Billmon:
So the brown invaders crossing "our" border and daring to demonstrate in "our" streets have become the new Islamofascists — the necessary enemy of the moment.
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May 17, 2006
WB: Non-Native Son
Comments
I am very concerned about our southern border and the mounting number of economic refugees. They come up here and play on our mountains and buy up the condos but they never really integrate or learn to speak softer.
Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | May 17 2006 20:08 utc | 1
Yeah, Alan/Vancouver, but at least their dough is the right colour eh? 🙂
But on a more somber note, the Billmon’s following comment seemed to me to be a pretty profound psychological insight: (my bold)
It’s hard to believe the tribunes of nativism (including the non-native ones) don’t realize how repulsive and offensive this sort of talk sounds to those who don’t share their pet obsession. It doesn’t do their cause any good, which suggests they keep saying these things because they simply can’t help themselves. They’re waxing hysterical about the immigrant “threat” for the same reason they’ve been waxing hysterical about the “Islamofascists” for the past five years: because it legitimizes their paranoid, authoritarian world view — which in turn justifies the kind of paranoid, authoritarian state they want to see established in this country.
I’ve always wondered about the individual psychology that impels a human being to harbor and express ill will. It seems so offensive to those of us who find the obsession foreign. I think it must issue from a sense of fear of one’s own mortality that everything ‘out there’ is a threat or at best an allay for the time being.
Good will expressed from the heart extends and includes and finds peace and synergy within a common ground of existence. If only the paranoid assholes out there would give that meme a chance, they would do a service to not only the good will community but themselves as well.
Posted by: Juannie | May 18 2006 2:06 utc | 2
Well, this should be a very interesting thread, with juannie spilling the milk of human kindness all over the place.
Might step in something or slip on something, and all fall down.
Posted by: Village Idiot | May 18 2006 2:30 utc | 3
I think it must issue from a sense of fear of one’s own mortality that everything ‘out there’ is a threat or at best an allay for the time being.
Yep – that is the elephant in the room.
@B:
Respectfully disagree. The issue we are discussing is uncontrolled immigration into the US.
And it seems that rather than confronting the elephant in the room, the pro immigration ppl throw out slurs about “little brown brothers” and “paranoid assholes.”
On the other side, it’s walls, felonies, mass deportations, and other slurs.
Be nice if people could discuss the problem as adults, and attempt a reasonable solution.
But we don’t see that in many of the comments and in the posts here , and we certainly don’t see that in the debate in America.
As far as mortality goes, most of us in America would be happy if we could leave a reasonable world for our children.
Posted by: Village Idiot | May 18 2006 5:01 utc | 5
Derbyshire’s a Colonel Blimp type: although he may have naturalized, he’s still reminiscent of the old colonial poobahs who haunt the letters page of the Daily Telegraph.
Be nice if people could discuss the problem as adults, and attempt a reasonable solution.
Sure. Start by talking to immigrants. Legal and illegal. There’s no topic on which native-born Americans are more ignorant than the subject of being an immigrant in the US or wanting to go to the US.
Posted by: ahem | May 18 2006 20:10 utc | 6
I talk to Hispanic immigrants,legal as far as I know, every day patron.
They work more than occasionally for me.
And really, several of my good friends have been THEM.
Posted by: Village Idiot | May 18 2006 20:47 utc | 7
@Village Idiot
Been away all day so this is my first chance to respond.
My take and comment on Billmon’s post centered on the following quote which I intended to be bold in my original post.
…their paranoid, authoritarian world view — which in turn justifies the kind of paranoid, authoritarian state they want to see established in this country.
You seem to be taking issue with the so called pro immigration ppl, which is certainly not me, and those who would use slurs instead of argument. I really don’t have a considered opinion either pro or con on the immigration issue. Part of me wants to see a world without borders yet another part of me wants to feel secure in my own home. I would be happy to read and consider your stance if you care to post it. My original post on this thread had absolutely nothing to do with the immigration issue. It addressed the emotional mind set of some of our species who seem to be bent on imposing their will on the rest of us. Those who do so today and those who have done so throughout history.
I do however agree with your comment about slurs but obviously fell victim once again to a more primitive impulse. I apologize. I have to tell you though that I did give the slur word a second thought and couldn’t come up with a better word for those ideological totalitarians creeps (oops, another slur word, sorry again) who spew so much shit into the world and everyone’s lives. Sometimes expletives are just the only way for a limited bloke like myself to express oneself.
Posted by: Juannie | May 18 2006 21:27 utc | 8
No disagreement Juannie.
But for the first time in my life I have to agree with Charles Krauthammer
Posted by: Village Idiot | May 19 2006 3:49 utc | 9
@ VI
Not sure how much I agree/disagree with in Krauthammer’s Op-Ed, but his very first statement I totally disagree with.
I do not doubt the president’s sincerity in wanting to humanize and regularize the lives of America’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens.
I highly doubt that GW Bush cares a hoot or gives a shit about the lives of most anyone not directly beneficial to either himself or his assumed allies, let alone millions of the browner skinned subsistence class.
Some of Krauthammer’s rational seems reasonable, others raise a flag for me, but the image that came to me while reading his piece was that of the petri dish from high school science lab as the organism approached the limits of their exponential growth, except now with walls separating the dish into irregular segments. And I wondered if the walls would represent an impermeable obstacle or if the organisms would overreach them on the bodies of their kin. Either way, every finite segment of the dish represents an ultimate boundary to unabated continuing ‘growth’.
Maybe less walls and guards and more dabbling into the effects of true heartfelt good will from those who supposedly represent the higher level of human attainment will help our species through this disruptive period in our evolution. Oh yeah, but I forgot they don’t believe in evolution.- really just another slur but with the plethora of contemporary images impinging on my awareness that elicit feelings like I get from the petri dish, I just can’t help my snarking. :-[
Posted by: Juannie | May 19 2006 18:33 utc | 10