I am conducting an experiment of sorts, using Liberals as my laboratory specimens. A couple of days ago I unexpectedly received an email from a friend who never emails me, since I’m a conservative and she’s not. This email was about illegal immigrants, and some of its points I agreed with, and some I didn’t.
Among her points were: without cheap Mexican labor, lettuce and other products would become very expensive. Also, it was wrong to have the Mexican flag flown over the American, but the American flag should be flown upside down because the United States is a nation in distress.
This was my response:
“One point among many. When labor becomes too expensive, we mechanize the process. Cheap Mexican labor has just delayed the inevitable.
Second, we are not in a state of distress. That is truly rhetorical overkill. There are, and always will be, problems we must face and attempt to solve with some degree of competence, compromise, and cooperation. No one will ever be totally satisfied. However, if we are honest in assessing our circumstances, we will conclude that we live in the most free, prosperous, and vibrant country that has ever existed. And still admittedly far from perfect, just closer than any other. Those who hold up as shining examples the welfare states of Europe are blind to the high unemployment, high taxes, and barriers to business formation and growth, and to the fact that their population demographics make their social benefit programs unsustainable. Look to France for an example of what we don't want to be.
We are not anti-immigrant. But the key element of our greatness as a nation is that we are a nation of laws in conformance with our Constitution, and if we don't think a law is good, we get rid of or change it. We don't just ignore it. And continually rewarding illegals by giving amnesty for breaking our laws is not a good way to discourage law breakers.”
I then provided links to three of my recent posts: Making the Army of Reconquista; The Reconquistadores; and "Heartless" Capitalism is the Most Compassionate.
I concluded with this offer:
“And please feel free to wander through my archive folders, particularly the January through May 2006 ones. I have stories about life in Point Arena fifty years ago, and a variety of other topics, not all political by any means.”
I then launched my experiment. Instead of just sending a reply to her, I hit the “reply all” button, so that my response would go to both its author and to all others she had sent her original email. A day later I sent this additional response to her email, and again sent it “reply all.”
“Charles Krauthammer wonders why border security has been dismissed as a concern only to conservatives in the current debate over immigration reform. It's a question that organized labor might want answered as well:
Bush's enforcement provisions were advertised as an attempt to appease conservatives. This is odd. Are conservatives the only ones who think that unlimited, unregulated immigration is a detriment to the republic? Do liberals really believe in a de facto policy that depresses the wages of the poorest and most desperate Americans, African Americans most prominently among them? Do liberals believe that the number, social class, education level, background and country of origin of immigrants -- the kinds of decisions every democratic country makes for itself -- should be taken out of the hands of the American citizenry and left to the immigrants themselves and, in particular, to those most willing to break the very immigration regulations the American people have decided upon democratically?
And is it just conservatives who think the United States ought not be gratuitously squandering one of its greatest assets -- its magnetic attraction to would-be immigrants around the world? There are tens of millions of people who want to leave their homes and come to America. We essentially have an NFL draft in which the United States has the first, oh, million or so draft picks. Rather than exercising those picks, i.e., choosing by whatever criteria we want -- such as education, enterprise, technical skills and creativity -- we admit the tiniest fraction of the best and brightest and permit millions of the unskilled to pour in instead.”
Following the Charles Krauthammer quote, I added this:
“Charles Krauthammer shows that illegal immigration is a concern to us all - except the Democratic Party, who are only concerned with prostituting our immigration laws to get more votes for Democrats. That is what amnesty for illegal immigrants means - votes for Democrats. Votes from recent Latino immigrants who are now citizens, votes for Democrats from the illegal immigrants who want citizenship as a reward for breaking immigration law, and future votes from the enormous number of instant citizens created when illegal immigrants have children in the United States.
Mexico has been in a state of distress for a very long time now, and only the safety valve of illegal immigration to the United States has kept Mexicans from revolting against their corrupt and incompetent leaders. By our inaction on border control, we have only succeeded in keeping corrupt Mexican governments in power, and in perpetuating Mexican poverty and misery. The Flag of Mexico is the one that should be flown upside down.”
The results of my experiment thus far have been limited, but interesting nevertheless. One fellow sent me a very thoughtful response, and I replied to the points he raised.
One woman, in anguish and pleading “for the love of God,” implored me to never, ever again, traumatize her Inbox in this way.
Another fellow emailed: “Please tak (sic) me off this list!! I get plenty of this B.S. in the I.C.O. [Strong Ox note: ICO is the Independent Coast Observer, our local weekly newspaper] and don't want it on my e-mail.”
I can hear it now: “Oooooooooo, yuck, do you see the crap this conservative spread on my email?! Gross!”
Several seem to have deleted my emails without reading them. Others at least opened them, although that doesn’t mean they weren’t also immediately deleted. Apparently liberal email Inboxes are sensitive, sacred places, not to be profaned by conservative heresies. I have lurid images in my head of the cleansing rituals liberals must perform on the ICO each time one of my letters is printed. Plus they must have exorcisms for Inboxes to return them to a state of liberal purity and grace.
I’ll update this as (hopefully) more responses come in, probably Monday after everyone goes back to work and checks their emails. I hope the three responses aren’t all I get. That would be terribly disappointing.
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