Politics

Seth Barrett Tillman: “A Dialogue on Migration”

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This is very good.

Left-of-Center Candidate: I understand. We will work to ensure that your wages are not compressed.
 
Audience Member: You are not listening. That’s not what I said; I don’t like the direction the nation’s immigration policies have taken our country. You have supported the Government’s policies—at the very least, you have not opposed them. I don’t like where we are now as a result—not that the other opposition parties would do anything different.
 
Left-of-Center Candidate: No, that’s not right. My job is not to ensure your personal vision of the good society. I live in the real world—in the European Union—which (in effect) determines our national immigration policy—in conjunction with international law and our treaty commitments. My job is to act within that context in protecting your objectively rooted economic interests…

Sound familiar? The immigration policies of the Democratic and establishment Republican parties appear to include:

1. Open borders.
2. A preference for the interests of an international coalition that includes American elites over those of Americans overall, and for the interests of refugees and illegal immigrants over those of poor and working-class Americans.
3. Hostility to Americans who oppose current US immigration policies and want their government to promote the interests of Americans exclusively.

In the real world that Seth’s hypothetical candidate invokes, many US and European pols should lose their jobs for disregarding the voters’ wishes on this issue.

(See also Seth’s earlier American Spectator piece: East Wall and the Plantations: Ireland and Its New Migrants)

UPDATE: See this 2016 post by Seth.

Enemies of the People

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This snippet of a story popped up in a mild way on several different news sites and feeds, including that of the Great Grey Whore, the New York Times, which I presume was anguished over the prospect of a member of the reporting fraternity, one Sophie Alexander of Sky News, being driven out of a popular Miami restaurant where Trump had stopped by, presumably to spend a few minutes with supportive fans. The reporter/producer apparently carried on the tradition of shouting rude questions at political figures they don’t like on occasions that are not press conferences and formal interviews, in the usually vain hope of getting some kind or answer, and if not, noting snottily that ‘So-and-so declined to reply.’ Ms. Alexander was heckled, verbally abused, and all but physically thrown out of the restaurant by Trump fans. Frankly, the only likely surprise about this matter is that Ms. Alexander appears to be indignant and a bit surprised at her treatment.

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“Cricket Morality”

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Conservatives, libertarians, and well-meaning and rational people in general often remark on the unfairness of many practices of the “progressive” media and other institutions of today’s Left. Selective prosecutions, for example.  The fact that those same publications that mocked Dan Quayle for his verbal clumsiness are totally dismissive about any concerns regarding the verbal weirdness of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  Many, many other examples.

It is true. The unfairness is obvious and palpable.  But, listening to these entirely-justified complaints, I am reminded of a passage in Arthur Koestler’s 1940 book Darkness at Noon.

The protagonist of this novel is Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who has been arrested by the Stalinist regime and is facing trial and probable execution.  Among his musings are the following thoughts:

It is said that No. 1 (Stalin) has Machiavelli’s Prince lying permanently by his bedside. So he should: since then, nothing really important has been said about the rules of political ethics. We were the first to replace the nineteenth century’s liberal ethics of fair play by the revolutionary ethics of the twentieth century. In that also we were right: a revolution conducted according to the rules of cricket is an absurdity. Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one that the end justifies the means.

We introduced neo-Machiavellism into this country; the others, the counter-revolutionary dictatorships, have clumsily imitated it. We were neo-Machiavellians in the name of universal reason — that was our greatness; the others in the name of a national romanticism, that is their anachronism. That is why we will in the end be absolved by history; but not they. . . .

Yet for the moment we are thinking and acting on credit. As we have thrown overboard all conventions and rules of cricket-morality, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logic. We are under the terrible compulsion to follow our thought down to its final consequence and to act in accordance to it. We are sailing without ballast; therefore each touch on the helm is a matter of life or death.

And this is indeed the logic of so many of our present-day “progressives.”  They have convinced themselves that we are not in one of those “breathing spaces of history” in which fairness is to be expected–rather, everything must be about ultimate things, must be “existential”, to use one of their favorite terms.

But to what extent do they want to throw out the rule of fairness because they believe we’re at a critical turning point at which no other option is possible…versus to what extent is it the other way around, i.e. they are motivated to believe we are at such a turning point because they want to throw out the rule of fairness?

And how many of them have ever considered the possibility that perhaps it is precisely those critical periods in which the rule of fairness is particularly important?

Quote of the Day

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John Podhoretz:

In November, the right won the election in Israel and then, upon assuming power in January, began to implement the policies on which it ran. At which point, some of the losers of the election took to the streets. Ever since, those in ideological agreement with the losers have expressed continual wonderment and pride at the fact that 8 or 9 percent of the population of the small country is out in the streets on a weekly basis. Yes, but more than 50 percent of the electorate in Israel voted the other way. Imagine if they took to the streets. But you can’t, because they won’t, because they shouldn’t have to. Democracies exist to make street action unnecessary…

You could say this about other countries as well.

Pugilists and Statesmen

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Ads are being run against de Santis; he voted, they claim,  to increase the retirement age amidst other possible solutions.  He, like Ryan, are youngsters pushing their elders off cliffs; of course, some  might see politicians manfully taking on a long term problem.

These ads may be effective but with them mere discussions become toxic – the opposite of a statesman’s approach   Bush began with a high-powered, sensible committee; 9/11 intervened. Maybe they would have come up with nothing but it remains the problem it was well over twenty years ago.  How many policy debates follow the same pattern?

The problem is the context as well. Trump is pursued by truly demonic (and unconstitutional) opponents.  Ones who have sold us out for a few gold pieces to the environmentalists, the communists, the totalitarians, the. .  .   While they  take pleasure in making our futures carless, gasless, air conditionless, they embrace nihilism.  Indeed,  half the country seems in an intense sado/masochistic relation with their overlords.

In a petty way,  this ad poses a dilemma.  Our positions imply to the simple minded that either

a) we buy into the least statesman-like and most perilous of positions about our future in that policy area,
or
b) we buy into the most aggressive, constitution-be-damned, politically motivated of our opponents clown shows.
Neither has our long-run interests in mind; both personalize and trivialize policy in an increasingly serious world.

I had hoped de Santis would run and Trump wouldn’t:   I’d assumed Trump wouldn’t naturally take a statesman’s approach, more likely a pugilist’s, during the fallow period.  There was hope:  once elected he sometimes made good choices not traditionally considered winners.  But this toxic perspective that will affect him as well as de Santis, making a good solution less likely.  Surely no solution leaves the system untouched.   Well, probably the Democrats have one – print more money.