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The similarity of left and right on immigration
In the excerpt from Huddled Clichés that I posted the other day, under the title “Open-borders Catholics and neocons against America,” I wrote:
In [Jack] Kemp and [William] Bennett’s ecstatic treatment, the immigrants—a heterogeneous collection of people from all over the world—have been transformed into a homogenous mass, so stuffed with virtues that they hardly seem human. They have all the good qualities that we Americans are said to lack. We are decadent, in need of their almost miraculous powers. So there is nothing for us to do but “celebrate” them, and keep on lashing ourselves.Notice the similarity between the position of the Christian and moralist “conservatives” that I discuss in this passage, and that of the left. Like the “conservatives,” the left also believes in celebrating the Other and lashing ourselves. Both sides believe that America is woefully flawed as it is, and both sides believe that the way to fix America is to hand it over to non-Westerners.
Recently William Bennett has been saying some critical things about Muslims. Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to retract his earlier unqualified celebration of non-Western immigrants, including Muslims, for their “deeply rooted religious faith,” which he said was saving America. And don’t expect him to apologize for saying that to criticize current immigration policies was to “demean and deny” the human worth of immigrants, i.e., to engage in an act of racial hatred. Email entry |