Posted on 05/19/2003 6:41:49 PM PDT by JackelopeBreeder
Mondays really suck. Even if they’re busy, they still manage to be boring. Liberals and government goofs tend to lie low on Mondays, as if they know that conservatives are particularly testy on that day and dangerous to provoke. I hate being bored. I’ve tried most of the more popular sins at least once, so tonight I’m taking a shot at what quite a few Freepers would call Heresy.
Introduced for your perusal is a short essay from 1988 by the erstwhile patron saint of environmental extremists, Edward Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang. I say erstwhile as he seems to have fallen out of favor with that crowd; methinks they finally got around to reading his other works…
Immigration and Liberal Taboos
In the American Southwest, where I happen to live, only sixty miles north of the Mexican border, the subject of illegal aliens is a touchy one. Even the terminology is dangerous: the old word wetback is now considered a racist insult by all good liberals; and the perfectly correct terms illegal alien and illegal immigrant can set off charges of xenophobia, elitism, fascism, and the ever-popular genocide against anyone careless enough to use them. The only acceptable euphemism, it now appears, is something called undocumented worker. Thus the pregnant Mexican woman who appears, in the final stages of labor, at the doors of the emergency ward of an El Paso or San Diego hospital, demanding care for herself and the child she's about to deliver, becomes an "undocumented worker." The child becomes an automatic American citizen by virtue of its place of birth, eligible at once for all of the usual public welfare benefits. And with the child comes not only the mother but the child's family. And the mother's family. And the father's family. Can't break up families can we? They come to stay and they stay to multiply.
What of it? say the documented liberals; ours is a rich and generous nation, we have room for all, let them come. And let them stay, say the conservatives; a large, cheap, frightened, docile, surplus labor force is exactly what the economy needs. Put some fear into the unions: tighten discipline, spur productivity, whip up the competition for jobs. The conservatives love their cheap labor; the liberals love their cheap cause. (Neither group, you will notice, ever invites the immigrants to move into their homes. Not into their homes!) Both factions are supported by the cornucopia economists of the ever-expanding economy, who actually continue to believe that our basic resource is not land, air, water, but human bodies, more and more of them, the more the better in hive upon hive, world without end-ignoring the clear fact that those nations which most avidly practice this belief, such as Haiti, Puerto Rico, Mexico, to name only three, don't seem to be doing well. They look more like explosive slow-motion disasters, in fact, volcanic anthills, than functioning human societies. But that which our academic economists will not see and will not acknowledge is painfully obvious to los latinos: they stream north in ever-growing numbers.
Meanwhile, here at home in the land of endless plenty, we seem still unable to solve our traditional and nagging difficulties. After forty years of the most fantastic economic growth in the history of mankind, the United States remains burdened with mass unemployment, permanent poverty, an overloaded welfare system, violent crime, clogged courts, jam-packed prisons, commercial ("white-collar") crime, rotting cities and a poisoned environment, eroding farmlands and the disappearing family farm all of the usual forms of racial ethnic and sexual conflict (which immigration further intensifies), plus the ongoing destruction of what remains of our forests, fields, mountains, lakes, rivers, and seashores, accompanied by the extermination of whole specie's of plants and animals. To name but a few of our little nagging difficulties.
This being so, it occurs to some of us that perhaps evercontinuing industrial and population growth is not the true road to human happiness, that simple gross quantitative increase of this kind creates only more pain, dislocation, confusion, and misery. In which case it might be wise for us as American citizens to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturallymorally-generically impoverished people. At least until we have brought our own affairs into order. Especially when these uninvited millions bring with them an alien mode of life which - let us be honest about this - is not appealing to the majority of Americans. Why not? Because we prefer democratic government, for one thing; because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful-yes, beautiful!-society, for another. The alternative, in the squalor, cruelty, and corruption of Latin America, is plain for all to see.
Yes, I know, if the American Indians had enforced such a policy none of us pale-faced honkies would be here. But the Indians were foolish, and divided, and failed to keep our WASP ancestors out. They've regretted it ever since.
To everything there is a season, to every wave a limit, to every range an optimum capacity. The United States has been fully settled, and more than full, for at least a century. We have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by allowing the old boat to be swamped. How many of us, truthfully, would prefer to be submerged in the Caribbean-Latin version of civilization? (Howls of "Racism! Elitism! Xenophobia!" from the Marx brothers and the documented liberals.) Harsh words: but somebody has to say them. We cannot play "let's pretend" much longer, not in the present world.
Therefore-let us close our national borders to any further mass immigration, legal or illegal, from any source, as does every other nation on earth. The means are available, it's a simple technical-military problem. Even our Pentagon should be able to handle it. We've got an army somewhere on this planet, let's bring our soldiers home and station them where they can be of some actual and immediate benefit to the taxpayers who support them. That done, we can begin to concentrate attention on badly neglected internal affairs. Our internal affairs. Everyone would benefit, including the neighbors. Especially the neighbors.
Ah yes. But what about those hungry hundreds of millions, those anxious billions, yearning toward the United States from every dark and desperate corner of the world? Shall we simply ignore them? Reject them? Is such a course possible?
"Poverty," said Samuel Johnson, "is the great enemy of human happiness. It certainly destroys liberty, makes some virtues impracticable, and all virtues extremely difficult."
You can say that again, Sam.
Poverty, injustice, over breeding, overpopulation, suffering, oppression, military rule, squalor, torture, terror, massacre: these ancient evils feed and breed on one another in synergistic symbiosis. To break the cycles of pain at least two new forces are required: social equity-and birth control. Population control. Our Hispanic neighbors are groping toward this discovery. If we truly wish to help them we must stop meddling in their domestic troubles and permit them to carry out the social, political, and moral revolution which is both necessary and inevitable.
Or if we must meddle, as we have always done, let us meddle for a change in a constructive way. Stop every campesino at our southern border, give him a handgun, a good rifle, and a case of ammunition, and send him home. He will know what to do with our gifts and good wishes. The people know who their enemies are.
Wouldn't matter if they were fat, educated, skilled, and culturallymorally-generically advanced; we are out of room.
At least until we have brought our own affairs into order.
No, not until, but never. We are full-up.
because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful-yes, beautiful!-society
Well, you're hoping for something already lost to us.
It doesn't matter.
As crowding from populaton growth (which is primarily from immigration, legal and otherwise) and rationing continue, our way of life will change--is changing--like it or not.
This guy was truly ahead of his time. Still, 15 years later the immigration madness continues and anything resembling the above remains a far off dream.
Can't argue with you there.
It's was full for longer than that--North America was full long before Columbus discovered America.
I haven't hunted with my brother in New York State for many years now.
I was horrified to learn from my brother how everytime he visits his hunting lodge, he notices more and more new houses being built on the way to the lodge.
Pretty soon, he says, they'll be making that a shotgun county. (Meaning, hunting with rifles will no longer be allowed.)
And another freedom lost.
But I'll take it further: If that growth continues--and continue it will unless immigration of all kinds is halted--they'll eventually be no hunting at all.
And a few years after that, the gun laws will be as restrictive as those in densely populated New York City.
The right to bear arms and other BASIC freedoms are slowly being eroded by crowding from population growth from immigration.
You too Uh? I spend a lot of my free time in Upper Wisconsin. When I was a kid the WI North Woods was truly a wilderness to behold. Today, it is carved up with homes and developments through and through, especially around the lakes. Back home in the outlying areas NW of Chicago where I grew up and went hunting as a kid there are ten of thousands of new homes and town houses that now occupy the fields, woods and farmland I used to roam and thousands more are being built every year.
It is Sad what is happening to America's Open Spaces. I'll never understand the wacky notion that economic growth and prosperity rests with an ever-greater number of warm bodies in the country. Do we want to be like China or India? It's like the Open Border Cabal believe that capitalism can only work if there is a population explosion. Tell that to Switzerland! We as a nation won't know what we have lost until we have totally lost it.
So many people don't understand how quickly population growth can change their way of life.
And fewer are the people who understand how quickly population growth liberalizes thinking: In a world of shortages, people must share and ration to get along, and they must turn to government to referee the countless conflicts that come with crowding.
Conflicts like who can own a firearm or who can smoke a cigarette where.
It is Sad what is happening to America's Open Spaces. I'll never understand the wacky notion that economic growth and prosperity rests with an ever-greater number of warm bodies in the country. Do we want to be like China or India? It's like the Open Border Cabal believe that capitalism can only work if there is a population explosion. Tell that to Switzerland! We as a nation won't know what we have lost until we have totally lost it.
The greatest luxury is the enjoyment of freedom--not the enjoyment of consumer products produced by a society teeming with smokestacks where hordes of people live in human anthills.
Like New Jersey, whose population density surpasses that of India or Japan; good old liberal New Jersey.
Nothing--not Bach, not Rembrandt--no art, architecture, or music can substitute for the sights and sounds and smells and touch and taste of nature.
I love his quote, in I think, "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness"....
(I'll paraphrase it if I don't have it right)
"If more people carried guns, there would be a lot better manners around here..."
This is one of the reasons why I see conservatism in America dying. As the population growth in America rises exponentially and well past our ability to manage in an orderly fashion more government will be looked upon by the masses to solve the problems you mention that come with overpopulation. In 1965 America had roughly half of today's population and it's interesting to note that Both Political Parties were MUCH MORE Conservative than they are today. At some point the house of cards we have built for ourselves will come tumbling down.
agree with much of this but the above line in idiotic and racist.
Racist? Against which race, exactly?
No, we're not. Lots and lots of empty square miles to fill and exploit. Perhaps if the government stopped taking land out of circulation, we'd have more room. What have we got now? Cities both restricting land use to maximize "open space" and complaining that they need to control rent because there isn't enough housing.
We're not full up. But I'm certainly fed up with government restrictions and giveaways. The John Smith Rule should be the guide on limiting factor to immigration: "if you don't work, you don't eat". No freebies. No handouts. No coddling. No bilingualism. If they want to be part of America, they need to be willing to play the game our way, and not expect us to help them.
Make no mistake, though: Edward Abbey was a extremist liberal.
Abbey was the original environmentalist wack-job. He was also an alcoholic, a mysogynist (& I don't throw that term around lightly) and was probably manic/depressive.
.......which means he was a PERFECT DEMOCRAT--LOL!
Either you or they are out of place. Globe is in Pinal County. ;>)
A good read, as is Desert Solitaire. I remember reading that by the UofA pool an hour or so every afternoon one summer. I had just come back from Viet Nam and the war protests had reached the campus. I went to class in the a.m. and had the p.m. to relax and delve into a quieter place. It engendered a love of the desert and the Colorado Plateau that remains with me to this day. In the early 70's I joined with others in hiking many of the slickrock areas in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah. My one regret was that I never got to hike the Glen Canyon before it was buried forever by Lake Powell. It was a rape of the land, and well worth preservation. These days, the Sierra Club is more interested in political agendas than anything. However, I would have joined them in that fight if I had known.
Fair enough.
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