This morning, Black Dumpling, a uniquely intelligent and provocative X poster, asks this critical question:
This is the question.
— BLACK DUMPLING™ (@BlackDumpling) July 30, 2026
If an invasion fired only arms one out of one hundred of their soldiers is it unethical to open fire?
What if those other 99 are explicitly there to serve as cover and the one out of a hundred only starts shooting after they're deep within your territory… https://t.co/qZsVxSSm33
Underneath BD’s question is another: the question of the hour. Considering how critical the answer is to many other questions, it’s a wonder that it hasn’t been explicitly asked.
How do we decide?
I don’t know of many periods in recorded history comparable to this one. There have been large-scale migrations in the past, often motivated by political upheaval, famine, or destructive weather. In 1971, an estimated 10 million Bengalis fled into India, to escape West Pakistani forces’ ferocious attempt to suppress East Pakistan’s moves toward regional autonomy. Those events et sequelae touched off a war between West Pakistan and India, and gave birth to the nation we call Bangla Desh.
But the immense flood of migrants into these United States, mainly pouring over our somewhat porous southern border, can’t be ascribed to any of the “usual causes.” It’s essentially economic in nature: Third Worlders looking for economic opportunity. That motivation even applies to the agents of Mexican and South American drug cartels.
That flood has been called an invasion… perhaps not always metaphorically. But if it were taken seriously as an invasion, we would be forced to ask Who is invading us? The invaders’ ethnicities are scattered rather than uniform. The great majority bear no weapons and carry no standards. No nation has declared that a state of war exists between it and the U.S.
Now, just because no government has said that a war is in progress doesn’t mean that a war isn’t in progress. What constitutes a state of war? is a tough question to answer definitively. Time was, for a government to order an armed man across another nation’s borders was deemed an act of war. But once again, the migrants are nearly all unarmed when they wetback our borders. And no government will say that it has ordered them to penetrate these United States.
We’re in a situation that the usual understandings of war and peace fail to cover. We need clarity desperately.
By the most trusted estimates, illegal aliens now make up nearly 10% of the population of our nation. Other estimates are higher still. The destabilization of the American economy, the large increase in robberies and crimes of violence in alien-heavy districts, and the formation of de facto exclaves within our borders have the nation in a state of crisis.
As Robert Higgs has shown us, a crisis provides an opportunity for a government to increase its powers and exactions. Rahm Emanuel has said so explicitly:
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.
A serious crisis allows The State to act extra-legally, with “necessity” as its rationale. People are sympathetic to the plea of “necessity,” especially if the crisis at issue directly affects them. But as Isabel Paterson wrote, increases in political power to deal with a crisis are seldom entirely retracted:
The difficulty of taking back powers once granted is illustrated in the repeal of the Prohibition Amendment; although it was demanded and carried by overwhelming sentiment of the citizens, the article of repeal contained a proviso which would retain numerous Federal jobs; it was impossible to make a clean sweep of the pernicious usurped power.
In that sense, the migrant flood constitutes two kinds of crisis: one that threatens the integrity and stability of the federal and state governments, and another that threatens the freedom, prosperity, and security of the American people.
Black Dumpling’s question addresses both crises. If the illegal-alien flood into the U.S. were recognized as an invasion, albeit of a novel sort, we would recognize the illegals as non-uniformed invaders. Under the laws of war, they would have no rights. They would be “outlaw” in the old sense of lacking the law’s protections. Shooting them on sight would be perfectly licit.
The prospect may horrify. But is it worse than the prospect of accepting the invaders – of tacitly conceding that the invasion is beyond our power to counter?
Those are among the most difficult questions I can imagine. The aliens are much like a swarm of hungry locusts. None of them are wholly innocent; all have broken the laws of the United States. But summary execution is an extreme penalty for wetbacking the border. And granting the federal government permission to militarize the whole country on the strength of the illegal-alien tide would have far-reaching consequences for the future.
Perhaps we’re not looking at it the right way. Or praying enough. You decide.
The best solutions are usually the simple ones. Why don't we proscute the folks who let it happen for treason and decrotate the mall in DC with their corpses. I think that would be a strong incentive for those that follow not to make the same mistakes. If you are not held accountable what is the incentive to obey our laws.
ReplyDeleteThe president should declare that Islam is a terrorist organization and that all Muslims must leave this country. Then enforce it by calling up the national guard. There is zero doubt that Islam will one day soon destroy the West unless the West grow some balls. I fear that we will continue to do nothing and that my children will be killed by the growing Muslim horde and that my grand children will be converted and/or enslaved. It's a tossup which country will go full terrorism anarchy first but France is primed and ready. Probably by the time it happens it will already be too late for the rest of the West.
ReplyDeleteYesterday you offered the following primary recommendation to writers: "Know what you're trying to do." I suggested that one's objectives can get obstructed by events evolving faster than anyone might have imagined even a couple of years ago when one made plans.
ReplyDeleteToday you proffered evidence that prompts wanting to do something. But determining what needs to be done is a far tougher question, and that is in great part due to our quickly evolving events.
We are being manipulated by those with power who we rarely see or even know of. Plato's cave comes to mind. And that analogy was itself prompted by what Plato knew of how the ancient Sophists' schooled the very well-to-do. That class still cleverly follows that guidance, making our job that much harder.
Plato knew not of prayer in the manner we do, as he died before Alexander brought Greece in intimate contact with Judah and monotheism.. Had he known, I think he'd decide that your second option is critically needed. Can you think of any other force which can deter or bring to end such megalomania? I wish I could spell it out.
Well you got my blood boiling with this one, Fran.
ReplyDeleteI remember a time - and it wasn't that long ago - when you could walk into an airport, stroll straight to the gate that your loved one was going to arrive at and not see a single .gov agent, nor be accosted in any way. There was a time when this was a free country. If someone had told my father that there would come a time in this country when, in order to travel by airplane, you would have to wait in a line, have your papers examined by a turbaned agent who spoke with a heavy foreign accent, go through an X-ray machine, take off your shoes and then have your belongings pawed through by complete strangers while standing helplessly in public in your stocking feet, he would have stared back with his mouth open. No part of that would have made any sense at all, and the brain could not comprehend a proper response to such gibberish.
Regarding your immigration scenario: Anyone with two brain cells can infer that we have been and are being invaded. There are *somebodies* instigating it and some corner of our government has the names. That should be dealt with with an unprecedented ferocity. On this matter I have no fucques left to give. The people who are here illegally whether Pedro the tatted up Venezuelan gangster or Maria the sweet and kindly housekeeper, *know* they are here illegally, Pedro came with a gun, or he procured one shortly after arriving. Maria may not have a firearm or other ill intent, but she is still a thief. They are both combatants in a new kind of warfare.
If I was anointed emperor for a year by the hand of God here is what I would do within minutes: I would announce a two week amnesty for those here illegally to go back where they came from, with only the clothes on their back. I would offer assistance if they needed it. At the end of two weeks that generous offer would close forever. In its place would be a strict death penalty. No trial, no 10 years of appeals, no release on bail, no languishing in a prison cell. A simple bullet to the back of the head at 2:00 PM and a body dragged to a rendering plant. Harsh? Absolutely. And I offer no apology for my thoughts on this matter .
They. All. Have. To. Leave.