Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Ann Coulter on Immigration

I love Ann Coulter -- except when she's wrong. Her latest column, "A Green Card in Every Pot" has some wonderful insights, even though she's anti-immigration.

First, she points out the superiority of Christian culture, or "Western Civilization" as it's also known.

Second, she quotes Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, immigrant and first Jewish member of the Supreme Court, who said that
Americanization required that the immigrant adopt "the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here" and that he adopt "the English language as the common medium of speech."
But, Brandeis said, this is only part of it:
"(W)e properly demand of the immigrant even more than this -- he must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment. Only when this has been done will he possess the national consciousness of an American."
In other words, "diversity" is a myth. Ideas about "individual self-determination, human rights, the rule of law and a robust democratic economy" must be imposed. They can either be imposed by "the government" (call it "democracy," "aristocracy," "bureaucracy," "gerontocracy," "mediocracy," "mobocracy," "technocracy," "theocracy" -- it means "archists"; jackbooted thugs, lock-step public schools, controlled media, and prisons), or the ideas of civilization can be imposed by everyone, in what I call a decentralized "nag-ocracy." Parents nag children. Teachers nag students. Employers nag employees. Landlords nag tenants. Businessmen nag customers. Pastors nag parishioners. Radio DJ's nag listeners. Movies nag theatre audiences. Athletes nag fans. Call it "intergenerational peer-pressure." It's all done to encourage, not to abuse; to empower, not to demean. It's lifelong learning. It's the inculcation of what Gary Bauer described as "the most important things."

Immigration is a problem for America because Americans are too "tolerant." We don't want to nag. We tolerate sloppiness, bullying, cheating, and selfish disrespect. And we know it. That's why we fear strangers. We know we don't have the moral backbone to impose our way of life on them, and we fear they might impose their way on us.

Coulter is right: "it is simply a fact that no one is trying to turn immigrants into Americans." But instead of developing the great American habit of decentralized nagging, creating institutions and voluntary associations which proudly and gratefully uphold and pass-on "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" to new Americans, we want centralized immigration authorities to use violent force to keep those fleeing corrupt governments from coming to America. We have forgotten the art of nagging, and we have forgotten the message inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

Libertarians should welcome immigrants as a fresh source of potential libertarians. Often, immigrants know the values of sacrifice, hard work, and freedom from corrupt dictatorships better than "white trash" Americans, who are lazy and believe they are entitled to government handouts. Immigrants, by contrast, are easy pickings for libertarian evangelists. The two major parties do not want to turn immigrants into libertarian Americans. "To the contrary," Coulter writes, "Democrats are trying to turn new immigrants into wards of the state -- and with some success! -- so they will be permanent Democratic voters. Rich Republicans and their handmaidens in Washington are trying to turn immigrants into a permanent servant class."

By closing the borders, we screen out law-abiding immigrants and only allow law-breaking immigrants - a counter-productive policy if ever there were one.

Shut down the welfare system so the law-breaking immigrants are not attracted, and open the borders so hard-working would-be American libertarians can stream in. Liberty is more important to America than skin color. Let "tolerant" whites lose "the struggle for survival" and let the next generation of Americans be bronze-skinned libertarians.

Read Ann Coulter. (Even though she wants to close the borders.)

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