Posted on 10/20/2017 6:59:40 PM PDT by markomalley
Sometimes it seems Latin America is on the brink of Mad Max apocalypse. Mexico is nearing state collapse. Oil-rich Venezuela is out of gas, its people reduced to cooking with firewood. Over indoor campfires the starving are roasting rabbits and maybe other pets. Armed motorcycle gangs police the streets—hunting rabbit and bushmeat these days in Caracas can be tricky.
Why does our elite think a United States demographically similar to Latin America will be spared the dysfunctions of Mexico and Venezuela? Many, conservatives and liberals alike, believe in the power of the Constitution to transform anyone into an American. Recently Nebraska senator and True Conservative Ben Sasse picked a fight on Twitter to display his anti-racist credentials. He claimed that America’s success is only a result of what he believes to be its Christian “values,” and its Constitution. One doesn’t need to be a white nationalist or agree with the aims of Sasse’s opponent Richard Spencer to see this is complete nonsense.
In the United States, third and fourth generation Mexican immigrants today exhibit less desire or ability to assimilate than first generation immigrants, not more. The Hispanic community, as Heather MacDonald has long documented, exhibits abnormally high school dropout rates, illegitimacy, and criminality. The Hispanic “social conservative” is a fantasy of establishment Republican strategists. America’s institutions, values, and Constitution are not enough to fix the social problems of Latin American populations who are here right now, let alone in the future when they will be far greater in number.
Ben Sasse and others like Oklahoma Senator Lankford believe racial division is only worsening in America because of sinister Russian conspiracies. The truth is that racial hatred is an old and unfortunate part of human nature. Neither constitutions nor Christianity have ever been enough to do anything about it.
Haiti has the second-oldest republican constitution in the Western hemisphere. It was established in 1802 and followed up by several other versions, each constructed according to Enlightenment principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. In the 1960’s Haiti was ruled by Papa Doc Duvalier who preserved his power through racial demagoguery. He mobilized the country’s majority African population against the tiny mulatto elite that, despite everything, still dominated politically and economically. During his terror against, presumably, mulatto privilege, they were subjected to persecution and massacre, as they have been throughout the history of that nation. It is interesting that in Haiti, Obama wouldn’t be considered a black man, but a hated and racially alien oppressor.
Duvalier is otherwise well known for colorful personality quirks, like ordering the killing of every black dog on the island because he believed a political opponent had shapeshifted into one to escape him. He had another enemy decapitated, and he preserved his head in ice in order to commune with his spirit. His grotesque tyranny relied on magic and voodoo to intimidate. But it wasn’t just for show: Papa Doc himself as well as his Tonton Macoutes militia earnestly believed in these vibrant traditional practices. It’s obvious they believed in this more than they did in the scientific Enlightenment education long promoted by French civilization.
Despite the absence of evil white oppressors, despite the presence of a rich two-hundred-year-old republican constitutional tradition, Haiti still experienced racial strife, massacre, religious obscurantism, coup and counter-coup. Old customs, tribal identities, and folk religions are often stronger than progressive ideals or written constitutions.
Latin America has gone through many different attempts to set up American-like Constitutions. Its people profess the same ideals of liberty and equality. Many are devout Christians—Catholics, and, lately, Evangelicals—as much as Ben Sasse is. This doesn’t mean they have been able live under Anglo-American-style liberal constitutional rule. Sasse and his friends tried to impose constitutions and “God-given values” of liberty and democracy on Iraq and Afghanistan. Yale and Harvard sent bright young men to teach democratic principles to Iraqis in 2004 and 2005. That lunatic project ended with the greatest humiliation and strategic defeat the United States has ever experienced.
The obscurantism of people like Papa Doc Duvalier is easy to see and mock. We feel very safe and far from such men. But are the beliefs of men like Ben Sasse or Hillary Clinton any less cultish? They believe, as the Soviets or Jacobins did, that the state can transcend nature and history and forge an entirely new kind of man. They think this can be achieved through avowal of faith in a weird synthesis between the Declaration of Independence and the supposedly Christian “infinite worth of every individual”—something no American before, say, 1970, ever believed in. This maudlin cult has inflicted enormous suffering and carnage in places like Libya and Iraq. Americans must choose if they want to rely on these same people to test out their experiments inside the United States.
If the places that they were leaving was such a paradise
why would they have left there in the first place ?
If you come into this country, .. at least be willing to assimilate
Don't replicate the 'crap-hole' that you just left !
Our President Trump has been a true leader in that he has shown us we CAN be obtuse (no more PC political delicacy) and powerful in our own communities.
WE OWN OUR LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOL
If we don't send our kids ... the school ceases to do damage.
YES. True, the hysterical screams will echo through the hills for a thousand years. But it must be done, or we're finished.
That’s exactly what I want to do, and your state is one of the ones I’m considering.
Bill Ayers would be so offended !!
How else could he propagate Socialism if we chose not to participate ?
We may own responsibility for education , but NEA controls what is being taught !
Some wise FReeper wrote the other day that homeschooling seems so expensive because it demands one parent home and not working earning a paycheck.
A message I heard thirty years ago from a fundamentalist pulpit was titled;
NEVER SACRIFICE ON THE ALTAR OF THE IMMEDIATE, THE ETERNAL BLESSINGS OF THE FUTURE.
And it was focused on being impatient and not doing the lonely, sometimes unrewarding work now, that will show up later ..... like having, training, disciplining and educating kids.
My thirty plus year olds are a blessing now in my older age when they all say, "Dad, you taught me __________________ ", and I never knew I had taught ___________ . ... (or couldn't remember)
Amen to that, TIK!!
The Ozarks are gorgeous as well.
Are you invaded?
We considered MO for a while, around Clinton, way outside of KC. There’s a lake there that is pretty uninhabited, Truman or something.
We’d be happy - and lucky - to have you!
I’m in the NE, in the Appalachians. It is beautiful here! I can send you pictures. People are nice, as long as you answer the 2 questions right that I got asked when I first moved here - how do you vote and where do you go to church? They unashamedly asked me both, which was a breath of fresh air after the veiled-PC in California.
No invaders sighted hereabouts.
We’re at Lake of the Ozarks, south of Jeff City.
Check www.funlake.com.
Low taxes, low cost of living, friendly people, did I mention low taxes?
Built a new house on lakefront property back in ‘02.
Soil is very rocky so our veggie gardens are raised beds with brought in dirt.
We still have two dozen green tomatoes to pick plus 100 jalapeños (won’t plant quite so many next year.)
Still do a bit of oil biz but don’t get out and travel to customers. Tank cars are my specialty.
Life is good.
“Low taxes, low cost of living, friendly people, did I mention low taxes?”
ok, let’s compare ;)
Our house is 1700 sq ft + a finished basement that’s the same + 18 acres, taxes are $1100/year. They went up $100 when we added an addition and a 1600 sq ft shop. I guess with the addition, it’s 1900.
No lake though! I did see some beautiful properties a few years back on your lake going for foreclosure prices. It was mighty tempting. But we wanted acreage, away from people.
First off it's a New York Times bestseller, and the author is a cultural liberal. So, it's a completely acceptable book by a completely mainstream author and publisher.
He presents the facts that science has now decisively shown that much of human nature is inherited, including things like intelligence and tendency towards violence.
But he goes further. He completely deconstructs why no one believes that, and most people still believe in the false theory that people are a blank slate. It's not an accident, it's the result of a series of politicized academics who pushed their theory as fact, even as any evidence in support of it was being debunked.
I managed to convince a Tard friend to read this book - and now conversations with him are much easier. When he starts slipping into one of his lazy NAXALT claims (Not All X Are Like That} I simply say "Do you still believe in the blank slate? That's been debunked, as you know, right? You read the book.".
We bought two side by side properties, totally a bit over 9 acres.
This is still possible at this lake.
Going north, bigger pieces of land are available for home building. MM 50 and above on the main channel are wide expanses of undisturbed property.
The next door Ozark cabin was our next purchase and we’ve turned this into a rental. $1,000/week. 4-5 people max. Adults only.
Couples wanting to go fishing have the perfect spot with our dock and boat lift...
TN is where me and the Missus are planning on retiring too. If all goes well we should be able to “finish the game” in a non-invaded area also.
That is as important as any other aspect of all this immigration crap.
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