alone can determine the makeup of our country. They self-select, and we don't even have a veto, the right to say, no; you cannot enter or stay here. Even our 'government' has not exercised the right to keep the illegals out, giving them, the invaders, the final say in who is allowed here.
In effect, Warner is saying 'hey, it isn't your country anymore, so get used to the changes, because you can't do a thing about it.'
A more anti-American message could scarcely be conceived.
Civilized people do not submit readily to chaos, which is what our open borders and our promiscuous immigration policy amount to. Chaos and anarchy cannot stand in a civilized country. No; the 'civilized' response is to assume control of our country and our future as a people, by enforcing our laws, and reasserting our rights.
Civilized people would not welcome millions of people from one of the most chaotic, crime-ridden, corrupt parts of the world, to enter and stay.
The 'uncivilized' response is actually the response that our government is offering now; our government is passive and inert in the face of an invasion, and history has shown us what happens when change is allowed to run unchecked, out-of-control. Only an effete, decadent society responds as our present government is doing.
Shades of ancient Rome before the fall; the analogy has been made many times, and with justification.
Warner in his article gives some details about his family history, indicating that he is a non-Southerner, and a Catholic. Between the lines, I very much sense that he is not friendly to traditional Southern culture, probably from a religious viewpoint, as he makes reference to the small numbers of Catholics in the old South. He seems to glory in the changes to the traditional South. I would wager that he identifies more strongly with the immigrants because they share his religion. And being a Yankee, I think he is just as glad to see the traditional South, which he likens to the fictitious Mayberry, disappear. The traditional South was too Anglo-Celtic, too Protestant, too homogeneous, for people like Warner. So the new Hispanicized South (which will really be the North of Latin America, not the Southern U.S.) suits him just fine.
As a liberal, he probably puts immigrants on a pedestal as being humble, colorful, authentic people, noble savages of a sort, far superior to the redneck old stock people.
And why is it almost always a certainty that descendants of later-wave immigrants identify with immigrants more than they do with old-stock Americans? Maybe that should give us pause about the assimilability of some of the later immigrants, and maybe we should have been more exclusive in our policies, not less.
But the South is not Warner's to give away; he doesn't speak for the real people of the South. The South for a long time was the area least touched by immigration. For that reason, partly, a distinct and vigorous regional culture developed there, without the disrupting influences of mass influxes of immigrants. To me, the South represented the last of a strongly American way of life, and this is now undermined by the ravages of mass immigration.
Maybe Mike Warner is happy to bid farewell to Mayberry, and all it symbolizes. Mayberry, it's true, was a fictitious place, and it was never a completely faithful image of a small Southern town, but it did capture something that people across the country could relate to. It was emblematic of all that was good, decent, honest, and worth preserving about small-town America. And most of us, unlike the elitist liberals, are not happy to see Mayberry vanish, to be replaced by a polyglot, balkanized, crime-ridden America, where people neither know nor trust their neighbors. Robert Putnam's study showed how diversity fostered distrust. The homogeneity, the commonality that the liberals despise -- or fear, actually -- was the cement, the bond that held people together, just as in the fictitious Mayberry. If we throw away the common culture in favor of the false gods of diversity, we are losing the America we knew and loved, in favor of what? In favor of some yet-to-be revealed Babel, full of cheap, shoddy goods, strip malls, rising crime, and increasing division, along racial and ethnic lines as well as class lines. Warner and the immigration cheerleaders may get their anti-Mayberry, but the rest of us will have lost something that can never be restored.

Labels: Diversity, Immigration, Multiculturalism, Societal Decay, Traditionalism

Certainly the open borders liberals don't, and neither does Reuters writer Bernd Debusmann:
Around globe, walls spring up to divide neighbors
TIJUANA, Mexico, April 30 (Reuters) - What do Tijuana, Baghdad and Jerusalem have in common?
They all have walls that divide neighbors, cause controversy and form part of an array of physical barriers around the world that dwarf the late, unlamented Iron Curtain.
There are walls, fences, trenches and berms. Some are reinforced by motion detectors, heat-sensing cameras, X-ray systems, night-vision equipment, helicopters, drones and blimps. Some are still under construction, some in the planning stage.
When completed, the barriers will run thousands of miles (kilometres), in places as far apart as Mexico and India, Afghanistan and Spain, Morocco and Thailand, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
They are meant to keep job-hungry immigrants, terrorists and smugglers out, thwart invaders, and keep antagonists apart.''Their proponents cite the proverb "Good fences make good neighbors" but critics say they are a paradoxical result of globalization in so far as goods and capital can move freely but migrants cannot.'
"Good fences make good neighbors" is also a line from the same Robert Frost poem, 'The Mending Wall' which I quoted at the beginning. Actually in it, Frost seems to be arguing against the necessity of walls, likening his wall-building neighbor to a 'stone-savage.'
If I could put a notion in his head;
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall...
So, Bernd Debusmann, Reuters reporter, might consider who we are "walling in or walling out." Actually, Bernd, we are not walling out too many people, it seems, given that about 3 million illegals skulk across our erstwhile 'borders' every year. The figure may be even higher; it's just a rough guesstimate based on the numbers apprehended. And according to this article, one in two Mexicans polled has family members on our side of the 'border.' So our much-criticized wall, what there is of it, does pitifully little towards keeping intruders out. Bernd: what, exactly, is the problem? That the entire population of Mexico hasn't yet made it north to where the goodies are yet?
So what we are walling out is not much; they are coming in by the thousands day and night, 365 days a year. If you are going to weep crocodile tears over a wall, or write scathing words about how cruel the wall is, at least pick a wall that actually accomplishes the purpose. Our wall is mostly nonexistent, except for Tijuana and that little stretch along the California border.
Bernd Debusmann, Reuters reporter, like his innumerable liberal media comrades-in-arms, is either so obtuse or so disingenuous as to be unable to tell the difference between a wall to keep people in a police-state regime like East Germany once was, and a wall to keep invaders out, as the Wall of Hadrian used to be, or the Great Wall of China.
Likening the small stretch of wall on our southern 'border' to the Iron Curtain is just laughable. Is Debusmann too young to remember the days of the Iron Curtain? Or does he think that Mexico is trying to keep her citizens in, as the East Germans were? If anything, the Mexican government is pushing certain of their citizens, possibly their unwanted citizens, to cross our border and send back as much as they can loot on our side.
Are these liberal hacks, who write cookie-cutter articles on immigration every day, really that dense? I suppose it's possible; in order to embrace liberalism/leftism, intelligence is an actual hindrance. So these 'reporters' who report stories to order, and write them according to a template, probably are true believers. There is scarcely an honest word written or spoken about the immigration and borders issue in the mainstream media.
I wonder if Bernd Debusmann has a lock on his front door? Or does he helpfully leave it open in case there is a burglar, possibly a destitute illegal alien, who wants to let himself in? I wonder if the open-borders bleeding-hearts are consistent enough to remove the fences from their property and the locks from their doors and windows? After all, there are homeless people out there who might want to stake a claim to their homes, and people 'looking for a better life' who might want all those possessions they have so selfishly acquired.
As to 'what we are walling in or walling out', I know what I would like to wall out: the chaos, corruption, crime, and failure that characterize the nations to the South of us. I would like to wall out those who do not respect borders; those who believe, ignorantly, that they have a claim to this nation and its bounties; that their ancestors, whoever they might have been, were the rightful owners of America. I want to wall out those who want to change my homeland into something to their liking, without the least regard to the existing citizens of this country. I want to wall out those who would be a burden financially to an already overburdened country. I want to wall out diseases which have been so carefully and successfully eradicated from this country. I want to wall out ruthless savage gangs like MS-13.
I want to wall out those who would overpopulate my country until there is little open space or usable farmland, and those who treat the environment like a dumping ground, as we have seen the invading Mexicans do.
But so far, since a sizeable percentage of Mexico's population is in my country, and many of them brazenly walking the streets of my little town, thousands of miles from their homeland, Bernd Debusmann need not lose sleep; few Mexicans are being cruelly kept out of their rightful hunting grounds in America.
If we don't have the right to wall out, or simply close the door to anybody of our choosing, then this country is no longer our country. In fact, it's been often said that a country without borders (including walls, if need be) is not a country.
And just as I have the right, in my home, to open my door to only those I choose to welcome, and to eject anybody who arrives uninvited, sneaks in, or who refuses to leave at my request, we as the rightful people of this country have the same right. People enter or stay only at our pleasure; they have no inherent right to enter or to stay, against our will.
There are some who are now bluntly asserting that human beings should have free entry to any country they choose at any time; this is as radical and revolutionary an idea as can be. What next? Yet a lot of people seem unruffled by this idea that everyone has a 'universal human right to emigration.' This is an extreme leftist idea, and to the undiscerning, it may sound humane and compassionate, but the world would be turned upside down if that idea were to be put into practice. We are already seeing a slow-motion Camp of the Saints scenario, but we would be overwhelmed if this foolishness were declared law, or even if the odious amnesty proposals become law.
The trouble is, I am certain that this 'human right to emigrate anywhere' would really only be granted to the 'have-nots' of the world, and people who wanted to migrate away from the multicultural chaos would be denied any such right. It is meant only for the world's poor and 'diverse' populations, the people who depend on the fruits of others for their survival.
Maybe Robert Frost did not believe that 'good fences make good neighbors', and it's certain that Bernd Debusmann does not believe it, but nonetheless it is true. Perhaps we don't need fences to keep the law-abiding, decent neighbors on their side of the divide, but in a fallen world, with desperate or unscrupulous neighbors, a fence or a wall is an absolute necessity.

Labels: Immigration, Media, Mexico, Open Borders

I have no objection to any number of immigrants from any nation, if they enter the United States by following the rules.
So says Thomas Baffy in his article, The Mexicanization of America, at American Thinker.
This is a good example of a currently popular Politically Correct code, almost universal across the political spectrum. It seems to be an essential disclaimer whenever anyone criticizes any aspect of immigration: one has to say 'I'm all for legal immigration; legal immigrants made America great', and so on. We all know the required formula. The idea behind this compulsory phrase is that it is a shibboleth which deflects any suspicion of 'racism' or xenophobia.
Now it might well be that everyone who uses this phrase, despite the ring of defensiveness that accompanies the statement, is in fact sincere. Maybe all these people really do support any and all legal immigration, regardless of the number of immigrants, irrespective of their motives in immigrating. We certainly live in a world which is heavily conditioned to be all-inclusive and all-tolerant. But somehow I suspect that many people who eagerly praise all legal immigration simply have not thought the issue through.
Suppose our level of legal immigration was tripled, quadrupled. Why stop there? The world is full of poor people who would come to America in a hearbeat if they could. Suppose we legally welcomed 10 million legal immigrants per year? At present we supposedly admit 1.3 million, along with 3 million estimated illegals. How many is too many? How many is enough? It's obvious that the numbers we receive at present are causing considerable social disruption and conflict, as well as costing us billions in social programs and other costs. Can any sensible person support ALL legal immigration? Can we safely welcome immigrants who come from hostile countries and cultures? If they are legal, then I suppose it doesn't matter; welcome them all.
The theme of Baffy's article, linked above, is that America is being Mexicanized, not so much culturally but in our political system; in our increasing tolerance of corruption and lack of respect for law. But these trends don't arise in a vacuum: they are part and parcel of Mexican culture, of Latin American culture in general. Whenever we import masses of people from a differing culture, we import their ways of life with them. Removing Mexicans from their homeland to America does not remove their culture from them; they do not magically think as Americans once they cross the 'border' onto our soil. Cultures do not make the people, but people make cultures. Once we transplant millions of Latin Americans into our country, especially when assimilation is no longer practicable and the immigrants themselves are unwilling to assimilate, we inevitably transplant their culture. And the greater the number of immigrants, the stronger the cultural influence. Once a critical mass is reached, their culture may indeed be the dominant one.
Supporting unlimited immigration, even if it is according to the rules, guarantees the transformation of our country and institutions.
Political correctness is clouding our ability to examine the situation honestly, to discuss it coherently, and this is a danger sign.

Labels: Immigration, Questioning, Taboo

Hmongs want respect for role in Vietnam
Several Democrat lawmakers are reintroducing the Hmong Migration Education Act. Principle author Donna Seidel (D-Wausau) says she wants Wisconsin school districts to be required to teach our kids about how and why the Hmong population came here. She hopes to create an environment in our state of mutual respect and tolerance. "Our hope is that this legislation will create a better understanding of the Hmong's heroic role and enormous sacrifice in support of America's military during the Vietnam Era."
ChaSong Yang, Executive Director of the Sheboygan Hmong Mutual Association, says Hmong children in the US often question their parents about whether the Hmong really helped the US government during the Vietnam War, because it's not mentioned in the US History books.''
For those who don't remember this incident from a few years ago, this indicates some of the problems between Hmong and the majority local population:
Hmong Hunter Charged With 6 Murders Is Said to be a Shaman
Before the crime above happened, Joe Guzzardi at VDare wrote this piece, and James Fulford wrote this piece, after the killings:
'From our ''We Told You So'' Department -- A Hmong Hmedley
And here is Roy Beck's thorough explication of what happened with the growth of the Hmong settlement in Wisconsin.
It's worth reading; the situation in Wausau since the arrival of the immigrants/refugees is a microcosm of what is happening across America, with one town, formerly homogeneous, being overwhelmed by immigrants from a drastically different, essentially stone-age culture. There have been gang problems, the inevitable strain on social services, and the divisions among the locals that the presence of the immigrant 'community' brought.
And then recently, a Hmong was killed, further complicating the tensions.
I encounter so many Americans who are caught up in the romanticized American vision of immigration as portrayed in gauzy Hollywood images and the sentimentally rosy pictures of some history books. Today's immigrants, it can't be said often enough, are not the equivalent of the immigrants of the old days, so glowingly represented in our collective memory.
There are a lot of Vietnam vets who cling to their own sentimental ideas that we must, that is MUST provide a refuge and a home for the Hmong 'because they helped us out in Nam'. If they did help us, and I am assuming they actually did, they did so because it was in their own self-interest. They merely joined forces with us against their hereditary enemies. An analogy would be the American Indian tribes who sometimes made alliances with the white settlers and colonists against enemy tribes, or against other whites. They did not do so because they loved us but for reasons of their own, for the most part, because it suited their purposes, it was expedient for them to help us.
And if it's necessary to give the Hmong a perpetual place at our table, then we must bring all our allies or helpers from the troubled Middle East, also, to America, and probably drop them down in some nice quiet Midwestern town, if such a place still remains. That is always the way these resettlement programs work; there must be an official government policy to that effect: refugees and exotic immigrant groups are required to be resettled in a quiet, homogeneous small town. Always. Can't have homogeneity; diversity is good, ergo homogeneity is doubleplusungood.
But if the Hmong did help us in Viet Nam, how long does our obligation to them last? Why is America now the designated savior of the entire world? Can we resolve all the age-old conflicts in the world? Are we so problem-free, so wealthy, and so secure in our land that we can now take on the problems of the whole world? Apparently a sizeable portion of our population thinks so, as they are hellbent on our being the servant of humanity, at our own expense.
It looks as though the conflicts the Hmong left behind in Southeast Asia are now being replaced by conflicts in our own country. American citizens are being killed, and life in many of these Midwestern towns will never be the same, all thanks to our do-goodism run amok.
And if we follow this policy of rescuing everybody, we will be seeing a huge increase in immigration from Iraq; we will be compelled to give visas to everybody that has been an ostensible ally or helper to us over there. But what happens when the various factions of Iraqis end up next door to their enemies from back home, as has been happening in Detroit? And what about the possibility of fraud and taqiyya? Can we be sure that potential refugees are who and what they claim to be? Might there not be some terrorists or would-be terrorists among them?
Terrorism is not the only concern, as the stories about the Hmong demanding 'respect' in our history books. Every new ethnic group we introduce to our country becomes another part of an unworkable puzzle, whose pieces don't fit together. They become 'victims' which is all part of post-Civil Rights era America: claim victimhood and discrimination, demand 'respect' and deference, and you win the lottery. And America loses; it's a one-sided deal in which we lose every roll of the dice, because those dice are loaded. We can never do right, only wrong. If there is a difference of opinion, we have to apologize, we have to bend, we have to make concessions and amends. We have to rewrite history to include mea culpas, to make ourselves the sole villains and authors of every injustice. We have to give up pieces of our history and heritage and common memory so as to avoid offending some victim group. When is enough enough?
I am still waiting for the day when not just a lone voice or two, but masses of people stand up and say that the multicultural emperor has no clothes.

Labels: Diversity, Education, Immigration, Multiculturalism

Chapter II in the 'shape up or....?' story begins with Newt Gingrich, who was on Fox News today, selling his dandy new '5-step Assimilation Plan' for immigrants. Now I confess that I didn't have time to catch the whole segment, and I saw only the beginning, where he began with the obligatory disclaimer, you know, the bit where the smarmy politician says 'I'm all in favor of legal immigration...' , so as to ward off the racism charges. Now that phrase usually causes me to reach for the remote, because I know that what follows will be some kind of half-hearted, serpent-tongued denunciation of illegal immigration, while still being immigrant-friendly.
However, I caught enough of Newt to hear him say that he favors legal immigration, and he believes that most immigrants come here because they want to be Americans, but they need to learn English. So we need to have a program for teaching them English, so that they assimilate.
Just as with John Howard's plea for immigrants to Australia to learn English and assimilate, as far as it goes, that idea is fine, but is it enough? Does speaking English guarantee assimilation? Yes, it is a part of assimilating, but does learning the language in and of itself lead inevitably to assimilating, and is it a proof of assimilation?
Learning English is the bare minimum of what we must expect of would-be immigrants. In fact if they are determined to come to this country, common sense would suggest that they ought to know some English even before they make the trip here. American culture is a worldwide thing these days, (to the chagrin of many people); so those who want to learn English can even learn a fair bit from movies or TV programs. Enterprising immigrants of the past have learned English in that fashion. However, as we know, there are many outwardly-acculturated immigrants and even children of immigrants who are not assimilated. Yesterday I mentioned the Lackawanna Six, the terror plotters who had grown up in an American suburb, but who were conspiring towards some act of terror towards 'fellow' Americans. The 7/7 bombers in the UK are another example of outwardly assimilated Moslems who were so full of hatred towards those whose country had nurtured and educated them that they were willing to kill others, strangers, and even themselves for their twisted ideals. Speaking fluent English, using the latest youth slang, made none of these young people part of the countries they lived in. They were in the country but not of it. The 'we' they identified with was not Britain, or the United States, but the Islamic 'we.' Just as many of our Latino immigrants, and even native-born Hispanics, identify with their Raza, their 'gente', and fly the Mexican flag or the Dominican flag or whatever, pledging their allegiance to their blood kin, not to Americans.
So Gingrich is peddling facile, cheap answers, and in doing so, is furthering the multicultural agenda. If he can lull the easily-pleased among us into thinking that we can solve the difficult problems of mass immigration by his '5-step program', then he is part of the problem. He is promoting, by implication, the idea that we are all really the same, and interchangeable, if only we all learn a common language and participate in a common, lowest common denominator mass culture.
Evidently Newt is one of those who believes that everybody is potentially an American, but the evidence of reality and common sense tells us that not everybody is equally assimilable, and further, that maybe some are not assimilable in any real sense at all. But admitting this is denying the liberal presuppositions of egalitarianism, and the core liberal idea that we all self-create, and that the key is to make immigrants want to be American. We just have to get them to want to re-invent themselves as Americans, and the way to do that is to have a 5-step program, or reach out to them, and so on; just the kind of thing the neoconservatives in the GOP have been pushing.
Why are some immigrants seemingly impervious to assimilation, or Americanization, as it used to be called? The real ideologues among us would deny that such is the case. They will continue to insist that everybody is the same, despite surface differences. But history indicates otherwise. In the past, most of our immigrants came from European cultures, and the process of acculturation and assimilation were relatively easy, although some groups have been much slower to assimilate. We might argue that some groups have resisted assimilation, and this is true to the extent that their cultures were dissimilar to the core Anglo-Saxon Protestant American culture. But eventually most European immigrants did assimilate. However with our current predominantly non-Western immigrants, legal and illegal, their cultures are at odds with our own to a considerable extent; their mores, their habits, their ways, are distant from our own. Add to this the fact that most of our immigrants of today come from cultures in which Westerners, especially Americans, are viewed negatively. Americans in particular may be envied by many but they are also greatly resented. Many people in Third World countries view Americans as obscenely rich, and expect handouts from Americans as their due. I learned this first-hand, when my home address was made known in a publication, and I began to receive begging -- and demanding -- letters from strangers in African countries. They assumed that all Americans were fabulously rich and that they need only ask, and receive money or gifts. I suppose the 'Nigerian e-mail scam' had not been thought of yet, but the same phenomenon is at work there. Americans are seen, at best, as rich, gullible, and there for the fleecing. At worst, we are pictured as exploiters, oppressors, usurpers of their territory, in the case of our Latino neighbors. Now what can be expected when we import these attitudes en masse to our country? And can a few English lessons, or even fluency in English hope to counter all of that? In fact, when the immigrants are fluent enough in English to watch American TV and read English-language newspapers, they will simply be exposed to even more anti-American propaganda, as served up by our leftist entertainment media and news media. Our educational system, too, is riddled with disparaging messages about American history and American society.
Assimilation worked, in the past, for several reasons: we were selective about who we admitted to this country. They came from compatible countries, and we limited the numbers. We never admitted immigrants indiscriminately as we are doing now with our de facto open borders. Large numbers of immigrants, and the establishment of immigrant enclaves were never part of the plan.
We were able to assimilate immigrants in part, too, because ours was a confident, assertive culture, and we did not adopt a weak, appeasing attitude to newcomers.
There was no large-scale support for foreign-language communities in old America; they were expected to learn English, and most of them did so willingly. Few or none of our past immigrants came here with a grudge against America for some perceived past wrong or injustice. Few or none came here with the intent of doing harm to Americans or of subverting American society, or reclaiming it in the name of their native country.
Now, we are recklessly opening the doors to people who may well have a subversive agenda, as at least some of our Hispanic immigrants, or they may even desire to actually kill and destroy, as the 9/11 hijackers did.
Another complicating factor in our policies of admitting mostly third-world, minority immigrants is our current, ongoing racial issues. America, since the 1960s especially, has been embroiled in the mainstreaming of black Americans into our society. As a result, the more extreme black leaders perpetuate racial conflict and a whole industry built on the guilt feelings of the American majority. We are still trying to negotiate our way beyond that impasse, and now, into the middle of an already difficult situation, we import millions of non-white immigrants who are now adding their voices to the chorus of grievances against majority America. We now have preferential policies like 'Affirmative Action', supposedly in the name of making restitution for past discrimination (two wrongs apparently do make a right, according to some), and now the newly-arrived minorities, who have absolutely no claim to having been 'historic victims of discrimination' in America, are now entitled to all the benefits of AA, as well as many other social entitlements based on skin color or ethnicity. Now, thanks to mass third-world immigration, majority Americans have millions of new claimants to special considerations, and eligible for benefits. How will this all play out when the American majority is the new minority? How will the descendants of majority Americans, as an outnumbered minority, still be expected to make amends and restitution to an aggrieved collection of former minorities?
None of those who have concocted this present insane immigration policy has ever addressed any of these questions. Instead they pretend that things can go on just as they are, even when the demographics of this country are absolutely turned on their head, with today's majority reduced to a minority. But considerations like this don't enter the minds of the social engineers. And I consider Newt to be as much a part of the problem as any of the rest of the immigration enthusiasts.
Newt, how many is too many? Does this country have a carrying capacity? Or do we just keep on packing them in until we reach India-style population density? And by the way, Mr. Arch-conservative Newt, what about the economic burden all this immigration creates? Aren't conservatives supposed to be the small government guys, the ones who crunch the numbers and see that we aren't living beyond our means? Where's the fiscal responsibility?
On a much smaller scale, I wonder what the costs of Newt's little 'assimilation program' would be? Our government already spends, big-time, on 'Hispanic outreach', interpreters, counselors, special studies of the Hispanic population and their needs, educational programs, subsidized tuition for illegal students, Hispanic health programs, special small-business programs, and so on. We are not even talking about the other costs, such as the bankrupt hospitals, overcrowded jails, overloaded courts, crimes by immigrants and the resultant expenses, lives lost via immigrant crime, costs of monitoring possible Moslem terror activities -- I could go on, but we all know. Yet we have to spend even more money to spoon-feed reluctant immigrants the English language? Just take away all the bilingual documents and teachers, take away Univision and Telemundo and all the rest of the bilingual catering, and they might just have to learn English.
But even if they all learn fluent English, that will not be a solution to the problem, which is that we have too many immigrants, too fast, and at too high a cost to our society in cultural terms as well as financial terms. The levels of immigration we have now are unprecedented in American history, I think the same can be said for many Western countries, like Australia, the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Something hitherto unknown is being carried out in the West, and nobody, not our politicians or academics or media, none of them know where it it leading us, or what the end result will be. Those of us who are not woolly-minded academics or loopy leftist utopians know that the result will not be a utopia. We do know, based on demographic projections, that we majority Western peoples will be on the outside looking in, dispossessed in our own countries, and with nowhere to go. To believe, as some people are content to say they do, that all the problems will work themselves out, and people will just learn to get along, is highly unrealistic. That kind of faith, at least in human beings, is something I don't have; it's a huge leap in the dark.
The only hope our country has is for a resurgence of real, genuine conservatism, which in true conservative fashion, is willing to take a hard-eyed look at where we are, on the edge of a precipice, and to speak the truth about the situation. From there, we need to try to find a way to step back from the precipice, if we want to preserve our countries as we have known them, and to preserve a way of life which it took our ancestors many generations of toil and blood to achieve. If 'conservatives' are willing to throw all that away, gambling on some bizarre exercise in social engineering on a global scale, then that is proof that they are not conservatives in any real sense at all. Any conservative, falsely so-called, who promotes mass immigration, or unending immigration, is deceived or deceiving us.
At this moment in our history, the primary concern should be preserving our country, our people, our way of life, our heritage. Everything else is a secondary consideration.
Everything.

Labels: Assimilation, Conservatives, English Language, Immigration