The European experiment originated as a recoil from the ultranationalism of the first half of the 20th century. It was intended to solve the problem of war in Europe. But the problem of nationalism is that not only is it more resilient than the solution, it also derives from the deepest impulses of the Enlightenment. The idea of democracy and of national self-determination grew up as part of a single fabric. In taking away national self-determination, the European experiment seemed to be threatening the foundation of modern Europe.

At the heart of the problem with Greece is the issue of nationalism and the role of the nation state in a world that on the surface appears to be effectively globalized.  I have sat through many a lecture in my post-colonial literature courses where I was taught that nationalism is obsolete.  However fun it is to theorize that nation states are no longer relevant, this doesn’t change the fact that in Western Democracies the idea of the nation state is inextricably linked to democracy itself.  One of the assumed rights of a democratically formed nation state is the right to self determination.

So, when my friend Jake makes this statement, “I am not an avid nationalist (which I distinguish from being a good citizen),” and uses this statement as a basis for asserting that immigration laws are stupid and shouldn’t be enforced, then I guess it wouldn’t hurt to deconstruct why Jake might have such a negative view towards nationalism.

The idea of the self-determined nation state has been met with a lot of resistance over the last half of the 20th Century.  WWII was a clear example of the havoc that can occur when the nation state is used as a vehicle for waging war.  The dissolution of the European empires following WWII demonstrated that in cultures where the ideals of the Enlightenment weren’t hard-coded into the culture, nation states were weak enterprises that could be manipulated by larger powers.  In other words, they were the pawns in the Cold War.  The fall of the Soviet Union was yet another indictment of the nation state.  So, some of the major historical realities that we have had to deal with in the last 50-70 years have had the failure of the nation state as a primary theme.  It is easy to see why academia would be obsessed with this phenomenon.  Yet the backdrop behind all of this failure is the stunning success of the United States of America as a nation.

Avid nationalists get a bad name from past nationalist projects where a narrative of nationalism was used to mobilize a population to wage war and commit various atrocities.  However, we have to also own the fact that it was opposing nationalist projects that ended up defeating these problematic projects of avid nationalism.

So I guess I don’t understand what is wrong with avid nationalism, or at the very least I haven’t been presented with a better alternative.  Moreover, underlying a skepticism towards nationalism is an even more pernicious belief that national self-determination is fundamentally wrong, and is a power that should be suppressed through an impossible act of national selflessness.

Jake says that over time he disagrees with much of our foreign policy.  I would argue that, over time, the actual choices that a nation gets to make about its foreign policy are extremely limited, and, over time, a powerful, functional nation state like the United States will and must pursue its interests ruthlessly.

Ragarding immigration, it is in the interest of the United States to open its borders and allow massive amounts of immigration.  The United States will pursue this interest ruthlessly, and on its own terms.  I believe one thing is certain: immigration policy that will shape the next two decades will not be shaped by some post-1960s liberal guilt trip – this simply isn’t a narrative that is powerful enough to mobilize the majority of Americans to get behind the massive changes that need to happen (see the aftermath to the bill in Arizona to see an example of why I say this).  In my next post I will discuss the major factors that should inform American immigration policy.

The fact of the matter is that the immigration “problem” is a direct result of our international policy and the unwillingness to allow for the “free market” equation to balance out with the free flow of labor. We subsidize the hell out of our corn (as but one example) and, surprise, surprise, the workforce that has been forced out of corn farming wants to come here (the source of such policies, and a country whose economy has benefited enough from such policies to create a workforce stratification that can efficiently integrate those workers) to fill job sectors that are even actively seeking them out, often despite migration policies / regulations.

You may have guessed by now that I am not an avid nationalist (which I distinguish from being a good citizen), and I do not agree with much of our foreign policies over time, but at this moment, given our policies to date, I think we have to own up to the effects of our policies and DRASTICALLY increase immigration quotas for workers to account for the free flow of labor. So, my response is to reject the question (re-phrased) “how should we effectively enforce a stupid policy,” and replace it with “how do we make the problem go away.” The problem with my solution is that there are too many rampant nationalists out there (whose visceral responses are no doubt tinged by assumptions of cultural superiority or illusions of American cultural homogeneity) that would reject such a solution out of hand, and thus my solution is not currently being given serious consideration in our policy debate. Since you asked…

Jake’s response contains some great hallmarks of liberal thinking as it pertains to the issue of illegal immigration.

1. Nationalism is bad.
2. America, specifically is bad, especially when it pursues its interests when it comes to international policy.
3. Because America is bad, America owes something to those who are hurt by the bad things America does.
4. Immigration is primarily an economic issue that impacts that labor market
5. Because America is bad, it certainly isn’t culturally superior – especially since there is no such thing as an America culture that anyone can specifically pin their finger on.
6. Immigration quotas should be dramatically increased.
7. Anyone who doesn’t think along these lines is engaging in some kind of brutish, thoughtless, unenlightened, visceral response to the situation, and is therefore easily identifiable as a bigot, xenophobe, mindless nationalist, and/or cultural supremecist, and therefore, their ideas should not be taken seriously.

Needless to say, I disagree with the paradigm through which Jake forms his opinions about immigration.  This doesn’t mean that I necessarily disagree with him that current immigration policy is stupid (although I do disagree with his failure to recognize that this stupid policy is a result of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act which was crafted primarily by Ted Kennedy and is heavily informed by liberal doctrines of cultural relativism/multiculturalism).

I told Jake that I would plan on writing a few posts about immigration.  My intention in doing so, will be to suggest a new framework for thinking about immigration.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, cultural relativism is a great theory for academics of varied disciplines to use to enable them to study culture.  As a theory it is limited in its utility for determining public policy.  It is also extremely dated historically.  Where I can appreciate the historical reality that led to policies informed by cultural relativism, I can also appreciate the fact that academic theories have a shelf life as do the policies they inform.  It is my belief that the issue of immigration will not be reformed until the paradigm that is responsible for current immigration policy is fundamentally changed.

Going Rogue

Her memoir, Going Rogue, will have a first printing run of 1.5 million.  To put things in perspective, The Audacity of Hope, sold 200,000 copies in 2007.  By the time Obama was elected each of his books had finally sold a million copies.  Regardless of how you feel about Sarah Palin, her faux memoir is probably going to sell more copies in 3 months than Obama’s 2 books have sold in 3 years.

Selling a lot of books, however, isn’t the only indication of Palin’s rise.  Unlike Obama, when she speaks, results follow.  For example, how long have we been listening to Obama speak about healthcare.  Has it only been 6 short months of incessant, ubiquitous, incomprehensible speeches?  What are the results?  We have 5?  Or is it 6? bills?  How many thousands of pages?  How many speeches?  And where are we?

Palin on the other hand, posts a microblog, and the world listens.  Palin gets David Letterman to apologize to her daughter, a feat only matched by his cuckolded wife.  And most lately, Palin is determining who wins political elections.  Dede Scozzafava was comfortably winning her congressional race in the 23rd district of New York.  Then Palin endorsed her rival from the conservative party, Dan Hoffman.  Not less than two weeks later, Scozzafava is backing out of the race and throwing her support to Hoffman.  Whether you like Palin or not, with her we can at least get a glimpse of what leadership looks like.  Barack Obama, on the other hand is throwing the Democrat gubernatorial candidate in Virginia under the bus.

Republican critics from within the party and from outside, have complained for a while now that the party has lost its way, and has therefore become an obstructionist party with no solutions of their own.  By going rogue, Sarah Palin might be playing a crucial role in helping the party find its new face, and here it is:

The Bean Counter

I haven’t been following this race very closely, but on the surface I can tell you one reason why Hoffman is a great candidate: He is an ACCOUNTANT.  If the trend of replacing Washington’s career politicians and lawyers with practiced and principled accountants can be replicated 100 times across the country, conservatives might have something to look forward to next year.  Every district in the country needs a nerdy, conservative, bean counter running with the simple message, “We can’t afford this.”

The fact that Sarah Palin is the one who gets this tells me that Obama better watch out, or we might get a new Messiah in Chief.

A good mob is hard to find

Paul Krugman, in his most recent column in the New York Times, has become yet one more liberal participating in the project of denouncing those who are protesting the policies of Barack Obama.  To see liberals reach for their guns of derision so quickly to shoot down the form of protest that they invented is amusing, to say the least.  Krugman, labels these conservative activist groups as “townhall mobs,” and he makes the typcial liberal maneuver to say that these protests are discredited by the fact that they aren’t real “grassroots” movements.  I find it fascinating that liberals, who are quick to fasten themselves to theories of postmodernism, are so suddenly worried about authenticity.  

After all, many of liberalism’s claims to fame (multiculturalism, moral relativism, deconstruction) are all based on a premise that authenticity is an elusive ideal that if pursued too aggressively will lead to violence and fascism.  So now the cultural gatekeepers of authenticity are observing forms of social protest from conservatives and saying, “unlike our fabricated, contrived, and orchestrated social protest groups like ACORN, PETA, the Sierra Club, the ACLU, Code Pink, the AFL-CIO etc. these conservative protest groups are not legitimate, because they are fabricated, contrived and orchestrated.”  If you follow this logic through to its conclusion, a reasonable observer would have to conclude that if authenticity is what gives the stamp of legitimacy to a social movement, then the major liberal movements of social protest are an exercise in inherent fraudulence.

Krugman concedes that some of these protesters appear to genuinely angry, but he can’t figure out why.

Krugman says:

There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.

Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing.

He then concludes that these people are just being racists.  I must applaud Krugman for his authentic liberalism.  There is nothing more authentic than a liberal trying to read something like race into every issue.

In response to Krugman’s anecdote, where he implies that people on Medicare shouldn’t be opposed to it, I would have to suggest that this is the problem with entitlements in general.  Once an entitlement becomes entrenched in society, a politician can always pull this trick on his constituents.  Maybe Krugman and Gene Green should pay more cognizance to the fact that even people who are enrolled in Medicare are still opposed to it.  This seems like a good question, and unfortunately for Krugman, the answer probably isn’t because they are a racist mob.

Maybe Krugman, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, could take a look at the current budget projections for Medicare, and ask the question of why Americans would be against an expanded government role for health care.  Given the fact that Medicare is an abject economic failure by all standards, one has to wonder why someone who claims an advanced knowledge of economics would be holding this program up as something that should be supported.

Ultimately this leads me to say that I am not an ardent supporter of these town hall protests.  Conservatives don’t need to go shout down their representatives like a bunch of mindless liberals.  I would like to hear politicians like Gene Green answer one simple question:

“Mr. Green, every year I get a statement from the Social Security Administration that tells me that Social Security and Medicare on a fast-track fiscal train-wreck.  Given the undeniable fact that the federal government has proven to be grossly incompetent in managing these massive failures, why should average American citizens support an expansion of the government’s role in health care?”

If the answer to the question is the same meaningless Obama drivel that we have had to listen to for almost two years now, then maybe I undervalue a good mob.

The Iberian Peninsula: the edge of the earth

at least 500 years ago when the world was flat.

People came to Iberia to be in the sun and the water that

            Sticks to the air

They could gaze at the ocean or the hills at their back,

And build cities or boats to kill their claustrophobia.

But it’s hard to be claustrophobic in a two-dimensional world,

for everyone knows that the world is flat.

So you make concrete edifices and call them home,

and you stack them and stack them and stack them

like a pile of cinder blocks.

Then you can live inside your cubism painting.

You can hang your clothes to dry outside your window,

            or in other words,

Wash them in the humidity.

New World cotton blows in the wind and gives life to sun-bleached plaster,

The weed plantations that grow in the cracks between the cobblestones are the only sign of life

in those roads that have been there since the world was flat

with cigarette butts lodged in their cracks.

The buildings stand as cobblestone extensions of the cobblestone roads

            to give them dimension.

As if they could build a cobblestone road to extend to the sky,

All that they accomplished was to extend their gutter

            and the inalienable right to live on top of each other.

These gutters or roads all lead to the ocean.

They can sit there and stare and smoke their cigarettes,

that came straight from the new world;

and they can stare at what might lie beyond their comfortable lives that they have always known.

They can build boats and sail off of the face of the earth

Then they’ll return with slaves and cigarettes, so they can fill the cracks between the cobblestones.

Then they can build up an empire to give their lives worth.

But every great empire is built upon the priceless broken shards,

the artifactual evidences of greatness,

of another great empire,

for everything gains value as it increases in age.

So the cobblestones and the gutter walls lead to the ocean, and its wide-open space

to lands that weren’t so afraid of a change

Idaho Senator Frederick Dubois sought to limit Mormon influence by taking on the easy target of plural marriage: “[We] were not nearly so much opposed to polygamy as we were to the political domination of the Church… We made use of polygamy.”

Once again, Mormons are demonstrating that they can exercise formidable political power, and once again, mainstream America is not too thrilled about this group’s community organizing activities.  Once again, mainstream America is targeting Mormons’ beliefs about marriage to disenfranchise them politically.  Time Magazine recently published an article called, “The Church and Gay Marriage: Are Mormons Misunderstood?”  Although the title of the article seems to suggest that Mormons are misunderstood, and the author of the article will help you understand them better, the tone and structure of the article mostly contribute to an increase in misunderstanding.  Where it would be easy to read this as yet another indictment of multiculturalism, (what does “understanding” another culture really mean anyway?) the point of this article seems to be to stereotype Mormons as homophobic automatons that do whatever the prophet tells them to do.  I will agree that the article is rhetorically subtle in how it makes this point.  After all, the author does paint with the sympathetic brush at times.

Nevertheless, due to editorial constraints, personal bias, editorial bias, dishonesty, or just the daunting impossibility of the task of “cultural understanding,” I would have to argue that this article falls short of it’s proposed intent, and so yes, David Van Biema, thanks to you, Mormons are misunderstood.  The cultural logic that informs this article, also informs this online hate brochure, that basically suggests that Mormon viewpoints should not be tolerated, and that through hatemongering and intimidation it might be possible to prevent Mormons from exercising their political will in the future.  Of course, this is a perfect example of the liberal, multicultural idea of tolerance: Tolerance is great as long as that which is to be tolerated is something you already agree with.

I am sure that most Americans agree that it is a good thing for young teenagers (from 12 years up) to attend a homosexual prom in Boston, where the chaperones were gay men handing out business cards to come to their kinky kamp summer camp and bondage and sado-masochist classes.  Most Mormons would probably agree with one of their leaders, Neal A. Maxwell, who said that Heavenly Father takes our agency more seriously than we do and would therefore agree that it is perfectly fine for young teenagers to explore various forms of sexual perversion, drug-use, and statutory gay rape.  When you stand for things that are so agreeable, it is hard to understand why simple-minded, provincial Mormons can’t be more tolerant.

The idea of anthropogenic global warming is more like a liberal’s wet dream than it is a liberal conspiracy.  To understand this claim, you have to understand the paradigm through which I view environmentalism.  Most Americans seem to view environmentalism this way:  Liberals are environmental crusaders that want to save the planet from the ravages of markets and industry vs. Conservatives who want to completely ignore the environmental impact of markets and industry as they greedily pursue profit.  This misrepresentation of the debate over environmentalism has atrophied the conservative side of the debate.

However, the modern environmentalist movement was started by a conservative, and despite the fact that conservative environmentalism seems to be an oxymoron to most, conservative environmentalism most likely has the best answers to today’s environmental problems than most liberal envirowackos.

Peter Huber’s book, Hard Green is probably the best book for laying out the conservative’s environmental sensibilities. For an example of how Huber thinks about environmental issues, you can read Bound to Burn. Here are some good quotes:
“Green jobs” means Americans paying other Americans to chase carbon while the rest of the world builds new power plants and factories.

Computer models demonstrated that [nuclear] meltdowns were highly unlikely and that the costs of a meltdown, should one occur, would be manageable—but greens scoffed: huge computer models couldn’t be trusted. So we ended up burning much more coal. The software shoe is on the other foot now; the machines that said nukes wouldn’t melt now say that the ice caps will.

We don’t control the global supply of carbon.

You can read the rest of the article to see the basic conclusion that I will also make.  Even if humans are contributing to an increase in carbon emissions, there is little that those who adhere to liberal ideologies can do to stop this.  Whether you call it a conspiracy or a wet dream, the reason why liberals cling to global warmingism and their regulatory guns is because liberalism wants to micromanage everything it possibly can.  From car companies, to banks, to molecules, modern liberalism is waxing quite confident that it can effectively manage just anything where markets have “failed.”  However, to the modern liberal, real results matter less than perceived ones, which makes global warming a perfect tool for psychological exploitation.  It is easy to see how labeling something that intends to control things as ephemeral as molecules and emotions as a conspiracy isn’t too far-fetched.  However, I’ll stick with my stance, that controlling the climate of the planet is just too juicy of an opportunity for the average liberal to pass up.

Meanwhile, the liberal’s solutions to prevent global warming does more to discredit the theory than any discussion of scientific evidence.

Generation X Coming of Age

Obama is quick to blame everything wrong with the country on George W. Bush.  This is a fine political move to make for him, but I think he should take it a step further.  Why not blame all of the country’s problems on Baby Boomers?  Some historians label Baby Boomers as the “Me Generation,” and probably for good reason.  The world has yet to see a rival generation that has selfishly amassed so much wealth for itself at the expense of their forefathers (WWII and the Great Depression) and its children (Generation X is pretty much considered the screwed generation).  

On a recent comment on a blog called Askcherlock.  The owner of the blog, a Baby Boomer, was contemplating the current problems facing social security.  In response to a comment I made, the owner said this, “You work all your life with certain expectations and plan for them, then someone changes the rules in the endgame. What’s up with that?”  To this I reply that the increasingly dysfunctional America that we see today is largely a mirror image of the generation that has been writing the rules for the last 10-20 years: The Baby Boomers.  Since they are largely the architects and recipients of some of the biggest entitlement grabs in human history, I can’t say that I sympathize with Cherlock or Baby Boomers in general. Cherlock might as well have said, “Our generation created rules that secured as much wealth for ourselves as possible at the expense of everyone else, and it turns out that our rules defied economic logic, so now we have to face the reality of this, which means the rules might change in a way that contradicts the lie we have been believing in our whole lives.  Not Fair!”  I have about as much sympathy for Baby Boomers worrying about the Social Security Trust Fund as I do for those who invested with Bernie Madoff.  Caveat Emptor.  

I hope that Obama screws this important constituent just as he has many of his other constituents.  I am hoping that he puts together a team of Gen-Xers to solve the budget problems facing Social Security and Medicare.  My generation has been told our whole life that this money wouldn’t be there when we need it, so I am sure a capable team of Gen-Xers, with their wealth of experience of being screwed by the previous generation, can emapthize with themselves and come up with a solution that for once gives Baby Boomers what they deserve.  Picture Rick Wagoner.

Brian Deese

Christian Bale

On another note does anyone else think that Brian Deese, the 31 year old dismantling GM, looks like Christian Bale, the 35 year old dismantling his acting career?  Brian Deese?  Sounds a lot like Kyle Reese.

Notice the Windmill

It is probably time for us to all revisit junior high and break out a copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  I couldn’t help but think of the basic outline of the Animal Farm plot the more that I learn the details of what Obama is doing to the auto industry in America.  The forced exit of Rick Wagoner from GM echoes the animals running Farmer Jones off of Manor Farm.  This week we find that as part of the Chrysler restructuring, UAW is going to own 55% of Chrysler.  Indeed, the pigs are taking over the farm.

On another note, one familiar with the plot of Animal Farm knows that the animals rally around the Utopian project of creating a windmill that will generate electricity.  The windmill is an interesting symbol to analyze.  It is a symbol of industry.  It is a symbol of capital.  Above all, it produces power out of thin air.  In theory this ancient form of alternative energy should produce perpetual energy and therefore perpetual wealth.

Like all Utopian projects, the windmill ends up being a dismal failure for the animals.  They can’t construct one that doesn’t collapse.  Of course this is because labor without capital is pretty much worthless.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the pigs in the UAW will team up with the pigs in washington to embark on building a 21st century windmill: an automobile that doesn’t burn fossil fuels.  We also shouldn’t be surprised when this project, which makes no sense from the perspective of capital, turns out to be an abysmal failure.  

This quote from the sparknotes analysis, is a good one to end with: “ForAnimal Farm serves not so much to condemn tyranny or despotism as to indict the horrifying hypocrisy of tyrannies that base themselves on, and owe their initial power to, ideologies of liberation and equality.”

Also, as we watch Obama corp. divy up the car companies, we can also remember the quote from Animal Farm, “Some animals are more equal than others.”

The World is Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman

or

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman

Thomas Friedman

I am normally a fan of Thomas Friedman, but I couldn’t even finish The World is Hot, Flat, and Crowded.  He is so sold down the river of Global Warming Alarmism, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to take him seriously anymore.  In his latest columns he has been trying his hardest to blame the current economic crisis on our inability to prevent climate change.  Friedman would do better to use his astute ability to analogize, to explore how the pending failure of the New York Times is related to global warming.

George Friedman, on the other hand, has written a brilliant book, that illustrates how America will be a dominant superpower for at least the next century.  Chapter by chapter he lays out how he thinks the next century will unfold.  Aside from the book being one of the best books I’ve read in a while, Friedman seems to be on the forefront of an entrepreneurial publishing movement that will probably replace dying publication businesses such as newspapers.

The New York Times commissions writers like Friedman to write books and attract readers (in the past these used to be subscribers) to the newspaper, so that they can sell advertising.  It has been pretty common knowledge that the internet, with its abundant free information, and armies of bloggers who realized that writing your opinion isn’t really that hard, is putting newspapers out of business.

George Friedman, on the other hand, wrote his book as a means to publicize his website, Stratfor.  This is a site that provides exellent geopolitical analysis of current events.  If you like what this site has to offer, they have a subscription service to exclusive articles and reports that costs $300 per year.  The quality of content on his site should humiliate publications like the New York Times.  I predict that Friedman and his site, are what we have to look forward to when the newspapers go out of business.  I am personally looking forward to this day.