Where as here we get a say in 2 out of 3.

Well, perhaps the Tories have found an issue, then.

As M, suggested, "Imagine the legislation, . . . [on] anti-immigration measures, you'd get if [Americans] actually got a say in such things."

Immigration is like trade. Politicians always think they can ride a wave of anger on these issues into office, and it never works.

Everyone hates immigrants but no one wants to pick lettuce.

Everyone hates immigrants, but no one wants to blow up their own skycrapers.

Unless they're in Oklahoma...

Trading facile barbs is fun, but seriously, does OJ imagine that the country would stop eating salads if we reduced immigration? or that every lawn in the southwest would grow into a jungle?

Since when did conservatives adopt the static Marxist model of economics?

Yes, there would be a serious economic impact on the United States if we had to pay people decent wages to do menial labor.

As there would be an economic impact to stemming the tide of immigrant crime, to reducing immigrants' disproportionate drain on public welfare services, and, oh yeah, staving off the annexation of the Southwestern United States by Hispanic reconquistas. Which is coming in about a generation unless we fight.

"Wave of anger," my foot. It's called preserving a minimum of sovereignty; trying to ensure that America remains (at least a little bit) an actual country, rather than a sterilized polyglot mall full of atomized consumers.

The only relevant psychological tic here is the suicidal shrinking from defending our borders. Go talk to a rational, fair-minded Japanese or Chinese sometimes about what they think of our post-1965 immigration suicide pact. They goggle at our lack of common sense.

What a truly callous tender-mindedness, if I may put it paradoxically.

Cheap and innacurate, OJ. Neither OKC bomber was from Oklahoma. McVeigh was from New York/Arizona and Nichols lived in Michigan.

OJ:

The "serious economic impact" would include the increase in prosperity among a class of voters precious to the GOP, though the latter treats them as an ugly stepchild: blue-color whites. You know, the kind of people who vote for Bush unlike any other demographic group; the kind of people patrolling the dusty streets of Iraqi cities right now.

Perhaps OJ would prefer to have his cheap salads; I tend to favor the Americans who, as Willmoore Kendall put it, carry their conservatism "in their hips."

Uh, I meant, "blue-collar whites".

Indeed. I would cheerfully pay 50% more for lettuce, cab fare, etc., in order to live in a more harmonious nation where everyone spoke tolerable English, and where you could raise a family on a blue-collar wage.

And let your wife stay home to raise the children . . . [gasp! the horror!]

Paul--

I did wonder why you considered this demographic so crucial for the GOP.

Paul:

You can't get them to work at McDonald's for $9 an hour--you think you'll get them to work the fields for $3?

Jefferson:

So they were immigrants? Fine, how about the Weathermen who blew up their own NYC brownstone?

RT:

Who's going to pay for Japanese retirements?

OJ, my man Jared Taylor had a thought-provoking piece in VDARE a couple of months ago on the very "Japan argument" you mention.

http://www.vdare.com/misc/taylor_japan.htm

Taylor's take: it's not that big a problem. Certainly nothing worth sacrificing a culture over.

1. Japan is way overpopulated now; ceteris paribus, a reduction of 20-30 million would be a good thing.

2. The Japanese have much higher levels of private savings than we do; even now, they are less dependant on government entitlements to fund retirement than are we.

"Japanese who visit the United States are appalled by what they find here: ethnic politics, bilingual education, ballot papers in Chinese, racial preferences, interpreters in hospitals and courtrooms, jail-house race riots, foreign criminal gangs, etc. They wonder if millions of aging American whites can really count on blacks and browns to pay for their retirement. They have seen diversity in action, and they want none of it."

Taylor closes:

"Although such sentiments have been run out of respectable society in America, the Japanese actually like their country the way it is. They intend to keep Japan for the Japanese."

It would be hard to overstate how strongly I wish them well in this endeavor. What a bitter disappointment if, thirty years from now, that fascinating, successful and unique nation is mired in the same kind of slowly sinking morass that we are.

Just say no, Japan. Tighten the belt and do the right thing.

RT:

Japanese savings rates are a fraction of ours--having neither 401k's nor their own homes--and are invested in accounts that pay less than 1% per year. They have nowhere near enough young people of their own to maintain a functioning economy, nor a state as taxes dry up, but they despise all non-Japanese so won't bring in immigrant workers. They're toast.

RT:

One CAN, quite handily, raise a family in the US on a blue-collar wage.

When a new computer is $600, and a new car $8,000, even those on minimum wage can get by easily enough.

You may be forgetting, our ancestors didn't make do on one wage by receiving far higher wages relative to GNP, rather they got by with far fewer consumer goods.
They lived in smaller homes and often didn't own cars. Their medical care was rudimentary by current standards.

The US,Europe and Japan all have demographic bulges that will evetually die off,leaving a flatter demographic.Japan,as a homogeneous monocultural state,is better positioned to make the needed choices to ride it out than heterogenuous,multi-cultural states that will see idenity group loyalties strengthened due to conflict over the spoils system.

Very good point about consumerism, Mr. Herdegen. But you may be neglecting the impact of several crucial things: housing prices and education expenses. If a blue-collar family can afford a house, it is likely that the schooling in their district will be close to worthless. The quality of public schooling is, increasingly, just reflected in the housing costs.

M:

Ride it out? Dying out peacefully hardly seems to be a worthwhile choice.

"Dying out"? Why must the Japanese die out? Their population will decline, but it takes the added factor of mass immigration to transform a culture's decline into "dying out," as we see in Europe.

You make the mistake of extrapolating,OJ.What demographer prediticted the post-WW2 baby boom here?What facts,as opposed to personal prejudice,leads you to belives that current birth rates won't go up?
I suggest you take a look at attitudes among younger women,who favor being stay-at-home-moms vs. their boomer mothers who put career first.
All sorts of things will change when the boomers die off.
But even so,we're replacing high-skill,high tax paying populations with unskilled,high tax consuming populations.Even if you get your way,that simply means a much poorer,and less american,America.
Minimum wage immigrants won't save Social Security and they won't pay high taxes simply because they don't earn high wages.High skill whites and asians won't be productive enough to pay for the 3 groups who will make the highest demands,leading to conflict among identity groups.
Ask why blacks and blue-collar whites are migrating from California in such large numbers,ask those who once made middle-class incomes in mid-west meatpackng plants(jobs now filled by immigrants) who they plan to vote for.
You won't like the answer.It's not 1903 and this great wave has very little in common with the last.

Paul/M:

http://brothersjuddblog.com/archives/000571.html

OJ:

You're being sloppy. A structurally problematic economy = dying out nation? Come on. This neo-Marxism is tiresome.

"structurally problematic"? A society that doesn't reproduce at replacement rate dies off.

"A society that doesn't reproduce at replacement rate dies off."

And again you make a claim of irreversible demographic decline that simply can't be proved.Europe had a birth dearth in the mid 19th century followed by a baby boom in the 1880's and 90's.America had at best flat bearth rates befoer WW2 and a boom after.Much of the demographic decline you make so much of is due overwhelmingly to the attitudes of baby boomers here and in europe,a hedonistic,selfish lot who aborted 1/3 of their offspring.More children meant less personal gratifications as resoureces went to kids instead.As they die off,there will be a generational change.If at that point we,and they,still have such demographics,I'll agree with you.
As for economic decline due to a lack of labor,I suggest you research Japans "dark factories".
Hint:they're dark because they don't need lights.

M:

Your prediction that folks will become less selfish in the future makes your email host appropriate.

OJ:

Your reliance on demographics is reminiscent of the global warming Chicken Littles with their projections. But the computers say it will happen!!!

I say the Black Death taking 1/3 of the population of Europe in the 14th century was a more dramatic event than mere decadence among the decadent -- but Europe survived even that.

As my grandmother likes to say: this too will pass.

Paul:

Plagues, wars, etc. aren't demographic trendss; they are disasters to which populations react. There is no instance on record where a people reversed its natural demographic decline, nor when a declining populace maintained a growing economy. That Israel, France, Germany, etc. would rather see Arabs, Algerians, Turks become the majority rather than have more children themselves suggests just how powerful are the trends driving secular societies to their deaths.

Generational change,OJ.
You're making assumptions about trends caused largley by the boomer culture and declaring them "inevitable and irreversable",acceptable in a marxist,but then you're not a marxist.
Are you claiming that no cultural,political,social or economic developemnt will change these trends or the that if these developments occur,are you claiming those changes still can't happen?

Oh,and I predict people will have more kids when it's nessasary,to fund their retirements for example,something this younger generation already understands to a degree.

Or they won't,in which case,you're right.

I understand all that, but what I don't understand is how you can fail to see that letting the Arabs, Algerians and Turks in is a necessary component of the doom you foresee.

We are altogether in agreement about the ugliness and despair of aggressively secular societies. But that ugliness and despair is dramatically exacerbated by the influx of hostile minorities who, as it happens, are not losing their faith but rather asserting it fiercely.

The problem is mercifully lessened here because our immigrants are (a) less hostile (although I'll note that no one is really talking about deporting even Arab and Muslim illegals) and (b) Christian. I'm glad of those two factors, but they do not eliminate the danger produced by the combination of mass immigration and secular liberalism.

Actually they do eliminate the danger and unfortunately leave only ethnocentrism/racism as reasons fort the anti-Mexican passions of anti-immigrationists--because that's all these conversations are ever about is Mexicans.

M:

The baby boomers are a convenient target but in Israel, canada, Europe, and Japan where they experienced no such massive boom, the populations are already rapidly ageing and the birthrates continue to fall.

My simple question for OJ: Have we, as Americans, or have not we not, the right to a say in the make-up of our country? This was the issue posed with respect to Europe by this blog-entry.

In other words, have We the People, having determined that mass immigration does not "establish justice" or "insure domestic tranquility" -- have we the right to return to our traditional immigration system, which took into account national origin and allowed for public deliberation on that point?

OJ may call such us racists for even asking this question, but he is sadly standing outside our tradition on this issue, and acting in concert with the liberals to derail it.

Yes, we have the right. But we'll never limit immigration here because we don't want to do scutwork. The sublime moment in the anti-immigration debate came when Tom Tancredo got busted using illegal aliens to do work on his house. We all want to hate them but still have them do our dirty work cheap.

Well I'm glad I extracted that concession. The only question left is whether Americans will ever be given a say.

Hopefully not. The Indians tried stopping the Judds from coming, the Judds tried stopping the Cellas, and now the Cellas wanna stop the Rodriguezs and twenty years from now the Rodriguezs will oppose the next wave (most likely Chinese fleeing the chaos there). We all were, are, and will be wrong.

Retirement is a new concept for Hmong immigrants caught between traditional folkways and American-style expectations for one's golden years.

And America will absorb the world in the shining new Brotherhood of Man into our perfect egalitarian commonwealth, Universal Nation. A vision for the ages.

Everyone always thinks the golden age ended the day their family got its green card and now the gate should be slammed shut.

"Hopefully not. The Indians tried stopping the Judds from coming"

Either you don't realize you are one of the indians or you think you can jump tribes.
Got news for you,even if they let you in,it will be on their terms,not yours,their culture,not yours,their values,not yours.

The mexicans are such a big issue because as of 1995 over 10% the their nation was here,god knows what it is now.So many in fact that mexico is having a labor shortage as so many come here or stay home and wait for relatives to send money.

Understand,OJ,Miami is not an American city,it is a Cuban city,culturaly,socially,economicaly and politicaly,just as LA is becoming a Mexican city.You would be an alien there,a foreigner,in a different country.Miami is still in FLA but it might as well be in Cuba.

M:

Exactly. Miamians are preferable to Bostonians--precisely because of their respective cultures.

There comes a point where the sort of status-posing engaged in by OJ simply disqualifies one from being taken seriously as an adult commentator. "Look how lofty and forward-looking I am compared to my fellow, lowlier Whites!" Oldest, most tiresome trick in the book. You have failed. We see straight through you and simply shake our heads at your posturing. Why don't you be a man and try playing for your own team?

"No, no, I am even willing to pretend that I will embrace the contraction and diminishment of my country. Hispanic inundation and seizing of my nation's territory is, um (chokes, straightens collar) 'superior' to having it free of alien domination. Besides, um, I'm sure they'll all assimilate once whites are a minority of the population."

Yeah, which is why you live in freaking New England. Sweet Jesus, man, how embarrassing and pitiful. You can move to central Miami right now if you want, you know.

Cut the games. Paul and I have cleaned your clock. If you believe in reason and prudence it is time to publicly admit defeat and simply change your views on immigration. Yes, you will not be able to pull the "noblesse oblige" status move on Whites like us any more. I admit I sometimes miss it myself. But the satisfaction of embracing honesty and fighting for one's progeny is, I find, more than enough compensation.

Japan will survive a demographic bump because it is a real country. America may or may not survive the next 50 years, because it is increasingly becoming a dreary Hapsburg-like polyglot imperium that inspires no honest man. To the extent America has any hope of remaining one and free, it will depend on White men like you leaving behind the childish posing, rejecting the elite anti-White ideology, and 'fessin' up to some enduring truths of human nature. That is what conservatism is supposed to be about. Except, in your case, apparently, when it actually costs some face.

There is no possible basis of support for your position on non-White immigration. Please recant it immediately on your blog or stop calling yourself a conservative.

RT:

Yes, ascendant Japan and declining America--you can't help but see those truths if you look around.