RSS
David Frum writes in The Atlantic:
Closing Europe’s Harbors
The urgent case for stopping the flow of illegal migrants across the MediterraneanDAVID FRUM JULY/AUGUST 2015 ISSUE
Illegal migration across the Mediterranean has tripled since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 opened the ports of Libya to human smuggling on an unprecedented scale. Some 50,000 migrants made the crossing to southern Europe in the first four months of 2015. Another 1,800 died at sea.
Hundreds of thousands more people are estimated to be waiting in Libya for the chance to cross into Europe. Millions more would follow if they could. The migrants come from a vast swath of Africa and the Middle East, spanning not only war-torn Syria (in the first four months of 2015, Syrians accounted for just 30 percent of those crossing the sea) but also Nigeria and the Gambia and Eritrea and Somalia and Mali. They wish to leave behind poor, unstable countries in order to seek opportunity in the wealthy lands of the European Union. It’s a dangerous gamble. But the prize is huge.
Of the 170,000 migrants who made landfall in Italy in 2014 (Italy being the most common destination for migrant boats last year), reportedly only about 5,000 have actually been deported. Sixty percent of those who sought asylum in the country last year were granted refugee status or other protections upon their first request. (Still more received such status on appeal.) Many migrants don’t wait for a hearing. They spend a few days in an overcrowded reception center, then abscond north to the stronger job markets of France, Germany, and beyond. Italian authorities are sometimes accused of conniving at this escape, so as to lessen the burden these new arrivals pose to Italian taxpayers.
The migrants who embark upon this journey are typically represented as terrorized and impoverished—as people driven (to quote Amnesty International) “to risk their lives in treacherous sea crossings in a desperate attempt to reach safety in Europe.” The demographic and economic facts complicate that story. When populations flee war or famine, they generally flee together: the elderly and the infants, women as well as men. The current migrants, however, are overwhelmingly working-age males. All of them have paid a substantial price to make the trip: it can cost upwards of $2,000 to board a smuggler’s boat, to say nothing of hundreds or even thousands of dollars to travel from home to the embarkation point in the first place. Very few of the migrants from Libya are actually Libyan nationals.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
Wow, I no longer despise David Frum.
Never thought I’d live to see the day…
Never thought I’d live to see the day…"
He's just afraid the Muslims among them might go after Jews.
These migrants are all military aged males. It’s a low-intensity invasion.
I know that studying something like the history of the Roman empire is considered déclassé among our ruling class, but is there not a single one amongst them who gets a weird feeling of déjà vu when they see hordes of barbarians descending on southeastern Europe with a sob story and a request for residence? If not, I'm sure David can give them the Cole's Notes.
One might almost think that David Frum reads your stuff.
Never happen. Europeans lack will, men, money and Arms. The whole place will be African majority in ten years.
Reality, if you won’t fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it. The sea us a cheap highway. Water is the cheapest transport.
Europe has men, money and arms to stop a flow a hundred times greater. What it lacks is *will*.
The start of your 2nd paragraph is dead on:
Reality, if you won’t fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it.Replies: @Rob McX, @Lugash
Second, the sea is not the best way to invade. You are way too vulnerable unless you get to travel in a modern submarine. Cramming 100 people onto a boat designed for 25 that can only make 10 knots is not exactly an ideal landing craft. If your opponent wants to take you out, and has the weaponry to do so, there is no place to hide. Unlike the land you cannot hide in caves or move behind mountains or forests. If the Europeans wanted to sink those boats, they'd be sitting ducks.
So David Frum said it in The Atlantic and now it’s a valid argument? Now the rest of us are allowed to say it too without being cast into the wilderness or called mentally ill or neo-Nazis? Our paperwork is in order now that David Frum’s signature is on it? Goody frigging gumdrops.
He does a nice job. Wonder if he’ll reach some people in the Atlantic who might not otherwise be open to these ideas?
Will pathological altruism destroy Europe? Camp of the Saints now appears to be prophecy….
Never thought I'd live to see the day...Replies: @Cagey Beast, @Anonymous, @Anon
Yes Jake, let’s all thank David Frum for deciding western Europe has his permission to resist it’s own destruction. It’s more than he ever did for the Iraqis. He’s growing and learning as a human being. I hope he decides Russia is allowed to continue to exist too; I kind of like them.
I dream of a time when people like David Frum are stuck selling real estate in Toronto rather than using the US to wreck countries on the other side of the world.
Hm. If David Frum is saying this, it is now the American Jewish slightly conservative position. This is a paradigm shift.
In short, he enters a world of white people.
I’m stunned at the level of perception. No sarcasm, I really am. I had thought of Frum as some kind of neocon troll. He’s actually redeeming himself.
Isn’t Frum some kind of neoconservative? The excerpt from his article sounds surprisingly sensible.
“This is a paradigm shift.”
Frum has been saying this for years. So has Kristol.
Never thought I'd live to see the day...Replies: @Cagey Beast, @Anonymous, @Anon
Frum has always been fairly anti-immigration. His sympathies lie with a strong, neo-conservative state, and he quite sensibly infers that mass immigration detracts from this by ultimately weakening the state and by emboldening ideological extremists such as Islamists and the far-right and weakening neo-conservative ideology.
Although he was not vocally anti-immigration in the past I do not ever remember him being an open borders advocate.
And he seemed quite friendly with Peter Brimelow for many years even if was not a Vdare contributor.
What did he do or write that convinced so many readers of this blog that he was an "invite the world" sort?Replies: @Maj. Kong
Right, based on the elliptical gestures at new European anti-Semitism in this piece, you could make a crack about how Frum is following a version of what Derrick Bell called “interest convergence.” (“Whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest.”) But that would be unfair, because he is equally sensible about hispanic immigration to the US, which has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.
It's one thing when Podunk Nicauragua and bankrupt Venezuela are backing Putin, it's another thing if U.S. Senator Hernandez (D-CA) is doing so.
I don’t think that closing the ‘harbors’ will help much.
One reason that the Australian option won’t work for Europe is that there are way too many small islands that migrants can very easily access. (Lampedusa being the most obvious-but even if somehow it were closed there are others)
Up to 6000 for Greece alone. (up to 227 inhabited Greek islands alone)
Reality, if you won't fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it. The sea us a cheap highway. Water is the cheapest transport.Replies: @AnotherDad, @Officious intermeddler, @Harry Baldwin, @iSteveFan
Whiskey this is ridiculous. The Italian Navy alone is more than capable of stopping this flow–easily. You intercept boats, tow them back to Libya, dump the migrants, jail the captain and sink the boats. The problem is resolved. When the route doesn’t work … people will stop using it! And the cost of that modest military exercise is *much* less–orders of magnitude less–then letting these folks into Italy as refugees.
Europe has men, money and arms to stop a flow a hundred times greater. What it lacks is *will*.
The start of your 2nd paragraph is dead on:
Reality, if you won’t fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it.
The first is that these boats are barely seaworthy. Trying to tow them back across the Mediterranean will certainly result in some sinking. Do you want to be the Italian admiral brought before the Hague for such disregard for human life?
You've got to provide food and water for the tow back. Given how packed these ships are, it won't be easy.
How well do you think the tow cable is going to hold up against an ax? Do you think the passengers are going to stand by while it's hooked up?
You also need to know what port to bring them back to. Not impossible with modern technology, but not trivial. You're also assuming the departure country would take them back.
This article by Frum reminds me of the blog post by the scientist recommending welfare go to men, rather than women. Possibly a good idea, but so out of touch with the practical application and effect it's laughable.Replies: @Wilkey, @Rob McX
I wonder how the death rates on those Mediterranean crossings compare with death rates on Atlantic crossings on slave ships in the 18th century
Still have to toss in a dose of the old PC mantra about how well the USA “assimilates” aliens.We’re not doing so well with the Hispanic Amerinds and Mestizos.
Indeed. When you reward behavior, you get more of it. When you punish behavior, you get less of it. It’s a very radical concept. 🙂
Amazing, what darky will go through to live among racist YT, innit? But it’s our job to keep them out, and safely away from YT’s evil, racist, oppressive nature.
Some figures:
http://necrometrics.com/pre1700b.htm
I agree about Frum.
Although he was not vocally anti-immigration in the past I do not ever remember him being an open borders advocate.
And he seemed quite friendly with Peter Brimelow for many years even if was not a Vdare contributor.
What did he do or write that convinced so many readers of this blog that he was an “invite the world” sort?
His attitude was akin to Imperial Army officers in 1930s Japan.Replies: @PV van der Byl, @PV van der Byl
Right. I’ve been reading Frum since the mid-90s. He’s always been relatively against immigration. There’s nothing unusual about this. Frum is a rational neocon, and he correctly recognizes that the sort of things neocons espouse like a strong, technologically advanced capitalist economy and military, general bourgeois values, etc., are not really compatible with mass immigration. What’s unusual is the large numbers of irrational neocons who don’t recognize this.
We have more of them than we did of the prior waves, and we’re not shutting off immigration immediately after the wave the way we did the past few times due to multiculturalism/cultural Marxism/etc.
I am wondering if Justice Kennedy can write an opinion upholding the fundamental right of anyone on planet Earth to be an American. Something like this:
We — in Europe and the West — are acting this way right now because it doesn’t hurt to be generous. Unfortunately, my money is on the proposition that some day is will hurt. A lot.
Not making this up:
http://time.com/3937570/supreme-court-gay-marriage-memorable/Replies: @Anonymous
I think it all depends on where we sit on the grand chessboard in David Frum’s mind. I remember years ago he wrote an opinion piece saying “we” need to encourage the Germans to get over their anti-militarism because they’d be useful in Iraq. I guess Mr. Frum has plans for Italy and would rather not see them swamped by Muslim migrants for the time being.
That will take care of the Mediterranean but what about el Río Bravo del Norte?
Raspail has always said that it was an allegory, not a prophecy, but now one can’t help but wonder…
Europe has men, money and arms to stop a flow a hundred times greater. What it lacks is *will*.
The start of your 2nd paragraph is dead on:
Reality, if you won’t fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it.Replies: @Rob McX, @Lugash
Even to say Europe “lacks will” is inadequate. Its rulers are deliberately allowing this to happen. The first thing they’d do if they wanted to stop the invasion would be to withdraw from the refugee treaties, which were never meant to apply to these situations anyway. The right to claim refugee status means anyone from any country can turn up and have the right to stay “until their claim is processed”, i.e. forever. They can just disappear if they don’t think their claim will be successful. And even without any fraudulent claims, Africa’s wars and conflicts can generate enough genuine refugees to destroy Europe in no time.
Also, of course, if European governments genuinely didn’t want to replace their indigenous population, why would they be sending “rescue missions” to pick up immigrants who have barely embarked from Africa?
What is the motivation for this, is he concerned about the ethnic displacement of whites or is it simply that this risks making Europe more anti Israel ? I think most people here know the answer, even though I agree that closing off Europe to this invasion is a good idea, it is never a good idea to endorse someone whose motives are not ultimately in the best interest of Europeans.
Europe has two problems currently: a southern region suffering from high unemployment and high debt and an invasion of Africans trying to get to Northern Europe with nothing stopping them. The solution is obvious: the rich Northern European states should pay the unemployed of the Southern European states to be their immigration and border police. Instead of paying Africans to be on on welfare, you pay Greeks to guard the sea lanes and stop the flow. Win all around. Germans are paying Greeks, which will enable them to pay down their debt, Greeks get an economic boost enabling them to stay in Europe, Northern Europe avoids welfare and crime. whole thing will pay for itself.
I wouldn’t put it past him. His majority opinion legalizing SSM contained this gem of hard-headed legal reasoning: “Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there.”
Not making this up:
http://time.com/3937570/supreme-court-gay-marriage-memorable/
Europe has men, money and arms to stop a flow a hundred times greater. What it lacks is *will*.
The start of your 2nd paragraph is dead on:
Reality, if you won’t fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it.Replies: @Rob McX, @Lugash
There are problems with this approach.
The first is that these boats are barely seaworthy. Trying to tow them back across the Mediterranean will certainly result in some sinking. Do you want to be the Italian admiral brought before the Hague for such disregard for human life?
You’ve got to provide food and water for the tow back. Given how packed these ships are, it won’t be easy.
How well do you think the tow cable is going to hold up against an ax? Do you think the passengers are going to stand by while it’s hooked up?
You also need to know what port to bring them back to. Not impossible with modern technology, but not trivial. You’re also assuming the departure country would take them back.
This article by Frum reminds me of the blog post by the scientist recommending welfare go to men, rather than women. Possibly a good idea, but so out of touch with the practical application and effect it’s laughable.
Many of these boats send distress signals (far) closer to to Africa than to Europe. Some are barely outside of Libyan waters. Towing them back to Africa would be faster and easier. Lending North African nations some rescue vessels and paying them to do the work would be easiest of all.
Frum has been on our side WRT to immigration for quite some time. Bill Kristol's epiphany is somewhat more recent. During either the 2006 or 2007 amnesty putsch's, Kristol wrote a column he titled "Y is for Yahoo," with the "yahoo" referring to conservative opponents of amnesty.Replies: @Maj. Kong
That's always the problem. Those immigrants know the rules. If they have no papers, there's nowhere you can send them back to once they land on your soil, or even if you intercept their boat at sea. That's the crazy asylum system in action - supposedly, a refugee may be in danger if he carries papers on fleeing his country, so there's no requirement to have them if you're claiming asylum. The asylum laws erase all borders.Replies: @Nico
Never thought I'd live to see the day...Replies: @Cagey Beast, @Anonymous, @Anon
“Wow, I no longer despise David Frum.
Never thought I’d live to see the day…”
He’s just afraid the Muslims among them might go after Jews.
Not making this up:
http://time.com/3937570/supreme-court-gay-marriage-memorable/Replies: @Anonymous
Wow, that’s really pathetic and sad for any grown man to write, let alone a Supreme Court Justice. I don’t know how any man could write such a thing unless he were gay himself.
If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.
Richard Perle
Iraq had to be destroyed but Italy shall be allowed to live!
Gentlemen, let us raise our voices in hearty good cheer for David Frum, Richard Perle and all the rest of them! I don’t care if they decide to transition to being Chelsea Frum and Caitlyn Perle tomorrow. They’ll always be heroes in my book!
“perpetuates the darkest and most dangerous tendencies of Europeans, old and new alike.”
What’s Frum talking about?
Frum does not offer any policy suggestions, he is just doing a Bill Clinton and saying: “I feel your pain”.
My reading of the Australian immigration policy is they have blocked passage from Indonesia, but the refugees keep coming. At some point they will overwhelm Indonesia or they will en mass make a run for Australia.
The first is that these boats are barely seaworthy. Trying to tow them back across the Mediterranean will certainly result in some sinking. Do you want to be the Italian admiral brought before the Hague for such disregard for human life?
You've got to provide food and water for the tow back. Given how packed these ships are, it won't be easy.
How well do you think the tow cable is going to hold up against an ax? Do you think the passengers are going to stand by while it's hooked up?
You also need to know what port to bring them back to. Not impossible with modern technology, but not trivial. You're also assuming the departure country would take them back.
This article by Frum reminds me of the blog post by the scientist recommending welfare go to men, rather than women. Possibly a good idea, but so out of touch with the practical application and effect it's laughable.Replies: @Wilkey, @Rob McX
“The first is that these boats are barely seaworthy. Trying to tow them back across the Mediterranean will certainly result in some sinking.”
Many of these boats send distress signals (far) closer to to Africa than to Europe. Some are barely outside of Libyan waters. Towing them back to Africa would be faster and easier. Lending North African nations some rescue vessels and paying them to do the work would be easiest of all.
Frum has been on our side WRT to immigration for quite some time. Bill Kristol’s epiphany is somewhat more recent. During either the 2006 or 2007 amnesty putsch’s, Kristol wrote a column he titled “Y is for Yahoo,” with the “yahoo” referring to conservative opponents of amnesty.
Provincial Evangelical vs. Globalist cucked by Tony Blair
Usually “simple” answers are anything but. However, seems to me creating a naval blocade around Libya, or any other aggressive country, until they stop bombing Europe with their mini-Islamic-biowaste-warheads until whatever leadership they have left get’s their acts together would be the cheapest, most efficient remedy to the problem.
Immigrant boats are very easy to spot. Why not stop them 2 miles from shore, instead of waiting to the point of no return. Force them back to shore at gunpoint, then scuttle the boat. When Libya’s bombing stops, the blockade is lifted.
As it is, Western Europe is being carpet bombed with Islam. It’s intentional, it’s aggressive, and it’s just a new angle to Islamic aggression.
Forcing someone to do something at gunpoint only works if they believe you're going to use the gun. After you machine-gunned a boatload or two of would-be immigrants, the invasion would stop, but can you imagine a Western country doing that?
Hardball tactics, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The proviso is that the existence of the zone must be well publicized by saturation advertising many many months before effectualization, so that it is certain that every 'migrant' knows of it and its intent.
In previous ages, before the shitty EU was devised, this action would have been considered a normal and proportionate response to a dire national emergency.
Even as recently as 1973, the Icelanders used force to keep out British trawlers from their self declared fishing limit.
Many of these boats send distress signals (far) closer to to Africa than to Europe. Some are barely outside of Libyan waters. Towing them back to Africa would be faster and easier. Lending North African nations some rescue vessels and paying them to do the work would be easiest of all.
Frum has been on our side WRT to immigration for quite some time. Bill Kristol's epiphany is somewhat more recent. During either the 2006 or 2007 amnesty putsch's, Kristol wrote a column he titled "Y is for Yahoo," with the "yahoo" referring to conservative opponents of amnesty.Replies: @Maj. Kong
Kristol’s patron is currently Phil Anschutz, it was formerly Rupert Murdoch.
Provincial Evangelical vs. Globalist cucked by Tony Blair
Although he was not vocally anti-immigration in the past I do not ever remember him being an open borders advocate.
And he seemed quite friendly with Peter Brimelow for many years even if was not a Vdare contributor.
What did he do or write that convinced so many readers of this blog that he was an "invite the world" sort?Replies: @Maj. Kong
Frum referred to paleoconservative opponents of the Iraq War as traitors in the run-up to the invasion.
His attitude was akin to Imperial Army officers in 1930s Japan.
It’s possible that Frum considers the importation of the Latin ‘pink tide’ to be a long-term threat to current US foreign policy. Recall when Brazil undermined the push for Iran sanctions a few years ago. Latins love humiliating the Yanqui, and there’s no guarantee future Latin senators will be as hawkish as the three Cubans currently in the Senate.
It’s one thing when Podunk Nicauragua and bankrupt Venezuela are backing Putin, it’s another thing if U.S. Senator Hernandez (D-CA) is doing so.
Reality, if you won't fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it. The sea us a cheap highway. Water is the cheapest transport.Replies: @AnotherDad, @Officious intermeddler, @Harry Baldwin, @iSteveFan
The population of the EU is 500,000,000. In the first four months of this year, 50,000 Africans, equal to 0.01% of the EU’s population, crossed over the Mediterranean to Southern Europe. That doesn’t seem like an impossible number of immigrants to absorb, and at that rate, it will take a lot more than 10 years for Africans to become a majority.
There were 'only' 3 million Mexicans in the USA in 1950. Only a 'small trickle' ever crossed the Rio Grande.
Now there are well over 60 million persons of Mexican descent in the USA, and the numbers keep exponating all the time.Replies: @Officious intermeddler
Actually a lot of Hispanic immigrants are anti-Jewish.
The first is that these boats are barely seaworthy. Trying to tow them back across the Mediterranean will certainly result in some sinking. Do you want to be the Italian admiral brought before the Hague for such disregard for human life?
You've got to provide food and water for the tow back. Given how packed these ships are, it won't be easy.
How well do you think the tow cable is going to hold up against an ax? Do you think the passengers are going to stand by while it's hooked up?
You also need to know what port to bring them back to. Not impossible with modern technology, but not trivial. You're also assuming the departure country would take them back.
This article by Frum reminds me of the blog post by the scientist recommending welfare go to men, rather than women. Possibly a good idea, but so out of touch with the practical application and effect it's laughable.Replies: @Wilkey, @Rob McX
You’re also assuming the departure country would take them back.
That’s always the problem. Those immigrants know the rules. If they have no papers, there’s nowhere you can send them back to once they land on your soil, or even if you intercept their boat at sea. That’s the crazy asylum system in action – supposedly, a refugee may be in danger if he carries papers on fleeing his country, so there’s no requirement to have them if you’re claiming asylum. The asylum laws erase all borders.
Iraq isn’t a real country, so you can hardly destroy it. Should the state fail, it would eventually return to the state of nature, which in Araby means small-scale sultanates. Arabs are the only people(s) in the world less capable than Africans of running a modern government.
His attitude was akin to Imperial Army officers in 1930s Japan.Replies: @PV van der Byl, @PV van der Byl
And that has what to do with immigration?
Frum is indeed sane amongst the neoconservatives on immigration, but he's odious on nearly everything else.Replies: @PV van der Byl
His attitude was akin to Imperial Army officers in 1930s Japan.Replies: @PV van der Byl, @PV van der Byl
Were 1930s Japanese Army officers big advocates of immigration to Japan?
Immigrant boats are very easy to spot. Why not stop them 2 miles from shore, instead of waiting to the point of no return. Force them back to shore at gunpoint, then scuttle the boat. When Libya's bombing stops, the blockade is lifted.
As it is, Western Europe is being carpet bombed with Islam. It's intentional, it's aggressive, and it's just a new angle to Islamic aggression.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Harry Baldwin, @Anonymous
Why not just send privately-financed and -launched drones armed with lard? Once they reach the boat, spray them. Perfectly harmless, unless you’re a Mohammedan and lard is your kryptonite.
From Frum’s article:
“In response to this growing threat—which is traceable to migration—European governments have imposed ever-tightening surveillance upon their societies. Thus … the price of increased diversity has been diminished liberty.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard this connection made quite so explicitly before. Is it true for the U.S. as well? I don’t recall if Steve’s ever stated anything like this before, or not. If it’s true for the U.S., it could be an argument against immigration that could be persuasive to many people who currently are not against immigration.
It destroys confidence, this is a man once slated as the future National Review editor who slurred out a major bloc of conservatives. Frum was Helen, the rant that launched a thousand Paulbots screeching about “neocons”.
Frum is indeed sane amongst the neoconservatives on immigration, but he’s odious on nearly everything else.
And what is this "major bloc of conservatives" you are referring to?
Think about it, if you, me, and the other readers of this blog represented the vanguard of a major political bloc, Steve Sailer would be driving something a lot more impressive than a beater with 241,000 miles on it, wouldn't he be?
Look, I really wish we were part of some mass movement and maybe someday we will be, but it certainly doesn't exist now.
The last guy to be on presidential ballot with views largely consonant with your own was Pat Buchanan in 2000 when he got a bit less than 450,000 votes (0.4%) nationwide. That was only slightly better than Ron Paul in 1988 when he ran on the Libertarian ticket. And Buchanan had a lot of advantages including wide name recognition, $10 million in federal funds, and the Reform Party which had gotten 19% and 16% of the Presidential vote in the prior two elections.
Republican congressmen passed the 2002 Iraq War Resolution by 215-6. And of those 6, at least three were really, really bad on immigration (Houghton, Leach, Morella). Republican senators passed it 49-1 and the one (Chafee of Rhode Island) is both bad on immigration and now a registered Democrat.
There is no logical connection between the way any of those people voted on the war and what they believed then or now about immigration. If we had a House and Senate made up of just the GOP war opponents, we'd have open borders for sure. Duncan of Tennessee is an exception but he's just one guy.
And that "Provincial Evangelical" you refer to above? All I can say is, I'd really like to have Phil Anschutz ($13 billion net worth) on my side and not just because he could get Steve a much better new car. Maybe, just maybe, that provincial evangelical has "noticed" a few important things that all us sophisticates here have managed to overlook.
Lastly, I'd welcome Frum, too.
We need all the help we can get. Not least, because there are not that many of us and because our collective financial resources are neglible.
Polls may show large majorities favoring strict immigration controls. Unfortunately, immigration is a salient issue for only a very small part of the electorate. That is, it hasn't been the determining factor in nearly enough elections to stem the tide.
Changing that will require a great deal of persuasion. Believing otherwise is succumbing to magical thinking.Replies: @fnn, @ben tillman
Why can’t we just train dolphins and orcas to capsize the boats?
Iraq isn’t a real country but the United States is? Colorado is just a giant, man-made, imaginary rectangle on the map. Is it really real or would it be okay to give it the same therapy Iraq got? Are Iraqi people real and do they die when you bomb them? What about Iraqi buildings, archives, museums, civilian bomb shelters and schools? Are they just a social construct too? Is Iraq artificial and okay to smash but Israel is real and sacred?
Anyway, let’s not ruin a happy day. Let’s all celebrate Mr. Frum’s ruling on Europe’s right to exist.
You obviously grew up in Christendom. I doubt any Arabs feel an ounce of guilt over the 700-year rape of Spain, or Turks for their pillage of the Balkans and continued occupation of Constantinople.Replies: @Cagey Beast
"In response to this growing threat—which is traceable to migration—European governments have imposed ever-tightening surveillance upon their societies. Thus ... the price of increased diversity has been diminished liberty."
I don't think I've ever heard this connection made quite so explicitly before. Is it true for the U.S. as well? I don't recall if Steve's ever stated anything like this before, or not. If it's true for the U.S., it could be an argument against immigration that could be persuasive to many people who currently are not against immigration.Replies: @Cagey Beast
That point is made much more often by Europeans and I wouldn’t be surprised if Frum picked it up from reading their stuff.
One reason that the Australian option won't work for Europe is that there are way too many small islands that migrants can very easily access. (Lampedusa being the most obvious-but even if somehow it were closed there are others)
Up to 6000 for Greece alone. (up to 227 inhabited Greek islands alone)Replies: @Emblematic
But the Australian option isn’t just denying boat people landfall and returning them to their point of departure.
When boat people can’t be returned to their port of departure they are transported to ‘third countries’ where they are kept in camps until they either agree to being returned to their original home (somewhere in the Middle East for example) or else the United Nations Human Rights Commission finds a place for them in some other country that isn’t Australia.
Basically Australia changed it’s domestic law so that the boat people cannot claim refugee status under international convention unless they reach the Australian mainland, while at the same time Australia pays small Pacific nations to take the refugees and hold them for processing under the UN system.
The policy works because although the boat people always claim to be refugees fleeing persecution what they really want is residency and citizenship in a rich white country. When that option is denied the message soon gets back that it isn’t worth paying a people smuggler thousands of dollars because the real prize has been made unavailable. And the flow stops completely. Australia went from thousands of refugees a month to zero.
And the conservative government could even claim the high moral ground by saying they stopped the pattern of hundreds of people drowning every year. This issue more than any other destroyed the previous Left-of-center government. The whole thing was a total defeat for the Left.
Reality, if you won't fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it. The sea us a cheap highway. Water is the cheapest transport.Replies: @AnotherDad, @Officious intermeddler, @Harry Baldwin, @iSteveFan
if you won’t fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it.
Vilfredo Pareto (1848 –1923) was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher, perhaps best known for the Pareto Principle, or 80 – 20 Rule. In 1902, he wrote:
Europe is now being “partitioned” by the Africans.
…drawn in large part by the people that lived there, not by the Churchill family.
Frum grew up in a world where aerial bombers Roosevelt, Truman, and Churchill were accorded hero status. (He worked for Conrad Black!) Forget Frum; if dead babies offend you, campaign to take FDR off the dime.
You obviously grew up in Christendom. I doubt any Arabs feel an ounce of guilt over the 700-year rape of Spain, or Turks for their pillage of the Balkans and continued occupation of Constantinople.
And this is why people shouldn't so glibly endorse the fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities or other atrocities carried out by the Allies in that war. People sign their name under those crimes and then turn around - like you just did - and say it okay to do more of the same.
I doubt any Arabs feel an ounce of guilt over the 700-year rape of Spain, or Turks for their pillage of the Balkans and continued occupation of Constantinople.
You do understand that the chaos and carnage Frum and his chums brought down upon Iraq is still going on right now? Not 500yrs ago or 70yrs ago but this morning in Iraq? You understand that Frum and his gang are pushing for the same chaos in Ukraine too don't you?
http://mediaroots.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Screen-Shot-2014-05-17-at-9.29.23-PM.pngReplies: @Reg Cæsar
Immigrant boats are very easy to spot. Why not stop them 2 miles from shore, instead of waiting to the point of no return. Force them back to shore at gunpoint, then scuttle the boat. When Libya's bombing stops, the blockade is lifted.
As it is, Western Europe is being carpet bombed with Islam. It's intentional, it's aggressive, and it's just a new angle to Islamic aggression.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Harry Baldwin, @Anonymous
Force them back to shore at gunpoint, then scuttle the boat.
Forcing someone to do something at gunpoint only works if they believe you’re going to use the gun. After you machine-gunned a boatload or two of would-be immigrants, the invasion would stop, but can you imagine a Western country doing that?
You obviously grew up in Christendom. I doubt any Arabs feel an ounce of guilt over the 700-year rape of Spain, or Turks for their pillage of the Balkans and continued occupation of Constantinople.Replies: @Cagey Beast
Forget Frum; if dead babies offend you, campaign to take FDR off the dime.
And this is why people shouldn’t so glibly endorse the fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities or other atrocities carried out by the Allies in that war. People sign their name under those crimes and then turn around – like you just did – and say it okay to do more of the same.
I doubt any Arabs feel an ounce of guilt over the 700-year rape of Spain, or Turks for their pillage of the Balkans and continued occupation of Constantinople.
You do understand that the chaos and carnage Frum and his chums brought down upon Iraq is still going on right now? Not 500yrs ago or 70yrs ago but this morning in Iraq? You understand that Frum and his gang are pushing for the same chaos in Ukraine too don’t you?
If you are a Virginian or Californian you can move to Denver, rent an apartment, live a normal life in that giant rectangle. If you are an Sunni Iraqi from Tikrit and you move to the (now totally Shia) Baghdad do you think a normal life would be the result? Who would you rather be? That why the United States is, and Iraq isn’t, a real country.
The newspapers and websites running these photos and declaring that something must be done are generally showing pictures that consist almost exclusively of young men. It’s like they’re not even trying anymore.
I know that studying something like the history of the Roman empire is considered déclassé among our ruling class, but is there not a single one amongst them who gets a weird feeling of déjà vu when they see hordes of barbarians descending on southeastern Europe with a sob story and a request for residence? If not, I’m sure David can give them the Cole’s Notes.
And this is why people shouldn't so glibly endorse the fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities or other atrocities carried out by the Allies in that war. People sign their name under those crimes and then turn around - like you just did - and say it okay to do more of the same.
I doubt any Arabs feel an ounce of guilt over the 700-year rape of Spain, or Turks for their pillage of the Balkans and continued occupation of Constantinople.
You do understand that the chaos and carnage Frum and his chums brought down upon Iraq is still going on right now? Not 500yrs ago or 70yrs ago but this morning in Iraq? You understand that Frum and his gang are pushing for the same chaos in Ukraine too don't you?
http://mediaroots.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Screen-Shot-2014-05-17-at-9.29.23-PM.pngReplies: @Reg Cæsar
When did I say it was okay?
ISIS draws its inspiration from its prophet. The very language Frum writes in was in its infancy when that prophet spoke. And acted.
I don’t think the re-invasion of Iraq was a good idea, either. For one thing, Saddam Hussein was easy on his Christians, and viciously cruel to his Moslems.
Sounds like good government to me.
The old get older
And the young get stronger
May take a week
And it may take longer
They got the guns
But we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah
We’re takin’ over
Come on!
“Five to One” on the album Waiting for the Sun (1968)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jim_Morrison
It’s easier to make the numbers work than the guns.
Look, the whole business with Frum and Kristol isn’t very complicated. They’re just dishonest opportunists, and mediocre apparatchiks to boot.
I remember back in the early 1990s when Charles Murray was passing around the early draft of his Bell Curve book and meeting with all of them in DC. They all strategized about how to put together the critical mass of support to get the book a successful launch and ward off any media backlash.
Then in 1995 after the book was published and soon provoked a huge media backlash, Kristol went around trying to round up a critical mass of prominent conservatives to *denounce* the now-vile book and thereby protect him and his friends from any damage.
It seems silly to me to get all thrilled and giddy when your deepest beliefs are publicly echoed by some totally dishonest and opportunistic political appartchik (who also isn’t very smart or competent), but each to his own I suppose. I’m sure all the dim Southron-types were always thrilled a month or two ago when Alabama and South Carolina Republican leaders were going around giving proud speeches at Confederate memorials, but now those same leaders are demanding that the Confederate Flag be outlawed.
Maybe all the rightwingers who hang around here should remember how the neocons took over the conservative movement. Conservatives decided that the hostile media would go easier on them if they put neocons in prominent positions and selected them as spokesmen. But once they controlled the public face of the movement and a few other key positions, they quickly purged any resisters and pretty soon a rising generation of conservatives assumed they *were* the movement. Unsurprisingly, a few of those neocons have now decided they’d like to take over rightwing paleocon movement in exactly the same way by temporarily mouthing a few slogans, and I can’t see anything much stopping them.
I remember joking with someone a few years ago that I fully expected lots of the rightwing conservative movement preacher-types then leading the public crusade against Gay Marriage would eventually be presiding over Gay Marriages in their own churches, and things seem to be moving even faster in that direction than I ever expected.
It’s really not a good idea to put your trust in people who just blow with the political wind unless you have a hankering for weathervanes.
That these guys are all opportunists, I don't doubt--most people in politics are. But if they are starting to say they are against immigration, maybe the tide is starting to turn..?
Is it more important to have a pure movement, or to accomplish your goals? You want to stop mass illegal Mexican immigration, correct? The more people who say they want to, and the more respectable that position becomes, the more likely you are to succeed.
After all, you can always start another movement. It's easier and easier to organize these days.
Frum is indeed sane amongst the neoconservatives on immigration, but he's odious on nearly everything else.Replies: @PV van der Byl
Destroys whose confidence? iSteve readers?
And what is this “major bloc of conservatives” you are referring to?
Think about it, if you, me, and the other readers of this blog represented the vanguard of a major political bloc, Steve Sailer would be driving something a lot more impressive than a beater with 241,000 miles on it, wouldn’t he be?
Look, I really wish we were part of some mass movement and maybe someday we will be, but it certainly doesn’t exist now.
The last guy to be on presidential ballot with views largely consonant with your own was Pat Buchanan in 2000 when he got a bit less than 450,000 votes (0.4%) nationwide. That was only slightly better than Ron Paul in 1988 when he ran on the Libertarian ticket. And Buchanan had a lot of advantages including wide name recognition, $10 million in federal funds, and the Reform Party which had gotten 19% and 16% of the Presidential vote in the prior two elections.
Republican congressmen passed the 2002 Iraq War Resolution by 215-6. And of those 6, at least three were really, really bad on immigration (Houghton, Leach, Morella). Republican senators passed it 49-1 and the one (Chafee of Rhode Island) is both bad on immigration and now a registered Democrat.
There is no logical connection between the way any of those people voted on the war and what they believed then or now about immigration. If we had a House and Senate made up of just the GOP war opponents, we’d have open borders for sure. Duncan of Tennessee is an exception but he’s just one guy.
And that “Provincial Evangelical” you refer to above? All I can say is, I’d really like to have Phil Anschutz ($13 billion net worth) on my side and not just because he could get Steve a much better new car. Maybe, just maybe, that provincial evangelical has “noticed” a few important things that all us sophisticates here have managed to overlook.
Lastly, I’d welcome Frum, too.
We need all the help we can get. Not least, because there are not that many of us and because our collective financial resources are neglible.
Polls may show large majorities favoring strict immigration controls. Unfortunately, immigration is a salient issue for only a very small part of the electorate. That is, it hasn’t been the determining factor in nearly enough elections to stem the tide.
Changing that will require a great deal of persuasion. Believing otherwise is succumbing to magical thinking.
I remember back in the early 1990s when Charles Murray was passing around the early draft of his Bell Curve book and meeting with all of them in DC. They all strategized about how to put together the critical mass of support to get the book a successful launch and ward off any media backlash.
Then in 1995 after the book was published and soon provoked a huge media backlash, Kristol went around trying to round up a critical mass of prominent conservatives to *denounce* the now-vile book and thereby protect him and his friends from any damage.
It seems silly to me to get all thrilled and giddy when your deepest beliefs are publicly echoed by some totally dishonest and opportunistic political appartchik (who also isn't very smart or competent), but each to his own I suppose. I'm sure all the dim Southron-types were always thrilled a month or two ago when Alabama and South Carolina Republican leaders were going around giving proud speeches at Confederate memorials, but now those same leaders are demanding that the Confederate Flag be outlawed.
Maybe all the rightwingers who hang around here should remember how the neocons took over the conservative movement. Conservatives decided that the hostile media would go easier on them if they put neocons in prominent positions and selected them as spokesmen. But once they controlled the public face of the movement and a few other key positions, they quickly purged any resisters and pretty soon a rising generation of conservatives assumed they *were* the movement. Unsurprisingly, a few of those neocons have now decided they'd like to take over rightwing paleocon movement in exactly the same way by temporarily mouthing a few slogans, and I can't see anything much stopping them.
I remember joking with someone a few years ago that I fully expected lots of the rightwing conservative movement preacher-types then leading the public crusade against Gay Marriage would eventually be presiding over Gay Marriages in their own churches, and things seem to be moving even faster in that direction than I ever expected.
It's really not a good idea to put your trust in people who just blow with the political wind unless you have a hankering for weathervanes.Replies: @Wilkey, @Stealth, @Stealth, @SFG
“Look, the whole business with Frum and Kristol isn’t very complicated. They’re just dishonest opportunists, and mediocre apparatchiks to boot.”
True, but I’d prefer that the opportunists see more opportunities in mouthing our platitudes than in mouthing those of the other side – unless they’re just waiting for a big conversion moment. In the case of Kristol it’s too late for that. He’s already converted once. He can’t convert again.
As for the Confederate flag? Being one with some Southern heritage, I never remotely cared to own one…until all the Two Minute Hate types told me I couldn’t. But Amazon won’t sell me one, so I guess I’ll buy a Che Guevara shirt from them instead.
The notion that EU member states actually have ‘national interests’ let alone ‘national interests worth defending’ seems non-existent. They seem somehow to have ‘legislated themselves out of national interests’ by their leaders insistence that all state actions are effectively paralysed and vetoed by slavish adherence to various treaties, ‘human rights acts’ and the like.
Basically leaders have rendered themselves useless by abdicating leadership to someone or something else, in this case hiding behind abstract concepts and ‘rules’, whist quietly fulminating and being about as useful as eunuchs at an orgy.
It’s absurd. The job of a leader is to lead. If a leader hides behind a wall of legislation and then declares himself ‘unable to do anything’ he is then worse than useless.
Treaties are made to be abrogated. All that matters is the national interest.
Compare and contrast this present, absurd, one legged man ass-kicking contest, with the way Maggie Thatcher acted over the Falklands.
Immigrant boats are very easy to spot. Why not stop them 2 miles from shore, instead of waiting to the point of no return. Force them back to shore at gunpoint, then scuttle the boat. When Libya's bombing stops, the blockade is lifted.
As it is, Western Europe is being carpet bombed with Islam. It's intentional, it's aggressive, and it's just a new angle to Islamic aggression.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Harry Baldwin, @Anonymous
Traditionally, the way to do this is to declare a ‘naval exclusion zone’ within a certain number of miles of the Italian coast line. Any hostile vessel within the zone is liable to be sunk.
Hardball tactics, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The proviso is that the existence of the zone must be well publicized by saturation advertising many many months before effectualization, so that it is certain that every ‘migrant’ knows of it and its intent.
In previous ages, before the shitty EU was devised, this action would have been considered a normal and proportionate response to a dire national emergency.
Even as recently as 1973, the Icelanders used force to keep out British trawlers from their self declared fishing limit.
Yep.
There were ‘only’ 3 million Mexicans in the USA in 1950. Only a ‘small trickle’ ever crossed the Rio Grande.
Now there are well over 60 million persons of Mexican descent in the USA, and the numbers keep exponating all the time.
60 million hispanics constitute 19% of the population of the US. 19% is less than a majority.Replies: @anonymous
Since refugees, real or imagined, are the cause du jour, I can’t wait to see all the stories that the right-thinking media is going to run about all the white Europeans who are going to have to flee from their neighbourhoods when the new arrivals transform them into Mogadishu-upon-Thames and Nova Beirut. Or is wanting to keep your daughter from being raped a manifestation of White Privilege?
Iraq is a made-up country; made up by the British and French after WW I as a congeries of inimical races and ethniucities. The British and French did this deliberately to ensure that Iraq would always be weak and unstable, in the hope that this would allow imperial powers to more easily exploit the oil resources in the region. Only about one-third of Iraqis are Arabs. About another third are of Persian descent, i.e., as Aryan as any European. The remaining third once included a surprisingly large number of various non-mohammedan minorities but genocides caused by US-meddling have essentially rubbed out a lot of these folks.
And what is this "major bloc of conservatives" you are referring to?
Think about it, if you, me, and the other readers of this blog represented the vanguard of a major political bloc, Steve Sailer would be driving something a lot more impressive than a beater with 241,000 miles on it, wouldn't he be?
Look, I really wish we were part of some mass movement and maybe someday we will be, but it certainly doesn't exist now.
The last guy to be on presidential ballot with views largely consonant with your own was Pat Buchanan in 2000 when he got a bit less than 450,000 votes (0.4%) nationwide. That was only slightly better than Ron Paul in 1988 when he ran on the Libertarian ticket. And Buchanan had a lot of advantages including wide name recognition, $10 million in federal funds, and the Reform Party which had gotten 19% and 16% of the Presidential vote in the prior two elections.
Republican congressmen passed the 2002 Iraq War Resolution by 215-6. And of those 6, at least three were really, really bad on immigration (Houghton, Leach, Morella). Republican senators passed it 49-1 and the one (Chafee of Rhode Island) is both bad on immigration and now a registered Democrat.
There is no logical connection between the way any of those people voted on the war and what they believed then or now about immigration. If we had a House and Senate made up of just the GOP war opponents, we'd have open borders for sure. Duncan of Tennessee is an exception but he's just one guy.
And that "Provincial Evangelical" you refer to above? All I can say is, I'd really like to have Phil Anschutz ($13 billion net worth) on my side and not just because he could get Steve a much better new car. Maybe, just maybe, that provincial evangelical has "noticed" a few important things that all us sophisticates here have managed to overlook.
Lastly, I'd welcome Frum, too.
We need all the help we can get. Not least, because there are not that many of us and because our collective financial resources are neglible.
Polls may show large majorities favoring strict immigration controls. Unfortunately, immigration is a salient issue for only a very small part of the electorate. That is, it hasn't been the determining factor in nearly enough elections to stem the tide.
Changing that will require a great deal of persuasion. Believing otherwise is succumbing to magical thinking.Replies: @fnn, @ben tillman
In the 1996 GOP primaries PJB came in second with 3,184,943 votes(20.76%). He also won four states. In 2000 everything went wrong -he had to fight off Ross Perot and legal challenges by the well-organized followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. All the negative publicity along with the rubes’ continued illusions about the GOP killed any chance for a decent result. Buchanan also hurt himself by failing to choose a better running mate-but I don’t know if anyone better was willing to run with him. If he had chosen Ron Paul the campaign (such as it was) would have been all about racist newsletters.
There were 'only' 3 million Mexicans in the USA in 1950. Only a 'small trickle' ever crossed the Rio Grande.
Now there are well over 60 million persons of Mexican descent in the USA, and the numbers keep exponating all the time.Replies: @Officious intermeddler
1950 was 65 years ago. 65 is more than 10.
60 million hispanics constitute 19% of the population of the US. 19% is less than a majority.
Of course it will moderate somewhat, but the general direction is there.
Needless to say it took India hundreds of thousands of years to achieve what Mexicans threaten in 130.
Pat had major surgery in mid-2000 and was off the campaign trail for several months to recuperate.
I doubt it. Open borders are sacred in liberal ideology, and individual liberals are not allowed to disagree even a little bit.
I remember back in the early 1990s when Charles Murray was passing around the early draft of his Bell Curve book and meeting with all of them in DC. They all strategized about how to put together the critical mass of support to get the book a successful launch and ward off any media backlash.
Then in 1995 after the book was published and soon provoked a huge media backlash, Kristol went around trying to round up a critical mass of prominent conservatives to *denounce* the now-vile book and thereby protect him and his friends from any damage.
It seems silly to me to get all thrilled and giddy when your deepest beliefs are publicly echoed by some totally dishonest and opportunistic political appartchik (who also isn't very smart or competent), but each to his own I suppose. I'm sure all the dim Southron-types were always thrilled a month or two ago when Alabama and South Carolina Republican leaders were going around giving proud speeches at Confederate memorials, but now those same leaders are demanding that the Confederate Flag be outlawed.
Maybe all the rightwingers who hang around here should remember how the neocons took over the conservative movement. Conservatives decided that the hostile media would go easier on them if they put neocons in prominent positions and selected them as spokesmen. But once they controlled the public face of the movement and a few other key positions, they quickly purged any resisters and pretty soon a rising generation of conservatives assumed they *were* the movement. Unsurprisingly, a few of those neocons have now decided they'd like to take over rightwing paleocon movement in exactly the same way by temporarily mouthing a few slogans, and I can't see anything much stopping them.
I remember joking with someone a few years ago that I fully expected lots of the rightwing conservative movement preacher-types then leading the public crusade against Gay Marriage would eventually be presiding over Gay Marriages in their own churches, and things seem to be moving even faster in that direction than I ever expected.
It's really not a good idea to put your trust in people who just blow with the political wind unless you have a hankering for weathervanes.Replies: @Wilkey, @Stealth, @Stealth, @SFG
If speaking out against mass immigration is an opportunity, it’s not an opportunity for anything resembling personal gain. Nobody makes any money or earns any prestige for saying the kind of things Frum and Kristol occasionally say about immigration, and I don’t like or trust either one of them as far as I can throw them. I don’t get excited about their opinions on the matter, either, because I know nothing will be done about it anyway.
I don’t think most proponents of immigration restriction see David Frum as a potential spokesman. I think they’re just pleased when someone who’s not part of their movement publicly shows a little bit of rationality on this issue.
Steve,
I don’t mean to put you on the spot ; ), but what do you think of Unz’s (Unz’?) assessment of David Frum’s motives?
“True, but I’d prefer that the opportunists [Frum and Kristol] see more opportunities in mouthing our platitudes than in mouthing those of the other side – unless they’re just waiting for a big conversion moment.”
I think that David Frum writes about immigration in a tone of voice and in terms that Progressives might be able to relate to.
I remember back in the early 1990s when Charles Murray was passing around the early draft of his Bell Curve book and meeting with all of them in DC. They all strategized about how to put together the critical mass of support to get the book a successful launch and ward off any media backlash.
Then in 1995 after the book was published and soon provoked a huge media backlash, Kristol went around trying to round up a critical mass of prominent conservatives to *denounce* the now-vile book and thereby protect him and his friends from any damage.
It seems silly to me to get all thrilled and giddy when your deepest beliefs are publicly echoed by some totally dishonest and opportunistic political appartchik (who also isn't very smart or competent), but each to his own I suppose. I'm sure all the dim Southron-types were always thrilled a month or two ago when Alabama and South Carolina Republican leaders were going around giving proud speeches at Confederate memorials, but now those same leaders are demanding that the Confederate Flag be outlawed.
Maybe all the rightwingers who hang around here should remember how the neocons took over the conservative movement. Conservatives decided that the hostile media would go easier on them if they put neocons in prominent positions and selected them as spokesmen. But once they controlled the public face of the movement and a few other key positions, they quickly purged any resisters and pretty soon a rising generation of conservatives assumed they *were* the movement. Unsurprisingly, a few of those neocons have now decided they'd like to take over rightwing paleocon movement in exactly the same way by temporarily mouthing a few slogans, and I can't see anything much stopping them.
I remember joking with someone a few years ago that I fully expected lots of the rightwing conservative movement preacher-types then leading the public crusade against Gay Marriage would eventually be presiding over Gay Marriages in their own churches, and things seem to be moving even faster in that direction than I ever expected.
It's really not a good idea to put your trust in people who just blow with the political wind unless you have a hankering for weathervanes.Replies: @Wilkey, @Stealth, @Stealth, @SFG
What would they be taking over? Vdare, for instance, has trouble raising thirty thousand dollars once a year. What would it profit anyone to lead the remnants of a despised and insignificant minority of people who can no longer safely voice their own opinions in public?
And what is this "major bloc of conservatives" you are referring to?
Think about it, if you, me, and the other readers of this blog represented the vanguard of a major political bloc, Steve Sailer would be driving something a lot more impressive than a beater with 241,000 miles on it, wouldn't he be?
Look, I really wish we were part of some mass movement and maybe someday we will be, but it certainly doesn't exist now.
The last guy to be on presidential ballot with views largely consonant with your own was Pat Buchanan in 2000 when he got a bit less than 450,000 votes (0.4%) nationwide. That was only slightly better than Ron Paul in 1988 when he ran on the Libertarian ticket. And Buchanan had a lot of advantages including wide name recognition, $10 million in federal funds, and the Reform Party which had gotten 19% and 16% of the Presidential vote in the prior two elections.
Republican congressmen passed the 2002 Iraq War Resolution by 215-6. And of those 6, at least three were really, really bad on immigration (Houghton, Leach, Morella). Republican senators passed it 49-1 and the one (Chafee of Rhode Island) is both bad on immigration and now a registered Democrat.
There is no logical connection between the way any of those people voted on the war and what they believed then or now about immigration. If we had a House and Senate made up of just the GOP war opponents, we'd have open borders for sure. Duncan of Tennessee is an exception but he's just one guy.
And that "Provincial Evangelical" you refer to above? All I can say is, I'd really like to have Phil Anschutz ($13 billion net worth) on my side and not just because he could get Steve a much better new car. Maybe, just maybe, that provincial evangelical has "noticed" a few important things that all us sophisticates here have managed to overlook.
Lastly, I'd welcome Frum, too.
We need all the help we can get. Not least, because there are not that many of us and because our collective financial resources are neglible.
Polls may show large majorities favoring strict immigration controls. Unfortunately, immigration is a salient issue for only a very small part of the electorate. That is, it hasn't been the determining factor in nearly enough elections to stem the tide.
Changing that will require a great deal of persuasion. Believing otherwise is succumbing to magical thinking.Replies: @fnn, @ben tillman
Sure there is. They’re both invasions.
“Traditionally, the way to do this is to declare a ‘naval exclusion zone’ within a certain number of miles of the Italian coast line. Any hostile vessel within the zone is liable to be sunk.”
Naval blockades intended exactly to stop things such as the Libyan boatpeople are well understood and very effective.
The Northern blockade of the Confederacy was very effective.
The US naval blockade of South Vietnam was very effective:
Operation Market Time
Operation Game Warden
Heck, Israel has an effective blockade on the coast of the Gaza strip going on today.
These things are well understood. The West has always excelled in the exercise of naval power: List of historical blockades
The people at the top are unwilling to act. My thought is that they are psychologically unable to deal with anyone not thinking of them as “nice”, not describing them as the nicest people in the room. They are also unable to conceive of anything ever actually endangering them, being a real threat, or things fundamentally changing. All options are on the table, it’s the art of the possible, anything we can conceive, we can do, that sort of thing. Hubris to protect a saintly self-image.
“No more good should be attempted than the people can bear.”
I remember back in the early 1990s when Charles Murray was passing around the early draft of his Bell Curve book and meeting with all of them in DC. They all strategized about how to put together the critical mass of support to get the book a successful launch and ward off any media backlash.
Then in 1995 after the book was published and soon provoked a huge media backlash, Kristol went around trying to round up a critical mass of prominent conservatives to *denounce* the now-vile book and thereby protect him and his friends from any damage.
It seems silly to me to get all thrilled and giddy when your deepest beliefs are publicly echoed by some totally dishonest and opportunistic political appartchik (who also isn't very smart or competent), but each to his own I suppose. I'm sure all the dim Southron-types were always thrilled a month or two ago when Alabama and South Carolina Republican leaders were going around giving proud speeches at Confederate memorials, but now those same leaders are demanding that the Confederate Flag be outlawed.
Maybe all the rightwingers who hang around here should remember how the neocons took over the conservative movement. Conservatives decided that the hostile media would go easier on them if they put neocons in prominent positions and selected them as spokesmen. But once they controlled the public face of the movement and a few other key positions, they quickly purged any resisters and pretty soon a rising generation of conservatives assumed they *were* the movement. Unsurprisingly, a few of those neocons have now decided they'd like to take over rightwing paleocon movement in exactly the same way by temporarily mouthing a few slogans, and I can't see anything much stopping them.
I remember joking with someone a few years ago that I fully expected lots of the rightwing conservative movement preacher-types then leading the public crusade against Gay Marriage would eventually be presiding over Gay Marriages in their own churches, and things seem to be moving even faster in that direction than I ever expected.
It's really not a good idea to put your trust in people who just blow with the political wind unless you have a hankering for weathervanes.Replies: @Wilkey, @Stealth, @Stealth, @SFG
I would like to respectfully disagree with the blog owner.
That these guys are all opportunists, I don’t doubt–most people in politics are. But if they are starting to say they are against immigration, maybe the tide is starting to turn..?
Is it more important to have a pure movement, or to accomplish your goals? You want to stop mass illegal Mexican immigration, correct? The more people who say they want to, and the more respectable that position becomes, the more likely you are to succeed.
After all, you can always start another movement. It’s easier and easier to organize these days.
60 million hispanics constitute 19% of the population of the US. 19% is less than a majority.Replies: @anonymous
Well, of course if Mexicans in the USA manage to keep up the same rate of increase, and there’s no sign of abating, then there will be something in the region of 1.2 billion persons of Mexican descent in the USA by 2080. A number roughly equivalent to the popuation of India today, or just a tad less than China’s population.
Of course it will moderate somewhat, but the general direction is there.
Needless to say it took India hundreds of thousands of years to achieve what Mexicans threaten in 130.
Actually, modern day Persians are by far more closely genetically related to their Arab neighbors than to any modern European population.
Reality, if you won't fight for what you got, the Third World will come and take it. The sea us a cheap highway. Water is the cheapest transport.Replies: @AnotherDad, @Officious intermeddler, @Harry Baldwin, @iSteveFan
Let’s get real. Europe has hundreds of millions of people and access to the best weaponry money can buy. The lack of will is essentially a top-down driven phenomenon. If the elite changed their view on this topic overnight, the people below would very quickly behave like their forefathers and easily put to an end this so-called migration.
Second, the sea is not the best way to invade. You are way too vulnerable unless you get to travel in a modern submarine. Cramming 100 people onto a boat designed for 25 that can only make 10 knots is not exactly an ideal landing craft. If your opponent wants to take you out, and has the weaponry to do so, there is no place to hide. Unlike the land you cannot hide in caves or move behind mountains or forests. If the Europeans wanted to sink those boats, they’d be sitting ducks.
Bingo.
That's always the problem. Those immigrants know the rules. If they have no papers, there's nowhere you can send them back to once they land on your soil, or even if you intercept their boat at sea. That's the crazy asylum system in action - supposedly, a refugee may be in danger if he carries papers on fleeing his country, so there's no requirement to have them if you're claiming asylum. The asylum laws erase all borders.Replies: @Nico
This begs the question of whether there is any responsibility to “send them back” anywhere beyond setting them loose at sea and not allowing them to land on my own shores.
I for one could frankly not give two hoots and a holler what happens afterwards.
There are two things which will change the game.
One is that the Arabian peninsula will run out of oil and hence the ability to finance Islamic millenarianism and Salafist revival worldwide. There will be less incentive to kiss their arses in the West. There will of course be Qatar and the UAE with their PITA overseas investments, but since neither a Qatari nor an Emerati can possibly pass for a Euro yuppie nor does either hold anything of patrimonial value for global tourists who will no longer be able afford luxury complexes, the chances of them creating anything like the sort of mischief Luxembourg, Monaco or Switzerland has created, post petro, are commensurately lower. Seizing it all back will be a cakewalk at that point.
The second thing is that due to a combination of collapse of cheap petro and gross financial mismanagement, the United States will no longer be in a position to a) occupy Europe militarily as it has since the 1940s, b) dictate the finer ongoings of the European Union (assuming this body survives the next five to ten years, which is at least an uncertainty) or c) subvention the international Human Rights forums and NGOs which would pillory anyone daring to go after existential threats.
What follows will be ugly but necessary, and the unpleasantness may be somewhat offset by a few entertaining interstices. At least we’ll still have beer.
Well, I don’t know this Frum character and, from what I’ve read here, he is a bit of a willow in the wind, but he’s okay in my book, as long as he keeps advocating for the survival of Europe. You talk about reflexive anti-Americanism in the EU, but you don’t know to what extent there has been like a cultural osmosis from your social justice freaks to ours. As in everything, the US leads the pack when it comes to self-abolition and its accompanying rhetoric, and the morons in the EU are taking notice and copying its example. So we need Americans, especially those with enough name recognition and not too much reflex rejection (most Republicans have a very cartoon character quality to them in Europe, like Yosemite Sam) to actually say the right things.
I remember this video, lemme see if I can find it, of students (white mostly) complaining that the curriculum of the London School of Economics is too white. What does that even mean? Would Keynes in blackface on the manuals be more acceptable?