January 21, 2004

[Recently by Robert Locke: Immigration And The Holocaust: Debunking The Myth]

Former Clinton strategist Dick Morris's recent defense of the Bush amnesty plan is worth analyzing line by line, for it epitomizes a good deal of the idiocy on immigration as perfectly as only a confession by the guilty party ever can.

Let's begin with this astonishing Morris assertion:

"America has 4 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its wealth. It is incumbent on us to open our doors to those who seek upward mobility

In other words, America's superior living standard, created by over 300 years of hard work, scientific genius, and good economic policy on the part of Americans, doesn't really belong to us. We may have built it, but it really belongs to the whole world.

Mr. Morris is to be congratulated on one of the most succinct expressions of the international socialist creed ever devised. As Communists used to say, "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable."

Morris also writes:

"It is not American workers who [immigrants] are putting out of jobs, it is American robots. The alternative to their low wage work is not American labor but machines."

Well, I've been aware of this fact for ages but I never imagined the immigration enthusiasts would admit it: cheap labor retards technological innovation and industrial progress.

It encourages companies to not invest in the labor-saving machinery that is the only ultimate source of high productivity and high wages, but to rely upon hordes of ill-paid laborers instead.

Immigration is emphatically not a source of economic progress, but of economic decline back towards the low-productivity, low-investment, low-wage world that comprises most of human history.

Do you think it's an accident that no-immigration Japan, second-richest nation in the world, leads the world in robotics?

Morris' implicit hostility to industrial progress makes absolutely no sense from any perspective but one: what if you actually want there to be a proletariat?  What if your ultimate political ideology requires one?

As put in William Hawkins's excellent 1994 book on the open-borders conspiracy, Importing Revolution,

"The solution? Increase immigration, especially that of undocumented, illegal workers. The Communist Party, USA, in its publication, Political Affairs: Theoretical Journal of the Communist Party USA, understands well the cause-effect relationship of this: "undocumented workers in any work... have the effect of depressing wages and lowering the quality of working conditions." In other words, CPUSA and its fellow travelers suggest that, in order to "save" workers, the working class must first be destroyed through declining wages and living standards!"

(I document the fact that mass immigration has been promoted by a Marxist conspiracy here).

The rest of Morris' article simply trundles out all the tired sophisms about immigration that VDARE.COM has already debunked many times. I won't do so here, but follow the links.

Tired Sophism #1: The Myth of Hispanic Cultural Conservatism

Morris writes,

"As Catholic voters, who take their religion seriously, Hispanics are a natural Republican constituency. Recent data that closely links the frequency of church attendance to party-voting habits supports the theory that this very religious voting group is likely to adhere to the Republican Party once its platform stops repelling them at every turn."

Not only does Hispanic behavior show they're just not cultural conservatives, has Morris checked out what the Catholic Church actually promotes politically these days? On all issues not connected to sex, the Catholic Church is simply a liberal organization, period.

Tired Sophism #2: Upward Mobility Will Cure All

"As Hispanics follow the traditional paths of upward mobility that immigrant groups have trod before them, they are likely to lean more and more toward the Republicans—just as Irish and Italians do these days, abandoning the Democratic orientation of their ancestors."

Well, for a start, there's going to be a long wait even IF he's right. Irish Americans were a Democratic voting bloc from the time they arrived in this country in large numbers in the 1840's until Nixon in 1968. That gives the current wave of Mexicans about 100 more years by my reckoning.

And, of course, that's ignoring that economic status determines political affiliation less than it used to. Due to the end of the Cold War, the replacement of capitalism by corporatism, the bohemianization of the bourgeoisie and other factors, Republicans got only 56% of the rich vote in 1996, compared to their 75% in 1980.

Tired Sophism #3: Immigrants Oppose Immigration Reduction

"For decades, Republicans systematically alienated Hispanics by insisting on English-only initiatives, opposing benefits for illegal immigrants and demanding an end even to free public schools for the children of those who came here illegally."

The problem is, they didn't. Polls consistently show substantial support for all these measures among immigrants, who suffer the same negative consequences of high immigration that Americans do. The leadership of immigrant groups naturally opposes these things, which curtail their power. But their constituents don't.

Furthermore, those immigrants who do support these things are the kind of people who are more likely to vote Republican. Seeking the favor of the others is a waste of time. They can always get an even more indulgent deal from the Democrats, especially if Republicans give the idea legitimacy by endorsing it themselves.

Tired Sophism #4: Resistance is Futile

"As America became 1 percent more Hispanic each year, the Republicans could not concede this growing group to the Democrats by 2-1 ratios without risking total annihilation down the road."

For a start, his math is way off. We have a population of 300 million, so a 1% per year rate would imply 3,000,000 new Hispanics a year. Since total immigration is about 1,500,000, this is not possible.

Furthermore, he's presuming this trend will be sustained. But, as we all know, immigration could be cut off by legislation tomorrow

Tired Sophism #5: The Republican Party Will Be Rewarded

"But by embracing the cause of Hispanic immigrants and extending to them elemental civil rights and minimum-wage protections, Bush has struck a blow on their behalf that will resonate in their voting habits for generations to come. His legislative proposals are akin to the sponsorship of a sweeping civil-rights bill in 1963-65 by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and will have a similar effect in binding Hispanics to the Republicans as the civil-rights legislation did in linking blacks to the Democrats."

As VDARE.COM readers will know, given that the Republican Party has pandered to the ethnic and cheap-labor lobbies on immigration for decades without reward, this is pure fantasy—although Republicans like George W. Bush, dumb enough to sell their souls for a post-dated check, seem to believe it.

Tired Sophism #6: America Needs Immigrants

"The United States needs the skills, energy, savvy and willingness to work hard of our illegal immigrants."

Given that illegal immigrants have demonstrably less of these qualities than native Americans, as judged by crime rates and welfare dependency, this is just false. "Willingness to work hard" is a code word for cheap labor.

I am very glad we don't live in a country where people have to "work hard" in the sense of this word that would have applied at the Homestead Steelworks in 1890. Tight labor markets, which force high wages and terms of employment favorable to the employee, are a big part of why.

Let's keep it that way.

Tired Sophism #7: Laws Are Irrelevant

Finally, Morris finally reverts to outright leftism and comes out with this gem:

"They are illegal only because our laws have been nativist and short-sighted."

This is just the standard sub-Marxist drivel about all laws being merely the arbitrary inventions of the ruling class. Nothing is ever illegal in a serious way, i.e. because a legitimate, democratically-elected government, reflecting the will of the American people, made it illegal.

And note, of course, that "nativist" is taken to be an epithet, an obviously evil thing. The idea that a nation could have a legitimate preference for its own people, just like a family prefers its own, never occurs to him

But thanks, Dick, for admitting it's an amnesty.

Explain that to George W. Bush next time he consults with you.

Robert Locke (email him) is a former associate editor at FrontPageMagazine.com (archive here).