Slow Burns and Explosions

The difference between a fast fire and an explosive device can sometimes simply be that of whether or not the fire is contained. Thus the use of pressure cookers and pipes in explosives - to contain the explosion until it's sufficiently powerful, instead of burning out over time, or scattering itself uselessly. As the infogalactic article states:

The containment provided by the pressure cooker means that the energy from the explosion is confined until the pressure cooker itself explodes, creating a relatively large explosion using low explosives and generating potentially lethal shrapnel.

Something similar holds true with immigration, and what happened recently in Manchester. 

Yeah, I am, as Vox put it in a recent periscope, a civic nationalist in ideal. That said, even before the last few years I had far higher requirements for "let them in" than the majority of civic nationalists did - which I've elaborated on elsewhere. I concluded:

We can do it the relatively humane and low-friction way, getting rid of obvious troublemakers, not taking people in, expecting assimilation, and encouraging the rest to leave, or we can do it the really ugly, violent, high friction way. Or we can avoid rocking the boat, and in the end, go away, little but a memory. That said, if we don't choose a), low friction, then I believe we won't go away, and things will get very, very nasty indeed.

I also followed up a bit after Razorfist discussed the wall. 

So, pressure cookers?

Well, we have the option to let them out slowly, and fairly painlessly (I'm under no illusions there will not be fights and even some killing as people resist) by discouraging them, cutting off the benefits of being here, so that only the most die-hard stay, and stop them from trying to change our culture. We also have the option of pretending we don't have a problem - lock the lid on it and let the pressure build up until there are explosions of blood and violence.

The longer we cannot speak the truth, the longer we tolerate those who have no interest in joining us aside from taking our stuff and living like parasites off the largess of the culture we created, the more violent and sudden the explosion will be when it comes.

So, what inspired this? The excellent post here by the Didact. I've excerpted what brought this to mind, but read the whole thing.

They need to get out, permanently- preferably voluntarily, but by force if necessary. There is no place for Islam in the West, not any more. Enough is enough.

For their own good, for their own sake, for the sake of the people of the West and of Western civilisation itself, go, and do not come back.

Attacks like the one in Manchester have become a virtual fact of life to Europeans now- and sooner, not later, they will become so to Americans as well, unless Islam and its adherents are told in no uncertain terms to leave.

I do not make this claim lightly. Several of my co-workers are Muslim. A daughter of my family's very dear friends in London is married to a Muslim. Such folk have lived for decades and even generations outside of Muslim lands.

It is likely that I, too, would be caught up in a drive to push Islam out of the West. I am not white. I come from a country with a significant Muslim minority. I dress and act and sound entirely like a Westerner, but it would not be difficult to mistake me for a Muslim.

So when I say that Muslims need to leave, I want you to understand my full meaning. It has to happen, for the sake of peace.

Make no mistake, this will exact a terrible human cost. Those affected would in most cases be even less welcome in their nations of origin than in the West.

But if the alternative is to permit them to stay, and therefore to see yet more supposedly "British" young men fall prey to the siren song of Islam and slaughter yet more innocent girls, then it is clear that the only humane outcome is to cleanse the West of Islam's taint.

One way or another, that cleansing WILL happen. The lessons of history and the facts of human nature make this outcome absolutely and unequivocally certain. The only question is how much blood will be spilled in the process.

A Bubble of Frozen Culture

I was catching up on Stefan Molyneux's call in show via podcast, and question 6 of the April 5 podcast (available here) was from a man who'd been dragged to the US as a child and illegal alien, and had moved back to Mexico, discussing his alienation.

All in all it's a damned interesting conversation, but Stefan dug out a metaphor that really hit home for me personally. He pointed out that even in the "good" cases, you or your parents, the adults, and to a lesser degree the children, take a small bubble of one's culture with them when they arrive at their new home. Over time, that bubble erodes, but as the actual home culture moves on, evolves, the little bubble one brings along is frozen in time, in stasis. And of course, the kids, legal or otherwise, are left in between - neither fully of the new culture (though in some cases closer than others) nor any longer of the old. It's moved on.

Like the line in Gross Pointe Blank - " I, I'm standing where my, uh, living room was and it's not here because my house is gone and it's an Ultimart! You can never go home again, Oatman... but I guess you can shop there."

Whenever you try to go back, it may not be leveled and replaced with a convenience store, but it will be different. You've brought something with you that makes you not entirely of the new home, yet freezes you out of the flow of the old one.

I've seen it. Not only in grandparents who - no matter how staunchly anti-communist, left to go back to the home country once free. They were anti-communists, not Americans. I've seen it in others more recently from my parents home country comment how archaic my vocabulary is - because the vocabulary I learned in Sunday school has been frozen in time since the last big wave of immigrants immediately post WW2.

I've also seen it in cultural assumptions. You'd think that - for a group of people who's last wave of immigration was escaping Soviet and communist tyranny - that the lessons would be burned in about the evils of central control.

Right?

Fuck that. Many of the parents I knew growing up, many of the kids generation I know now, are die hard socialists and democrats through and through.

Why Would Non White Non Americans Prefer A White-led West and America?

The Didact was asked why, not being white, nor American, he so was so strongly pro a white, or at minimum, a white-led and dominant America and west. The whole article is worth a read. So is the one he refers to.

I particularly like and appreciate the white folk of America's heartlands. Whether I am visiting towns and villages populated by the quietly unflappable folk of rural and countryside New England, or the courtly and immensely hospitable people of Texas, or the welcoming and charming characters to be found in lovely Vermont, I have always been treated with politeness and civility.

I cannot claim to have such positive experiences in parts of my own homeland.

Now obviously, not every non-white non-Westerner who has spent roughly half his life in Western lands can claim to have had the same happy experience as I have. There are parts of America- the more "diverse" bits, usually, and that is not an accident- where foreigners like me are treated quite badly. But, in general, the reason why everyone and his dog wants to come here to live and work is because white people have made it a great country.

That is true throughout the Western world, and the rest of us ignore this basic fact of life at our own great peril.

For while white Westerners are unusually welcoming of foreigners- I argue that these days they are too welcoming- they are also capable of great and terrible violence against "the other" if they choose. The history of Western culture is replete with examples of xenophobia taken to unhealthy and very violent extremes, and I fear that there will come a time in the not-too-distant future when such violence will flare up once again.

As a general rule, white people are not the problem. White people certainly create many of their own problems, usually through ignorance of history or active stupidity, or both, but they also have a remarkable knack for solving problems too.

That is why Western culture is quite clearly the best. That is why the Western nations have the highest living standards in the world. That is why everyone else wants to go there, or at least send his kids there.

Immigration - a Rant

Not too long after posts on immigration by myself, and a followup on it and "skin in the game" in "Fixing the Magic Dirt Problem" by the Didact, here's a rant by the inimitable Razorfist. I largely agree with it, and though I'd likely be more restrictive on even legal immigration numbers than he is, I think every point he makes here is pure gold.

While I agree that it's surprising how many people actually want restricted immigration despite their supposed politics - it's still surprising how many people who drank the SJW koolaid are true believers.

He also spends a lot of time on something many immigration debaters ignore - the country the immigrants are coming from.

Update - the woman yelling "stop splitting up families"?

Stefan Molyneux has an excellent response - should we not send a murderer to jail because "it breaks up the family"? What about a deadbeat "child support in arrears" dad?

Update 2: BTW - The "deadbeat dad" argument is for the feminist types who believe jailing such people is a good thing. Wouldn't work on me. Leaving aside the "so how is he going to pay you now" argument, the entire divorce/child support industry is a money extracting scam for the benefit of the legal system and not the families, or the kids.

It is worth noting though that feminists are perfectly happy to split up families, ignore abuses of visitation, put dads in jail, etc. if they're not immigrants or violent criminals.

Germans, Being Germans.

The topic is serious, but perhaps one of the best illustrations of the mentality I'm going to discuss is nonetheless funny. As has been observed, Eurpoeans are very, very nice. Until they, very suddenly, are very not. The video below is a gag, where the husband of a typical german couple, in a typical german house, with their typical garden, decides to do something about cars that have been driving through the neighborhood too fast.

Note their appearance and behavior - mildly neurotic. Slightly OCD. Pleasant. He's positively excited about finding a solution. And though said solution is played over the top for laughs, and the housewife is horrified, I can tell you that the Germans - mostly engineers - I know tend to fit this profile. Very pleasant Will avoid rocking the boat. If they have a nice car will park it around the back or in the garage because showing off even moderate wealth is considered tacky. And if they decide to do something about a problem, once it has awakened their ire, they will very matter-of-factly, very totally, make it go away. When they commit to something, they can be a bit... extreme.

In the same vein, this recent article at Gates of Vienna - "When a German is Aggravated Enough, a German Strikes” (with translation below):

The following video was made by a German YouTube satirist named Hagen Grell. Despite the humor in it, his entertaining rant has an edge — it expresses a fundamental truth about the hidden undercurrents of German culture, using satirical means.

Immigration

Men of the West recently published a piece that proposes an interesting solution to dealing with illegals and giving them a "path to citizenship." Think a US Foreign Legion, roughly modeled on the French one.

So what are my thoughts?

I'll admit, it's been difficult to shake a lifetime of programming regarding "we're a nation of immigrants." - you can see it everywhere, down to repeated lines in the music for Hamilton about how he's "an immigrant" and so is Lafayette, and "they get the job done."

Having overheard a chunk of the third-party remix, I can assure you that those references are not only deliberate (and distortions of what is meant by "immigrant"), but that the crowd that loves that play is far, far more activist about it.

So what do I consider acceptable? Well - while I would now consider mass deportations - which have happened before - it still isn't my first choice. Below is what I'd consider an absolute minimum. It also has the advantage of giving us time and breathing room to mobilize for more proactive efforts, if needed. I'm also dashing this off so if you have any questions, etc., or anything is unclear or seems it's ill thought out, ask. It's likely my fault for how I wrote it.

1. Enforce the borders - these laws are already on the books. Will we get everyone? No. So? If we consistently send back the ones we catch, and stop looking the other way, we'll improve things. This may still require a ramp up but cutting down the flow of people coming in is a must, because any other step we take to push people back out will otherwise be undercut.
2. Make the work environment less welcoming to illegals. Sucks for the otherwise "law abiding" ones that work hard, etc., and I'm will not easily be convinced to expand the "proof of citizenship" requirements for most jobs,  but anyone lying on such paperwork - including the employer and/or their HR staff - should be held accountable. Everyone also knows where the illegals hang out for under the table work. Make it harder to get those jobs and the illegals will be less inclined to come over. Again, nothing new is required here except the will power to enforce existing law. 
3. Make the welfare environment less hospitable to non-citizens. I'm willing to entertain some leeway for people who've gone through the hoops, have their papers, and hit on hard times. If they're actually the kind of people who're willing to work hard and advance themselves they'll get back out of it. "Undocumented"? - hell no. 
4. Enforce assimilation as a standard. While we're at it - make English the official language, or take similar measures to stop this "press two for spanish" bullshit. They want to be part of our culture? Assimilate.
5. For illegals already in country: If you're caught committing a felony or other significant crime (DUI, rape, robbery, murder, mugging, etc.), you get shipped out. I'd even accept "goes to trial, goes to prison first if committed" as long as, either way, he gets shipped out. Period.
6. If convicted, they never get a chance to come back in legally. I can at least consider arguments for the rest, especially if cleared at trial, but no-one convicted should be allowed back in. They're at that point double lawbreakers and proven destructive ones at that.  
7. If, and only if you wish to give illegals in country a "path to citizenship" they should go to the back of the line, be free of a criminal record, and do something above and beyond given they already broke the law once. The Men of the West article provides some food for thought, but if they weren't willing to take the legal path, they need to prove themselves somehow.
8. While I actually fully endorse cutting down on stupid paperwork and bureaucratic bullshit for immigrants, more skin in the game is needed in either case. I have no policy suggestions here, but de facto not even requiring immigrants to learn english anymore or otherwise prove themselves is not acceptable. Does it suck that someone born to a citizen doesn't have to pass tests? Sure. So? They're born into the club, and have absorbed its assumptions with mother's milk. Someone who's an outsider has to prove their dedication. I can speak from personal experience that even invested, a large number of second, third, etc. generation European immigrants revert to their ancestor's cultural assumptions.
9. Shift immigration preferences away from south and central America, and the third world.. If we're going to take immigrants, take more that come from a similar culture. Even so, see #7. I know some brits who make our left look sane, though generally they're the wives of much saner, and fairly conservative husbands.
10. While we're at it, start basing immigration acceptance on "will they be productive citizens who can help the USA?" I'm not a college degree snob, so I'd even accept blue-collar and tradesman skills, but we have the right to choose who we take in, and not take those who can't or won't work, or be able to help us as literate members of a modern western society. 
11. Cut down on overall immigration. Why should we brain-drain countries? These very same stable, law-abiding, competent people would be invaluable in maintaining or building the cultures they came from.

This may not be enough, and if so, we can look at stronger measures, but they are the absolute minimum. There's no need to take on floods of illiterate "refugees" - even ignoring that most aren't actually women and children but fighting age men. Enforcing these will get the parasites out, minimize the number entering, and better invest those we do allow in. Given that, the number of issues we have with illegals undercutting jobs, committing crime, and diluting the culture will drop like a rock without having to gather people up by the trainload.

Also, most of this stuff is already on the books, or was (countries we accept immigrants from, for example), until the last few decades. Most of what really is needed is something the west, or it's political "leaders" have lacked. 

Will.

We can do it the relatively humane and low-friction way, getting rid of obvious troublemakers, not taking people in, expecting assimilation, and encouraging the rest to leave, or we can do it the really ugly, violent, high friction way. Or we can avoid rocking the boat, and in the end, go away, little but a memory. That said, if we don't choose a), low friction, then I believe we won't go away, and things will get very, very nasty indeed.

An Aside on Failure Scopes...

In my post on failure scopes I said the following:

Yes, there's some handwaving about private entities - which in practice become de-facto small - scale governments of limited power and scope.  But if the US suddenly became a libertarian paradise, something would still have to act as a de-facto state to deal with the threat of invasion from places that were not. And immigration on a large scale, by people who are not willing to integrate / buy the land, but simply take it on their own, via their own army, or however else, IS an invasion. Much the same way the US and western nations are being invaded now, aided and abetted by their own governments.

Looking back at that post I realized that there is a fictional setting that deals with this - Mike Williamson's original "Freehold" novel, which is often described as a libertarian utopia.

It deals with the issue of dealing with the Earth and the UN by creating a very limited state.

It also recognizes the flood of prisoner immigrants dumped on them later in the book by the UN as a de-facto invasion, dumping immigrants on them faster than the population can absorb and assimilate them.

I also mentioned "Even Libertarianism, in its older, saner format before they went full leftist and anti-individualist" -

No, the ideology hasn't changed much - I'm referring more to the "adults" supposedly in charge, and specifically the statements of the current presidential candidate which are utterly antithetical to freedom of association, and are showing a disturbing trend that the leftist wing of the party is consolidating control.

Leftists talk a good game of freedom, until it's time to let someone else be free to succeed on their own terms, or speak against them, or oppose them, or fail because the leftists know what's better for you. And every organization that is not explicitly anti-leftist, will become converged.

Their Children, or Ours

Posted at Vox Day:

Who's children are more important to us?