The Right Way to Save Our Sovereignty
I’ve written here several times on the best way to convey the case for limiting immigration into the U.S., both illegal and legal. I’ve striven, perhaps imperfectly, to convey why patriotic Americans of every ethnic background ought to be drawn to a policy which is in our national interest for a wide variety of reasons--economic, social, cultural and environmental. Indeed, there are so many solid arguments against the current policy of importing over a million low-skilled workers (a high percentage of them high-school or grade school dropouts) into a country that is hemorrhaging manufacturing and service jobs, that politicians of both parties ought rightly to be crowding each other out in their efforts to position themselves as advocates of serious immigration reform. Indeed, the single most powerful tool of the small and unpopular but well-funded open-borders lobby is the charge of “intolerance.” It’s mostly bull-hockey of course, but it works, and it’s important for us to counter it by presenting our case correctly.
Now someone has. In response to the latest palaver of pious abuse aimed at Burkean conservatives by Bush’s former pharisee-in-chief Michael Gerson, my good friend and sometime collaborator the filmmaker Ronald F. Maxwell--we’ve worked on several projects together, including a bang-up script I wrote for him that deals with immigration and Islamist terror which we’re still trying to get funded--has written an extraordinary, eloquent piece. It articulates with sober honesty and genuine compassion the reasons why millions of decent, tolerant, patriotic Americans are worried about the implications of mass immigration in today’s economic and ecological context--and in doing so, undercuts all the cheap, dishonest rhetoric employed by the cynics who support the status quo.
Having seen Ron’s work up close (I was lucky enough to lunch with Robert Duvall on the set of Gods & Generals, still uniformed as General Lee, and to view the never released 6-hour version of that powerful film), I’m not surprised. How many Hollywood directors, when they pick you up at the airport, have to remove The Correspondence of Edmund Burke from their car’s front seat? Not nearly enough, if you ask me.
Perhaps best of all, Maxwell’s impassioned column appeared in the Huffington Post--where it might help shake the consciences of genuine lefties who have somehow convinced themselves that they’re helping America’s poor by driving down their wages. I hope it makes an impact, and look forward to the completion of the potent documentary he’s finishing on the subject. Get a preview (including video interviews from the work-in-process) here.
Go get ‘em Ron--not every charge will end up like General Pickett’s!
Comments
I just saw an interview with Mr. Maxwell today, it’s available on YouTube. I hope the 6-hour version is released on DVD some day.
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If anyone is interested, the clip is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF9goBCBolc
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Maxwell’s post was good preaching to the choir, but your average Huffington Post reader doesn’t care much about exploitative capitalists—the Left, including left-liberals, have long ago gotten past concerns with economic class. It doesn’t matter to the pro-immigration Left that the immigrant is economically exploited in the US. What matters is that he’s The Other, the oppressed person of color whom restrictionists allegedly want to exclude simply because he’s The Other.
And all that past- versus present-tense stuff sounds great to those of us in the choir who read Edmund Burke, T. S. Eliot, and the Southern Agrarians. It might even have resonated with liberals three or four decades ago. But if Maxwell wants to talk about ideas like trusteeship to the “flies of a summer” who read Huffington Post, well—granted that his language was eloquent and concrete, but he might as well have written it in Latin for all that those folks will understand the words.
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sigh!
Mr. Zmirak, i, too, know how hard it can be to get a good project funded.
I’ve written a great script about illegal american/british immigration into Iraq. It’s got lots of death and destruction, bombs, whiz bang airplanes and monstrous Abrams tanks - ie. western terrorism.
Any ideas where i could get funding for this sure-fire box office bonanza?
patrick
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Fighting liberalism on the terrain of liberalism (as American conservatives do) is a Lost Cause. Mass third world immigration is merely the liberal trinity - liberty, equality, and tolerance - taken to its logical conclusion. Those of my persuasion prefer a frontal assault on liberalism itself. This sick Yankee ideology no longer suits us.
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Prozium: you have wisdom but the only frontal
assault would be a paleo-cable network
devoted to rum, Romanism, and rebellion.
You would think there would be enough rich
paleos out there but then there would never
be enough advertisers. Maybe some filthy rich
saudi would convert and establish a trust fund
for this non-profit, educational enterprise?
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Indeed, there are so many solid arguments against the current policy of importing over a million low-skilled workers ... that politicians of both parties ought rightly to be crowding each other out in their efforts to position themselves as advocates of serious immigration reform.
When it comes to illegal immigration who, ultimately, benefits? I think is is the govt
Open borders will result in an increase in friction amongst all peoples in America - natives and the invaders/colonisers. The friction will result in more confusion, complaints, confrontations, crime etc.
And Gov’t will have to grow to control/maintain relative peace within such a divers population.
When the gov’t tell us Diversity is our strength please attend to them.
They mean every damn word of it. Literally. And the OUR is GOVERNMENT.
Immigration out of control? Please. It serves the cause of growing gov’t.
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It seems to me with the NAFTA, GATT bills and flood of illegal immigrants, someone wants our quality of life in the US to seek its lowest level with the rest of the world. At this rate, how long can we remain the richest country in the world?
“Evil thrives when good men do nothing” Edmund Burke
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