The question of Malkin

Continuing the discussion about Michelle Malkin from a previous blog entry, let me put the question straightforwardly: is Malkin disingenuous in the way she has written about immigration? As I’ve said, I believe Malkin is an honorable and patriotic person and I have no direct evidence that she is disingenuous. But here is a possible case that could be made against her. We start from the fact that she writes very intensively about illegal immigration while never (or only extremely rarely) mentioning legal immigration. As a prominent commentator on illegal immigration, wouldn’t it be normal for her to make clear her views on legal immigration as well? Indeed, isn’t it incumbent on her to do so? Why this strange silence? Well, she doesn’t criticize current legal immigration, obviously, because she supports it. But why then doesn’t she write more often about her support for it? Because that would wake up her dulled conservative readers to the fact that Malkin, the great “stalwart” on the “immigration” issue, is only a stalwart against illegal immigration, while favoring the ongoing annual influx of one million legal immigrants, almost all of them non-Westerners. And that realization would chill many of her fans.

So a case can be made that Malkin has not been entirely honest in her dealings with the immigration issue. A person who writes so much about illegal immigration owes it to the public to make clear her views on immigration overall. And, as far as I’m aware, Malkin has not done this. If she had, Andrew McCarthy would have been much less likely to mischaracterize her as a champion on “immigration.”

- end of initial entry -

There were several readers’s responses to this blog entry.

Ben writes:

I’ve been thinking about this all day. I’ve been trying to think about one popular conservative besides you who has talked about legal immigration. You know any? I can’t think of one to be honest with you.

It’s always the same thing in every column I read, we are for Immigration as long as people come here, obey the law, etc. I never hear anybody ever state that we need to preserve the white race and its Christian culture. If any popular person such as Malkin stated that, every news agency in America would run around the clock attacks on her. Remember Rush Limbaugh? All he did was state that he thought that the NFL was trying too hard to want to make black quarterbacks successful and the whole country went crazy. I remember how they ran around the clock attacks on him day and night calling him every name under the sun even making him resign from his job at ESPN. Remember Trent Lott? Whenever a popular “conservative” makes a statement even regarding race, the mainstream media makes it their business not to stop until they are destroyed. They then wheel out all of the people who condemn the statements, even “conservatives.”

Can you even imagine for example, Malkin going on Hannity and Colmes and stating that she was also against Legal immigration of people from Third World countries etc? Can you imagine the backlash? They would destroy her, blacklist her, call her every name under the sun, and also call her a hypocrite since she also comes from a immigrant background. Hypocrite is another term they use on caliber with racism to shut down conversation.

Conservatives would defend her in a mundane way, stating the typical lines afraid of their own careers in conservative circles. Then it would be demanded that she issue an apology to the world. I think all conservatives deep down in their gut know this and why they will not cross a certain boundary. You see, being a conservative is only tolerable in this country as long as it is played on a liberal playing field. The moment it goes off that path, you are ridiculed, destroyed, blacklisted, etc. [LA note: That’s it. You have just identified one of the organizing truths of our time.]

For example, look how the evangelicals and religious Christians are ridiculed in this nation. Why? Because they are one group who is totally off the liberal playing field completely. They are considered extreme, bigoted, racists, etc. They are even attacked by “conservatives” in high places and in the Republican party. In other words they have been brought down to a level of a bunch of nuts who should not be listened to period.

I really do think that in our country right now, what we are asking is almost like asking the sun not to come up tomorrow. We must keep pressing this but also understanding that our country has been so indoctrinated by the concept of multiculturalism that it’s going to take huge changes in America to wake people up.

Conservatives are playing on the liberals” terms. What this means is we will continue down the slide of liberalism, just slower then we would if there was no opposition at all. I don’t see any changes at all. I’m not even encouraged about this illegal immigration debate because I have seen the conservatives over and over again be intimidated by the calls of racism. Even if we win on Illegal immigration, Bush and his types will just increase legal immigration. Either way we lose this debate because it has been defined from day one on liberal terms.

Malkin is doing the best she can I guess, but she’s living in a society that will destroy her if she states what we want her to state. I don’t think most people in conservative circles have that kind of courage anymore. The courage to be blacklisted from Fox News, columns being dropped, ridiculed, called a racist, and put down to the level of the “fanatic” by their own colleagues even in conservatives circles. They will be tolerated only as long as they play by the rules. You are permitted to be conservative in this society as long as you don’t attack the fundamentals of liberalism.

I’ve noticed that people like us are in the shadows speaking about things in private. Not really taken serious because we are not being “civil” about the “debate.” We are considered the worse human beings in America like the Evangelicals are, worse then pornographers, etc because we believe that the white race and its Christian culture is worthy to be conserved. We must keep up the fight but I think we should not hold our breath waiting for people in the “conservative” movement to help us. That might cause them to be brought down with us in the shadowy places discussing the Taboos of America. One day people like us will be taken serious and listened to, it will come…. but unfortunately, it might come when a terrible price has been paid.

Keep up the great work.

James S. writes:

Clearly when Michelle Malkin wrote the following, which you quoted on VFR ) …

“The U.S. Constitution does not say that the paramount duty of government is to “Celebrate Diversity” or to “embrace multiculturalism” or to give “every willing worker” in the world a job. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution says the Constitution was established “to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty.”” …

… she consciously stopped short of finishing the sentence, “for ourselves and our posterity,” because on immigration she’s still a liberal with conservative stripes. She stills wants America to be open to foreigners even if not to all foreigners willy-nilly.

LA replies:

It certainly shows something less than complete good faith to break off that passage right in the middle of the sentence. If she’s not comfortable with the Constitution’s Preamble maybe she shouldn’t be appealing to it. I’m not descended by blood from the Americans of 1787 yet I have no problem quoting “for ourselves and our posterity.” Why? Maybe because I still identify with the Americans of 1787 and regard myself, to use Lincoln’s phrase, as “blood of the blood” with them, and maybe Malkin does not. Which only brings to the fore the problem of admitting nonwhite immigrants in the first place. A central theme of my writings on immigration is that the more racially different immigrants and children of immigrants are from the historic American majority, the less likely that are to consider themselves part of it. (See, for example, the section on “The Problem of Cultural Identity,” at pp. 45-49 in The Path to National Suicide.

Carl Simpson writes:

I’ve been following the blog entries at VFR on this. You’ve stated numerous times that it is folly for whites constantly to showcase minorities to support their case for self-preservation. Is it reasonable for us to expect Malkin, the U.S.-born daughter of legal Filipino immigrants, to support changing legal immigration patterns back to pre-1965 model? Though she clearly is a believer in the assimilationist ideal, I think that she’s come to realize that assimilation cannot even begin to take place as long as multiculturalism, racial preferences, and welfare are in place. Her high praise for Heather MacDonald’s work documenting the failure of assimilation among Mexican illegals supports my take on this. [LA replies: I didn’t say that I expected her to support any particular immigration policy; I’m just trying to identify what her position in fact is.]

For what it’s worth, I think she is against racial preferences—even though she has written very little about the issue. Her book in support of the Japanese internment of WWII is most unusual for a child of Asian immigrants, though logical in light of her family history. (As I understand it, one of her grandfathers struggled alongside the Americans against the Japanese invaders during the brutal Bataan Death March.)

I don’t think the blame here lies so much with Malkin as it does with McCarthy, who has resorted to the typical white behavior of putting himself alongside a minority he at least partially agrees with so the association can be used like a charm or talisman to deflect the inevitable charges of “racism” and “xenophobia.” A great weakness of all but a few white conservatives is their abject failure to attack those who use such terms so casually. If nothing else, it would be useful to point out that these terms really don’t have objective meaning in the public mind any longer thanks to their constant abuse by leftists and neo-Jacobins.

LA replies:

I wrote in 1990 in The Path to National Suicide, in the chapter on “The Meaning of Racism”:

As we all know by now, racism, like witchcraft, is a difficult charge to defend oneself against. The reason is that the word no longer has a defined meaning…. It does not take a genius to realize that in America today, “racism” is much more than a word; it is an instrument of thought control—even of terror. If we are to free ourselves from the resulting intellectual paralysis, we must insist that the word be defined…. Since “racism” has become the most highly charged and carelessly spoken word in our political vocabulary, no word is more in need of careful definition.

Matt G. writes:

Hello Mr. Auster.

I have occasionally taken the time to read snippets from your VFR blog and the entry on Michelle Malkin and her stance on Immigration caught me by surprise. As a frequent reader of Michelle’s work and visitor to her blog I can tell you that you must not be paying a whole lot of attention to what’s been written on Immigration. I don’t have time to point by point refute your entry, but I think that if you go over the MM.com right now and read the multiple posts on Immigration, you will find the following:

- MM reports on the “outrageous” state of illegal immigration enforcement more than she rambles about her views on legal immigration.

- MM has, like many other conservative bloggers, stated that she doesn’t oppose legal immigration. I don’t think she needs to rehash that point every time she writes on illegal immigration.

- MM, again like most conservative bloggers, has stated that the problem with legal immigration is that we have gone from the “melting pot” of assimilation to the “salad bar” where everything is different but in the same place. She has mentioned her belief that English needs to be the primary language here.

You simply need to read deeper and try not to gloss over her main stance. Her feelings on legal immigration have remained unchanged, from what I’ve read. Thus, she’s not going to waste time writing about what is the same – but rather she will continually bring up the insane new developments with regard to Illegal immigration.

If you go back and read the archives, you’ll read about her feelings on legal immigration as well.

LA replies:

You’re not saying anything that I haven’t said, but I don’t think you understood my point. I do not object to Malkin making illegal immigration as such her beat. But, as I’ve explained at length, something is clearly amiss, whether it’s Malkin’s fault or not, when the whole world starts to think of Malkin as a champion on the “immigration” issue. And this must have something to do with the fact that her focus on illegal immigration is so total, that in people’s minds, illegal immigration becomes identical with immigration, and then there’s no immigration issue outside of illegal immigration.

However, on the substance, I do object to a person saying that her only objection to current immigration is when it’s illegal. If that’s the case, then if immigration were raised to 10 million per year, Malkin would have nothing against it, since it’s legal, right? Now, if Malkin let on that she would in fact object to 10 million immigrants per year, then she has considerations other than legality, doesn’t she? She cares about how many immigrants are coming into America. But if that’s the case, why is the current one million per year ok with her? Why shouldn’t it be two million, or 100,000?

In other words, assuming she would oppose 10 million, she does have a substantive good and a substantive standard in mind, connected with numbers, but she won’t state what that standard is, and this shows an unserious mind gliding over the surface of a profoundly important and fateful issue, dealing solely with illegality because illegality is a no-brainer that does not involve any of the hard and dangerous issues such as what is the good of the United States, and what is the overall purpose of immigration in relation to that good. For the columnist who writes more about immigration than any other mainstream columnist in America to reduce the most momentous issue of our time solely to its no-brainer aspect has the inevitable effect of making everyone see only its no-brainer aspect. This radical dumbing down and narrowing of the issue is dangerous in the extreme and must be resisted at every step. Of course this does not mean I am against focusing on illegal immigration, when, as now, it is literally the turning point of the struggle. But it is essential that even as we deal with the illegal immigration issue we remind people of the larger issue of which it is a part and fight off all attempts to insist that only illegal immigration is a legitimate issue for debate.

By the way, some of the current versions of the bill go beyond amnesty and guest workers and include a catastrophic doubling of legal immigration to two million per year. Has Malkin said anything about that?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 12, 2006 10:10 AM | Send