When Peter Brimelow told me that The Nation magazine had done a big spread on immigration, coming down on the side of the immigrants, legal or not, I asked him "Why do they call it The Nation, anyway?" Actually, I knew the reason; it was founded in 1865, at the close of the Civil War, when the "historical American nation" had nearly become two "historical American nations," (and would that have been so bad?) But never mind, the point is that The Nation has recently published a number of articles about undermining the American nation, and attacking immigration reformers like Lou Dobbs, and the "New Nativists" in general.

As someone likely to be accused of the sin of nativism, if not worse, I'd like to direct your attention to my article about the old nativism: Return of the Nativist?, which is now 5 years old, although I don't think the history of the nineteenth century has changed much since then. At the time, I pointed out that nativism has another meaning in anthropology:

A social movement that proclaims the return to power of the natives of a colonized area and the resurgence of native culture, along with the decline of the colonizers. The term has also been used to refer to a widespread attitude in a society of a rejection of alien persons or culture. Nativism occurs within almost all areas of nonindustrial culture known to anthropologists.

You know, I think when this happened in South Africa and Zimbabwe the Nation was happy about it.

Why can't Americans do it?