The Immigration Disaster
by Nelson Hultberg
November 10, 2006
We can't say we weren't warned. In 1995, Peter Brimelow told us
in Alien Nation that we were facing a looming immigration
disaster of monumental proportions. John Hospers followed shortly
thereafter with a riveting analysis of immigration in the Journal
of Libertarian Studies (Summer 1998).And now Stephen Cox has
put forth a brilliant expose of this problem in Liberty (September
2006). These three scholars have coolly and rationally outlined the
reasons for the disaster and what must be done to start getting it
under control. The reward for their iconoclasm is vitriol and derision
from not only the establishment, but also from many very astute libertarians.
None of which matters, of course. These three intellects care nothing
for such opinions; they are after the truth and its exposition. "They
see through their own eyes," as Rand would say.
But unfortunately the proverbial sowing is now being reaped. Aliens
are swarming into America like fire ants into a backyard picnic.
Yet we are reassured by authorities of the Bush administration that
there is no problem with such a state of affairs; we have always
been a nation of immigrants. Today's swarms can be assimilated just
as they were in the days of yesteryear.
Such sophistry is outrageous. Today's political-economic environment
is nothing like what the early 20th century immigrants were drawn
to. That era was the golden age of freedom in the West. There was
no monstrous welfare state to turn hopeful immigrants into leeches
on the lives of the American middle class. Our once self-reliant
America has degenerated into a pusillanimous nanny state that encourages
all manner of slovenliness, illiterateness, anti-Americanism, and
ethnic idiocy. In fact it goes out of its way to cultivate such among
its own offspring, instituting educational policies and ideologies
that dumb the populace down to the lowest common denominator. So,
of course, our legislators have no problem with a runaway immigration
system that attracts hordes of human illiterates. The more ignorant
masses that can be brought to our shores, the easier it is for the
charlatans in Washington to be re-elected by pulling the wool over
the voters' eyes. Jefferson's vision of an educated electorate and
natural aristocracy of merit leading America with high-minded politics
is not for today's political humbugs. Today's politicos wish only
to appease the corporate-statists with their "come on in" exhortations
to Latin America.
But "[w]hen the new immigrants become a majority of the American
population," writes John Hospers, "will there be more, or less, devotion
than there is now to the ideals of individual rights and limited
government? Will the bureaucracy that is so corrupt in Mexico be
any less so when it has migrated north of the border? Will there
be less of a tendency than now to 'live off the government'? Will
the new immigrants help to stem the tide of taxes and regulations
that now bid fair to bring the American republic to its knees? Shall
the future of America rest on so slender a reed as this?" ["A Libertarian
Argument Against Open Borders," Journal of Libertarian Studies 13:2,
Summer 1998, p. 162.]
A recent report from Colorado school teacher and author, Frosty
Wooldridge, gives us a stark view as to how Dr. Hospers' concerns
will be answered in the future:
"In a five year study starting in 1999 in Denver Public Schools,
5,663 students started the eighth grade. Five years later, only 1,884
graduated from high school. That's a 65 percent drop out/flunk out
rate! That's pathetic, if not frightening....
"What was the cause? First of all, 30,000 illegal aliens, speaking
40 different languages, attended Denver schools. Our classrooms suffered
thousands of kids functionally illiterate in English with parents
functionally illiterate in English and Spanish. The classrooms featured
so much incompatible diversity that it created horrific tension,
stabbings and death.
"Last week, the Denver Post announced that 30 percent of teachers
in Denver schools were not coming back next year. This is a nationwide
travesty. Why? As a teacher, I taught in the inner city in the 1970s.
It's exasperating beyond understanding to walk into a classroom where
children suffer learning disabilities, broken homes, teen pregnancies
at 14, 15, 16, multiple languages and violent confrontations with
other ethnic groups. But, today, teachers can't escape because over
1.5 million illegal alien students with more than 100 languages attend
our kids' schools nationwide....
"We're being colonized with [20 million illegals to date and climbing]
crashing our schools, medical systems, language, culture, parks,
tax and welfare systems. One look at the headlines of major newspapers
across the country echoes and mirrors the Rocky Mountain News." ["Where
Is the Outrage," NewsWithViews.com, February 27, 2006.]
The First Step Toward Reform
It has been said that most humans are like mules. You have to bang
them upside the head with a two-by-four to get their attention. Well,
if our nation is to survive this onslaught, then the message of Brimelow,
Hospers, Cox and Wooldridge is going to have to be banged into the
brains of those who prowl Washington's political corridors. It would
behoove all libertarians to become "bangers" rather than "bangees" on
this issue.
In my opinion, the first step toward getting on the right side of
the controversy is to grasp that all nations possess cultures that
are delicate sociological balances of long standing traditions, mores,
and life styles. Since we are dealing with a free nation, our culture
is especially dependent upon these balances not being upset in a
sudden and irresponsible fashion. Freedom is like an orchid. It
is fragile and prone to being tossed in the trash by obtuse mobocracies
that have not been taught to value it.
Anybody that lives outside the ivory tower in the American Southwest
today can certainly see that this is the case with today's immigration
scene. The illegals streaming into Dallas, where this writer lives,
haven't a clue as to what freedom and its requisites are. They are
brazenly anti-American with an arrogant sense of entitlement already
built into their personalities. They are erecting in Cox's words, "squatters'
camps" that will soon be insisting "that America conform to [their]
own cultural assumptions." And those assumptions are that the state
is meant to take care of them. Unlike earlier America, we now have
a state that will cater to those assumptions. This is the gigantic
flaw in the rationale of open border advocates. The quality of immigrants
that flow to a welfare state country will not be the same as those
who flow to a laissez-faire country. For this reason alone, any influx
of immigrants to our nation must be strictly limited.
Contrary to the present framing of this issue by the extremists
on both sides, the question is not, should we as a nation allow for "open
borders," or endeavor to "close down our borders." The question
is: What level of immigration is conducive to preserving the American
culture of ordered liberty? Closed borders would asphyxiate
us; open borders would balkanize us. Ever since the 1965 Immigration
Act, we have been hell-bent to balkanize ourselves. With the stratospheric
rise in illegal immigration over the past 40 years, the balkanization
process is now firmly imbedded in our culture and spreading its ruin
at an accelerating pace.
Because America consisted of open borders in the early colonial
years does not mandate that she retain open borders for all of time.
Despite what many libertarians think, there is no such thing as a "right
to enter any country one chooses."
Our basic individual rights are eternal verities that do not change
from the past to the future; but immigration rules are not eternal
verities. They have nothing to do with the issue of individual rights.
They are matters of public policy that are always subject to both
quantitative and qualitative revision with the passage of time.
Unrestricted entrance into any country of one's choosing is not
a "right." It is a "privilege" granted by the citizens of the country
involved. If those citizens decide their country would be better
off with a small, selective stream of immigrants instead of a large,
indiscriminate stream, then it is their right to bring about such
a border policy. To advocate that we have an obligation to open our
borders to the masses of other lands because they live in poverty
and oppression, is to capitulate to altruism. And all libertarians
should know where that leads us.
Qualitative and Quantitative Conditions
No country can afford totally open borders. There are always undesirables
that must be excluded from entrance to a country. The question is
what quantitative and qualitative level of immigrants will
we as a people decide to accept as compatible with a society of freedom?
A reasonable list of qualitative requirements to enter America
should be self-evident. It would contain such requisites as: a decent
level of education, proficient skills, good physical and mental health,
fluency in the English language, a grasp of our constitutional political
system, and a desire to be assimilated into our culture rather than
remain an ethnic throwback to their country of origin, etc.
In addition to the above conditions, government policy must, of
course, be concerned with the quantity of immigrants allowed
to enter. That number must be a level that can be assimilated easily
with little disruption to the existing culture. America's immigration
policy prior to the 1965 Immigration Act was geared toward allowing
a small selective stream of newcomers into our country each year.
For example, Peter Brimelow tells us that, from 1941 to 1967, we
averaged 210,000 new immigrants annually. But after the Immigration
Act of 1965, that number began climbing rapidly. From 1968 to 1980,
we averaged 400,000 immigrants annually. From 1981 to 1993, we averaged
850,000 immigrants annually. The numbers since 1993 have been around
1 million annually. And these are just "legal" immigrants. Compounding
this explosion, of course, are millions of "illegals" that stream
into our country every year. [Alien Nation, pp. 281-283, Appendix
1 and 1B.]
Toward a Rational Immigration Reform
Because open border advocates have dominated the American political
scene for the past 40 years, we are now, in my opinion, on the road
to an unprecedented ethnic transformation that threatens to splinter
our nation into a Tower of Babel culture. Thus to bring about a solution
to this problem, both "legal" and "illegal" streams of aliens must
be confronted. The first step is to restore the pre-1965 immigration
levels and return to a vastly reduced quantity of authorized immigrants
allowed to enter the country. To handle the far more serious illegal
overflow, there is an acute need for radical measures.
Here are three policies that, if implemented, would bring the illegal
immigration problem under control without the need of national ID
cards and Orwellian deportation policies:
1. Mandate that English is the only language for America. Naturally
if Spanish is offered as a public language (as it presently is),
then it is all the easier for illegals to live and thrive in the
U.S. But if they must learn English in order to function in our society,
then a great number of them will not make the effort. In the early
part of the 20th century, legal immigrants had to learn English in
order to become citizens. This is one of the first requisites in
order to maintain a stable culture. A nation needs a common language.
2. Eliminate American citizenship benefits for illegals. At
present illegal immigrants are entitled to most of the same basic
rights and welfare perks that American citizens are entitled to.
In addition, their children, if born on the American side of the
border, enjoy full American citizenship. These policies must be terminated.
Illegals must be treated as outlaws if we are to stop their overwhelming
flow into our culture. This will sound harsh to sensitive souls,
but we are going to incur extremely harsh consequences without such
a redefinition.
3. Criminalize the hiring of illegals. Make it a felony (with
a jail sentence) for anyone in America to hire illegal immigrants.
This would wipe out the huge appeal of infiltrating our country in
search of work. If the easy access to employment evanesces, the great
bulk of illegals would return to their country of origin. Today's
immigration problem is greatly exacerbated by the short-range desire
of corporations for cheap labor while blanking out on the long-range
ramifications to our country's freedom and stability. Today's corporate-statists
don't give a tinker's damn about the preservation of a free and stable
America; they care only about expanding the array of special privileges
they can receive from Washington to protect their markets and their
bottom lines. This "live for today and scorn tomorrow" attitude must
be penalized if we ever hope to overcome the immigration disaster.
The Rationale of Open Border Advocates
Naturally establishment politicians have constructed appropriate
spin to avoid facing this pink elephant that sits in their ideological
living room stinking up the future of our country. "It would be way
too costly to close the borders," our capitol pontificators inform
us. "Moreover, it would turn America into a police state," they assert.
This, from politicians who are spending hundreds of billions of dollars
ramming democracy down the throats of the people of Iraq via the
butt end of a rifle. This, from politicians who are already well
on their way to turning America into a police state via their insane
war on drugs, their imposition of national ID cards, and their all-pervasive
business and financial regimentation.
None of the objections from the liberal multi-culturalists and the
conservative corporatists hold water in face of what should be our
ultimate concern -- the preservation of a sovereign America with
our distinctly American culture of ordered freedom under the dictates
of objective law.
Our solons on the Potomac are selling out our birthright to the
globalists in pursuit of regional government and the end of American
sovereignty. It is perhaps the most craven and short-sighted sell
out in our history. Both Republicans and Democrats are obsessed with
the illusions of multi-culturalism. Both are poisoned with altruistic
guilt concerning the poverty of the third world. Both are blinded
to the balkanization morass into which they are driving America.
Thus instead of a return to the soundness of the original American
concept of moderate, annual, legal immigration and assimilation,
we are cursed with pygmy politicians wishing only to tinker around
the edges of the monstrosity that Senator Ted Kennedy gave us with
the 1965 Immigration Act. Today's "conservatives" have become no
different than the rotund Kennedy himself and his legislative masochism
for America. Evasion of reality now consumes our Demopublicans in
Washington like the self-delusion that swept over 1930s America in
face of FDR's neo-fascist brain trust. The great journalist, John
T. Flynn, described those years as "the dance of the crackpots." His
words are equally true today.
No one performs this disastrous dance more glaringly than Little
Boy George and his corporate-statist handlers. They are doing what
all political humbugs do (and have done throughout history). They
are taking a nefarious page out of Lord Keynes book of anti-wisdom:
In the long run, we're all dead, so ruthlessly utilize political
power to shape the country in whatever way will allow one to continue
riding around in black limousines with entourages of media sycophants
hanging on one's every word.
Despicable indeed. But a nation gets the politicians it deserves,
and we have reaped an assortment of quislings that now slither around
in the most fetid of Machiavellian muck. Fifty years hence, our children
are not going to be thinking kindly about what we have bequeathed
to them.
As Brimelow puts it, "Deep into the twenty-first century, throughout
the lifetime of my little son, American patriots will be fighting
to salvage as much as possible from the shipwreck of their great
republic. It will be a big wreck, and there will be a lot to salvage." [Alien
Nation, p. 268.]
This immigration disaster that so many intelligent men and women
refuse to see coming, and thus are helping to foment by their cavalier
default, is going to be ripping through our culture over the next
fifty years like crude biker gangs swooping into the havens of an
old, respected college campus to stake out living quarters. If we
fail to stem its tide, there will be a hideous upsetting of all the
vital interweavings of morality and sociological customs that take
many painstaking decades to construct, and which are the sine
qua non of free, ordered civilization. It will be a horrid and
ugly country that we pass on to the next generation. This should
be chilling and galvanizing to Americans upon contemplation, but:
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more; -- where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.
-- Thomas Gray, 1742
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
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