The ANNOTICO Report
BARBARIAN INVASIONS
The American Thinker
June 8th, 2005
The word "barbarian" comes from the ancient Greek, and
originally meant a
person or peoples who spoke a foreign tongue. The Greeks
considered a
barbarian to be an alien or outsider, one who was not
of their language or
culture. This term was later applied to the Germanic
invaders of Rome, who
would eventually overrun the Empire and usher in the
Dark Ages. These
invaders did not come as warriors so much as peaceful
immigrants - some
legally, most not. They did not see themselves
as Romans, and they made no
effort to adapt themselves to Roman customs and laws.
Within a few hundred
years they had destroyed the Western Empire.
Here in the United States we are experiencing our own
invasion; millions of
illegal immigrants are crossing our borders, speakers
of another language
who do not see themselves as Americans, and who have
no intention of
adapting themselves to American customs and laws.
Our response, much like
the Romans, has been timid and irresolute and thus completely
ineffectual.
Our leaders don`t seem to recognize the seriousness of
this situation; some
even argue that this invasion is beneficial. Such reasoning
is myopic in
the extreme; barbarians destroyed the glory that was
Rome. Why would our
fate be any different?
Under the administration of President George W. Bush,
we are seeing a
steady increase in illegal immigration. Mexico has been
flooding the
Southwest with immigrants, slowly Latinizing the culture.
According to
the Population Reference Bureau:
"The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States
has increased
23 percent over the last four years to 10.3 million people,
according to a
new report by the Pew Hispanic Center. And more than
one-half of the
undocumented are from Mexico."
In fact, the total immigrant population of the United
States now stands at
33 million, or 11% of the entire population, which, according
to The Center
for Immigration Studies, is significantly higher than
at any time in
history.At this rate, immigration will swell the population
of the United
States to 400 million in 50 years. (This includes
all immigrants, legal
and illegal.) Consider that we have 10.3 million illegals
here now, with at
least 800,000 more entering every year. In twenty
years we will have 26.3
million illegals, plus any children they may have.
The population of the
United States when it was founded was only 3 million.
This is over 8 times
that number, and these people have all entered this country
illegally. In
fact, there are over 3 million children born in the United
States to
families headed by illegals. The Population Reference
Bureau, furthermore,
shows that the overwhelming number of illegals are men
between 18 and 39
(43%) followed by Women between 18 and 39 (29%) with
17% being children.
The age breakdown is important; it means that the bulk
of the population is
at prime childbearing age, or will be in a number of
years. We are about
to have a baby boom of children of illegal immigrants.
Much like Nero, the Roman Emperor who entertained himself
on the violin
while his capital burned (according to legend, if not
fact), President Bush
has made little effort to deal with this problem.
His best suggestion is
to offer guest-worker status to illegals, thus removing
the danger of their
being deported and creating an incentive for more to
come. This is craven
kowtowing to the agricultural employers who pay Dickinsonian
wages for
stoop labor. (Granted, the Democrats' solution
is far worse; they simply
want to naturalize the illegals, then sign them up to
vote!)
The President has not pushed for greater enforcement of
immigration law (he
is the chief law enforcement officer), has mocked the
Minutemen as
dangerous vigilantes (in fact, the Washington Times reported
that the
border patrol was ordered to stand down while the Minutemen
patrolled), and
has done little to discourage the tide of illegal aliens,
in spite of the
dangers of a porous border in the post-911 world. (If
illegals without a
high school education can get across the border,
what is to stop al
Qaeda?)
What we are witnessing has the appearance of a Mexican
policy aimed toward
reannexation. Look at this billboard in Los Angeles
. There is a growing
sense of Mexican Manifest Destiny. A Zogby poll
showed 58 percent of
Mexicans agreed that, "The territory of the Southwest
U.S. rightfully
belongs to Mexico" This is further illustrated by former
President Ernesto
Zedillo stating in comments to the National Council of
La Raza in 1997 in
Chicago,
"I have proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends
beyond the
territory enclosed by its borders."
It is fairly obvious that Mexico has the American Southwest
in it`s
crosshairs.
Many Mexicans believe that the United States stole the
Southwest and
California from them, and their countrymen now overrun
these areas with
Mexican citizens. They believe that if they can
colonize enough of their
citizens in these regions, they can annex them.
Mexican claims on the
Southwest stem from the secession of Texas, and the Mexican
War. They
believe that the United States robbed them of these territories
militarily,
and that they have a rightful, legal claim on them.
But do they?
One of the most overlooked Presidents in American history
was James Polk. A
man of his word, Polk was the only U.S. president to
fulfill all of his
campaign promises. He limited himself to a four-point
platform, and
succeeded in fulfilling every pledge. He promised to
reestablish the
independent treasury system, lower the tariff (which
was accomplished by
the 1846 Walker Tariff), settle the Oregon boundary dispute
with Britain
(known by the famous "54º40' or fight!" slogan, though
Polk ended up
compromising with the border set at the forty-ninth parallel,
wisely
avoided fighting), and the annexation of California.
This final promise was fulfilled with the ratification
of the
Guadeloupe-Hidalgo Treaty on March 10, 1848 after American
troops defeated
Mexican forces and the short-lived Bear Flag Republic
was established under
John C. Fremont. In addition to California, Polk
oversaw the annexation of
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and the
Republic of Texas. In
all, 1.2 million square miles were added to the United
States. (Read more
on the Mexican War here.)
The Politically Correct view of the Mexican War says that
the United States
provoked hostilities to steal Texas and California.
This disregards the
facts; Texas had fought a successful revolution against
Santa Ana ten years
prior because he dissolved the Mexican Constitution to
make himself
dictator. His Centralist Party recognized the Republic
of Texas, then
changed their minds and declared it was still Mexican
territory and that
U.S. annexation would be an act of war. (As part of the
Monroe Doctrine the
U.S. government wanted to annex Texas to keep the British
away from it.)
The Mexican government massed troops along the Rio Grande
to threaten the
Texans, leading America to mobilize under Zachary Taylor.
Had the Mexicans
not made the first hostile moves the war would not have
happened.
California`s secession from Mexico also strongly suggests
that the
residents were none too happy under Mexican authority.
Later, the United States purchased the southern portions
of Arizona and New
Mexico to build a southern rail route from California
(the Gadsden
Purchase).
Nonetheless, Mexico still sees itself as the rightful
owner of this vast
territory, and they want it back. This can be accomplished
through illegal
immigration.
The Mexican government under Vincente Fox has consciously
encouraged
illegal immigration for other reasons as well;
acquiring U.S. currency,
outsourcing a severe unemployment problem, and getting
rid of criminals. He
sees this policy as absolutely necessary because of the
failure of his
domestic program, and is determined to keep the invasion
in progress. Fox
has massed troops on the border to threaten the Minutemen,
and has
essentially demanded that we accept their immigrants
without limitation.
This amounts to a direct assault on our sovereignty;
Mr. Fox is coming
perilously close to an act of war. (The Fox is
definitely in the
henhouse.) Unfortunately for the United States, Mr. Bush
is no James Polk.
But what can we do? The media and the Bush administration
claim we can`t
stop the invasion. The old Republic of Texas managed
it. The Texas Rangers
under Silas Parker succeeded in maintaining border integrity
despite having
only twenty five original Rangers to send out on patrol.
The Republic of
Texas kept Mexico at bay despite being out manned, out
gunned and nearly
bankrupt. They were successful because they WANTED
to control their
borders; it was as simple as that. The success
of the Minutemen project
further illustrates that border control does not require
an army. We simply
need the will to do it. That`s where the problem
lies; our leaders just
don`t want to deal with this.
The question arises; why have a central government if
it fails to secure
our national borders? Border control is perhaps
the most fundamental
reason for the existence of government. Without
border control you don`t
have a Nation.
But, we are told we need these illegals to do the jobs
which Americans
cannot or will not do. We enjoy the benefits of
cheap food, thanks to the
near slave wages paid to Mexican migrants, and our economy
will suffer if
we cut off this supply of cheap labor.
This argument is rather dubious. Heavy, sustained immigration
was critical
to the growth and expansion of the United States while
we had a frontier
economy and vast tracts of agricultural land needing
to be developed.
Likewise, industrialization required uneducated people
ready to work hard
and long, and immigrants provided the necessary manpower.
The situation today is different. It is doubtful that
a great influx of
immigrants into a post-industrial economy has serious
net benefits; few of
today's illegals will be well-educated or trained for
the jobs an
information-age economy supports. The less-skilled industrial
jobs are in
our economy are being outsourced, leaving the lower end
service sector as
the main source of employment. Mexican laborers take
jobs away from
Americans on the bottom rung of the economic ladder;
the native born
working poor become the unemployed because they are being
replaced by
illegals at lower wages.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies illegal
labor lowered
consumer prices an estimated .08 to.2% in the 1990`s.
Because of abysmal
pay, illegals pay very little in taxes, and many of those
who do file
federal income tax forms qualify for refundable tax credits,
in essence a
disguised welfare payment. Meanwhile, the demand for
social services,
disproportionately consumed by low income worlers and
their families, is
exploding.
Bear in mind, the illegals are here to make money to send
to their families
in Mexico and elsewhere. They are taking money out of
our economy, not
putting it back through spending or investment. Also,
in a nation which is
completely settled and has essentially full employment,
illegals are
artificially depressing the wages the labor market will
ned to pay, while
dirt-cheap labor acts as a disincentive to mechanization,
which would make
goods and services even cheaper in the long run.
Meanwhile, America taxpayers must pay for emergency medical
care, higher
insurance rates (since many illegals drive and have accidents),
police,
fire, courts, prisons, and other expensive services consumed
disproiportionately by the poor.
That said, the real issue here is not economic but cultural.
This is not
akin to the groups entering the United States in the
late Nineteenth and
early Twentieth Centuries. Those groups came in legally,
with the intent of
becoming Americans. Many if not most of hese new
illegal immigrants,
however, are not here to adapt and enculturate to American
ways. There is
a substantial number among them who make little effort
to learn English or
adopt American traditions and standards. This is
an indigestible populace.
Already we see signs of the Latinization of America; billboards
and street
signs in Spanish, bilingual product labels, Spanish voice
mail menus. While
earlier immigrant groups enriched our common vocabulary
with expressions
derived from Italian or Yiddish, for example, the new
Latinization is
taking us down the path of a de facto bilingual country,
like Canada or
Belgium, where political turmoil and bitterness have
poisoned the political
system. This will become more prominent in years to come.
As Americans, we have the right to maintain our distinct
cultural heritage
and our island of English in a Spanish-speaking hemisphere.
(Consider,
there are only three nations on the Continental North
America which speak
English, and just one in South America. We have a few
English speaking
islands in the Caribbean as well as the Falklands. All
of the rest speak
either Spanish, Portuguese, French, or, in the case of
Surinam, Dutch.)
Thanks to our unique cultural traditions and intellectual
heritage, we have
produced the most free, prosperous, and powerful nation
in history. The
things which made America great, our religious freedom,
Constitution and
laws, optimism, sense of fairness, independent and self-reliant
nature, and
can-do spirit-are all blessings bestowed by this
unique cultural heritage.
The illegals come from a very different tradition, and,
without the normal
process of Americanization, will destroy the very thing
that drew them
here. There are embedded historical cultural reasons
why much of Latin
America is poor, repressive, and lawless.
Yet "diversity" is precisely what the Left has told us
repeatedly that we
should cherish and celebrate. Throughout our history
America has welcomed
immigrants, provided they dive headlong into the melting
pot and become
fellow Americans. The price for the benefits of American
life has always
been assimilation, and most immigrants who came here
joined
enthusiastically because they believed in the promises
of our way of life.
Then came the multiculturalists, who told us our way
of life is wrong, and
that we have no right to force it on others. The idea
that we can have
different nations and peoples coexisting in the same
space while
maintaining distinct, separate identities took hold first
in the
universities, then in the media and in the bureaucracy,
and now many of the
problems with illegal immigration today stem from this
inherently
dysfunctional view being put into practice.
What defines a Nation? Common language and cultural
practices are at the
root of nationhood. A land with multiple languages and
cultures generally
has little cohesion and has to be held together by force
of arms; it is an
empire, not a Nation. Consider the Austro-Hungarian empire
and the Russian
empire: when the rulers lose their determination
to maintain control, the
empire falls apart. The multiculturalists are trying
to turn the United
States into an empire.
It is possible for a people to lose their nation. It has
happened many
times, to many peoples throughout history. In modern
times, Lebanon allowed
Palestinians to enter as an act of mercy, and the Palestinians
began to
reproduce prodigiously. Lebanon went from being a predominantly
Christian
nation to predominantly Palestinian and Muslim, and Lebanon
was destroyed
by the civil war that followed. Kosovo was the homeland
of the Serbs, but
Albanian immigration led to a predominantly Muslim population,
and the
province was ripped away from Serbia, enforced by the
might of American air
power during the presidency of Bill Clinton.
It is entirely possible for a people to lose their nation
through
uncontrolled illegal immigration. Are we destined to
follow?
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