10/24/2017
This is Virginia Dare and welcome to Radio VDARE. Once again, it appears that National Review is attacking to the right when it comes to immigration. This time, it’s directed against Congressman Lou Barletta (right) of Pennsylvania, a hero to immigration patriots and one of the precursors to the Trump revolution. Barletta won a traditionally Democratic district by taking action against illegal immigration — similar to how Donald Trump broke the “blue wall” by appealing to nationalism.
But Theodore Kupfer [Tweet him] of NR is here to tell us that Barletta is actually doing it all wrong, in a remarkably condescending article entitled “The Man from Alabama, PA” [National Review, September 18, 2017]
Kupfer begins with a swipe at Barletta’s constituents. “It’s not an invasion, but for some in Hazleton, Pa., it feels like one,” the author smirks. But what is an invasion? It’s when a group of foreigners take over your territory. Why do we even bother having a military and spending all this money on taxes to maintain it? To defend against invasion, to defend our national independence, sovereignty and way of life.
But today, we are told, not just in America but in every Western nation, that it is illegitimate to restrict immigration if you are doing it out of a desire to keep your own people in the majority.
Kupfer sniffs:
Now, people whose families have lived in Pennsylvania for generations shudder as immigrants who do not share their language or take time to assimilate into their culture flow into their towns. The case for a more prudent immigration policy is of course reasonable. But not all is economic dislocation. In Pennsylvania, cultural anxiety is another driver of immigration skepticism.Well, so what? What is the point of having a country if you can’t live in your own culture? Every other generation in history, and every non-Western nation in the world today, would simply call this common sense. If it’s just about money, you would move somewhere where the dollar goes father.
And besides, as we often say here at VDARE.com, “demographics are destiny.” The make-up of the population determines the politics of the region. Therefore, it you actually want to defend certain political principles, you have to defend the make-up of the population. After all, it’s no secret the main reason Democrats favor mass immigration is because they are essentially importing voters.
“Immigration restrictionism does not an agenda make,” the article informs us. But the conservative movement seems to be focused on putting forward an agenda that ignores immigration entirely. And by surrendering on immigration, the Republican Party has essentially surrendered on every other part of its agenda. You can’t make meaningful progress on jobs, health care, education, income inequality, infrastructure or national security without confronting immigration. And as Kupfer implicitly admitted earlier in the article, a changing population ultimately means changing politics. Ignoring immigration means conservatives will eventually be rendered redundant.
But instead, Kupfer (right) accuses immigration patriots of being the ones guilty of shallow thinking. He sneers:
But inchoate negative feelings about immigrants do not answer the question of how to fix rural Pennsylvania or the rest of rural America. Sure, there are reasonable, non-racist arguments for why this country ought to tighten the immigration system, prioritize newcomers with specific skills, and generally recalibrate its policy as to what immigrants are supposed to bring to America. Doing so would benefit the residents of Hazleton — white, black, and Hispanic alike. But even if Barletta occasionally alludes to such arguments, his approach remains controversial and can tend toward the inflammatory. Up here, fixing immigration means something besides attracting more computer-savvy South Asians. It means reversing what looks like a self-congratulatory preference for prospective Americans at the expense of existing ones. Sometimes, it means something uglier. Barletta’s pitch resonates with white Pennsylvanians, but it could benefit from becoming more inclusive, more pan-ethnic.Maybe restricting immigration doesn’t by itself fix rural America. But adding 30 million Third Worlders certainly doesn’t help. Republicans should be trying to create high paying jobs, low housing costs and affordable family formation. Mass immigration is a threat to all of that.
But obviously the author’s real problem is mostly white Americans saying they don’t want to be replaced, which is apparently “controversial” and “inflammatory.”
Why does this only go one way? Non-whites receive advantages in jobs and education through affirmative action. Groups such as the National Council of La Raza are quite comfortable openly organizing on the basis of race. Latino groups who support Open Borders are quite open that they view their mass migration into this country as a hostile takeover, as an act of conquest. And yet, is whites that a writer at an ostensibly conservative magazine feels comfortable calling “ugly.” Why is Luis Gutierrez not “controversial” and “inflammatory?”
Ironically, if whites actually had any sense of racial consciousness sufficient to keep out these immigrants, there’d be no one here to call them “racist” or “ugly.” The best way to win the diversity game is not to play.
It’s also so frustrating how NR seems utterly sanguine about the over racial politics, explicit anti-Americanism and general extremism of leftist Congressmen, but has the time to attack Barletta. The Republican Party, no thanks to National Review, has complete control of the government, but nothing of substance has been accomplished. Is this really the time to suggest that the problem is Congressmen are being too extreme?
Of course, the real explanation is probably simple. Like Oliver Darcy and Betsy Woodruff, Kupfer is probably already thinking about his post Conservatism Inc. career. I expect we’ll see him at the Daily Beast writing hit pieces soon enough.
We’ll talk again soon.
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