Category: Immigration

At the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, we read:

Why is the Catholic Church involved in the immigration issue? There are several reasons the Catholic Church is involved in the  immigration debate. The Old and New Testaments, as well as the encyclicals of the Popes, form the basis for the Church's position.  In Gospel of Matthew, Jesus calls upon us to "welcome the  stranger,for what you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. " (Mt. 25-35, 40).

There is a deep mistake being made here, and we should try to understand what it is. The mistake is to confuse the private and public spheres and the different moralities pertaining to each.

The problem of confusing private and public morality is well understood by Hannah Arendt ("Truth and Politics" in Between Past and Future, Penguin, 1968, p. 245):

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked "to do as much evil as they please"), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with "what is good for themselves" cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the "common good," the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher/Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher/Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic "Better to suffer wrong than to do it" and the Christian "Resist not the evildoer." But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion, people like Catholic bishops. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

A Catholic bishop, therefore, who is pro illegal immigration on the strength of the "welcome the stranger" passage demonstrates a failure to understand the simple point that Arendt underscores.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as citizen. As a citizen, I cannot "welcome the stranger" who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug-smuggler or a human-trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I cannot aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger's lawbreaking, I would not be "rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops who cannot comprehend the simple distinctions I have tried to set forth.

Required reading. Yes, kiddies, this will be on the final. Conclusion:

It seems to me that anyone who thinks about such matters is bound to agree with Goodhart that citizenship, for most people, is something they are born into. Values are grown from a specific history and geography. If the make-up of a community is changed too fast, it cuts people adrift from their own history, rendering them rootless. Liberals’ anxiety not to appear racist hides these truths from them. An explosion of what is now called populism is the inevitable result.

The policy conclusion to be drawn is banal, but worth restating. A people’s tolerance for change and adaptation should not be strained beyond its limits, different though these will be in different countries. Specifically, immigration should not be pressed too far, because it will be sure to ignite hostility. Politicians who fail to “control the borders” do not deserve their people’s trust.

It's true: liberals are terribly anxious about being pegged as racists and this anxiety blinds them. But there is nothing racist about insisting on the rule of law and the defense of the borders.

Besides, illegal immigrants do not constitute a race of people.  Liberals are not stupid, so they must know this, right?

"But Trump's wall is nonetheless racist since the vast majority of illegal immigrants are Hispanic."

Not so. Granted, most of the illegal entrants are Hispanic, but what sane conservatives oppose is not the race or ethnicity of illegal immigrants but the illegality of their mode of entry.  Suppose, per impossibile, that England were directly to our south. We would oppose their illegal entry as well. 

One good thing about Mexicans, however, is that their cuisine is vastly superior to anything the English have on offer.

Control of the borders is a constitutionally-mandated function of the Federal government.  As I said, liberals are not stupid; so they do have the capacity to grasp that when politicians fail to uphold the Constitution, decent law-abiding citizens won't like it. This is perhaps the main reason Hillary was handed her walking papers.  

"But isn't the Great Wall of Trump hateful?"  

Well, is it hateful when you lock your doors at night, screen applicants to your company, supervise with whom your children associate?

Securing one's domicile is not an expression of hatred of the Other, but an expression of love of one's family.

There are those who attempt to downplay the depth of our social and political disagreements. But no honest and intelligent observer can fail to note just how deep they go. 

One sort of disagreement is over the attributes of an object admitted to exist.  That's bad enough. Worse still are those disagreements over the very existence of the object. And perhaps the worst form of denialism or eliminativism is the form in which the object denied manifestly exists.

For example, it is manifestly the case that there are beliefs and desires. But there is a species of loon in the philosophy of mind who, unable to make sense of these intentional states, denies their existence.

In the political sphere we have a tribal Hispanic such as Francisco Hernandez who denies the very existence of sanctuary jurisdictions. He does not admit their existence and defend them, which would be slightly respectable. The mendacious bastard denies their very existence.  See for yourself.  The brilliant Mark Steyn sits in for Tucker Carlson. Camarota refutes Hernandez.

Is it not obvious that politics is war? There are very nice people who say we need to come together, drop the labels, and have 'conversations.' Their hearts are in the right place, but where are their heads?

Or to change the metaphor: what planet do they live on? Uranus?

Come together? On what common ground?

Have a conversation? What's to discuss?  Should we have a conversation about the validity of arithmetic? (I'm not talking about the foundations of arithmetic, or the Peano axioms, or anything like that, but about the arithmetic you learned or should have learned in grade school.) 

Kathy Sheehan, mayor of Albany, New York, while defending sanctuary cities, told an egregious lie on Tucker Carlson's show tonight (11/16) when she said that 'undocumented' (her word) workers were not in the U. S. illegally.  Although Carlson eventually called her on it, he failed to clarify the distinction that Sheehan was mendaciously and confusedly exploiting.  

Is Illegal Immigration a Crime?

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1) There is no right to immigrate.  Correlatively, no nation is under any obligation to accept immigrants.

2) Immigration must be to the benefit of the host country. Trump understands this; leftists don't. Another reason to rejoice that Trump is president.

You don't like his style? Suck it up.  He is doing good things for the country.

Diversity Visa Program? An outrage to any sane American.

The Italians are wising up. Georgia Meloni of the Brothers of Italy exposes the Left's migrant agenda.

Here:

The left is quite explicit: Borders are fascist and racist, and thus the organizing principle of the world for the last four centuries – the nation state – is an illegitimate concept. The globalist establishment is not that upfront about it: they're more of the view, publicly, that the nation state is an obsolescent and increasingly irrelevant concept. This is, in fact, "burning the Constitution", and even the very concept of constitutions, and of the Peace of Westphalia – for the two most fundamental aspects of any state are borders and citizenship. If there are no borders, there are no citizens, only competing tribes of identity politics – like Dreamers. And, if , as his name surely suggests, a Dreamer trumps a citizen, and if anyone on the planet is a potential American, then American citizenship is objectively worthless.

Words matter. Which is why seeing too many of the conservative commentariat meekly swallow the open-borders crowd's framing of the issue is so dispiriting. In this case, the Dream is a nightmare – of the end of nations, and of ordered societies.

Charlie Rose told this blatant lie during his 60 Minutes interview of Steve Bannon. I never thought much of Rose, but now I think even less of him. And of course he refused to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. Bannon was too restrained. He should have punched back harder.