|
Cloudy Claremont and the “Why not?” approach to open borders
In May, Mark Helprin, whom I have frequently cited for his unconventional thinking on the war on terror, published a truly worthless article in the Washington Post on the immigration issue. I called it an exercise in attitudinizing. Helprin had nothing to say, except to express his own superiority to all sides of the debate. He referred contemptuously to the Minutemen as “armed geezers” and as a “febrile militia of Willie Nelson look-alikes.” His concluding point was that we need a national debate on immigration, but he himself did not condescend to start such a debate by stating his own views. I am sorry to see that the Claremont Review thought this empty article worthy of re-publication. One can only wonder what it would be like if the people at the Claremont Institute and their co-mates in the neoconservative establishment would discuss the pressing national problem of immigration in concrete terms, instead of approaching the issue as though they, and America itself, were somewhere off the planet. What do these people think will happen to institutions like theirs and a culture like theirs when California becomes a Mestizo state, and when the U.S. becomes a nonwhite / Hispanic / Muslim / Third-World nation? But those are not real issues to the folks at Claremont, who are followers of Harry Jaffa. For Jaffa and his neocon followers, the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence, plus the Gettsyburg Address, is the real thing. All else is a dream. And now I hear that Claremont is going to give its next Henry Salvatori award to Lawrence Kudlow, who recently wrote that America needs to triple its immigration to three million per year, and who added, in response to the people who are appalled by this prospect, “What’s all the fuss about?” Now there’s a profound conservative thinker for you! Right up there with Mark Steyn, the previous winner of the Salvatori award.
By the way, “What’s all the fuss about?” is simply a variation on “Why not?”, the emblematic phrase that leftists use to ridicule and sweep away all conservative objections to leftist innovations, as Midge Decter explained in a memorable speech ten years ago that was published in First Things. Yet, when it comes to mass Third-World immigration and open borders, Decter, First Things, the Claremont Institute, Kudlow, and the whole neoconservative and conservative establishment all chant in unison, “Why not?” Email entry |