Mr. Auster writes: “In the long run, if you criticize only illegal immigration, you’re remaining on the surface of the immigration problem. ” While I agree with that sentiment, I think Michelle Malkin has made some wonderful contributions to the immigration reform movement.

She is a welcome addition to Vdare and I am enjoying her new book on the subject “Invasion.” That said, her own position on whether or not we should *legally* admit a million plus Third World immigrants every year is a bit more ambiguous.

It used to be taken for granted among conservatives and Republicans that a crackdown on illegal immigration was obviously needed. Not so today. To the extent Malkin’s book “Invasion” is considered controversial, it’s because Republicans now rush in to tell us that illegal aliens are needed to prop up the economy.

What would the Builders and Construction Association say to a crack down on illegals? Or the Chamber of Commerce? Republicans and many conservatives actively or tacitly back an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens in this country. No doubt the future Mohamed Atta’s are fervently praying for exactly this.

Right on, Mr. Vandervoort. Everything keeps moving to the left. It used to go without saying that illegal immigration is a bad thing. That has now become a controversial position, and books such as Malkin’s become necessary as a corrective. By the same token, it used to be taken for granted that Republicans and conservatives supported immigration on the condition that the immigrants would assimilate. Bush has changed all that. He openly celebrates the fact that American cities are becoming culturally and linguistically like Latin America, and he would expel from the Republican party anyone who differs. So now a belief that America should not be culturally Hispanicized places one outside respectable conservatism.

A few years ago, I was reading a piece in National Review by John O’Sullivan. The subject was factions in the GOP leading up to the 2000 election. One group mentioned were the GOP “multiculturalists.” O’Sullivan said this was a very small group. However, they had a very powerful ally. His name was George W. Bush.

I wanted to follow up again on Mr. Auster’s main point about immigration and Islam. Since the September 11th attacks, one can find all manner of critical and even harsh views on the history and current state of Islam in the pages of many mainstream conservative journals. I’m thinking mostly about the Washington Times, National Review, the National Interest, Human Events, Commentary, Policy Review, City Journal, the Wall Street Journal, Frontpagemag.com and the Weekly Standard. There are probably others that one could add to this list. My first question: how much longer will these journals consider it politically “safe” to criticize Islam? I think at most for another decade or two.

While it is still “safe” to do so (i.e., while Islamics are not such a large part of the population) one could write a *whole book* that is critical of Islam — based just on the recent articles that have appeared in mainstream conservative journals. What is striking is that every single one of them is shy about addressing the immigration issue. Some muster up the courage to print the occasional article critical of illegal immigration, but that’s about it.

How is it that otherwise intelligent journals fail to see the connection between Islamic growth in the West and the Third World migrations? The religion of Allah these journals like to deconstruct is inexorably tied to the massive Third World immigration to the West. How can they fail to see that?

The Islamic threat to the West which many conservatives write about would be much *smaller* without their tacit or often overt support of massive annual Third World immigration. Islam would still be growing in the West at a fast clip because of differential birth rates, but you would not see this dramatic exponential growth we have seen in the last 30 years.

Which brings us back to conservative journals that are concerned about Islam yet mute their criticisms of legal and even illegal immigration. At some point, Muslims in America will reach a very high number. Say they reach 30 million one day. Will the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal continue to write favorable things about the next Bernard Lewis book critical of Islam? Is it beyond the realm of imagination to picture a conservative movement apologizing to Muslims 30 years hence over things they wrote long ago? I think instead the future WSJ’s and Weekly Standards, et al, will they be urging Republicans to be “pragmatic” and curry favor with the large “Islamic vote.” Just as they frantically urge the GOP to do with Hispanics today. The thought that *they’re* partly responsible for getting us into this ethno-cultural political mess will continue to elude them.

Mr. Vandervoort is describing one dimension of the path to national suicide. Here’s the way it works. Unlike the left, the centrist, neoconservative establishment is not wholly irrational and anti-American. They’re opposed to multiculturalism, racial quotas, jihadism, and terrorism. This gives them credibility as sensible, mainstream leaders who care about America’s founding principles, culture and security, whereas the left has no credibility in those areas. But this centrist establishment continues to deny that immigration is a causative factor in these very things that they oppose. Indeed, it’s an understatement to say they deny the immigration connection; it’s more as if the very idea of the immigration connection were so absurd to them that they literally don’t hear it when it is stated to them.

Thus the centrist establishment, appearing to be sensible and pro-American, continues to support policies that lead inevitably to greater immigrant power and the silencing and destruction of our country, including that establishment itself.

The complaining about the multiculturalism and the jihadism is the way that centrist Americans accommodate themselves to the destruction of America and indeed help complete the process. In their own minds, they are defenders of the country—without actually doing anything to defend it where it really counts. Then, at a certain point, when the Muslim power gets too large to oppose, they will give in to it.

For example, Republicans like Reagan supported immigration, on the false assumption that the immigrants were becoming Americans, like us. But when it became apparent that the immigrants were not becoming Americans like us, Republicans like George W. Bush, instead of calling for assimilation or calling for a reduction of immigration, began celebrating the fact that immigrants were importing their languages and culture to this country.

Centrist politicans and intellectuals go through motions of being serious, so as to satisfy their own concience and to appease public opinion and sooth people into thinking that the establishment types care about these issues and are doing something about them. All of which PREVENTS anything from actually being done. And when the point is reached when it becomes apparent that it’s too late to do anything, they will simply surrender to the new “America,” and insist that others surrender too.

I think we’re both forgetting the familiar canards the center-right would raise on the topic of immigration. Let’s run through them:

1) The establishment conservatives will plead: “But we’re a nation of immigrants!”

2) Which brings us to the corrollary (and forgive the hyperbole but it definitely fits in with their way of arguing on immigration): “Our views on immigration are more American than *your* views. We’re not like other nations. We can take in unlimited amounts from anywhere and assimilate them in to our “kick-ass” American culture.

We’re not like nativist old China or Old Europe in that respect. We’re a universal nation! A creedal nation! Just recite the Pledge of Allegiance 50 times and presto! You’re an American. This is what makes us different! This is what makes America America!”

2) And also, “my great-grandfather came over here from the Old Country. If he can succeed in America, anyone can.” That line of argument often includes this from the conservative/libertarians: “People like you would have kept my great-grandfather out!”

3) “Weren’t the same objections raised against the Irish, Greeks, Italians, Jews? Isn’t your objection to massive non-white immigration essentially the same old racist and nativist arguments of the past?”

4) And then their final arguments which seem to be almost a strange concession to the Right’s overall arguments on immigration (and are often stated in hushed tones when nobody else is around):

“Look, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway. We just need to get enough of their votes through “outreach” to keep the GOP in power. Anything you say against immigration is just going to agitate them and cause a voter backlash against the Republicans.”

And then this part…

“Also, the ranchers, farmers and big Agri-Business types are huge contributers to the GOP. They aren’t going to like any arguments in favor of cutting immigration. Who is going to pick the cotton? Who will do the messy jobs that Americans won’t do? The Builders and Constructors, the fast food chains, the WSJ types — they all need this cheap labor. And they contribute heavily to Republican campaigns. So don’t make a stink over this.”

Mr. Vandervoort is not using hyperbole at all. He has given us a word-perfect summary of the center-right’s arguments.