Faux amis

My high school French teacher coined an expression, faux amis (false friends) for French words that seem to be the same as English ones, but actually mean something different. One example I can think of at the moment is sensible. The French word is more or less equivalent to English "sensitive," not sensible.

This isn't a posting about language, though. It's about genuine conservatism versus (in Lawrence Auster's phrase) "right liberalism." In other words, about conservatism's faux amis.

Take this piece in Canada Free Press, a puzzling title since it seems to have nothing much to do with Canada and is mostly about American politics. Its stance is generally "right liberal." Doug Bronson writes:

Let me quickly state that I advocate immigration. It is a part of the fabric which makes up our country, and always has been. In the same breath, though, I do not condone illegal immigration…at all. It is what it is, illegal, and should be stopped, actually years ago. …

Why can’t we, the American people, create a group to financially aid our friends and neighbors living in our border states in their plight of securing the border? This “group” to be privately funded by us, the United States citizen, in essence putting our money where our mouth is! As we’ve seen all too clearly, our D.C. politicians refuse to act with any type of real solution.

This money raised, to be used expressly for the security of the border. No exceptions, if so, funding stopped immediately. Set this up where the money is to be fully accountable and have a “commission” formed, by us, to oversee the expenditures. If a state accepts our aid, it can only do so if matching funds provided by the state are set up…penny for penny! This would be literally controlling our own destiny.

Doug pleads, "I’m asking you all for your own ideas, solutions, and opinions in regards to this … please respond."

Very well, Doug. My opinion is that you need to go to your room and play with your toys until you are ready to interact with the grown-ups on immigration issues.

You've fumbled at the kick-off. To state, without qualification, that you "advocate immigration" (other than the illegal kind) shows that you have no idea of the consequences of mass population replacement. You belong to the "America is an idea" or "proposition nation" camp. When you "advocate immigration" you are supporting replacement of a specifically American culture and traditions with a balkanized, multi-cultural state. If the indigenous population becomes a minority nationwide, which would apparently be dandy with you, the United States will no longer be a country with a coherent set of values that can support compromise political solutions when interest groups compete. 

America is the product of a Constitution devised by people who were white, English, and Scotch-Irish. Zulus, Aztecs, Cambodians could not and did not create that Constitution and the rule of law and respect for private property which our founders quite correctly understood as the key to individual liberty. The descendants of the founders shaped the country's success for nearly two centuries afterward. To believe that it can survive in anything but name as a worldwide crash pad for Third World cast-offs and parasites is pathetically naive.

You, probably thinking you are brave by speaking out against illegal immigration, are actually supporting open borders as long as the population replacement is legal. The open borders schemers love people like you: hey, they say, we agree illegal immigration is bad! Let's legalize them all! No problem then!

Do you not understand that "legal" and "illegal" are technicalities that can be changed with a vote and a stroke of the pen? It is a sad sign of how we have become so dominated by lawyers as to imagine that anything is okay as long as it's legal.

By the way, Doug, you are mistaken that immigration "is a part of the fabric which makes up our country, and always has been." If you are thinking of the original Europeans who came to North America as colonists, you are confusing immigrants with settlers. The original European settlers built colonies and eventually a nation through their own efforts. They didn't arrive so they could squeeze benefit from an already existing country because it was richer than where they came from.

Even if you mean other kinds of immigrants, you are still mistaken. Other than some Irish, there weren't many immigrants before the War Between the States. The first Big Immigration came from roughly the 1880s until World War I, and except for Chinese on the West Coast were almost entirely Europeans who wanted to assimilate to the American way of life and values. Even so, they brought quite a few social problems like crime and disease with them that took several generations to get under control. Some brought Marxist sympathies.

Following World War I, the U.S. Congress quite intelligently voted to call a halt to most immigration, particularly of non-Europeans. (So much for "always has been.") That lasted until 1965, when Teddy Kennedy, boiling with Irish resentment against the English and Scottish upper class, helped push through the law that opened the gates for the second Big Immigration, favoring non-Europeans. It was the beginning of the chaos we are now experiencing.

Look, you want to start some "group" to help at the border, fine. The federal government will oppose you, and will probably find some way to charge you with a crime, but be my guest. Even if you are successful, it won't matter — not as long as population replacement advances through legal means.

Your heart is probably in the right place, but you need to use your head too. Stop being a sucker for the open borders lobby. Thank you.