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The American Conservative supports amnesty
Ron L. writes:
As pathetic as Richard Spencer’s Alternative Right is, The American Dhimmi, a.k.a. “The American Conservative,” remains worse. Today it linked a piece by Fred Reed calling for amnesty combined with securing the borders i.e., the fraudulent John McCain / Barak Obama policy. The editors introduce Reed’s article with this note:
Take ideology out of the immigration debate and you’re left with a hard truth: millions here illegally won’t be rounded up, separated from their families, and shipped home. But borders matter and an honorable country shouldn’t facilitate the growth of a massive, unassimilated underclass. Might the answer not lie somewhere between a pure restrictionist position and a total open-borders one?
Not to worry, though. They remain steadfast to their core values: isolationism and hating Israel.
LA writes:
Here’s a passage from Reed’s article that shows the quality of his mind and of his knowledge of the illegal immigration issue:
I encounter all manner of fury from conservatives at the idea of granting amnesty to the illegals. Rounding them up is the very thing, they figure. How do you round up thirteen million people who don’t want to be rounded up?
Perhaps at three a.m. you put a lightning cordon of Marines around a ten-block region and then go house to house, kicking in doors and dragging screaming people out. These you would throw into sealed eighteen-wheelers, drive them to the nearest border, and perhaps literally kick them across. Most of the children would be American citizens, but not Mexican. The idea of deporting a couple of million US citizens to a foreign country is fascinating.
So Reed, just like all the moronic open borderites, believes that the only two options are to round up and deport all illegals, or to legalize them all. He hasn’t heard of attrition through law enforcement. And The American “Conservative” publishes this trash.
Reed continues:
Now, a reasonable question might be, “OK, Fred, what would you do?” If I had the power, I would seal the border to stop the influx, declare blanket amnesty for those already in the country, and get on with life. Part of “getting on” would be to encourage assimilation since the last thing the US needs is another indigestible and permanent underclass.
It’s as if he has not followed the debate at all. As has been pointed out a million times, if we legalize all the iillegals who are here, we are telling the Hispanics that if they manage to get here, we will legalize them as well, which makes a hash out of the supported intent to seal the borders. Reed, and TAC by publishing him, are as bad and ignorant as the worst pro-amnesty people.
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Kilroy M. writes:
Just have a look at the portrait he uses on his web site. Would you take this guy seriously? [LA replies: The American Conservative does.] This clown puts more thought into the image that he hopes to represent an eccentric online persona, than the literature he produces and gets published.
Paul K. writes:
Years ago, I read Fred Reed’s column regularly. Eventually, I found I was no longer drawn to it and I dropped the habit. I hadn’t decided exactly what bothered me about him until you described him as a nihilist. I believe that’s it. He sits down there in Mexico and poke holes in what he sees as idiocy, pretentiousness, and hypocrisy of his native land, but he doesn’t have anything constructive to offer. He’s just another bitter expatriate. Also, I can’t understand what he intends to communicate in that photograph of himself on his site, in which he is wearing aviator sunglasses, a leather jacket, USMC t-shirt, and leather aviator cap, while chomping on a large cigar. He looks like a caricature of a foolish, self-impressed macho man. Is that the image he likes to present or am I missing a subtle joke?
LA replies:
Reed is a nihilist, and so is Scott McConnell, the editor of TAC. McConnell has no principles, nothing he believes in. His motivating force is reactive resentment—against neocons, against Israel. Since he has no principles, any positive positions he does pick up, such as the defense of the historical American nation from mass non-European immigration, are easily cast aside.
Gintas writes:
Reed lives in Mexico, is married to a Mexican, he can’t possibly be bothered by living completely surrounded by Mexicans. He is a spent man, a grubby spent character hanging about in a cantina in a spaghetti Western. For a few dollars more he stirs from his siesta and shills for Ron Unz (he of the notorious TAC article about the myth of high immigrant crime rates).
Robert B. from Minnesota writes:
My answer to Fred Reed on Operation Wetback:
Truman on illegals.
Hoover on illegals:
Hoover ordered the immediate removal of all illegal aliens and removed one million of them.
Leonard D. writes:
Perhaps I have been exposed to too much Moldbuggery … but when I read Fred Reed’s scenario for rounding up illegal aliens, I think, “well, yes, that seems practical.” Now, I agree with you that it doesn’t need to be anything like that; there are means both more effective and less intrusive on the liberties of the people than a cordon of Marines dragging people off and literally kicking them. Still, given a boolean choice between another amnesty of lawbreakers, and Reed’s nasty idea … I’d take the nasty.
I see nothing inherently impossible about identifying and forcibly removing 13 million people. Our government has already numbered every citizen, and asserted the right to control every chokepoint of substance. The rest is implementation details. Papers, please!
What’s clear about Reed in that piece (which is not always his problem, but the man is getting old), is that he has forgotten that there are politics and politicians involved. (Normally Reed has little good to say about either.) It’s easy to say “enforce the border and amnesty,” but an amnesty is politically irrevocable, whereas border enforcement is highly revocable. If you propose it without also making clear that you mean it only in a context of a politics alien to the modern USA, you are in effect endorsing only an amnesty. By contrast, a midnight terror raid and frogmarch to the border, followed by Reed’s literal kick across, is certainly revocable, but you’re not trading off anything for it. And neither do I think its criminal recipients would forget it, so it has that going for it.
Dan K. writes:
You may be interested in knowing that Fred Reed is a disabled American veteran. He was nearly blinded during the Viet Nam War and has had many ophthalmic surgical procedures since then. Ever wonder how such an injury would affect a person? Read about it here.
Reed is part of a trio of quite intelligent American cranks, close in birth dates and attitude. The other two dead: John “Birdman” Bryant whose web page remains up but is as still as a grave; and J. Orlin Grabbe whose web presence is being maintained here.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 02, 2010 12:09 AM | Send
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