Okay, Let Me Explain Myself

Note: Some links were incorrect. They have been changed.

I got a lot of traffic from this posting on the Poor Man Institute for writing this post in a response to an earlier Poor Man post on immigration.

Having read their arguments (as well as their comments), I have decided that what I wrote was a little too hasty, used a lot of emotion rather than explaining my points, and that I painted "leftists" with too broad a brush.

So, let's deal with the issues one at a time:

(1) The original post on which I commented essentially imnplies that we ought to let any Mexican in who wants to come in, and should offer them a path to citizenship. He also implies that the Mexicans are facing famine in their home country, which is not true. Poverty, perhaps, but not death by starvation.

In short, we should allow large numbers of people from other countries to come here, gain citizenship, and be able to vote. The preferences of those who live here currently are of no consequence.

Why do I say that:

The fact of the matter is, there are two reason why the left wants open borders:

(1) To bring in more poor people from socialist countries in order to fill our countries with those who will vote for socialist policies.

(2) To make non-Hispanic whites become a minority as soon as possible, because they hate non-Hispanic whites and want us to be outnumbered so we can become the oppressed minority, because they feel we deserve it.?

Essentially, giving citizenship to a large number of Mexicans or other third-worlders would almost certainly result in a much more economically leftist electorate. Anyone who thinks that huge, poor minority populations would not vote for a large welfare state and for large affirmative action benefits is delusional. Anyone who doesn't think that they would also vote overwhelmingly Democratic is delusional as well. Which is, of course, part of the reason why Democrats want them here.

As for disliking whites, let's be honest. A large portion of leftism is dedicated to the idea that whites should be ashamed of who they are and should spend much of their time begging the forgiveness of minorities. Look at how gleeful James Wolcott is about the prospect of the disempowerment of whites (specifically white males). Now, perhaps there are bastions of leftism that respect whites as much as anyone else, but I don't see a very active movement on the left against affirmative action or the like.

(2) As for my complaint that they don't see that there is more than one type of conservative, statements such as this quote from Bottle of Blog) were the impetus:

Republicans have a huge problem. They’ve had it for years. But your “liberal” media absolutely refuses to explain it to you, The People. Republican politicians get their jobs from the racism and xenophobia, and paranoia the Gee Oh Pee actively creates when talking about all the darkies who are flooding across our borders, taking our jobs, f***ing our pure white, Christian daughters, and sucking up our tax dollars without contributing a single thing!

What’s the Republican problem with this? The Republican problem is that Republicans are hiring these people–eleven million of them. And they’d like to hire more. Why would they like to hire more? So they can fire your Constitutionally protected, OSHA pampered, union organizing, vacation mongering, minimum wage insisting ass.

That’s the ugly hilarity of Republicans proposing an immigration bill. It’s that simple. These are people who make careers out of encouraging you to hate wetbacks for stealing your jobs, when what they’d really like to do is legislate you out of your jobs. These are people who get their jobs from scaring the bejesus out of you about open borders, when what they really want to do is pave a giant highway across the border.

The obvious message here is that the same Republicans who are trying to import a new generation of peons are the ones trying to close the border. My point was that these are actually two distinct groups which, increasingly, don't like each other very much.

Now perhaps I was a little hasty in likewise suggesting that all leftists want to import large numbers of Mexicans. There may be groups who are in faovr of stricter immigration enforcement. But, other than this one article by Niranjan Ramakrishnan in Counterpunch, I haven't seen that many (and that person may not even be a leftist; Counterpunch runs Paul Craig Roberts' columns).

(3) I also take issue with this statement in the Poor Man post replying to me:

What! Could this be? All of us here at the Joan Baez direct action/world music seminar were pretty well convinced that when the White House makes a move like proposing criminal status for illegal immigrants it’s because they deeply believe that ruining their fellow billionaire’s businesses is the moral thing to do. Surely, it can’t be some kind of “wedge” “issue” to ignite the base, backpedalled hastily back into its garage as enormous, unanticipated protests ignite across the country.

How can anyone suggest that the GOP would use this as a wedge issue? This issue divides Republicans, it doesn't bring them together. Moreover, if they wanted to rally the GOP base, wouldn't they pick an issue where so many prominent Republicans aren't on the other side? Republican idols such as Tony Snow, Fred Barnes, and William Kristol have all come out in favor of some form or other of amnesty, and Kristol's cases insulting those in the rank-and-file who want stricter controls as "yahoos." The president's position on this is far more liberal than the rank-and-file Republican's.

In fact, if this is meant to distract from the Iraq war, it is an absolutely stupid idea. I would suspect that amongst people who have a snowball's chance in Hell of voting Republican, the President's policies in Iraq are a Hell of a lot more popular than his amnesty - uh - "guest worker" program.

(4) I also have a quibble with this quote from Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez in the earlier article:

If you had any doubt what this faux-debate on illegal immigration has been about, or who has orchestrated it, this poll tells you all you need to know. The Big Brown Alien Frenzy was created by right-wing think-tanks who have studied the strategies of dictators throughout time.

Oh, as if the left's position on immigration does not take a page from Bertholdt Brecht's satire:

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?


That is all.