I’ll wager Mr. Gigot does not favor you with a reply.

Oh, I sent him a much more polite letter than this, the U.S. Postal type, challenging his idea that increasing Hispanic immigration would help the GOP, and asking him a direct question about it, and got no reply.

Nativist right. Ha.

How about the “I don’t want my pocket picked” right? Or maybe the “I don’t like bad neighborhoods” right? Or the “I don’t want a bigger underclass” right? Or perhaps the “I don’t like traffic jams” right (and center, and left)? How about the anti-corporate welfare right (and center, and left)? Or the anti-overpopulation right (and center, and left)? Or perhaps the “I don’t want poor Americans to get even poorer” right (and center, and left)?

To suggest that any opposition to mass unskilled immigration is based in racism or “nativism” is blatantly stupid and blantantly deceptive. It should be obvious that people coming here with 8th grade educations and four kids who need to be educated for $7000 per kid per year (who then end up dropping out at high rates anyway) are not contributing to the ecnonomy, yet the Wall Street Journal cannot let go of its voodoo economics.

And btw, the border enforcement budget graph in the article is a joke. So spending has gone up from perhaps 1/2000 of the federal budget to perhaps 1/700 of the federal budget, a piddling $3.7 billion out of a $2.4 trillion budget…when the state of California ALONE spends something like $5 billion a year on services for illegals (probably a conservative estimate) and something like another $10 billion for legal immigrants.

Perhaps we should start referring to Mr. Gigot as the Beria or Molotov of the slave-labor lobby. Not that it would attract his attention - like the great capitalist Armand Hammer, he may find much to admire in Stalin’s USSR.

But Matt W’s complaint brings out a key point. The immigration issue really does revolve around race, and there’s no getting away from it. This is because, even for people whose concerns about immigration have _nothing_ to do with race, they’re still afraid to go near the issue because they’ll be accused of being racist. The classic example of this is the environmentalist movement. So, for immigration reformers of all stripes, whether environmentalist, population-growth, economic, law and order, cultural traditionalist, or what have you, there is no escape from confronting the beliefs in anti-discrimination and anti-racism that form the core of the open-borders movement.

Mr. Auster’s comments of 1:19 AM indicate that, because the political left tries to close off discussion of immigration by charging racism every time someone supports a reduction in immigration, that this proves that everyone must confront the race issue in order to confront the immigration issue.

My conclusion would be that those who want to confront the issue of immigration must be prepared to openly challenge the left on their cry of racism. They must be exposed as people who try to stifle debate on every issue in which they support the status quo. Campus speech codes, shouting down conservative speakers, crying homophobia at every gay rights issue that comes into the public eye, crying sexism whenever that suits them, etc., is all part of a pattern that should be directly challenged and exposed.

In the example we are dealing with here, it should be obvious that it is not the job of the Sierra Club to publicly debate multiculturalism and leftist ideas of what constitutes racism and discrimination. The obvious strategy for them is to counterattack against the likes of Morris Dees, document the environmental degradation caused by mass immigration, and then simply point out that they have a long history of opposing such environmental degradation. I think any rational member of the public would believe them on that fact.

Clark C is right on target. Environmentalist Centrists should sidestep the charge of racism and repeat that it is all about overpopulation PERIOD. However, it is predictable what Morris Dees will do. He will wheel out stale & dubious data from Julian Simon’s work with the Cato Institute which purports to show that immigration is nothing but wonderful for all involved (that traffic and crowding is just a figment of your imagination). Stephen Moore & D Griswold will be ready and willing to chime in as needed. Dees will then say that it is hypocritical of any American to oppose immigration since he/she was once an immigrant or immigrant descendant. Lastly, he will attempt guilt by association, i.e. any immigration restrictionist is in league with all others. Expect everything that Sam Francis, Kevin MacDonald & Jared Taylor have said about this issue to be dredged up and used as evidence that all immigration restrictionists are kooks, anti-Semites & white supremacists. Though he’ll never admit it, Morris Dees thinks the US is deficient as is. It needs to be more multicultural, more nouveau left & definitely less European to fit into the New World Order.

We need never say, “I am not a racist, but….” A Kentuckian might as well begin a speech with, “I am not a ignorant hillbilly, but….” You see, you’ve already apologized to your foe for existing, and accepted his stereotyping of you. But if it’s not a crime, as they say, to be “driving while black,” neither is it a crime to be “living while white.” Do we have less right to be alive, and to be what we are, than does a beluga whale? The answer of liberals and minorities seems to be “Yes,” but I can’t think of any reason to listen to them except that they demand we do so. And who gave *them* this infinite right of demand and accusation which they so easily and so strangely assume?

The first order of business is to learn to hold in contempt the hate words of the enemy: racist, xenophobe, homophobe. Unlike the dreaded n-word they can be used them with impunity, but they’re not any better.

Mr. Auster writes:
“there is no escape from confronting the beliefs in anti-discrimination and anti-racism that form the core of the open-borders movement.

I agree. One of the best ways to undercut the racist response is to emphasize the effects of large numbers of imported workers on the wages of blacks and of hispanic citizens. A real drum-roll on this issue might generate a response from Democrats. Some of us should emphasize this correct argument and stay on message year after year.