06/10/2007
The hugely industrious blogger Katie’s Dad has provided a welcome relief from watching Senate sausage-making today, with a characteristically abrasive discussion of the usually-shunned question of immigrant quality:If genetics, IQ, ability and innovativeness are kept off the table for discussion about who we will be in the future, then perhaps we’re too dumb already to keep this republic. I’m not going to shy away from posting about quality. Even if our Latino invaders were somehow able to bring their mean abilities up to those of Geraldo Rivera, we’d still have a mass of mal-assimilated fifth columnists, not Americans. But we don’t have to worry about legions of Riveras at all. We do, however, have to worry about legions of third-generation Latino gangbangers
Katie’s Dad centerpieces a remarkable essay by the proprietor of the ultra-high brow website Gene Expression, which is mainly interested in developments in genetics. “Razib” (who is a Bangladeshi immigrant) writes
… generally politics doesn’t arouse much interest for me. But I have followed the immigration reform debate closely, mostly because like Ross Douthat I’m a moderate restrictionist. Now, people might find that strange seeing as how I’m a naturalized American myself, but really I don’t have much empathy for other immigrants as immigrants because I view myself much more as who I chose to be (an American) than what I am (an immigrant). ..immigrants to the United States are not refugees, we voted with our feet, and those of us who are naturalized abjure our ties to foreign statesAs for why I am a restrictionist, the reason is simple: I think America needs to absorb the current Great Wave….
I am not generally positively inclined toward the clannishness which extended immigrant families in the United States indulge in. I've seen it in my own family as relatives have moved to this country over the past 25 years. The initial years where my parents had to reach out and forge friendships with those outside their "ethnic zone of comfort" has given way to a withdrawal from the outside world into their own comfortable cocoon, which has only developed thanks to the beauty of family reunification.
Razib is particularly unsympathetic to the demand for plentiful cheap immigrant labor:
Frankly, I've been shocked a little by the arguments made by those who oppose a strong tilt toward high skilled workers…Most of the objections have come from the Left, which I found peculiar because they seem to be arguing for a system which will structurally maintain socioeconomic inequality…My first simple answer is this: a nation is not a market, a market is a sector of a nation. There is a large underclass in the United States which we lay off and replace with some industrious Mexicans, but that isn’t going to happen, you don’t lay off citizens, or export them. That’s a reality, so one of the major priorities (in my opinion) should be choking unskilled labor so that wages rise for that sector.
He offers a valuable chart.
Some years ago, when Gene Expression was more political, VDARE.com had an exchange with a then contributor, which resulted in a comment from him we treasure:
”…I think VDare is useful in that it opens up the space for more moderate organizations, like FAIR, NumbersUSA, and CIS. They've railed against this triangulation strategy in the past, but the fact is that triangulation works to inject ideas into the debate…In plenty of publications (such as this one and this one), VDare is cited as the bad cop to CIS or FAIR or NumbersUSA’s good cop. What many people don’t understand is that if VDare wasn’t present, CIS would be demonized as the bad cop.
(links in original)
Food for thought, contemplating those now crowding onto the once-empty immigration control ship!
Katie’s Dad discusses postings from two other websites, and concludes in his usual blunt style:
Immigration has been a success for this nation for only one reason: Historically, we have only allowed those to come who have ancestors that our ancestors knew — often in the biblical sense — for thousands of years. Before Teddy Kennedy started screwing this nation in 1965 for being mean to some of his ancestors, those who came here weren’t different enough from us to actually displace us. Now they are. Not getting rid of them, even harshly if necessary, will represent the stupidest thing a nation has even done to itself in all of recorded history. If this nation ever fails, I guarantee that history will record its demise as being caused by the importation of incompatibles.
VDARE.com comment to the Treason Lobby: when you are stealing someone’s country, you can’t complain when those who notice get irritated.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.