In 1988, the New York Times commissioned, then rejected an op-ed on illegal immigration from Edward Abbey (1927-1989), the acclaimed novelist and radical environmentalist. Abbey's "Immigration and Liberal Taboos" remains excellent reading today:
The only acceptable euphemism, it now appears, is something called undocumented worker. Thus the pregnant Mexican woman who appears, in the final stages of labor, at the doors of the emergency ward of an El Paso or San Diego hospital, demanding care for herself and the child she's about to deliver, becomes an "undocumented worker." The child becomes an automatic American citizen by virtue of its place of birth, eligible at once for all of the usual public welfare benefits. And with the child comes not only the mother but the child's family. And the mother's family. And the father's family. Can't break up families can we? They come to stay and they stay to multiply.
I'd tell you to read the whole thing, but then I couldn't mine it for good arguments myself.
Posts
93 comments:
More choice Cactus Ed quotes:
"There's two things I can't stand: bigots and well-organized ethnic groups."
"Wolves, cougars, and alligators, like black militant lesbian feminists, have rights too-namely the right to exist."
"Growth for its own sake is the ideology of a cancer cell."
"How many of these cappuccino sipping liberals really would want the latino version of civilization?"
"The gurus come from the the sickest, most unsanitary region in the world, and they come here to tell us how to live."
"Beware the writer who always encloses the word *reality* in quotation marks: He's trying to slip something over on you. Or into you."
“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”
Wow, just wow. One thing I would say is how was this guy a liberals liberal? Or are liberals now just that insane?
Now that growth looks to be played out I'd imagine that his arguments will get more traction. Unfortunately both parties are as he says beholden to their own interests, atleast at the national level.
I must say, that last paragraph brought a wickedly cynical smile to my face. Call it Reactionary mirth.
Being a confirmed sinner on the Wrong Side of History makes one prone to that sort of thing.
The article could have been written two hours ago, and been twice as relevant as it was in 1988. Thanks for posting it.
Why did the NYT commission this in the first place?
I guess the editors were pissed with what their "great liberal" wrote.
I keep thinking that the 1990's immigration restriction mini-wave of opinion from both right and left was the last chance America had to stop the disastrous effects of the 1965 act.
If the Republican congress pressured Clinton to end mass immigration in a loud public campaign, he would have stuck his wet finger to the wind of public opinion and gone along.
Ah, well, it's all a great pity.
RIP USA
1776 - 20??
-Thripshaw
"Wow, just wow. One thing I would say is how was this guy a liberals liberal? Or are liberals now just that insane?"
-Actually libs are of mixed opinions when it comes to illegal immigration. Or even large-scale immigration. Among other things, an illegal in the US has a much bigger carbon footprint than he does back home. Remember, the Sierra Club was basically bought off to make them accept illegal immigration. Support for unrestricted immigration has long been a "Scots-Irish" issue, probably for historical reasons. We do them a favor by letting them come here esp. around WWII, and they repay it with self-interest that tears the country apart.
I keep thinking that the 1990's immigration restriction mini-wave of opinion from both right and left was the last chance America had to stop the disastrous effects of the 1965 act.
I think the last chance was 9/11. Not that Bush ever would have done this, because it would go against every stupid idea in his head, but he could have pointed out that the 9/11 attack demonstrated the failure of our border control and proposed a one-year moratorium while we got things straightened out. (That moratorium would have been extended when it proved hugely popular.)
Perhaps it would have been too late by then to make any difference demographically. . . still, better than the fast track to oblivion we're on.
"And let them stay, say the conservatives; a large, cheap, frightened, docile, "
"that be rino republicans. conservatives are rule of law types.
____________________________
Yesterday's conservative is today's RINO = Ronald Reagan was a huge RINO when when it came to illegals.
Personally, I never saw anything wrong with the bracero program.
They come to stay and they stay to multiply.
On the bright side, olympic medals will "multiply" too (or is it more addition?) because the US will then be winning as many olympic medals as the US and Mexico combined. Just think of the glory.
And speaking of "taboos", dare it be mentioned that the NYT has been controlled by Jews for more than a century? And that Jews are, at least in some circles, known as big open borders cheerleaders? ('Not that there's anything wrong with that' perhaps I should hasten to add.) Except for Israel of course; after all, they're not dumb.
I keep thinking that the 1990's immigration restriction mini-wave of opinion from both right and left was the last chance America had to stop the disastrous effects of the 1965 act.
People attribute more to the 1965 act than it really deserves. At least half of the "immigrants" who have arrived here over the last thirty years and are now citizens did not get here via the 1965 act. They got here because the US government encouraged them to come (usually illegally) and then gave them amnesties of various sorts.
If the 1965 act had never been passed, we'd be better off. But not that much better off.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are big open borders fans. For the same reasons -- their wives. And social climbing.
Plus the whole middle tier of moderately Wealthy White women earns nice money off illegals. I PERSONALLY know of two from wealthy backgrounds who rake in big money from illegals, and educating the children of illegals. Such as it is.
"People attribute more to the 1965 act than it really deserves. "
That is true, and a big weakness in the Vdare/restrictionist analysis. The main thing is that prior to the 1965 act, immigration from the Western Hemisphere was basically 'open borders' -- if the immigrant went through the proper channels. Of course, a lot of Mexicans couldn't be bothered to even meet those minimal requirements.
You´re the best, Steve. No body comes close... Sorry, for your loss, you should be taking a few days off to recover...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/1/liberal-majority-on-campus-yes-were-biased/
Discrimination on creed okay.
Elvisd,yeah those are very good quotes.The wikipedia quotepage http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Abbey looks like it could have been from Heinlein quotepage http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein. They seemed ,to me atleast,to share some of the same sentiments about modern society.
I PERSONALLY know of two from wealthy backgrounds who rake in big money from illegals, and educating the children of illegals. Such as it is.
I.e. participating in the sham of pretending to educate them.
"And speaking of "taboos", dare it be mentioned that the NYT has been controlled by Jews for more than a century?"
-Lebanese-Mexican Carlos Slim eats at the Carnegie Deli? Who knew? Oy vey!
I had to read Edward Abbey for a non fiction literature class years ago. I liked him generally. Pretty fun to read.
Was Abbey the last shout of the Old Left? I could get along fine in a whiter, less populous, cleaner country. For half my income in taxes, I figure I should at least be getting six weeks vacation and socialized medicine. (Not that I think it would ultimately work.) But the Left marches on, leaving things like ethnic pride, local rule, populist economics and now environmentalism behind.
I flirted with the idea of voting Green once but then I read their platform for immigration policy. Who do they think is going to pay the taxes once we make the US the welfare magnet for the whole globe?
In the past, though I have an opinion, I've refrained from expressing it on this site.
Most on this site are wrong and wrong-headed on the entire issue of immigration-and your wrongness makes you--and everyone else--LOSERS (in the past, the present, and for the foreseeable future).
The "immigration problem" is not a real thing nor is it any kind of problem that can be ameliorated (except temporarily) by measures to control immigration itself.
The problem(s) with immigration are not caused by immigration, per se,--they're caused by socialism, especially the "welfare state" and its provisions. Attacking and reducing socialism will clear many of our most pressing problems (to include those attributable to immigration, whether of the legal or illegal variety).
Socialism or socialistic practices
are not the primary cause of all or even most of the problems we recognize but act to increase and to aggravate those problems.
To understand such relationships, it is principally necessary to have a comprehensice appreciation of economics. But it's not surprising--even Steve seems not to grasp some of the fundamental relationships involved.
Ultimately, socialism will impover-ish each nation in which it gains adherence. Some, starting from a wealthier position than others, will simply take longer to reach complete destruction.
People attribute more to the 1965 act than it really deserves. At least half of the "immigrants" who have arrived here over the last thirty years and are now citizens did not get here via the 1965 act. They got here because the US government encouraged them to come (usually illegally) and then gave them amnesties of various sorts.
Before 1965, US immigration law allowed an unliimited number of immigrants from south of the border.
People attribute more to the 1965 act than it really deserves. At least half of the "immigrants" who have arrived here over the last thirty years and are now citizens did not get here via the 1965 act. They got here because the US government encouraged them to come (usually illegally) and then gave them amnesties of various sorts.
If the 1965 act had never been passed, we'd be better off. But not that much better off.
Maybe, but the 1965 act removed the quotas on background, and thus codified the concept that America was no longer a nation of Europeans in general and Northern Europeans in particular. It might not have stated that explicitly, but that was its effect. And thus its passage probably lessened the ability of the nation to fight off the mestizo invasion.
Had that act not been passed and the nation's mindset were still in the 1924 mode, Mexicans would have been deported like they were under Ike
People attribute more to the 1965 act than it really deserves.
The main problem since the early 1960s has been the constant flow of pro-immigration propaganda emanating from the "Scots-Irish" dominated media-education complex. Business interests are always pro-immigration, but they were too weak by themselves to prevent the immigration cutoff of 1924. And recall that was during a booming economy-"The Roaring Twenties."
Thanks for posting and keeping alive. 25 years gone but still so eloquently true. Not unlike Race and Reason et al. A good lesson in media control of public discourse.
What an essay. Literally summed up the entire argument against unlimited immigration in < 1500 words. No wonder the NYT wouldn't print it; several subscriber's heads might explode upon contact w/ such logical conclusions.
This is the whine of a loser. Birth control is the problem, not the solution, and is only practiced by people who hate themselves. There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
It is a shame that Abbey focuses his polemic so strongly and invidiously on illegal aliens (rather than on the wave of foreigners generally, legal and illegal) and on Hispanic culture, ethnicity, a racial profile (a generally poor, hardworking, underprivileged--and therefore sympathetic--group).
The case for defending our nation from foreign invasion can and should be made without offensive insults and without picking on a relatively sympathetic group. I think he shoots himself in the foot. The essay never even had a chance with deaf ears as a result. Cautionary tale.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120803/NEWS02/308030124
Hate Scare gone totally nuts. If you oppose 'gay marriage', you are a hater now.
I bear no individual man hatred, or disrespect. My dislike of illegals is generic. Any man I know, I share a bond with. Anyone strong, or desperate enough, to walk through the desert for 50 miles, without papers, to find work, is a man I admire, and have sympathy with.
But this mass influx has got to stop. Not because Mexicans are bad people, or because any individual one of them is immoral, or selfish, or criminal, but simply because too many will bring only hardship and more troubles, for us, for our country. It's a matter of numbers, sadly, and numbers and the effect of mass movements do have serious, often ghastly, consequences. Europe is experiencing the very same problems, and is struggling to deal with them.
Attribution here.
Any average Mexican is my friend, but illegal mass immigration is a disaster for any nation. You can call them undocumented workers, or you can call them refugees. The problems they cause don't change simply as a result of what we call them.
Attribution here.
Steve, thanks for posting the link to Edward Abbey's immigration article. A great "response line" he's got...
"We can't possible control the borders and stop illegal immigration."
"We've got an army somewhere on this planet!"
The amazing thing is that the NYT editorial page opposed amnesty for illegals until Bush and McCain started pushing it. That persuaded them that Dem. candidates wouldn't face a backlash at the polls for an amnesty if the champions of drooling "kill dem Ay-rabs" right wing morons were supporting it too.
"If the Republican congress pressured Clinton to end mass immigration in a loud public campaign, he would have stuck his wet finger to the wind of public opinion and gone along."
I agree. Same with affirmative action. The establishment and the political left were scared by the early 90's right wing backslash. They were willing to come to the negotiating table and work out a deal with the conservative majority. That it didn't happen is largely due to the right wing leaders like Newt stabbing their supporters in the back and working behind the scenes to scuttle anything that challenged the anti-white status quo.
Some call it high-tech lynching but maybe it should be called high-tech stoning since it's like a modern version of stoning people in the Old Testament.
When Jews don't have all the power, they want more controversy and more debate. They say all sides should be heard and debated.
But once Jews gain dominance, they want to End the Debate and Ban the 'Hate'. Jews argue like lawyers than philosophers, that is their objective is to win and totally demolish the other side, not to arrive at the higher truth. Once Jews 'win'--basically by buying up the media and gaining control of all the levers of power--, they say there's nothing more to debate. It's all been settled. They say that those who keep bringing up issues that have already been decided--as Jews see fit--are mentally deranged and shouldn't be taken seriously. Indeed, such people are so crackpot that they shouldn't even be tolerated but criminalized.
So, if a restaurant opposes 'gay marriage', it is selling HATE.
So, Jews, when without power, start out by saying WE ALL NEED TO TALK MORE, but when they take over the podium, they say THERE IS NO MORE NEED TO TALK. And if you dare to keep talking, you will be high-tech stoned to oblivion.
"
If the 1965 act had never been passed, we'd be better off. But not that much better off." - I disagree for two reasons:
1) Without 1965 there would not have been the legal presence to support the illegal presence. One precedes the other.
and 2) Without 1965 there would not be chain migration, 3 million would have been given amnesty(provided that they were even here in the first place given that all the social networks which they rely upon would never have come into being), and that would have been the end of it, they would not have been able to bring over their rest of their families.
"The main thing is that prior to the 1965 act, immigration from the Western Hemisphere was basically 'open borders' " - Pre 1965 immigration was governed under the national quotas system which restricted immigration to replacement levels, and to ethnically similar groups as were already here.
"Harry Baldwin said...
I think the last chance was 9/11. Not that Bush ever would have done this, because it would go against every stupid idea in his head, but he could have pointed out that the 9/11 attack demonstrated the failure of our border control and proposed a one-year moratorium while we got things straightened out. (That moratorium would have been extended when it proved hugely popular.)"
I agree. After 9/11, I expected that a few things would change. Surely an event of that magnitude would wake us up from at least a little of our folly.
When we did nothing after that, expect become even more welcoming to foreigners, I knew that were doomed.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=zhou-lulu/index.html
that no woman. it bear.
"That is true, and a big weakness in the Vdare/restrictionist analysis."
Vdare is just as opposed to illegal immigration as to the 1965 act. They talk about illegals, amnesty and birthright citizenship all the time. How is that a weakness?
If you think there weren't any changes in US immigration law between the 20s and 1965, please read this article. Some people need to get caught up.
Gene Berman, you think everything would be fine if 1 billion Africans came to the US as long as there was no socialism? How will you stop the immigrants form implementing socialism after they are here?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/14218706-452/us-rep-jesse-jackson-jr-completely-debilitated-by-depression-wife-says.html
The 1965 Act was basically the jews telling that the Northwestern European heritage of the USA didn't matter
Was Lyndon Baines Johnson really Jewish?
The problem(s) with immigration are not caused by immigration, per se,--they're caused by socialism, especially the "welfare state" and its provisions.
You know, libertarians are wrong and wrong-headed losers.
Those of us with functioning brains can recall Prop 187 in California, which attempted to exclude illegal aliens from welfare.
And who opposed this measure? Libertarians, that's who. Libertarians are the answer to the question: "Is it possible to be even more stupid than liberals?"
Go back to shilling for big government, Gene, and let the adults talk.
The case for defending our nation from foreign invasion can and should be made without offensive insults and without picking on a relatively sympathetic group.
You think that illegal aliens are a "sympathetic group"?
Had that act not been passed and the nation's mindset were still in the 1924 mode, Mexicans would have been deported like they were under Ike
In other words, if we lived in a different world, we'd live in a different world.
"Any average Mexican is my friend..."
Well, I used to think like that until I realized how many of them come here and collect welfare immediately because they have brought a child. Then, they have more kids, and more, and they get more welfare.
Of course, it's the libs fault that they are so free with my tax dollars.
There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one
Really, "no way"? I can think of a nearly limitless number of ways, ranging from borders to war to genocide.
Before 1965, US immigration law allowed an unliimited number of immigrants from south of the border.
Well, it's a good thing we stopped that in 1965. No unlimited immigration from south of the border any more, nosiree!
To understand such relationships, it is principally necessary to have a comprehensice appreciation of economics. But it's not surprising--even Steve seems not to grasp some of the fundamental relationships involved.
I have never encountered a libertarian with a comprehensive understanding of economics, or even with a rudimentary understanding of human beings. (Which is, ater all, a prerequisite to understanding economics)
And I'm fairly certain that Gene Berman will not be the first.
Was Abbey the last shout of the Old Left?
Yes.
He's the left that got left behind. I suspect that your prediction that the left will abandon much of its environmentalist position could happen in the next few decades. Abbey predicted this as well. In Hayduke Lives , his followup to The Monkeywrench Gang the protagonists have to deal with Berkeley-types calling them "reactionaries".
Who is this 'Liberal' called Edward Abbey that you speak of? I've never heard of him.
"Gene Berman, you think everything would be fine if 1 billion Africans came to the US as long as there was no socialism? How will you stop the immigrants form implementing socialism after they are here?" - Thats the beauty of it, the common white has to vote hell or high water against socialism then, or else. Granted, the foreigners will eventually gain the demographic ascendancy to force "socialism"(their own failed corruptocracy rather) on America at that point, but that could be a century away, and there is plenty they could do to stretch that out, atleast as long as no variant of pro-white progressivism comes back in the mean time.
"This is the whine of a loser. Birth control is the problem, not the solution, and is only practiced by people who hate themselves. There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one." - The countries with the biggest populations must be global force projecting powerhouses.
"Was Lyndon Baines Johnson really Jewish?"
His reaction to the Israeli attack on USS Liberty wasn't one would expect from a red blooded American President.
The main reason Edward Abbey pissed off both left and right was that he was an anarchist, and neither of the conventional political wings likes an anarchist. He was a big-hearted, irascible bastard who was also a huge inspiration for the hyper-radical eco group Earth First! I love his writing (and am super-sympathetic to many of his arguments, attitudes and points) -- he was like a Thoreau for the late 20th century. Try "Desert Solitaire" if you're curious to explore him some more.
There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
Nonsense. See Japan. Or simple common sense.
Search engines are kind of cool. From what claims to be the largest Jewish content site in the world is this story, "LBJ: A Friend in Deed", by Lenny Ben-David, which another search finds was published in the Jerusalem Post on 9-Sept-2008.
"Historians have revealed that Johnson, while serving as a young congressman in 1938 and 1939, arranged for visas to be supplied to Jews in Warsaw, and oversaw the apparently illegal immigration of hundreds of Jews through the port of Galveston, Texas.
A key resource for uncovering LBJ's pro-Jewish activity is the unpublished 1989 doctoral thesis by University of Texas student Louis Gomolak, "Prologue: LBJ's Foreign Affairs Background, 1908-1948." Johnson's activities were confirmed by other historians in interviews with his wife, family members and political associates.
Research into Johnson's personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America. According to Gomolak, Aunt Jessie had nurtured LBJ's commitment to befriending Jews for 50 years. As a young boy, Lyndon watched his politically active grandfather "Big Sam" and father "Little Sam" seek clemency for Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a blood libel in Atlanta. Frank was lynched by a mob in 1915, and the Ku Klux Klan in Texas threatened to kill the Johnsons. The Johnsons later told friends that Lyndon's family hid in their cellar while his father and uncles stood guard with shotguns on their porch in case of KKK attacks. Johnson's speechwriter later stated, "Johnson often cited Leo Frank's lynching as the source of his opposition to both anti-Semitism and isolationism." ...
Five days after taking office in 1937, LBJ broke with the "Dixiecrats" and supported an immigration bill that would naturalize illegal aliens, mostly Jews from Lithuania and Poland. ...
Novy and Johnson had been secretly shipping heavy crates labeled 'Texas Grapefruit' - but containing arms - to Jewish underground 'freedom fighters' in Palestine."...
Johnson blocked the Eisenhower administration's attempts to apply sanctions against Israel following the 1956 Sinai Campaign. ...
President Johnson firmly pointed American policy in a pro-Israel direction. ..."
I think it was his Aunt who set LBJ up in the cattle business.
The pro-Jewish position seems to have been Fundamentalist, "if israel is destroyed, the world ends."
Birth control is the problem, not the solution, and is only practiced by people who hate themselves. There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
8/4/12 8:38 AM
Of course the Japanese, despite catastrophically low birth rates, are still successfully resisting foreign colonization.
"Of course the Japanese, despite catastrophically low birth rates, are still successfully resisting foreign colonization."
And they're getting medalz in da olympics...
There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
What about keeping a "burgeoning population" from moving in on a static one? Or one that is growing but not "burgeoning"? Impossible, too?
Goddam freak.
How will you stop the immigrants form implementing socialism after they are here?
What's wrong with socialism?
You think that illegal aliens are a "sympathetic group"?
Mexicans and central americans are a relatively sympathetic group, yes.
There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
We have an army, somewhere on this planet.
Those of us with functioning brains can recall Prop 187 in California, which attempted to exclude illegal aliens from welfare. And who opposed this measure? Libertarians, that's who. Libertarians are the answer to the question: "Is it possible to be even more stupid than liberals?"
Actually, it was a Scots-Irish woman, Mariana MacPfaelzer, who held up the case for the entirety of Pete Wilson's second term, until they could get Gray Davis installed in office.
Davis then immediately withdrew the appeal in 1999, which effectively killed the law once and for all.
What's wrong with socialism?
It doesn't work.
There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
What about keeping a "burgeoning population" from moving in on a static one? Or one that is growing but not "burgeoning"? Impossible, too?
Exactly. One of Abbey's main points was the myth of growth, and the myth that a place is supposed to passively allow exponential growth wreck an ecosystem, and human society in the process.
I suspect that in the coming decades, you'll see heavy pressure to start selling off our federal lands as populations explode, and there needs to be more space and resource use. BLM land will probably be the first, then some national forest land, since neither has the cachet of National Parks. It'll be sold as "housing justice" or "community space for underserved peoples".
What a sane piece of legislation the 1964 Wilderness Act was, an attempt to buffer nature against the follies of men.
"http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/athlete=zhou-lulu/index.html
that no woman. it bear."
Comes with the territory of being a weightlifting female in the unlimited weight class
Google Ele Opeloge
Maybe this was the ELE they were warning us about in 'Deep Impact'.
Here's the crew-
http://www.daylife.com/photo/05868Xc4xb1rg
There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
We have an army, somewhere on this planet.
Not only that, but it's arguably the best army in history. But if it can't even defend the US border, is it actually worth anything at all? Or maybe it's all fake, made up in Hollywood studios. Why would an Arab or Afghan adversary care a whit about a US army that can't even defend it's own country's borders? Why should US citizens fund a military that's worthless?
You think that illegal aliens are a "sympathetic group"?
Mexicans and central americans are a relatively sympathetic group, yes.
My experience has been this is mostly true if you are aware of them primarily via the media or movies. Poor Juan and his burro are still searching for the best coffee beans with just the right suffering-saint accent.
Governments should attempt no more good than their people can bear. To want to go beyond that point is to be evil yourself.
"Anonymous said...
""How will you stop the immigrants form implementing socialism after they are here?""
What's wrong with socialism?"
What's wrong with socialism? Socialism is theft. Theft is wrong.
And you are an idiot.
There's lots of Edward Abbeys out there. Outside of White nationalists, probably the biggest block of people opposed to legal immigration out there are these hardcore environmentalist types.
when without power, start out by saying WE ALL NEED TO TALK MORE, but when they take over the podium, they say THERE IS NO MORE NEED TO TALK. And if you dare to keep talking, you will be high-tech stoned to oblivion.
Sounds like the crafting of the health care act. Congressional elits just wrote it themselves, promised spoils to their supporters and voted on it without discussion.
Hey Whiskey, I was wondering where you have been. You're so modest!
Fellas, it turns out, our esteemed Whiskey has been writing for the Romney campaign.
There is no way to keep a burgeoning population from moving in on territory controlled by a declining one.
Military?
just a suggestion
Actually, it was a Scots-Irish woman, Mariana MacPfaelzer, who held up the case for the entirety of Pete Wilson's second term
Actually it was libertarians who sued to overturn the law. Of course libertarians are disproportionally "Scotch-Irish".
I've often thought that the open borders crowd includes a lot of racists, and that one reason they love "Hispanics" (actually, a multi-racial category) is that they are not blacks.
The open borders crowd certainly hasn't raised much an objection to the ethnic cleansing of blacks, due to pressures from illegal infiltrators and other migrants, from major U.S. cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. I suppose it helps their property values. Many of them own, after all.
My experience has been this is mostly true if you are aware of them primarily via the media or movies. Poor Juan and his burro are still searching for the best coffee beans with just the right suffering-saint accent.
My experience is this is mostly true at the level of actual life experience. In addition, a not-insignificant number of American citizens are now Hispanic. The case against immigration can and should be made without insulting people's ancestry.
What is wrong with socialism is that it concentrates power in the hands of people who have no incentive to use power sensibly. You can't be generous with other people's money. Socialism appears to be a success in countries which are destined to be a success because of their demographics. Socialism can't make an economy healthy for the same reason that making payments on a yacht can't make a family wealthy.
Taxation is not theft, because a legal thing can't be an illegal thing. (By the same taken, judicial homicides aren't murder, and monetary expansion is not counterfeiting. Whether or something is legal or not is a legitimate fact and it is worth talking about.)
Taxation can be created in a sensible way, for sensible goals. Raising revenue is a sensible goal. "Equality" is not. A modern leftist's "equality" is just resentment with dreadlocks and a smiley face drawn on it. No tax created to raise revenue needs 30,000 pages of regulations associated with it.
How about:
"All limited liability enterprises shall pay 10% of the value of their total dividends, or 10% of the total revenues they receive from interest, whichever is greater, to the US Treasury." It would have to be a little more complicated than that, and the rates would probably be adjusted to achieve the Laffer maximum; I'll budget 500 pages of regulations for closing loopholes. In any case, that, plus the motor fuel excise tax, should be enough to pay for the EPA, the border patrol, the courts, and a Swiss-style military.
"The gurus come from the the sickest, most unsanitary region in the world, and they come here to tell us how to live."
What region could that be, now?
I'm sure whoever said that meant India, but it could also apply to Roman-ruled Judea and its modern spiritual descendents.
What's wrong with socialism?
It doesn't work.
Socialism, like any other "ism", works well enough if run by smart people in a stable homegeneous society with a sincere desire to make it work (e.g. Sweden).
It doesn't work well in regions of extreme poverty or social dysfunction, with a history of tyranny, corruption, oppression. It doesn't work if applied to mobs of illiterate peasants led by vengeful urban intellectuals of a totally different ethnic culture.
Socialism, like any other "ism", works well enough if run by smart people in a stable homegeneous society with a sincere desire to make it work (e.g. Sweden).
I had a feeling I was going to see this rejoinder.
Like I said, I'd love to live in this homogenous, pacifistic society where everybody generates all the "surplus" wealth everybody could ever need to take care everybody else.
Europe, Britain and Scandinavia have all tried it. Inevitably, you end up with confiscatory taxation, capital flight and rising levels of net tax consumption. Demographics start cratering and the central State implements mass immigration in a last-ditch effort to save the tax farm.
And there goes your nice, homogenous socialist utopia.
"Poor Juan and his burro are still searching for the best coffee beans with just the right suffering-saint accent."
My experience is this is mostly true at the level of actual life experience.
Then your experience is very wrong. Hispanics don't have black levels of dysfunction, but they are far, far more screwed up than whites or Asians. The notion that they are suffering saints is grotesque.
a not-insignificant number of American citizens are now Hispanic.
A not insignificant number of America citizens are black, but it does not follow that we should refrain from justified criticism of them on that account.
Europe, Britain and Scandinavia have all tried it. Inevitably, you end up with confiscatory taxation, capital flight and rising levels of net tax consumption.
Sounds just like America. Socialism is not an atomic thing which either exists somewhere or does not. There are elements of socialism in all states, indeed in all human groupings of any kind. A certain amount is necessary, too much is a bad thing.
Europe, Britain and Scandinavia have all tried it. Inevitably, you end up with confiscatory taxation, capital flight and rising levels of net tax consumption. Demographics start cratering and the central State implements mass immigration in a last-ditch effort to save the tax farm.
That must be why Scandinavia is in such worse shape demographically and economically than the US.
The 1965 immigration act has some symbolic importance, because it involved the US government saying: "We're not a country for Europeans, we're a country for everyone".
But as Tillman pointed out, the Act actually placed restrictions which had not previously existed on immigration from south of the border.
And the demographic transformation which has and is taking place is basically a "Hispanic" transformation. So the blame for this cannot be placed on the 1965 immigration law.
Every politician at the time, not just Ted Kennedy, said that the Act would have no real impact on the demographics of America. In all probability they believed what they said.
My recollection is that the tidal wave of Latin Americans started in 1986 with the Reagan amnesty, and then kicked into high gear in the 1990's with the Clinton Bubble.
The combination of "family reunification" in the 1965 Act and the (illegal) policy of de facto open borders/amnesties later on is what creates a toxic brew. Giving family reunification rights to 3, 5, 10 million Hispanic illegals at a time, allowing them to bring in another 3, 5, 10 million family members, is what is fueling the explosive rise in the non-Euro population.
"Hey Whiskey, I was wondering where you have been. You're so modest!
Fellas, it turns out, our esteemed Whiskey has been writing for the Romney campaign."
LOL
SI we're talking about dead, semi-sane liberals, why not quote the recently-deceased Gore Videl:
"A characteristic of our present chaos is the dramatic migration of tribes. They are on the move from east to west, from south to north. Liberal tradition requires that borders must always be open to those in search of safety or even the pursuit of happiness. But now with so many millions of people on the move, even the great-hearted are becoming edgy. Norway is large enough and empty enough to take in 40 to 50 million homeless Bengalis. If the Norwegians say that, all in all, they would rather not take them in, is this to be considered racism? I think not. It is simply self-preservation, the first law of species."
And the demographic transformation which has and is taking place is basically a "Hispanic" transformation. So the blame for this cannot be placed on the 1965 immigration law.
Nope. The change is at least as, if not more, dramatic in the upper echelons of the economy and in the corridors of power. Have a look at the demographics in medicine, finance, law. Hell, even in the high schools and universities. Chinese, Koreans, Jews, and Indians rule. It's a massive, massive sea change. Revolutionary.
Even NYT writer David Brooks is showing some embarrassment at the success of The Project (which is also his project).
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/07/david-brooks-almost-goes-there.html
The change is at least as, if not more, dramatic in the upper echelons of the economy and in the corridors of power.
No, it is not. The prevalence of Indians in IT, for instance, is a problem, but a minor problem in demographic terms.
Just under fiver percent of the US population is Asian, a figure which includes immigrants from everywhere between New Delhi and TaiPei. America is not being demographically transformed by Asians. It is projected that whites will become a minority in America sometime in the next forty years. It is one and only one group of people driving this change - Hispanics. Between 2000 and 2010 the Hispanic population increased by 43%, while the population of everyone else increased by just 5%.
"Poor Juan and his burro are still searching for the best coffee beans with just the right suffering-saint accent."
... In addition, a not-insignificant number of American citizens are now Hispanic. The case against immigration can and should be made without insulting people's ancestry."
How very Nice White Lady of you.
You missed the insult. Perhaps the insult is only obvious if you've watched a certain amount of TV in the US at a certain period. The insult is not directed south of the border, it's directed at Nice Bimbo White Ladies and the TV that serves them (Whisky bait). A series of TV adds has been running since 1959 about the sympathetic/sainted Juan Valdez, searching the world over for the perfect coffee beans. A very sympathetic character. Apparently that much TV sticks in the brain, perhaps it overcomes reality. The power of advertising and all that.
If you have a problem with the Juan Valdez ambiance, take it up with the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia. They worked hard to establish it. Oh, and the US TV industry. (I hope this isn't one of those "when they say it it's okay, but if I say it it's not" things. That gets so confusing I can't figure it out anymore...)
What happens when you can't say anything about anything without it insulting someone? How do we discuss a course of action that someone, somewhere, might find insulting? Or that someone thinks might, just possibly, be insulting to someone else somewhere, but they don't really know, they are just guessing to play the "good queen"? Do we just "not go there" and stop at that? Full-tilt analysis paralysis? Clearly a discussion of objective truths is considered an insult by many groups, including often liberal academics.
And along these lines, is Victor David Hanson's recent article "California: the Road Warrior is Here" an insult or a truth we should talk about?
Was Lyndon Baines Johnson really Jewish?
In a sense, yes. He is part of the Jewish extended phenotype. He came from a faamily of deranged Christian Zionists and spent his life doing the Jewish community's bidding.
That must be why Scandinavia is in such worse shape demographically and economically than the US.
Is this some sarcastic reflection on Scandinavia being better off than us?
Can't you just address for a moment the different demographics of Scandinavia and the US? You are aware that Newark, Pontiac, Detroit, Camden, and the Mississippi Delta for that matter ... are not in Scandinavia...?
HBD denialist.
Anglos were not illegal immigrants since there was no rule of law when Indians ran things. Whites conquered, established a system of laws. It's laws that determine what is legal and illegal. Since white man established the laws where there were none, he didn't do anything illegal when he took the land from Indians whose only 'law' was the savage 'might is right'.
, he didn't do anything illegal when he took the land from Indians whose only 'law' was the savage 'might is right'.
Here is someone else who bought into the fallacy that "savage" non-white, non-Western, non-Christian peoples had no law or government at all. If you instead said something like, "The Indians* had a very primitive understanding of property and property rights, and their laws never covered property", that would be better.
* Referring to many different nations and tribes, covering many types of terrain and climate, some nomadic, some settled, of varying states of development.
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