The President of the Mexican Senate Wants Southwest United States Back

There's a newish meme being used to justify the anti-ICE riots and illegal immigration--the illegal immigrants have a right to be in the United States because the Southwest was stolen and really belongs to Mexico.

The problem isn't illegal immigrants; it's American citizens who wrongly believe they have the right to live here without being invaded.

Cue the next Mexican-American war, folks. And, if you are watching what is unfolding in America's cities, that war has already begun.

So implies the President of the Mexican Senate, and if you listen to the rhetoric of many on the left, a lot of other people. José Gerardo Rodolfo Fernández Noroña suggested that Mexico should accede to President Trump's demand that a wall be built at our border and that Mexico pay for it--but it should do so at the borders as they existed prior to the redrawing of the boundaries after the Mexican-American War.

Noreña is right that parts of the Southwest were indeed Mexican territory, although if you want to go that route, you might want to turn Mexico back over to Spain, or the French, or the Aztecs, or any of a large number of tribes who inhabited the land. Noreña himself is clearly of at least partial European descent, so it's not clear to me that he has any more right to inhabit and rule the land he is on as American citizens do to control ours.

Most people don't know that Mexico's immigration laws are actually much tougher than the United States'. Entering the country illegally is a felony, and while that law is enforced with the same uniformity as all laws in the country are--Mexico is a famously lawless country with, shall we say, uneven application of the law--much harsher than in the United States.

Such is the logic of decolonization, which in reality has everything to do with Leftists seizing power and nothing to do with "fairness." There is no point in arguing the fine points of the law, fairness, morality, justice, or any fine words. It is about raw power and its exercise. October 7th was about "decolonization," and in the logic of decolonization, it makes perfect sense to wear a Keffiyeh and wave a Mexican flag. IT is all the same issue, and that issue is delegitimizing the Western liberal order by any means necessary.

Liberal democracies are particularly vulnerable to appeals to a sense of justice, even if those appeals are based on weak or even ridiculous claims. One of the great virtues of liberal democratic societies is the preference to find compromises and to establish domestic peace through using processes that everybody acknowledges are basically fair. Our legal systems are highly refined, and while imperfect, we tend to believe that the adversarial process, in which everybody can make an argument, gets the best results.

As imperfect as the system is, it is far superior to the "might makes right" alternative that has been the most common way of resolving disputes.

The downside of that system is that it can be abused--either through frivolous claims or through refusing to acknowledge its legitimacy. The "decolonization" riots of all types--anti-ICE, George Floyd, BLM, Atlanta Police, or any of the many violent movements--try to impose a heckler's veto, banking on the idea that we all want peace so much that we will give in to the most violent.

That's the logic behind the claim that none of this would have happened if only Trump had given in to the rioters. It's not the rioter's fault that there is violence, but rather ICE's.

Think of it as the "from the River to the Sea" argument--there would be no terrorism in Israel if only the Jews would hurry up and die. It really is THEIR fault for existing.

The argument that Mexicans have a right to invade the United States because 200 years ago a Mexican could have entered without a passport is no stronger than my claim to National Health Service treatment in Wales because a great-great-great-grandfather was from there.

It is a mistake to assume that any of these arguments should be taken seriously, because they are not meant seriously. They are meant to confuse the issue. Not to put too fine a point on it, but every country and every border is established through the right of conquest at some point in time, and it's stupid to argue the point. There is not a single border in the world that God decreed or that has been uncontested.

Ask the Ukrainians about that. After all, little more than 30 years ago, any Russian could have driven across that border without contest, and now the Ukrainians are fighting and dying to keep them out. Borders are legal entities, backed up by law.

Illegal immigrants aren't streaming across the border because they want the United States to return the Southwest to Mexico; what they want is to live in a free and prosperous country that is much better governed than Mexico or wherever else they came from. In other words, because these countries suck for some reason.

It's as simple as that. And the reason why America seems better to them is because we have a society that, at best, is governed by the rule of law.

And the rule of law means they have to follow the legal process to come here, or be deported. Everything else is a distraction.

Courtesy of Travis McGee/Matt Bracken, who saw this coming years ago:

“The True History of the Southwest, 101”

The amount of historical idiocy and fallacies surrounding the history of the Southwest is staggering, chief among them the “Aztlan” fairy tales. What’s the truth? How did the Spanish Europeans conquer the Southwest? The “conquistadores” (that means “conquerors”) did it with the lance, and the lash.

For example, in 1541 Coronado entered present-day New Mexico (which included present-day Arizona during the Spanish era) searching for the “lost cities of gold.” One of his first actions upon meeting the natives was to burn 100s of them alive in their dwellings, for not handing over suspected horse thieves. That is how Spain conquered the natives of the present US Southwest—not with hugs and kisses. It was certainly no love-fest between long-lost brown-skinned soul-mates, as it is often portrayed today by the delusional Aztlaners, who spin the “new bronze race of Mestizos” toro-mierda.

By 1821, Mexico City was strong enough to overthrow the even more decrepit and ineffectual Spanish rule. However, the distant provinces of the current U.S. Southwest were far beyond the reach of the authority of the independent but strife-torn government of Mexico City. These distant northern provinces received neither military protection nor needed levels of trade from the south. Under Spanish rule, trade with the USA was forbidden, but at least Spain provided trade and Army protection from hostile Indians. Under Mexican abandonment and neglect, the Southwest received neither trade nor protection from Mexico City.

For example, Comanches and Apaches ran rampant in the 1830s in this power vacuum created by Mexican neglect, burning scores of major ranches that had been active for hundreds of years and massacring their inhabitants. Mexico City could neither defend nor keep the allegiance of its nominal subjects in these regions. Nor did it provide needed levels of trade to sustain the prior Spanish-era standard of living. Mexican governmental influence atrophied, withered and died at the same time that American pathfinders were opening up new routes into the region.

Increasingly, a growing United States of America was making inroads into the Southwest, via ships into California, and via gigantic wagon trains of trade goods over the Santa Fe Trail from St. Louis. The standard of living of the SPANISH in these provinces subsequently increased enormously, which is why they did not support Mexico City in the 1846-48 war. In fact, the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the Southwest NEVER considered themselves “Mexicans” at all, ever. They went, in their own eyes, from SPANISH directly to AMERICAN. To this very day, if you want a punch in the nose, just call an Hispanic native of New Mexico a “Mexican!”

So how long did Mexico City have even nominal jurisdiction (in their eyes) over the American Southwest? For only 25 years, during which they had no effective control, and the area slipped backwards by every measure until the arrival of the Americans. The SPANISH inhabitants of the Southwest NEVER transferred their loyalty to Mexico City, because all they received from the chaotic Mexican government was misrule, neglect, and unchecked Indian raids.

Since then, how long has the area been under firm American control? For 150 continuous years, during which time the former Spanish inhabitants of the region, now American citizens, have prospered beyond the wildest dreams of the Mexicans still stuck in Mexico. To compare the infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals etc of the two regions is to understand the truth. The Mexican government has been mired in graft, corruption, nepotism and chaos from the very start until today. The ordinary Mexican peons have been trampled and abused, while only the super-rich elites have thrived. This is why millions of Mexicans want to escape from Mexico today, to enjoy the benefits of living in America that they can never hope to obtain in Mexico.

And because today Mexico is a corrupt third-world pest-hole, (despite having more millionaires and billionaires than Great Britain), we are now supposed to let any Mexican from Chiapas, Michoacan or Yucatan march into the American Southwest, and make some “historical claim” of a right to live there?

From where does this absurd idea spring?

At what point in history did Indians and Mestizos from Zacatecas or Durango stake a claim on the American Southwest? Neither they nor their ancestors ever lived for one single day in the American Southwest. The Spanish living in the Southwest in 1846 stayed there, and became Americans by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. There were no Spanish inhabitants of the Southwest who were marched to the border and driven into Mexico. It didn’t happen. The SPANISH in the Southwest welcomed American citizenship, which brought stability, protection from Indian raids, and a vast increase in their standard of living with the increase in trade.

In summary, NO current inhabitants of Mexico have ANY claim on even one single inch of the Southwest!

NOT ONE citizen of Mexico is sneaking into the USA to reclaim property their ancestors were deprived of, NOT ONE.

They are criminal invaders and colonizers, pure and simple.

It’s time Americans learned the true history, as a counter to the prevalent Aztlaner fairy tales.

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