Replying to criticisms of Romney (1)

The Anchoress at PajamasMedia writes an article on the Romney speech called “No Iron in Romney’s Glove.” But the article does not deliver. Her beef with Romney is not a lack or iron—something she does not demonstrate or even allude to in the article—but the fact that Mormons once practiced polygamy; the fact that until 1978 the Mormon church did not admit blacks to the priesthood, and, most important to the Anchoress, the fact that Romney in the speech only appealed to believers, not non-believers, leaving her feeling excluded.

My reply:

1. We already know about past Mormon practices, and if they matter so much to the Anchoress, then Romney is excluded from the presidency purely on the basis of his being a Mormon. But we’ve had many Mormons in high office in America, including Romney as governor of Massachusetts. Did he use his position to advance Mormonism, let alone to advance polygamy? While I don’t like Mormonism, it would appear to me that Mormonism in its current form is culturally compatible with America, something that will never be true of, say, Islam.

2. Anyone who, like the Anchoress, uses current standards of total non-discrimination to condemn white people in the past is a hopeless liberal.

3. Romney’s failure to mention that he would be president of non-believers was probably an oversight, due to the fact that the theme of the speech was religion. However, did John F. Kennedy mention non-believers in his excellent speech in 1960?

Further thoughts:

As I said in my previous entry, what bothered me most about the speech was its liberalism. If all religions are equally good, as Romney sees it, then we should positively welcome and foster the growth of Islam and other non-Western religions in America. Like virtually all American mainstream conservatives, he is incoherently and dangerously divided between his opposition to “Islamism” and his approval of Islam.

Romney has said he wants to increase legal immigration. But Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee, Edwards, Clinton, and Obama would also increase legal immigration. Even Thompson has not clearly said he would decrease legal immigration, but only that he would eliminate certain immigration categories, leaving open the possibility that he might increase other categories to make up for the ones he has eliminated. Even Tom Tancredo has greatly emphasized the illegal immigration issue over legal immigration. The question for me here, which I have not yet answered for myself, is not whether Romney is someone I positively support, but whether he is an acceptable alternative to the Democrats for whom I could vote. I repeat that he is a talented and impressive individual, clearly superior in intellect and character to the last three presidents.

- end of initial entry -

George writes:

You wrote:

“The question for me here, which I have not yet answered for myself, is not whether Romney is someone I positively support, but whether he is an acceptable alternative to the Democrats for whom I could vote.”

Even more broadly, traditionalists need to ponder whether or not a victory by a Republican who is decent on illegal immigration and vague on legal immigration—such as Thompson or Romney—serves the fundamental long term interests of immigration restrictionism.

Put more directly, in the short term, should immigration restrictionists delay fighting a battle against legal immigration and support a Republican who will be acceptable on illegal immigration?

Or, should restrictionists hope for a Democrat victory which will preserve Bush’s open borders policies and create an even greater backlash against not only illegal immigration but legal immigration?

One argument in favor of the, “Let the Democrats run the country into the ground” option is that should Romney or Thompson win, the Republicans might defuse the developing anti-immigration backlash by enforcing immigration law against illegals while quietly ratcheting up legal immigration (as Jonah Goldberg once proposed).

The public is furious at the government right now, and an open borders Democrat president may be what is needed to transform the anti-illegal immigration movement into an anti-legal immigrant movement. But if illegal immigration is taken away as an issue, people might lose interest in immigration and go back asleep.

Regarding the “Let’s deal with the illegals first” option, one benefit of dealing with illegal immigration now is that the fall in the percentage of children who are white is being driven downwards by illegal immigration, not legal immigration. Steve Sailer has pointed out that the birth rate for native born Hispanics is only 2.2, blacks are at 2.1 and Asians born in the US have a birth rate of 1.4.

If we can deport illegal aliens of child bearing age and/or end birthright citizenship by a ruling from the Supreme Court, we would prevent over 500,000* anchor babies from being added to the US population, and 62% of newborns would be white as opposed to 54.1% white in 2006.

Even if we don’t touch legal immigration, we could stabilize the white population through enforcement of immigration laws and buy ourselves more time to deal with the total immigration issue.

I personally don’t know what option I would take, and I am sure there are more points for and against each of those two options, but this is something traditional conservatives need to think long and hard about.

* I estimate there are at least 500,000 anchor babies born in the US because according to FAIRUS.org, California has a quarter of the total illegal alien population and Medical estimated that there were at least 107,000 anchor babies born in California in 2004. By now, the number of anchor babies should be over 500,000.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 07, 2007 10:11 AM | Send