Immigration restrictionism and scapegoating

I haven’t read it carefully yet, but in Mary Eberstadt’s article, “The Scapegoats Among Us,” at Policy Review, she is arguing that immigration restrictionists are “scapegoating” their fears of Islam onto innocent Hispanic immigrants.

This is a variation on one of the hoariest of anti-restrictionist ploys: saying that when people express concerns about immigration, they are actually displacing some other anxiety—say, anxiety about a bad economy—onto immigrants. Thus immigration restrictionists are irrational at best, are acting in bad faith at worst, and can be safely ignored. This fits with a core assumption of modern liberalism and modern conservatism, that only a concern about individual rights and individual well-being is rational, while a concern about one’s country as a country (that is, about one’s country apart from its being a collection of individuals), and especially a concern about how immigration is affecting one’s country, is inherently irrational.

I discussed the “scapegoating” ploy in a 1992 article in The Miami Herald. Also, Mark Krikorian responds to Eberstadt at The Corner, saying that the West faces real cultural threats. That Krikorian speaks here in such frankly cultural terms is a noted and welcome departure for him.

Also, combining the liberal denial that any traditionalist position can be advanced on rational and good-faith basis, with the issue of Vice President Cheney’s support of homosexual “marriage” and the use of sperm donors to create homosexual “families,” see my comments about Cheney’s silent assent to Sen. Edwards’s vicious charge at the 2004 vice presidential debate that the Federal Marriage Amendment was being advanced, not because its backers believed in it, but because they were using it as a cynical political device to “divide” the country.

- end of initial entry -

Mark P. writes:

You wrote: “This fits with a core assumption of modern liberalism and modern conservatism, that only a concern about individual rights and individual well-being is rational, while a concern about one’s country as a country (that is, about one’s country apart from its being a collection of individuals), and especially a concern about how immigration is affecting one’s country, is inherently irrational.”

Of course, it never occurs to the liberal to wonder whether the “collection of individuals” they want to import by the millions into this country are themselves liberal. What proof does the liberal present to show that their liberalism will be reciprocated by these foreigners? Don’t they understand that their individual rights spiel is itself a cultural artifice that depends on an existing nation and peoplehood?

Russell W. writes:

Seeing as how you have commented in the past on the screen put up by respectable conservative talk radio hosts in regards to restrictionist immigration arguments, I thought you might be interested in the following: I recently heard former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat on the Medved show. He was invited on to talk about the expected things: ringing the alarm about Islam (annoyingly referred to by Medved as “Islamo-Nazi-Fascism”… talk about piling on with the silly modifiers), support for Israel, etc. The interesting thing is, Shoebat seemed to work in some points about immigration as well. For instance, after going on and on about the kind of retrogade, deluded and death-worshipping cultures that abound in the Arabic world, Shoebat asked rhetorically, “And just what kind of people do Americans think they’re inviting into their country when they allow people from this part of the world to America?”

Of course, to me, this seemed like one of Shoebat’s most salient points, but it was never touched by Medved.

LA replies:

In other words, the mind of Medved goes like this:

The Islamo-Nazi-Fascists are coming! The Islamo-Nazi-Fascists are coming! … Let them in! This is America!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 19, 2006 02:19 PM | Send