The True Bastion Of Liberty

     I hadn’t planned to write anything today, despite it being “1984 Day:”

     April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films….

     George Orwell had important things to say about liberty, despite being socialistically inclined. Nevertheless, he omitted mention of one thing that, sadly, a great many Americans have failed to appreciate. Indeed, the majority of us squirm to escape involvement with it. And for that reason among others, we’re losing its protection:

     The jury functioned as a localized check on state power, granting the common citizen the authority to temper the rigid application of the law with communal common sense. The historical power of jury nullification, whereby a jury refuses to convict a defendant despite overwhelming evidence of guilt, was historically celebrated as a triumph against state overreach. Cases such as the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, who was acquitted of seditious libel against the Royal Governor of New York, cemented the jury’s role as a bulwark of liberty. The jury possessed the ultimate veto, ensuring that the laws enacted by the sovereign could only be enforced if they aligned with the moral intuitions of the populace.
     As detailed in the University College London (UCL) academic paper, “Decline of the ‘Little Parliament’: Juries and Jury Reform in England and Wales” by Sally Lloyd-Bostock and Cheryl Thomas, the jury was vigorously defended as an ancient right and a bastion of liberty, a mechanism whereby the ordinary person’s moral compass could inform legal decisions and contain the powers of government.

     If you follow the news from the United Kingdom, you’re probably already aware of how badly the right to a trial by jury has been abraded:

'So judges are just better at finding facts?'
'They're experienced at it.'

Sir Brian Leveson, who led the criminal courts inquiry, explains why he thinks Lammy is absolutely right to scrap jury trials. pic.twitter.com/qDTQFw7acY

— LBC (@LBC) December 2, 2025

     But Celina’s essay, quoted above, makes a shattering point about the preconditions required for trial by jury to exercise its protections:

     Nonwhite jurors display clear ethnocentric bias against white defendants and in favor of their own. The data is undeniable. The elites know it. That is why they are quietly abolishing peremptory challenges, gutting jury trials, and now planning to scrap them for almost everything except murder and rape. Demography is destiny, and if the English, Americans, or Australians become a minority in their own courtrooms, there will be no justice left.

     From here, I could light off in several directions, but I’ll content myself by quoting an earlier tirade:

     The combination of the Constitution plus the Common Law, which we inherited from England, had a consequence few persons have openly articulated. Under their combined principles and terms, and from the then-customary definition of a government, the United States was an anarchist nation. The argument is simple: A State must have the recognized authority to decree punishment. But under the Constitution's requirement for a jury trial for all penal offenses, plus the Common Law's traditions concerning the jury's freedom to nullify any law it finds noxious, only a jury of private citizens can do so. Therefore, U.S. governments lack an essential qualification for being States -- and therefore, we are an anarchy by the strict meaning of the word.

     Now consider what would follow the abolition of the jury trial. No longer would a jury’s assent be required for the State to punish a defendant. Thus, defendants irritating to the State would be at great hazard, for an indictment would guarantee a subsequent conviction. Worse still, jury nullification would vanish. The State could proclaim arbitrary laws that would not have survived a jury’s veto. The worst features of feudal systems would be laid atop our advanced, information-oriented societies.

     But let’s not stop there. Let’s ask about the driving influence Celina has cited:

     When a society is fractured along ethnic and cultural lines, the jury ceases to be a microcosm of a unified nation. Instead, it becomes a contested battleground for competing tribal loyalties. Historical nullification, which used to be a noble tool against state tyranny, has mutated into ethnic nullification, where jurors refuse to convict members of their own in-group regardless of the evidence. This weaponization of an ancient right paralyzes the state’s ability to maintain basic order and shatters the epistemic foundation of the legal system.

     Juries have stood in the way of unbounded State power since John Peter Zenger. They who seek unbounded power would naturally be averse to the right to a trial by jury. Were our “elites” aware that unlimited immigration from the Third World would destroy the jury trial as an instrument of justice? Was it part of their planning?

     The U.K. is already far gone toward the abolition of the jury trial. Given travesties of justice such as the acquittal of O.J. Simpson for his murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman, and the willingness of a largely nonwhite jury to convict Donald Trump of a slew of felonies even if they had to invent them, Americans’ right to a trial by jury cannot be deemed safe from demolition.

     And I have no doubt that, whether or not this demise of an ancient, liberty-preserving right was a planned consequence of open immigration, our “elites” will find the outcome to their tastes.

Concerning Ethno-Nationalism

     Blacks do it. Look at Zimbabwe and South Africa.
     Asians do it. Look at China, Japan, and the nation-states of Southeast Asia.
     Hispanics do it. The nation-states of Central and South America have some of the toughest entry and immigration laws in history.

     The white nations – the nations of the Enlightenment – the nations that were settled and constructed by Euro-Caucasians from what was once called Christendom – are being told that for us to seek to preserve our achievements and our racial inheritance is somehow unjust.

     For those who say so, I have only one question : Why?

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     The Euro-Caucasian peoples are under sustained attack. That attack has several prongs. In many cases the governments of their nations are part of the attack force. It has a lot of well-meaning whites utterly baffled.

     We’re being told that we shouldn’t resist being made a minority in the countries we created and built. Of those saying this:

• Some are slavery-trumpeters or race hucksters;
• Some trumpet their “compassion;”
• Some, sad to say, call themselves libertarians;
• And some see it as a route toward wealth or power.

     I can understand their motivations without agreeing with their claims. What I can’t understand is why good-hearted white people are buying into it.

     Did you know that among those...persons there are several who call “whiteness” something to be eradicated?

     Would you want to be a minority in a country where the majority blames you for its troubles? Regardless of your identity, your trade, your background, or your individual actions?

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     There’s a difference between hating others and loving one’s own.

     Whites in the United States have never been less safe than we are today. The historically safest regions in this country – and I live in one of them: Long Island, New York, for which I pay a whopping premium in taxes and overall cost of living – are steadily being infiltrated by persons and groups that hate whites categorically and are willing to say so to anyone who asks. Local governments are doing nothing about this. Indeed, police forces are being cautioned about dealing ultra-gently with “minorities,” as the potential for race or ethnicity-based lawsuits terrifies their administrations.

     We are told that “racial profiling” – i.e., taking note of the skin color of a criminal in our descriptions to the police – is somehow discriminatory. We are told that the reverse-racism called “affirmative action” is our penance for slavery and racism. We are told not to take notice of the huge crowds of obviously nonwhite laborers who congregate at convenience stores, fast-food restaurants, and throughway on-ramps waiting for buses to take them somewhere they can earn a few dollars. We are told that it’s evil to want a wall on our southern border to inhibit illegal migrants. The very suggestion that our immigration laws can and should be enforced as written has been assailed as somehow racist.

     Not long ago, while in a clothing store, I was physically threatened by a huge Hispanic for daring to stop his completely unsupervised two-year-old from ramming a wagon into my wife’s ankles. Since then I go armed whenever I leave the house. Should the need arise I won’t hesitate to kill to defend my wife or myself. I might not have many years left to live, but I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.

     A lot of other whites I know feel exactly the same.

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     I’ve lost patience with those who claim that for whites to want to be among our own kind is somehow wrong. Note that any other racial or ethnic group that makes such a statement is treated with the utmost forbearance. Note that those other groups are never accused of intolerance or bigotry.

     Only whites must endure this sort of brutalization and ignominy.

     It must stop. If it doesn’t stop, it will be stopped. And it won’t be pretty.

Friends, Or Allies At A Distance?

     Clearly, it is futile for the Church to try to mollify a hatred so ancient and so deep as the Jewish animus against Christianity. Despite all the sentimental rhetoric to the contrary — such as pious nonsense about “the Judaeo-Christian tradition” — Judaism and Christianity are radically opposed over the most important thing of all: Jesus Christ, who commands us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, and to love our enemies, which does not mean mistaking them for friends. – Joseph Sobran

     The above is one of Joseph Sobran’s most egregious statements. Coming from so intelligent and perceptive a writer, it causes any man of good will to wonder: Did he temporarily take leave of his reason? Or was there something else at work that spurred him to say something so intemperate, so distant from Christian sentiment?

     I’ve puzzled over it for a while. Sobran’s criticisms of Israel as a political entity and open expressions of support for a number of Holocaust deniers got him ostracized by National Review and the larger community of conservative commentators. After that schism opened, Sobran’s columns appeared only in a few low-circulation journals, most of which were aimed specifically at Catholic readers. Is it possible that Sobran allowed resentment over his exclusion from his previous outlets to warp his attitudes toward Judaism and Jews?

     Yes, it’s possible...but there’s more to the subject, and some of it is moderately distressing.

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     First let us ask whether there is a true “Jewish animus against Christianity.” I’ve never encountered any reason to think so. I’ve known a great many Jews. Both of the women I’ve married have been Jewish. But it’s possible to interpret Jewish reserve toward Christians, which is real, in a negative way.

     Consider the following brief exchange:

Young Jewish woman: Mom, I’ve just met the most terrific guy.
Her mother: Is he Jewish?

     That derails quite a number of mother-daughter conversations. It happens more often than you’d think. It happened to me.

     Now, religion and tradition are important. Christians of all denominations are “encouraged,” if you will, to “marry within the faith.” Catholics are especially so exhorted, in part because of our doctrines on marital fidelity, divorce, and abortion. So we ought not to take it amiss that Jewish parents would like their progeny to wed other Jews. They have as much right to want to continue their faith and its traditions as anyone else.

     The matter is clouded by the many centuries over which Jews suffered at Christians’ hands. (Yes, they’ve also suffered at Muslims’ hands, but in the U.S. Christians are many and Muslims are few...so far.) It’s understandable that some unease over that history of persecution should have seeped down the years, especially since there would be contention over in which faith (if either) the children should be raised.

     A further complication arises from Jews’ quasi-ethnic identity. Even purely secular Jews feel their Jewishness to be an important characteristic, a key element in their heritage. In combination with the influence above, that lends itself to a certain defensiveness about “our people.” In a remarkable albeit ludicrous illustration of this influence, Betty Friedan, an avowed atheist, held an “atheistic bar mitzvah” for her son. There’s Judaism – the Jewish religious faith – and there’s Jewishness, and the rejection of one doesn’t lead to the dissolution of the other.

     Today more than at any other time in Western history, persons of all ethnicities exhibit a heightened defensiveness about their heritages. There’s no reason the Jewish people should be an exception. Take it from an old mick-wop papist.

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     In the decades since World War II, American Christians generally have exhibited a certain protectiveness about American Jews, Jews worldwide, and the state of Israel. It’s part of our national heritage to celebrate and protect ethnic identities and sincerely held religious beliefs. Sometimes that gets us into a pickle, as it has with Islam and Muslims. More, Christianity today comes in so many varieties that we tend to be ecumenical about the whole thing – including the Chosen People from whom Our Lord sprang two millennia ago.

     That cross-creedal ecumenism isn’t symmetrical. More Christians feel it than Jews. But then, there are many more of us, we’re in no danger of extinction, and we haven’t been hounded out of every country on Earth. Were the circumstances reversed, I have no doubt that we’d be a little wary of others not of our faith. Perhaps more than a little.

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     A matter of special interest concerns the Messianic Jews. These are persons of Jewish descent, many of them originally sincere practitioners of Judaism, who have accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. That separates Messianics from every other variety of Jews. However, Messianics continue to consider themselves Jews, which upsets many non-Messianics.

     To Messianics, their heritage plus their maintenance of the greater part of Judaic belief and practice qualifies them to be Jews. To non-Messianics, the acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah is disqualifying; Judaic doctrine holds that the promised Messiah has not yet come. (There are some exceptions, most notably the Lubavitcher Chassidim, but they’re true outliers in may respects. Among other things, they regard most other Jews as not sufficiently religious to be “real” Jews.) But the religious aspect of the thing is apparently not as important as the cultural / traditional one: completely non-religious Jews, utterly uninterested in Judaism as such, have reacted to my mention of Messianics with the immediate, even vehement insistence that “they’re not Jews.” It seems there’s more at work there than religious differences.

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     Religion, tradition, ethnicity, and matters tangential to those things are all “hot buttons” in our time. Considering that Christians feel – and rightfully so – that there’s an ongoing campaign to delegitimize our faith and push us “out of the public square,” it’s even easier to understand how the Jewish people, badly mistreated throughout history and few in number wherever they might be found, should feel wary about us, despite our many expressions of solidarity with our Jewish neighbors and our effusive support for Israel. Memories of persecution are long-lasting. Too many a proffered hand has concealed a joy-buzzer...or a weapon.

     Of course, it doesn’t help that the growing “alt-right” community has been infested with open anti-Semites. As I wrote just yesterday, that’s a great black mark against it, and could ultimately prove fatal to its political aims. And Mormons should really cut it out with the posthumous “baptisms” of deceased Jews, which are blasphemous, impudent, and offensive to the families of the deceased. Neither are matters made more pleasant when an exchange such as this erupts into public view, but there too, a certain amount of forbearance is called for...perhaps more than I exhibited on the cited occasion.

Hope Against History

     Being a “fan” of reality, I’ve tried to hew to the evidence in reaching conclusions about the various social, economic, and political questions that Americans must face. It’s possible that I haven’t always succeeded, but I’ve tried.

     Today, we have a brief but illuminating exchange between Stacy McCain and a commenter:

     Daniel Freeman offered this gloomy assessment:

     Diversity + Proximity = War. The details vary throughout history; in our case, it turns out that all non-whites are tribal, so we can’t afford not to be.

     Even when they aren’t violently racist, mere tribalistic nepotism is a powerful competitive advantage, to the point where our choices are to copy them, die out or kick them out.

     War? Is America doomed to be destroyed by ethnic violence? Or is there still hope for our nation? This was my reply to Mr. Freeman:

     It is still possible, I hope, for the American people to step back from the brink of the abyss toward which the past eight years have led us.

     “It is history that teaches us to hope,” a great man once said.

     “Never take counsel of your fears,” another great man said.

     Strange as it seems, our new president may be the man who can heal the wounds our nation has recently suffered. The opportunity is there, and I dare to hope Mr. Trump will make the most of it.

     McCain has hope “on his side;” Freeman has history. Where should we place our bets?

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     The history of Mankind is to be at war: with persons of different races; with persons of different faiths; with persons who speak different languages; with persons who follow different kings; with persons who wipe with the other hand. We’re a bit less bellicose today than we were a few centuries ago...well, most of us, anyway...but the history is there for anyone to read.

     Part of the reason we make war less frequently than we once did – and I know the Hate Mail Bag will swell to bursting over this – is the ascendancy of whites of Anglo-European heritage over all other peoples. Over the three centuries behind us, the Anglo-European nations accomplished two things of supreme importance:

1. The transformation of the greater part of the world economy into a market economy in which value and efficiency prevail over force and tradition. Let’s call this the market ethic.
2. The transformation of warfare from a hand-to-hand struggle between the retainers of nobles into a massive, highly technological, earth-shaking cataclysm with the potential to extinguish Mankind.

     The acceptance of the market ethic, with its emphasis on peaceful production and trade rather than war and plunder, makes possible the elevation of living standards. Thus, wherever trade has displaced force as a means of bettering one’s condition, people have become steadily better off as time has passed. All people, even those who, whether from lack of interest or lack of ability, fail to participate in the productivity explosion.

     Note that living standards and the potential devastation from warfare have risen in tandem, as both are fueled by advances in science and technology. These, with vanishingly few exceptions, are the domain of Caucasian Anglo-Europeans...whites.

     In consequence, the predominantly white nations have advanced faster than the rest. That was inevitable, given that the breakthroughs and innovations were occurring in the white nations. But the inevitability of it did nothing to assuage the envy of others.

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     Envy may be the most powerful immaterial force known to Man. It’s been the principal retardant of all human progress. No “natural disaster” can compare to its corrosive effect. When envy is mated to a perceptible difference between the envious and the envied, the combination frequently proves deadly.

     Once again, I exhort you, Gentle Reader: Don’t take my word for it. Study history. Read Helmut Schoeck’s treatise on the power of envy. Look for the patterns. They’re plain to anyone with eyes to see.

     Envy powered the wars of pre-Westphalian Europe, and a couple of the post-Westphalian ones as well. Envy was the moving force behind the tribal clashes of Africa. Envy animated the conflicts of Asia and the Middle East. Only where the envious impulse – the impulse to wound another even though his loss would do oneself no good and quite possibly harm – was controlled by even more powerful forces has peace prevailed among men.

     In recent decades, envy has become a powerful force within the Anglo-European nations. The pseudonymous “John Galt” has this to say:

     As mankind has advanced through the centuries, envy has come to be almost as much at home in prosperous nations (who prosper only because they have been able to limit the influence of envy in their societies, yet feel unjustifiable guilt for their productivity) as impoverished ones. The fear of envy may explain why the countries with more freedom always seem to self-destruct through economic (redistributive) anarchy. Although envy is never absent from any society, it becomes most pervasive and counterproductive when it gains control of government and then of the “law,” which subsequently sets itself above the rights of property. As laws of envy multiply, so does the emotion, because like all forms of neurosis envy cannot be satisfied. Various envious entities continually find new “inequalities” that must be rectified by more government plunder, and thus less individual freedom and security.

     [From Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics As If Freedom Mattered (1st Edition). Emphasis added by FWP.]

     The rise of envy as a sociopolitical force in the Anglo-European nations correlates with another macro-scale phenomenon: the ingress of the world’s non-white populations into those nations. The tribalism of those non-white peoples has been an important spur to envy. As non-whites and their tribal mindsets – what’s more politely termed “identity politics” by those reluctant to call a spade a spade – have acquired mass and force in the politics of the West, envy has become the dominant driver of changes to our legal systems.

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     I’ve written in other venues about the importance of formal structures in limiting the frictions that arise between different races, ethnicities, and creeds when brought into proximity. The most important such formal structure is the market: the trading interface between buyer and seller, who interact within a set of customs and procedures. Those customs and procedures seem simple, even casual, but in point of fact they had to be invented, then protected by another formal structure – the law – and kept in place by the forcible correction of deviances.

     When different races, ethnicities, creeds, et cetera interact through a market, the influence of envy upon their relations is minimized by the customs and procedures that markets observe. When the interaction is more intimate, such as is brought about by large-scale immigration, the frictions and resultant envy of the better off by the less-well-off are greatly magnified. In nations with a quasi-democratic order, the natural dynamic of aspiring politicians is to pander to the envious demographics.

     Thus did identity politics, and the concomitant struggle over the law, enter the lives of previously stable, peaceable, predominantly Caucasian Anglo-European nations.

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     I don’t want to beat this topic senseless, but before I conclude, allow me to point out how white women, who until about forty years ago had never been regarded as a downtrodden group, have learned to imitate the attitudes and political orientation of non-Anglo-European demographics. Feminist politics is almost entirely driven by white women, the most prosperous, even pampered group in Western society. Yet the women who embrace it claim to be “oppressed,” “victims of the patriarchy,” and spout hatred of men as they clamor for legal, economic, and social privileges no group in Western history has ever possessed.

     Feminist women, particularly white American women, embraced not merely the politics of those other tribes, but their envy as well. What were they envying? Men’s greater initiative and aptitudes for innovation and enterprise? Those things had been at their service for centuries, with little to no effort required on their part. Now that forty years of “I am woman, hear me roar” has proved to be a disaster for the majority of its devotees, feminist luminaries have begun to castigate their own former followers, with open envy of those women who’ve embraced femininity, home, and children and have rediscovered happiness thereby.

     Such an irony is beyond the creative powers of any storyteller.

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     To sum up: tribalism is a potentiator for envy. Where tribes form, human envy will rise in importance. Unless controlled by custom, religion, and law, it will provoke conflicts that will destabilize any political system. The natural reaction is the one Daniel Freeman cited: a counter-tribalism will be practiced by those under attack.

     The hope Stacy McCain expresses can only be realized by the quelling of the tribal impulse among those swarming into the Anglo-European nations. That will require that our nations rediscover a truth Clarence Carson noted in The American Tradition:

     In a conversation with one other person, you have discovered that person to be sympathetic, polite, and thoughtful You may go away from such an experience concluding that you have met and are coming to know a genuine human being. Your next meeting, however, may take place in a group. Here the person who was congenial when alone with you may make cutting remarks and align himself with the others of the group against you on matters upon which you were sure you would agree. A little reflection should convince us, if we are not entirely unusual, that we have done the same thing ourselves....

     Anyone who has worked with aggregates of people should have noted some differences between groups and individuals. Groups do not think or reason; that is solely a function of the individual. On the other hand, individuals, feeling the strength of numbers, are emboldened to do things which they would be afraid to do alone. Children in a classroom will become defiant if they sense the class is with them, and one may observe them darting their eyes about over the room to assure themselves that the others are behind them. At a more serious level, anyone who has endured the abuse of massed pickets when he crossed the line can testify to the loss of inhibition which accompanies the merging with a group. People tend to lose their sense of individual responsibility when they become part of a crowd.

     So far the resolve and consistent effort required to disaggregate our querulous, demanding tribes back down to individuals, to be treated entirely according to their rights, desires, and capabilities, has not emerged. Stacy McCain can Hope that it will, but for my part, I’m betting on History.

But What Could He Do?

     Among the most valuable non-fiction books of recent years, I would put Mark Steyn’s America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. Before it was published, commentators hardly gave the changing shape of American demographics the time of day. Since then, demographic changes and trends have been regular features of many political analysts’ emissions.

     Demography having become a key factor in American elections, Steyn’s most recent column is back on the subject:

     I noted the other day that today's swing states - North Carolina, Arizona - were yesterday's red states. How'd that happen? Tim Alberta takes a crack at the question in a piece headlined "Can The GOP Overcome Demographic Change In Red States?"...

     From my book The [Un]documented Mark Steyn (personally autographed copies of which are exclusively available from the SteynOnline bookstore):

     According to the Census, in 1970 the "Non-Hispanic White" population of California was 78 percent. By the 2010 census, it was 40 percent. Over the same period, the 10 percent Hispanic population quadrupled and caught up with whites.

     That doesn't sound terribly "natural" does it? If one were informed that, say, the population of Nigeria had gone from 80 percent black in 1970 to 40 percent black today, one would suspect something rather odd and unnatural had been going on. Twenty years ago, Rwanda was about 14 percent Tutsi. Now it's just under 10 percent. So it takes a bunch of Hutu butchers getting out their machetes and engaging in seven-figure genocide to lower the Tutsi population by a third. But, when the white population of California falls by half, that's "natural," just the way it is, one of those things, could happen to anyone.

     The "sweeping and unprecedented demographic transformation" is not natural, but rather the conscious result of government policy enthusiastically supported by one-and-a-half parties in America's two-party state, and accepted with weary fatalism by most of the rest, including Tim Alberta.

     As usual, Steyn hits the jugular. The “government policy” at issue is, of course, the more or less bipartisan decision, never explicitly announced, to cease to maintain control of immigration and the national borders.

     Really, given that change in federal policy, what but a swift flood of persons from poorer and less free countries – especially the ones closest to us – could we have reasonably expected? It’s certainly what we got, especially in the West and Southwest. Nor does the tide appear likely to reverse itself.

     Our immigration debacle has been a primary component of Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency. His plan to wall off the southern border is one of his best known proposals. As popular as it’s been with his supporters, it’s roiled the stomachs of the GOP establishment. Alongside major Republican donors’ supposed affection for cheap labor, the luminaries of the Grand Old Party dislike to take a firm stand on anything these days. A firm stand on immigration law enforcement and border control is particularly frightening to them.

     Steyn continues thus:

     As to what "Trump cannot deliver", he certainly cannot reverse the last fifty years. But he can change government policy, and thereby slow down a "demographic transformation" Americans of Lee and Pam's generation never sought....[I]mmigration is not a tsunami: It is a public policy enabled by the political class and enforced by the bureaucracy. Demography is destiny, but the erasure of the national borders is not demography: it's a political choice.

     True as far as it goes, but – and I hate to say it about an observer of the political scene as astute as Steyn – he’s got hold of the wrong end of the issue.

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     Pressure against a national border is a matter of the incentives that apply to it. The incentives pertinent to the pressure against our southern border are primarily economic: opportunities for economic advancement on the north side that are few and far between on the south side.

     A physical barrier against illegal land entry to the United States is a good idea, but it will not suffice to stem the tide. There are many ways into a country with an eight thousand mile perimeter. Not all of them can be physically obstructed. The genuinely determined will penetrate the land route even after a sturdy wall is put there, as the tunnels from Northern Mexico into the U.S. should make clear. To stanch the flow of illegal aliens, the federal and state governments must eliminate the incentives that propel them.

     The most important policy changes would be:

• Elimination of the “anchor baby” possibility;
• Elimination of all government benefits bestowed upon illegal aliens, including public education;
• Exemption of hospitals and clinics from the laws that mandate treatment of illegal aliens;
• Punishment of illegal entry by a prison term rather than mere deportation.
• Punishment of businesses found to hire illegals by a heavy fine or outright dissolution;
• Punishment of “sanctuary” organizations and municipalities in a similar fashion.

     Could a Trump Administration bring about those changes? Unclear. Trump would favor them, but the GOP caucuses in Congress would be largely opposed to them. At least one – the “anchor baby” matter – would raise Constitutional questions that would be fought all the way to the Supreme Court, where the outcome would be difficult to predict. Nevertheless, only such changes would lessen the pressure against our southern border to a manageable, endurable level. A wall alone won’t do the job.

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     Permit me a few unusually contentious words about the nature of this country.

     America was originally settled by white Europeans, mostly from England, France, and the Netherlands. Those persons brought their religious, moral, and civic values with them. Those values are embedded in America’s political structure as expressed in the Constitution of the United States and the various state charters. Had the populace been of another stock, it’s unlikely our political order would be what it is.

     The wave of immigrants from middle, southern, and eastern Europe that took place in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries respected what it found here and adapted to it. That was due to several factors:

• The orderly nature of the immigration, which was well managed by the port authorities;
• The insistence of existing Americans upon the assimilation of the immigrants to American norms;
• The sharp limits upon American government in that era;
• The racial makeup of the new immigrants;
• The dominant Christianity of those immigrants.

     Race and religion were critical to the assimilation. There were almost no Negroes or Muslims in the immigrant wave. While there were thousands of Jewish families in the tide, they respected the Christian framework of the society they found and accepted that it was not theirs to change.

     It wasn’t only the political structure of America that those immigrants assimilated to; they also accepted its culture. Though ethnic communities such as “little Italys” and “German towns” did form, their residents didn’t regard those communities as legally or politically separate from what surrounded them, nor did they expect to replace the surrounding culture with their own.

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     Not long ago, I released an unusual (for me) novelette titled “A Place Of Our Own.” Though it was written as part of a “challenge” posed by another writer and concerns a sub-population distinguished neither by race nor by ethnicity nor by creed, I found it to be a jumping-off point for thoughts about the powerful tendency of the races, creeds, and ethnicities to self-segregate.

     Everyone wants a place of his own. The most obvious expression of that desire is the acquisition of private property: home ownership. Yet we also see it among the races and ethnicities – remember those “little Italys,” et cetera? – at an almost equal intensity. Also, there are nations built on the premise of a “homeland” for a particular religion, Israel and Saudi Arabia being the most prominent examples.

     The most effective antidote for the frictions that exist among the races, ethnicities, and religions has always been separation, with interactions governed by formal structures such as markets. It remains so today. Yet this clashes with the common notion that America is a “propositional nation,” which “should” be open to all who are willing to abide by its Constitutional principles. By that premise, anyone willing to say “Yeah, sure” when asked if he regards the Constitution to be acceptable as the Supreme Law of the Land gets a ticket to the show.

     But that hasn’t worked.

     I rather doubt that a Trump Administration could make most of the sweeping changes I noted above. However, in the absence of those changes, we will see continued intense pressure against our borders and a steady increase of the tensions and fears that have beset American life.

     Those tensions and fears will cause ever more of us, desperate for “A Place Of Our Own,” to self-segregate. The racial, ethnic, and creedal enclaves that result will enforce unofficial borders that will horrify the bien-pensants. They’ll amp up their proclamations about “racism” and pieties about how “we’re really all alike.” Note, however that that’s a proposition to which their well-guarded redoubts give lip service and nothing more.

Criminalizing Caucasians

     This seems to be the major theme of Leftist activism at this time. It’s not being advanced through the law...yet. But less official means are being pursued with vigor. Note Dystopic’s excellent tirade on the subject:

     Now look at the title of this one and tell me the author isn’t lunatic racist:

The Scientific Way to Train White People to Stop Being Racist

     What, are we a bunch of monkeys or something? Are you going to ring Pavlov’s Bell and cure us of all of our crimethink with some pumpkin spice lattes or some other bit of SWPL swag? The more these people try to deny being racist (they even try to alter the definition of racism so it’s permissible to hate certain ethnicities), the more they prove just how hateful and bigoted they really are. The title isn’t phrased “How to defeat white supremacists” or “How to cure white racists of their delusions,” both of which would restrict the condemnation to the guilty. No. It is how to train white people (all of them) to not be racist. It presumes that you are guilty no matter what.

     Are you a Romanian guy, fresh off the boat? Too bad, racist, you need to attend your mandatory reeducation training. Of course, your parents probably went through the same under Communism, but hey, nothing like a family refresher, right racist scum?

     Read the whole thing. It’s a refreshing change from the usual defensiveness...comparable to what you’d get here. And the fun has only just begun.

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     I decided some time ago that when it comes to charges of racism, I would cheerfully own them:

     I have said it before, and I'll say it whenever anyone asks, whether in public or in private: I am a racist. That is, I am persuaded that as statistical aggregates, the conventionally recognized races differ in ways that can be contextually significant. So any mealy-mouthed leftists in the audience who think they can cow me by calling me a racist already have my reply: Damned right I am!

     The equally cheerful racism of the supposed anti-racists suggests that this isn’t an offense harmful to public peace:

     You can’t be singing Rihanna’s “Umbrella” if you happen to be a white fella – fella.

     That’s what kids learned during a lesson on “privilege” and “microaggressions” in a human relations theory class at the University of Oklahoma.

     Ah, yes. There’s nothing quite like a bit of white-shaming courtesy of the American taxpayers.

     “I was told as a white woman it’s insulting and a microaggression for me to cover or sing a Rihanna song because I’m not from Barbados,” a student who was in the class told me. “I was literally told to go sing the Star-Spangled Banner.”

     The student, who asked not to be identified, sent me copies of both assignments – including a 100-item checklist to determine how much “privilege” you have.

     How much more racist can you get than suggesting that it’s a form of theft for a white person to sing a Rihanna song? I mean, she gets by mainly on her looks, so for a white artist with actual talent to cover one of her songs would actually be an undeserved compliment to her, wouldn’t it?

     But I digress. The Left, in all its myriad forms, has decided to double and triple-down on its use of “racism” charges – that’s all this “microaggression” BS is, of course – before they’ve lost the remainder of their rapidly dwindling force. Their panic about it is the most hopeful sociopolitical sign in years. That so many commentators and essayists have taken up cudgels over it is of less importance than the growing insouciance of ordinary white people toward such sallies, and the obvious agitation it’s engendered on the Left.

     Try it yourself at your next opportunity:

     SJW: You’re a racist!
     FWP: I sure am. So what?

     The reactions will delight you. Trust me on that.

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     But that’s not the end of the story. The Left, sensing that it’s losing its ability to chivvy Americans in their preferred direction, has added a tactic to its arsenal. The reactions to that tactic have propelled the presidential candidacy of the least attractive figure ever to bid for the GOP nomination.

     You see, it’s no longer all about race. It’s about ethnicity, culture, and language as well:

     [W]hen spiritual fortifications have been flattened, antagonists put boots on the ground. That’s what’s happening now in unmoated areas of the West. But eventually even the dullest cucks begin to understand that virtue signaling on migration is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Conspicuously accommodating 100 brown people is a boast, while 100 million is a eulogy. And most prefer their praise served warm.

     So what we are seeing presently in Europe is a people slowly realizing their moral vainglory is best taken in moderation. Unfortunately for them, that doesn’t much address the designs of a billion or so global refugees fleeing the war in Syria. You don’t simply lock the door after other people have decided they want in.

     For once a large enough number of outsiders determine your house is precisely what they want, seeking your permission loses much of its appeal. That’s when fences start falling, tear gas starts wafting, and it dimly begins to dawn that invasion doesn’t require the Red Army.

     Now, strictly speaking, the “migrants” are the same race as that which predominates in Greece and Macedonia: Caucasian. Yes, they’re a little swarthier, owing to the climate that shaped their ancestors. However, the other characteristics that go into identifying one as Caucasian, Mongolian, or Negroid all point toward the Caucasian.

     That doesn’t make them other than useful to the Left. As far as the Left is concerned, their hostility toward European norms and European law is what really matters. They can be used to foment the sort of upheaval that might result in the overthrow of Europe’s overall sociopolitical order. The recent, overt moves in that direction have garnered a fair amount of coverage.

     Middle Eastern and North African migrants are attacking the borders of Europe. Central American migrants are attacking the borders of the United States. Sociologically, they’re about equally destructive. Politically, they’re of a piece – and the Left has hastened to embrace them. And you, Gentle Reader, are a nasty filthy bigot – a white bigot – for demanding that their invasions be decried, countered, and stopped.

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     For some time, the Left made profitable use of undeserved guilt over past racial injustices. Note, however, what Dystopic has to say on the matter:

     Defenses go up when we are accused of something bad, especially if we didn’t do it. I didn’t own any slaves, I didn’t kill anybody, I don’t hate people for their skin color, or any of that. So don’t be surprised if, when you associate me with any of those things, I get pissed off and think you’re full of shit....

     So when an SJW accuses someone of racism, the response they expect is for you to stop, nod your head, agree with them, beg for forgiveness, and promise not to be a poopyhead meanie racist person anymore. Anything else is “track switching.” They say I’m not listening, and they are right. When you spout off bullshit accusations, why would I listen to you anymore?

     Indeed. The attempt to criminalize a man for having been born into his race is about as offensive as any rhetorical gambit I can imagine. Condemning him for preferring his national culture, and defending it against the ingress of an utterly hostile culture, is simply insane. What’s important about our present moment is that a swelling number of First World Caucasians are taking visible, vocal offense rather than performing the ritual self-abasements Dystopic described.

     Ever more American whites are refusing to grant the Left an instant of their time or the smallest particle of respect. Europeans will soon follow in our train, if they don’t want theirs to be derailed. Will the reaction be prompt enough and severe enough to halt the Left-engineered assaults on the First World’s norms of propriety, decency, and respect for the law? We can only wait and see.

You Can’t Ponder Social Pathologies...

     ...without simultaneously being struck by their correlations with race, ethnicity, and identity.

     In a recent article, John Derbyshire considered at some length whether those three conceptions, which are interrelated in ways both obvious and subtle, are relevant to the question: What does it mean to be an American?

     The article is too rich with important observations for me to do it violence by pulling any of its meatier bits free of their context. It deserves your undivided attention from top to bottom. However, one early passage strikes me as excerpt-able: Derbyshire’s probe of whether America is a “proposition nation:”

     Suppose I were to trek up into the highlands of Ethiopia, get myself invited into the hut of some illiterate Amhara goatherd, and explain our founding documents to him; and suppose he were to respond with enthusiastic agreement. Did he thereby instantly become an American?

     Conversely, here is a U.S. citizen every one of whose forebears arrived here before the Revolution, and whose male forebears fought with distinction in our country’s wars. He strongly disagrees with the principles of the Founders, and would have preferred we become a Christian theocracy. Should he be stripped of his citizenship?

     I regard this as important because it bears on the frequently derided concept of an American culture.

     Take that Ethiopian goatherd and drop him into Nebraska, perhaps on the outskirts of Lincoln. (Yes, he can bring his goats.) Would he be able to survive, much less flourish? More important yet: Would he abide by the behavioral norms, positive and negative, that characterize the American culture:

• The legal “thou shalt nots:” no murder, theft, fraud, perjury, false accusations.
• The cultural “thou shalts:” public decency; a certain minimum of neighborliness; adherence to the rules of civilized behavior in public accommodations (e.g., a grocery store).

     Note that the advocate for a Christian theocracy would have no problem with any of that. He’s a product of the American culture, having absorbed it from birth. Would our Ethiopian goatherd pick it up in time to avoid being jailed or lynched?

     The social pathologies of our era derive from the rejection of the American culture, as summarized above. That rejection correlates powerfully with race, ethnicity, and identity:

• The preponderance of violent crimes and crimes against property are committed by Negroes.
• Exclaves where American law is not honored are dominated by Hispanic, Middle Eastern, and African immigrants.
• Persons who identify as other than American account for a great deal of the tension and disorder in our cities.

     The most important contrast here is between the above-named groups and the Eastern European immigrant waves of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Those persons arrived knowing only that they were leaving their homelands. They knew little about America; many believed much that was not so. They had little or no acquaintance with the Christian-Enlightenment heritage upon which America is based. Yet they assimilated swiftly, became sound, law-abiding citizens, and flourished.

     They were powerfully influenced by the institutions of the time, especially the public schools, which had as a principal mission the assimilation of immigrant children. They were not accommodated in maintaining the cultures from which they came:

• They were expected to learn English.
• They were expected to abide by American laws and customs.
• They were expected to transfer their allegiance to the United States.

     Those late 19th and early 20th Century Eastern European and Asian immigrants did all those things. They didn’t even regard them as impositions. Yet today we make excuses for rapists and molesters on the grounds of their “culture.” We condone riots in our cities because of “the legacy of slavery.” We refrain from criticizing the practices of any culture, preferring to treat all as “equally valid.” If there’s any single development that underlines how far into reverse we’ve gone, it’s this: Instead of expecting the residents of the United States to speak, read, and write English, our governments print their official publications in more than90 different languages.

     There’s a lot that needs explaining here...and part of the explanation must derive from race, ethnicity, and identity as those things bear upon resistance to cultural assimilation.

     I maintain that you cannot function as an American – i.e., as a self-supporting member of American society, free to navigate through it at will, whose fear of the law cuts off roughly at the traffic and zoning ordinances – unless you adopt – assimilate to – the American culture. Yet we allow designated minorities to flout their active rejection of the laws and customs of that culture. We admit thousands of persons each month who neither understand the American culture, nor want to become a part of it, nor respect it enough even to pay lip service to its norms. And we passively tolerate their construction of exclaves in which an American, as implicitly defined here, would be unwelcome at best.

     Thoughts?

An Ides Of March Victimism Review

"I love Mankind. It's people I can't stand." -- Origin unknown

Good morning, Gentle Reader. I'm in perhaps the foulest mood I've ever occupied -- persistent pain in all your major joints will do that to you, trust me on that -- so for today, let's have a brief survey of those charming types, seemingly multiplying beyond all limits, who feel the rest of us owe them and deem no tactic beneath them in seeking what they want.

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First up are those lovable guys we simply can't get enough of, the Muslims:

DEARBORN — This week’s city council meeting started out on a positive note as the city honored former Seattle Seahawks assistant coach and Dearborn native Robert Saleh for his recent Super Bowl victory. However, the atmosphere at City Hall took a bizarre turn after a local Arab American confronted the council on what he said were “troubling issues in the city.”…

The highlight of the evening came at the very end during the public comment section, when a local Arab American took the podium to address concerns he had with the city. The man, who identified himself as Hassan, stated that he lived in Westland but had concerns he wanted to address as an individual who works in the city. He refused to publicly give his address fearing for the safety of his family.

After referencing Prophet Muhammad and loudly chanting Islamic prayers, Hassan said that the city needed to monitor neighborhood parks around the clock because people have been using them to conduct sexual activities. Council President Susan Dabaja, however, told him that the city doesn’t have the resources or money for increased security at parks and asked him to move on to his next point.

Hassan also stated that there were magazines and newspapers at the public libraries and civic center that can “cause colossal damage to a child’s health,” asking the city to review and monitor literature before they are distributed.

According to another report, "Hassan" cited shari'a law as the proper basis for his demands. However, that citation has not been confirmed by an independent source.

This is Muslim arrogance in its clearest, least obscure form: All shall conform to the dictates of Islam. The Prophet said it; how dare you barbaric Westerners defy him?

There are several million of these dictatorial savages in this country. More arrive daily. With every increment to their numbers, their demands become louder and more self-assured. Let that thought sink in for a moment or two.

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Second on our Hate Parade are those champions of brotherly love and tolerance, America's militant homosexuals:

I have little use for Ezra Klein but I applaud him here for two things:

1. Hiring a guy who he knew would write things that his intended audience would react intolerantly towards.

2. Then defending his hiring of the guy, and imploring "liberals" to practice what they preach as regards tolerance for dissent.

The writer, Brandon Ambrosino, angered many on the intolerant left for writing that despite expecting to be shunned at his alma mater, Liberty University (a Christian institution founded by Jerry Falwell), his preconceptions were in fact wrong, and most at Liberty University didn't seem to care all that much that he was gay.

But then he truly crossed the line when he dared to venture the idea that not all on the left are perfect moral paragons with impeccable levels of psychological and emotional centeredness, but sometimes -- get this -- demonstrate their own form of ugly hostility to those perceived as The Other:

The world and the people in it are really wonderful with just a smidge of ugliness about them. I think the really vocal anti-gay Christians display this smidge, but I also think the really vocal anti-Christian gays display it as well.

In resisting the activist homosexuals' demands that young Mr. Ambrosino be tarred, feathered, and run out of the Web on a rail, Klein demonstrated the operation of a law of combat that operates at all times and in all venues, including politics:

Success Breeds Failure.

Denunciations and condemnations for "homophobia," "racism," and other imagined offenses have worn out their target audiences. However, those slinging them have become habituated to them because of their previous efficacy. The tribes that wield those epithets -- used quite as often to keep their own "members" on the plantation as for any other reason -- haven't yet grasped that their blades have been blunted by overuse.

But anyone stupid enough to think his preference for one orifice over another entitles him to anything from anybody is unlikely to grasp that.

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You know, as much as I enjoy women -- their appearances; their locutions; their shopping addiction's contribution to tectonic instability -- I must concede that there are quite a number of vicious women in the world:

A Premier League footballer cleared of gang rape allegations has lashed out at women he sees as targeting wealthy footballers as cash cows.

French international Loic Remy, who plays for Newcastle United, says wannabe WAGs go after players like him for their cash - however they can get it.

'These girls are vicious and greedy,' he told The Sun's Rachel Dale, in his first public comments on his ordeal since he was first arrested nine months ago.

Twenty-seven-year-old Remy was one of three men last year accused of the champagne-fuelled gang rape of a 34-year-old woman at his rented flat in Fulham, West London.

He denied the allegation, and last month the Metropolitan Police finally said there would be no further action taken against him.

He admitted he should have been smarter, but said: 'When you're a footballer, single and want to have fun, you can have any girl you want.

'Before it was not like that. I see things that make me afraid. I see these girls - what they can do.'

Doing your bit to get a little back for the Sisterhood from that nasty old White Male Capitalist Patriarchy, eh, Brittie birds? Never mind that Remy is black and was born into poverty. Never mind that all the forensic evidence was in his favor. He has it; they wanted it. As with Crystal Gail Mangum, the idea of a false rape allegation just popped out of the slot.

(Never mind which slot. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

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I mustn't close this tirade without noting our race and ethnicity activists' most recent contribution to world peace:

As the #BBUM movement gained traction at the University and attention across the nation, one student began working behind the scenes to tackle diversity from inside the classroom.

Public Policy junior Carly Manes, an LSA representative on the CSG Assembly and current CSG presidential candidate for FORUM, has met with University administrators since October to reform LSA’s Race and Ethnicity requirement, gathering a coalition of student activists along the way to promote the cause.

The group met Tuesday night to draft an initial proposal for a new “identity requirement” — its official name is still in the works — which the group’s members will present to the LSA Curriculum Committee on March 18.

The proposal is two-pronged: aiming to both expand the breadth of classes that satisfy the current R&E requirement as well as implement the component into the curriculum of all University colleges.

“It would highlight and it would focus on intersectionality as the core component of the educational model,” Manes said. “So, insuring that intersectionality is highlighted in every class that counts for this new requirement.”

According to Manes, intersectionality is meant to envelop a number of identity-based themes including sexuality, gender expression, religion, documentation status and race.

(Applause to our favorite Graybeard for the link.)

When it suits race, sex, and ethnicity activists, "we are all the same." Race is a fiction; sex is a social construct, and everyone is an immigrant from somewhere else. But when there's an opportunity to seize the brass ring of political power -- and don't kid yourself; political power exists in many institutions nominally outside of formal government and politics -- those things come roaring back, objective and irrefutable totems before which all must kowtow.

Michigan taxpayers had better know about this. Particularly the ones who've sent their progeny to the University of Michigan in the belief that its former reputation as one of America's top "institutions of higher learning" continues to apply today.

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A few closing thoughts about the victimism / entitlement syndrome illustrated above:

• It's everywhere. You can no longer get away from it.
• It generally goes unchallenged, which is why it's important to take up cudgels against it.
• Challenge a mouthy victimist only in the midst of rational types, never when he's surrounded exclusively by his fellows. This is especially important if you left your gun at home.
• In all such encounters, define victory as embarrassing the living daylights out of the victimist. Don't imagine that you can persuade him away from his conceit; it's been embossed on his soul.
• Refuse to allow the subject to be diverted from what the victimist claims is owed to him and those like him, and why. You're not demanding anything; he is.
• Remember that the alternative is surrendering the field to the victimists. It comes with consequences. I doubt you'd like them.

Have a nice day.