Understanding the key to the immigration debate

American Cassandra writes:

It is amazing what a difference it has made to me to recognize that the problem is the elevation of non discrimination as the ruling principle of society. My reactions to other people’s arguments are different. I just watched Lou Dobbs hosting a debate on CNN about Hazelton’s ordinance (with the very excellent Barletta there). In many ways, they made good points. But they weren’t able to land real blows on the other side, because they wouldn’t or couldn’t let themselves do what you do—which is challenge non discrimination. They didn’t want to admit that, yes, they don’t want to be inclusive, at least not of everybody. They would fall back on the “We aren’t talking about immigrants, we are talking about illegal immigrants” line. And the guy from the ACLU said, well, we want to fix that, we want to make the illegal immigrants legal. I waited for what they would say in response, but they just basically ignored it. But, if what you care about is illegal versus legal, isn’t that a fair point?

Why do I have such a problem with illegal immigration? Because our country didn’t get to discriminate: we didn’t get to decide we didn’t want to let them in. If I must worship non discrimination, isn’t that a problem for me? Why do I have a problem with current massive legal immigration? Because it doesn’t discriminate enough! It doesn’t take in people who are the sort of people I want here and shut out the kind of people I don’t want. That’s my problem with it (and because it is just too much in terms of actual numbers).

They are also very strangely worried about coming across as mean to immigrants. They kept pointing out that immigrants are better off here if they learn English. True, but it is far more important that we are better off if they learn English. One Hispanic activist, in that typical whining way, said that English only rules were too harsh because it’s too hard to learn English if you just arrived here and you are working hard. I find it easy to respond to such a thing: if you think it’s such a burden to adapt to life in a new country, don’t leave your own country. I certainly admire Lou Dobbs. He truly does care about America. He may even be alone among cable news commentators who do. But ultimately, you just can’t get there without challenging the core assumptions of liberalism.

I know that on a gut level I have been deeply troubled by the immigration “debate” ever since I can remember. But it makes a tremendous difference actually to be able to spell out why it is troubling. Goldberg’s latest article for instance, was so much more powerful than anything I remember him writing before. The whole framework of the debate will shift in our favor if the flood of new conservatives continue to say what they have been saying. Some of the Vdare people seem very suspicious. I am more optimistic, because I traveled that same route myself.

LA replies:

Cassandra gets it. What else can I say?

Mark J. writes:

I like what Cassandra has to say, and I feel she’s on the right track, but I don’t think she’s quite entirely there yet.

The crucial sentence of her post is this: “[The current massive legal immigration] doesn’t take in people who are the sort of people I want here and shut out the kind of people I don’t want.”

What exactly are the sort of people she wants here and what sort doesn’t she want here? Can she define that clearly or is she still a little gunshy about it?

She’s right that the illegality of the immigrants is irrelevant. Pass a law, open the border, and voila—no more “illegal” immigrants.

It’s the nature of the immigrants that’s the problem, not their illegality. But what about them, exactly?

Is it that their culture is alien? But what if they were all willing to adopt our culture 100%? Would she not mind if the white race who built this country disappeared as long as the races that take over still teach about George Washington and celebrate the 4th of July and speak English? Is it just the culture she cares about? Because as far as I’m concerned, if my people—white Americans—disappear, I really couldn’t care less what language the people who replace us speak or what their political philosophy is, because those things (like all aspects of culture) are simply tools that a people adapt to further its interests. And if the people disappears, then the tools lose their meaning. A Japan, for instance, that was full of African pygmies—even if they all spoke flawless Japanese and wore Japanese dress and so on—would not be Japan. It would be a sick imitation of Japan. So it’s not about culture.

Is it that some of these populations of immigrants have lower average IQs or other genetic traits that would lower our averages and harm our society? It’s true that some would, but if it’s simply the traits of the immigrants populations that matter, then we can import a lot of Asians who have higher IQs and when they have replaced whites, the average IQ of the “American” population will be higher. But an America that was composed of brilliant Chinese would not be an America I care about. So it’s really not a matter of traits, either, because there are populations that have better traits in some ways than ours.

What it’s about is preserving a space on this earth for our homogenous ethnic/racial people. Whites are 10% of the world population. We are entitled to a space just for ourselves as much as any other people on earth. We are as entitled to preserve our racial identity as any exotic population that liberals would instantly grant such a right, such as some remote tribe in the Amazon.

The issue is not legality, the issue is not culture, the issue is not the IQ or criminality of the immigrants. The issue is preservation of our ethnic identity as a people.

Thanks, I wanted to get that off my chest. (Again.)

Cassandra writes:

I didn’t mean to imply by leaving race out of my discussion of the immigration debate that I think it can be won without honest discussion of race. I think “illegal immigration is bad, but legal is fine” is the most unproductive line on our side of the debate, but the second worst is “I would feel the same way if the immigrants were white.” Liberals see right through this line, and they don’t let us get away with it. I think whether they admit it or not, even to themselves, a lot of people are upset, angry, and afraid, in large part because they feel like their race is being dispossessed. Liberals were very clever when they labeled these natural emotions “xenophobia” as if there were something wrong with us for responding this way. But if we get defensive, or pretend that is not how we feel, we will look like we are hiding something. And no one trusts a person who is hiding something. It doesn’t just provide liberals an excuse to avoid our racial arguments for what’s wrong with immigration, it provides them an excuse to avoid all our arguments.

However, the debate is not there yet. People will be turned off if you push something in their face they are not ready for. But it is of paramount importance never to mouth obedience to any of the liberal platitudes. People who do so are trying to neutralize themselves from the race card, but it actually makes them vulnerable to it. However, if liberals are the ones who bring race into the discussion, then that gives us the opportunity to put the burden on them. If they say: would you be as worried about immigration if it were white people coming across the border, you can then answer, why shouldn’t it make a difference to me? If liberals have to explain why race doesn’t matter (instead of us oconservatives havng to explain why race does matter), they will fail, because their false assumptions do not bear scrutiny. Liberals are bullies—they play the race card because they think it will silence people. I have found when talking to them that if they sense that they might have to argue that race doesn’t matter, rather than simply intimidate, they are not so eager to bring it up.

I find my own solution for how to talk about race and immigration very unsatisfactory, but I hope once the debate has been pushed one step to the right, it will become more clear what the next step is. It is an advantage that we have a variety of immigration restrictionists, some of whom are completely race neutral, like Numbers USA. Most people aren’t ready for VFR or Vdare, and in the meantime I send everyone with whom I have an extended conversation about immigration to Numbers USA.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 05, 2007 08:50 PM | Send