Are “conservative” open-borders supporters mainly libertarian business types?

A reader writes:

You are correct in saying that the “conservative” elites are as much a part of the open-borders movement as the liberals. This is because they are not conservatives, but business libertarians who have completely discarded any notion of the U.S. as having an ethnocultural core. The closest person we have to a traditionalist conservative is Tom Tancredo (and a few of his followers in the House). While he is not perfect, God bless him, because he is the best thing we have going for us right now!

Leftists want to destroy all borders in order to unite the world in their “world socialist utopia.” But now, the capitalist extremists want to destroy all borders in order to unite the world in their own absurd vision of a “world capitalist free-market utopia.” Same goal, different reasons.

My reply:

What you say is true, but it’s too simple, because it tends to reduce all “conservative” support for immigration to business/capitalist motives. There are many conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, who honestly believe that the non-discriminatory inclusion of all peoples is the essence of goodness and the essence of our civilization, and who support open borders for that reason. As long as our side reduces our opponents to (mostly cynical and selfish) business interests, and fails to see the genuine, though benighted, ideals that drive them, we will not be able to oppose them effectively.

The reader replies:

Good point. The open-borders Christian groups are a major element that I left out. The neoconservatives are pro-open-borders for reasons that you yourself have cited: past exclusion left the Jews to Hitler; the more non-whites there are in America, the safer Jews will be. [LA note: I have suggested that as one factor driving some Jews to support open borders, not as the factor driving all Jews.] However, I still believe that of the open-borders coalition, the business people are the most powerful, and are the main driving force. I don’t think it’s cynical to paint the business people for what they are. They want open borders for cheap labor, and for other related reasons that make them richer. The open-borders Christian people are either completely duped, or are so obsessed with their warped version of Christianity that they simply don’t care that all of these immigrants will hurt their children in the future.

My reply:

The conservative movement is the one element of America that has had the numbers and the power and the patriotism to have turned the immigration issue around, but they didn’t. So ask yourself, what is THE KEY REASON why the conservative movement has not opposed large-scale non-Western immigration? Is it because of the business interests, the desire for low-wage immigrant workers? Or is it because most grassroots conservatives, particularly Christians conservatives, believe that it is wrong to oppose immigration of people of different races and cultures from ours?

I submit that it is the latter.

It is the profoundly held belief (imbued in them by the post World War II, post-‘60s consensus) that discrimination over race/ethnicity/culture is immoral and disgusting and un-American, that is the key reason why the conservative movement has acquiesced in open borders and, indeed, doesn’t even want to touch the issue. That is why, after 20 years of this mounting controversy, the closest they ever approach it is to say that they are against illegal immigration.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 05, 2005 02:59 PM | Send