Illegal Aliens and Black Reparations

Here is another problem for the ill-starred notion of black reparations. Should those who reside illegally in the U. S. pay them? Why not? Don't they benefit from the putative legacy of slavery like everyone else?  On the  other hand, if you think that only the  descendants of slave-holders should pay reparations, then we citizens who are are not descended from slave-holders are off the hook. And what about the blacks who are descended from blacks who held slaves? Do they get reparations too? And who is black anyway? Rachel Dolezal?  If race is just a social construct, can I re-identify as black and get in on the goodies? If I can identify as a girl and then compete in an all-female athletic event, why can't I identify as black?

There will never be black reparations for slavery. The idea is just too incoherent for implementation. And it perpetuates the victim mentality that keeps blacks on the bottom. Nor should there be reparations for slavery. See the following. Trigger warning! They are exercises in reasoned discourse.

David Horowitz on Black Reparations

On Black Reparations

Kevin Kim on John Pepple on Sweden as Europe’s Sacrificial Lamb

A tip of the hat to Bill Keezer, and greetings to fellow bloggers Kim and Pepple. The titles of their blogs do not, however, earn the coveted MavPhil transparency of content award.

Feed: BigHominid's Hairy Chasms
Posted on: Thursday, September 5, 2019 1:22 AM
Author: Kevin Kim
Subject: Pepple on Sweden

Is Sweden Europe's sacrificial lamb, to be laid out as a bloody example of what happens when you heedlessly allow an influx of Muslims who refuse to assimilate into your culture? In John Pepple's grim blog post, Dr. Pepple quotes a Frenchwoman who immigrated to Sweden, but who is now leaving the country for Budapest because the crime has gotten so bad, and because PC politicians, who fear being branded as racists, refuse to recognize that there's any problem with current immigration policy and law enforcement. Here's an excerpt of something the woman wrote—one long, cri de coeur sentence:

I can no longer live under this immense mental stress, insecurity, murder, shooting, executions, explosions, rapes and gang rapes, robberies, home burglaries, beatings, car fires, school fires, serious criminals who, after a relatively short prison stay, may again be released to move freely among us, an increasingly dismantled welfare system, lack of health care staff, teachers, elderly housing, lack of elderly care, an increasing number of poor pensioners, municipalities in principle bankrupt or in bankruptcy, all these no-go zones called something else, lack of police resources where it may take 1.5-2 hours for them to arrive at the scene of ongoing crimes if they arrive at all, the lying politicians regardless of political color and the accomplished so-called PC media, the demonization of people who think differently, the shrinking freedom of expression, the increasingly diminishing democracy, and last, but not least, the ongoing and widespread Islamization of the country.

Go read the rest.

A similar picture is being painted of countries like France, which is dealing with its own immigration/assimilation problem. France has a built-in cultural immune system called laïcité or, roughly, secularism. This is why French law has made no bones about disallowing the wearing of religious items like Muslim veils (hijab, etc.). But in the area surrounding Paris, which is filled with tenements and housing projects, there are the same no-go zones, with plenty of robbery, rape, car fires, and so on. In Paris itself, tent cities—with their attendant filth and violence—can be found as well. But once you leave Paris, you'd be forgiven for thinking France is still France. In the area where my buddy Dominique lives, in the small town of Le Vanneau-Irleau, life goes on much as it has for decades, utterly untouched by what's happening in France's big cities.

In the United States, there's a similar state of affairs, albeit with somewhat different demographics. Still, the heart of the US problem has much in common with Europe's problem: a lack of political will when it comes to things like immigration and the true causes of poverty, and a lack of will when it comes to law enforcement. Any teacher knows that losing control of the classroom means the students will rule and nothing of significance will be learned. This is basic human psychology: people need structure if they are to live in harmony and to flourish. Without structure, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

This is the paradox of freedom: true freedom is, far from being unstructured, veined throughout with structure. The creative freedom and amazing technique you can see in a great painter or martial artist is the result of focus and discipline. It's strange, but it's strictures that allow humans to flourish. And a society is no different from an individual in this regard: a society without strictures—an organic system of rules and laws and unspoken social contracts—becomes flabby and moribund. Look at New York City before and after Rudy Giuliani's two terms: Giuliani enforced the law, and his policies resulted in a few years of glorious prosperity between long periods of poverty and crime. Sweden is experiencing this problem now; so is France, at least in its big cities. The US has its own similar urban problems. As the folk song goes, When will they ever learn?

View article…

I am not Totally Opposed to Open Borders

I'm for half-open borders, borders open in the outbound direction.  Anyone who wants to emigrate should be allowed to do so. 

Communists need walls to keep people in; we need walls to keep them out.  Hence the rank absurdity of the comparison of a wall on our southern border to the Berlin Wall.  Now the mendacious leftists who make this comparison cannot be so historically uninformed as not to see its rank absurdity.  But they make it anyway because they will say or do anything to win.  They are out for power any way they can get it.

It is interesting that even hate-America leftists do not want to leave the United States. They talk about it, but few do it. And where do they say they will go?

Canada is high on the list. Why not Mexico? Are they perhaps racists?

Gun Violence and Border Control: A Plea to Our ‘Liberal’ Brethren

Dear 'Liberal,'

If you are concerned with gun violence, then you ought to be concerned with controlling the border. A porous border allows for human trafficking, drug trafficking, and — wait for it — gun smuggling. Now can you grasp that weaponry illegally brought into the country can and will end up in the wrong hands?

Sure you can! And you CARE SO MUCH, don't you? Then you ought to support President Trump and oppose the obstructionist Democrats who either want open borders or practically promote them via their Trump-hating obstructionism.

Michael Kearns, Profile in Civil Courage

Erie County Clerk Michael "Mickey" Kearns took his first legal step to fight a new state law that allows immigrants in the country illegally to obtain a New York State driver's license.

At the time the illegal aliens receive, illegally, their driver's licenses, they will be able to register to vote, again illegally. Now in possession of photo ID, they will be able vote illegally in our elections.

The contemptible Dems profess to be worried about Russian interference in our elections. But these Democrat scumbags actively support illegal-alien interference in our elections. They are mendacious, hate-America leftists.

So please don't complain about a culture of contempt. Comrades Cuomo and de Blasio and all the rest of their ilk are fully deserving of contempt. Sorry David French, but these people are not fellow citizens but domestic enemies.

The Greatest Risk We are Taking

Patrick J. Buchanan:

But the greatest risk we are taking, based on utopianism, is the annual importation of well over a million legal and illegal immigrants, many from the failed states of the Third World, in the belief we can create a united, peaceful and harmonious land of 400 million, composed of every race, religion, ethnicity, tribe, creed, culture and language on earth.

Where is the historic evidence for the success of this experiment, the failure of which could mean the end of America as one nation and one people?

There is none. Most people with a bit of life experience know that one can get along and interact productively with only some people. There has to be a broad base of shared agreement on all sorts of things. For example, there ought to be only one language in the U. S. for all public purposes, English. It was a huge mistake when voting forms were allowed to be published in foreign languages. Only legal immigrants should be allowed in, and assimilation must be demanded of them.

No comity without commonality as one of my  aphorisms has it.

The Left, however, wants the end of America as she was founded to be, "one nation and one people." That is why leftists support the illegal invasion from the south.  But being mendacious leftists they will never openly admit this, but instead speak with Orwellian obfuscation of "comprehensive immigration reform."

The enemy has been identified.

Do not think of leftists and 'progressives' as fellow citizens; they are merely among us as disorderly elements and domestic enemies.  There can be no peace with them because they represent an 'existential threat.' Not to our physical existence so  much as to our way of life, which is of course more important than our mere physical existence as animals.

But I must add, contra certain of the Alt Right, that "one people" should not be understood racially or ethnically. An enlightened nationalism is not  a white nationalism.  America is of course  'a proposition nation.' You will find the propositions in the founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence.  

I don't give a flying enchilada whether you are Hispanic or Asian.  If you immigrated legally, accept the propositions, drop the hyphens, and identify as an American, then I say you are one of us. I'll even celebrate the culinary diversity you contribute.

That being understood, it is also true that whites discovered these America-constitutive propositions and are well-equipped to appreciate and uphold them, and better equipped than some other groups. That is a fact that a sane immigration policy must reflect.

My view is eminently reasonable and balanced. It navigates between the Scylla of destructive leftist globalist internationalism and the Charybdis of racist identity-political particularism.

Nationalism: Ethnic and Civic

Here:

Much of today’s debate fails to distinguish between two types of nationalism: ethnic and civic. The former is based on language, blood or race. American nationalism is the latter, civic in nature, holding that the United States is a nation based on a set of beliefs — a creed — rather than race or blood. This understanding of nationalism is equivalent to “patriotism.”

This is a good start, but it doesn't go deep enough. I applaud the distinction between the ethnic and the civic. But American nationalism is not wholly civic.  Indeed, it is hard to imagine any nation that could be wholly civic, wholly 'propositional' or wholly based on a set of beliefs and value.  And yet the United States is a proposition nation: the propositions are in the founding documents. I don't see how that could be reasonably denied. 

I also don't see how it could be reasonably denied that the discovery and articulation and preservation of classically American principles and values was achieved by people belonging to a certain tradition.  

This has consequences for immigration policy. I take it to be axiomatic that immigration must be to the benefit of the host country, a benefit not to be  defined in merely economic terms. 

And so I ask a politically incorrect but perfectly reasonable question: Is there any net benefit to Muslim immigration?  Immigrants bring their culture with them. Muslims, for example, bring with them a Sharia-based, hybrid religious-political ideology that is antithetical to American values.

So I ask again: Is there any net benefit to Muslim immigration?

On ‘Illegal Alien’ and ‘Illegal Immigrant’

Liberals, whose love of political correctness gets the better of their intellects, typically object to the phrase 'illegal alien.' But why? Are these people not in our country illegally, as the result of breaking laws?  And are they not aliens, people from another country? 

"But you are labeling them!"  Yes, of course.  Label we must if we are not to lose our minds entirely. 'Feral cat' is a label.  Do you propose that we not distinguish between feral and non-feral cats?  Do you distinguish between the positive and the negative terminals on your car battery?  You'd better!  But 'positive terminal' and 'negative terminal' are labels. 

Label we must.  There is no getting around it if we are to think at all.  There is a political outfit that calls itself "No Labels."  But that too is a label.  Those who eschew all labels label themselves 'idiots.'

Related to this is the injunction, 'Never generalize!' which is itself a generalization. Label we must and generalize we must.  Making distinctions and labeling them, and constructing sound generalizations on their basis are activities essential to, thought not exhaustive of, the life of the intellect.

Liberals also object to 'illegal immigrant.'  In fact, the AP has banned the phrase.  But given that there are both legal and illegal immigrants, 'illegal immigrant' is a useful label.  There is nothing derogatory about it.  It is a descriptive term like 'hypertensive' or 'diabetic.' 

One consideration adduced at the AP site is that actions are illegal, not persons. But suppose your doctor tells you that you are diabetic, and you protest, "Doc, not only are you labelling me, you are forgetting that diabetes is a medical condition and that no person is a medical condition." The good doctor would then have to explain that a diabetic is a person who has diabetes.  Similarly, an illegal immigrant is one who is in the country illegally.  There is the act of illegally crossing the border, but there is also the state of being here illegally.

Plain talk is an excellent antidote to liberal nonsense. When a liberal or a leftist misuses a word in an intellectually dishonest attempt at forwarding his agenda, a right-thinking person ought to protest.  Whether you protest or not, you must not acquiesce  in their pernicious misuse of language.  Or, as I have said more than once in these pages,

If you are a conservative, don't talk like a liberal!

Bear in mind that many of the battles of the culture war are fought, won, and lost on linguistic ground. If we let  our opponents destroy the common language in which alone reasonable  debate can be conducted, then much more is lost than these particular  debates.  The liberal-left misuse of language is fueled by their determination to win politically at all costs and by any means, including linguistic hijacking.

Language matters!

‘Liberal’ Immigration Hyper-Hypocrisy

You may remember Trump Labor Secretary nominee Anthony Puzder who came under fire for having employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper.  But why should 'liberals' care given that they do not distinguish legal from illegal immigrants while standing for open borders and sanctuary jurisdictions in defiance of the rule of law? Suddenly, these destructive leftists care about immigration law? 'Liberals' should praise Puzder for giving the poor woman a job.  After all, as they say, no human being is illegal!

What the Left is doing here is employing a Saul Alinsky tactic.  The fourth of his Rules for Radicals reads:

Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

Leftists judge us by rules for which they have nothing but contempt. 

The ordinary hypocrite will not practice what he preaches, but at least he preaches, thereby paying lip service to ideals of conduct that he puts forth as binding on all.   The Alinksyite leftist is a hyper-hypocrite who preaches ideals of conduct, not to all, but to his enemies, ideals that he has no intention of honoring.

Of course, I am not saying that Puzder did not do wrong in hiring the illegal immigrant. He did, assuming he knew she was illegal.

Is Illegal Immigration a Crime?

It is. Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats have been lying to us. Illegal immigrants are subject to criminal penalties. While improper entry is a crime, unlawful presence is not a crime. One can be unlawfully present in the U. S. without having entered improperly, and thus without having committed a crime. 

If a foreign national enters the country on a valid travel or work visa, but overstays his visa, failing to exit before the expiration date, then he is in violation of federal immigration law. But this comes under the civil code, not the criminal code. Such a person is subject to civil penalties such as deportation.

So there are two main ways for an alien to be illegal. He can be illegal in virtue of violating the criminal code or illegal in virtue of violating the civil code. 

Those who oppose strict enforcement of national borders show their contempt for the rule of law and their willingness to tolerate criminal behavior, not just illegal behavior.

9/11 Seventeen Years Later

The morning of 9/11 was a beautiful, dry Arizona morning.  Back from a hard run, I flipped on the TV while doing some cool-down exercises only to see one of the planes crash into one of the towers. I knew right away what was going on.

I said to my wife, "Well, two good things will come of this: Gary Condit will be out of the news forever, and finally something will be done about our porous southern border."

I was right about the first, but not about the second.

Do you remember Gary Condit, the California congressman?  Succumbing as so many do to the fire down below Condit initiated an extramarital affair with the federal intern, Chandra Levy.  When Levy was found murdered, Condit's link to Levy proved his undoing.  The cable shows were awash with the Condit-Levy affair that summer of 2001.  9/11 put an end to the soap opera.

But it didn't do  much for the security of the southern border. 

We got lucky in November, 2016. Now do your bit to vote down the obstructionsts and defeatists, whether living or dead, legal or not,  this coming November.

Voter Fraud is Real

Leftists of course deny the fact since it serves their purposes to do so. Their grand strategy is to win by demographic means. 

Truth is not a leftist value. Or rather, it is if it supports their agenda, but is not if it doesn't.

For a leftist, the difference between a citizen and a non-citizen is the difference between someone who is physically present within a nation's boundaries and one who isn't.

John Fund has done good, objective work on voter fraud. See here and here.

More on the Left’s Grand Demographic Strategy

Here:

We also now know, thanks to four different studies, that between 2.2 and 5.7 million illegal aliens have voted in the last few presidential elections.

The best guess is that at least three million illegal aliens voted in 2016, enough to give Hillary the popular vote but not quite enough to win some of the key rustbelt states won by Trump. This is why liberal state legislators all over the nation have pushed legislation granting illegals driver licenses. So far, 12 states have passed such laws.

The left knows full well that holding a driver’s license gives illegal aliens the confidence to also register to vote, not to mention many states have “motor voter” laws in which the DMV automatically registers to vote anyone granted a driver’s license. In California alone, the DMV has reported that one million “undocumented” immigrants have received driver licenses over the last three years. Unless they refused to register to vote, those non-citizens can now vote. Remember, in California, as in most states today, no one asks for proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.

The illegal alien vote is the Democrats secret voting bloc and it’s growing. This is why Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, threw the full weight of the DOJ at every state that even thought about implementing a voter ID program of any kind.

It is therefore Orwellian in excelsis when ID requirements are denounced as "voter suppression."

Democrats Only Pretend to Care About the Integrity of Our Elections

 Election integrity

Here are three very important points. Please pay attention.

1) Barack Obama, you will recall, made light of the suggestion that U. S. elections could be rigged or stolen back in October of 2016.  You can hear his own words here. He and almost everyone else was sure Hillary would win a couple of weeks later. That is what all the pundits were saying, and anyway how could such an obnoxious cretin as Trump who had insulted so many people  possibly become president? When Hillary  lost in the electoral college, lefties couldn't believe it. It shocked them deeply.  You can see the depth of their reaction if you watch the many videos from election night depicting the tears of anguish and the tears of rage.  And so it is very easy to understand how lefties, who never stray from their enclaves, and never sully their precious minds with conservative commentary, and have no contact with the unwashed deplorables who stink of Wal-Mart and the barnyard, could believe that Trump just had to have colluded with the Russians to secure his victory. To their minds, there is no other possible explanation.

I heard Rosie O'Donnell say the other night that she "firmly believed" that Trump's win was due to Russian help.  I don't doubt that Rosie and her fellow travellers firmly believe it in a way that admits of no possible disconfirmation. It has become an idée fixe in their benighted brains.  They can't help it. They see themselves as good people, as progressive, bien-pensant, caring people, on the right side of history. It is simply incomprehensible to them that Trump won fair and square.

The reversal of position from 'no possible rigging' to 'Russian rigging' is very easy to understand: it's all about getting Trump out of office by any means.  The only reason the Dems care about election integrity now when they didn't before is that it aids and abets their drive toward impeachment.

2) Democrats support open borders, sanctuary cities, the sanctuary state of California, and the awarding of the franchise to illegal aliens. All of this is a giant middle finger in the face of the rule of law. Their grand strategy is perfectly obvious: to advance leftism and destroy America as she was founded to be, and to do so  by demographic means. If you don't see that you need the services of that proctologist I mentioned in an earlier post, the one who specializes in head injuries and especially difficult extractions.

3) And then there is the business about photo ID that Dems insanely oppose.  The reason they oppose it is obvious: they intend to make the polling places safe for voter fraud. It is part of their demographic grand strategy.  You will enjoy this YouTube video in which white liberals claim that blacks lack ID and blacks on the street react to the absurd claim.