Open Sesame: The Piss-Poor ‘Conservative,’ Immigration Positions That Admit You Into Polite Company

Argument, Conservatism, Democrats, IMMIGRATION, Law, Republicans

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On the immigration front, the “Open Sesame” magical phrase that gets you into polite, conservative company is J. D Vance’s “True ‘Compassion’ Requires Secure Borders and Stopping Illegal Immigration.”

Banal. Puke. Yawn.

“True ‘Compassion’ Requires Secure Borders and Stopping Illegal Immigration” is the typically bankrupt, conciliatory, “conservative” argument we’ve come to expect from these quarters, regarding America’s promiscuously loose  immigration policy, under Republicans and Democrats alike.

First, the “moral” preening component: “All’s I’m saying, you folks, comes out of the goodness of my hillbilly heart.”

For the second point, allow me to excerpt from my “Immigration Scene,” written in 2006 (has anything changed? why vote?):

Everyone (and his dog) currently concurs that we have no problem with legal immigration, only with the illegal variety. It’s now mandatory to pair an objection to the invasion of the American Southwest with an embrace of all forms of legal immigration.

Vance opposes the rot of our immigration reality simply because he’s so kind, diverse and open, but still law-abiding.

Note the name-dropping from our hoedown Hillbilly, a member of the elite by any other name:

“… my friend (and my wife’s former boss) Brett Kavanaugh [of the] Supreme Court...”

Ooh. Impressive. While Vance forgot to brag directly about having married an Indian-American lady, who “Rid Him of His Hillbilly Ways“; he brought her up indirectly while touting his elite credentials.

Then there’s the shtick that is the constant mentioning of his “working-class background.” Once they’ve “arrived” in the power zone; conservatives like Vance are as good at lefty elitists at assuring us of their (manifestly fake) authenticity.

By the way, Appalachian folks, whom Vance depicted in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, say justifiably that “Vance was not an authentic hillbilly or an example of the working class.”

Cassie Chambers Armstrong, an Appalachian and author of Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains, tells why her Aunt Ruth didn’t think much of JD Vance’s endeavor:

Hillbilly Elegy’s 

portrayal of Appalachia is designed to elevate Vance above the community from which he came. Remember that it seeks to tell his story in a way that aligns with a simplistic rags-to-riches narrative. Think critically about how that narrative influences the way we are taught to think about poverty, progress, and identity.

When all is said and done, J. D. Vance utters the code words at the door of the Establishment, Left and Right, when discussing immigration–and has been allowed in.

The right answer, the one J.D. Vance wouldn’t dare give, is this:

Vance and his phony conservative friends misplace compassion. Their job is not to flaunt their virtue to The World currently on its way to America.

True compassion demands that American politicians and policy makers stick strictly to their mandate—and that is looking out ONLY for their American constituents, and sending all the rest THE HELL HOME.  These politicians are hired hands: hired by the American electorate to do its bidding, alone.

Except for a tiny elite, Americans are struggling. But the political class, Dem & Republican, has developed crooked ways of virtue signaling about immigration, using these safe words: Humanitarian crisis! The Kids are in cages. Trafficking. Cartels. Sex.

See:

Do We Still Have A Country? Part I
“We Aren’t Americans; We ARE The World (Part II)”

UPDATE:

The GOP is RIP to me: Typically, Sen. John Kennedy, with his contrived Southern act (he’s Ivy League) and rehearsed, overwrought cracks, puts Trump’s party back decades, tells “Fox News Primetime” host Trey Gowdy that Americans love 1 million legal immigrants coming in annually, object ONLY to illegal, Biden-created chaos on border. (3/9/021)

* Image attribution

Cryptocurrency’s Max Keiser Vs. Gold’s Peter Schiff

Argument, Debt, Democrats, Donald Trump, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Russia

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I’ve never known what to make of the financial expert RT has stuck by, Max Keiser of the eponymous Keiser Report.

I had been more of a Peter Schiff gold devotee. Thing is, the devotion was not returned. Most of Schiff’s clients, especially the small fry, fared poorly over time and seldom or never heard from the money maestro (who himself is very wealthy; broker fees and all).

Schiff is still calling “Bitcoin the latest iteration of fool’s gold and anybody buying it [the] ultimate fool.” Keiser, the choice on the business page of RT (Russia Today), is a Bitcoin guy. Bitcoin is holding the value of assets and then some. Gold? It has been fractionalized (spelling?)—fractional reserve banking has bad connotations!—and manipulated by the brokerages.

Speaking of RT (which once published this writer’s weekly column): Republicans, like the Democrats, speak of that TV station as an arm of the Kremlin (presumably nothing like CNN or MSNBC or WaPo which are never an arm of the Democratic Party).

In truth, Trump conservatives never defended President Trump’s conciliatory position toward Russia and Vladimir Putin. Rather, Republican defense of Trump’s correct stance toward Russia consisted of bolstering his alleged anti-Putin credentials, and boasting that he was ACTUALLY tougher on Russia than the Dems. So weak. So dumb.

It’s never about principled argument with Republicans. In their narrow little minds, the American Empire is supposed to war with Russia. That Trump came to power opposing that position was no reason to reexamine their asinine assumptions.

Since they invariably always fall in-line with neocon and neoliberal foreign-policy orthodoxy—Republicans and conservatives only ever tried to nudge Donald Trump toward America’s wrongheaded, Russia monomania.

*Image courtesy of RT.

UPDATE III (4/9): NEW COLUMN: The Wussification Of The West: Will We Ban Shakespeare For Othello And Shylock?

Argument, Comedy & Humor, Conservatism, Education, English, Free Speech, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Literature, Race, Racism, The West

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The The Argument from Freedom means arguing process, not content.–ilana

NEW COLUMN IS either “The Wussification Of The West: Will We Ban Shakespeare For Othello And Shylock?” Or, “How Tucker Could Have Crushed His Dr. Seuss Segment,” currently on WND.COM, the Unz Review,  Townhall.com.

“How Tucker Could Have Crushed His Dr. Seuss Segment” is on CNS.News, too.

And American Renaissance, where the conversation is lively.

And, the great American Greatness, the voice of next-generation conservatism.

Watch a video version of this column on YouTube.

And excerpt:

… Tucker’s mistake was his contents-driven defense of these kiddie books:

“Dr. Seuss was not a racist. He was an evangelist against bigotry,” pleaded Tucker. “He wrote an entire shelf of books against racism, and not in a subtle way. They were clearly, explicitly against racism. That was the whole point of writing them, to teach children not to be racist.”

Yawn.

Even if Dr. Seuss was the pedagogic, sanctimonious bore Tucker makes him out to be—actual racism in the targeted literature should be a peripheral issue, or no issue at all.

The Argument from Freedom means arguing process, not content.

Whether he intended it or not, the premise of Tucker’s defense of Dr. Seuss is that if we do detect “legitimate” racism in literature—there is a case for banning it. (Now, Tucker might not have meant it that way, but, this is what the structure of his argument portends.)

By contrast, freedom makes the case for an unfettered free market in ideas, good and bad. Freedom argues for politically impolite books to be published and read freely.

Banning books, moreover, assumes a lack of choice and agency among individual human beings. It’s also predicated on a higher authority that decides for the rest of us which cultural products are fit for our consumption.

The Argument from Freedom means arguing not over the contents of Mein Kampf or McElligot’s Pool, but for their publication irrespective of their content.

Which is why I say freedom’s argument is an argument from process, and not content.

Mein Kampf, and any offensive literature, needs to be available in a free society to free men and women who want it. And not because of history; so that we don’t forget it or repeat it (blah, blah, blah, as I heard it enunciated by Seattle’s radio mouth, Jason Rantz, the other day).

Alas, in the face of the cancellation of people and publications, cancelled conservatives just keep these logically weak and, frankly, loser mea culpas coming. Like the Argument from Hitler, which is a kind of “WhatAboutism”:

“Amazon and eBay sell Mein Kampf, why not Dr. Seuss? I want what Hitler got, Amazon and eBay. Me too. Boo-hoo.”

Tweeted “Musil Protégé”: “Conservatives [inadvertently] condone presentism. As Audrey says in Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan: ‘Has it ever occurred to you that our world judged by the standards of Jane Austen’s time would (look ridiculous)?’”

Most great literature doesn’t meet the sub-intelligent standards of the woke illiterati, who control the intellectual means of production—the schools (primary, secondary, tertiary), the press, publishing houses, think tanks, Deep Tech and the Deep State. …

…NEW COLUMN IS either “The Wussification Of The West: Will We Ban Shakespeare For Othello And Shylock?” Or, “How Tucker Could Have Crushed His Dr. Seuss Segment,” currently on WND.COM, the Unz Review and Townhall.com.

“How Tucker Could Have Crushed His Dr. Seuss Segment” is on CNS.News and American Renaissance as well.

Watch a video version of this column on YouTube.

UPDATE II (3/16): Facebook: 
Ray McClendon:

I’m a big Tucker fan too Ilana. Your article pointing out his arguments along with others who made the same argument give rise to mixed emotions. On the one hand, he (and they) are not wrong. There is some validity to their logic. After all, truth is often multifaceted. Plus, we’re all on the same side fighting side by side as allies in a common cause. On the other hand, you perform a great service when you point out there are far more substantive, powerful, and relevant arguments to be made, reminding me of that axiom, “Great minds may think alike, but greater minds think alone.” It’s why you’ve always been in a class by yourself. Thank you…

Ilana Mercer

No! I point to he fact that the argument from racism is irreverent if one is arguing classical liberal freedoms. Tucker, whom I love, was arguing from the leftist premise. The End. No argument. You can both love Tucker, and agree he presented a weak case for freedom. I do. That’s not wrong.

UPDATE III (4/9): When Adult humor is allowed:

Ed Powell: “You are my favorite African-American.”
Me: “That’s good ‘adult humor’. I am an African-American Jew.”
MrSweetaz: “@ILANAMERCER, LOL, Hitler wouldn’t have known what the hell to do with you.”
Me: “I think he would.”

UPDATED (4/9): Member Of The Meritless McCain Dynasty Pans Duty-Bound British Monarchy

America, Britain, Crime, Democracy, Federalism, Paleolibertarianism, Race, Republicans, THE ELITES, The Establishment, The West

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If forced to choose between mobocracy and monarchy, the latter is far preferable and benevolent.–ilana mercer

To spout received opinion, Fox News, neoconservative at heart, hired Ben Domenech, the unremarkable husband of the irredeemably awful Meghan McCain.

At the conclusion of a wishy-washy Fox segment about the wanton Meghan Markle, the man who had married into the meritless McCain dynasty declared:

“There is nothing more American than hating the British Crown.”

The correct perspective is in my “Mobocracy Vs. Monarchy“:

The Queen of England might be a member of the much-maligned landed aristocracy, but she has acquitted herself as a natural aristocrat would. Elizabeth II has lived a life of dedication and duty, and done so with impeccable class. The Queen has been working quietly (and often thanklessly) for the English people for over half a century. Elizabeth Windsor was 13 when World War II broke out, which is when she gave her first official radio broadcast to console the children who had been evacuated “from Britain to America, Canada and elsewhere.” Still in her teens, Elizabeth joined the military, “where,” according to Wikipedia, “she … trained as a driver, and drove a military truck while she served.”

If forced to choose between the mob (democracy) and the monarchy, the latter is far preferable and benevolent. This thesis is anatomized in Democracy: The God that Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order, by libertarian political philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe. In his seminal work, Hoppe provides ample support—historical and analytical—for democracy’s inferiority as compared to monarchy:

‘… democracy has succeeded where monarchy only made a modest beginning: in the ultimate destruction of the natural elites. The fortunes of great families have dissipated, and their tradition of a culture of economic independence, intellectual farsightedness, and moral and spiritual leadership has been lost and forgotten. Rich men still exist today, but more frequently than not they owe their fortune now directly or indirectly to the state.’

“[I]n light of elementary economic theory, the conduct of government and the effects of government policy on civil society can be expected to be systematically different, depending on whether the government apparatus is owned privately or publicly,” explains Hoppe. “From the viewpoint of those who prefer less exploitation over more and who value farsightedness and individual responsibility above shortsightedness and irresponsibility, the historic transition from monarchy to democracy represents not progress but civilizational decline.”

UPDATE (4/9): A relative of the VP, Kamala Harris, white-hating Meena Harris, is another future “View” host. Every bit as banal, privileged and intellectually dispensable as imbecile Meghan McCain.

She tweeted:

I deleted a previous tweet about the suspect in the Boulder shooting. I made an assumption based on his being taken into custody alive and the fact that the majority of mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by white men.

The hate crime in Boulder Massacre was by a Muslim refugee: #AhmadAlAliwiAlissa

Counters Steve Sailer: “According to the New York Times study of all 358 mass shootings in the US in 2015, the mass shooters were black over 70% of the time.”