Lawrence Auster is going medieval on me because I wrote the Dallas Morning News essay naming the Illegal Immigrant as "Texan of the Year." Even though the piece is not signed -- and in fact appears in the newspaper labeled "editorial" -- he quite wrongly assumes that the essay reflects my personal opinion about illegal immigration. He and his readers use this misunderstanding to launch ungenerous reflections on my personal character. Larry's even taken to referring to my "now out-of-the-closet let-illegal-immigrants-take-over-America posture." Which is asinine, and would come as a surprise to my colleagues, who are used to my usual Tancredo-esque stance whenever we discuss illegal immigration in editorial board meetings.
Larry, Larry, Larry. Let me explain something to you. A newspaper editorial reflects the view of the institution, not the individual writer. My own views on immigration are far to the right of the newspaper's consensus view. I was not given the assignment of writing my own opinion of illegal immigration.
Furthermore, the essay was not meant to endorse illegal immigration (and does not do so), but to reflect both sides of this intensely controversial issue. We named the Illegal Immigrant the Texan of the Year not as an honor, but to recognize that illegal immigration was the issue involving Texas and/or Texans that most dominated the news this year. The essay plainly said that illegal immigration could destroy America, or, if the optimists are right (and I personally don't think they are), it could merely change America, quite possibly for the better. Anyway, no essay that cites Samuel Huntington, or talks about the way illegals are overwhelming public schools and hospitals, could possibly be seen as an apologia for illegal immigration. In the past, we've named George W. Bush (2003) and Karl Rove (2004) as Texans of the Year. While those essays cited good and bad in both men's records as part of making the case that their public impact, for better or worse, was undisputed, we took lots of ill-thought-out guff from liberal readers for supposedly praising Bush and Rove. You would have had to have looked hard to have found a Rove fan on our editorial board, but we had enough independence of mind to give the man his professional due.
Good grief, Larry, think before you blog. Or at least write to me to ask what the deal is before you shoot off your mouth. You are way off base here, and ought to retract your rash and inaccurate criticism.
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hi everyone i wrote the following to lawrence auster:
hi this is your friend Amit again from New York City. i had previously bid you a happy new year but it seems as if there is no happy new year at vfr because you continue a battle with rod dreger. he is not a bad man though you think him misguided he is guided in the right direction to bring all of us together kenyians with Americans so there be no bloodshed anywhere in the world. rod says that the states were like kenya and before my parents came to America they also feared viol_ence against them against peoples of any color. but they were told that since 1960 white people no longer hanged other people not like them and that it was safe to come to America. so far we have not been violated and now i understand why since rod dreger explained how the process evolved (but you still don't believe in evalution, how come why not since evalution is going forward to the betterment of mankind). you should not think about blagging like it is a war and once againn i bid you a fond and happy new year so that you may have p[eace inside and contentment with people like rod dragher. thank you.
Auster, Thordaddy and Brandtjen make some excellent and substantive points regardging the inherent contradiction in the Dreher position.
I fail to see any real mystery here as far as DMN's sudden urge to call illegal aliens "Texans" thereby insulting legal citizens, and Dreher attempting to characterize this as a hardliner stance. What is going on here is the slow process of diluting the very concept of being an "immigration hardliner". See for instance the increasing number of liberals spouting the word "enforcement" in order to siphon off votes from a popular sentiment. If you can't beat the people you must join them, you co-opt and dilute the very thing they support. We've seeen this bait and switch time and time again today's media conservatives. Get the people behind you by playing the conservative populist card, and once they're on board it's the old bait and switch. All very cynical and unprincipled of course. But then again, that's modern liberalism for you. It always seems to come back to open borders, co-existence and keeping your mouth quiet. No other options seem available...
I had not previously replied to the point by Chav about "warring concepts" of national identity which Robert Brandtjen discusses, and it would be worthwhile doing so. Chav said that "50% or more of Texas is made up of recent Mexican immigrants" (sic), and therefore "the new meaning of Texas and Texan will have to be accepted on some level as a fait accompli.... Societies change, they sometimes have internally contested identities, immigration and other types of change stress these competing identities, and this seems to be a simple factual acknowledgment on the part of Dreher in his piece."
But then Chav said:
When I then said that Chav was urging the surrender of Texas to Hispanicization and that his claim to be advancing a traditional conservative point of view was a delusion, he accused me of lacking an ability to handle complexity and of other sins as well.
But consider. Chav is calling on Texas to accept its warring identities as a fait accompli. One of those identities if Hispanic. It is the case that Hispanics as an organized community, and Mexicans in particular, favor the illegal immigration of their fellow Hispanics/Mexicans. Hispanic spokesmen constantly threaten that the GOP will lose all Hispanic support if it does not accept illegal immigration, support amnesty, and so on. That is the culture--the pro-illegal immigration culture--that Chav says Texas must accept as half of its divided identity. Yet at the same time Chav says that the floodgates must be closed, assimilation pursued, illegals deported, the traditional culture and identity of Texas preserved, and the restrictionist position maintained. But how can any of those things be successfully carried out, if the Hispanic identity with its pro-Hispanicization, pro-open borders stance is accepted as fully half of Texas' divided identity? Obviously they cannot be successfully carried out.
Chav thus wants two mutually incompatible things, acceptance of Hispanicization, and resistance to Hispanicization, and he got angry and insulting toward me when I said that that was impossible. He felt that I was refusing to listen to him or that I was not understanding him. In fact I understood him perfectly. I understood that what he was saying was blatantly contradictory and false.
Amit Grover--
You are an ignorant man and thus prove the point that immigration restrictionists have--that is, to wit, people from the non-West have no place here as they cannot comprehend our culture and our history and are too lazy to even try.
The vast majority of hangings in this country were of Europeans, not others. However, all were once held to our laws and thus if they committed a capital offense, they were hanged or shot.
I suggest you return to your homeland and leave mine alone.
hi everybody, amit again
Hi again my friend Lawrence Auster in New York City. you wrote somehting at rod dregers blag and so did i so we crossed pathhs but did not speak to each other and i did bid you a happy new year and hope all is well with you my friend. but i believe it is time you made piece with all the warring elemints in your soul so that we could talk with honor and peace and people like rod dreger be inside our crcle as it shoul;d be in this great nation of ours yours and mine and his. i think and believe that vfr shoul;d learn to practrice satyagraha towards all eviland not strike out against peoples for it is not people that are the enemies but the bad elements of the spirit world that we all fight against. yes i see you latley recognize the greatness of barak obama and the service he has come to preform on behalf of all peoples in all colors thankfully this is a stage in evalution that our great country needs and you will agree to this evalution. one again i beif you a fond and happy new year and it will indeed be a fond new year that you will remember in fondness next yera if you practise the great love for all mankind. peace be with you and noit strife
now to Robert brandtjen - please be not so hostile to us immigrants (btw I am a young student in NYC) so also forgive me my youth. people that come here raise up the indignant culture so that each new generation evolves to a higher level (yes evalution is also happening here on this continent and includes you and me and lawrence so we achgieve a higher unity from a lower stage. much peace and joy to you robert
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