August 3, 2011

Environmentalism & Nativism

For some time, environmentalists have been aggressively nativist when it comes to plants and animals. Environmentalists don't like, say, foreign transplants, such as rats driving extinct all the native birds on remote islands. They don't like kudzu covering up much of the Southeast.

But that increasingly raises feeling of psychological unease and impurity in the minds of 21st Century environmentalists. If, as we all know, nativism is the worst thing in the history of the world when it comes to people, how can nativism be good when it comes to plants and animals? Why aren't we more sensitive to the plight of the poor immigrant kudzu vines, emerald ash borers, and Asian longhorn beetles?

After all, conservation in America was largely invented by people who were nativists about flora, fauna, and people, such as Madison Grant. Back in the 1990s, the wealthy couple of David Gelbaum and Monica Chavez Gelbaum bought the Sierra Club's soul for $100,000,000 on the condition that they drop their immigration restrictionist stance and thus their stance against population growth in the U.S. and in the Sierra Club's home state of California. This epochal switch has largely disappeared down the memory hole. Today, everybody assumes that plant nativists are, by the nature of their superior morality, human antinativists. But there are psychological tensions in this inherent contradiction.

Now, the easiest thing to do is to simply ignore the contradiction. But it gnaws away at some.

From the Boston Globe:
The invasive species war 
Do we protect native plants because they’re better for the earth, or because we hate strangers? A cherished principle of environmentalism comes under attack 
By Leon Neyfakh 
... The reasons to fight invasive species may be economic, or conservationist, or just practical, but underneath all these efforts is a potent and galvanizing idea: that if we work hard enough to keep foreign species from infiltrating habitats where they might do harm, we can help nature heal from the damage we humans have done to it as a civilization. 
In the past several months, however, that idea has come under blistering attack. In a polemical essay that appeared in the leading science journal Nature in June, a biologist from Macalester College in Minnesota named Mark Davis led 18 other academics in charging that the movement to protect ecosystems from non-native species stems from a “biological bias” against arbitrarily defined outsiders that ultimately does more harm than good. According to Davis and his co-authors, the fight against invaders amounts to an impossible quest to restore the world to some imaginary, pristine state. The world changes, they argue, and in some cases, the arrival of a new plant or animal can actually help, rather than hurt, an ecosystem. 
The whole idea of dividing the world into native and non-native species is flawed, the article says, because what seems non-native to one generation might be thought of as a local treasure by the next. Instead we should embrace “novel ecosystems” as they form, and assess species based on what they do rather than where they’re from. 
“Newcomers are viewed as a threat because the world that you remember is being displaced by this new world,” Davis said recently. “I think that’s a perfectly normal and understandable human reaction, but as scientists we need to be careful that those ideas don’t shape and frame our scientific research.” 
The article in Nature joined similar arguments that had recently appeared in the journal Science as well as the op-ed page of The New York Times, where an anthropologist who had recently become a naturalized US citizen likened the control of invasive species to the anti-immigration movement. These critiques of so-called “ecological nativism” inspired equally spirited responses by scientists, including a letter in Nature signed by 141 scientists arguing that Davis and his cohort had downplayed the dangers of non-native species while distorting the work of ecologists and conservationists. 
For environmentalists and anyone worried about a local lake or forest, trying to keep the potential carnage at bay seems like a no-brainer: if non-native species might destroy an ecosystem we cherish, then of course we should do what we can to suppress them. ...
One of the first people to publicly make this “anti-nativist” argument was, somewhat surprisingly, the journalist Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and hero to locavores everywhere. He wrote an essay about it in the New York Times Magazine in 1994, focusing on the native gardening movement that was sweeping the United States at the time. Proponents of natural gardening had been calling on their fellow green thumbs to stop planting exotic species in their backyards; Pollan did not mince words in communicating his distaste for the practice, suggesting it came out of an impulse that was “antihumanist” and “xenophobic,” and even tracing its history back to a “mania for natural gardening” in Nazi-era Germany. 
While Pollan said in an interview that he now regrets resorting to the Hitler button to make his point, he maintains that there is something worrying about the zeal with which some environmentalists seek to keep foreigners out of places where they think they don’t belong.
“We should always be alert that even those of us who think they’re practicing pure science or pure environmental policy are sometimes influenced by other ideas, other feelings,” Pollan said. “And we should interrogate ourselves to see if that’s what’s going on.”

Have you ever noticed how much the left loves the word "interrogate?" Ve haf veys of making you talk!
This point was echoed this past spring by Hugh Raffles, an anthropologist at the New School who wrote the essay comparing invasive species to immigrants. “We choose to designate some plants and animals as native because they fit with the way that we want the landscape to look,” said Raffles in an interview. If you call something native, he added, “you should realize you’re just making certain claims about what you want to see and what you think is important to preserve.” 
THE SCIENTISTS WHO study non-native species and try to control them are called invasion ecologists, and they’re used to feeling embattled. But their opponents usually come from the political right, and can be counted on to dismiss most any effort at conservation as an expensive nuisance or an impediment to industry. This other contingent, though - the one that includes Davis, Pollan, and Raffles - comes from a less obvious place. Suddenly, these environmentalists who have always identified with progressive ideals are themselves being accused of being conservative, backwards - even intolerant. 
Their reply is that, as scientists, their job is to save plants and animals from extinction, protect their habitats, and make sure that subsequent generations get to enjoy as much of the earth as possible. To suggest that the work has xenophobic connotations, they say, amounts to little more than academic noodling - a philosophical stance at best, and a harmful distraction at worst. 
... Is the debate simply over rhetoric, then? If it is, its fierceness has highlighted just how important rhetoric is to the environmentalist movement, and how valuable the distinction between native and non-native is in terms of rallying people to the cause of conservation. Psychologically, it’s not hard to see why the anti-nativist position holds an appeal, and why it would worry environmentalists.

One of my readers comments:
The Left finds a psychologically worrying element in environmentalism. Environmentalism's defense of native species against invasive species that may decimate or marginalize the natives could have psychologically 'racist' ramifications. (After all, some racial ideologues have said if species of animals and plants deserve to be protected, so should the races and cultures of man.)  
Environmentalism, associated with the Left, is now suspected of harboring subconscious 'racist', 'nativist', and 'xenophobic' tendencies, which though applied to animals and plants, may contaminate our view of races, cultures, and nations as well.  
Again, it goes to show that the Leftist war on the West isn't only ideological but psychological. It doesn't only oppose 'racism' but all forms of thoughts and feelings that may be psychologically connected to 'racism' and 'nationism'.  
Sierra Club gave up on immigration-control, and it may now even have to give up on saving native species. I suppose it was great tht cats and rats introduced to the Galapagos ate up all the eggs of tortoises. And what did American Indians have to worry about when the white man came? Those damned racists! And what did Palestinians have to worry from the massive inflow of Jews in the 1940s? Terrorist scum.

I increasingly find myself as The Last Moderate. Consider the question of native plants in my native land, Southern California. Before the white man arrived, Southern California was remarkably lacking in food crops. The Indians gathered acorns, which is a last resort food, because it takes a fair amount of work to make them edible. You'll notice how nobody bothers eating acorns these days.

Americans quickly noticed that, given enough irrigation, practically any plant from anywhere in the world will grow in Southern California. For much of the first half of the 20th Century, Los Angeles County was the number one agricultural producer in the country. 

Moreover, in ornamental plants, this welcoming climate led to comic levels of diversity in landscaping, with one street having 150-foot tall fan palms (the iconic plant that makes a good logo for L.A. in silhouette, but looks like a hyperextended mop in reality) in one yard, next door to giant, dusty eucalyptuses from Australia, next door to large but not quite thriving redwoods from northern California, next door to a colossally wide Moreton Bay fig tree from Australia, etc. SoCal tends to have good yards but not good streets, due to an excess of individualism leading to an excess of diversity. It's like yesterday's discussion of free verse: poetry where anything can happen isn't as fun as poetry where the end of the next line will either fulfill your expectation or surprise you. 

Growing up, I found L.A. residents' penchant for decorative diversity, self-expression, and phoniness in landscaping and architecture amusing. More aesthetically sensitive souls, however, did not. For example, Nathanael West raged apocalyptically in Day of the Locust against L.A.'s diversity of architecture: "But not even the soft wash of dusk could help the houses ... Only dynamite would be of any use against the Mexican ranch houses, Samoan huts, Mediterranean villas, Egyptian and Japanese temples, Swiss chalets, Tudor cottages, and every possible combination of these styles that lined the slopes of the canyon."

Over time, I increasingly have come to appreciate the native environment, or at least it's better aspects. Let's prioritize, however, what we want to preserve. Not every bit of Southern California natural environment is as worth preserving as every other.

In Southern California, for example, southern-facing slopes are blasted by the midday sun, and thus tend to be covered by impenetrable, gray-green-brown sage brush. We've got plenty of sage brush, so, go ahead, pave it over. I don't care enough to pay much to save some more sage brush. In contrast, cooler north-facing slopes tend to be forested with a small variety of native oaks, sycamores, and a few other trees. Low altitude Southern California is only slightly forested, so its worth preserving much of what little is left. Thus, north facing slopes should be higher up on the conservation priority list than south facing slopes.

99 comments:

Anonymous said...

2 kinds of nativism, very different, Steve. Your mind can handle that right?

Anonymous said...

Also, the left doesn't see foreign human beings as "invasive species." They are different and that difference should be celebrated.

You love to rant but your rantings are pretty useless because you only preach to the choir. That's useless.

W.S. Burroughs said...

I'm with the invaders, no use trying to hide that

The bloody-minded bleeding hearts seem to have a reflexive Rousseauian resistance to managing anything at all--property, immigration, flora and fauna, you name it. The flick "Grizzly Man" brought this home for me, in which the director disputes that the conflict is with "poachers" rather than civilization itself (Steve's brief blog review seemed to be more concerned with mocking the guy's gay-sounding accent). If you ever propose this type of judgment call to them they lock up and short-circuit like an expired replicant. When fashion designers started making pelts from New Orleans's invasive nutria swamp-rats, it simply didn't compute; to them such matters only merit emotional evaluation. I remember a 60 Minutes retrospective with Steve Kroft mentioning the Long Island white-tailed deer story. He'd unthinkingly acknowledged that more hunting was a potential countermeasure for the overpopulation. Hence, "You'd be surprised at the kind of violent letters you get from animal lovers"

Robert Burnham said...

There's also a curious blindness about battling invasive species, at least as seen around here (upper Midwest).

I've been on committees with people who are vehemently against invasive species, but who appear unaware that where we live, some 12,000 years ago, nothing was growing because it was under a sheet of ice roughly a mile thick.

This makes all vegetation (wherever it came from) an invasive species. All these folks are doing is throwing a fence across the timeline and declaring that every arrival after that time is "invasive."

It's all just gardening, in my view. And certainly not worth the moral outrage it evokes in these people. (And yes, they all vote leftie.)

Hunsdon said...

Anonydroid at 4:15 said:

You love to rant but your rantings are pretty useless because you only preach to the choir. That's useless.

8/3/11 4:15 PM

Hunsdon replies:

Are you in the choir, brother? Then lift your voice in song! Let us go tell it on the mountain, our voices lifted in harmony!

Oh. Um. You're not in the choir? Or rather, you'd prefer not to be in the choir? Is chore for you, yes, to be here? Maskirovka, and all that?

"Shut up," anonydroid at 4:15 explained.

Kaz said...

To be fair different species of plants/animals =/= different races within the same human species.

Humans all have the same amount chromosomes, different species of plants/animals do not necessarily.

TH said...

Environmentalism was pioneered by conservatives, right-wingers, and nationalists in Europe too, and I'm not talking just about the Nazis. Leftists used to regard environmentalism as a form of bourgeois sentimentalism, with well-known results in various workers' paradises.

Right-wing environmentalists in Western Europe founded many national parks and conservation societies in the first half of the 20th century, but starting in the 1960s leftists took over these organizations, and environmentalism has been associated with the left ever since. However, there's certainly an inherent tension between the modern left's attempts to safeguard non-human habitats and biodiversity while simultaneously wishing that all human biodiversity be destroyed by panmixia.

kurt9 said...

This is priceless.

Carol said...

I was briefly involved with the local anti-noxious-weed effort, and after listening to reports every month for a couple years, it was clear that it is hopeless. They've given up fighting the most obvious plants, now focusing on "new invaders." Definitely a moving target!

But really, some of the most favorite hardy plants here are from Siberia, like the omnipresent lilac bushes. But some of the weeds really are nasty and painful, like the Canada thistle.

As in everything else, it calls for some discernment.

Anonymous said...

There is no moral right or wrong in nature. And indeed every species were at one point an invasive species. Man evolved in Africa before spreading to other areas. Same with mammals during the age of dinosaurs. Nature is by nature aggressive and invasive. It is also, by nature, defensive and survivalist. Each species tries to maximize its power at the expense of other species; it also tries to minimize the harm done to it by other species It is natural to insistently expand; it is natural resistantly defend. In human terms, people conquered other lands and other peoples; and people defended their land from other peoples.

Some species tolerate or interact with one another and may even be dependent on one another for survival. Caribou fear wolves, but wolves keep the deer population under control, which is good for deers since too many deers will mean no vegetation, which will mean no more deers.

But introduction of some species can wipe out original species, especially if the latter have no defense mechanisms against the new species. Certain types of giant frogs have eaten up all the native frogs. Red ants have been known to destroy black ant colonies. Certain weird species of worms in UK are destroying earthworms. Zebra mussels are messing up Lake Michigan. And Asian carp is something to worry about in the Mississippi river. Chinese wood beatles are destroying trees in America.
The rule of nature is simple and amoral.

But humans do have rules and we do want to maintain some sense of balance in the world. We don't want every eatery to be MacDonalds, we don't want every movie theater to show nothing but Hollywood movies, we don't want MTV dictating the minds of all.
Especially because we've accelerated the movements of peoples and species at such breakneck speed, entire cultures and species have come under threat like never before. We need to be careful.

Also, there are new species we can introduce and control. But certain species can easily slip from our control and go crazy. Asian carp used to be restricted to fish farms in the US, and it was no problem; it was under control. But it got out during the floods and have taken over entire eco-systems.

Similarly, immigration used to under control, and we used to be careful in who arrived and how they assimilimated. Now, American institutions seem to be dominated by alien forces hellbent on doing everything to undermine the traditional majority.

It's like fire. Good and useful except when it gets out of control.
So, it's not either/or. It's a matter of 'can we control it?' or 'will it control us?'

Tom said...

“We should always be alert that even those of us who think they’re practicing pure science or pure environmental policy are sometimes influenced by other ideas, other feelings,” Pollan said. “And we should interrogate ourselves to see if that’s what’s going on.”

... he says without irony.

So, here we have a New York-born Jew who:

1. Allows the Holocaust to influence every aspect of his worldview, even environmentalism.
2. Projects his own failings onto his opponents.

Some things never change.

Anonymous said...

2 kinds of nativism, very different, Steve. Your mind can handle that right?

You're very clever.

Can you 'splain the differences, and why they justify an extreme, binary shift in logic and morality?

Anonymous said...

Also, the left doesn't see foreign human beings as "invasive species." They are different and that difference should be celebrated.

That's very clever too, another way of saying the same thing, almost.

You love to rant but your rantings are pretty useless because you only preach to the choir. That's useless.

It's good that we have you around to point out our best interests to us.

alexis said...

This "overthrow the idea of native" is creeping up amongst some enviros. I suspect it's going to one day be a litmus test against old-school conservationists and to make environmentalism a solid block in the urban left's pocket. There's definitely a distrust of wilderness devotees and outdoorsmen by the "social ecologists".

Anonymous said...

However, there's certainly an inherent tension between the modern left's attempts to safeguard non-human habitats and biodiversity while simultaneously wishing that particular segments of human biodiversity be destroyed by panmixia.

FTFY

David Davenport said...

2 kinds of nativism, very different, Steve. Your mind can handle that right?

Please explain these two kinds of nativism to us, and tell us how these two kinds are different.

Your courageously anonymous mind can handle that, right?

If you think that nativism with regard to humans is bad, then I assume you agree with my proposal that the USA annex Baja California, not including the city of TJ.

Cinco Jotas said...

Zebra mussels, doing the jobs that American mussels won't.

Londoner said...

That marvellous fellow Tim Wise appears to be publishing a new book based on his poison-pen letter to white America. Might be worth reviewing if you can get hold of a copy without paying for it. Or just giving him a general smackdown - he seems to be stepping up his hate rhetoric these days.

Dennis Dale said...

Have you ever noticed how much the left loves the word "interrogate?" Ve haf veys of making you talk!

interrogate ourselves no less. The psychic equivalent of go f--- yourself.

David Davenport said...

Also, the left doesn't see foreign human beings as "invasive species." They are different and that difference should be celebrated.

Then the contemporary Left has forgotten that human invasions used to be a project of the Right -- a.k.a. colonialism, imperialism, Pax Romana, Manifest Destiny, the drive for life-space, etc.

The conquerors are different and that difference should be, er, must be, celebrated.

Veracitor said...

Leftists ("greens") have long wielded a version of "environmentalism" as an ideological weapon against private property and against business. Recently the leftists have taken up another ideological cudgel, though, called "diversity." To a leftist, diversity is a code word for amalgamation-- all "diverse" elements (chiefly conditions and races of people) must be mixed together in every place, however small, as evenly as possible, regardless of any effects of one element upon another.

Leftists must now deal with a contradiction which environmentalists are all too prone to notice: the Leftist version of diversity is bad for the environment, because mixing species indiscriminately in all habitats may severely injure some of them. Environmentalists invariably hit upon separation of uses and species as the key to environmental protection.

Attempts to exclude invasive pests (say, hydrilla) from specified habitats (say, local lakes) don't endanger the pest species, because vast reservoirs of the invaders persist in their original habitats-- so the typical environmentalist sees "diversity" as fully-compatible with "separation." When an environmentalist wants to see hydrilla, he can always go to Thailand.

If a leftist thought along those lines, he might to think that limiting, say, the immigration of Africans into Northern Europe might be a good idea. A modern leftist cannot think that. That is contrary to (leftist) "diversity."

Since "diversity" is both newer that "environmentalism" and addresses human social organization more directly, all contradictions must be resolved in favor of "diversity." For leftists, the tenets of environmentalism must be revised to embrace those of diversity, which means that amalgamation (of habitats, by the movement of species) is a good idea even if it results in the extinction of some of the species in a habitat.

Felix said...

Of course we should logically examine the threat posed by the different invasive species. If some 'Asian beetle' or whatnot can destroy the great forests of the North and the accompanying flora and fauna, then the landscape will certainly be the worse for it. And don't expect that the lost trees and moose left in the wake of the 'Asian beetle' will be replaced by other Asian imports like bamboo and panda bears.

Shawn said...

"Over tiem, I increasingly have come to appreciate the native environment, or at least it's better aspects."

You mean "time."

green mamba said...

I'm always a bit surprised when I go to the wonderful Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and see multiple placards explaining the dangers of invasive species in Lake Michigan. It seems incongruous and politically incorrect in a public institution, even though they're just talking about fish.

Anonymous said...

EVERYTHING takes precedence over making europeans minorities in their home countries.. everything. Islam/Somalis treat women like crap? Rape white women? femnists lecture white women about dressing immodestly.

as for .. the environment... bah ha hha ha. do you REALLY think the lefties REALLy care about that, at all Do you the Gelbaums of the world care about the environment?

Anonymous said...

Plants and animals co-evolved in the Americas over 100's of millions of years, following the ice together during ice ages.

Therefore many insects can't eat invasive (including crop) plants from Europe, Africa and Asia and so birds have less to eat. This is the cause of the decline of many native birds.

Robert Hume

Anonymous said...

"tiem" has a nice LAtin ring to it.

Canadian CIncinnatus said...

As an aside, notice how the history of environmentalism is intertwined with the history of Nazi Germany?

K(yle) said...

Oh Steve. Why do you have to be so atavistic? Why can't you take a not from some of our progressive historical figures. Like Genghis Khan. He didn't let things like silly lines on a map deprive him of the right of free movement of people.

Anonymous said...

Plants and animals co-evolved in the Americas over 100's of millions of years,
sweetheart, i sincerely hope this was a typo.

Anonymous said...

You mean "time."

And also "its".

Anonymous said...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/frank-borzellieri-fired_n_915456.html

Capitalist Roader said...

“We should always be alert that even those of us who think they’re practicing pure science or pure environmental policy are sometimes influenced by other ideas, other feelings,” Pollan said. “And we should interrogate ourselves to see if that’s what’s going on.”

Struggle sessions developed from similar ideas of criticism and self-criticism in the Soviet Union from the 1920s. The term refers to class struggle; ostensibly, the session is held to benefit the target, by eliminating all traces of counterrevolutionary, reactionary thinking...

Lately, the term "struggle session" has come to be applied to any scene where victims are publicly badgered to confess imaginary crimes under the pretext of self-criticism and rehabilitation[citation needed.

ben tillman said...

To be fair different species of plants/animals =/= different races within the same human species.

Difference is difference. And, even if you refuse to accept that, you should know that the difference among human races is far greater than the difference among many species.

Anonymous said...

but sweethearts, wouldn't environmental nativism eventually result in getting rid of us?

Anonymous said...

actually i am surprised that invasive species have not been quietly renamed.. from 'asian longhorn beetle" to ..well WASP

Anthony said...

The "invasive species" idea could actually be turned around to support Mexican immigration - after all, the Indians were here first, and whites are the "invasive species". And most of the Mexican immgrants lately are mostly Indian. But following that thought to its logical conclusion means that whitey ought to go back to Europe, and we ought to send blacks back to Africa, whether they like it or not. Since that means sending environmentalists away, too, it will never do.

Auntie Analogue said...

Invasive species? Would it be a leap to carp about them?

Moriarty said...

An objectively rhetorical question:

Are Jews an invasive species?
By Sydney Ross Singer
01/17/2010 19:34
Theory of invasion biology extols 'native' and exterminates 'alien.'
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=165872

Reg Cæsar said...

So, is Prof. Davis celebrating the vibrant newcomer ash borer, inspiring the removal of so many big old shade trees around, even on, his own campus?

(NB: several years ago, Macalester evicted their annual Scottish Fair, which removed to a generic fairground in a nearby county. But the school's mascot is still the Scot, which is okay, I guess, because their teams lose, lose, lose...)

We had a century-old ash outside our window when our son was born; before his second birthday, it was gone, replaced by the groundskeepers with a sapling he was already a threat to. The old tree survives on Google Earth, but not on Google StreetView!

Reg Cæsar said...

Monica Chavez Gelbaum...

I wouldn't put all the blame on Mr Gelbaum!

Islam/Somalis treat women like crap? Rape white women?

Somalis rape their own women. They don't want to touch anyone else's!

Bigotry, yes, but who's complaining?

sabril said...

"If, as we all know, nativism is the worst thing in the history of the world when it comes to people"

Well only certain people. Most Leftists are able to summon up feelings of outrage over Jews moving to Hebron, even though Hebron had a Jewish presence for thousands of years until the ethnic cleansing of 1930.

Similarly, I imagine Leftists would object if Whites started to move in and demographically take over South Africa.

Harlem is a special case. For a White Liberal, the possibility of getting a phone number which starts with "212" outweighs the preservation of Harlem as a historically Black area.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the right concept is that humans have their role as stewards of the earth. Being superior to nature, genocide of human races is a separate concept.

Also "sweetheart", read about plate tectonics, co-evolution of dependent species, and the work of entomologist Doug Tallamy.

Robert Hume

Polistra said...

There's nothing inconsistent at all. Enviros HATE EVOLUTION and work hard to stop evolution in its tracks.

The Endangered Species Act attempts to prevent a maladaptive species from dying out in one niche, which is the proper Darwinian "job" of such a species.

Enviros dislike "invasive species" because those are the other side of the same process. The invader's is more adaptive than the dying species, so its "job" is to move into the niche abandoned by the dying species.

Envirowackos want to prevent both of these from happening because they hate Darwin.

Of course they stoutly defend his name against all comers, which is typical of fanatics. Love the name, hate the philosophy.

There is one inconsistent thing, however. Envirotyrants love to force the invasion of every species that will eat humans or make it harder for humans to run farms and ranches. Grizzlies and wolves are not only allowed to invade, they are flown in and bred to invade. This isn't about Darwin one way or the other, it's just about genocide.

Grumpy Old Man said...

This is hilarious. Deport the tumbleweed to Siberia, or sing that song about it in Russian!

The Anti-Gnostic said...

I mentioned on here once about voting for the Greens. Why NOT have a whiter, less-crowded, cleaner social democracy? Lord knows the "capitalists" don't seem interested in things like merit, decency or preserving the culture. Nader spoke very candidly with Buchanan about the national question but that's down the memory hole and the Greens can't wait to stuff the place to the gills with "refugees."

There should be some way to abandon the Left to its crowded, dirty, violent, bankrupt fate. But they will do their best to drag us into the hole with them, and now that they've got their twitchy, social-engineering claws sunk into the military, they probably can.

We've got to turn the military on this.

Anonymous said...

Invasive species can destroy the natural ecological balance, as happened with the introduction of rabbits to Australia or kudzu to the South. Surely elitist-hating conservatives can at least respond to the ECONOMIC harm those invaders have caused. Or consider (but don't touch!) the giant hogweed that is taking root in New York state:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2011541/Giant-hogweed-cause-BLINDNESS-invades-New-York.html

Anonymous said...

"If, as we all know, nativism is the worst thing in the history of the world when it comes to people, how can nativism be good when it comes to plants and animals?"

Are you kidding with this? What a terrible analogy. You are equating people with diseases and parasites.

Certain plants and animals are not adapted to certain environments, and thus taking them there creates problems for the local ecology. This simply doesen't apply to Humans as far as the immigration debate is concerned except for very rare cases of people infected with rare diseases from other cases. You could also try to use this argument concerning serial killers, but serial killers exist in most ethnic groups, so you cannot use this as an excuse to stop immigration. Humans are not beings that work according to specific biological programs like species of herbivores or carnivores, but beings of the same species who are capable of empathy, reason and to adapt to whatever new environment they go due to their high inteligence. your argument here is TERRIBLE.

You see, Steve, this is exactly the reason why some people who read your website eventually come to the conclusion that you're a racist. This argument of yours to justify stopping immigration is so desperate and absurd. I think you don't even realize how spiteful and callous you sound towards your fellow Human Beings who just so happened to not have been born in the U.S. BTW, I actualy think the U.S has gone overboard on immigration, and that is must be dramatically reduced. No country can take a million new immigrants per year, every year, indefinitely. It took only one million immigrants crossing the Rhine in 300 A.D to eventually lead to inner revolts that collapssed the Roman Empire. the U.S has received over 30 million immigrants in the last 25 years, and that is crazy.

bbartlog said...

You don't need to attach some mystical intrinsic value to native species in order to see negative effects from invasive ones. When I decry the coming of the brown snake or the rat to various islands teeming with bird life (with catastrophic results for the birds), I'm making a human aesthetic judgment about what I would like a tropical island to look like. If by some wizardry it were possible to have a multitude of brightly colored birds displace a native population of snakes and rats, I'd be all for it. Mind you, I also attach value to preserving unique species (so I wouldn't support it if the island were the last refuge of the aforementioned rats and snakes). Anyway, the problem I see for these political anti-nativists is that you really do end up with fewer species and less overall biodiversity if you let species invade at will. Geographic barriers were what allowed for speciation in the first place. And since it was our arrival and our modern transportation that broke down these barriers to species dispersal, our attempts to slow down the invaders are just an attempt to mitigate what we've done.

JSM said...

"after all, the Indians were here first, and whites are the "invasive species". And most of the Mexican immgrants lately are mostly Indian."

But the current Mexican Indian immigrants are descendants of Aztecs, Mixtec, etc., who were not in North America. Their territory has always been central Mexico.

The Aztecs, et al., were prevented from invading what is now the American Southwest by the fierce warrior-ing of Indian tribes such as the Apaches and Comanches, who were Plains Indians.

And, note, there is no feeling of "brotherhood" between the Apaches and the Aztecs. The Apaches HATED the Aztecs for periodically capturing one of them for use in human sacrifice.

--Therefore the current imminvaders ARE an invasive species.
Only the Pueblo Indians and the Plains Indians have any arguable right, due to prior occupancy, claim to the Southwest.

And if we White Americans go back to Europe, I don't think the Plains Indians on the reservation are going to be too happy. After all, the buffalo are gone, and they now make their living off White welfare and casinos catering to White vacationers. Also, Indians on U.S. reservations live in houses heated by piped-in natural gas. To go from that, back to freezing in winter in hide-covered tipis heated by campfire?

We leave, they die.

alexis said...

"
Struggle sessions developed from similar ideas of criticism and self-criticism in the Soviet Union from the 1920s. The term refers to class struggle; ostensibly, the session is held to benefit the target, by eliminating all traces of counterrevolutionary, reactionary thinking.."

Tom Wolfe covered this decades ago, calling it a "lemon session". SWPL's love this stuff: confessionals, therapy, encounter groups, casting off "privilege", demographic self laceration....

The Christian Right, as Wolfe has noted, loves it too, but for different reasons...

NOTA said...

The error being made here is frighteningly common. Learning about reality can inform your moral beliefs, though you have to beware of the naturalistic fallacy. (Yes, nature is red in tooth and claw. No, that doesn't mean you may kill and eat your annoying neighbors.). But your moral beliefs (and more broadly, your ideology) can never really inform you about reality. When you try to do that, to go from ought to is, you're walking off a cliff.

The classic example of going from moral beliefs or ideology to claims about reality happens in the race/IQ discussion. Many people enter that discussion with moral beliefs that make it all but impossible for them to accept one plausible explanation for the large racial IQ differences--to believe that this represents a difference in mental ability across races is morally wrong in their worldview. Another very common example is evolution--many people debating it are starting from the premise that to believe in it would be to abandon their religion and faith, which they see as an evil thing to do.

David Davenport said...

From the Jerusalem Post piece Moriarty cited:

... How far back should we go to determine who is native and who is not? This is one major problem with using nativity as a criterion for selecting who or what belongs where. All such judgments are based on a view of history, which is never perfect.

In the final analysis, it all comes down to power. When one culture invades another, the victor gets to redefine the culture. When one species invades the space of another, the fittest survives and redefines the environment. To God, and nature, it's all one planet. People, creatures and plants move around. It has been going on for millennia and will continue. It is only to man, with his desire to control and create an artificial order to the world, that nativity has any meaning.

Surely, there is a time and place for weeding, selecting and controlling species and people. But we must reject the very notion that some species should be eradicated simply because they are not "native." In human affairs we call this ethnic cleansing and genocide, and we have seen how ugly it is. It is no less ugly when unleashed on a plant or animal, its seeds of intolerance and hatred lying dormant for the next Holocaust.

...



Are Jews an invasive species?

Anonymous said...

"2 kinds of nativism, very different, Steve. Your mind can handle that right?"


http://www.masjidma.com/2011/05/31/jumping-asian-fish/

stari_momak said...

Could it be that "nativism" originally referred to the desire of those who created 'settler' societies to, you know, keep their creation 'for themselves and their posterity'? The US being the paradigm example, also Canada, Oz, NZ, South Africa. Thus the Left could say, you are NOT natives, that title belongs to 'Native Americans' (there 'Native' is good) , or 'First Nations' or whatever.

Now, however, mass immigration is changing places where whitey is indigenous, every bit as indigenous as any Yanamamo, Apache, etc. So the whole concept of 'nativism' must be rooted out, even when applied to the natural world.

Mark said...

I like using native plants in gardening because they are adapted to the local soil and climate and are really easy to grow and don't take much work. So I guess what I'm saying is that I like them because I'm really lazy when it comes to yard work.

Nigel said...

People of races immigrating to a new land can also be considered invasive species of sorts, simply because they lower the inclusive fitness of the host race. The host race has invested much time and resources to make their society better but these investments will turn out to be maladaptive because they will go to help those with whom the host race shares fewer genes vs. the host race aiding its own co-ethnics with whom it shares more genes.

Anonymous said...

This points to EO Wilson's quote that you can only have true biological diversity when species/races are separated. If all species / races of ants are put in the same island, most of them will die out so there will be no true biological diversity.

helene edwards said...

You should stop talking about environmentalism as if it's some kind of genuinely held feeling or emotion. In reality it's all about jobs. Go back and read the Port Huron statement, in which existing job categories are said to be soul-killing. The postmodern hippies just want to create sinecures for themselves. If necessary, they'll reverse everything in 20 yrs. and tell us we need new programs to bring back ice plant.

Anonymous said...

That the article quoted was spawned at Macalester does not surprise me. Your run of the mill Minnesotan thinks that place kookie lefty.

Matt said...

2 kinds of nativism, very different, Steve. Your mind can handle that right?

I can't figure this comment. It wasn't Steve who wrote the article in Nature, it was an environmentalist. Apparently many environmentalists and leftists are starting to disagree with you on this point.

Also, the left doesn't see foreign human beings as "invasive species." They are different and that difference should be celebrated.

Well obviously...hence the contradiction. In both cases however, you have new...uh...organisms I guess, pushing out the old ones.

You love to rant but your rantings are pretty useless because you only preach to the choir. That's useless.

I have to agree with you here, since blogs in general are pretty useless. Entertaining though, huh?

Anonymous said...

Indigenous rights were / are very popular among the left when referring to the original population of the Americas, Australia, or Africa. What I have noticed is that the word indigenous disappears when referring to Europeans.

Anonymous said...

Ok,

Now this is just stupid. Species are always migrating. However, since it'll be a while before a Zebra Mussel or a Jumping Snail or whatever takes a job from an American citizen, I have less problem with them than with illegal aliens.

Letting in illegal aliens sucks as a long term strategy. Don't believe me, ask any Native American how that worked out.

I have no problem with humans pruning the garden so to speak. We introduced fish into the high lakes in the Olympics decades ago, now they want to remove them because they are 'invasive'. Well that's just fine and dandy except every forking thing is an invasive species to an area that was covered by a glacier.

We are missing our Colombian Mammoths too, anyone want to bring those back? Man is part of the environment. Man (like many other species) can change that environment. So the question is do we change it for our betterment or not? Who cares if a species that is 3,000 years old is 'made extinct'. For Goodness sake, if new 'species' can be created in 3k or 10k years then why bother?

Three thousand years is nothing to life on earth. Three thousand years from now, something else will be where we are now (maybe a freaking big ice sheet).

We should not equate the two problems of illegal aliens (criminals stealing from locals), and invasive species (a changing in the environment biology). Of course, there is some overlap as most illegals are of a different race than the majority in this country but it is their theft and backward culture that matters most not their genetic difference due to race.

Anonymous said...

I'm an environmentalist. I've been involved with many organizations--Sierra Club, Greenpeace--and members of others. I'm also of mixed race (Asian and White).

You are speaking of two different kinds of nativism: biological and social.

Plant and species nativism stems from the fact that over millions of years, plants and animal species have evolved to create unique mixture of biodiversity that can only be found in a specific place. With the slight nudge of an alien species, the balance could be nudged out of whack. There is something valuable--at the very least, psychologically--in preserving the individual species that prosper in a specific locale and nowhere else.

You started out with a straw man, because that's the only foundation you could set up for your argument: "If, as we all know, nativism is the worst thing in the history of the world when it comes to people, how can nativism be good when it comes to plants and animals?" I know you're smarter than that, Steve, going to Rice and all, but do you really have to peddle to your readers like that?

Some points:
1. People operate similarly wherever they are, because they generally all have the same level of adaptation. That's not the same for say, an anteater or a flower attuned to the rainforest. Saying you want to preserve the native order biologically would not have any bearing on people. Whites aren't native to America or Chinese to Taiwan.
2. The divergence between biological and social nativism rests in the notion that people have, ya know, self awareness, or "equal centers of self" (to quote Middlemarch) that requires us to have some emotional empathy and we tend to equally wreak havoc on the environment.

That said, before your readers attack me on a brief comment, where due to the finitude of space, I was not able to adequately flesh out my complete views: -I understand the importance of preserving bits of American culture
-I understand that mass immigration will have deleterious effects on American culture, given that too much immigration results completely separate communities
-That said, there's give and take between change and preservation. That applies to biological conservation as well.

The comments here are even more pathetic because it's obvious that the majority are the types of people here who would never have a thing to do with conservation, environmental protection, and the like. They froth at the mouth at some simplistic analogy that they think makes their "leftist" enemies look bad.

Anonymous said...

Off topic: a little insight into Obama's intellect

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/273596/cantor-obama-overly-sensitive-brian-bolduc#

"“He’s overly sensitive to someone differing with him on policy grounds,” Cantor says.

And he’s isn’t persuasive. “There’s never any sort of economic argument that he can make for his position. It always reverts to that social-justice end,” Cantor argues.

Not that Obama uses the phrase “social justice.” “It’s ‘fairness.’”"

Jack said...

I consider myself an environmentalist conservative. Directly to the point, illegal immigration hurts our environment and supporting both doesn't make sense. If Republicans were smart (and they usually are not), they'd force a fissure in the left by being more pro-environment themselves, and tie that view to opposing illegal immigration. It's natural for conservatives to be in favor of conservation.


Nice white ladies in the suburbs like the idea of environmental protection too, and at least acting more pro-environmental could mitigate Republicans' losses among this group.

Paul said...

The Aztecs, et al., were prevented from invading what is now the American Southwest by the fierce warrior-ing of Indian tribes such as the Apaches and Comanches, who were Plains Indians.

During the heyday of the Aztecs, the Apaches and Comanches were a sorry lot of dirty, naked, bug-eating, stone-age desert dwellers. It wasn't until the Plains Indians got hold of Spanish horses that they turned into the fearsome warriors we think of. The Comanches, in particular, were totally transformed by the horse, and in just a generation or two became the world's best light cavalry.

Once on horseback, the Comanches DID prevent further northward expansion of Mexico.

Anonymous said...

People do not "have the same level of adaptation." Think sickle-cell anemia. Why was Africa called "the white man's grave?" Why do Africans in Canada suffer from Vitamin D deficiency? Why do Andean Indians have barrel-chested figures?

Humans are still evolving, of course, and they compensate for habitat conditions with technology (like clothes on Eskimos), but the notion that all humans are equally adapted to all environments is simply Leftist drivel.

Anonymous said...

Then the contemporary Left has forgotten that human invasions used to be a project of the Right -- a.k.a. colonialism, imperialism, Pax Romana, Manifest Destiny, the drive for life-space, etc.

The conquerors are different and that difference should be, er, must be, celebrated.


No, I've got that one covered. See, it's the means, not the ends, that were objectionable. Not that leftoids are really honest about that, but that's how they handle the dissonance (remember, the logic only has to last long enough for them to chase away the heretics, purge their minds of the memory of the heresy, and then do penance for hearing it).

Michael said...

The quoted article reinforces my belief that most self-styled environmentalists must live in cities.

If people who prattle on in ideological terms about exotic plants actually had to deal with some of them, they would sing a different tune. I have lived on the same property in the midwestern countryside since 1958, and have seen at first hand what buckthorn has done to my woodlots, and how narrow-leaf cat-tails have choked my pond. Neither of these species was locally present when I was a child. Their invasion has altered the character of the place markedly, and for the worse.

"Mother" Nature is far less tender towards her "children" than we are. Anon. of 8/3 at 6:04 PM is correct in observing that any value anything in nature has, man has assigned it. To say that we must assign those values in some way that is consistent with political correctness is a totalitarian conceit akin to saying that painting or music must foster some political end, rather than simply appealing to our eyes or ears.

Ultimately the environmentalist or ecologist is today's version of the gamekeeper of yesteryear, whose job was to manage the wild fauna and flora of a great estate to the satisfaction of the squire or laird who owned it. This traditionally involved balance. One must not allow the foxes to eat all the pheasants, since pheasants are necessary for the fall shooting season, but neither must one kill all the foxes, since the squire is M.F.H., and some must be left for the local hunt. Both these goals must be achieved without allowing either to disrupt the tenants' farming, which provides the estate's principal income.

With the transfer of responsibility for the management of natural resources from these feudal retainers to modern state functionaries, this sphere of activity has become politicised, with predictable results. It should not surprise us that pernicious ideologies come to dominate it. Just as there is ideologically-directed science (Lysenkoism) and ideologically-directed art ("socialist realism," etc.), there will be ideologically-directed farming and game-keeping. Their results, equally unsurprisingly, will be just as disastrous.

Anonymous said...

"It is no less ugly when unleashed on a plant or animal, its seeds of intolerance and hatred lying dormant for the next Holocaust."

woah, talk about being one step ahead of the game.

"Who cares if a species that is 3,000 years old is 'made extinct'."

You anti-semite!!

"I'm also of mixed race (Asian and White)."

hopefully not of this kind:

http://stuffeurasianslike.wordpress.com/

Anonymous said...

To a leftist, diversity is a code word for amalgamation-- all "diverse" elements (chiefly conditions and races of people) must be mixed together in every place, however small, as evenly as possible, regardless of any effects of one element upon another.

Again, not really. This may be what's going on in the minds of the useful idiots, but the officer corps seems to do a pretty good job of keeping them focused on and limited to all the right places.

How much heat does Japan actually get? Saudi Arabia? Israel?

The target selection process seems to be "any desirable (wealthy) area populated with people vulnerable to the argument." On the other hand, "vulnerable" seems to be rather fluid, since it took decades to really get the softer targets primed for the chopping block.

Anonymous said...

"People operate similarly wherever they are, because they generally all have the same level of adaptation."

Yep, I see a lot of similarities between Zimbabwe and Japan; between Mexican-Americans and Swedish-Americans.
And why should Tibetans worry when they're overrun by Chinese? Chinese will operate 'similarly', i.e. eat, shit, and sleep too. Who cares about saving any culture or race? They all eat, shit, and sleep.

"The divergence between biological and social nativism rests in the notion that people have, ya know, self awareness, or "equal centers of self" (to quote Middlemarch) that requires us to have some emotional empathy and we tend to equally wreak havoc on the environment."

Like so many, you confuse empathy with sympathy. Empathy is the ability to see things from different views, not necessarily to sympathize with them. Goodfellas the movie is very empathetic. We get to see the world through the gangsters. Taxi Driver allows us to see the world through a nut. Downfall offers an empathetic approach to Nazis in their final days. But that doesn't mean we should agree or sympathize with gangsters, loonies, or radicals.

If many HBD people are wary of excessive non-white immigration from the Third World and the rising numbers of blacks, it's because we are able to empathize with how those people think and see the world. Unlike liberals, who project their fancy illusions onto other peoples--turning a black person into a 'magic negro', a Mexican illegal into Einstein or NBA star of the future--, we understand the real nature of black psychology and illegal Mexican culture because we have the courage to be politically incorrect. And we know too much 'diversity' isn't good for this country.

Btw, you say you're half Asian, half white. Which parent is white, which is Asian? Sexual adaptations between races don't tend to be 'similar' but lean one way, with males of one race taking females of another.
One thing Asians do have in common with whites and Jews. They adapt to changing reality by fleeing from black and brown areas.
Why don't you go live in Detroit. See how similar those people are. Last I heard in the news, there's an epidemic of bigger stronger black kids beating up scrawnier Asian kids all across the country.

Anonymous said...

"Indigenous rights were / are very popular among the left when referring to the original population of the Americas, Australia, or Africa."

We should all claim to be part-Indian and come up with Indian names.

Sailer can be 'Manatee Who Think Deep Thoughts Underwater.'

Truth can be 'Big Bear Among Angry Wolves'.

JSM said...

"Of course, there is some overlap as most illegals are of a different race than the majority in this country but it is their theft and backward culture that matters most not their genetic difference due to race"

Ummm...but what's the reason that they have a backward culture? Ultimately, it's due to genetic difference.

JSM said...

"Once on horseback, the Comanches DID prevent further northward expansion of Mexico."

The Aztecs *never* settled in the desert Southwest. Before the Spaniards came, it was virtually empty, except for a few ragtag bands of half-naked, bug-eating Apaches, migrating around on foot and barely surviving.

The reason that those pre-horse Apaches were barely surviving is the same reason the Aztecs were never in the desert Southwest: because the desert is an inhospitable place.

But when the Apaches and Comanches got the horse, suddenly they could move much faster to raid the Navajos and move place to place in search of water and game.

That capability of fast movement is what allowed the Apaches and Comanches to thrive in the desert and become fierce warriors, and they did so before the Aztecs decided to use horses to try to invade. So when the Aztecs finally got around to trying to expand north into the desert, they met an implacable foe.

ergo: Mexican Indians coming into U.S. now are an invader

Mac said...

" If Republicans were smart (and they usually are not), they'd force a fissure in the left by being more pro-environment themselves, and tie that view to opposing illegal immigration."

Yeah. What are many of the population projections saying? US will have close to a half-billion by 2050, close to a billion by 2100?

Just once when immigration is brought up during a Senatorial or Presidential debate I'd just love to hear a viable candidate ask, "Just when is enough enough?"

Anonymous said...

Today, everybody assumes that plant nativists are, by the nature of their superior morality, human antinativists.

Who assumes this? Maybe the sort of clueless right-wingers who think the Republican party is anything other than extremely pro-immigration. Lots of "green" types are as opposed to immigration as you can get. The fact that it took Gelbaum over $100 million to shut down the anti-immigration wing of the Sierra Club ought to be a bit of a clue.

Anonymous said...

"The Aztecs *never* settled in the desert Southwest."

The Gas-tex did.

Anonymous said...

Xenophobe? I'm really more of a chthonophile.

Anonymous said...

Me again (half Asian/half White).

As I expected, more straw mans would be set up.

"Who cares about saving any culture or race? They all eat, shit, and sleep. "

You missed my point because you were so eager to beat a strawman.

I'm well aware that cognitive differences result in different kinds of environments. I'm well aware of Detroit, SA, etc. When I said that people operate similarly, I meant that in a pretty broad sense biologically--you know, since this whole discussion stems from the biological nativism of environmentalists. You're taking the basic concepts that biologists advocate with respect to nativism and condensing it to a black and white issue. You argue, well, they must be hypocrites if they're not as anti-immigrant as me! You could mindlessly apply the nativism concept to a lot of topics. Say, you don't own any Japanese cars, do you?

My point from the previous paragraph: biological nativism advocated by environmentalists does not fluidly morph into all kinds of nativism. It's shorthand sloppiness to act like biologists or environmentalists are oh-so conflicted about biological nativism because the concept can be applied to social/cultural situations.

It's a simplistic absolutism that could be applied to nearly any contentious topic. For example: I'm against the Iraq War. Taking this to the most extreme, I could refuse to pay taxes. (Henry David Thoreau did this.)

I'm all for making English an official language. I'm all for limiting wanton immigration. I'm all for preserving the Scots Irish culture of Appalachia, the Cajun culture of Louisiana, the Tibetan culture, etc.

But, like anything, there's give and take. While I'm generally for preserving unique culture, I think saving each little Indian tribe's language in the Amazon rainforest is a little overdone.

My main beef is this: most of you have never given a damn about the environment. Enough of your troll concern. You only peripherally care about the environment insofar you can play your trivial "gotcha" game that any intelligent 6th grader could engage in.

David Davenport said...

Mr. Anonymous Me again (half Asian/half White) says:

My point from the previous paragraph: biological nativism advocated by environmentalists does not fluidly morph into all kinds of nativism. It's shorthand sloppiness to act like biologists or environmentalists are oh-so conflicted about biological nativism because the concept can be applied to social/cultural situations.

...

Mr. Me again, you don't see the bigger political and cultural picture. I agree with you that "It's shorthand sloppiness to act like biologists or environmentalists are oh-so conflicted about biological nativism because the concept can be applied to social/cultural situations."

But real biologists and environmentalists don't control the big propaganda organs that play the tunes and memes to which the mass market minds of the Western world dance. The big propaganda organs always overlook nuances and drastically over-simpilify ideas in the process of brainwashing mass market minds.

"We must welcome all sorts of aliens! Nativism of any kind-- plants, animals, humans, humans or animals, what's the difference, we're all animals -- is always bad!" -- except for maybe one exceptional nation, which won't be named here. That's the message the big media wants to wash into Western brains.

You're the one who is playing a trivial gotcvha game and missing the larger point, Mr. Me again. This business about accepting invasive plants and animals as part of Earth's evolution is a Trojan horse argument. It's an attempt to start a "meme" that will grow into a bumper sticker slogan: "Diversity is Nature's Way." (Doesn't matter what kind of diversity.)

To quote again form that Jerusalem Post Opinion piece:

... In the final analysis, it all comes down to power. When one culture invades another, the victor gets to redefine the culture. When one species invades the space of another, the fittest survives and redefines the environment. ...

Anonymous said...

"xenophobe"'

Actually, the Greeks considered xenophilia a virtue, not a vice. In many Greek city states one had to prove citizenship back (on both sides of his family) for 3 generations even to be a citizen.

Still, I'm more of a genophiliast (a lover of my own race). There's room for everyone on the planet. I don't know why everyone thinks that all non-whites are entitled to flood every white country. Whites need their own, unique white spaces too.

Melykin said...

I find that I feel a lot more sympathy for the aboriginal people now that I have seen the city I was born in change from almost 100%white to less than 50% white (due to immigration from south and east Asia).

The Asian immigrant aren't too bad. They don't tend to form an underclass the way blacks or Hispanics do. But their culture is different, and it is disturbing to see the place you were born change so drastically. I worry about the corruption and shady business practices they bring with them.

Imagine what it must have been like for the North American aboriginals when Europeans arrived and brought diseases and alcohol which did great harm to the natives. They were living in the stone age so the Europeans brought benefits, too.

It is harder to figure out what benefits the current immigrants from Asia are bringing, other than driving the price of housing sky high so our children will never be able to afford to live in the city.

Anonymous said...

My main beef is this: most of you have never given a damn about the environmen

simply not true. Conservative anglo saxons have a deep love of nature and the environment- the entire original, authentic, real conservation movment was founded by conservative.. even 'racist' anglo saxons - as steve points out.

Environmentalism was hijacked and marxified, like everything else.

you claim to be an environmentalist and you don't know this? before the left hijacked it, who were the people concerned about presering nature? Hunters and some bird watchers.. yeah, lots of left wing jews there..

Anonymous said...

Me again (third post).

I agree, hunters are a major asset to conservation, and most right minded environmentalists know this. Many times, the Sierra Club would pair with hunting organizations to conserve various plots of land.

But environmentalism isn't all about "conservation"--it's also concerns taking proactive measures, like reducing carbon emissions, regulating pollutants, and the like to ensure healthy ecosystems. Not many conservatives for that.

Anonymous said...

My main beef is this: most of you have never given a damn about the environment. Enough of your troll concern. You only peripherally care about the environment insofar you can play your trivial "gotcha" game that any intelligent 6th grader could engage in.

I care about the environment. Or I would, if not for the xenophiles telling me it's okay to save the Snowy Egret, but not my own kind.

So now I say, &$@! 'em, let the world burn if they won't respect my desire to save my own kind.

As for your dodging on the inconsistency, it's typical. You just assert that one shouldn't dictate the other, but you don't explain the contradiction. It's like the guy who recently excused Jewish American hypocrisy on immigration and leftism/rightism vis-a-vis America and Israel with "because they're two different countries!" As if that explained anything. What, "Israel" is spelled differently than "America", so we should all just STFU?

I think not.

You're going to have to explain the inconsistency or STFU.

Anonymous said...

"My point from the previous paragraph: biological nativism advocated by environmentalists does not fluidly morph into all kinds of nativism."

Again, you go for bamboo man arguments, Mr. Chite(Chinese-White).
First of all, your argument should be with liberals who brought up this issue; they are now worried about biological nativism cuz it might psychologically feed into social nativism.

But, let me ask you this. By what law do you not include humans in the biological category? Are humans entirely social constructs? No, humans too are biological creatures. Humans may create their own communities but they are intricately intertwined with nature that surrounds them. Each race has its own features and beauties that are worth preserving.

Also, even the bio-natural worlds of different societies are profoundly affected by the kinds of people they have. If Haiti were populated by Germans or Japanese, it would not be an environmental hellhole. Germans and Japanese would not have chopped down all the trees for fuel; they would not have littered the country with mountains of garbage.
They would have adapted to different strategy, using a different kind of fuel, thereby saving the natural environment. California was a lot more nature-friendly when it was majority white. Now, that much of it's majority Mexican, you are seeing more forest fires and more garbage all over the place.

Cultures also affect nature. Chinese, for example, have a weird tradition in medicine and cooking, savoring bear paws, gall bladder, tiger penises, rhino horns, etc. If Siberia were to be taken over by Chinese, you can kiss bears and tigers good bye.

Anonymous said...

"My main beef is this: most of you have never given a damn about the environment."

Shouldn't it be your 'main dogmeat' since that's what the half-of-you(the Asian half)go for?
And you're one arrogant prick. You don't even know me, yet you declare that I don't give a crap about the environment. I've long loved nature and animal-kind. I've long hated you Asians murdering dolphins, skinning dogs alive, boiling cats alive, and killing tigers for penises and bears for paws.
You're just making a bear paw argument. (Btw, eating a tiger penis will not make you into a real man, so give it up.)

Anonymous said...

"And what did Palestinians have to worry from the massive inflow of Jews in the 1940s? Terrorist scum."

Serrrriously? Barbarism si?

Wow.

Anonymous said...

My main beef is this: most of you have never given a damn about the environment. Enough of your troll concern. You only peripherally care about the environment insofar you can play your trivial "gotcha" game that any intelligent 6th grader could engage in.

This is pretty true. Environmentalism is probably one of the most strongly polarized issues between liberals and conservatives.

Anonymous said...

"Serrrriously? Barbarism si?"

Learn about sarcasm. Then learn English.

Drive-By Poster said...

Consider this: native plant species A is being killed off by invasive plant species B in its natural habitat, but plant A has also managed to invade plant B in plant B's natural habitat. So do we say that it's only fair? Absurd. Fucking plants.

By the way, there's a whole site dedicated to the idea that Environmentalism is Fascism

Anonymous said...

Me (4th post).

Wow. It's amazing how (a) people had to impute arguments on me that I never made or (b) revert to mindless racism.

Re-read my posts. Yes, I'm well aware of cognitive differences and what role they play. Stop indulging yourself in a strawman just to hear yourself talk.

"I've long hated you Asians murdering dolphins, skinning dogs alive, boiling cats alive, and killing tigers for penises and bears for paws."

I agree: on average, Asian societies are less concerned about environmental issues. But the reasons are more complex. One reason why China hasn't become more environmentally conscious is because they're in a high-growth-at-all-costs phase, but once repercussion from that become more clear, they will slowly change--just as it did for the West after the industrial revolution (and corresponding mass pollution of riverways, clearcutting, etc.).

But culture also matters. Buddhist societies like that of Tibet or Bhutan are incredibly environmentally protective--yet they are genetically similar to the very environmentally unfriendly chinese. I know you'd like to believe you innate genetic awesomeness as a white person has predisposed you to having environmental concerns, but genetics is not the only variable.

Your comments show that you're a shell of a human being. I know Japanese Americans who are just as emotionally stricken by Japanese dolphin slaughtering as anybody. Sometimes, the best we can do is empower those who see beyond supposed "Japanese culture."

But beyond your obvious lack of capacity to reason, you are also emotionally messed up. You have exactly the personality type of someone sits in his sterile room, brooding over shit, but never doing a damn thing as the breathing world evolves around you.

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Philosophical contradictions arise when people claim superior virtue for their preferences instead of just stating their preferences divorced from moral grandstanding.

People might want their neighborhood, region, state, nation to look a certain way -- and they should just say that. Don't make absurd claims about "invasive species," whether you're talking about nutria, Mexicans, or scotch broom. Just say what you like. Just say that you want to live in a place populated by whites, or that you think nutrias are cute so you won't wear them, or that scotch broom becomes monotonous after awhile and should be burned to the ground.

Is this just a Puritan hangover where every preference must be argued from a contrived and probably specious moral standpoint?

prawnster

Anonymous said...

I am a white person. A white male. I want my kind to not die out, to not be subject to genocide.

For that to happen white men must marry and have children with white women.

I want my kind to survive because they are my kind. Not because they are "superior". But because they are mine. And I am theirs.

Is that so bad?

This is the bottom line. I am against genocide of any people, but especially my own, because if we do not look out for our own no one else will.

We are a small minority on the earth, the rest of whose population by and large hates us.

It all comes down to that and no more and no less.

Anonymous said...

"For much of the first half of the 20th Century, Los Angeles County was the number one agricultural producer in the country."

It is too bad it was all paved over. Now we have to import much of the food that California formerly produced!

Dahinda said...

The earthworm is an invasive species that did much to improve farmland in Norh America. The earthworm is also being fought as an invasive species where it is just starting to invade, like the north woods in Minnesota:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/earthworms/index.html

globe trotter said...

"Your comments show that you're a shell of a human being. I know Japanese Americans who are just as emotionally stricken by Japanese dolphin slaughtering as anybody. Sometimes, the best we can do is empower those who see beyond supposed "Japanese culture."

I don't know that his comments indiate a "shell of a human being" but they do indicate a bit of navel gazing.
It was only a short while ago that whites (otherwise known as "Westerners") were considered buffalo slayers and "lets build a highway" (or worse, a parking lot) over anything green.

Sometimes a "cultural trait" evolves from circumstances, not genes. Or not just genes.

In the middle ages, cats were often burned in Europe (a yearly custom in France until a 17th c. Queen insisted it be outlawed. Hogarth include dog torturing as one indication of depravity (I guess) in some of his morality engravings. By the 19th c. there was a sea-change of feeling about groups (children, animals, some classes of women, some classes of men, some races) that hadn't had much protection or rights unless it were from the benevolent sentiment of the stronger and more legally entitled. The environmental movement grew from this--the first national parks were established in 1870s or 80s. Japan was catching up before the Fukushima disaster.. it's sometimes hard to understand smart people making such blunders.