A touchstone of conservatism

In the cover story of the June 2009 issue of The American Spectator, entitled “Pro-Mexico,” Angelo Codevilla issued a pronunciamento that we the American people must merge ourselves with the Mexican people, loving them as we love ourselves. I responded at length. In a follow-up, discussing the fact that the supposedly conservative magazine TAC, published by the purportedly conservative Alfred Regnery, had published Codevilla’s unhinged 4,000 word essay, I said this:

[N]o matter how conservative a person may think he is, if he does not believe in the American nation as a concrete thing, but sees it only as a set of principles, then when it comes to Third World immigration he will almost automatically do a Benedict Arnold to the open borders camp in order to distance himself from “racism.”

And this is the ground on which genuine conservatives must take a stand: If you only believe in America as a set of ideas and values, if you don’t believe in America as a concrete historical nation, people, and culture, then you’re not a conservative, and you’re not on our side. You’re on the other side.

People will say my position is extreme and fascistic. But it is no more extreme and fascistic to say that America is a concrete nation, and not just a set of ideas, than it is to say that a human being is a concrete person, and not just a set of ideas.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 19, 2011 02:59 PM | Send