Summary: There are a few people helping us by cutting through the lies and emotionalism about immigration, showing why it is the cross-roads of many great issues of our time. Here are two examples.
America is in the grip of panic, again. Ebola, ISIS, now imprisoned migrant children. My Twitter feed is 80% outrage about this. The chattering class can talk of nothing else. It both supports their goal of open borders and their dream of overthrowing Trump. As usual, only intensive research can determine how much of this is real – since these panic attacks allow unrestrained lies, which journalists uncritically broadcast. No, the government has not “lost” 1500 migrant children. Also, the policy to separate children illegally crossing the border was not began by Trump. It was Obama’s, and was (like most of his policies) rational. See this report and this history.
To understand the stakes in the open borders debate, conducted mostly by lies in America, we should look at Europe. Creating social turmoil, politically divisive, and with no way back. It is our future unless we act soon.
“Immigration Divides Europe and the German Left“
By Diana Johnstone at Consortium News.
“A battle between regulated immigration and a utopian vision in line with international finance is splitting the German Left Party, giving an opening to the right.”
Freedom of movement is the founding value of the European Union. The “four freedoms” are inscribed in the binding EU treaties and directives: free movement of goods, services, capital and persons (labor) among the Member States. …However, extended to the phenomenon of mass immigration, the doctrine of “free movement” is disuniting the Union. …
In August 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would accept all genuine refugees. Germany had already taken in over 400,000 refugees …. Although addressed to Syrians, Merkel’s invitation was widely interpreted as an unlimited invitation to anyone who wanted to come Germany for whatever reason. In addition to a smaller number of refugee families, long lines of young men from all points east streamed through the Balkans, heading for Germany or Sweden. …The distinction between refugees and economic migrants was lost in the crowd.
Germans themselves were sharply polarized between those who welcomed the commitment to Christian charity and those who dreaded the probable effects. …Concerning individuals, compassion reigns. You want to get to know that person, make a friend, help a fellow human being. As a mass, it is different because you have to think also of social results and you do not know whom you are getting.
On the one hand, there are the negative effects: labor market competition which lowers wages, the cost of caring for people with no income, the potential for antisocial behavior on the part of alienated individuals, rivalry for housing space, cultural conflicts, additional linguistic and educational problems. But for those whose ideal is a world without borders, the destruction of the oppressive nation state and endless diversity, unlimited immigration is a welcome step in the direction of their utopia. …
After causing a growing split between EU countries, the immigrant crisis is now threatening to bring down Merkel’s own Christian Democratic (CDU) government. Her own interior minister, Horst Seehofer, from the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union, has declared that he “can’t work with this woman” (Merkel) on immigration policy and favors joining together with Austria and Italy in a tough policy to stop migration. …
A good part of the European left, whatever its dissatisfaction with EU performance, is impregnated with its free movement ideology, and has interiorized “open borders” as a European “value” that must be defended at all costs. It is forgotten that EU “freedom of movement” was not intended to apply to migrants from outside the Union. It meant freedom to move from one EU state to another. As an internationally recognized human right, freedom of movement refers solely to the right of a citizen to leave and return to her own country. …
Katja Kipping is co-chair of the Die Linke – “The Left” party. In a July 2016 article criticizing Brexit, Kipping made it clear that for her the nation is an anachronism unsuitable for policy making. Like others of her persuasion, she equates the nation with “nationalism”. She also immediately identifies any criticism of mass immigration with scapegoating …
To make her policy line even more unrealistic, she calls for both “open borders” and a guaranteed minimum income for everyone. It is easy to imagine both the enthusiastic response to such a proposal in every poor country in the world and its horrified rejection by German voters.
What can motivate leaders of a political party to make such flagrantly unpopular and unrealizable proposals, guaranteed to alienate the vast majority of the electorate? …
{A} virulent strain of the open border advocates is found among certain anarchists …, who see open borders as a step toward destroying the hated nation state, drowning despised national identities in a sea of “minorities”, thereby hastening the advent of worldwide revolution.
The decisive point is that {Leftists} advocate policies which are perfectly compatible with the needs of international financial capital. Large scale immigration by diverse ethnic communities unwilling or unable to adapt the customs of the host country (which is often the case in Europe today, where the host country may be despised for past sins), weakens the ability of society to organize and resist the dictates of financial capital. The newcomers may not only destabilize the situation of already accepted immigrant populations, they can introduce unexpected antagonisms and conflicts. In both France and Germany, groups of Eritrean migrants have come to blows with Afghan migrants, and other prejudices and vendettas lurk, not to mention dangerous elements of religious fanaticism.
———————————–
A rare article combining insightful analysis of our problems with recommendations of practical solutions.
“Shattered Society:
Liberalism, Right and Left, has made lonely serfs of us all“
By Phillip Blond at The American Conservative.
Introduction.
In February 2009, British philosopher Phillip Blond’s essay “Rise of the Red Tories,” published in London’s Prospect magazine, sparked a transatlantic discussion about the failure of politics, both Left and Right, to address our most pressing social problems. “We are a bipolar nation,” he wrote, “a bureaucratic, centralized state that presides dysfunctionally over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered, and isolated citizenry.”
Each side has had its revolution. Liberals’ cultural coup overthrew traditional mores and installed government as the fount from which all blessings flow. Conservatives swore allegiance to the market, enthroning capitalism as arbiter of ultimate worth. In so doing, both enslaved the individual to forces beyond his reach and leveled the intermediate institutions that once grounded and valued him.
Blond’s call for a new dynamic civic movement based around association has become a book, Red Tory: How the Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix It
During Blond’s recent American speaking tour, New York Times columnist David Brooks observed that in this country, rising contempt for the political class has taken a more libertarian expression, most recently in the Tea Party movement, but allowed that civic association might be more effective in restoring public trust.
Here we offer a taste of Red Toryism, along with a discussion of whether these ideas could gain traction in the U.S. – or whether they even should.
———- Read the article and the book. ———-
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you found this post of use, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also see these posts about immigrants, about left-wing politics, and especially these…
- Torching Utopia: Sweden tries mass immigration.
- Europe’s elites use immigration to reshape it.
- Stratfor: How immigration will change German politics, which will change Europe.
- Sociologist Wolfgang Streeck explains the politics of the migrant crisis reshaping Europe.
- Martin van Creveld’s reaction to Europe’s rape epidemic.
- Stratfor: Is the West Being Overrun by Migrants? — By the famous sociologist and historian Ian Morris.
- Migrants’ protests begin, pushing France into a new society.
- The lies about immigration keeping the borders open.
To better understand Europe’s migrant crisis
Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West
The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam
Anyone who pays attention to the news and is honest with them self (key component here) knows the crap being peddled by Maddow et al is crap. I think what drives me the most bonkers is the hypocrisy on display. Also, don’t people in the U.S. care about their country, it’s future, the future of their kids and families? Stop laughing.
The bleeding hearts like Maddow should be allowed to sponsor one, two, maybe three of these kids and their families. The families have to live with her and she and her kind (yes, those people) are financially responsible for them. Don’t put it on the tax payer or the system.
Gute,
Open borders are a lever to reshape western society by destroying what is. The arguments in favor of it are emotional appeals to useful idiots. Lots of those on the Left and Right, which is why both sides have crafted their propaganda to target this type.
I think one issue about the building of community is how geographically fragmented everyone is now, but I think digital stuff can make a plausible replacement. The problem THEN becomes how do you determine what those communities mean. At the moment this has been left to amateurs and tech companies of course.
I’m looking here more at the equivalent of social clubs a la the Elks, Masons etc. than things like the neighborhood.
SF,
Perhaps. But I doubt that digital relationships mean much, with a tiny fraction of exceptions. That’s building a society on sand.
“The bleeding hearts like Maddow should be compelled to sponsor one, two, maybe three of these kids and their families.”
Fixed. Let these elitist loudmouths put their own arses where their mouths are and be the first to experience the consequences of what they would force down our throats.
A Feminist named Tamara Cincik was recently accosted on a UK train by an “Asian” man – yeah, I think we know what she meant – and two “middle class White men” moved away and refused to intervene. That needs to happen more often. Much more often.
Purge,
The story is even better than that. From “Fashion chief executive who was attacked by 6ft Northern Line tube passenger slams two ‘white middle class’ men after they walked into next carriage and left her to defend herself” in the Daily Mail.
But fish don’t need bicycles. There were many women in the car. Why didn’t they team up to attack the guy? Feminist solidarity!
This is our world. Women get to choose their narrative, and change it to suit their need of the moment. Condemn chivalry as male oppression or demand protection. Be Cinderella or Wonder Woman. Men must comply!
My guess is that the men of Generation Z, the first to grow up in this new world (e.g., seeing women casually hitting men on TV and films), will laugh at such behavior. Mock it.
Women might not like the new system.
Interesting, centrist members of the Conservative Party in Canada have been called “Red Tories” for years. It is a serious position, to use government policy to maintain communities and traditional social arrangements. The biggest consequence is that it often lends itself to justifying crony capitalism
Gotta disagree with you here. Trump changed the policy from catch and release to prosecute and required the separation of kids from families. Granting you hypothetically your argument that such immigration needs to be stopped there is no reason why this could not have been handled in a humane fashion. We can have enforcement without immoral unnecessary cruel enforcement.
Your statement that it is a media lie makes no sense in light of comments by Kelly sessions and trump that it was intended as a deterrent or a bargaining chip. Furthermore trump wouldn’t have needed to sign an executive order reversing it if it was a fantasy.
I do not agree with cruelty to children regardless of the reason…and this is not a good reason.
As far as children being lost…we will see how and whether reunification works out. For those saying criminals lose their children….apples and oranges
Zemtar,
(1) “Your statement that it is a media lie makes no sense in light of comments by Kelly sessions and trump that it was intended as a deterrent”
First, that was Obama’s intent. Since you didn’t read what I wrote, I’ll repeat it.
Second, I didn’t say the policy was a “lie.” That’s you lying. I cited two specific lies, neither of which you have even given rebuttal to.
(2) “trump wouldn’t have needed to sign an executive order reversing it if it was a fantasy.”
More lies (do you always lie so much?). I didn’t say anything remotely like this policy being a “fantasy.” It was a real policy, hence the executive order changing it.
(3) “We can have enforcement without immoral unnecessary cruel enforcement.”
Duh. It will cost a lot more money, of course. The Democrats don’t want effective enforcement, hence oppose spending the money. The GOP doesn’t want to spend the money.
(3) “I do not agree with cruelty to children regardless of the reason, and this is not a good reason.”
How many children have we killed in our mad wars since 9/11? Do you care about them? What have you done about it? Or do you only respond, like a drone, to the moral panics created by the news media?
Your virtue signalling is meaningless.
If you image a power hungry set, that don’t care about the future and only seek to rule in the present, while making as much money as possible, immigration make perfect sense, wages decline (and so do tax volumes), but as the burden of tax is spread wider, the wage falls actually make little difference to overall tax take for government. The elite friend see falling wages,which is increased profits at flat sales prices. The indigenous population is preoccupied with loosing its homeland and the elite just think the best way to keep the pitch forks from coming from us, is give them no chance with our new people.
More debt, no real growth, more people to share the pie and falling wages, what could go wrong; just in case it does add the gasoline of tax cuts only for those who are already rich.
Why did Ray Dalio say, we look a bit like 1937? Can’t think.
Keep up the good work, there are few clear voices in the jungle or babble.
Pingback: The week’s riots in France show Europe’s future, and perhaps ours - Ryan Guillory