“I love immigrants.”

That’s how the hopelessly muddled Peggy Noonan starts her latest hopelessly muddled column on illegal aliens (whom she, following the current elite fashion, calls “immigrants”), and it gets worse from there. Reading this ridiculous woman go on and on about her feelings, which in the last part of the column she incoherently backs away from with the caution that, yes, we are after all a nation under laws (how does she expect a country that sentimentalizes illegal aliens as she does, and that has no identity beyond the mere rule of law, to have the will to enforce the laws against them?), one cannot help think that people in the old days were not without good reasons for withholding the franchise from women.

As I have previously remarked, the amnesty and guest-worker proposals have spurred the open-borders supporters into an unprecedented degree of frankness about their love of immigration, all immigration, even as the majority of the American people are recoiling from the open-borders creed. Again we must thank that true believer, President Bush, who by pushing the issue so hard is separating the sheep from the goats.

Howard Sutherland writes:

Noonan’s first sentence tells you that she is nowhere near reaching 1st grade level in immigration and illegal alien invasion 101, and she doesn’t get any better after that. Noonan begins by conceding the first principle, failing as she does to see any difference between immigrants and illegal aliens. Once again, immigrant-besotted Peg—visions of Gaelic-speaking gramps dancing in her head—simply accepts anyone who is here as a proto-American. She reminds me of Lowell Ponte’s “Darwinist”, presuming that anyone willing to leave home for America is somehow superior in pluck, enterprise, commitment, devotion, etc., etc., to those he left behind… and to native Americans.

Despite all that, Noonan says Americans (what’s an American in Peg’s view, anyway?) have the right and duty to control our borders. But given her roseate view of immigrants (I’ll bet she has no interest in kissing the average American’s hand) and her obdurate belief that we are no more than a proposition-nation-of-immigrants, why should we control the borders? Wouldn’t that be untrue to the Noonan vision of America the Immigrant? The only reason she has to offer is a platitude about the rule of law (which I’m sure she sees as an element of our propositionalism, not—begorrah—as a colonial inheritance of the Common Law of England). She also trots out the latest USCCB/JPII shibboleths about the sanctifying faith of Catholic Mestizos. Perhaps she hasn’t noticed the inroads pentecostalists and even Moslems are making among the Latin Americans she assumes are such steadfast missionaries of conservative Catholicism. Noonan is a classic neocon Catholic, thinking mere opposition to abortion and priestesses constitutes devotion to Catholic tradition. Her clamorous support of fast-track sainthood for the late Pope John Paul II is indication enough of how devoted to tradition she is.

I wonder if, under the platitudes, Peg has a vague sense that a United States completely overrun by third-worlders could never last. I doubt she allows that thought to germinate. It would lead into forbidden territory, and make her persona non grata with the WSJ’s editors.

This is worse than a frank endorsement of open borders. This is a sneaky endorsement of the virtues of the illegal aliens (excuse me, immigrants) disguised as a call for border control. Noonan remains an enemy. Given that, like Senator Specter, her immigration position rests mostly on memories of her grandparents, I doubt it could ever be otherwise.

Mark D. writes:

From Noonan’s article it’s obvious she’s completely daft—about everything.

The religion thing grates on me, for the same reasons it grates on you—Christianity, in and of itself, provides no protocol for any particular political or cultural organization. Roman Catholicism may do so, but that model would hardly suit Noonan or her purposes, given that it’s rooted in the cultural and social heritage of Western Europe, and not in the peasant culture of southern Mexico. Ask the Catholic Mestizos what they think of Aquinas’ ontological argument for the existence of God, and their reaction might reflect the cultural abyss into which we stare.

Then she says:

“This week I went to the immigration march in New York. We massed on the Brooklyn Bridge and then marched into lower Manhattan. I just wanted to be there and see who was marching and hear what they said.”

She doesn’t mention ANSWER, or the Mexican flag, or La Raza, or the signs that said: “Open the door or we’ll break the window.”

Then she writes:

“I happen to think America in general has deep affection for immigrants, knows they are part of the dynamic, a part of our growth and our endless coming-into-being. But when your heart is soft, and America’s is, your head must be hard.”

Coming into being? Part of the dynamic? Part of our growth? Where did this woman learn to write? Where did she learn to think? This is all therapeutic drivel. She assumes without question that “sympathy” and “sentiment” are reliable guideposts to both thought and policy. It never occurs to her that “sympathy” is not thought, much less rational thought.

And, in any case, Peggy Noonan telling herself to harden her head is like a bowl of jello crying out for some concrete.

I think Peggy Noonan hates herself (but not because she is daft) and hates white America, its culture and its heritage. She doesn’t even mention assimilation, because then she would have to think about what immigrants assimilate TO. She mentions her grandparents, but she doesn’t mention the rigorous immigration laws they were subject to, or the rigorous citizenship requirements (including language requirements). Nor does she mention the dominant culture at that time, and its demand that Peggy’s grandparents assimilate into their American culture (and not into some “coming into being” postmodern smorgasbord).

It’s all a dream to her, something out of a Frank Capra movie. She can’t possibly be writing for the WSJ. She’s the Madame Bovary of political commentary, and just as deluded. She’s symptomatic of the romantic irrationalism that has gripped our culture, and which now inhabits the formerly staid pages of the WSJ.

And, above all, her tedious drivel is depressing.

A reader writes:

Don’t lose sight of the good things she said in that article. Pandering for Hispanic votes, Rep or Dem, is cynical, etc. These immigrants are breaking the rules, you don’t come here and start making demands. Open borders immigration is crazy, we have the right to decide who comes here. For someone who I guess overall could be called a neocon, that’s not bad!

LA replies:

Sorry, but it doesn’t scan. Noonan can’t start and end an article by talking about how she has this desire to “kiss them [immigrants and illegal aliens] by the hand,” and then plausibly say that we have the right and duty to control immigration.

Noonan’s sentimental flight goes beyond similar immigration sentimentality we’ve heard in the past, for example, Commentary’s line some years ago (it was the last sentence in a long article about Asian immigrants) that Asians are “a blessing to America.” Yet what is common to all such statements is the unconditional approval of immigrants. The immigration sentimentalists speak of immigrants as grandparents speak of their grandchildren, as something they love totally and unconditionally. Once they’re set up that emotional basis, they’re outside any rational consideration of the political good, law enforcement, and so on. That’s why I don’t accept your defense of the column.

I truly think this column was the sign of a type of mental breakdown on Noonan’s part, brought on by the deep psychic forces this issue stirs in her. She recognizes that illegal immigration is harming society, but being forced to face that fact brings out more strongly than ever her passionate feelings about immigration. The more it becomes apparent that illegal immigration is a real problem that must be stopped, the more insanely emotionally attached to it she becomes. Miss Irish Mist is splitting in two.

I wasn’t initially going to post this next e-mail, as it’s excessively angry and rude, and also silly, but I’ve decided it’s a good specimen of its kind.

Richard S. writes:

I think you’re being way too hard on Peggy Noonan. If you, Howard Sutherland, and Mark D. would give the hysterics a rest for a moment or two and re-read her column—carefully—you’ll find that she is not in favor of unbridled, open-borders immigration, legal or illegal.

Yes, she’s a sentimental softie, and one wouldn’t necessarily want to put her in charge of the INS or Homeland Security, but so what? It was a Peggy Noonan column, for heaven’s sake. Since when did the Republic stand or fall on one of those? [LA remarks: “So what?” One could say the same about any issue. By this reasoning, why discuss any issue? Why criticize anyone? After all, when does the Republic stand or fall on anything that some opinion writer says? So let’s just call off the debate and let the other side speak while we remain politely silent.]

You think she is a “ridiculous woman”. Sutherland thinks she remains an “enemy”. Mark D. thinks she “hates herself and hates white America”.

Hoo boy. The three of you are so over the top in your criticism of her that you make yourselves sound as ridiculous, in your own way, as you accuse her of sounding, in her own way. You end up making yourselves more of an enemy to your point of view than Peggy will ever be.

Mark writes, “The religion thing grates on me.” Gee, Mark, we’d never guess! But I tell you, when he writes, “Ask the Catholic Mestizos what they think of Aquinas’ ontological argument for the existence of God…”, well, that’s when I know for sure how much of a horse’s rear end this fellow really is. What a snob. I’ve got news for you. At the end of our life, God is not going to grade us on what we thought of Aquinas’ ontogological arguments. On second thought, since Our Lord has made it plain that we will be judged by the same measure we judge others, perhaps Mark had better start cramming…

Look, I’m not in disagreement with much of what you have to say about the illegal immigration issue. But picking a street fight with Peggy Noonan over this is about as lacking in class as a smartaleck freshman Philosophy major coming home on Thanksgiving weekend and picking a fight with Mom at the dinner table over Marxism.

So she’s got a high profile gig at WSJ. So what? You do have bigger fish to fry, don’t you?

LA replies:

Please explain why it’s not legitimate or worthwhile to attack a prominent respected columnist in one of the country’s top papers who writes that she wants to “kiss the hands of immigrants”? Tell me why it is not significant part of the national debate about immigration that a person in her position writes such things about immigrants?

Also, since you don’t like people to waste their time on trivialities instead of fighting the big battles, why are you wasting your time criticizing my criticisms of Noonan?

Also, I just looked at Mark D’s comment again that so roused your ire, and I see nothing objectionable about it. He’s not making a hoity toity point about Aquinas or judging others or reading others out of heaven, nothing of the kind. He’s saying that the statement, “Mexicans are Catholics,” does not mean (as Noonan imagines it means) that Mexicans are members of the same, European, Western culture that formed us.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 13, 2006 01:49 PM | Send