Interestingly — based on a long Twitter exchange I had with a “staunch erstwhile TEA Party supporter” who has since, he bravely exclaims, broken with the TEA Party over its rank “nativism” and “anti-immigrant” bigotry — I now know that the perishing of these poor noble Others is not the fault of, say, the Obama Administration’s signaling to the third world to rush the borders; it is not the fault of those who coerced their children to try to break our immigration laws and undermine our sovereignty; it’s not the fault of the would-be criminals themselves, who after all are just making the trek here for love, not to form Balkanized communities and overwhelm our welfare system; it’s not the fault of corporatists who use cronyism to buy GOP support for cheap labor; it’s not the fault of union leaders who believe an influx of illegals will, pace one of their putative heroes, Caesar Chavez, will be good for the American farm worker; it’s not the fault of a Supreme Court who gave the President wide “discretion” on how to follow the law — or, in the case of Obama, to actively go about ignoring it as a prerogative of his imperial power, with the states absurdly prevented from either crafting their own laws to combat illegal immigration and the financial and cultural dislocation it creates, or even being allowed to enforce existing federal law.
No. What I learned instead is that the death of these children — in fact, this entire “humanitarian crisis” — is the fault of racist, bigoted xenophobic nativists who hate immigrants. And they are almost all part of the TEA Party, naturally. This coming from a putative conservative, whose idea of conservatism seems to be that sovereignty and the very idea of a nation state itself is anti-capitalist and anti-free market, as if the only fair checks on a fluid global economy and the migration of labor to where the jobs are is to get rid of arbitrary “lines” like national borders. And hey, first come, first served — meaning if you’ve filled out the paper work, etc., and have been waiting in Ireland or Eastern Europe for 10-15 years, too bad: the noble Others made it here first, so to keep them from entering is nothing more than evidence of “anti-immigrant bigotry.”
These kind of obscene arguments, coming from putative “libertarian conservatives,” completely underscore why it is classical liberalism — and not libertarianism per se — that undergirds our national founding. The health and functioning of a vibrant civil society precedes government. And part of the health of a civil society is the process of assimilation and naturalization into that society, so that the society isn’t undercut by competing ideologies imported here from other failed nation states — be it the Fabianism and Marxism that gives us the current progressive movement, or the corrupt, centralized governmental systems of south and central American countries that the noble Other flees, then votes into power in its adopted squatter country, to which they as a statistical and empirical whole show no allegiance to.
Of course we have a right to not only define borders but to enforce them. And of course we have a right to modulate the rate of immigration our social structure can absorb at any one time.
To hear putative conservatives speak in the vitriolic language of the left — all for pats on the back as “thinking” and “compassionate” defenders of first principles — is to watch sanctimonious play acting disguised as political discourse.
I have neither the time nor the patience to listen to people whose claim to rhetorical cleverness seems to be that they believe they’ve succeeded in successfully conflating immigration with illegal immigration or — in the current instance — a refugee invasion. Which is not made any less of any invasion simply because our government, for distinct partisan reasons of logistics on one side and cheap labor on the other, allow it to happen.
Pointing out that diseases long vanquished from the US are returning isn’t “racist.” It’s a citation of fact. Pointing out that wait times at hospital ERs is increasing dramatically is not “anti-immigrant.” It’s an empirical argument against the unconscionable policies of our own corrupt ruling class, who continue to act against the wishes of the citizens of the United States and in doing so, harm them — be it through the inevitable dilution of available resources, the overcrowding of schools, and the stresses on infrastructure.
So to those “staunch” TEA Party Republicans who like to show their press clippings proving their bona fides — and yet resort to calling those of use who believe in state sovereignty, the equal application of the rule of law, and the idea that the government is to be run by the consent of the governed, not a coalition of demographic engineers and corporatists, “anti-immigrant,” or “racist,” or “nativist” — I’ll say this, and I do so unequivocally: like those “realists” who believed fluffing Obama early on would help us show our softer side to the mushy middle we can’t seem to win no matter how hard we pander to them and so win their votes (it didn’t; it just allowed Obama cover to attack conservatism and push the GOP to the left), those “conservative libertarians” who are adopting the rhetoric of the left to justify blaming TEA Partiers for what is a humanitarian crisis that actual conservatives and classical liberals would have never allowed happen in the first place are not only not conservative, but they are a major part of the problem.
They substitute their own selfish pieties for thought and cogent policy; and then they attack the only people left willing to fight to defend what will soon lead to an inevitable breakdown of the civil society, itself setting the stage for an inevitable social conflagration.
— Which was precisely the idea behind the Cloward-Piven strategy that Obama adopted and is using his New Left cabal of czars and regulators — along with Executive fiat and a blockade in the Senate — to implement.
As with most ideas of the left, the outcome they’ve crafted from their Utopian fantasy of anti-capitalist takeover won’t be as they foresaw it — at least, not unless and until they can succeed in neutering the first two Constitutional amendments and taking over state governments using groomed big government infiltrators posing as champions of the 9th and 10th Amendments. But this has never stopped them.
Watching putative “conservatives” help them along in their goal of bringing about that collapse — all for cheap grace — has long since moved passed dispiriting into the realm of anger. It isn’t suicide if you try to take the reluctantly would-be dead with you. It’s murder.
And I’m going to defend myself and my family — along with my country’s Constitution — as it is my duty as a citizen to do.
Zombie Communism has always eaten brains. Heck, what else would it do after all? It’s dead and yet it moves among us.
My guess is you’re talking about Rand Paul’s brand of open-borders in this post.
I’d like us to consider threading the gap between classical liberals and libertarians. First, we need to stop fighting between ourselves over which part of the chinese buffet of Progressives’ immigration agendas we like least (Holder et al’d love to have us at each others’ throats if only to point at our fracas as proof that our candidates are unfit for office).
And then we should agree to expand the rights, protections and freedoms we enjoy as Americans Southward using all the economic and political tools at our disposal. This tactic relieves us from the infighting that accompanies any domestic resolution of the Left’s manufactured crisis. And it puts Americans back in the drivers seat, as we push Mexico’s Harvard-ists back on their heels by forcing them to explain to their ‘subjects’ that America’s Bill of Rights should be rejected.
The continued deprivation of guarantees to ownership of property, and our freedoms of speech and association is what drives the flows northwards. Expanding America’s freedoms to the states immediately to our South would challenge the governing oligarchs to put-up or shut-up on the rights fronts, while it draws out the regions’ governmental hypocrisy of encouraging cross-border cultural exchanges (witness the lines of Mexican cars waiting to enter Douglas, AZ every Sunday just to shop at Walmart), while it discourages Mexican nationals from exercising the same rights to bear arms or voice dissent that they see us enjoying while shopping in America.
It’s hard to discuss other options over the din of false dichotomies presented by our decayed media and political complexes, but this does not mean that other, unmentioned solutions do not exist.
If we want to turn Obama’s border-ruse on its head, and to give the grandees at the Council for Foreign Relations life-long migraines, then we’ll stop arguing among ourselves and settle on a solution that expands our constitution to our South, encourages the economic development that keeps populations from migrating, and preserves the sovereignty of America’s existing states.
That’s strange steveaz, I read Jeff’s piece and never once thought of Rand Paul. Could be I’m not up on current events . . . or could be that supporters of Rand Paul perceive some congruence in his view of the current crisis, Jeff’s criticism of his twitter interlocutor and therefore some need to make apology or prestidigital reconciliation? I’d probably have to pay more attention to the unworthy Rand Paul to figure that out.
And if graves are too inconvenient to dig then the river will do just fine for both the murder and the dump site.
Fast & Furious II, bringing the gangs and the murders here for more political impact.
Going the Full-Cloward-Piven.
Leaving aside many issues I take with what you wrote, Steve, let me comment on this one:
The belief that The Constitution Of The United States can work in any country not born of The British Empire, with it’s unique traditions and customs of Freedom and Liberty, is delusional.
Could be Bob, but is it imperialist? ‘Cause we can hardly survive without our native imperialism!
The only people who believe it can work are Ideologues, who are fantasists.
Classical Liberals and conservatives reject Ideology.
There’s a lot to be said in favor of Monarchism – but not in America, as we are quite unique. Right place, right time, as it were.
Too bad they wont wash up on the shores of Martha’s Vineyard.
Apropos of not much: isn’t it interesting that Ear Leader likes him some vacations on islands that are not only expensive to reach, but exclusive to those with the long green—and I’m not talking golf courses.
I believe the president is a snob and doesn’t much care to mingle with us citizens.
He’s staying, Leigh, in the section reserved for only The Beautiful People.
M’chelle isn’t going then?
If I were a Thurston Howell type with a cruel streak and I ran into the president at one of these exclusive locales, I would hand him my car keys.
Why should Mexico’s Harvardist’s find that at all difficult? All they’d have to do is point out that America’s Harvardists have persuaded a plurality of American’s to reject their own Bill of Rights for the same security in subjugation that Mexican “subjects” already enjoy.
Heh. You could ask him where the clubhouse is as you told him to fetch your clubs.
“Pointing out that diseases long vanquished from the US are returning isn’t “racist.” It’s a citation of fact”
Yeah most diseases are NOT racist and will go where ever poor hygiene and dense crowds allow them.
M’chelle isn’t going then?
Cold and accurate…
sdferr,
No, Jeff did not mention Rand, but the debate his twitter feed demonstrates is a shoe-in for the debate going on between Rand and Rick Perry right now: Isolationism VS engage-the-future-conservative-voters.
Bob,
I share your concerns. The people of Central America are not steeped in the classical liberalism that must inform the citizen in a constitutional republic. But, although it will not make a permanent dent in our neighbors’ governments, the campaign to expand our constitution’s reach may succeed tactically in tee’ing-off all the right people just as we enter another political season.
Right now the entire debate centers on “what will America do for its immigrants (and why do you racists Hate the brown-skinned children).” My recommendation would change the equation drastically so that the question becomes “what isn’t Mexico/Guatemala/El Salvador NOT doing for its people.”
The simple act of proposing this flip will anger the Kennedy School and CFR people no end. And sure, we’ll be called Imperialists, racists, and every other slur in the Left’s book because of it. But the media will not be able to ignore the honesty and audacity of our territorial counter-campaign. And, if our referenda fail to gain pluralities in our failed southern neighbors, then we can at least look our fellow libertarians and small “l” liberals in the face and say we tried. Together.
“…what is Mexico/Guatemala/El Salvador NOT doing for…”
Yikes!
No one, surely, would wonder what an America which cannot govern itself would want to do by acquiring other lands and territories it could then proceed to be incapable of governing. Nor laugh out loud.
Certainly not.
I just calls ’em as I sees ’em, Eingang.
Perry vs Paul.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again…
Latin culture is incompatible with Anglo-Saxon culture. One favors mob-rule, assumes guilt in the accused, and punishes criticism of its elites with anti-slander laws. The other permits for individual rights against the mob, assumes citizens’ innocence against frivolous accusations, and encourages free discourse, even when that talk hurts the feelings of powerful people.
But wait, there’s more: Latin culture, and especially that filtered through once-Moorish Spain, enables Islam. Spanish culture IS the vanguard of Mohammedanism. For Islam to thrive, it needs a dispirited, compliant, Hispanic-ized substrate to grow on.
Want examples of the cooperative nature of Islam and Hispanic Culture? The Arab street, so frequently referenced by CNN reporters during W’s term, is just Obama’s Hispanic mob re-labeled. The Spanish language and the fables told to children in it are rife with musical idioms and appeals to celebrity, and the intellectual tics these propagate in Hispanic polities represent the hypodermic through which modern Islam presumes to inject itself into our body-politic.
And, in case you needed more evidence, the media debate swirling around illegal Hispanic immigration to Anglo-Saxon America is deliberately cast to resemble the debate over Israeli sovereign responses to the Muslim hordes pushing against its borders.
I get no joy from pointing all this out. But, the Left’s choice of Hispanics for a new victims-group should come as no surprise. The flash-crowd immigrating over our Southern border is the vanguard of the global left’s planned migration of Arabs to America. How we handle the “Dreamers” will determine future flows of illegal immigrants from Islamic countries in the decades ahead.
One favors mob-rule, assumes guilt in the accused, and punishes criticism of its elites with anti-slander laws.
You mean like Brandon Eich getting fired for holding an opinion, IRS audits of political rivals, and the DoJ investigating a parade float, while the political leader speaks of “my peeps”, blames everything on his predecessor and political “enemies”, and arrests people who dare to make a movie critical of his approved religion?
For Islam to thrive, it needs a dispirited, compliant, Hispanic-ized substrate to grow on.
Like Bosnia? Or Pakistan? Or Xinjiang?
Yes, Drumwaster.
By any cultural marker, we are becoming Latinized. The Mohammed Cartoons controversy, where unannounced Mandarins forbade the “slander” of a guy named Mohammed in cartoons, demarcated for me the end of America as I knew it, and the beginning of the regimes I used to live under as an oil-field brat in the ME.
Charles,
Where Islam rules in Europe, Asia or the subcontinent, it achieved its prominence there through the sword. Once there it consolidated its rule by discouraging dissent with mob-actions, and by steering lucre to its Satraps and their lackeys. This, not accidentally, is the same model the Left uses to buy compliant factions for their federal expansions.
There was no need for a stealthy hypodermic injection back then; you came, you saw, you conquered. But, to swamp America in 2014, some tact and an open vein are needed. So, the UN’s “Right of Migration” meets the Democratic Party’s “Dreamers.” And we’re “racist” if we notice.
I wonder what would happen if Tea Partiers were to “flood the zone” by invading the northern Mexican States (Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Neuvo Leon and Taumalipas), invading the homes and businesses of the citizens there, demanding that they start speaking English, and printing all official documents in two languages, and insisting that the government pay us for the privilege of having to put up with us. (Hell, might as well grab Baja California Sur, too, just to keep Cabo San Lucas friendly.)
I’ll bet it would be dramatically different that what the American government is doing…
All things considered, I don’t know why people aren’t asking Mexican immigrants why they aren’t back home making Mexico look more like the USA versus making the USA look more like Mexico.
I mean, we both hate the French so it’s not like there’s no common ground.
And I, too, fell into the trap.
Replace “Mexican immigrants” with “Mexican illegals”. The two are *not* the same and I’m my screen name for mixing the two.