Notes from the Reconquista

It may be useful to remind the readers here that the short-lived California Republic, which was the transitional state between Mexican California and US California, was organized and proclaimed by illegal immigrants to Mexican soverign territory.

Astonished, by treaty and custom going back centuries any embassy is considered to be sovereign territory. Therefore defectors in Moscow were on US soil within the embassy. Your jibe has no substance.

The minor Mexican official says this thing in such an offhand manner, he clearly is used to saying it, and also is used to having it accepted as a normal statement. He is saying what many of his countrymen say, especially those in government.

"Wherever a Mexican stands, there is Mexico" is also increasingly common. I hope this helps to clarify your thinking.

Yeah, yeah, bring 'round some more chips and salsa while you're at it

I'm as hawkish on this issue as anyone, but I think the guy was rattling cages more than making any serious policy pronouncements.

Anti, what's silly is that Rod is putting this forth as actual evidence.

My jibe about the embassy was this --- how do we know the mexican official wasn't talking about his country's embassy as being mexico? There's no context to the video at all. The guy confronting him could have said "You're standing on American soil" just before they started rolling the camera. That could have provoked the remark.

but even if the guy really said it in reference to California, so what? What purpose does posting this video serve at all except trying to wave red flags in front of bulls? How does it prove anything at all?

There's a poll floating around claiming that 58% of Mexicans think the southwest is still rightfully theirs. How hard is that sentiment? Right now, not very hard.

Very possibly -- and this is, in fact, the first time I've ever heard a sane response to the polls about reconquista, beyond the "racist, nativist, quack-quack" that is customary.

There is a major difference between having an opinion about a state of affairs and doing something to bring that state of affairs about. I said on my own site last week, apropos a question about Scottish independence, that support for it is "a mile wide and an inch deep." And I posted a video showing the Scottish rugby team singing a song that celebrates a military victory over England before a game against England (and I made several allusions to those lyrics in the post). But no Scot seriously wants to repeat Bannockburn.

So yes, I doubt such a poll proves Mexicans want to replay the 1848 war. That said, such sentiment is relevant to immigration issues in at least one sense -- it can be combined with polls showing that Mexicans who cross the border don't see themselves as doing anything wrong. And if the American Southwest "really" belongs to Mexico, as is apparently widely thought, such an opinion of illegal border-crossing make sense. "The border is unjust, and an unjust law is no law," more or less.

You would think a self-proclaimed Christian would have a little more understanding a little more compassion.

All in all, it is a nasty little bit of nativist agitprop. What is on the posters? What has this posse of rubes done to provoke the Consul and who are these folks anyway? And "pendejo" is an obscene word so why not use the English word, since we are so civilized, so much better, so pious.

There is nothing wrong about secure borders, about being proud of our country but this is a dirty little cheap shot, Rod. You should be ashamed of yourself. This proves nothing.

And as for "reconquista" (which of course referred to the Spanish reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the infidel Moor), just how did the Southwest become part of the United States in the first place? By bloody conquest in a dirty little war. You don't have to want to redraw the borders to recognize that fact.

Astonished, there is no embassy in San Diego. A consulate is not an embassy. You might want to learn about these things before posting silly errors.

Manfred Arcane, you are apparently unaware that Mexican schoolbooks for several generations taught that the reconquest of lands lost in the 1840's, "La Reconquista", is the duty of all Mexicans. While this revanchism has been toned down since the 1960's, it is still present in Mexican politics. And one more time, the Consul is simply saying what many members of the Mexican ruling oligarchy say to each other all the time. It is not a dirty cheap shot to take notice of what a Mexican government official, speaking in an official capacity, says while cameras are rolling.

Facts are facts. You may not like them, you may want to call those people who pay attention to facts all sorts of names, but that won't change the facts.

You are 99 percent right, anti-dhimmi. The predictably anti-American is confusing an effect of the Mexican War (the fights over the status of slavery in the territories acquired; this dispute being one of the causes of the American Civil War) with the reasons for the war itself. For a more-recent example of such cant: "Halliburton profits from the Iraq war" = "Iraq war fought to profit Halliburton."

But it IS also a fact that one of the grievances the 1830s Texan settlers, who were nearly all Americans, cited in the war of independence was Mexico changing its laws shortly after independence from Spain to abolish slavery.

There is nothing wrong about secure borders, about being proud of our country but this is a dirty little cheap shot

You may bring your complaint to the Mexican Consulate in LA.

Should not their fire that arrogant fool diplomat for making inflammotory statements on US soil?

But of course you don't think there is anything wrong with that "diplomat" statement or his sentiment.

As so many of left and right liberals you don't think the USA has any right to exist in its current state.

At least be honest as Rev Wright is, declare your hatred of America openly.

Should not their fire that arrogant fool diplomat for making inflammatory statements on US soil? But of course you don't think there is anything wrong with that "diplomat" statement or his sentiment.

You seem not to know any people from the Mexican aristocracy, err, upper crust families. (I, sadly, do.) Their opinions about many things differ greatly from those of average Mexicans in ways you seem a bit unaware of.

If you want to know the materially sophisticated but deeply brutish, inhumane face of old style colonialism and colonial overlords, I suggest you make some personal acquaintance with a few.

As so many of left and right liberals you don't think the USA has any right to exist in its current state.

It's simply not destined to be the White PreModern Christians Only States of America in perpetuity, whatever our opinions.

If you desire to live in an Agrarian Age European society, the proper geographic location for that is, well, rural Europe.

At least be honest as Rev Wright is, declare your hatred of America openly.

We are America...and so can you! ;) (h/t to Steve Colbert)

Let's just say that our differences summarize to that one side wants the colonialist doctrines and past of the country to continue, and the other side wants to live in civilization.

You would think a self-proclaimed Christian would have a little more understanding a little more compassion.

If you knew how ridiculous I find the "How could somebody who claims to be a Christian..." objection to things I post here, you'd spare yourself the energy typing those letters.

I've written about this topic here before. I work in the Latino community. SOCA "belongs" to them. And they're not kidding! We "stole their land." Forget about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the millions of dollars we paid.
If the average person had any idea...

It's unfortunate to see you post that video, Rod. Take a look at the other videos linked to after it's through playing. Whoever called this agitprop had it absolutely correct.

I'm actually quite shocked to read the comments of readers.

This entire post is pretty disappointing. It has nothing to do with being a good Christian or not, you shouldn't post crap like that and give voice to ignorant protesters such as these. "Go back to your crappy 3rd world country"?

I thought you were better than that Rod.

Mexico's abolition of slavery occurred in the 1820's, the war of Texican independence occurred over a decade later, in the 1830's. It is simply absurd to blame a revolt in 1836 on law changes that were already settled long before then.

You're oversimplifying the time lines a bit.

Depending on what you mean by "abolished slavery," you can say Mexico "abolished slavery" in 1820 (or rather, Spain did), 1824 or 1829. Also the state legislature of Coahuila y Tejas varyingly restricted slavery throughout the 1820s (forbidding their sale, emancipating children ... that sort of thing). But the final, definitive law abolishing slavery in Mexico was passed in September 1829, was amended that very October to allow slavery in Texas, per Texan request (and a desire to tax the lucrative cotton crop). In 1830, Mexico prohibited the importation of new slaves into Texas and throughout the 1830s both Mexico City and Saltillo played whack-a-mole with Texan efforts at circumvention (like indentured servitude, say). And Santa Anna abolished slavery outright everywhere in Mexico in December 1835, just months before Texas declared independence and adopted a constitution that specified slavery as legal. To call slavery a "long-settled" issue in 1836 is just plain not true. And in May 1836, the Texans were seeking US recognition and discussing the terms of a possible annexation, and slave-state status was one of the explicit conditions the Texans insisted on.

As I said, it's absurd to call the Mexican War a plot to spread slavery, as the uninformed person above did. I'm also aware that the Texas Declaration of Independence does not list slavery as one of the "bill of particulars." But such precursors as the Anahuac Disturbances -- over the jailing of a lawyer (Travis) who threatened an attack from Louisiana over a runaway-slave case and Texan efforts to rescue him from jail -- show the status of slavery in Mexico was definitely *one issue among others* for the Texans. Others were official Catholicism, calls for surrender of arms and Santa Anna getting near-dictatorial powers.

Thank you for the correction, Victor Morton. It has been many years since I studied Mexican history and some of the particulars had faded from my memory. Also, I was not aware of the Anahuac Disturbances, although certainly I should have been. From my perspective, the critical issues in the bill of particulars was always the surrender of arms, specifically the Goliad cannon, and the assumption of dictatorial powers by Lopez de Santa Anna. The Texicans were not the only Mexican citizens to rise up in revolt against Santa Anna, by the way, they were the only ones to succeed. The troops that arrived at San Antonio de Bexar had already put down opposition to the "Napoleon of the West", for example.

Again, thank you for the correction. It is useful to me.