[VDARE.COM note: Many readers continue to object vehemently to Robert Locke's suggestion that the Palestinian problem be solved by deportation. Israel definitely has a PR problem, at least with internet users. From our point of view, the article was not about Middle East but about the concept of deportation. David Yeagley explores this concept further, in an American context, from the unusual perspective of a conservative American Indian.]

By David A. Yeagley

Does a nation have the right to determine who its citizens are, and who may live within its borders?

I thought this was a no-brainer. I've taught ancient and modern humanities courses at Oklahoma State University (Oklahoma City campus), the University of Central Oklahoma, and at the University of Oklahoma, and I know of no nation in world history that has ever existed without the authority to determine its constituents.

In fact, when a nation doesn't have this basic sovereignty, it declines. It may disappear under foreign conquest, or in the case of hopeless multiculturalism within some over-extended empire, like ancient Greece, or Rome, that nation may absorb into a cultural malaise.

But aside from the historical view, it's common sense that any nation, like any club, church, or organization, must have power to define its membership.

Yet, many American politicians and theorists say there's an actual question whether a nation—that is to say, the American nation—should have self-determination. They imagine a moral issue in a nation's claim to sovereignty, but it's a superimposed, irrelevant question. It's like asking whether parents have the right to raise their children.

America has certainly exercised sovereignty in the past.

America locked Indians into land reservations, as separate people. That was so white people could expand and develop their nation without being killed by warring Indians. (I'm writing here as a direct descendant of Comanche warriors.)

America once denied citizenship to Negroes, and disallowed their participation in the power structure of white society. That was because most leaders didn't think the Negroes were capable of comprehending higher concepts of social existence, and would bring nothing but degradation and crime into white society.

America incarcerated some 113,000 Japanese-American citizens during WWII as a "homeland" security measure. That was because there were known networks of Japanese spies and saboteurs among them, all along America's west coast.

America once refused to let 936 Jewish refugees enter America in 1938, in order to maintain neutrality toward Europe. That was because America was not then prepared for war with Hitler. The Jews were sent back to Europe, where some ended up in gas chambers.

America's early 1950's "Operation Wetback" deported over a million illegal Mexican laborers from Texas. That was because the illegal Mexicans disrupted the agricultural economy, and brought crime, disease, and illiteracy to America. Mexican migration was bad for everyone except the greedy white employers who paid the Mexicans less than half the wages of the American workers.

Of course, today America's internal enemies severely condemn all these measures. These traitors prefer that America have no boundaries or definitions. They say the United States government was morally wrong to have exercised such basic authority as to protect its own citizens.

Due to the influence of this treason lobby, America today hosts an estimated seven million illegal immigrants within its borders. Nearly three-quarters of them are Latinos, over half of those Mexican, and over 40% of those live in California. President Bush and Karl Rove want to work out some sort of amnesty for these millions.

Advocates of amnesty no doubt fear the dreaded moral accusation of "racism," "bigotry," or "prejudice," if they don't make all illegal immigrants fully welcome and legal.

American national sovereignty is regarded as an immoral use of power, peremptorily denying anyone in the world the right to a house, a Cadillac, and a college education. America's enemies say America is morally obligated to not only provide full privileges to anyone who makes it across the line, but also to help him across.

This ideology has never existed before. The American idea of equality is totally usurped. It now means taking from the achievers and giving to the incompetent, from citizens to foreigners. Such "equality" has thrown capitalist America into a social autolysis.

But there's an elixir within America's own history. American Indian history, rightly understood, provides a very powerful example of "national" self-preservation.

In the face of intrusive foreign culture, Indians preferred segregation and isolation, rather than surrendering our identity.

We sacrificed our place in the new society, to maintain our own values.

Even after American Indians were declared U.S. citizens in 1924, we still preferred being Indian. Indians are protective of our identity. And thus we still have it.

Today, the American government's moral obligation is to protect the American identity—and not to rob and abuse its citizens to appease its enemies.

Deporting America's enemies is not just a right, but a duty.

Dr. David A. Yeagley [email him] is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, Elgin, Oklahoma. His articles appear in TheAmericanEnterprise.com, FrontPageMagazine.com and on his own Web site BadEagle.com and he is a regular speaker for Young America's Foundation. His composition for the American Indian flute and classical orchestra, "Clouds passing over the Setting Sun" was recorded this March by the Polish National Radio Symphony and will be on an album to be released by Opus One Recordings this fall. David Yeagley is the author of Bad Eagle: The Rantings of a Conservative Comanche.