FALL 2009 THE SOCIAL CON T RAC T Reading Assignment: Gird for Looming Battles with the “Great Books” of Immigration Sanity BY PAUL NACHMAN 1. Scoping Our Subject 2. Life in the Trenches (or Immigration in One Country) INTRODUCT I ON 3. Mexico and Mexicans 4. The Nation-Wreckers Reveal Themselves irst a confession: No books are dis- 5. Larger perspectives (A): Is it the Rest against cussed here! This is an article about the West? articles, but “Great Articles” just 6. Larger Perspectives (B): The Auto-Immune doesn’t have the same cachet as Sickness of Western Civilization “Great Books.” 7. Three Memorable Perorations FThere are, of course, some (literally) great 8. Our Heavy Artillery books on America’s immigration madness, too. But 9. A Statement for Our Side my aim here is to put before you seminal readings that are less daunting projects than reading whole I. Scoping Our Subject books. By 2000, it was rare to have a realistic article The approximately 30 items cited below (and about immigration published anywhere prominent, linked in the online version) are articles (plus a including conservative video and a poster) that have impressed me, over outlets. So, even though about the last ten years, as particularly memorable he had an in with David and instructive. Horowitz, it was notable Because I want people to actually read these that Robert Locke was able to works without getting sidetracked, I’ve omit- get his piece “Close the Borders!”1 ted references to anything besides the items before the public in Horowitz’s online themselves. If you want a reference on FrontPageMagazine. (Originally, the ar- something that I’ve merely asserted ticle included an introductory disclaimer by here, try emailing me (PNBL48@ Horowitz that he disagreed with it but that it was hotmail.com) about it. offered for the sake of public discussion. That dis- I hope you’ll read your claimer has vanished.) Locke wrote it to refute an way through the entire col- article by someone else, but there’s no need to read lection. The writing in the the refuted article — Locke’s piece stands on its selected articles is good to own as a tour de horizon of our immigration can- superb, so I think you, too, cer. will find these items to be The article really doesn’t make arguments. memorable and their ag- Rather, it’s a collection of assertions about immi- gregate to be a broad-spectrum resource for your gration that won’t be controversial if you’re a long- immigration-sanity endeavors. term Social Contract reader. If you wanted to write To make the present article more tractable, I’ve a comprehensive book on U.S. immigration, this ar- divided the recommended readings into the follow- ticle would be a splendid source of topics. When I ing nine themes: first read it, I viewed it as a hyper-condensed subset 32 FALL 2009 THE SOCIAL CON T RAC T of Lawrence Auster’s Huddled Cliches, to be dis- principle must be enthroned that immigration cussed later. is the exception, not the rule. Locke opens with a smorgasbord of “bads” The Locke article is brief. Its natural follow- about immigration organized into categories — up is the collection of 20 “one-minute essays” (each economic, social, environmental, and moral — takes about a minute to read) in Common Sense on and follows with several policy recommendations. Mass Immigration,2 a gem of a resource instigated Herewith, a sampling. by John Tanton, publisher of The Social Contract Economic reasons, e.g.: and founding father of the immigration-sanity cause People who say immigration causes (and who is discussed further below). economic growth are right only in the sense These micro-essays, which can be read in any of aggregate GNP. Per capita GNP is the order, cover many of immigration’s intellectual rational goal, and immigration lowers this battlefronts such as assimilation, resources, public by diluting our economy [with] poor, i.e. health, education, and crime and are authored by a unproductive, workers. host of stalwarts, most of them familiar names to Social Contract readers. My favorite among the Social reasons, e.g.: essays is “Mass Immigration and Basic Freedoms”3 Immigration undermines the social, cultural, by John Vinson of the American Immigration and ethnic cohesion necessary to sustain our Control Foundation, since it strikes me as the one society. These factors are more important most likely to disturb the apathy of our naive, than people think. cliche-enthralled fellow citizens. Here’s Vinson’s Environmental reasons, e.g. parting shot: Immigration-driven population growth [F]ree speech among people with little in drives sprawl, traffic congestion, and the common can easily cause someone to take costs of suburban growth. It also drives up offense. For the sake of keeping peace, some the demand for housing, pricing natives out people will say “we must limit free speech.” of the regions where they grew up, fraying European countries and Canada, influenced the social fabric and squeezing middle-class by multiculturalism, have already moved families. Southern California is the best in this direction. We Americans still enjoy example of this. legally protected free speech, but for how long? We must make a choice. We can have Moral reasons, e.g.: the multiculturalism made inevitable by mass “America is a nation of immigrants.” First, immigration, or we can have freedom. But this is a flat statistical falsehood. The vast we can’t have both. majority of Americans were born here. In another example, the late John Attarian distilled Second, there is no “ergo” in this argument; some of his scholarship on Social Security into why does the fact that many of us are a micro-essay “Mass Immigration and Taxes: descended from immigrants oblige us to take Social Security Costs.”4 We’re often told that immigrants today? immigration, including illegal immigration, will Policy prescriptions, e.g.: rescue Social Security from a disastrous future. What we want is the lowest possible number John Attarian explained why not: [of immigrants] compatible with true (not Adding such huge numbers of workers would Santa Claus) humanitarian principles and the depress labor productivity unless matched fact that some individuals make exceptional by trillions of dollars in investment. Since contributions. The presumption must be “no,” immigration is already making labor incomes with a few exceptions. The fundamental stagnate, much higher immigration would 33 FALL 2009 THE SOCIAL CON T RAC T almost certainly depress wages, and perhaps the social-welfare and quality-of-life burdens on even reduce Social Security revenues. And the rest of us). In the process, they drive employ- most immigrants are poorly-educated and ers who want to obey the law out of business. Free- unskilled, hence earn low incomes, making lance journalist Mark Cromer, who’s also a senior them poor Social Security revenue sources. writing fellow at Californians for Population Sta- 7 Common Sense on Mass Immigration is also bilization, wrote the story (“Immigration: When available as a printed booklet, to hand out or to put doing the right thing hurts,” San Diego Union-Tri- in the mail (needing no envelope, just a single first- bune, March 22, 2007) of Kirsten Stewart, a wom- class stamp). Filled with such hyper-short essays, an in Santa Monica, CA who routinely used ille- there’s a realistic chance that people upon whom you gal-alien day laborers in her landscape-design busi- bestow the booklets will actually read them. Bulk ness until she had an epiphany from talking with purchases of this non-virtual version are available her nanny: for prices as low as 40 cents apiece.5 “[The nanny] told me that she was so happy What should be the fundamental criteria for that she was having her baby here because our immigration policies? John Miano nailed these (her child) would get a real Social Security years ago with his very brief “Ten Principles of number. She told me how surprised she was Immigration” at VDARE.com.6 His first principle at all the ‘free’ neonatal care she was getting would likely shock most Americans, steeped as and all the other ‘free’ health services,” they are in all the cliches about immigration’s Stewart says. “That’s when the light bulb wonderfulness: went off.” The purpose of immigration policy is to The article is brief and powerful. I recom- benefit the citizens of the United States. mend, also, this 7-minute video interview of Stew- 8 I sometimes employ this idea when talking art by (off-camera) Cromer. I gather from Cromer with people about immigration, first asking that Stewart ultimately did have to fold her business them “What’s the purpose of the United States?” because her costs, using legal workers only, were Answer: To benefit the citizens of the United States no longer competitive. (This nicely exposes the hy- — see the Constitution’s Preamble (“to secure the pocrisy of the wealthy “progressives” in a hotbed blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”). of “living wage” sentiment such as Santa Monica. Then I ask, “What’s the purpose of our immigration These sensitive souls routinely opted for the lower policy?” It’s no leap to use Miano’s first principle bids from contractors who relied on illegal labor.) at that point. His other nine principles include some The death-by-illegal-immigration of an honest- simple, creative ideas. Please check them out. ly-run small business is one modern American ex- perience. The effect of a sustained surge of concen- 2. Life in the Trenches (or Immigration in trated legal immigration from a Third World coun- One Country) try to a small city in the American heartland is an- 9 “Life in the trenches” alludes to the impacts other.