Tag: Trumpism

Lazy Sunday XIII: Immigration

The Portly Politico74 Comments

I’ve really been beating the drum about immigration lately, so today’s Lazy Sunday should come as no surprise.  Illegal immigration is a major crisis facing the United States and Europe, and it’s one we ignore at our peril.

Indeed, even legal immigration presents a problem if left unregulated.  Massive amounts of immigration leads easily to ethnic cloistering; if left unchecked, entire neighborhoods or cities can become unrecognizable.

An essential component of conservative nationalism is that a nation is made up of a people.  In the old European conception, that manifests itself as the nation-state:  a group of people sharing a common lineage or shared blood.  Sometimes that identity is self-consciously constructed, but it still stems from the notion that a certain people and a certain land make up the nation.

The American conception of nationalism is only slightly different:  the American people don’t have to share the same patrimony, but they do have to share similar values.  Those values are Anglo-Saxon in origin, but they can (and must) be adopted by anyone.

As such, ethnic cloistering subverts the assimilation process, placing fundamentally alien populations in the midst of natives.  That’s a recipe for conflict, as it undermines social and national cohesion.

“Nationalism” doesn’t have to be a dirty word.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with a group of people wanting to have their own nation.  No America should feel like a thoughtcriminal because he wants to protect his country from unregulated foreign invasion.

Some food for thought for your Sunday morning.

  • “Open Borders is the Real Moral Crisis” – One of my first posts on immigration (and last week’s TBT feature), the context for this piece was the child separation policy and the faux outrage about it (notice how you never hear about this anymore?).  When I wrote this piece, this issue was red-hot, and I anticipated all sorts of social justice whinging.  Now that the political usefulness of child props is waning, it’s interesting to read it with fresh eyes.  My basic argument is unchanged, though:  we wouldn’t be dealing with child separation and the like if it we simply enforced the law.
  • “The Facts on the Border Crisis” – This piece looked at the history of Texas Republic and the oft-forgotten Mexican War.  Texas was a major province of Mexico.  After gaining independence from Spain, the young Mexican government invited white American yanquis to settle the territory if they converted to Catholicism.  When the Mexican government attempted to abolish slavery, the American settlers—many of whom came from the Deep South with their slaves in tow—balked, demanding to keep their slaves.  When General Santa Anna attempted to enforce the Mexican constitution, the Texans rebelled.

    The point:  large, marginally-assimilated foreigners dominant in one geographic area is a recipe for disaster.  Now, Mexico is doing to the Southwest what Americans did to Texas in the nineteenth century—they even call it the Reconquista.

  • “Somali Shenanigans” – Case in point:  the resettlement of Somali refugees and immigrants into Minneapolis has completely transformed the demographic makeup of a large neighborhood in the city.  That’s also changed the politics of the State’s Democrat-Farm-Labor Party, which now caters to this largely unassimilable contingent.  Indeed, they’ve now elected Ilhan Omar to Congress, a woman who allegedly married her brotherallegedly married her brother to commit immigration fraud.
  • “Immigration by the Numbers” – This post details the costs, social and economic, of immigration, focusing primarily on the huge amount of American dollars sent to foreign nations as “remittances.”  Remittances are funds earned in the United States and wired back to family members in an immigrant’s home country.  It’s a massive business, accounting for $148 billion in total, with $30.02 billion going to Mexico (China also gets a pretty penny).  That’s American wealth draining off to support other countries.
  • “Deportemal” – Rounding out this week’s Lazy Sunday is a little post about the lawlessness that stems from illegal immigration.  The attitude of illegals is excessively cavalier:  in addition to existing in a state of persistent illegality, they leverage their “shadow” status to avoid real penalties for petty crimes.  The frustration for legal citizens is palpable:  we’re held to a rigid legal standard, while authorities turn a blind or helpless eye to illegal activity from illegal aliens who feel entitled to breaking the law because their home countries suck.

Illegal immigration is a frustrating assault on the lives of American citizens and the rule of law.  Rather than indulge such wide-scale lawlessness, we should robustly and aggressively prosecute and deport illegals upon apprehension for any offense, from the smallest jaywalking misdemeanor to child rape and murder.  If you’re caught and you’re illegal, you’re going back!

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Leftism in a Nutshell

The Portly Politico1 Comment

You’ve got to admire the balls of the Left.  Yes, their wild policy prescriptions come from a combination of ignorance, wickedness, and magical thinking, but that doesn’t stop them from putting out some crazy ideas.

Take this piece from Gavin McInnes’s former rag, Vice:  “The Radical Plan to Save the Planet by Working Less.”  The headline says it all:  let’s just not work so hard, gah!

Naturally, click-bait headlines like that don’t tell the full story.  The “degrowth” movement the piece discusses is classic progressivism:  we should support a robust public transportation system and give generous welfare benefits so people can spend less time working.

The “degrowth movement” is an inversion of Obama-era economic thinking.  Recall the sluggish recovery following the Great Recession, and how Obama informed us that low-growth was the “new normal” we’d all have to learn to love in America.  Now that the economy is roaring under President Trump, progressives are flipping the script:  “oh, wait, too much growth is a bad thing because climate change!”

Like most Leftist economic ideas, it’s premised on denying people choice and subsidizing loafing with generous bennies:

Degrowth would ultimately mean we’d have less stuff: not as many people working and producing materials, so not as many brands at the grocery store, less fast fashion, and fewer cheap and disposable goods. Families would perhaps have one car instead of three, you’d take a train instead of a plane on your vacation, and free time wouldn’t be filled with shopping trips but with non-money-spending activities with loved ones.

Practically, this would also require an increase in free public services; people won’t have to make as much money if they don’t have to spend on healthcare, housing, education, and transportation. Some degrowthers also call for a universal income to compensate for a shorter work week.

I’m all about saving money and avoiding empty consumerism.  I’ve written that there is more to an economy than faceless efficiency units slaving away for plastic crap from China.  I’m not unsympathetic to the idea of taking more time for family and personal edification (as a good deal of the workweek is wasted in meetings and busy work).

But this “degrowth movement” is absurd.  It’s all premised on a government somehow funding a massive welfare state as the citizenry becomes less productive.  Even the sympathetic economist they interview for this ideological puff piece argues that cutting growth to reduce carbon emissions would only have a marginal impact environmentally, but would be devastating socially and economically.

It just goes to show you that the Left hates the idea of hard work.  For them, work is an imposition, and we’d all be better off enjoying endless relaxation and luxury.  It’s the seduction of never-ending childhood: a paternalistic state provides all the goodies so we can watch TV and pursue pleasure all day.

Work is ennobling.  It’s important to earn a living wage for honest, valuable, productive work.  But beyond that, work provides a sense of purpose and accomplishment (I think this is particularly true for men, although women derive great satisfaction from work, too, especially the difficult, important work of raising children).  There is an identity to holding a job, and a sense of satisfaction from doing that job well.

Can one enjoy a good quality of life by pursuing a more minimalist approach?  Yes, of course:  if anything, Americans spend far too much money, a good deal of it on empty baubles.

There is a simple joy to minimalism, and I enjoy “spending” money on savings (it’s very satisfying to watch savings and investments grow).  But subsidizing lollygagging and calling it “investing in infrastructure” is not the sign of a great nation or civilization.

Patriots Fill Gap in Border Wall

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As the federal government struggles to fulfill its basic duties, private citizens are increasingly taking matters into their own hands.  I wrote awhile ago about the GoFundMe page to fund the border wall.  That project is still underway, but seems to have stalled well short of its goal of raising $1 billion.

But there is hope.  The organization connected to that fundraising project, We Build the Wall, constructed a half-mile of wall along a notorious gap on the New Mexico border.

A half-mile is precious little along a border hundreds of miles in length, but it is something.  Further, the specific half-mile section the wall protects is a heavily-crossed gap in existing border fencing.  From The Daily Wire:

The half-mile segment of border wall, the group says, closes a gap frequently used to smuggle both people and drugs. [Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris] Kobach added that on a “typical night” around 100 migrants and $100,000 worth of illegal narcotics passed through the half-mile hole.

The Trump Administration was working on a plan to construct around 234 miles of steel fencing, effectively sealing off the southern border with a “border wall,” but attempts to secure funding for the project have stalled. Congress refused to agree to any funding for the border wall beyond the $1.6 billion promised in the 2018 budget, and President Donald Trump’s “national emergency” declaration — which would have detoured funding to the border wall from other Army Corps of Engineers projects — was halted by a judge pending ongoing litigation.

This excerpt brings up another important point:  the consistent obstruction from Democrats and activist judges of President Trump’s America First agenda.  Even with the declaration of a national emergency, the president has been blocked from making substantial progress on the border wall.

Of course, Republicans passed up a golden opportunity to act on the border wall in 2017 or 2018.  Voters need to send a strong message to candidates in both parties that getting control of the border is important.  Tax cuts and economic growth are wonderful, but for American citizens to benefit, we need strong border security, including a robust deportation system.

I’m encouraged to see private citizens banding together to solve their problems when the government won’t—few things are more American.  Nevertheless, it’s the federal government’s constitutional responsibility to protect our national sovereignty.  It shouldn’t slough off that responsibility and hope that good-willed patriots will pick up the slack.

TBT: Open Borders is the Real Moral Crisis

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I’ve been writing quite a bit about immigration lately, as it’s the major issue facing the West today.  Our leaders’ inabilities to address the crisis of immigration suggests their ineffectiveness—and, perhaps, their callous indifference to the damage unrestricted and illegal immigration wreak.

President Trump rose to national prominence and won the presidency campaigning on fixing illegal immigration.  His efforts so far have been a mixed bag, as duplicitous, progressive judges overreach from their elitist perches and block Trump’s efforts at reform.

It seems a distant memory now, but all the faux-outrage from the Left just a year ago was about the “child separation” business at the border.  One still reads some echoes of those melodramatic headlines, but the underlying problem has gone unaddressed.

In fact, it’s gotten worse:  immigrants now realize that if they cross the border with a minor child, they can be swept into the interior of the country.  Once an illegal immigrant is in the nation, it’s incredibly difficult to get him out again.

It’s a sad testament that President Trump and Congress have been unable to accomplish more on this front.  As such, it’s shame that this week’s TBT still sounds all-too-familiar.

Here is “Open Borders is the Real Moral Crisis“:

I typically avoid wading into fashionable-for-the-moment moral crusades, but the hysteria over children being separated from their parents at the border is ludicrous, and demonstrates the typical “facts over feelings” emotionalism that mars our immigration debate.  That feel-goodism is why we’re even in this mess—if it can be characterized as such—in the first place.

Because I’ll be deemed a monster—“Won’t somebody please think of the children!“—for not unequivocally denouncing this Clinton-era policy, I’ll issue the usual, tedious disclaimers:  yes, it’s all very tragic; yes, it could be handled better; yes, I would have been terrified to be separated from my parents at such a young age; etc.

Now that the genuflecting to popular pieties is out of the way, let me get to my point:  this entire situation would be a non-issue if we had simply enforced our immigration lawsconsistently for the past thirty years.  President Trump isn’t the villain here (if anything, Congress is—they can take immediate action to change the policy or come up with some alternative—but I don’t even think they’re wrong this time); rather, the villains are all those who—in the vague name of “humanity” and “human rights”—ignored illegal immigration (or, worse, actively condoned it).

Sadly, it is an issue.  But what else are we to do?  Years of non-enforcement have sent the implicit but clear message to potential illegal immigrants that we don’t take our own borders (and, by extension, our national sovereignty and rule of law) seriously, and that if you’re sympathetic enough, you’ll get to skip the line.  Folks come up from Mexico and Central America fully expecting that, after some brief official unpleasantness, they can dissolve into the vastness of the United States and begin sending remittances back to their relatives—who may then pull up stakes and come.

Further, sneaking into the country illegally is a crime, and the United States has every right to enforce its laws, including those pertaining to immigration.  Mexico, similarly, has that right—and uses it unabashedly to police its own border (or to let Central American migrants waltz through on their way to the Estados Unidos).  Naturally, the punishment for breaking laws is often detainment, and the kiddies don’t join dad in his cell.

To give a common example:  what happens to the children of, say, an American heroin dealer when he’s arrested and sentenced to ten years in a drug bust?  His children—if they have no relatives willing or able to take them in—go into the foster care system.  It’s tragic, it’s terrible, but it’s part of the price of committing a felony.  No one wants it to happen, but it’s a consequence of one’s actions.  This reason is why crime is so detrimental to society at large, even beyond the immediate victims.

Unfortunately, a combination of winking at immigration enforcement (“eh, come on—you won’t get deported”), feel-good bullcrap (as my Mom would call it), and Emma Lazarus Syndrome(trademarked to The Portly Politico, 2018) have contributed to the current nightmare situation.  Now that an administration is in office that actually enforces the duly legislated law of the land—and at a point at which the problem has ballooned to epic proportions due to past lax enforcement—the problem is far thornier and more consumed with emotional and moral peril.

As any self-governing, self-sufficient adult understands, sometimes doing what is necessary is hard.  I do feel for these children who are stripped from their parents arms (although, it should be noted, usually for only a matter of hours), but who cares about my feelings?  We can have compassion for those who try to arrive here illegally, as well as their children, without attempting to take on all of their problems, and without sacrificing our national sovereignty and our laws in the process.

The United States is the most generous nation in the world—and the most prosperous—but we cannot take everyone in; to do so would not make everyone else better off, but would rather destroy what makes America the land of compassion, liberty, prosperity, and charity that it is.

***

For further reference, I recommend the following videos, the first from the brilliant Ben Shapiro, the second from Dilbert creator Scott Adams:

 

I’d also recommend this piece from National Review columnist Richard Lowry, which is quite good:  https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/illegal-immigration-enforcement-separating-kids-at-border/

And, finally, this piece from Conservative Review‘s Daniel Horowitz, which explains the true moral toll of illegal immigration—and misplaced compassion—very thoroughly:  https://www.conservativereview.com/news/the-immorality-of-the-open-borders-left/

Deportemal

The Portly Politico6 Comments

I have little patience for illegal immigrants.  Their illegality encourages ethnic cloistering.  Their very presence constitutes a persistent state of lawlessness, which seems to breed further criminality.

Then there’s the matter of the vast gulf between mainstream American culture and the virtually premodern peasant cultures from which most illegal migrants come.  Child rape is serious problem among men of certain Latin American cultures, as a recent piece from The Blaze demonstrates.  A twenty-year old illegal immigrant impregnated an eleven-year old.

You read the piece and you notice something:  the police already told this young man to leave the girl alone.  Why was he not shipped back to his homeland immediately?  Why was he allowed to stick around long enough to get this girl pregnant in his car near her school?

Yes, yes—why did the school let her slip away to have sex with a man nearly a decade her elder?  There’s blame to go around.  As for the parents, the girl’s father apparently wanted to beat the crap out of the illegal alien, understandably, but the police told him to cool it so he wouldn’t get himself in trouble.

That right there illustrates why average Americans are so frustrated with illegal immigration.  Law-abiding citizens are held to a stringent, inflexible standard.  Forget to claim $20 on your income taxes?  The IRS will spend thousands of dollars to get you.  Own land with “wetlands” on it?   You can’t grow anything on it, lest a non-existent frog die.  Want to camp on the beach?  Sorry, you can’t do that.

But if you’re here illegally, you get free medical care, no taxes, and an entire political party eager to grant you the franchise.  You can even sleep with minors, because, well, that’s just your rich, vibrant culture, and we wouldn’t want to burden you with our colonialist Western standards, would we?

Here’s how we rectify this situation:  deport every illegal immigrant the minute he or she runs afoul of the law, for the slightest offense.  If Pedro throws so much as a cigarette butt onto the side of the highway, send him back.

It would be shocking to you how much illegals get away with while here.  I once heard from an attorney about a client that was here illegally.  The client had received his second speeding ticket, as well as a $1000 tickets for driving without a license.  The attorney managed to get the officer to dismiss the $1000 ticket.  Good luck doing that if you’re a citizen.

My question was, “Why didn’t they deport this guy immediately?”  Look, speeding is probably one of the more benign offenses one can commit—that’s why it’s just a misdemeanor in most States—but it can result in injury or death.  That’s tragic enough when it’s a citizen behind the wheel.  But there’s an added element of injustice when the person driving shouldn’t be here in the first place.

Finally, the whole “living in the shadows” thing is rhetoric, pure and simple.  It conjures up images of old abuelas shivering in dark trailers, afraid to go outside lest an ICE agent apprehend them.  What it really means is that they can’t get a Social Security card and get sweet government bennies—they’re in the “shadow” of official existence.  I know some libertarians who would kill to be in that situation.

Rather than huddling up in the forgotten by-ways of America, illegals flaunt their status.  I’ve been to taquerias and been told that half of those present are likely illegal.  Most of them, to be sure, are harmless, and just looking for some opportunity.  But they’ve jumped the line, doing a real disservice to immigrants that go through the lengthy, expensive process the right way.  ICE could hit a couple of these joints in an afternoon and clear them out.

The solution to illegal immigration, like most answers in life, is simple but unpleasant:  deport ’em all.  Stop fooling around with detaining them in our prisons at our expense.  Ship them back—even if it takes multiple tries—and send the message to those still in Central America that their luck won’t be any better.

America needs 100ccs of prescription-strength Deportemal, stat!

Lazy Sunday XII: Space

The Portly Politico72 Comments

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Long-time readers will know that I have a love of and fascination with space.  One of the first calls I ever made to a talk-radio show was back in 2009 to the now-defunct Keven Cohen Show.  The occasion was the fortieth anniversary of the moon landing, and the question was, in the midst of the Great Recession, should the government invest in space exploration and going to the moon (and beyond)?  In my clumsy call, I argued that, yes, it should.

As I noted earlier this week, I lack a strong technical foundation in these matters.  I assume that any practice problems of exploration, colonization, and exploitation of space are, ultimately, technical in nature, and will eventually get figured out.  My interest is more philosophical and political in nature:  what are the possibilities of space?  What benefits could expansion into space offer?

But, really, I’m just a childlike nerd who wants to walk on the moon.  If I’m being totally honest, that’s my primary motivation:  I want to visit the moon.  I also relish the idea of humans partaking in bold space adventures.  Is it any wonder one of my favorite movies of all time is Guardians of the Galaxy?

And I’m not alone.  According to (yet another) Rasmussen poll, 43% of American voters would take a trip to the moon and back given the chance.  That total includes 56% of men, but just 31% of women, so I suppose all those single moms posting on Facebook about loving their children “to the moon and back” is a sentimental expression, not a concrete pledge.

Here’s hoping that the eggheads at NASA and in the private sector take note of all the Americans eager to engage in some lunar tourism.  Market forces are far more likely to incentivize galactic expansion than government programs, so maybe offering affordable round-trip flights to the moon could one day turn a profit.  Who knows?

What I do know is that this Sunday I’m happy to share my various posts on space.  I hope you “love them to the moon and back”:

  • “America Should Expand into Space” – this post was the topic of Thursday’s “TBT” feature.  As such, I’ll refrain from lengthy pontificating about it.  Essentially, it looks at the geopolitical reasons for expansion into space.  Short version:  don’t let the Chinese build a death laser on the moon!
  • “Breaking: President Trump Creates Space Force” & “Why the Hate for Space Force?” – back in June 2019, President Trump announced the creation of “Space Force” as a separate branch of the armed services.  It’s a bold, visionary idea—and a damn good one.  As “America Should Expand into Space” suggests, space is the next frontier, not just for settlement, but for war.

    I also lament in the latter of these twin pieces that Americans no longer look boldly to the future in space as a new frontier, but instead remain firmly earthbound with various toys and gadgets.

  • “To the Moon!” – this brief essay explores the metaphysical and cultural benefits of lunar colonization.  In it, I summarize the ideas of an oddball writer, James D. Heiser.  Heiser is a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America and a founding member of the Mars Society.

    He wrote a book,  Civilization and the New Frontier:  Reflections on Virtue and the Settlement of a New World, about the colonization of Mars.  In Civilization and the New Frontier, Heiser argues that the strenuous nature of such an endeavor would require and cultivate virtue, thereby reinvigorating our civilization.

    It’s an intriguing idea, and one that rings true:  anything worth doing is (usually) difficult.  The sacrifice that such a mission would require is self-evident, and would require men and women of great virtue and courage to achieve.

  • “To the Moon!, Part II: Back to the Moon” – this post discussed NASA’s acceleration of its timetable for another manned mission to the moon.  The goal is to return by 2024, rather than 2028.  It would be the first manned mission to the moon since 1972—a sobering, depressing duration.  When I was a kid, we were told we’d see a manned mission to Mars by the year 2000.  So much for that.

As the preamble to this list demonstrated, there is hunger for holidays on the moon.  I, too, want to ride the mighty moon worm!  Sure, there are huge technical problems to overcome—but those can be overcome.  Let’s worry less about queer studies outreach Islamic countries.  Our destiny is among the stars!

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Immigration by the Numbers

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about the dangers of inviting in large numbers of immigrants from a fundamentally alien culture into Western societies.  The Somali population of Minneapolis has created a veritable “Little Mogadishu” (consider paying homage to such a blighted place) in the heart of the Twin Cities, a neighborhood riddled with crime and terrorist recruitment.

Most immigration to the United States is not nearly so pernicious—unlike Europeans, Americans generally don’t have to worry about waves of unassimilable Muslims conquering entire swaths of our major cities—but while our immigrants are more assimilable than Europe’s, the sheer number of immigrants makes that assimilation more difficult.

As I wrote yesterday, the old friction of immigration is no longer there.  Families can instantly contact one another across oceans and time zones, and travel back home—or, more likely, travel to the new home in the West—is more affordable than ever.

Couple that ease of travel with our ludicrous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which allows foreign nationals to spit out “American” citizens if they can just cross the border when the contractions begin, and you have a recipe for invasion.

The family situation goes beyond the “anchor babies” phenomenon and the child migrant crisis.  Our immigration system prioritizes family members over skilled, English-speaking immigrants.  As Scott Rasmussen notes, nearly 750,000 immigrants annually enter the United States legally simply because they’re related to someone already here.  Immigrants can send for their spouses, children, and parents under this system—who then can bring over their spouses, children, and parents, creating the “chain migration” President Trump has decried.

The president is not alone.  According to Rasmussen, 75% of voters believe our immigration system should prioritize skilled immigrants, not family members.  That cuts across partisan lines (suggesting that immigration reform is a winning issue for electoral candidates).  And that 750,000 number reflects 66% of legal permanent residents admitted to the United States.

Remember, another key source of friction in immigration is that, in the old days, it could be years before an immigrant could bring his family over.  Indeed, some immigrants might never see them again.  It’s probably humane to allow Pedro to bring his wife and eighteen kids.  But his doddering parents?  His alcoholic uncle?  His son’s wife and kids? Where do we draw the line?

A further issue is that, with the ease of wire transfers, more and more wealth produced in the United States is sent back home.  Rasmussen reports that immigrants send a whopping $148 billion home.  That’s wealth produced working in the United States.

$30.02 billion of that $148 billion goes to Mexico.  When President Trump campaigned on Mexico paying for the wall, he didn’t mean the Mexican government would cut us a check.  Instead, he argued that the United States could tax these remittance payments to fund the border wall.

It’s an idea brilliant in its simplicity, and it shifts the costs of illegal immigration to the immigrants.  Want to pick our tomatoes at slave labor wages and send the money back home?  Fine, but you’re going to pay for the means by which we’ll prevent your mountain village from crossing over, too.

Immigration policy should benefit America and its citizens first.  I often hear the specious argument that “Americans won’t do certain jobs.”  Hogwash.  Big corporate farmers and Silicon Valley billionaires just want cheap fruit-pickers, coders, and nannies.  There are millions of working poor Americans who, for a living wage, could fill those jobs.  Alternatively, mechanization and automation could complete many of those roles.

The South went through the same issue with slavery:  wealthy Southern planters wanted cheap labor to grow cotton, and Northern textile mills were happy to pay a reduced rate for slave-produced cotton.  The losers were poor working folks and farmers.

Similarly, elites profit financially (and socially—they get to feel virtuous for employing Consuela to raise their kids) while wages for working men stagnate.

President Trump and Republicans in Congress should push again for the taxing of remittances, and a major push should begin to rid ourselves of “birthright citizenship,” a ludicrous misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment (which was intended to naturalize the former slaves and their progeny, not the children of foreign visitors who happened to give birth on American soil).

More importantly and immediately, we need to build the wall and deport any and all illegal immigrants.

More Never Trump Treachery

The Portly Politico3 Comments

In the Culture Wars, the Right struggles with a commitment to principles, decorum, and intellectual honesty.  In every area of life, those qualities are virtues, but in the battle against the progressive Left, those virtues quickly become liabilities.

Nowhere is this handicapping more apparent than on the “Never Trump” Right.  In some cases—think neocon loons Max Boot and Bill Kristol—these figures are not even properly part of the “Right.”  In other cases, they’re effete elites—like George Will—who comprise the “loyal opposition” to the dominant Leftist paradigm.

In still others, the Never Trumpers are overly-literal ideologues who can’t accept anything but 100% ideological purity.  These are the Libertarians or “libertarian Republicans” that love 99% of what Trump has accomplished as president, but can’t abide tariffs or border control.  They point to Trump’s seemingly “authoritarian” rhetoric as evidence that the freedom-loving real estate mogul is not-so-secretly an American Mussolini.

Such is the case with Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, the self-styled “libertarian Republican,” who announced on Twitter that President Trump has committed impeachable offenses (without identifying what those offenses may be).

There are also rumors that Amash might run for president in 2020 as a Libertarian.  Given his tenuous but significant popularity in Michigan, he could siphon away enough votes from President Trump to cost him a crucial State and its electoral votes.

And herein rests the problem with so-called “libertarians” like Amash:  they’re willing to sacrifice the good—in Trump’s case, the overwhelmingly great—for the perfect.  “I can’t have Milton Friedman for President, so I’ll make sure the depraved socialists take office.”

Further, Amash has spent his entire career in politics, with the exception of one year working for his father’s company.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it definitely doesn’t fit with the Randian Übermensch ideal of spergy libertarianism.  Libertarianism works great if you’re shielded completely from the vagaries of the real-world job market.

The most generous interpretation is that Amash sincerely believes that the president’s reactions to the Mueller probe constitute what he calls “impeachable conduct” (never mind that the Constitution doesn’t identify “conduct” as worthy of impeachment, just “high crimes and misdemeanors”).  I can accept that Amash has applied his ideology so rigidly—and his distaste for real political brawlers so completely—that he believes the president should be impeached.

On the other hand, given his utter lack of real-world experience, it could be that Amash is attempting to make a name for himself after he leaves Congress (or gets voted out).  There are a number of Never Trumpers who, I’m convinced, are biding their time.  Should Trump lose in 2020—or when he leaves office in 2025—they look forward to resuming their place atop the political ruling class, getting back to their ineffectual, noodle-wristed “opposition” to official, state-sanctioned Leftism.

Regardless, the Right has no room in its ranks for such traitors (the Great One, Mark Levin, characterized Amash as a “Benedict Arnold against the Constitution“).  Fortunately, Michigan State Representative Jim Lower has announced a primary challenge to Amash.  Here’s hoping Lower lowers Amash a peg or two.

They Live: Analysis and Review

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Last night I watched John Carpenter’s 1988 cult smash They Live, which explains (along with a couple of hours of Civilization VI) why today’s post is late.  I’ve been eager to catch this flick for awhile, and a fortuitous chain-combo of RedBox coupons and special promotions had me streaming it digitally.  What a glorious age for instant gratification.

The basic plot of the film is as follows:  out-of-work drifter Nada (played by wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper; the character is named only in the film’s credits) arrives in Los Angeles looking for work.  After landing a job on a construction site (the site manager says it’s a “union job,” but Nada lands the gig after asking if the Spanish-speaking crew is in the union, too), Nada meets Frank Armitage (Carpenter veteran Keith David), a black construction worker from Detroit, trying to earn a living for his wife and children back home.  Frank takes Nada under his wing, and they head to a soup kitchen shanty town.

While at the town, Nada notices suspicious activity in a nearby church; upon further investigation, he stumbles upon a box of sunglasses that allow him to see the world for how it really is:  a black-and-white world filled with subliminal messages like “OBEY” and “MARRY AND REPRODUCE,” as well as constant messages to “BUY” and “CONSUME.”  Money reads simply “THIS IS YOUR GOD.”

More shockingly, some humans appear to be fleshless, bulging-eyed aliens, akin to zombies.  Piper figures out quickly that the horrifying creatures are not friendly, and he embarks on a shooting spree—which, of course, appears like a random shooting to everyone else.

It unfolds from there:  Nada convinces Frank—after a nearly-six-minute alleyway brawl—to try the glasses on for himself.  Seeing the world for what it is, the two join up with the small resistance, which is quickly smashed by the fleshless invaders and their human collaborators (which enjoy support from the media and law enforcement).  The film ends with the disruption of the device that keeps everyone “asleep” regarding reality, with terrifying (and humorous) consequences.

Much has been written about this film, as its not-so-subtle message of anti-commercialism is low-hanging fruit.  No less a scholar than Slovene philosopher Slavoj Žižek cites They Live as an influence on his understanding of ideology.  The film inspired street artist Shepard Fairey‘s famous “OBEY” stickers (another fascinating bit of pop culture detritus).

As such, there’s not much I can add, but I have some general reflections.  In the age of attempted Deep State coups and a political and media establishment at odds with the common man, They Live contains a certain relevance to culture in 2019 (if there really are subliminal messages in advertising, I wish there were some encouraging people to “MARRY AND REPRODUCE”; the message today is exactly the opposite).

The alien invaders manage to take control because they cut a deal with America’s elites:  give us access to your resources and cheap labor, and we’ll make you fabulously wealthy.  At a swanky dinner near the end of the film, aliens and humans toast their 39% return-on-investment.  Frank Armitage, disgusted, tells one human collaborator that he “sold out his own kind”; the collaborator says, “What’s the threat? It’s just business.”

That scene seems particularly relevant to 2016:  globalist elites were eager to serve up a deeply corrupt Hillary Clinton to continue to advance their goals of cheap labor and monochromatic global conformity.

Piper’s character, on the other hand, states his optimism early in the film:  “I believe in America.”  Even as a homeless drifter, Piper believes he can succeed if he just keeps working hard.  But he’s a man of principle—once he realizes the rigged game that’s afoot, he decides to beat them rather than join them.

Consider:  the latter option would be so much easier.  Betray your own people—humans, or, in the context of the 2016 election, Americans—for a distant, indifferent, self-aggrandizing elite, and reap the rewards.  But Piper—a loud-mouthed wrestler—fights back.  He wants a fair shake for himself and his countrymen, not a rigged system at the expense of his fellow humans.

His methods are comedic and clumsy (a hallmark of another Carpenter classic, Big Trouble in Little China), but he manages—against all odds—to make it to the top of the alien-collaborator hierarchy, ultimately bringing the whole thing down.  One can be forgiven for seeing in Nada President Trump’s historic, unlikely rise to the presidency in 2016.

That said, I shouldn’t take that metaphor too far.  Carpenter had no inkling in 1988 that Donald Trump would become president amid the crushing dominance of a politically-correct, Davos Man elite (although Trump discussed the possibility of a run at the time).  Carpenter’s message is a more heavy-handed cautionary tale about excessive consumerism and materialism.

There, however, some compelling fruits that have come from ignoring those warnings.  While globalization and capitalism have reaped huge financial rewards, they’ve come at the expense of Americans.  Frank’s line about betraying “your own kind” resonated heavily with me:  just as the human collaborators sold out their people to the aliens, our elites have sold out their countrymen and culture for cheap labor and cheap plastic crap from China.

We will always engage with art and culture in terms of our own experiences, though I would caution against excessive “current year” interpretations.  The film is a product of the 1980s.  That its message still seems so fresh is, perhaps, an indication of our culture’s stagnation since that glorious decade.

Nevertheless, They Live presents a timeless warning against sacrificing our patrimony for wealth.  Judas betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver; was that “just business”?

***

So, is They Live worth watching?  Absolutely.  I had a blast even before Nada discovered the glasses (which is nearly half-an-hour into the film, or so it felt—it spends a lot of time showing his struggles to find a job).  The film contains the iconic line, “I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass—and I’ll all out of bubblegum.”

Roddy Piper acts the way wrestlers in 1980s films act, which is badly, but it’s perfect for his character, a man who is principled but driven by his id (and libido, with lethal consequences).  Keith David’s performance as Frank Armitage steals the show—he just wants to make money to support his family without any hassle, but is drawn into a fight he never wanted.

You’ll see some of the plot twists coming from a mile away, but the film is fun and thought-provoking.  I highly recommend you check it out.  Of course, I’m a big fan of John Carpenter (Big Trouble in Little China is one of my favorite movies), so your mileage may very.  For $2.99, though, it’s worth the rental.

Lazy Sunday XI: Walls

The Portly Politico76 Comments

Today’s post marks twenty weeks of consecutive daily posts—140 days in a row.  I’ve written so many posts, I’m beginning to forget that I ever wrote some of them.  If you’d to support my daily scribbling, consider subscribing to my page on SubscribeStar.

Walls work.  We understand this fact on a visceral level—humans have been building walls around their cities and kingdoms since the dawn of civilization, and continue building them today.  The Israelites rebuilt the Jerusalem’s walls as a form of national and spiritual renewal.

The only legitimate question regarding a border wall along the US-Mexican border is technical in nature:  how do you build an effective barrier along thousands of miles of varied terrain?  Technical questions are difficult to solve, but that doesn’t invalidate the effectiveness of a wall once it’s completed.  Further, even tricky engineering problems are solvable.

Indeed, many of the questions that plague our nation are not difficult to answer—it’s just that the answers are unpleasant, or politically inconvenient.  When a Democrat argues that the construction of a border wall is not feasible from engineering standpoint, it’s a smokescreen.  The progressives are only concerned about expanding their voting base on the cheap, while supplying their techno-elite masters with cheap, quasi-slave labor.

With that in mind, this week’s Lazy Sunday looks back at my posts on all things wall-related.  It’s a sign of our times that anyone has had to write even this much about walls:

  • “Walls Work” – the title says it all.  This piece looked at a piece from American Thinker that pointed out dramatically how effective border barriers are.  When Israel constructed a wall along its border with Egypt, “it cut illegal immigration to zero.”  I emphasize that part of the quotation in the original blog post just to make sure no one misses it.  In cast the Israeli example isn’t convincing enough, consider that the…
  • “Hungarian Border Wall is 100% Effective” – yep, Hungary built a fence along its border with Serbia in the second half of 2015.  The number of immigrants entering Hungary fell from 138,396 to fifteen.  Look at those figures again, numerically and side-by-side:  138,396 -> 15.  My knowledge of scientific notation has eroded too much to write out the exact percentage of that drop, but let’s call it 100% – 15.

    Granted, Israel and Hungary both enjoy relatively short borders compared to the southern border of the United States.  But the results speak for themselves.  The billions saved in medicating, educating, housing, and detaining illegal immigrants would be worth the one-time, up-front investment.  Aren’t progressives always lecturing us about government “investments”?  Further, the upward force on wages—no longer flooded with cheap labor from abroad—would create an additional return on this crucial national security investment.

  • “Buchanan on the National Emergency” – in order to fund construction of the border wall, President Trump controversially declared a national emergency in February, which then allowed him to shift around existing national security funds to build a section of the wall.  Conservatives were, understandably, dubious and concerned about this executive action, which they feared constituted executive overreach in the vein of President Obama’s “phone and a pen” rule by fiat.

    Pat Buchanan—ever the lucid, original thinker—takes Congress, not President Trump, to task.  As I point out in this piece, Buchanan argues that the president was merely using authority Congress granted him in the National Emergencies Act of 1976.

    And as I argued in the first essay on this list, President Trump has a constitutional duty to protect national security under his Article II powers.

  • “Nehemiah and National Renewal” – this essay was the first of a two-part analysis of the Book of Nehemiah, and has been featured on Lazy Sunday lists before.  In this essay, I argue that, just as rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls was an act of national renewal for the Israelites, so building a border wall would be a firm sign of America’s renewed commitment to its values and sovereignty.  Of all the essays on this list, it’s the one I most recommend you read.
  • “Walls Work, Part II: Sailer on Walls” – this post covered a book review by Steve Sailer, a recent feature of my “Dissident Write II” list of great writers.  Sailer reviewed Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick, by David Frye, which makes a compelling case that walls protect civilization, allow for civilization, and create stable societies.

    America enjoyed the luxury of two moats—the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—for 150 years, before naval and aerial technology took those natural barriers away.  Now, we face a sinister, because subtle, existential threat in the form of mass illegal immigration.  A border barrier is one key step in stemming the flow—and of preserving our civilization.

    I’m hoping to pick up Frye’s book soon, and plan to write a detailed review of my own.  That review will likely be a SubscribeStar exclusive.

Enjoy your Sunday, and remember that “good fences make good neighbors.”

–TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments: