The real meaning of the “Texan of the Year” article: an open letter to Mark Krikorian

Yesterday Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, posted something at the Corner on the Dreher-Auster debate. He disagrees with me, but, being a gentleman (a description I cannot, alas, always claim for myself), he does so politely:

Texan of the Year? [Mark Krikorian]
The Dallas Morning News has named “The Illegal Alien” as its 2007 Texan of the Year. It makes more sense than Vladimir Putin, and the designation obviously recognizes the importance of the immigration issue, rather than acclaiming the wonderfulness of illegals. I agree with Michelle that the accompanying essay is squishy and timid, though it’s positively Tancredo-ite compared to any other paper other than the Washington Times. One criticism I don’t get at all is Larry Auster’s attack on NR alum Rod Dreher, who, it turns out, ghosted the piece on behalf of the editorial board, on which he sits. (Larry’s postings are here, here, and here, and Rod’s response here.) The DMN piece’s one-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand pose is indeed silly, but it represents the newspaper’s corporate position, not Rod’s, which is much more hawkish. In fact, I’m fairly sure that if Rod hadn’t drafted it, the piece wouldn’t have given as respectful a hearing as it did to the pro-enforcement, low-immigration side of the issue. I like Larry and often find him insightful, but he doesn’t seem to appreciate that any social change needs people inside mainstream institutions trying to change their positions, as well as others on the outside taking an uncompromising stance; reflexively calling the insiders sellouts, or the outsiders cranks, doesn’t move the ball forward.
12/31 07:05 AM

I wrote to Mr. Krikorian:

Mark,

Your disagreement with me at the Corner is reasonable, but I think you are mistaken in believing that the article in fact consists of the neutral, “on one hand, on the other hand,” approach that you attribute to it. Read my second and third comments in this blog entry where I analyze what the article is really saying.

In particular, your observation that the article gives a “respectful hearing” to the “pro-enforcement” side of the issue is mistaken. As I demonstrate, nowhere in the article does Dreher present enforcement of our immigration laws as a real option.

On another point, treating Dreher as the author of the editorial/article that he wrote is both legitimate and unavoidable, as I explain here.

Further, as I show here, Dreher himself has substantially abandoned his position that he’s not responsible for the article. writing under his own byline at the DMN blog, he says that he fully supports the DMN’s designation of illegal aliens as “Texan of the Year.” And it is that label, not the specific content of the article, that has been the most controversial point in this affair.

Now consider what naming all illegal aliens the “Texan of the Year” really means. The United States, as I demonstrated in my article, “The Second Mexican War,” is being invaded by a nationalist-expansionist movement of the Mexican people that is being actively pushed by the Mexican government and the Mexican elites and has the expressed aim of Mexicanizing the United States. Yet the Dallas Morning News and Rod Dreher say that every illegal alien in this invasion, the moment he illegally crosses the border into the U.S., has automatically become a “Texan.” And, of course, a person who is a Texan is also an American. So, by Dreher’s lights, how can we enforce our immigration laws on the illegals who are already here? How can we even speak about Americans as “illegal aliens”? How can we deport Americans from America? Indeed, what can we properly do to Americans but treat them as Americans and give them citizenship? The logic of Dreher’s position thus leads ineluctably to the policy of total and instant amnesty for all illegals that is supported by the Democrats.

And the DMN/Dreher position doesn’t stop at the implication of total amnesty. If we tell foreigners that all they have to do to become Americans is to step across the border, we have given them the greatest possible incentive to enter the U.S. illegally.

This is why I always say (following the teaching of James Burnham in The Machiavellians) that we must not automatically accept the statements that a writer or a politician may make and even sincerely believe, such as Dreher’s saying that he supports the deportation of illegal aliens. We must look at the real meaning and tendency of what a writer or politician has said. And in this case, the real meaning and tendency of the DMN/Dreher article is total amnesty for all illegal aliens and an invitation to massively increased illegal immigration.

Thus there is no way to read the “Texan of the Year” article other than as a surrender to illegal immigration.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 01, 2008 10:24 PM | Send