House of Eratosthenes

The snooty, snotty, condescending phrase “that’s not who we are” has overstayed its welcome by a good long stretch, much like the house guests reminding of the dictum that “guests, and fish, smell after three days” — and then continuing to squat for another year or two. It’s at the point where we all should start asking ourselves how it came to be that we tolerated it this long; it reflects poorly on the nation. Aren’t we supposed to have guts and conviction in this country? And can you claim to have them, if some gasbag at a podium can persuade you to engage, or even consider, a complete one-eighty-degree course correction by throwing out some paternalistic, hackneyed catchphrase? The solution makes more of the same problem, for that is not who — you know the rest.

Seriously, I’m ready to cock-punch the next one who uses it. Inside or outside the teevee. Leave it in the dirt where it belongs, Speaker Ryan; leave it to that fellow up the street.

Apologists for an overly lax immigration system should be the least-entitled to use this. You want to open the borders and then, anyone who wants in can just waltz through the gate, whether they intend to assimilate into our society or not — alright, if we do things your way, and the argument can certainly be made we’re doing them that way already…who and what are we? It’s impossible to say. That’s kind of, you know, the whole point. If we aspire to be anything definable, there are going to have to be some restrictions. That’s how any organism or construct declares what it is, by way of rejecting the unlike, not by way of embracing the like. It says “I’m absolutely incompatible with that thing, over there,” and the definition is made. Such things also protect themselves against threats this way, by forming policies, written and unwritten, essentially saying “I’m not going there, and if it comes here, I’m moving.”

Speaking of definition, Trump is not completely in the right either: Until our representatives can figure out what’s going on? What exactly does he mean by that? There’s no question, or not much, that such a proposal is legal and constitutional, and it’s clear what it is intended to prevent — but what is it intended to do? Exactly what questions are to be answered that, at this point, remain unanswered? I can’t think of any.

But he’s opened a very worthwhile debate that his opposition, perhaps deliberately, has turned into a very silly one. The citizenry has been led down a primrose path here; a lot of people don’t understand how much precedent such a plan has, or how unprecedented our current “Hoover Vac” immigration policy is.

So I think it would be very useful and helpful here just to review a little history to let you know that what we propose today and what many Americans support today is actually traditionally American. It is not new. It is not unprecedented. It is historical. No immigration, 1924 to 1965. The reason was that we had seen a flood of immigrants to the country and we had to assimilate them. We took time to assimilate those who had come to America. They wanted to be Americans. They wanted to assimilate. They did not want to establish Balkanized beachheads of their countries. [emphasis mine]

We hear often that we should be seeking not the Republican answer or the democrat answer, but the American answer to our problems. This is one example in which that’s really true. And, therein lies the problem. The “American answer” is one that is open to immigration — open to the possibility of accepting each immigrant who wants to take on the associated responsibilities, to assimilate. But, Americans think about what they’re doing. We weigh consequences. We look down the road — and that, right there, if you look at history, that’s what has made things work here.

The American solution is to look at what sort of immigrant is trying to make a life here. What kind of life is to be made? And what nobody is discussing is, the democrat solution: Go ahead and look into it, and make sure that life is one of dependency. To get on the welfare systems, stay on them, and create whole new generations of second- and third-generation immigrants, also made dependent and embracing dependency, from the crib to the crypt. So that democrats can win more elections.

That is the plan they’re trying to sell, and that’s the real reason they’re trying to stir up rage about Mr. Trump’s comments about this. As for whether or not that is who or what we are, well, I guess that’s for the rest of us to decide…

As far as the theatrical outrage about crossing some uncrossable line of bigotry, or some such. I find it thoroughly revolting that anybody, anywhere, would reach up to take solutions off the table, before it’s been made clear in any way that there are still solutions on the table that might work. Or even, that anything will work. This is not a fight our country has won yet, so who are these people working so hard to eliminate possibilities? It’s become such a regular thing, nobody seems to question it anymore; it’s yet another primrose path down which we have been innocently toddling, for years, decades, generations — we approach a particularly vexing problem that has evaded any promising solution for some indeterminate length of time, and before anybody can shed some rays of hope upon it here comes some jackass trying to make himself sound more important with a lot of “No no, oh heavens no, win or lose we can NEVER do X.”

Real Americans might say something like that…maybe. After the battle has been won. But not until then.

Because that, ladies and gentlemen…really and truly…is “not what we are.”

It is historical. No immigration, 1924 to 1965

Sadly, Rush is referring to the National Origins Quota Act. This entirely sensible piece of legislation was, alas, heavily supported by the KKK, which had several million members and a large national profile in 1924.

Now, to reasonable people that means nothing — just as Hitler’s belief that 2+2=4 does not make math Nazi, so the fact that the KKK supported the NOQA doesn’t make it “racist” (whatever that’s supposed to mean today). But any attempt to say “let’s revive the NOQA” will be met with pictures of Klansman marching in Washington, and for once that won’t be a complete lie.
- Severian | 12/09/2015 @ 08:24
That’s not who “we” are.”
What exactly do you mean “we” Kimosabe?
When did (ie)the President decide to discount his “you people” meme from the New World Order knee-jerk critics appendix to their “script”?
- CaptDMO | 12/09/2015 @ 08:41
[…] Freeberg nails it again. […]
- DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » The “Hoover Vac” Immigration Policy | 12/09/2015 @ 11:12
But any attempt to say “let’s revive the NOQA” will be met with pictures of Klansman marching in Washington, and for once that won’t be a complete lie.

True enough. But then, if these critics seek to persuade others, and they lack the grasp of practical logic needed to distinguish “All of A are B” from “All of B are A” — it would be good that they’d be outing themselves.
- mkfreeberg | 12/09/2015 @ 12:53
Annual club meeting last night–yes, I am a Country Club Republican–and mentioned the concepts in this article with those who wanted to talk about The Trump.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428200/donald-trump-overton-window-american-political-debate

Breaking out from institutionalized speech straight-jackets.

Isn’t it time?
.
- OregonGuy | 12/10/2015 @ 12:47

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The “Hoover Vac” Immigration PolicyWednesday, December 9th, 2015

The “Hoover Vac” Immigration Policy
Wednesday, December 9th, 2015