The ad became fodder for hysterical liberal pundits denouncing the rather mundane message Mr. James proposes:
This is Alabama, we speak English. If you want to live here, learn it.Slate.com recently called this ad "political lunacy", reflecting the leftist indignation directed at the aptly named "common sense" candidate. But should we on the reactionary Right praise Mr. James? Sure the left has characterized him as a "jingoistic lunatic", a generally reliable marker of the person actually speaking truth. Yet, I'm troubled by Mr. James' immediate qualification offered in the ad and his subsequent defense of this same idea.
The above statement comes in the context of Alabama offering the driving exam in 12 different languages. James rightly admonishes the state for doing so, yet instead of criticizing the undermining of national and cultural cohesion, he brings up economics and safety.
In the ad: Maybe it's the businessman in me, but we'll save money.Mr. James risibly remarks on political correctness, all the while a hostage of the thoughtpolice. Pretty simple, "this is [America], we speak English" because that's America. No esoterica on economics or traffic statistics - just a forthright demand that America maintain its historic roots and an integral component of its nationhood, language.
But as he explains on his website, James just cares about our safety. He cites a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report that notes an increase in work-related traffic fatalities in his state -- and where there are traffic accidents, there are foreigners who can't read our damn stop signs.
James further states that there's the issue of the "wasted cost and bureaucracy of offering drivers' test" in a dozen languages.
Unsurprisingly, despite his desperate pleas to the contrary, the leftist media had a field day with Mr. James. For example, Slate.com called him "xenophobic and anti-[immigrant]", mocked his "drawl", and stated he didn't make a "bit of sense". So despite James' hasty backing off, the left still went at him. They still lambasted him for presumed racism even as Mr. James made a conscious effort to focus on pragmatism and avoid the more abstract, yet exceedingly important notion of national culture. Ironically, the left's response would have been identical had Mr. James taken the latter approach. In the end, the left will mercilessly attack conservatives who push any measure potentially interpreted as anti-foreign, as in just about anything alluding to a sovereign America. The only way conservatives can make it stop is through complete surrender and self-induced banishment.
In general, this example illustrates an unfortunate problem for mainstream conservatives. They want to advertise their conservative bona fides, but they know the strident left will pick up on anything mildly anti-PC. So they usually go with the less polemical economics focus, as opposed to the social values route. The social values approach will inevitably have something to do with American traditionalism and/or the correspondence between race and liberal initiatives. That's a minefield of potential "gaffes" or, as I like to call them, statements of fact. So those like Mr. James, ostensibly a man who understands American traditionalism and nationhood, instead attack the multicultural structure by proxy. They attack the government red tape that acts as a conduit for multinational imposition and they obscure their un-PC criticism in the guise of practical efficiency.
Yet what's the end game for supposedly wily individuals like Mr. James? What does the focus on conservative economics ultimately accomplish? Sure, maybe Mr. James projects to the voting public that he wants a smaller government and maybe this will help get pro-American politicians elected. But this attack-by-proxy is easily noted by the left (they're delusion, not dumb) and it doesn't address the root cultural and social problems that ultimately motivate progressivism.
26 comments:
The Left is power-drunk, which is why they don't debate; they destroy.
Conservatives will need to adapt or persish. They need to re-frame and speak to first causes, like yo say. None of this "immigration is inefficient." Say "we have the right to demographic integrity" instead, however you wanna package it for public consumption.
And for God's sake, they need to stop hemming 'n hawing, apoligizing, explaining, and playing into the Left's frame. Get some Game for chissakes.
One of the Left's biggest succeses was to identify itself with progress, starting with Communists. When it's everything but progressive. Whatever Leftism touches, it results in destruction of civilization, social capital, and now with globalism, women's beauty.
The Right needs to start calling them "Regressvies" and make it stick.
I don't think something along the lines of "preserving our culture" is going to stick. Too many people will hear that and think "WASP culture" and just tune out. I would suggest that, to have any chance of being effective, the message needs to focus on the economy in the broad sense. I.e., what kinds and numbers of people are we letting in, and what effects this has on working-class U.S. citizens, government spending, and civil order.
Tim James, who lost the Republican primary for governor of Alabama, makes an important point about "English only" in doing business with the government. Then he seems almost to anticipate the inevitable leftist attacks, so he backs off into some sort of economic justification, which is true enough, but misses the main point. Language is as divisive as ethnicity or religion at ripping countries apart, even democracies (try Belgium, Canada, or India, for example).
English is a powerful unifying factor in the US, and, in the past, we have always demanded that immigrants learn it.
Conservatives just don't seem to get it - they do best when the confront leftist idiocy, not when they try to accommodate it. Anyone attacking leftist core values such as multilingualism/multiculturalism will certainly attract charges of xenophobia, racism and anti-immigrantism from liberals and their MSM echo chambers. Conservatives shouldn't fear these charges - they should welcome them them and pour on more.
Look what happened when Bush I tried to make nice with the lib-Dems by raising taxes - his base deserted him and he lost reelection. And Bush II thought he could buy votes by enacting Democrat-type programs, but this led to disaster for the GOP in 2006 and 2008.
Nothing fires up the conservative base more than a sharp, nasty fight with the lefties. The new House Republican majority should pass an English-only law for doing business with the government and force the leftists to defend their moronic multiculturalism.
They're gonna call you a racist pig anyway, so you might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
"I don't think something along the lines of "preserving our culture" is going to stick. Too many people will hear that and think "WASP culture" and just tune out."
SWPLs will tune it out or fly into a rage. Proles will know exactly what you mean by "our culture", and agree with you. I am sure there are plenty of prole voters in Alabama who would be right on board with the "preserving our culture" message.
As per usual, there are a number of problems I see with this post.
The first being, that one of the commenters above mentioned how "proles" will respond to naked racial political appeals. That may indeed be true, but then that raises another question - the vast majority of the readers here, have a less than favorable view of proles to begin with. But I suppose they can put that aside when the prole groups provide something useful to them, in this case, votes. Very interesting.
Second, the candidate mentioned above was indeed speaking to an economic reality, but he wasn't being completely honest about it. The simple truth is, that the GOP is beholden to cheap labor, which explains why Alabama is full of illegals. If he was serious he'd be for a brutal crackdown on the businesses that hire illegals, but he knows that would be political suicide, so he doesn't go there. He instead attempts to the sensibilities of white prole voters. He lost.
Badly.
The Left is about class, and gender. Specifically appealing to women (who drive the consumer economy) over class. Note the "drawl" and "Southern low-class hillbilly" redneck accusations against the guy saying "this is America."
In America, those who demean tradition, the past, and natural ethnic/racial/linguistic cohesion in favor of the "Colors of Benetton" or a Target Ad (or Old Navy or Gap ad) play to the natural desire for aristocracy by women.
This aristocracy is NOT one of old line Princes and Kings "selected by GOD!" but rather that of the Alpha Male (educated, worldly, powerful, rootless, stateless, ethnic-less, race-less) who could be say, Charlie Sheen, or Taye Diggs, or Michael Vick, or John Mayer. Against this Alpha Male is the eternal Beta schlub who is "racist" in some "wife-beater" t shirt (i.e. low-class, lower status) and one of life's eternal losers, destined for oblivion.
This is pretty much the staple of any "anti-racism" Hollywood movie, with the "hot Alpha guy" being the model for women to lust after and the Beta schlub is deliberately lower class and status.
The problem with the right, or conservatism in general, is that years ago, out of fear of appearing to be unhip, uncool, old-school, etc. (after all, liberals gain street cred from attitudes and behaviors that pander to "coolness" which is just a synonym for struttin' the new), the middle, the middle right, and conservatives played the pc card too.
Now that things have reached the ridiculous, they don't know how to re-establish the idea that while it's fun to be a kid at times, things cease to work when there are no adults in charge.
Conservatives need to re-establish the idea that real adults don't worry about being cool. The problem is, a good % of this country were raised by poor parents: they wouldn't recognize a responsible ones if they descended from the heavens above.
The right has to bite the bullet and siultaneously push two memes: (1) whites are the least "racist" people anywhere/color prejudice in this country ended somewhere around 1980and (2) the only people who say otherwise are Hippies and fellow travelers angry that marxism didn't win. It has to be all-out culture war on NPR types. This takes care of the latino language problem. Let black people pick which set of whites they want to follow. And everyone here should read David Horowotiz's "The Art of Political War."
Whiskey is right. Consider the paradox of liberals spending enormous amounts of money isolating themselves from the consequences of liberal policies (housing and school choices), while loudly proclaiming the primacy of these same core values.
In other words, liberals are fanatical hypocrites who do not even believe in the policies they are supporting. Liberalism is nothing more than status-seeking and social- climbing among upper class whites.
Republicans need to shift away from defending abstract policies to challenging the liberal's own hypocrisy and by forcing them to accept the consequences of their own policies.
1) Make private schools illegal.
2) Open housing projects in rich liberal neighborhoods.
3)Start taxing non-profit organizations.
4) Legalize peer-to-peer file sharing.
Essentially, hoist the left on its own petard.
"Unsurprisingly, despite his desperate pleas to the contrary, the leftist media had a field day with Mr. James. For example, Slate.com called him "xenophobic and anti-[immigrant]", mocked his "drawl", and stated he didn't make a "bit of sense". So despite James' hasty backing off, the left still went at him."
Anyone who's interested can go to the original article at Salon (not Slate.) There, you will find that these quotes are
1. inaccurate
2. out of context
3. undermine the concluding thesis of the paragraph, rather than enforcing it.
But should we on the reactionary Right praise Mr. James? Sure the left has characterized him as a "jingoistic lunatic", a generally reliable marker of the person actually speaking truth. Yet, I'm troubled by Mr. James' immediate qualification offered in the ad and his subsequent defense of this same idea.
How can the "reactionary right" criticize James when the "reactionary right" hasn't articulated the CORRECT reason race is important?
The reactionaries incorrectly believe race is important because of similarity/group selection. Some problems with arguing race is important because of ethnic similarity/group selection:
1) The purpose of evolution isn't to pass on "similarity". The purpose of evolution is to pass on ADAPTIVE TRAITS that enhance survival in a given environment. Adaptive traits are not synonymous with similarity and there are many times where traits should be chosen over similarity in order to enhance evolutionary fitness.
If evolution's purpose were to pass on "similarity" then all life would be programmed to clone itself and sexual reproduction would never have come into existence.
2) According to genetic researcher, group selection/genetic similarity based theories of ethnicity mean (literally) from an evolutionary perspective that living things are programmed to exterminate all non-related ethnic groups. If you accept a genetic similarity then this would mean not only that other races are hardwired to exterminate other races but subgroups WITHIN other races are programmed to exterminate other ethnic subgroups.
For instance, taking Ethnic Genetic Interests to its logical conclusion, there's no reason why the Dutch shouldn't want to exterminate the Swedes because Swedes and Dutch are genetically distinct from one one another, albeit, closely related. So EGI is not exactly a smart way to justify Pan-Europeanism/Pan-Westernism if you want to avoid any future fratricidal European wars.
The CORRECT justification for either overwhelmingly white or whites only immigration (assuming any immigration at all is needed) is because
1) whites immigrants ASSIMILATE better and
2) the children of white immigrants are most likely to be able to carry forward the Western CIVILIZATION into the than non-white immigrants.
And the reason white immigrants satisfy BOTH those conditions better than non-white immigrants is because of the OVERLAP between the overall adaptive psychological traits that are UNIQUE to the European peoples.
In other words, the reason a Latvian immigrant to Spain will assimilate better into Spanish civilization better than a Vietnamese immigrant is because the PSYCHOLOGICAL profile of Latvians OVERLAPS more closely with the PSYCHOLOGICAL traits of Spaniards than the psychological traits of Vietnamese people do.
Likewise, a Vietnamese immigrant in China and his descendants would assimilate more thoroughly into Chinese civilization than a Latvian immigrant would because the psychological profile of the Vietnamese OVERLAPS more closely to the Chinese (even though Vietnamese don't have IQs as high as the Chinese do) than the psychological profile of Latvians does.
If you, OneSTDV, want intelligent people to understand HBD you need to express the CORRECT reason (psychological traits) race is important,not the INCORRECT one (similarity).
You've got to turn the question around and start saying that the US should stop importing poverty.
As the economy continues to worsen and more average Americans have to "drop down" to lower-paying positions and compete with immigrants for jobs that message will start to resonate across a much wider audience.
White folks don't like the idea of being called racists, but they hate the idea of being unemployed even more. The "racism" boogeyman will start to lose its power as the new reality of a less prosoperous US becomes the norm.
The first being, that one of the commenters above mentioned how "proles" will respond to naked racial political appeals. That may indeed be true, but then that raises another question - the vast majority of the readers here, have a less than favorable view of proles to begin with. But I suppose they can put that aside when the prole groups provide something useful to them, in this case, votes. Very interesting.
The issue was not whether or not I favor an appeal to racism. The issue was whether such appeals can be effective. And my contention is, yes, in Alabama, appeals to prole racism can be effective -- and this is true whether or not I, as a OneStdv commenter, approve of this tactic or not.
Against this Alpha Male is the eternal Beta schlub who is "racist" in some "wife-beater" t shirt (i.e. low-class, lower status) and one of life's eternal losers, destined for oblivion.
The vast majority of beta schlubs are not rednecks in wifebeaters. Those guys are alpha. Beta schlubs are middle class polo-and-khaki types in suburbia.
Eh, to be fair Tim James is a bit of a phony. Most people in Alabama know that, hence why he lost the primary. Despite his rhetoric, his construction company on the Alabama gulf coast was a major employer of illegal aliens. He's just a typical "good ole boy"; after all, his Dad was governor a few decades ago too.
Republicans need to shift away from defending abstract policies to challenging the liberal's own hypocrisy and by forcing them to accept the consequences of their own policies.
Liberals do not care about consequences. Trying to get them to see facts or logic is a futile waste of time. This is all about their feelings, not about facts and logic. If you confront them with reality they'll just scream at you that you're a heartless evil racist Nazi.
@ TUJ:
I fully agree with the psychological overlap argument and I have no clue why you think I'm arguing otherwise.
@ Dave:
WTF are you talking about?
Some people might think that's some kind of xenophobic, anti-immigration jibe. But as he explains on his website, James just cares about our safety.
Might not be direct, but through sarcasm, they're obviously calling him xenophobic.
"This is Alabama," he drawls. "We speak English. If you want to live here, learn it."
Most people, especially writers ar Salon, don't use "drawl" with a positive connatation.
James is running his campaign on the catchy slogan "It makes sense to me … does it to you?" But the answer is no, not one bit.
Clearly saying he doesn't make a bit of sense.
The whole article is sarcastically saying, "oh yea of course you're not a racist." If this isn't an attack, then what the hell is?
Please show me how I took anything out of context or copied it inaccurately?
Anon -- Yes beta schlubs wear khakis and polo shirts and work in cubes and are not racist. Nevertheless, any TV show dealing with racism will make the "racist" White guys low-class proletarian ill educated, losers. While the enlightened upper class Alpha White guy who "fights against racism" is oh so contrasted in sexual desirability.
Because TV (and most movies excluding action movies) is a female-gay ghetto.
The economic argument does have some legs however. Something like:
*China, Japan, South Korea, and India are competitive threats to US manufacturing, services, and wealth.
*America therefore needs "ready to go" smart people, not importing poor, illiterate, non-English speakers who do not study and achieve excellence in math and science.
Phrase it in terms of economic competitiveness with China, India, Japan, and South Korea, and THEN be prepared to make the argument, that no you don't want to live in Mexico, if you did you would have moved there already. And you don't want it moving to you!
Please show me how I took anything out of context or copied it inaccurately?
Always. Let's start with the easier job, explaining what you copied incorrectly.
-You incorrectly claimed the source of the article was Slate.com instead of Salon.com
-You incorrectly quote the author as writing "xenophobic and anti-[immigrant]." This is not the correct text.
-You misquoted "drawl." The correct text is "drawls."
-You misquoted "bit of sense." The text does not appear.
Pretty straightforward. It might seem unimportant to you to be precise. But you have referred to your writing as "meticulous." Clearly, in this case, your writing has fallen short of your own standards.
Secondly, what did you take out of context? Here:
"Might not be direct, but through sarcasm, they're obviously calling him xenophobic." (emphasis mine.)
But you claimed that the author had directly called James "xenophobic and racist." So that's the discrepancy between your reporting and the truth.
If an author seems to imply something in the subtext, you can't simply fudge the quote to claim that they said it straight out. No matter how sure you are of the actual intentions, you tell the truth and hope your readers draw the same conclusions.
@ Dave:
Technically, what you said is right, but come on. I relayed the content of the article exactly as it was intended.
I fully agree with the psychological overlap argument and I have no clue why you think I'm arguing otherwise.
I know you agree with it. I just criticizing you for not explicitly laying out the correct reason race is important and then complaining that mainstream conservatives don't focus on race. If you want mainstream conservatives to agree with your positions on race then you will have to explain WHY race is important.
Race is important because if you have white skin and balls then you are a "white supremacist" by default. For those absolutely aghast at the suggestion, a life of increasingly frequent self-flagellation is in store for you. The enemy is racism and racism is code word for "white supremacy." But a "white" Supremacist is EXACTLY what we should be striving to be and what explanation need be given that isn't already self-evident?
Only a radical deracinated, emasculated and faithless liberal thinks Supremacy equals degeneracy. And a more savvy liberal autonomist attempts to persuade the masses to embrace this anti-white Supremacy so as to secure his spot in the "default elite."
Atheists are anti-Supremacists. They CAN'T BE "white" Supremacists and so they are left to argue against the racism of the non-white using fuzzy language. But this goes for white male liberals in general. They abhor the idea of being a "white" Supremacist even though they are almost universally perceived as "white supremacists."
"Technically, what you said is right, but come on. I relayed the content of the article exactly as it was intended."
You're guess as to the author's intentions could be correct. There are several other likely interpretations of what he may have been thinking. You aren't a mind-reader. That's why it's best to just stick to the facts, instead of distorting the truth. If your interpretation is as obvious as you believe, then others will see it, too.
The point is, you have claimed to see your writing as "meticulous." Your writing here, and especially your negligence in correcting your errors, utterly belie your self-assessment.
"You aren't a mind-reader." Drawing inferences is not mind reading.
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