Cultural Suicide

Arguments for "legalizing" the millions of Mexicans illegally in this country abound in economic references to the "shortfall" of low-wage workers legally available. They also invoke certain mantras favorably comparing the Mexicans with the millions of Irish, Italians, Bohemians, and others who arrived legally during the immigration waves of the early twentieth century.

Both of these approaches are off the mark. They amount to "argument by assertion," and they ignore fundamental, unavoidable, and indelible realities. Putting aside the romanticism of the mythical saga of our immigrant forefathers, and the reductionist approach addressing only homo economicus, certain central elements emerge that we cannot ignore. They distinguish the Mexican immigration from its European counterparts, and put the economic arguments into proper – and uncomfortable – perspective.

Briefly stated, the legalization of this illegal alien population amounts to American cultural suicide (because it is done intentionally, rather than by accident) and a political disaster. Both of these elements deserve more than a passing glance; they deserve a depth of analysis commensurate with the gravity of their impact.

Both dimensions are inextricably intertwined, and their consequences are profound. "Legalization’s’ disastrous consequences will not be visited so much on one party, or one ideological faction, rather than another. The damage is deeper, far more abiding, and irreversible by any future election or other invocation of the political process. It will powerfully contribute to the ruin of our free society and rule of law.

Every society before Aristotle recognized and underscored the importance of good habits to social survival and prosperity. Aristotle gave these habits names – virtues. He delineated certain virtues required of a polis, virtues known to us all, because they have remained virtually unchanged for the past two millennia.

The Christian era brought to the formula the indispensable and unprecedented truth that government must be limited – not merely an "improvement" on Aristotle, but a radical "leap" (to use Voegelin’s insightful term) that could not be reversed. Augustine most thoroughly articulated the Christian concept of the limited state in the City of God, basing it on metaphysics (the hierarchy of being – God above all else), and the hierarchy and end (telos) of the human psyche (the soul’s highest purpose, its eternal destiny in heaven or hell, could not be achieved by politics, and so the individual must be allowed the freedom to save his soul, and all the purposes of the state are subordinate to that goal, which is beyond politics).

These preambles to politics, based on a goal of man that is beyond politics, are imbedded deep in the Western psyche, and are fundamental to America’s founding. They are indispensable to the history, the institutions, and the rationale of freedom.

Mexico, I am afraid, does not have them. Zip. Zero. Nada. Eighty years ago, these values were hatefully scorned, abandoned, and persecuted by the PRI – the "Instituitonal Revolutionary Party" – the very name is a parody, hilarious and sick, a cynical invocation of Hegelian "movement of the concept" that Mao only later celebrated in his classic On Contradiction.

Personal disclaimer: I have lived on both sides of the border. I worked on the first hearings on U.S.-Mexican relations in years in the U.S. Senate (1986), much to the chagrin and rage of the PRI, which spent millions to stop them. Those hearings, and the change that they forced in the abysmal policy of the U.S. State Department towards Mexico, caused an eventual eruption in Mexico itself.

The PRI did not go quietly. They killed presidential candidates. They killed Roman Catholic cardinals. They relied increasingly on their long-existing allies, the huge "criminal" drug gangs, to perpetuate their iron-fisted rule.

To this day, I cannot travel to Mexico, which fact raises an interesting point about another preamble to politics, the rule of law. Mexico doesn’t have one.

Ask any friend, business associate, or investor who has a stake in Mexico: "What do you do if you have a difference of opinion with the union, with the local authorities that govern property ownership, with the treasury police?"

Not one. No, they will say, "You do everything in your power to work it out without resorting to the courts or to the police."

Mordida, the life’s blood of Mexican life. Corruption, so thorough that it is reflected in the paltry salaries made by public employees because they are expected to make up the difference in the bribes that they exact from the poor slobs whose lives rely on their administrative decisions.

"Hagamos una cosa," shouted the man who had caused a fender-bender near my Mexico City apartment one night, as the police arrived (and the staccato tak tak tak of his young female companion’s high-heels disappeared into the dark night).

Mexicans never travel without an appreciable amount of money, because they must always be prepared to pay bribes at a moment’s notice. The alternative could be jail without end, without trial, without any justification. If, later, you can afford a lawyer good enough to extricate you from such a situation (with bribes, of course), you can certainly afford the up-front bribes that would prevent it – and the sum total required would be appreciably smaller.

Mexicans – even the good, hard-working, moral, Catholic family men and women that every American employer hopes to hire -- have been taught that government, and even an appreciable chunk of social life, is run on the mordida, the payoff.

The illustrations, analysis, and documentation could fill a vast series of scholarly books. I have often wondered why they have not been written. Businessmen and Mexican nationals documented hundreds of horror stories to me personally – as long as they remained secret. Their businesses, even their lives, depended on it.

Even the financial press has avoided the issue (and the Wall Street Journal even invited a former Mexican president to join its parent company’s board. Is that why Bob Bartley keeps beating the drum for evisceration of the border?) For years the prestige press has avoided even the discussion of constant seizures of Mexican property held by Americans, of commercial kidnappings (they’ll laugh at you in Mexico City if you wear a suit and hail an unknown cab on the street), of blackmail by union thugs who plague the maquilladoras, the thousands of American-owned enterprises near the U.S. border in northern Mexico.

The reader can draw his own conclusions. Whatever scholars and journalists decide to do, let us asses what the average Mexican coming "illegally" into the U.S. will do.

First of all, we must underscore the fact that, as far as the illegal Mexican is concerned, he is here "legally." That is, he has paid all his bribes, to the coyote who spirited him across the border, to the petty official in his hometown who would otherwise plague his family, and to the contact in the U.S. who will supply him with a false ID and bogus Social Security number. He has done all this according to the only legal code he knows: playing the system, and bribes. He is as legal as he knows how to be.

So we see our newly-arrived neighbor and see an "illegal"; but what does he see, as he surveys his new home?

Diversity. Multiculturalism. No demand, no suggestion, not even a mention of the desirability of learning about, and adopting, the cultural preambles of the politics of freedom – as foreign to him as Urdu is to you and me -- that form the building-blocks of the basic institutions in his newly-adopted "land of the free."

Instead, he finds entire industries (agriculture, hospitality, construction come to mind) geared towards acquiring his services at low cost, teaching him, in fact, how to "play the system" endlessly. He learns to "disappear" just before the thirtieth day on the job, that being the day he would be required to show a green card (he plays tag-team with others in the same situation); he learns to borrow identities, to "max out" on public and private social services, to play the system any way he can. His wife comes in (illegal, bribes paid all around) just in time to have her child born, at U.S. taxpayer expense, at Loma Linda hospital, one of the finest in the world. And now they are the proud parents of – A U.S. citizen!

There are thousands of vendors of lottery tickets walking the streets of the Distrito Federal, known to us as Mexico City. But it is our illegal friends, and their "legal" offspring, who have won the lottery.

We can only observe with arched eyebrows how "the system" has responded to this abuse (from our point of view; remember, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams). Instead of acting to curtail it, American institutions have abdicated. They even encourage it.

Brevity being a virtue, I can mention only a few examples: The University of California system suddenly raises the importance of the College Board Achievement Tests, as opposed to the SAT’s; this is a raw and cynical move to defy the voters of California, who resoundingly rejected affirmative action. Now, certain immigrants who would not otherwise qualify for admission, ace the "achievement" test in their native language, notably Spanish, and, bingo gringo, they’re in. An American-born, English-as-first-language applicant (and applicants whose languages are not included in those tests) are bounced for the one who knows how to play the system.

American courts (for another example) rule that illegal aliens have all the rights of American citizens before American courts, and cannot thus be summarily deported because of their criminal records – domestic or foreign.

American private enterprises – entire industries, mind you – actually lobby Congress for the right to hire these "illegals" without changing (legalizing) their status. These enterprises will be in for a rude surprise when they discover that the employee who harasses, discriminates, or doesn’t wash his hands, can make them liable for millions of dollars in a class–action suit, while he immediately becomes eligible for all the rights accorded to an American citizen in his defense – and legal aid societies, unions, and professional race-advocates suddenly emerge from the woodwork.

The politically-correct "cultural diversity" encountered by the newly-arrived neighbor is designed never to be penetrated by any element of the religious, individualist, even (by today’s standards) libertarian culture that greeted my grandfather when he got off the boat from Ireland. While the Feds pretend that is the case, trotting out the symbols and myths of the old rituals, these artifacts have actually been emptied of all content. It’s reminds me of the cynicism of Notre Dame, my alma mater, sending us old alums reams of nostalgia-filled propaganda posing as a representation of today’s university, all as an adornment for fundraising appeals. In fact, hundreds (thousands?) of universities like Notre Dame have now become dependent on government largesse.

Similarly, millions of newly-arrived immigrants have become dependent on government largesse, from the day they arrive. The last vestige of "law and order" is the agent on the border. Get past him (and try enough, and you will – but you’ll dearly pay a new coyote every time), and you’re home free.

This impression is reinforced by President Bush’s amnesty-and-more plan. In fact (but hardly noticed), changing foreigners (who perpetrated over three million "illegal" acts) into "legal" aliens on the road to citizenship constitutes the greatest application of the Presidential Pardon power in U.S. history.

By making such a fundamental crime, millions of times over, "legal" with the wave of a presidential pen, Bush 43 typifies the Mexicanization of the U.S. political system. This is the way the PRI did things for eighty years. That is the way of life – social, economic, cultural, and political – that the Mexicans grew up under for five generations. The rule of law is a decoration, an adornment on the Christmas tree that our policy towards Mexico has become.

So here is the "contradiction," to return to Mao’s phrase: Our once-Mexican, now newly arrived neighbor, considers himself legal because he has done everything "by the book" – that book being the thoroughly rotten, corrupt, hypocritical, arrogant, anti-American, anti-Catholic (but that’s another story) government and culture that he grew up in – the only book he knows.

He might be puzzled, momentarily, that the U.S. has no institution, book, or representative to tell him, "that’s all behind you now. We do things differently here. Now, let me give you the basics of a free society, a government of the people, rulers who are not above the law…." But his momentary puzzlement, brought on by the innate "desire to know" that Aristotle discovered and described at the beginning of the Metaphysics, succumbs quickly to the practical challenges of everyday life.

So our new neighbor goes forward, unawares that he, and perhaps five, ten, even twenty million others, have so successfully and thoroughly retained the marks of the culture that bore them, that the culture receiving them has abdicated without firing a shot.

(Christopher Manion, a small businessman and former staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, often volunteers as a translator for the sheriff, game warden, and state police when they conduct sweeps on the riverfront adjacent to his home in the Shenandoah Valley).

Christopher Manion [send him mail] is a small businessman in Virginia, An adjunct lecturer at Christendom College, he has taught ethics at Boston University and is a founding member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

Those are some very good suggestions.

Multilanguage ballots have definitely got to go. Afterall, we're America, aren't we? Our language is supposed to be English, right?

I do agree with making English the official language in government and business dealing with the government. If a private business wants to advertise in their own language, that's their right. However, they have to realize that they risk alienating a large contingent of possible customers.

The Bilingual Lobby is insane. Most of them actually despise America and its Anglo-Saxon traditions. If they don't despise it, they seek to take advantage of the current demographic setting by creating rifts between newcomers and Native Americans.

You make a good point in regard to the problem of catering. That is, if ballots, services and business is done is given in their home language, why bother learning the language. After all, learning a language takes effort, but not having to do anything is so much easier. Thus, eliminating separate services and bilingual facilities would go a good way in helping preserve the autonomy of the country.

Your suggestions are great, as I have said. However, as I stated to Fitz, I've come to think that regardless to the amount of progress that is made in trying to bring newcomers into the fold, full assimilation may never occur due to tremendous differences in culture. If full assimilation does occur, it could very well take one hundred years. However, given the huge numbers, along with human behavior, bilingual services and social identity politics, those one hundred years could very well turn into never. I'm not talking about individuals per se, but am generally speaking about entire separate groups.

I agree. In this troubled and non-perfect world, demographics loom large in the whole scope of things. Political Correctness has brought about much of the problems in America, including illegal immigration.

Political Correctness helped bring about the 1965 immigration act which shifted immigration from being that of a European phenomenon to one that is primarily Asian and Latin American.

Political Correctness has brought about, or helped maintain, social identity politics, affirmative action, bilingual education, multiculturalism, as well as a lot of other nonsense.

With each passing year, things have continued to get worse and worse. A lot of the problem has been an apathetic populace, along with a near-sightedness that plays well into political correctness. Many people aren't thinking long term and, instead, have a time span that exceeds less than five years into the future. Many have been blinded into all the cliches, and most do not compilate all the components in order to reveal where we are most likely headed. Like I said, if people are comfortable with their computers, television, food in their stomachs, and sports, they're not likely to become passioned to fight for what is most important. It's a shame, no doubt.

I have nothing further to add to this man's article. It is quite simply the precise reason that I am so vehemently against Mexican illegal - and overwhelming legal - "immigration". His explanation of the perceptions of the average illegal who has bribed his way into America are dead on, and I'm sure totally alien to most Americans, who are probably shocked by such a description.

This is the definition of an alien culture, antagonistic to all of our values. The truth of it is here in writing, but it cannot be totally conveyed this way. People have to feel it, hear it, see it, and then be allowed to understand it by contemplation. When they do understand it, they will see it for the lurid chaos, the grim horror that it is. And then they will feel fear, and understand that something like a border fence on the U.S. - Mexico border is simply a wall to keep out the worst virus that could ever infect the United States, and already has: the vicious legacy of 5 centuries of feudal despotism.

Somehow, someway, the ordinary people of Mexico have to rise up against this. But we cannot simply let them stampede in here, running from the horror. That just serves the purposes of the Caudillo's that perpetuate the evil, because it can only end in destroying us, and giving them a foothold here (they already have it, of course..). Think of turning over the government to the Mafia...and then multiply by 10.

I have known many Mexicans who were born and raised here, and are completely assimilated in the egalitarian ideas that were embodied in this country's birth. Assimilation is possible, but only in manageable numbers.

We are far, far past anything approaching "manageable" numbers.

Jimer, while you start off stating the obvious problems with illegal immigration, you then go on to state that we might as well make due with what we have.

As I see it, this course, over the long term, will lead to the same thing as doing nothing, albeit will take longer.

There are only a few possible things that can be done. Take note that what I am about to say is not out of intolerance but of a love for country. I've looked long and hard into the problem, and without a plan that has some "meat", all attempts will be to no avail. Therefore, I'll list what needs to be done.

With regard to the illegal aliens already in the country. If the United States Government made a legitimate push to close the borders, and this includes increasing the border patrol 500-1000% or using the military on the borders and only the borders, then we may be able to get a handle on things. That is, if we make sure that our number one priority is our line of defense, then way may not have to go about rounding up illegals.

I would concur that every car be inspected at all border crossings. I am mainly referring to the border crossings with Mexico, for Canadians aren't slipping into our country left and right. Though I do think that border security should be strenthened with the Canadian border. The U.S. Government should put the word out several months to implementation that border checks will become mandatory until otherwise stated. If a worker happens to live in Mexico and works in the United States, and vice versa, they would be eligible to apply for a everyday cross passport with stipulations that he/she is the only person that shall be allowed to pass. Anyone else within the car, will not be admitted. Furthermore, passes will have to be checked monthly to assure that illegals aren't moving into the United States.

The hope is that border crossings will become so complicated that most residents will decide to stay within their own countries and find work there. In fact, daily border crossings have been one of the problems in debacling this whole mess. The goal is self sufficiency.

Meanwhile, the U.S. should pull out of NAFTA, GATT, and tell the Mexican Government that they will have to deal with their own people. Again, self sufficiency.

The last thing that should be done, short of rounding up illegals at their homes, would be to increase the INS in the interior, of which a program will be set in place with a set start and end time. The word will be given out six months in advance to members of certain industries that have been known to hire illegals, that inspections of work sites will begin and will end two to five years later. The inspections will be random, and that each employee should have valid documentation, including a green card, social security card, Immigration documentation, work visa, birth certificate, etc. If the employee is found without certified documentation, or if there is substantial evidence to prove that he/she is in the country illegally, then the worker will face automatic deportation, of which he/she, including illegal family members, will be deported within five days to two weeks. If an employer has been found to have breached the law, he/she will have to pay an expansive fine and possibly face jail time. The goal is that hiring illegals will become too much of risk or burden to employers, that hiring illegals will not be an option.

As you can see, with increased border enforcement, increased interior enforcement, US government speech to Mexican government, withdrawal from NAFT and GATT, along with automatic fines and deportations, the problems would likely subside, as many illegals would deport themselves, many would stop coming, as they would increasingly be caught, not to mention that the economic incentive would subside.

A couple of other helpful tools would be the prohibition of welfare and certain social services for Illegals, not to mention the prohibition of the "anchor baby" amendment.

Jimer, while you start off stating the obvious problems with illegal immigration, you then go on to state that we might as well make due with what we have.

As I see it, this course, over the long term, will lead to the same thing as doing nothing, albeit will take longer.

Meanwhile, the U.S. should pull out of NAFTA, GATT, and tell the Mexican Government that they will have to deal with their own people. Again, self sufficiency.

A couple of other helpful tools would be the prohibition of welfare and certain social services for Illegals, not to mention the prohibition of the "anchor baby" amendment.

I'm glad you liked the article. It has been one of my favorites, too. That is why I posted the article, because I knew that many others would like it, too, especially Freepers who haven't been around very long.

As far as using the legal system, that may work. However, we must remember that the legal system has yet to work, even when the law is in our favor. As you know, the judgeships are stacked with left wingers. Similar problems arise with attorneys. Even the legislature is filled with a lot of these America-hating or politically correct boobs.

I do agree that we should use the law, but Conservatives have to work within the framework of the law, and we have to bring certain cases before Conservative judges. All official documentation (law) should be provided, and important information such as the costs and benefits of illegal immigration, trends, the backbreak of the American taxpayer, and cultural and social implications, etc. should be noted.

If Conservatives don't drill home the facts, including the law, earlier court cases,costs and benefits, trends, etc., then this will open up the door for Left Wing Socialists to use the same venue to attack the messenger, and we risk losing a lot of ground.

Yes, illegal immigration is a huge threat, and I'm glad that Sean Hannity sees it for what it is. Early on in his show, he didn't seem to have much to say about it, but public questioning, perhaps, has made him have to make a stand on the issue. Maybe it is the ever increasing problem, though I'm not sure.

The groups you listed are definitely a problem. They are taking advantage of the human behavior characteristic of individuals wanting think of things according to how it benefits their group. They are no different than the Klan who plays off this same condition and uses it for evil ends, including turning it into a hatefilled message directed towards the "Gringo", whites, blacks, etc.

It's called an extreme form of social identity politics.

As far as these individuals within the House and Senate who want to legalize Illegals, they're using it for unlawful, dishonest, un-American, and selfish ends. They clamor division and votes. The other reasons they push for this insanity include paying off their campaign contributors, of which include multinational corporations who benefit from illegal immigration. I'm sure that some congressmen have family members who benefit from illegal immigration, or they may directly themselves benefit from it. The last reason is directed to those possible members in Congress who are outright communists who wish to see Capitalism dead and the United States fall, and the most powerful nation eventually encased within a world government.

Brownie, I'm glad that you like it, too. It is a fascinating read.

You are entirely correct about the unsavory aspects of Mexican society being brought here. I do like the food, however.

Of course this is designed. It has been forced onto the American people, and with the obvious evidence of wide open borders and continued amnesty pushes, even after 911, it's a no-brainer that the government isn't working in America's best interests.

Some disagree with the statement that a North American Union, New World Order,etc. is being implemented, but when you look at everything, the push is towards global governance, and the elimination of individual economies, borders and sovereignty.

Wasn't it Bush that called the Mexican border the "New Frontier"?

You should be angry. There's no reason that Illegal Aliens should be in this country. If we had a government who wanted to enforce the law, it would be done. In fact, border enforcement would be a fairly simple practice were the government to get serious about it. The problem is that they don't want to fix it. What is there, seventy or so congress members who are part of the Immigration Reform Caucus? That's less than twenty percent. As serious as the problem is, you'd think that they'd see that the Patriotic thing to do would be to support your country and help defend it from invasion.

Another problem is that, according to the article, newcomers see a boatload of services offered to them in their native language, not to mention social and ethnic groups, politicians, etc. that they don't feel that they have to assimilate. Furthermore, given the multiculturalism nonsense that has been pushed into the mainstream over the past ten years, they tend to believe that it is perfectly acceptable to live and perform as though they were living in Mexico. After all, our government is allowing them to do it, and much of what they heard growing up is how Americans took their land.

It's amazing that our government doesn't even question these people when they go to receive social services, huh? It might offend them, right, or it may be viewed as being too insensitive. You don't want to hurt their feelings, now. Furthermore, they should be entitled to drive that brand new, customized pickup, as well as pay for the groceries courtesy of the taxpayers.

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