Motus Mentis

I’ve been mum about politics for a few weeks, and in particular haven’t said anything about the controversial Arizona legislation, although as you might imagine I of course see no reason why Arizona shouldn’t act if the federal government simply won’t. Meanwhile, here in New York our own mayor — who, as both New York City’s chief executive and wealthiest resident, spends his time in environment-proof bubbles here and at his waterfront estate in Bermuda, thereby having as little direct exposure to the undesirable effects of mass illegal immigration as a Patagonian goatherd — has decried the legislation as a route to “national suicide”. (That’s an interesting choice of words, by the way, given that Lawrence Auster persuasively argued exactly the opposite in his influential 1990 tract The Path To National Suicide, which I doubt Hizzoner has ever read, though I wish he would.)

Mr. Bloomberg complained that “Somehow or other, after 9/11 we went from reaching out and trying to get the best and the brightest to come here, to trying to keep them out.” Apparently in his mind there was no discrimination to be made between: a) the total cessation of all immigration; b) a rational and rigorously enforced immigration policy that admits those whose presence here might actually benefit the US in some way, and c) the complete abandonment of any effort whatsoever to secure our frontiers. Does he really imagine that it is the “best and the brightest” who are streaming furtively across the Arizona border?

But perhaps that is the point: to discriminate between those options would necessitate that we also discriminate as regards the desirability of applicants for US residence — and discrimination of any sort, even in the essential interest of cultural and national self-preservation, is anathema to the liberal mind.

But enough; if I warm to the topic any more I’ll be ranting again for months. Anyway, so much has been written by now about this that I have nothing new to add, even were I so inclined — so I’ll just offer links to some of the sharper items I’ve read over the past few days.

Here are three: by Victor Davis Hanson, Michelle Malkin, and Mark Steyn.