Author: Bill Vallicella

More on Immigration as the Central Issue of Our Time

Just over the transom from a U. K. reader:

With respect to this post, I agree with much of Douglas Murray's book as well; in fact the only parts I could argue with are his somewhat lenient stance on various English Defence League type people (not his belief in their legal right to state their position though). But the great problem with European immigration is the importation of absolutely regressive thinking, even amongst the true victims of war in Syria and Afghanistan (the 'idiot' Liberals wrongly associate contingent victimhood with innate virtue, never realising that the problem of increased rape and harassment by immigrants is precisely due to the mainstream attitudes all but the educated among their number hold – contempt for women etc).

You're quite right. European 'progressives,' having been enstupidated by political correctness, don't understand that the 'regressives' from Muslim lands do not share their values and have no intention of assimilating, and that it is cultural suicide to let them flood in.  (See here.) These leftists also make the typical 'progressive' mistake of thinking that great virtue attaches to being an underdog, a victim, poor, etc. You will have noticed that leftists have a knee-jerk tendency to take the side of the loser and the underdog even when the underdog owes his status to his own bad behavior and foolishness.  

Of course we should help those who are in dire straits due to no fault of their own. But aid must be rendered in an intelligent fashion, and never at the expense of the country rendering aid. The principle must be: Country First!  Trump's America First! is just a special case of this. For the Germans, Germany First!  And so on.  The prudent and reasonable look to the welfare of their own first, and only thereafter to that of others.

But I don't see a strong parallel with the argument against mainly (as I understand it) Mexican / Central American immigration to the U.S. Among those immigrants are certainly criminals and gangs (some quite well known escapees from Latin American guerilla wars, narco-wars etc), but not, generally speaking religious ideologues or people with culturally inbuilt regressive values, just the normal regressiveness of the uneducated individual from a Western society.

I grant you that there are differences which weaken the parallel.  Better to be invaded by Catholics than by Muslims.  Islam is a toxic political ideology inimical to Western values. Contemporary Catholicism, despite its infestation by leftist termites, is much less of a threat politically. But it is still a threat because Hispanic immigrants, legal and illegal, will most of them end up voting for the hard-Left Democrat Party. Here,  by the way, is the reason why the obstructionist Dems so viciously and vociferously oppose Trump's immigration reforms: their long-term strategy is to win demographically.  Illegal aliens from the south are for them undocumented Democrats.  This is also why they oppose photo ID at polling places. They want to make the polling places safe for voter fraud. Good leftists that they are, they hold the end to justify the shabby means.  ('Good' in the preceding sentence functions as an attributive, not a predicative adjective, in Peter Geach's terminology.)

Looking from the outside, and as a frequent visitor to the U.S., my impression is that most Trump voters take more issue with two things: a) being left out of the economic picture no matter how hard they work; their enemy seems to be corporations, Wall Street, and / or big government (Bernie Sanders popularity on the left would seem to be evidence that this is felt across the spectrum of political allegiance); and b) the identity / victim politics of the modern Left, which only cares about LGBT etc as political entities, not normal people, or even 'workers' (the original victim category of Marx). 

I can't see the 'experiment in self-destruction' of the UK being repeated in the US; it looks like a different experiment in self-destruction to me – more to do with abrogation of the responsibilities of government to the private sphere, and eventual failure of democracy combined with a self-absorbed intellectual Leftist politics that no longer cares about the mainstream.

I would be interested to see on your blog a more detailed exploration of these 'failed experiments' as you see them unfolding; how Europe and the US correlate and how they differ. Are different sets of civilisational principles at stake in each place?

'Failed experiments' doesn't seem to be quite the phrase. In Europe and the U.K., the experiments in self-destruction seem to be succeeding.  Sharia courts? No-go zones? Places in England where an Englishman must fear to tread?  I will have to do more research to be able comment on how the U. K. and U. S. cases differ. But I don't think the two experiments in self-destruction are very different.  In both cases a mindless immigration policy engineered by destructive global elitists. 

A Basic Liberal Assumption: Every Political Party is Tolerable

George Schwab, in his Introduction to Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 13, bolding added, footnotes omitted), writes:

In his endeavor to strengthen the Weimar state, Schmitt challenged a basic liberal assumption then widely held either for philosophical or tactical reasons, namely, that every political party, no matter how antirepublican, must be permitted freely to compete for parliamentary representation and for governmental power. This meant that the sole requirement of such parties in their quest for power was that they proceed legally. Because the most influential  commentators and jurists of the Weimar constitution argued that it was an open document insofar as any and all constitutional revisions are permissible if these are brought about legally, a totalitarian movement which succeeds in legally capturing the legislature can then proceed legally to forge a constitution and state that would reflect its militant political ideology.

Schwab goes on to report that Schmitt in 1932, the year before Hitler's accession to power, "argued that only those parties not intent on subverting the state be granted the right to compete for parliamentary and governmental power."

Carl SchmittThat makes excellent sense and ought to be applied to our present situation. We ought not tolerate subversive political parties.  Or perhaps I should say that we ought not tolerate subversive parties whose threat to the principles of the American Founding and our system of government are credible and dangerous. Time was when that was true of the Communist Party USA. But those days are gone. Tactically, it might be a mistake to ban subversive parties that are too weak to pose a threat since the banning might draw members to them. Perhaps we could call this tactic  "repressive tolerance" to hijack some terminology from Herbert Marcuse. To tolerate them is more repressive of them than to ban them.

Suppose a Sharia party in the U. S. were to form and become a credible threat. Should it be banned? Of course. No party that rejects the very principles upon which our country is founded ought to be tolerated even if it could legally get some of its members elected.  Would you hire an arsonist as a cook?

What about the Democrat Party?

The contemporary Democrat Party lurches ever leftward. This is spectacularly clear from recent events in California. The once Golden State is now in open defiance of federal immigration law, not to mention its open defiance of federal drug laws. Since January 1st it has been a 'sanctuary state.' "Under the new state law, nowhere in California may police ask about an individual’s immigration status, nor may local authorities cooperate with federal officials on immigration enforcement." (here)

Suppose the Democrat party continues to defy the Constitution and undermine the rule of law.  Suppose it provides sanctuary not only for illegal aliens but for Sharia-supporting Muslims.  (Muslim Brotherhood Congressman Keith Ellison is a friend of Antifa, and Deputy Chair of the DNC.)  Then a case grows for outlawing the Dems.

Whatever you say about the Dems, every American patriot ought to hold that the basic liberal assumption, according to which every political party is tolerable, is itself intolerable. 

As I have said many times, toleration has limits. 

UPDATE (1/6). A Canadian reader responds:

The people we call "liberals" nowadays don't actually hold this assumption, it seems to me.  I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would outlaw any kind of serious right-wing political party if they could, and certainly they'd try to prevent such a party from participating in the electoral process on equal footing with liberal or leftist parties.  When Richard Spencer got punched by some leftist scumbag the "liberal" media published articles musing about whether "punching Nazis" is okay.  Even Marco Rubio publicly stated that violence against alt-right activists is "justified" by the content of their political beliefs.  Do you not agree that if there were an alt-right political party — especially if it seemed to have any chance of gaining power — there'd be a phalanx of "liberals" demanding that the party be outlawed, that its members be arrested or, at the very least, prevented from speaking or participating in the electoral process?   

BV: We have a terminological problem.  I am using 'liberal' in the old way, the way George Schwab uses it above. I am not using it the way I usually use it, typically with sneer quotes, as synonymous with 'progressive' or 'leftist.'  Do contemporary 'liberals' hold the assumption? One answer is yes, until they get enough power to outlaw their opponents' parties.

Hitler was legally elected in '33. After that he outlawed opposition parties. If Schmitt's proposal had been adopted, and the National Socialists had been outlawed, Hitler might have been stopped.

In Europe the "liberals" have found ways to ban or dissolve right-wing parties at times, and at other times they use the state to persecute any leaders or high-profile members (e.g., for "hate speech").  Their behavior is just not what you would expect of people who believe they should tolerate _any_ kind of political party or movement; they clearly don't even believe that any old kind of political _speech_ should be tolerated.

BV: Again, terminology. I don't think we have a substantive disagreement.

So I think you misdescribe the situation.  The "liberals" believe that any leftist or anti-white or anti-western political party (or movement, or speech) must be tolerated.  Not that any political party must be tolerated.  They would happily tolerate a Sharia Party or a Communist Party or a Black Nationalist Party.  Hell, they'd probably vote for one or all of them if they could.  They would not tolerate a Christian Fundamentalist Party or a Fascist Party or a Normal White People's Party.  (Or anyway, they don't believe that these latter kinds of things should be tolerated.)

BV: Once again, a terminological difference. I agree with you since you are talking about contemporary not classical 'liberals.'

My other concern is this:  You think there is a danger of some kind of "subversive" party taking power, a party that rejects the basic principles of your society or country.  And therefore, you want intolerance with respect to that kind of party, in order to protect your society.  But that party has already taken power!  Or rather, the two parties that exist in your country are both subversive–both flatly opposed to the most basic principles of America and the most basic interests of the American people. 

BV: Now we have something to disagree about. I hope you are not saying that the Dems are in power. That is plainly false since 8 November 2016.  If you are saying that both of the major parties are subversive of traditionally American principles and values, then that has to be argued out.  Surely they are not equally subversive.

For one thing, the Manhattan sybarite has struck a blow for religious liberty. (An evangelical Trump supporter might say that the Lord works in mysterious ways.) Now religious liberty is one of the American values I am talking about. The Orange Man has also gotten rid of the ObamaCare individual mandate, an egregious violation of individual liberty. Trump's opposition to the individual mandate is right in line with classical American values. He got conservative Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court. He has appointed conservative federal judges. And so on.

I would like you to support and nuance your claim that both of the major parties are subversive — "both flatly opposed to the most basic principles of America and the most basic interests of the American people." 

So in this situation, banning "subversive" parties would really just mean banning any party that aimed to truly represent the American people or uphold the real principles of America.  I mean, doesn't it seem fairly obvious that your politicians and courts are in the hands of people who already reject the most basic rules and values of the real historic American nation?  California will openly violate federal laws in order to flood the country with illegal aliens; politicians and courts will do nothing.  Just one example.  In this situation you are the subversive–so I'm worried that the policy you're proposing would only be used against people like you.

BV: Well, no. You are ignoring the the recent "Flight 93" events. We stormed the cockpit and subdued the hijackers — for the moment.

The logical structure of the problem before us is perhaps that of a dilemma.  Either (A) we adopt the classically liberal assumption that every political party is tolerable, or (~A) we don't.  If (A), then we have to countenance the possibility that a party legally come to power that outlaws all opposition parties. This possibility became actual after '33 in Germany. If (~A), then we members of the Coalition of the Sane expose ourselves to the possibility that our party gets banned, and we get sent to the leftist concentration camp.

I'll have to think more about this .

In any case, welcome to Political Aporetics 101.

Disclaimer: I am not a political philosopher; I only play one in the blogosphere. I write these things to clarify my own thoughts with the help of powerful intellects such as my Canadian sparring partner. I am a metaphysician and philosopher of religion by trade. That is where most of my professional publications are.

ComBox now open.

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Of ‘Whither’ and ‘Whence’

I had a teacher in the fifth grade who, when one of us inappropriately wandered off, would query, "Whither goest thou?" alluding, as I did not realize at the time, to the Gospel of John (13:36):

Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

'Whither' means to where just as 'whence' mean from where. (Please avoid the pleonasm of 'from whence.') The distinction is obliterated by the promiscuous use of 'where' for both. That cannot be good from a logical point of view. It is therefore right and fitting and conducive unto clarity that my favorite antediluvian curmudgeon, the Laudator Temporis Acti, should complain:

The use of whither is withering away in English, alas, just like whence, although both words usefully distinguish notions that we now force where alone to bear, e.g. in the New International Version of John 13.36:

Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."

Black Crime Rates

Here are some facts that 'progressives' ignore:

Who is killing and shooting black crime victims? Overwhelmingly, not whites, not the police, but, tragically, other blacks. The high black homicide-victimization rate is a function of the black homicide-commission rate. Blacks commit homicide nationally at seven times the rate of whites and most Hispanics, combined. Black males between the ages of 14 and 17 commit homicide at 10 times the rate of white and most Hispanic males between the ages of 14 and 17. Officer-involved shootings are not responsible for the black homicide-victimization rate, either. In fact, a greater percentage of white and Hispanic homicide victims are killed by a police officer than black homicide victims: in 2015, 12 percent of all whites and Hispanics who died of homicide were killed by a cop, compared with 4 percent of black homicide victims who were killed by a cop. Nor is white violence responsible for the black victimization rate. Blacks commit most interracial violence. Between 2012 and 2015, there were 631,830 violent interracial victimizations, excluding homicide, between blacks and whites, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Blacks committed 85.5 percent of those violent victimizations, or 540,360 felonious assaults on whites, while whites committed 14.4 percent of those violent victimizations, or 91,470 felonious assaults on blacks.

So we are not all the same?

Heather Mac, I salute you for your civil courage!

Related: There is no Systemic Racism

Derbyshire's Defenestration Revisited

UPDATE (1/6)

A reader from St. Louis refers us to this St.Louis Post-Dispatch article in which it is reported that the majority of the 200+ STL slayings in 2017 were of black men.

On the Road with Peter Wust

Peter Wust stampBoth Pyrrhonists and dogmatists aim at and achieve a sort of psychological security: the former by ceasing to inquire and by living more or less adoxastos, without beliefs; the latter by the rigid and unquestioning holding of contentious beliefs. The dogmatists hold on, the skeptics let go. The former live tenaciously, clinging to their tenets; the skeptics live or try to live without beliefs and tenets.  (The Latin tenere means to hold.)

What the two opposing groups have in common is that they cease inquiry. The dogmatist, secure in his dogmas, feels no need to inquire. "We don't seek the truth; we have the truth." The Pyrrhonian skeptic, despairing of finding truth, and sick of the agitation consequent upon discussion and debate, gives up inquiry. "We don't seek the truth; the truth is not to be had."

Neither form of doxastic security is to be recommended.

Peter Wust in his excellent but largely forgotten Ungewißheit und Wagnis (1937), speaking of dogmatists and skeptics, writes that:

 

 

 

Beide wollen sich von dem Zustand des Unterwegsseins befreien . . . (UW 236)

Both want to free themselves from the state of being on the way . . .

. . . when man, here below, is and must remain homo viator. 

In this world we are ever in statu viae, on the road, coming from we know not where, headed for we know not where. The Whither and Whence remain shrouded in darkness, and the light  that guides us is but a half-light. On this road there is no rest from inquiry. Rest, if rest there be, lies at the end of the road.

A Linguistic Curiosity

Such words as 'poetess' and 'actress' are falling into disuse: the grammatically masculine 'poet' and 'actor' are now used gender-neutrally for both sexes. Why then the stink over the gender-neutral use of 'he' to cover both males and females as in such sentences as in 'He who hesitates is lost'?  If there is no objection to applying grammatically masculine nouns to females, why the objection to applying the grammatically masculine pronoun 'he' to females? 

The Defining Issue of the Day: Immigration into the West of Unassimilable Elements

From Robert W. Merry's review of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, Douglas Murray, Bloomsbury Continuum, 352 pages:

You should carefully study the whole piece. Here are some excerpts. Emphases added.

[. . .]

No, the defining issue of our day is mass immigration into the nations of Western heritage. This growing inflow threatens to remake those nations and overwhelm their cultural identity. This is the issue that played the largest role in getting Donald Trump elected. It drove Britain’s Brexit vote. It is roiling the European continent, mounting tensions inside the EU and driving a wedge between the elites of those nations and their general populations.

Indeed, the central battlefront in the immigration wars is Europe, which accepted a trickle of immigrants in the immediate postwar era due to labor shortages. But over the years the trickle became a stream, then a growing river, and finally a torrent—to the extent that ethnic Britons are now a minority in their own capital city, refugee flows into Germany went from 48,589 in 2010 to 1.5 million in 2015, and Italy, a key entry point, received at one point an average of 6,500 new arrivals a day.

[. . .]

A key point of the book, reinforced through anecdote and abundant documentation, is that Muslim immigrants have not assimilated into their European host countries to any meaningful extent. Indeed, there is a growing feeling among many of the new arrivals that these aren’t host countries at all but merely lands ripe for Islam’s inexorable expansion. An 18-year-old Syrian refugee to Germany, Aras Bacho, writing in Der Freitag and the Huffington Post Deutschland, reflected this attitude when he said German migrants were “fed up” with “angry” Germans—described as “unemployed racists”—who “insult and agitate.” He added, “We refugees…do not want to live in the same country with you. You can, and I think you should, leave Germany. Germany does not fit you, why do you live here?….Look for a new home.”

Consider also the significance of this fact: By 2015 more British Muslims were fighting for ISIS than for the British armed forces. There was nothing hidden about the resolve of many European Muslims to retain their own culture while overwhelming the European one. At a rally in Cologne in 2008, then-Turkish prime minister (later president) Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a crowd of 20,000 Turks living in Germany, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands that assimilation in Europe would constitute “a crime against humanity.” He added, “I understand very well that you are against assimilation. One cannot expect you to assimilate.” Yet he admonished the five million Turks living in Europe to pursue political influence through democratic means in order to wield a “constitutional element” in transforming the continent.

Reading Murray’s book, one gets an understanding of why he characterizes Europe’s demise as “strange.” The continent’s embrace of its own cultural death is indeed historically aberrational. Civilizations normally fight for the preservation of their cultures, unite to expel invaders, revere their identities and the fundamental elements of their heritage. But the West today is engaged in an extensive and progressive extravagance of civilizational self-abnegation. Murray calls this the “tyranny of guilt” and identifies it as a “pathology.” The concept of historical guilt, he writes, means that hereditary stains of guilt can be passed down through generations—much as Europeans themselves for generations held Jews responsible for the killing of Christ. Eventually this was seen as repugnant, and the Pope himself in 1965 formally lifted the historical burden.

[. . .]

America lags behind Europe in the magnitude of its immigration problem. But, with an estimated 11 million illegals in country and the same prevailing elite sensibility dominating our discourse, the United States eventually will hit a similar crisis point unless current trends are altered or reversed. It’s worth noting that the percentage of Americans born outside the country has approached a historical high of 14 percent—similar to what it was in the 1920s, the last time the country curtailed both the numbers of immigrants and the nations from which they were allowed to come. That may be what’s brewing here today with the election of Trump.

Exactly right. Stupid 'liberals' are still in shock over Trump's election and still cannot understand how he could have won. The main factor responsible for his election is easy to understand. We decent Americans who love our country and stand for the rule of law are sick of illegal immigration and  are very reasonably opposed to the legal immigration of those who do not accept our values.

Those who oppose Trump's immigration proposals are either destructive leftist scum or else pollyannish bleeding-hearts who do not understand the issues.  The lines are clearly drawn and the battle is on for the soul of America. 2018 should prove to be very interesting indeed.  

We are lucky in that we are not Europe or the U. K. We can learn from their experiment in self-destruction. We have a little time, and with Trump in the saddle, a fighting chance.

But will learn? And will we fight?  Some of you have children and grandchildren. Do you care at all what country they will inherit?

The Predictive Powers of the Trumpianly Deranged

Not good:

Since the day Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, the Dow Jones industrial average has risen by some 35 percent, making the last 14 months one of the greatest bull market runs in history. Some $6 trillion of wealth has been created for Americans — which is very good news for the 55 million Americans with 401(k) plans, the 25 million or so who have IRAs, and another 20 million with company pension plans and employee stock ownership plans.

The left was certain exactly the opposite would happen with a Trump presidency. 

[. . .]

3) "It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? We are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight." Paul Krugman of The New York Times, the day after the election.

I wonder: Did Krazy Krugman liquidate his stock holdings?

Krugman is living proof that a Nobel Prize (outside of the hard sciences) means nothing. I'm a Dylan fan from way back, long before most of you whippersnappers were born, but the Nobel Prize for Literature?

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“Lead Us Not into Temptation”

I have said some rather unkind things about Pope Francis, but when he called for a modification of the traditional English rendering of the Greek, I felt some sympathy for him. For it has long struck me as very strange that we should ask God not to lead us into temptation. For what the request implies is that God is disposed to tempt us. But a good God would harbor no such evil disposition . . . .

On the other hand, as a good solid conservative on all fronts (social, political, economic, linguistic . . .) I hold that that there is a defeasible presumption in favor of the traditional and the time-tested. Note the word 'defeasible.' Conservatives are not opposed to change; we are opposed to change for the sake of change. We understand that 'change' and 'change for the better' are not coextensive terms. Obama and his acolytes take note.

So I would prefer to retain the traditional formulation if possible. Anthony Esolen explains how in a First Things article.  Roughly, what we are praying for is that we be spared moral tests that we might not pass.  We are praying, not that God not tempt us, but that we be spared entrance into situations where we will be tempted.

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UPDATE (1/4).  Claude Boisson comments:

For me (I was born  in 1942), the real “traditional” rendering in my native language, French, is in fact “Ne nous laissez pas succomber à la tentation”.

Even as a child, not very sophisticated theologically and ignorant of Aramaic grammar, it was clear to me that God did not “lead us into temptation”. I asked God to help me resist temptation, certainly not to refrain from directly tempting me. 
 
In the post-conciliar period, this was then changed to a highly problematic innovation, which has been recently modified again by the French bishops, even before the pope’s call, in order to revert to a more satisfactory version. 
 
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On ‘Spirituality’

Islam in the Public Square

William Kilpatrick:

. . . Islam is now well on its way to controlling the public square in parts of Europe. And, were it not for the election of Donald Trump and the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood-friendly Clinton machine, the U.S. would now be playing catch-up.

As has often been observed, Islam is a political religion. Some, like Dutch MP Geert Wilders, contend that it is almost totally political with only a thin and deceptive veneer of religiosity. Whatever the exact proportion of politics to religion, it’s hard to deny that the political dimension looms large in Islam. Muhammad, after all, was a warlord. He conquered all of Arabia, and within a relatively short time after his death, his followers conquered an area larger than the Roman Empire. Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, one of the most important twentieth-century Islamic theorists, wrote that “Islam requires the earth—not just a portion, but the whole planet.”

In 1949, sociologist Jules Monnerot described Communism as 20th century Islam.  To which I add:  Islam is the Communism of the 21st century. Like Communism, it is totalitarian, with tentacles reaching into every aspect of life. And like Communism, it is internationalist in its aspiration and projected reach.

Some say that Islam is a political ideology masquerading as a religion. That appears to be the view of Geert Wilders mentioned above. I don't go that far. Nor can it be dismissed as a Christian heresy. I view Islam as a hybrid ideology in which religion and political ideology are combined. As such, it ought not be tolerated in the West, and not just because of its vicious hostility to Christianity and other genuine religions of peace, but because it includes no provision for mosque-state separation.

Is a reformed Islam possible, one that is respectful of American values and principles? The moderate Muslim Zuhdi Jasser thinks so, but he is in a tiny minority.  Maybe someday Islam will join the civilized world. Until then a moratorium on Muslim immigration is a wise course.  

God, Pronouns, and Anthropomorphism

I was delighted to hear from an old student of mine from 35 years ago. He writes,

In your writings, you often refer to God in pronouns bearing gender.  Does such language result in God’s anthropomorphism?

I would reformulate the question as follows:

In your writings, whenever you refer to God using a third-person pronoun, you use the masculine pronoun 'he.' Does this use of 'he' promote an anthropomorphic conception of God?

I would say No. It is true that the pronoun I use in reference to God is 'he.' And because I write almost always as a philosopher, I do not write upper-case 'He' in reference to God except at the beginning of a sentence. This is not a sign of disrespect; it arises from a desire not to mix the strictly philosophical with the pious.

Does a use of 'he' in reference to God imply that God is of the male sex? Not at all. Otherwise one would have to say that a use of 'she' in reference to a ships and airplanes implies that these things  are of the female sex.  But ships and airplances, being inanimate material objects, are of no sex.*

God too is of no sex, but for a different reason: he is wholly immaterial.  (I will suggest a qualification below.) Still, we need to be able to refer to God. Assuming we don't want to keep repeating 'God,' we need pronouns. 'It' is out. 'He or she' makes no sense. Why not then use 'he'? Note that any argument against 'he' would also work against 'she.' 

As a conservative, I of course oppose silly and unnecessary innovations; so I use 'he' to refer to God.  For a conservative, there is a defeasible presumption in favor of traditional practices: the burden of proof is on the innovator.

One must distinguish between grammatical gender, which is a property of words, and sex which is a property of some referents of words.  As already noted, if one uses 'she' to refer to something it doesn't follow that the thing referred to is female. That shows that grammatical gender and sex come apart.  One ought to bear in mind that gender is first and foremost a grammatical category. Sex is a biological category.  I have no objection to talk of gender roles as (in part) socio-cultural constructs, which involves an extended use of 'gender.' 

That grammatical gender and sex come apart  is also the case with nouns. In English, the nouns 'table' and 'boat' have no gender, but in Italian (and other languages such as German) their counterparts do: tavolo is masculine while barca is feminine. This is reflected in the difference between the appropriate definite articles, il and la, where in English we have the gender-neutral 'the.'   But while tavolo and barca are masculine and feminine respectively, their referents are sexless.  So again grammatical gender and sex come apart.

So when I use 'he' in reference to God there is no implication that God is of the male sex.

It is also worth pointing out that an anthropomorphic conception of God is not a concept of God as a male, but as a human being. So if I use 'he' in reference to God am I implying that God is  a human being?  No. But he is more like a human being than he is like any other type of animal or any inanimate object. So 'he' is an appropriate pronoun to use.

But why 'he' rather than 'she'? 

Recall that when his disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, he taught them the "Our Father." Was Jesus suggesting that we are all the biological offspring of God? Of course not. Still, he used 'Father' or the equivalent in Aramaic.

Is there a hint of sexism here? If there is, it would seem to be mitigated By God's having a mother, the Virgin Mary: Sancte Maria, mater dei . . . . Mary is not merely the mother of Jesus, but the mother of God:

According to St. John (1:15) Jesus is the Word made flesh, the Word Who assumed human nature in the womb of Mary. As Mary was truly the mother of Jesus, and as Jesus was truly God from the first moment of His conception, Mary is truly the mother of God. (here)

This divine motherhood does not elevate Mary above God, for she remains a creature, even after her Assumption into heaven. She is not worshipped or adored (latria) but she is due a special sort of veneration called hyperdulia, dulia being the name for the veneration appropriate to saints.  Or at least that is the Catholic doctrine.

Is God Immaterial?

There is another curious theological wrinkle. Christ is supposed to have ascended into heaven body and soul. The Ascension was therefore not a process of de-materialization or disembodiment. Christ returned to the Godhead body and soul. The Ascension did not undo the Incarnation: returning to the Godhead, Christ did not become disincarnate. After the Word (Logos, Second Person of the Trinity) became flesh and dwelt among us it remained flesh even after it ceased to dwell among us.

This seems to imply that after the Ascension  matter was imported into the Godhead, perhaps not the gross matter of the sublunary plane, but matter nonetheless.  But not only that: the matter imported into the Godhead, even if appropriately transfigured or spiritualized, was the matter of a male animal. For Jesus was male.  

So while we tend to think of God and the Persons of the Trinity as wholly immaterial and sexless when we prescind from the Incarnation and Ascension, God after these events includes a material and indeed sexually male element. This is a further reason to think that 'he' is an appropriate pronoun to apply to God.

But what if God is Being Itself?

According to Aquinas, Deus est ipsum esse subsistens. God is self-subsistent Being. He is not an ens among entia but esse itself. He is Being itself in its primary instance.

Is it appropriate to refer to such a metaphysical absolute as 'he'? Not entirely, but 'he' is better than any other pronoun I can think of.  Of course, one could coin a pronoun for use only in reference to God, say 'de.' But as I said, conservatives are chary of innovations, especially when they are unnecessary. Just use 'he' but realize what you are doing. 

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* Is 'he' ever used to refer to what is not a male animal? I should think so.  Suppose a man gives his primary male characteristic the name 'Max.' He may go on to say: 'Old Max ain't what he used to be.'  This use of 'he' refers to the penis of a human being which is a proper part of a male human being. But I should think that no proper part of a human being is a human being.