Tuesday, January 13, 2004

 
The "Short, Live Dude"*
Or: "The Tragedy of Peace"

-Finished working the usual double shifts this weekend and Monday evening shift-which is a poor excuse for the wretched, uninspired, unreadable crap that I've hacked out over the past couple of weeks. It's not much consolation that the NRO output gives me the ol' "been there; done that" feeling-Tried and failed to Google the quotation that goes something like "...questions so old that I've forgotten the answers." I've got a steel sieve for a memory, but it's adequate to know that with respect to the differences between the effects of foreign trade and immigration that Peter Brimelow pretty much "covered" that(and a lot of the other stuff rehashed on NRO) years ago in "Alien Nation." Brookhiser noted on the Corner that the difference between free trade and free immigration is that immigrants vote. -worth mentioning and did so myself on "Beating Raoul" on Jan 7, but, face it, it's like, "duh," and further evidence that many people(for reasons good and bad) prefer not to think about immigration until say, Bush's Amnesty boot threatens to smash their faces. Not much to add here but will drone on until sleep seems possible-
Won't crack the book, but believe that PB noted that free trade, while imposing some costs and creating some "losers" here, can be a substitute for the more costly and less beneficial massive immigration going on now. He also gets into the always touchy and quotable out of context "Hitler" thing. He wrote something to the effect that the results of immigration can be thought of a Hitlers last revenge on the West. It was also some old issue of NR in which it was noted that the nasty Austrian immigrant had the insight that it was "national socialisms" that would have enduring appeal. During the Cold War the Left would often maliciously understate the extent of cooperation and fellow-feeling of various nasty leftist regimes and insurgencies, but it was/is true that many leftist groups hated each other on the basis of their racism...er I mean *nationalism." -so much for the beautiful dream that Marxism would do away with racism and petty nationalism.
PB also wrote something that massive immigration into Germany ("of all places(I think w/o book gekrakin))would/has caused the growth of nasty neo-nazi feelings and groups. An unpleasant truth is that while a repugnant white racist outlook makes it "easy" to oppose immigration and to favor violence to end it, that doesn't by itself make it wrong.
A subject that may or may not be counter-productive for conservatives to raise is that of immigration into *pre*-WWII Germany. My sole source for thinking that this was substantial is a few moments in recent years in a Barnes & Noble thumbing through a book by Robert Reich*. He asserted that many Poles, in particular, emigrated to Germany to take industrial jobs. A brief Google inquiry failed to turn anything up, and laziness, and a desire not to get the "creeps" prevents me from cracking open "Mein Kampf" but some Cornerite might uncover something worth writing about with a little effort. The argument could be made that immigration fosters white racism, leads to the rise of Hitlers etc., but is vulnerable to the smear that someone making those arguments is just like Hitler and so on.
Sigh, what else hasen't been flogged lately? -the personal and the political, I guess:
A decent person wouldn't relish the thought of say, dinner, with someone spouting off about "mud people," the necessity of "keeping the white race pure" etc., but if one makes arguments that certain immigrants have, overall some cultural characteristics that make them highly undesirable(at least in large, pauseless flows), inevitable that you'll be accused of being in bed with the postulated grub guest. One reason that statements are made with such sarcastic vehemence along the lines of "Oh, but I'll bet some of your *best friends* are black/asian/hispanic"is that while sometimes the protestations that one has friends of different ethnicities or cultures *are* made by scumbuckets, the protestation by some others can be valid and powerful and threating to those who want to import some immigrants to no good end. It has probably been of some sociobiological benefit for scores of thousands of years to balance the "personal" and "political" by say, mating with those outside one's grubby little groups(by, for example "trading" for spouses or taking wymnfolk for mates after slaughtering their non-nubile relatives), while at the same time making sure that said not-too badly inbred little clan is not annihilated by others.
To put it another way: There's some oft expressed cliched sentiment to the effect that soldiers caught up in the horror of war often reflect that among the enemy over the ridge or behind the bush or whathaveyou are some guys that under other circumstances with you'd glady share a brew, or proudly see marry your sister or daughter. There is, however, no horror of war to concentrate the mind, but only an unwelcome annoying little party-pooper of a voice within that warns of potential tragedy on a grand scale while one is primarily engaged in dealing with say, immigrants on a personal level. I'll spare the Reader(again, if any)the personal anecdotes, but those dealings, as one can imagine(if not actually experienced by said Reader)more often than not, are with decent people with compelling stories of success, failure and hardship. And only a clod could not think at times thoughts like "I would do the same thing if I were born into your circumstances" or "I wonder if I would do even half so well as you." One hopes that the universe is not ruled by some nasty or unfathomable, Darwinian Hairy Thunderer who hath decreed that there is a time to put away racism and a time to be racist....
Downer, Man-
A few days ago, I think it was on NPR(or maybe not)that I heard some insipid plug for some group which stated and repeated and repeated the ol' "..teach a man to fish..." In a foul mood,(and perhaps influenced by one of the many copies uncracked around of *Science" magazine)clever lad that Iyam, thought I, "...and we get the tragedy of the commons." Yeah, I crack myself up. And that not to say that I don't think that democratic(and sometimes not-so-democratic)capitalism can make for a better, richer freer world. -Which reminds moi of an ad hominem attack not made often enough of late: Ever think about the motives(probably unconscious)of Democrats and other leftoids when they make statements(identical, to be sure to some of those made by some conservatives)about how "essential" are the contributions of millions of illegal workers or how our economy would "collapse" without them(the illegals, that is, I don't think many people think the economy would tank without leftists)? It's often observed that Democrats want hostile, anti-white, low-skill immigrants because of their voting patterns, need for social services, and because native workers injured by their presence will then need social services themselves, feel the need for strong, if not thugish leftist unions etc, but what hasn't been blogged (in my limited desultory readings)is that underlying those assertions is the old canard that under capitalism, relatively few people prosper, and that they do so only by the impoverishment of a greater number of folks. That is, asserting that most people in the developed world are actually poor, or that if they really aren't so poor, that is only because the developed world is making the rest of the world poor. A long way for a little nuance perhaps, but someone who kin rite fer sh*t could make this point elsewhere.
Downer, again Man. will try once more: WFB in "Bushwhaking Immigration" writes:"Laws attempting to seal the border were in the tradition of King Canute ordering the tide to stop." To flog(and didn't Canute order the sea to be flogged? oops, or was that Xerxes? no, don't think that's right either)this for laffs- One version, at least, of the legend is that the good, wise, Canute wished to make a point for his subjects about the limits of temporal power. -haven't taken the time during this not-so-excellent adventure to learn much about this historical figure, but it seems unlikely that the King would have hesitated in hacking to bits any bands of his fellow Scandihoovians who dared to wade ashore with bad intentions. And its reasonable to assume that the famous story wouldn't have been so memorable had an accident of history placed Canute on the throne of say, Holland.
King Canute actually popped into mind some months ago, during the tempest over the marketing of FCUK. Google confirmed a suspicion of the alt. spelling of "Cnut"(also "Knut") and, alas, that others had already thought of this and were marketing tee shirts and the like. A further search entering History of er, uh, sounds like "see you, Auntie" yielded a *very* long soporific scroll of a post of Indo-European facts and musings. Some months later cometh NRO's Derbplorable Words. I suspect, based on largely subjective inklings that that "history" does not activate the same regions of the brain as do obscenities or invocations of the deity proscribed by one of the Ten Comandments. There may be MRI or PET scan research that substantiates this which is out there somewhere. And take Tourette's Syndrome for example. Those afflicted with this, of course, tend to utter obscenities uncontrollably. Mine frau knows a woman who is sometimes able to transmute an outburst to a relatively non-hazardous-to-health, "Nickels!" She has also worked with a profoundly disabled child whose speech is unintelligible except for "M*th*rF*ck*r!" and "White Bitch!"
Hmmm wonder if that unfortunate Tourette's sufferer came up with the substitution on her own or if some well-intentioned but misogynist therapist thought, "What this c*nt needs is a good 5 cent N-word!" -arghhh.....better quit while I'm way behind on sleep.....