April 2, 2013

"Against the envy of less happier lands"

The Washington Post has been totally on board backing the Gang of Eight's slo-mo immigration putsch as representing What All the Cool Kids Are Doing These Days, so it's amusing to watch the cognitive dissonance between the American media's assumption that They Always Do Things Better in Europe and Europe's current turn to immigration restriction.
U.K. Independence Party finds its voice amid growing anti-immigrant wave 
By Anthony Faiola, Published: March 31 | Updated: Monday, April 1, 4:46 AM 
EASTLEIGH, ENGLAND — For the United Kingdom Independence Party, defeat has never looked this much like victory. 
After a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Commons was jailed on criminal charges, this struggling railroad town near the English Channel held a special election to pick his successor. The anti-immigrant U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) took up the challenge, setting up offices next to a Turkish kebab shop and narrowly losing its bid to win its first elected seat in the British Parliament. 
Its best-yet showing in a national race has, nevertheless, thrust into the national limelight a political movement that is part of a wave of anti-immigrant populism surging across Europe. The outcome of the Feb. 28 vote, coupled with national polls showing UKIP support at an all-time high, seemed to terrify Britain’s three traditional parties. In response, the Conservatives, the Labor Party and the Liberal Democrats are suddenly tripping over each other in a race to see who can more closely echo the Independence Party’s hard-line pledge to get tougher on immigration. 

Please note the fear and loathing terms in the article, which I'll put in bold. Project much?
UKIP’s ability to spark a policy stampede without even winning a seat in Parliament underscores the increasing capability of anti-immigrant forces to set the agenda amid Europe’s economic malaise. An issue at the core of the party’s platform is the withdrawal of Britain from the European Union to stem the tide of immigration — as an E.U. member, Britain is legally bound to allow the citizens of 24 other European countries to resettle here with few restrictions — which speaks to the concerns of a continent where a debt crisis and high employment are increasingly making foreigners the target of popular rage.
That fear is surging as countries including Britain, Germany and France prepare for new flows of migrants from two of Europe’s poorest countries — Bulgaria and Romania, whose citizens will win unlimited access to the E.U.’s labor market as of Jan. 1. 
With concern growing that the Independence Party will poach more and more voters from the political right, Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative, last week announced a plan to make it tougher for recently arrived immigrants to claim welfare benefits. The government additionally announced a dramatic makeover of the U.K. Border Agency to deal more expeditiously — and harshly — with illegal immigrants. 
Not to be outdone, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister from Cameron’s junior coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, announced his own plan to control illegal immigration. In a speech less than three weeks after the vote in Eastleigh, Clegg vowed to force visitors from countries with high numbers of visa violators to post a $1,500 bond — with the cash returnable only upon their departure from Britain. 
At the same time, Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition Labor Party, has offered a mea culpa for lax immigration policies during his party’s rule from 1997 to 2010, a period when net migration to Britain soared. In an apparent reference to then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s campaign gaffe in 2010 — when the Labor leader was caught off camera describing an elderly white woman as “bigoted” for complaining about immigration — Miliband said: “It’s not prejudiced when people worry about immigration. It’s understandable. And we were wrong in the past when we dismissed people’s concerns.”

Has anybody in America apologized over immigration policy?
Although not wholly new — Britain’s top parties have for years been leaning toward tougher immigration policies— observers say the steps taken since the Independence Party’s surge have amounted to some of the most aggressive yet.
“There is no doubting the influence of UKIP is now being felt in our immigration debate, partly because the main parties have refused to have a debate about this before,” said Keith Vaz, a Labor Party lawmaker. “We should stamp out illegal immigration, but we also need to avoid an arms race between the parties as they react to UKIP support.”

With a debt crisis and deep austerity entering their fourth year, Europe is facing a period of record unemployment that has allowed unpredictable political forces to take root. By comparison to some of these unconventional movements — such as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece — the U.K. Independence Party is relatively mild. 
The party was founded in the 1990s by British politicians furious about London’s acceptance of the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union. Today, the party is led by the spiffily dressed Nigel Farage — a savvy, speaks-in-sound-bites politician known for his dry sense of British humor. Although he is campaigning heavily for Britain to leave the E.U., his wife is a German national. 
Under his leadership, the party has largely avoided the racially and religiously tinged jabs against Muslim immigrants taken by, say, the Nationalists in France. 
Rather, UKIP ascribes to a school of thought always just under the surface in Britain — that this is a nation that is culturally apart from Europe and has no business being part of that exotic world across the English Channel.
Those sentiments have been exacerbated by an influx of hundreds of thousands of Europeans — mostly from the east — who over the past two decades have taken advantage of the E.U.’s open-borders policy to find jobs and resettle in Britain. 

Appreciation of what Paul Johnson calls England's "island privilege" -- the ability to draw from the Continent as wished and withdraw from the Continent when needed -- has not always been kept under the surface. In fact, one Englishman spelled out this "school of thought" rather vividly in what's basically the UKIP platform:
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
... This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. 

Well said.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the appeal of 'gay marriage' for many people is that it gentrifies--at least in their fantasy minds--an institution that has hit the skids.

Many parts of the city went to pot, but then gays came along and opened shops and made the streets live again with money flowing and lights flashing. So, gays became like urban heroes who help bring glamour back to city life.

Marriage was once a much respected institution. But then, it became associated with all the evils of the world: oppression, slavery, fat slobs like Ralph Kramden and Archie Bunker, etc. Many rejected it altogether while others degraded marriage by making it--and divorce--all too easy(come and easy go). And celebrity bed-hopping has made marriage seem trashy: Las Vegas weddings, Mexican weddings, Moonie church weddings, etc.

Now, we on the Right think that 'gay marriage' will make marriage even sillier and trashier. And 'married gays', we believe, are even more likely to fool around.

But people go for the image than the fact. Gays are associated with glamour, prettiness, neatness, privilege, wealth, intelligence, morality, achievement, and even spiritualism in our pop culture. So, the idea of letting gays enter into the turf of marriage might appear to liberals like letting gays enter into bad parts of the city(and have them spruce it up).

Though liberals did much to ruin and degrade marriage, maybe something in the liberal mind wants to make marriage respectable again. Since gays have become so respectable, the liberal idea could be that having gays take control of marriage will make marriage fashionable and respectable again.

But boy oh boy, this sure is surreal. Making marriage respectable through gays.
Is this Alice in Wonderland or something?

countenance said...

The conventional wisdom in British politics is that the BNP takes votes away from Labour, and the UKIP takes votes away from the Tories. There have been many instances in the past where BNP candidates who live in cities that are heavily Labour-controlled are victims of Labour goon tactics, and now that UKIP is getting popular, I expect Tory goon tactics against UKIP candidates to increase (it has already happened once).

By "goon tactics," what I mean is this: Since the local government is heavily controlled by either Labour or Tory politicians, the local cops are also controlled by said politicians and political sycophants to that party. If you're a UKIP candidate and you live in a city that's heavily Tory run, or you're a BNP candidate and you live in a city that's heavily Labour run (and that is most often the case in reality), then you're running in an area as a candidate from the party that is known to bleed votes away from the party whose politicians run the city. Therefore, very near election time, the local goons will sick their cops on you, have you arrested for some trumped up nonsense charge. The bad PR will sink your candidacy, but conveniently after the election, the whole matter is dropped.

Anonymous said...

"so it's amusing to watch the cognitive dissonance between the American media's assumption that They Always Do Things Better in Europe and Europe's current turn to immigration restriction."

Too true. Though I assume this will mean they can now think of themselves as superior to the people the saw on their study abroad trip so many years ago. How satifying that must be!

eah said...

Mr Sailer,

Do you really think anything significant will change in the UK? Have you been there recently? Visited London perhaps? And experienced firsthand, over some time, the viciously PC media there?

Perhaps you ought to go read the comments on the Goodhart piece in The Guardian that you linked to recently. Admittedly it is The Guardian; but in any case one does get a feeling for what I imply. Or if that's not enough, read the recent denigration of UKIP by their so-called conservative PM.

There is no hope for the UK.

Anonymous said...

Another city in Mexifornia, Stockton, declares bankruptcy. The media, blind to the causes of bankruptcy, is advocating the tranformation of America into Mexerica.

Anonymous said...

I watched some campaign coverage of the British elections in 2010, what was interesting was after Gordon Brown got caught calling an old woman a "bigot" ( She was complaining about Polish immigrants btw, not Africans or Pakistanis ) All 3 major parties tacked to the right towards more immigration restriction, including Gordon Brown and Labour during the televised debates. Never see that in the US now.

Anonymous said...

I read the article yesterday. Front page on the Post, a spot usually reserved for the latest illegal alien valedictorians or gay couples that want to adopt foreign children.

The summation of the article was a Pakistani or somesuch brown person declaring all English were worthless cretins and the immigrants do all the work. Asian unemployment in Great Britain is astronomically high but the Post used this man to get the idea across. Lazy white man needs immigrants to do all labor.

Aging Hag said...

About that cool kids thing, tidy rich little Denmark has had an immigration restriction party in power for quite a while now, with much success, except that the Muslim pop'n is worrying high due to natural increase. They didn't nip it in the bud.

Naturally the BBC wonders whether this breaches European human rights laws.

I am praying that the Europeans get real on this and crack down, but this won't stop the media elite from championing open borders. It will just make them bust out into a chorus of God Bless America, the last best hope of immigrants on earth.

Anonymous said...

So, it's all very strange. Europe was able to be more progressive because it was more homogeneous--just like blue white states have been more 'progressive' cuz they tend to be more homogeneous. As Europe becomes less homogeneous and more diverse, people are beginning to wonder about the costs and problems. Since homogeneousness is ideologically taboo, I suppose there is the rise of homosexualism, oddly as the new representation of Europeanness. Indeed, even the European Right argue that immigration must be stopped because too many Muslims are anti-gay. 'Gay marriage' may be the new de facto national identity of Western civilization. You can't wave your national flag, so you wave the gay rainbow flag, which is rather odd since the rainbow represents the range of all colors whereas the gay movement is dominated by a handful of white gays and lesbians.

Maybe what the Right should do is call for interstate diversity. Never mind more people from other nations. Let's look at American states and point out the non-diverse ones like Vermont. Since Vermonters love Obama and love diversity, I say we find ways to send a lot of non-whites to that state to liven it up. And to Minnesota. They don't seem to be very happy with the Somalis up in St. Paul, but since Minnesotans voted for more liberalism, I say southern states should look for ways to encourage more blacks to flock up north.

If more immigration for diversity is good, then more migration for diversity is even better. I say find ways to send all those Mexicans in Arizona and Texas to NY. Pass out fliers saying that blue northern states are filled with wonderfully generous white people who would welcome them with open arms.

David said...

That nativist, William Shakespeare.

When will the Equality and Human Rights Commission bring him up on charges of breaching the race laws? He was a proto-Nazi (= goy) after all.

Anonymous said...

Stellar use of Shakespeare, Steve.

TGGP said...

I agree the press is pro-immigration, but saying an upstart political party has sparked "fear" in the established ones, and that there is a "stampede" towards its position sounds pretty banal and could be written by a paper that actually favored the party and/or its position.

FirkinRidiculous said...

That Earl of Oxford could really write, huh?

Glossy said...

"Well said."

Not literally. A royal throne of kings is like an equine stable of horses or a rural countryside of villages. Royal already means "of kings". I'm all for the Brits retaining their country and their identity (more power to UKIP!), but that just had to be said.

Anonymous said...

And let's keep in mind that they are mainly talking about other white Europeans. who if they came here would not face nearly as much controversy as Latin Americans.

Anonymous said...

Of note:

http://boise.craigslist.org/lab/3719213753.html

And we wonder why we're losing..

Anonymous said...

Could anything more shocking have been predicted would be the fate of the English? To be minorities in England? Eventually, the remainders will flee at some point and become a wondering people without a home for several millenia, if they don't die out before then.

Anonymous said...

There's one thing that the UK still has in its favor, unlike the US, they know there is a limit to the cash, they know there is a limit to the space, they know that they are entitled to their country.

Whiskey said...

Steve, what the elite fears is war, open war, and civil war.

Because they have run out of money. Simple as that.

Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and FRANCE have essentially, no more money left. And a massive welfare state that the Germans even if forced to it would not be able to support.

Britain has some money, not much, it will rapidly run out. Same for the Scandi countries, only Germany and the Netherlands have a fair amount of money.

Which sets up the mother of all spoils battles -- pay the non-Whites crowding the cities who cannot and will not work, to keep from burning them down, ala London 2011, and let the natives starve, or feed the natives and have the cities burnt down, with open establishment of Muslim and Black nations inside them.

UKIP, Golden Dawn, National Front, all are growing, and forming a threat to all the parties, as the ability to pay people with free stuff is coming to an end or has come to an end. In Greece, Spain, and Portugal, educated people are rooting in dumpsters for food. Meanwhile foreigners (non-Whites) flood in and get special, non-White privileges over the natives.

Ultimately, the desire of the Hapsburgs to use the Landsknechten to make up for their military lack came to an end as the mercenaries in the Thirty Years War laid EVERYONE to waste in Central Europe. Which was why the Treaty of Westphalia stuck -- everyone was terrified of the power of non-state actors. Answerable to no one.

Europeans have power only because they hand out enormous amounts of money which is coming to an end.

Hence the mouthing of words they don't mean.

Whiskey said...

The reason the elites don't really mean their words against immigration on a mass scale is that it would undermine their strategy to non-White majority their native lands, allowing them to crush their peoples ambitions against new royalty.

Hence, words they don't mean and have no intention of carrying out. NO ONE is calling for removing illegal aliens from Africa or the ME or Pakistan. None is calling for the end of the PC system that jails White women angry at abuse by non-Whites and speaking out, or stopping the "grooming" rapes and prostitution of White girls by Pakistanis. No one is calling for making London majority White, or native, or rolling back the special privileges and MONEY paid out to non-Whites.

So European new-Royals will get a civil war. The Euro is dead, their currency worthless save in Germany. [Currency controls in the Eurozone make some Euros worth less than others. How much would you pay for Cypriot Euros? As opposed to German ones?] The Pound, the Krona, etc. are not much better. You can't print money forever as Krugman thinks and have it all work out.

It will happen here. The main aspect of civil war (which I dread because I prefer to live in America and one that is peaceful because violence is very, very bad for me) will be Whites in the West outside cities taking up arms against non-Whites as government collapses because it cannot pay the military (itself truncated) and police. That was the case in the end of the USSR.

Engineer Dad said...

And the bands plays on ... while our dystopia congressional leadership ignores a unanimous immigration ruling in Hong Kong.

HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s highest court ruled unanimously on Monday that a woman from the Philippines who had lived and worked here for nearly 27 years as a domestic helper was not entitled to permanent residency, ending an acrimonious legal fight over the immigration rights of migrant workers.
New York Times

24AheadDotCom said...

From what little I know, UKIP are libertarians and seem to be led by Colonel Blimp types. The policies of the BNP would be better for most residents of that country, even if they need to move away from their racist aspects.

How much would Marine L.P. charge to become an American, and can we raise it?

Anonymous said...

http://www.tmz.com/2013/04/02/magic-johnson-son-goes-public-with-boyfriend-dad-proud/#.UVsg77_bLb0.facebook

Rotfl.

Farang said...

All 3 major parties tacked to the right towards more immigration restriction, including Gordon Brown and Labour during the televised debates. Never see that in the US now.
Who can you vote for in the US, when you mistrust both the Dems and the GOP? Usually, you have nowhere to go.



Anonymous said...

"Richard II" is definitely my favorite play. I actually considered flying over to London to see Kevin Spacey play Richard a few years ago.

Anonymous said...

Actually, New York has as much Mexicans as Arizona is already 3rd in illegal immirgants behind Texas. So you are wrong, a lot of liberal and so-called conservative states house the most illegals since they have large populations. Arizona is only in 8th placed. California, Texas, New York, Florida, Ill, New Jeresey, North Carolina, and then Arizona

Anonymous said...

"And let's keep in mind that they are mainly talking about other white Europeans. who if they came here would not face nearly as much controversy as Latin Americans."

People have been brain-washed for 60 years that they mustn't criticize non-white immigration so they always use East Europeans as the example.

Anonymous said...

Just one thing from a former inhabitant of the British Isles:

Ed Miliband, displaying his usual degree of mendacity, did not apologize for allowing non-white and specifically Muslim, immigrants. He apologized for allowing Eastern Europeans to immigrate to the UK. This is akin to an American politician apologizing for letting in Irish immigrants and making no mention of Latin Americans, specifically Mexicans.

His apology, as many noted at the time, was basically worthless. But this is generally true of all apologies by politicians.