Nationalism for Thee, But Not for Me
We live in interesting times, a fact that always reminds me of the ancient Chinese curse.
We are bombarded daily with a host of ISMs and ISTs; Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Nationalism. Ways of thinking are identified and named. We love naming things but precise meanings are soon muddied, even lost in the overuse of names.
In 1946, George Orwell wrote “Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable.”
Many of our politicians and pundits love using names as pejoratives. If you don’t agree with somebody, just accuse him of racism, or call him a fascist. That’ll do it.
Populism and nationalism are two of the ISMs that have become pejorative in the U.S., and I find that curious.
In this video, Peter Zeihan identifies the three most recent U.S. Presidents as populist, and I have to ask “What’s wrong with that?” Biden's Pro-American Present for Europe - YouTube
Our current policy is to support Ukraine in defense of its sovereignty. We’re properly outraged by Russia’s invasion. As Americans, we believe that a people that want to be free should be able to enjoy their nationhood in peace; to exercise their own nationalism, to have their sovereignty inviolate.
But our own sovereignty? When you look our recent immigration non-policy, you’d get the idea that we’re so enlightened that we no longer need borders. It’s somehow uncool to even think so.
Ukraine’s borders are sacred. Ours? Not to much. How does that work?
Ordained as our Border Czar, our vice president doesn’t even go there. Our President, long an unspoken proponent of open borders, is now complaining that a couple of bills in the House of Representatives, will prematurely vacate Title 42, and cause a horrendous rise in border-hopping.
I understand the we owe political amnesty to people in countries in which we’ve brutally interfered. Those people. A few people. But all comers?
Acquaintances of the Republican stripe say, “It’s obvious who benefits. The Democrats use open borders to buy votes!”
I don’t buy it.
Nobody would do that for mere votes. Who benefits from the import of fentanyl? Who benefits from trafficking in human lives? Who benefits from child (almost slave) labor?
At age 16, when most kids in the United States are halfway through high school, Amelia Domingo found herself working on chicken processing machines in this farm town and deep in debt to loan sharks in her native Guatemala
Might it be that our humanity demands that we ask the question?
Lucius Cassius, whom the Roman people used to regard as a most honest and most wise judge, was in the habit of asking time and again in lawsuits: "to whom might it be for a benefit?"