An Elephant-Sized Reason the Republicans Deserve to Lose

The Mexican border is so poorly patrolled you can drive a truck through it -- or an elephant.

The elephant bit starts at about four minutes. The guy on it is Raj from The Apprentice, who is running for Congress in Pennsylvania, and who, until he ran for Congress, was mainly famous for hitting on Anna Kournikova and Robin the Receptionist during the show. Not that there's anything wrong with that. At all.

The elephant metaphor is apt, as the Republicans and Bush have done close to nil to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, who have overwhelmed the schools and hospitals, especially here in Southern California, or secure the same border from other "illegal immigrantss" like this nice fellow Adnan from crossing at will.

Here's a bit of logic from reality land, fellas: You can have open borders, or you can have a welfare state, but you cannot have both at the same time... unless you have infinite resources.

We don't. Ask a teacher. Or an ER nurse (if the hospital in your neighborhood is still open, that is). This simple bit of reality might matter to you if you're ever in a car accident, and the nearest hospital has been closed due to insolvency.

The only problem is that the Democrats are even worse than the Republicans on this issue. Most will concede, if pushed, that they more consider themselves citizens of the planet than citizens of AmeriKKKa. There's a word for them: transnational-socialists, aka "tranzis."

To quote extensively from John Fonte's seminal piece, The Ideological War Within the West, the key points of transnational socialism, which he calls, "transnational progressivism," are as follows:

TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:

The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.

A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy.

Group proportionalism as the goal of "fairness." Transnational progressivism assumes that "victim" groups should be represented in all professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population. If not, there is a problem of "underrepresentation."

The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities in major institutions if these institutions continue to reflect the worldview of the "dominant" culture. Instead, the distinct worldviews of ethnic, gender, and linguistic minorities must be represented within these institutions.

The "demographic imperative." The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the U. S. as millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures enter American life. The traditional paradigm based on the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is obsolete and must be changed to a framework that promotes "diversity," defined as group proportionalism.

The redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals." Transnational progressives have been altering the definition of "democracy" from that of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James Banks, one of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that "to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power." Hence, American democracy is not authentic; real democracy will come when the different "peoples" that live within America "share power" as groups.

Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols of democratic nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a UK government report denounced the concept of "Britishness" and declared that British history needed to be "revised, rethought, or jettisoned." In the U.S., the proposed "National History Standards," recommended altering the traditional historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined as a multicultural "convergence" of three civilizations—Amerindian, West African, and European. In Israel, a "post-Zionist" intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book , in which he deemphasized "sovereignty" and called for regional "elected central bodies," a type of Middle Eastern EU.

Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship.In an important academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak asks hopefully "Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political thought?"

The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool. Transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural ideology. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism is a concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework (a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue that globalization requires some form of "global governance" because they believe that the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill suited to deal with the global problems of the future.

File under: why I am no longer a postmodernist....