archive

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

My Country

There are two kinds of Americans – those who view it as their country, and those who do not view it as their country. The latter group is for open borders … for no borders at all. A John Lennon imagining, of no countries. Countries, to them, are like religions: both separate people from each other – they create artificial and, um, imaginary (here, the imaginary is bad) borders. They are unmoved by, say, the analogy of the house: How would you like it if I just came and lived in your dining room, uninvited I mean, you don’t care that they come into the country, so why would you care if they come into your house? The analogy is invalid, I suppose they suppose, because a house is not a country. There seems to be no use in pointing out that an analogy is never the thing it represents. It is a clarifying similitude.

A less literal mind, on their side, might suppose that such reasoning is flawed because a house is owned by an individual, whereas a country is, at best, a sort of corporate asset, and, uh, corporations are evil (here, I am just supposing their attitude). If not evil, then this mass ownership is such a diffused reality, when applied to the individual, that the statistical effect of the illegal alien upon any given citizen is infinitesimal, and thus no cause for concern. The emphasis, the acknowledgment of legitimacy here, appears to be in favor of the individual. The idea of a citizenry, coming together to decide as a body how their land is to be governed, seems to be ignored or dismissed as illegitimate, at least when compared to the desires or perceived need of the individual non-citizen. Perhaps the thinking is that there’s plenty to go around, there’s no harm done, the happiness of foreigners would otherwise be diminished, so the laws are unjust.

That might be what they think. It’s what I think they think. But what the guy who disagrees with you thinks you think is always an iffy proposition, so I’m open to correction. These people, the ones who are for Los Estados Unidios de Mexico y … um … Norte America? - Norte Mexico? – they are in a better position than I, to inform me of their ideas about nationality, country, and the rights of citizens to make and enforce just laws.

As to what I think, well, here I can speak with some authority. My home is mine. I may not kill you, if you invade it – appropriate force and all that – but I have the unassailable right to use reasonable force to defend it. It is something worth defending. Who enters, is up to me. Guests must be invited. Gate-crashers will be expelled. Home invaders will be stopped, up to and including the use of deadly force. It’s not a fetish, not a macho thing – it’s a necessity, interwoven throughout the first two, the most basic, the most needed, of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

So what? A home is not a country. True. With a home, a single individual, or some small group of individuals, is the presiding authority – the “owner”. With a country, the ground covered is larger, and largely unroofed. And the presiding authority is appointed through some process to represent the interests of the polity – the “owners”. This is what is known as an “analogy”. But the things that make a home worth defending, apply also to a country.

The application of this analogy is thus: this is my country. My fellow citizens and I own it. We band together and agree upon its laws. We enforce those laws with all necessary force. Those who disagree with this reality, do not just get to have it their own way because they would have it so. As members of this society, they are subject to its laws and the punishment that follows the breach of those laws. They enjoy the benefits of this society, and the price of such benefit is compliance with its mores. If they would not follow the law they must change it. If they would not follow it or change it, then they must suffer its penalty. If they would not suffer its penalty, they must leave the protection of this society. There is no integrity, outside this formula.

Such is my reasoning. I state it with authority, because it is mine. What they think, I can only surmise based upon their actions and statements. If those who agree with me are in the reasonable majority – in contrast to a rampant majority - we will force compliance through the agencies of government. We are in the majority: as Tony Blankley reports, 80% of Americans want a tougher illegal immigration policy, 74% want "major" penalties for employers of illegals, and 92% believe securing the US border ought to be a first priority of both Congress and the White House. If those who disagree with me prevail - that minority - they will change the law, or change the society to such a degree that the law becomes moot, and they will abnegate the validity of the concept of nationality. Or so I imagine they will do. In either case, and even given the passion felt on both sides of this issue, it will not be acceptable, not legitimate, not honorable, to misrepresent the other side, to call them by scurrilous names, to reflexively impugn their motives prior to a good-faith effort to discover them.

Civility is the heart of civilization, and this is no merely glib consonance of syllables. The passion they feel, to protect and promote the interests of the desert wayfarers who seek or have achieved illegal entry into this land, is no less, and no more, than the passion we on this side feel about the unique and precious system of governance we have crafted, and about the preciousness of our culture, however flawed. Because of such passions, we must tread lightly. But if reason is not sufficient to persuade those who break the law, to follow it, we have the power, and will gather the will, to force them to, or punish them. For we are the reasonable majority, and it is our right, and it is our country. My country.


J

4 comments:

ryan said...

are you the poetry guy?

Jack H said...

Yes. Surprised? And the bloated monster, as well. Prophet, poet, monster. How's that possible. Or maybe it's necessary.

:-)


J

Elwood McAfee said...

Everything you say, I agree with. However, the majority you speak of will not prevail due to their nature as political animals. When push comes to shove, white people will retreat rather than endure being called bigots, racists, and other names the opposition has and will continue to throw at them.

At a town meeting several years ago in Orange County, California, white people who came together because they resented the influx of Mexican immigrants into their neighborhoods, simply shrank into their seats when a small group of Mexicans shouted and waved their hands at them. The whites were polite and didn't want to quarrel.

White people vote at the ballot box and vote with their feet, but they are not up to playing the hardball that third-worlders and the armies of the politically correct are prepared to play.

White Americans are good at writing letters to the press, writing their congressmen, setting up conferences, and manning booths at the county fair, but the rules have changed, and the barbarians at the gate, as well as the ones already inside, are ready to villify and demonize their opponents into shame and silence. They are prepared to march, demonstrate, shout, riot and disobey laws to get what they want, and the leftists among us are more than willing to help them achieve their goals.

The game is up. It's only a matter of time before the whole country changes irrecoverably from what we knew it once to be.

Jack H said...

White isn't it. American middle class is it. We cringe when the homophiles storm churches throwing condoms, and when the haters picket the funerals of soldiers. Race has nothing to do with it. Culture has everything to do with it. It's not third-worlders, it's their grievance-mongering racist enablers. Mexicans as a cultural group are polite. But anyone's mind can be twisted, expecially with the endless propaganda on Mex radio. I think we all tend to be tempted by corruption, as we age. Throw in beer and a fiesta atmosphere, and they win. If we let them.

J