January 02, 2010 Nachman’s Short Course On America's Immigration DisasterBy Paul Nachman Immigration to the U.S. is an enormous
subject. It's much bigger than a mere
"issue"
because mass immigration, both legal and illegal,
affects—adversely!—nearly every aspect of our national
life. Over time, regular visitors to VDARE.com read
about all these aspects. But could someone create a
"Short Course"
to help
patriots more quickly develop expertise on
immigration's baneful effects? This isn't just an academic question.
With
the new amnesty peril looming, our country needs a
legion of patriots armed with the intellectual resources
to defeat, in direct confrontations, the well-funded and
shameless onslaught of the Open Borders zealots and
greedheads and to educate our
alarmed-but-poorly-informed fellow citizens. That
"Short Course"
notion was the motive for my 10,500 word article in the
current, Fall 2009, issue of
The Social Contract Magazine:
Reading
Assignment: Gird For Looming Battles With The
"Great Books"
Of Immigration Sanity, which VDARE.COM has
thoughtfully archived
here [PDF]. [To subscribe to or buy a copy of the
tree-based Social Contract, click
here]. My purpose in this article is to
announce the placement of my “Short
Course” in VDARE.COM’s archives—and encourage you to
give it a look. Despite
the
"Great Books" trope in the title, my article
isn't actually about books! Instead, it's effectively a
review article—a guide to notable, web-accessible
literature about immigration.
The referenced literature comes in easily digestible
chunks, with most chunks requiring reading times between
five and ten minutes, and a few items ranging between a
minute and two hours.
From my Introduction:
“There
are, of course, some (literally) great books on
America’s immigration madness, too. But my aim here is
to put before you seminal readings that are less
daunting projects than reading whole books. The
approximately 30 items cited below, with links provided
in the Endnotes, are articles (plus a
video and a
poster) that have impressed me, over about the last
dozen years, as particularly memorable and instructive.” Of
course, since all these items, which also include a
brief video and some
sound clips, are available online, I could just
provide a list of links, or links and titles, and urge
people to go look at them.
So why did I, instead, wind up with 10,500 words
(probably 30 to 45 minutes straight-through reading time
for most folks)? Well,
about 60% of it consists of meaty quotes from the cited
articles, passages that are long enough and striking
enough that I hope they'll entice you to go read the
full articles, thus working your way through the
promised "short
course". The remaining 40% of the article consists
of my attempt to tie the referenced items together and
into a logical flow. What
kinds of articles make up my list? They are all
discursive and qualitative—although, when necessary,
tightly argued. In other words, these aren't articles
about the best estimate for the number of illegal aliens
in the country, nor about
statistics on the educational attainments of the
grandchildren of immigrants, nor about the net
financial burdens on taxpayers caused by immigrants
and illegal aliens in different states, etc. etc. In my experience, most
people—including our ill-informed fellow citizens whom
we need to persuade or buttress—aren't very numerate and
don't easily grasp quantitative arguments. For them,
arguments involving
culture,
language, and
ways of life are generally more gripping. Altogether, then, these are the
articles that have shaped my
own view
of the facts and of what's at stake for our
American civilization; and which I think will also
impress others. My
“Short Course”
is divided into nine sections, as follows:
1. Scoping Our Subject Brief once-overs about many of the
component issues that make up the huge subject of mass
immigration's impact on America, e.g. Robert Locke’s
2000 FrontPage.com article
Close The
Borders.
(This was originally published with a disclaimer by
David Horowitz, which seems to have been removed).
2. Life in the Trenches
(or Immigration in One Country) Particular, striking examples of the
pummeling our country is enduring under the regime of
mass legal and illegal immigration, for example
The Ordeal Of Immigration in Wausau,
by Roy Beck, which originally appeared in the
Atlantic Monthly,
April 1994.)
3. Mexico and Mexicans Aside from sheer numbers, the
problems with immigration from Mexico are rooted in the
culture of Mexico, for example Roger McGrath’s
South Gate; Mexico Comes to California,
which
originally appeared in
The American
Conservative
Magazine, May 19, 2003.
4. The Nation-Wreckers
Reveal Themselves
Some immigrants, unwittingly, show quite
clearly what bad news they are for us, for example
6 + 4 = 1 Tenuous Existence,
by Samuel Quinones, Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2006 (which contains this
great quote from an illegal alien in Kentucky:
“We’re in a state where there’s nothing but Americans.
The police control the streets. It’s
clean, no
gangs.
California now resembles Mexico—everyone thinks like in
Mexico. California’s broken.”)
5. Larger perspectives (A): Is it the Rest against the
West?
6. Larger Perspectives
(B): The Auto-Immune Sickness of Western Civilization
Our
immigration dysfunctions are prominent manifestations of
deeper problems in the West.
See, for example,
The Myth of Diversity: Seldom have so many pretended to
believe something so absurd,
by Jared Taylor,
American Renaissance, July/August, 1997.
7. Three Memorable
Perorations Speeches by
Richard Lamm,
Don Feder, and
Peter Brimelow also make great essays.
8. Our Heavy Artillery
Broad and deep explications of both general principles
and specific points that we can use in our fights, for
example Larry Auster’s amazon The Path To National Suicide,
9. A Statement for Our
Side
John
Tanton reminds us that we have every right to argue
for our own interests:
The Puppeteer Replies.
Besides the several writers mentioned just above, a
non-exhaustive list of the articles' authors includes
Lawrence Auster,
Mark Cromer,
George F. Kennan, and
Thomas
Sowell.
These authors, and the others not listed here, have
produced a treasure trove of facts, observations,
arguments, and wisdom.
I hope my “Short
Course”, by introducing this trove to a larger
audience, will help strengthen the capabilities of
patriots working in the trenches, nationwide, for
immigration sanity.
If it, indeed, helps you, please spread its contents far
and wide!
Nachman note for VDARE.COM readers:
As I said,
there
are, of course, some (literally) Great Books on
America’s immigration madness too. Should you be in the market for such a book, instead of a medley of
articles, Peter Brimelow's Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster
In my view, three other books,
not available
for free, also fall into the Great Books category.
First is Victor Davis Hanson's finely observed Mexifornia: A State of Becoming
More recently, Mark Krikorian's The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal
And Otis Graham's brand new Immigration Reform And America's Unchosen Future Paul Nachman [email him] is a retired physicist and immigration sanity activist in Bozeman, MT. Read his VDARE.COM blogs here. |
[