The Case Against “the Conservative Case. . .”

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Whenever you find an article that begins with the title, “The Conservative Case” for or against something, lock your door, check your wallet, and grab your gun. You know what’s coming is an unadulterated sell-out of everything “conservatism” purports to hold dear.

The words directly following the ellipses usually denote some obviously non-conservative thing, like “a $5 trillion budget” or “transgender bathrooms” or “4-foot-11, 80-pound female Navy SEALS.” Do any liberals ever write “a liberal case” for something obviously conservative, such as the traditional two-parent family or constitutional originalism?

No, this self-sabotaging practice is unique to the American Right, which perhaps helps explain why it’s in such disarray.

American Enterprise Institute economist James Pethokoukis’s “conservative case against Trump’s apocalyptic view of America” harks back to Reaganesque optimism. But the entire premise of his essay, published last week at the left-leaning “explainer” site, Vox.com, completely misses the point of Reagan’s optimism. Reagan’s message in 1980 was, in a nutshell, “Things are really bad right now, but I know how to make them better and together we can do it.” (Can you think of any candidate who has spoken like that a bit more recently?)

Reagan began by acknowledging the “present crisis.” His optimism, like all sensible optimism, arose from a frank assessment of the situation. He thought the problems he diagnosed were fixable and that he knew how to fix them. A personality may be optimistic or pessimistic by temperament, and Reagan’s was surely optimistic. But he was wise enough not to let his preternatural optimism cloud his judgment and blind him to real problems. Even after Reagan had accomplished much (but by no means all) of what he set out to do and the country was (for the time being) in much better shape than he had found it, he still saw reasons to worry and sounded alarms about the future.

Not James Pethokoukis. Everything’s fine! Any concern about the nation’s present or future is “fully detached from reality” and “totally at odds with the facts.” Move along, nothing to see here. That’s the bulk of his argument, a variation on the theme “It’s not that bad,” a case for the status quo.

Pethokoukis is a gifted economist and could run circles around me with statistics and macro-models if he wanted to, but he hardly tries. Instead he offers this:

Sure, the recovery has been slow, at least the slowest since World War II, maybe in American history. But get in line. Great Britain’s recovery is perhaps the slowest in nearly two centuries … Recessions accompanied by systemic shocks to the banking and housing systems tend to be followed by miserably slow recoveries … [S]uch anemic rebounds are characterized by “very sluggish U-shaped recovery” in incomes … and persistently high unemployment.

Here is a ringing endorsement of the status quo. Things suck, but they suck everywhere and as expected, so it’s OK!

Is this meant seriously?

Pethokoukis then proceeds to offer a few stats, but not before prepping the ground by ruling out of bounds all doubts about possible government manipulation. But hold on. The U.S. Department of Labor gooses the unemployment rate in all sorts of ways, chiefly by not counting as “unemployed” anyone who has given up looking for a job, and by counting as “employed” anyone working part-time who used to work full-time and would prefer to do so again. So pardon my not being too impressed by a 20-basis-point drop in the official unemployment rate “over the last year.” Nor am I all that impressed that, according to Pethokoukis, “the labor force has grown by 2.4 million” over the same period—when it has shrunk by 14 million over the last eight years, to a 40-year low.

Especially risible is Pethokoukis’ claim that “household net worth” is $90 trillion. Where is that wealth concentrated? What’s the median and in what direction has it been going? Pethokoukis doesn’t say, perhaps because he knows the answers undermine impression he wants to leave.

Pethokoukis, like a good AEI-nik, would presumably dismiss such concerns as “the politics of envy” or some-such. True Conservatives™ don’t care about income inequality! The aggregate is what matters!

Matters to what? “The Economy?” Oh. Gains accruing to techies and hedge fundies are more than enough to offset losses everywhere else and that’s apparently good enough for Pethokoukis, who—like nearly all economists—bases his case on a narrow economic analysis that ignores the broader political sphere. Here we find another typical misinterpretation of Reagan. The Gipper’s successful policies proved that it’s all about incentives. All hail Homo economicus!

True, incentives matter. What do open borders and trade-giveaways incentivize blue collar workers in the heartland to do? Give up and shoot heroin?

The rest of Pethokoukis’s account is drearily predictable tech-innovation-Schumpeter messianism. Pethokoukis cites Joel Kotkin favorably, without mentioning that Kotkin’s opinions have evolved. Pethokoukis has to channel 1988 Kotkin because the current vintage is more realistic about—and thus more skeptical of—the trends Pethokoukis celebrates.

Pethokoukis makes the highly unoriginal point that “Google, Facebook and Uber” show the continued dynamism of the U.S. economy. This is like John Kerry praising Apollo 11 in his acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Can’t think of anything to say? Moon shot! Oh, you’re talking about the economy? Google! Is any cliché more tired at this point? Google—actually Alphabet—has made a few people rich but otherwise has depressed high tech wages in Silicon Valley by its relentless importation, and advocacy for same, of foreign programmers who will work for less and transform neighborhoods through over-occupancy. All this to make porn searches more efficient. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is even more aggressive about screwing American workers—fwd.usa, anyone?—and his company even more useless. Uber promises to turn unemployed American workers, and untold foreigners, into cab drivers. But you hail them through a smartphone, so it’s high tech! These, and dozens more that Pethokoukis could have mentioned but mercifully did not, are far cries from the robber barons of old, who electrified the nation, linked us by rail, road, sea, and air, and built our greatest monuments. In the process, they employed millions, created wealth for tens of millions more, and improved standards of living for people on every rung of the ladder.

But for Pethokoukis, the true measure of national success is “translat[ing] entrepreneurial daring into wealth.” America is still better at this than other countries, so what’s the worry? At least Mitt Romney—not known for being overly concerned with the working man—worried about our ability to create more entrepreneurs. Pethokoukis just takes for granted that we will keep doing so forever. And what about the people who aren’t entrepreneurs and can’t be? Are they just losers? Does the wealth ever get to trickle down to them? That is, in the form of something other than lower iPhone prices? Pethokoukis’ admonition against questioning the government aside, the government itself admits that it manipulates the Consumer Price Index via the “substitution effect.” Milk prices doubled? We’ll just assume that people are switching to water. (Let them drink water?) Wealth accrues at the top, factories close, jobs disappear, the bottom is strip-mined, and the prices it must pay for daily necessities go up. All Pethokoukis sees is: wealth accrues. Life is good!

Pethokoukis lazily cites highly contested “studies” written to bolster the narrative: immigrants benefit “the economy” (for whom?); illegal immigration is “stable” (stably high?); we now get more immigrants from Asia than from Mexico (that’s a relief! my neighborhood has lots of tacquerias but not enough Thai!). He attributes all objections to “false belief,” an echo of Marx’s “false consciousness.”

Like all conservative Hegelians, Pethokoukis is endorsing, if implicitly, rule by the administrative state. “Truth” derives from scientific principle, which is published in academic “studies.” For their own good, the voters should not be allowed to contravene said “truth.” If the people don’t like current, academically endorsed immigration and trade policies, then the people are wrong. Which is manageable, as long as the political class successfully conspires to thwart their will. But when a “demagogue” comes along who threatens to implement the people’s will, that must be stopped!

Abraham Lincoln famously said there is no right to do wrong. But there is a right to be wrong, when right and wrong are matters of prudential judgment rather than moral imperative. Pethokoukis and like-minded “conservatives” think that open borders and free trade are moral imperatives because they consider their desirability to be scientifically proven, which to them amounts to the same thing. Science is truth, truth science. This is an opinion that predates G.W.F. Hegel, but one that the German philosopher fully articulated for the political realm. In the leftist-Hegelian hive mind of which Pethokoukis is but one drone, the benefits of mass immigration and open trade are true simply; therefore popular objections are illegitimate.

The actual, political truth is that men are free “of all but moral law.” And there is no moral imperative for or against immigration or trade. If the people want them, they may lawfully enact them. If they don’t, they may restrict either, to the extent that their preferences in the moment dictate. Even if a consequence is that their economy contracts.

An economist will gasp at this heresy against his faith. But politics is greater and higher than economics. A failing economy might be a merely economic problem but a failing society is fundamentally a political problem. To the extent that an economy serves itself—and those who run it—and not the population it is supposed to serve is also, fundamentally, a political problem. It may be asking too much of checklist conservatives to see the bigger picture. We don’t after all expect our mechanics to tell us where to drive our cars. That’s what economists are: mechanics of the economy. Useful, even necessary, but limited. They should stick to what they know. Or, at the very least, we should be cautious about heeding them in matters outside their expertise.

The larger questions—what is this for and what are we doing to do?—must be debated by intellectuals, philosophers and statesmen, and decided by the people. Pethokoukis—like all economists—is entitled as a citizen to his opinion and to his vote. But his, and any economist’s, attempt to speak authoritatively about what the people must and may not do, to define which of their opinions are legitimate and which are not, is itself illegitimate.

Anyway, I do not concede that tighter immigration and trade policies will contract the American economy. But even if I knew they would, I would still favor them because I think, at this point, a smaller pie more evenly distributed among fellow citizens is a more urgent priority than a larger pie with every new slice going to the top. That’s to say nothing about all the attendant costs and collateral damage of mass immigration, even if one accepts that it’s always “good for the economy,” which I don’t. And even if I did, I would still support the right of the sovereign people to curtail or stop it at any time, for any reason.

Pethokoukis can’t because he has absorbed the core premises of the Left. “That’s racist!” This points to one of the deepest problems with “conservative intellectualism.” It accepts, out of conviction or fear or both, every restriction the Left places on it. The left rules out-of-bounds any discussion of the cultural or political effects of immigration as “racist,” and the conservatives go along. Hence they can only talk about immigration in economic terms, as if human beings were widgets.

In fact, this particular intellectual rot defines almost all of “conservatism.” It’s allowed the Left to bully the Right out of talking or thinking about so many subjects that all conservatives can rouse themselves to address any more is the economy. They rationalize such a narrow focus by insisting economics trumps all. But the root is fear. Or was. Fear may have caused the initial retreat, but younger “conservatives” raised in the faith actually believe every line of the Leftist creed. Except the parts about redistribution, because Hayek. Also, the donors don’t like it.

This is part of the reason why Pethokoukis scoffs at Trump’s appeal to black voters:

Donald Trump tells black people—typically in front of white people—that because their lives are so horrible and hopeless, they should take a flier and for once vote for the Republican presidential nominee. “What the hell do you have to lose?” Trump said before a suburban Detroit audience last month.

This argument Pethokoukis finds so outrageous that nothing need be said in response or refutation. Here you have “conservative” intellectual and rhetorical surrender in distilled form. For what have liberals, and blacks—and black liberals above all—been telling us for at least 50 years? That black lives are horrible and hopeless. They say this of course to justify massive government spending and social engineering. So that’s OK! But when Trump says the same thing—adopts the liberal premise only to draw a different conclusion—Pethokoukis is outraged, along with all the liberals. The Left has mastered this rhetorical trick and the Right has not only not caught on, it continues to help the Left use it against itself. There are certain things the Left is allowed to say that if the right simply repeats, it proves our “racism” or whatever.

Leftist: “Black lives are horrible.” Ambient culture: “You’re so right, let’s upend all our social, political, cultural and educational arrangements in an effort to improve black lives.”

Anyone else: “Black lives are horrible, but let’s try something else to make them better.” Ambient culture (including most “conservatives”): “How dare you!?! That’s racist! You’re Hitler! Begin your groveling apology now and we might leave you with the prospect of employment in a year or five. Otherwise you’ll never work in this town again.”

This trick is used on any number of topics, race being the most prominent only because it is the Left’s, and the establishment’s, go-to weapon. Like all self-castrated “conservatives,” Pethokoukis goes right along. Whether out of fear or conviction doesn’t even matter anymore.

Either way, he—and all the others like him—are obstacles to the near- and long-term project of saving what’s left of American and Western civilization. To climb out of the hole we’re in, we don’t need liberals, we don’t need cowards, and we don’t need traitors. The former dug the hole in the first place, with ample “conservative” assistance. Need any more be said about the latter two?

But it’s actually worse than that. Pethokoukis at one point makes a casual reference to Trump’s “bigotry” without making any attempt to substantiate the charge. This is a common claim, and tactic, of Trump’s critics on the “right”: call him a racist and just take for granted that all wise and good—that is, all properly indoctrinated readers—will agree and not expect or require any evidence or explanation. This is of course triply-true of readers of the Left-conventional-wisdom factory and anti-conservative-defamation-machine Vox, where the Pethokoukis chose to publish his piece, presumably to reassure the Left that, come what may, he’s not someone they should be going after. (Please!)

To make sure we don’t miss the point, Pethokoukis also refers to my “nativism” and alleged preference for a “paler America.” Get it? Pethokoukis is saying that, like Trump, I too am a “racist.” He’s too timid to use the actual word but he makes sure to get the message across.

For the record, I cop to being a “nativist.” I prefer policies that explicitly favor the existing American citizenry, the people born here, i.e., the natives. I’m somewhat impressed that Pethokoukis and his ilk have managed to redefine this age-old, bedrock political principle as radical and “racist.” It’s like forcing people to say the sky is green—a real propaganda feat, at which hats must be tipped in awe. But acknowledging leftist success as blunt force propagandists doesn’t require accepting the underlying lie.

Following Pethokoukis’ example, we may leave evidence aside because evidence is not the point. The charge of “racism” is—and is intended to be—the worst thing one can say about another human being in 21st century America. From a cultural standpoint, racism is often treated worse than murder. The culture goes absolutely bananas over crimes well short of murder—over acts that are not even crimes at all—if the Left can force a racial interpretation onto the event. It otherwise doesn’t seem to care much about actual murder or anything else. Actual murder has, according to the FBI, spiked by about 1,500 victims since Ferguson and the response is … oh, well. Just don’t you dare say it has anything to do with Black Lives Matter because that would be racist. We also have the amusing spectacle of Hillary Clinton holding out a suspected murder accomplice and baby mama of a drug trafficker as a moral exemplar because Trump once called her fat. See, that’s racist because she’s Hispanic. But her involvement in crime, serious and petty? What? You noticed? That’s racist, too.

As I noted in the “Flight 93” election essay that caused such consternation on the Right, the Left has been calling conservatives racist Nazis since the end of World War II. Increasingly, even the “Right” calls that part of the Right it doesn’t like racist Nazis. To repeat, this is—and is meant to be—the most damning charge one can make about another person’s character in 2016. It’s the ultimate denunciation and insult. It means, “You are vile and a non-person, wholly immoral and without redeeming traits. There is no reasoning with you and no possibility of respectful disagreement. You are simply bad and must at a minimum be shunned, Justice may even require active punishment, not for what you do, but for what I perceive you think.”

And our own side casually throws it in our faces. In this instance, on Vox, where Pethokoukis can be sure the charge will delight his left-leaning audience. “See! Even the ‘conservative’ James Pethokoukis agrees with us that Trump and all his supporters are bigots!”

That’s called giving aid and comfort to the enemy, James. It’s treason. Unless you think Trump and his supporters are your enemies.

If so, I think we’ve finally found some common ground. If you’re going to treat me like an enemy, I may as well start acting like one. As I’ve also written, those of us who still call ourselves “conservatives” are going to have to have big argument. People like Pethokoukis and myself—who appear to have nothing culturally, intellectually, or politically in common any more—are going to end up on opposite sides, to the extent that we aren’t already.

I don’t know James Pethokoukis. But I know lots of “conservatives” just like him: eager, even giddy, to throw anyone ostensibly on their side to the Leftist wolves.

I’m tired of being shot in the back my “friends.” It’s high time to turn around and let them shoot me in the face, in frank acknowledgement that I am their enemy.

Truth is, there’s nothing “conservative” about any of these people. But who cares about the word anymore? If they want to fight like dogs over who gets that bone, let them have it. Read me out of “conservatism.” Actually, you can’t fire me—I quit! If “conservatism” requires going to the wall for open borders, foolish trade deals, endless war, and head-in-the-sand “optimism,” to say nothing of routine denunciation of “racism” that’s far more imagined than real, then I am not conservative. I’ll take “patriotic” and “sane” instead.

As those of us inclined toward this way of thinking desert, or are ejected from, what’s left of “conservatism,” the movement will accelerate its decades-long drift toward ever-closer collaboration with its ostensible opponent. Within the first four years of the second Clinton Administration, don’t be surprised to see “A Conservative Case for Reeducation Camps.” Perhaps James Pethokoukis will write it.

About Publius Decius Mus

Publius Decius Mus, or “Decius,” is the pen name of Michael Anton. He was a senior contributing editor of American Greatness from July 2016 until January 2017. He currently serves as deputy assistant to the president for strategic communications on the National Security Council.

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707 responses to “The Case Against “the Conservative Case. . .””

  1. This reminds me of Jonah Goldberg and his endless rants about the evil destruction of conservatism caused by Trump, yet he gladly admitted four years ago that Romney wasn’t conservative but we should support him anyway because he’ll “owe us one.”

      • Goldberg’s problem is that he really doesn’t believe this anymore. It stopped being about saving the country and is nothing more than getting a paycheck. He has memorized the Conservative Liturgy very well, but you can tell he’s just going through the motions.

      • Jonah is scared sh!tless that he might have to finally pay for a cruise ticket from his own wallet. And maybe even have to buy himself a Scotch.

  3. I don’t know what is more disturbing. That you write this ridiculous crap or that people pay attention to it.

  4. The fact that Decius doesn’t seem to understand the originalist conservative ideals of free trade and immigration is telling. The Trump/Never Trump schism is actually more like a 4 way split, but only the libertarian wing understands what true American conservatism is. It ain’t Decius and it certainly ain’t Trump.

    Decius sullies the Publus name by pretending to be in the same league as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay or even Alexander Hamilton. His essays are vague, meandering, poorly written and he seems to have little grasp of originalism, history, English writing or economics.

    • “…It ain’t Decius and it certainly ain’t Trump…”

      “…little grasp of … English writing…”
      Hmmmmmm….

      • *bad English for emphasis. I am an English teacher as well as a business owner.

      • If you’re an English teacher, then I weep for the future literacy of the American citizenry. In fact, I weep for it now. Your comprehension skills are, frankly, atrocious. You rail against Decius time and again, each time demonstrating that you did not understand the point of the essay. You also apparently don’t understand the definition of “troll,” since your motivation looks more like starting grass fires than contributing anything coherent or relevant.

      • Weep all you want. I weep for the ideas that the various fake conservatives keep trying to inculcate in our children. To a classical liberal, all these stupid side taking over bad ideas is hilarious and idiotic at the same time. Republicans have become the party of small ideas, separated between smack talkers and bloviators who quarrel with each other incessantly.

      • So, somehow, you find it sensible to rage against the very people who are pointing out what you cite as the problem?

        Classical liberals do not favor open borders, because liberty isn’t possible within open borders.

        Classical liberals did not simply tinker round the edges for three generations; they threw off tyranny.

        Publius is illustrating again and again the stupid ideas that keep the GOP — and thus, the only party representation of “conservatism,” whatever that is, and classical liberalism — mired in defeat for three generations. They are complicit in their defeat, and they are complicit in trying to destroy the only person in a generation with the courage to say unpleasant things that need to be said.

        I wonder what your concept of an ideal candidate might look like.

        And frankly, I weep for our future literacy because your writing is a mess.

      • “Classical liberals do not favor open borders, because liberty isn’t possible within open borders.”

        That is hilariously incorrect. It was incorrect 250 years ago, and incorrect today.

      • I find the author’s use of Publius to be both arrogant and offensive to the Founders of the US. They would disagree with him on free trade and immigration for starters. And would be horrified by Donald Trump and is retarded Flight 93 “essay”.

      • How do you square the free-immigration idea with the fact that the founders favored decentralization because citizens of one colony were dissimilar enough from one another so as to require a different method of governance? Your cluelessness — as well as your complete inability to present any counter arguments — is showing.

        Look, if your real name is Pethokoukis, and you’re bugged by this, go take it up with Publius. No need to spray your nonsense all over the place here as if this were Slate.com.

      • Well, first, I don’t buy your assertion that the reason for decentralization was differences in colonies. The reason was because they respected the authority of State governments and the rights of their citizens. Obviously someone like “Decius” doesn’t respect local communities and wants a single tyrannical centralized approach. James Madison was clear that state government had near infinite authority and the Federal government had very little. And that the purpose of the commerce clause was to free trade, not enslave it or administer it, and the purpose of the Naturalization Clause was to protect the government from new immigrants, not to prevent or control immigration.

      • Tyrannical, centralized approach? To what, exactly? With the prospect of a Clinton presidency staring us in the face, where are you getting this from?!

        The purpose of the commerce clause was to arbitrate between the states, not to shackle trade or to ensure that Americans are strip-mined of their productivity through the importation of cheap labor and hostile cultures. Your comment about the naturalization clause is just sheer nonsense.

      • So the Founders, who created and governed a nation that (among the citizenry) was mostly British and almost entirely European, would favor modern unending mass immigration? They would favor chain migration and its continuing spread throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America? They’d favor a policy that unquestionably pushes the nation ever more towards the left and away from their principles and the governing document they crafted?

        There is nothing conservative about unending mass immigration. The policy itself is not conservative in any meaningful way, and the demographic and electoral consequences for conservatism are dire.

      • Your implicitly racist and/or bigoted rant notwithstanding, they were skeptical of mass immigration and decided that government should neither encourage it, nor restrict it, and wisely gave the Congress power over Naturalization in order to create a waiting period for voting and running for office, in order to allow immigrants to acclimate to their new society.

        American conservatism is founded in open migration, to or from anywhere to anywhere else. Oh, what you mean is you want to conserve the “I got here first” mentality, like Adolf Hilter in his 25 National Socialism Planks. You might want to read that.

      • American conservatism is not founded on open migration, but if that was the case, then it would mean conservatism founded on something that is guaranteed to eventually destroy it. It would be a suicidal foundational principle. That mass immigration is importing net new Democrats is undeniable. It’s also entirely predictable and expected. To think most immigrants would embrace conservatism is delusional.

        When you look at history, it’s clear that we have no history of uninterrupted mass immigration. All past waves came to an end, either of their own or as a result of Congressional action. This current one has no end in sight unless Congress ends it. Either they will end it, or conservatism will be demographically buried.

        And there you go, proving one of the author’s points. Someone disagrees with your leftist views on immigration and they are guilty of racism and bigotry, and are also (of course) like Hitler! You just need to cite that poem outside the Statue of Liberty as morally binding on immigration policy, and use the ‘if you’re not a Native American then…’ card and you’ll have used almost all for the standard, cliched arguments on behalf of mass immigration.

        What exactly was “racist” or “bigoted” in my “rant”? Pointing out the absurdity of saying the Founders would support modern day mass immigration doesn’t qualify, unless you take a typically leftist (which is to say absurdly expansive) view of what falls under those terms.

        Congress does have power over immigration and naturalization. That includes the power to restrict it, as was done by conservative Calvin Coolidge and Congress in the 1920s. But I’m sure you’d say the National Origins Quotas were racist and bigoted, and Coolidge wasn’t a real conservative. But what followed was over forty years of low-moderate, assimilation-friendly levels of legal immigration.

        The “I got here first” bit is more nonsense. It might have some validity if I were calling for an end to all immigration, but I’m not. I just want current levels to be significantly reduced, which is a majority view of Republicans (to be reduced that is, the ‘significantly’ part is harder to say) and is often a majority or plurality view of Americans overall. Are we all guilty of harboring Nazi thoughts?

        And if you really want to play that game of guilt by association, then consider that in supporting mass/open immigration, you are siding with pretty much the entire political and cultural left. That never seems to give pause to liberal-on-immigration conservatives like you, though again, the way you throw around the racist/bigot/Hitler nonsense so quickly (like a leftist) I can’t help but wonder how conservative you really are on other issues.

      • It is if you aren’t a neo-con. It is the duty of conservatives to educate, not intimidate, not alienate. It is your own fault. Immigrants are drawn to conservatism, and yet you blow it with your hatred, bigotry, xenophobia. You are making them Democrats. They didn’t come as Democrats. Your ignorance does it.

      • Again, what have I said that is hateful, bigoted, and so on with your litany of leftist pejoratives?

        In making this tired, incorrect claim that I/restrictionists are making immigrants into Democrats, you are displaying your own ignorance. Immigrants do indeed arrive predisposed to favor Democrats. There are many reasons for this, and many would exist even if every elected Republican was a Bush-like pandering liberal on immigration.

        Polls show that both Hispanics and Asians hold liberal views on most of the big issues. They favor bigger, more active government. They favor Obamacare. They favor greater gun control/bans. It is only natural that they favor the party championing their views…i.e. Democrats. This is almost certainly true of immigrants from other areas like Africa and the ME as well.

        Most immigration is family-based. So when a new immigrant arrives, who do you think will be more of an influence, their family (who are likely already pro-Democrat) or some opportunity agenda appeal from Paul Ryan? This cycle can only be broken by ending chain migration (something even Rubio claimed to suport doing…is he like Hitler too in a small way?).

        And there is the racial/ethnic angle. While most immigrants don’t arrive thinking about things like racial preferences in college admissions or the application of disparate impact to ever more things, the fact is that they (or their children) will benefit from these things at the expense of whites (and some Asians). So any effort to get rid or or scale back these policies (not that the GOP really tries to roll them back) will be demonized as a racist attack. You can take the high road on race and congratulate yourself for it, but the Democrats will not be so honorable. They play dirty on race because it works.

        Some immigrants are of course drawn to conservatism more than liberalism. But they are a minority, and there is no reason to expect this to change even if conservative views on immigration are silenced.

        And speaking of conservative views on immigration, would you say that the mainstream, possibly majority view of Americans in favor of reducing immigration should receive no political expression?

      • ” Immigrants are drawn to conservatism”

        Citation needed.

      • Ah, you’re a member of the parasite class of people whose own jobs enjoy iron-clad job protection. I’ve noticed that the most vociferous supporters of open borders and “free trade” are always people who are themselves completely exempted from ever having to compete with the “workers of the world’.

  5. Terrific article. Please don’t get down or upset by these poltroons, you are invaluable.

  6. America’s craven conservatives have been dutiful handmaidens of the left-wing so long they no longer realize they aren’t officially part of the actual hive whose mind they either share or obey. Whether it is Stockholm Syndrome or willful blindness is difficult to say. This election has ensured anti-Americanism/ faux conservatism never again will be the electorate’s acceptable loyal opposition to the relentless march to a totalitarian administrative state. America’s enslaved conservatives are Orwell’s indistinguishable pigs seen through a prism, completely interchangeable with their communist masters.
    Excellent work, once again.

    • Institutional conservatives (those who think and write for a living) have largely embraced the statist model of national government first introduced (in peacetime) by FDR. They often disagree with liberals concerning the actions the state should take to “reform” the American economy and the American people. But they do not shy away from making government (and its handmaiden, the central bank) the focus of American economic, political, and social life.

      It is no accident that institutional conservatives are largely found in places that receive funding primarily from business interests, having been run out of higher education and out of government. (The media no longer has anyone who can actually be described as a “thinker” of any kind.) This puts institutional conservatives in thrall to business interests, especially global corporations, global banks, and domestic crony capitalists…all of whom embrace the statist model of governance upon which they have thrived.

  7. Faux conservative attacks faux conservatives, faux conservatives rejoice.

  8. Pethokoukis has been on Larry Kudlow’s saturday radio show every week for weeks now, and always says exactly the same left-wing BS; Trump is “racist”, his supporters are “racist”, blah, blah, blah….blah, blah, blahedy-blah. These open borders, globalist neocons are EXACTLY like the Left; they are WORSE than useless. Stop foisting them onto people as if they have a conservative bone in their body-they don’t.

      • Why do you come here craving negative attention?

      • Because I’m offended by the author’s combined bad writing, stupid ideas and ridiculous comparisons with his use of Publius. It offends me to my core.

        Without his stolen gravitas, he is just a conventional idiot, easily ignored and entirely harmless.

      • Be offended.

        But your rage is neurotic at best.

        What are you hoping to accomplish?

      • Well, I’d like to see him man up and stop with his stolen valor crap.

      • Nope. I am pointing out that “Decius” is a pussy for not coming out, on one hand, but that he is not intellectually gifted enough to put himself on par with the Founders of this country. He should stop soiling the names of the Founders with this crap.

      • You’re living in some idealized past that is a creation of your mind.

        That was 240 years ago.

        What can you do today to make America better tomorrow?

        So far all I see is a man hiding behind a dumpster in an alley throwing empty beer bottles in the direction of some phantom enemy.

        Ever hear the story of the guy smacking a trash can lid on the sidewalk in downtown Washington, DC?

        No? Well I’ll help you out.

        The guy is smashing the trash can lid on the sidewalk making a bunch of noise.

        A man walks up to him and says “why are you doing that?”

        Crazy guy says “I’m keeping the tigers away!”

        Man says “but I don’t see any tigers.”

        Crazy guy says “see, it’s working!”

      • Thanks for admitting your disdain for the Foundation of America. George III is proud of you.

      • I am sure they would be repulsed by your slavish devotion to an idealized group of men that they themselves would not recognize.

      • To say nothing to his thralldom to a materialistic, anti-national neoliberal ideology they would probably recoil from in disgust.

      • You should stop soiling the Right with your Aspergative Whig history crap.

  10. This is a perfect example of how Decius spends sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragaph meandering and making a 2 paragraph statement into a booooooooring waste of time “essay”.

    • How’s your internship over at Weekly Standard going?

      Are you still under Bill Kristol’s desk with your face in his lap?

      • Why would I want to write for neo-cons? Let alone Trump fanatics?

  11. Here’s another ridiculous paragraph in which he claims free trade and economics is based in “fear”, when they are the most fearless of ideals.

    • The US was founded in free trade and open immigration,

      You know less than nothing about American history. The US was founded very explicitly on mercantillism and closed borders. One of the few “enumerated powers” granted Congress in the original Constitution was the power to levy tariffs and import duties – which was the principle source of revenue for the federal government for the first hundred years of its existence.

      • Oh really. Please provide evidence of this, considering that the Declaration of Independence was explicitly anti-mercantilism and pro-migration.

        The power over commerce was partially to fund the country, but explicitly to promote interstate and international trade.

  13. Here’s a great paragraph where, like an old man, he bangs his cane and moves the goal posts –

    “ut it’s actually worse than that. Pethokoukis at one point makes a casual reference to Trump’s “bigotry” without making any attempt to substantiate the charge. This is a common claim, and tactic, of Trump’s critics on the “right”: call him a racist and just take for granted that all wise and good—that is, all properly indoctrinated readers—will agree and not expect or require any evidence or explanation. This is of course triply-true of readers of the Left-conventional-wisdom factory and anti-conservative-defamation-machine Vox, where the Pethokoukis chose to publish his piece, presumably to reassure the Left that, come what may, he’s not someone they should be going after. (Please!)”

    Apparently completely incapable of understanding the difference between Trump’s bigotry and racism and accusing Pethokoukis of calling Trump a “racist” when he called him a bigot. And calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers is, in fact, actual bigotry. It isn’t racist, because Mexican isn’t a race. Things, apparently, that need to be explained.

  14. “we don’t need cowards, ”

    You mean like those that hide behind fake names?

    • Time for yet another block! Hope you die really soon.

      • Are you scared of a different opinion? How insecure.

        It’s hard to be a bigot and a homophobe these days.

  15. “Nor am I all that impressed that, according to Pethokoukis, “the labor force has grown by 2.4 million” over the same period—when it has shrunk by 14 million over the last eight years, to a 40-year low.”

    Decius’ assertion is obviously incorrect. It has not shrunk by that much and it is not a “40 year low”. It may have reached a 10 year low, but as Pethokoukis points out, is now at a record high.

    “United States Employed Persons 1950-2016 | Data | Chart | Calendar
    The number of employed persons in The United States increased to 151614 Thousand in August of 2016 from 151517 Thousand in July of 2016. Employed Persons in the United States averaged 103140.97 Thousand from 1950 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 151614 Thousand in August of 2016 and a record low of 57635 Thousand in January of 1950. Employed Persons in the United States is reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

    http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons

  16. Here’s a good one –

    “Pethokoukis lazily cites highly contested “studies” written to bolster the narrative: immigrants benefit “the economy” (for whom?); illegal immigration is “stable” (stably high?); we now get more immigrants from Asia than from Mexico (that’s a relief! my neighborhood has lots of tacquerias but not enough Thai!). He attributes all objections to “false belief,” an echo of Marx’s “false consciousness.””

    First, simply say that your opponent’s studies are crap and not even real studies, purposefully skewed to reach a conclusion, yet “conservatives” happily cite structurally flawed studies to “prove” how immigration is dangerous and damaging.

    And, of course, hey, crack a joke about foreign food, because, hey, I guess Thai food finding its niche is dangerous and wrong.

    • You don’t need studies to prove how immigration is damaging. Just living near the border proves it pretty conclusively. Unless you like poverty and crime, of course.

  17. “Like all conservative Hegelians, Pethokoukis is endorsing, if implicitly, rule by the administrative state. ”

    In which he simply constructs a strawman based on pure projection, and states that his opponent wants more regulation, rather than, actually LESS. Apparently, Dec doesn’t understand that controlled, corrupt trade and controlled borders require MORE administration than free trade and free immigration.

    • What the “conservatives” consider “free trade” in in fact corrupt and state managed trade. There’s a reason why all these “free trade bills” run to tens of thousands of pages in length.

      • That is partially true, however, it is precisely because most of these countries, and we ourselves, have massively corrupt trade laws in order to deny free trade. For instances, the NTHSA and EPA have the unstated mission of protecting American car manufacturers fro external competition.

  18. “Pethokoukis and like-minded “conservatives” think that open borders and free trade are moral imperatives because they consider their desirability to be scientifically proven, which to them amounts to the same thing. Science is truth, truth science. This is an opinion that predates G.W.F. Hegel, but one that the German philosopher fully articulated for the political realm. In the leftist-Hegelian hive mind of which Pethokoukis is but one drone, the benefits of mass immigration and open trade are true simply; therefore popular objections are illegitimate.”

    Again, the irony is that controlled immigration is a socialist or national socialist idea, which is why the US wisely attempted to avoid it and, in fact, listed controlled immigration as a reason for revolution.

    But, of course, he completely ducks the Natural Rights argument, and the Constitutional one as well. The Feds have zero authority over immigration, and that is because migration is a Natural Right, and also because the US was founded as a Natural Rights, open immigration country, a world-wide refuge from bad government.

    • the US was founded as a Natural Rights, open immigration country, a world-wide refuge from bad government.

      God knows you lefties are generally historically ignorant, but that’s an Orwellian rewriting of history. You might as well be telling us “Hitler was a great friend and admirer of the Jews” as serving up that slop.

      The writings of the Founders are all freely available online. Those writings contradict your absurd allegations in every respect.

      • First of all, I’m not a leftist. I’m a Jeffersonian conservative.

        Please quote the Founders rebutting my assertion. I’ll have my own quotes at the ready.

      • Your entire knowledge of Jefferson could be written on the back of a postage stamp. You’re not a conservative of ANY sort. The US Constitution – written by, you may recall, the Founders – explicitly gives the federal government the right to determine who enters the country.

      • Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owner. If he believed in “Natural Rights” then they were clearly not “rights” of the sort you have on your mind. if you bother to look at TJ’s opinions of other groups of people this is made even more clear. Here he is discussing that we would today call “Hispanics”.

        “I wish I could give better hopes of our southern brethren. The achievement of their independence of Spain is no longer a question. But it is a very serious
        one, what will then become of them? Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government. They will fall under military
        despotism, and become the murderous tools of the ambition of their respective
        Bonapartes; and whether this will be for their greater happiness, the rule of one only has taught you to judge.”

        And here he is again

        “[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as
        possible… founded in good policy?… They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass… If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements.”

        Of course Jefferson was hardly the only Founder or the only exponent of “classical liberalism. Let’s see what George Washington has to say.

        My opinion, with respect to emigration, is, that except of useful Mechanics and some particular descriptions of men or professions, there is no need of encouragement: while the policy or advantage of its taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures and laws: in a word, soon become one people.

        Not all classical liberals were Americans. Let’s check out J.S. Mill ..

        “Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist. The influences which form opinions and decide political acts are different in the different sections of the country. An altogether different set of leaders have the confidence of one part of the country and of another. The same books, newspapers, pamphlets, speeches, do not reach them. One section does not know what opinions, or what
        instigations, are circulating in another. The same incidents, the same acts, the same system of government, affect them in different ways; and each fears more injury to itself from the other nationalities than from the common arbiter, the state. Their mutual antipathies are generally much stronger than jealousy of the government. …For the preceding reasons, it is in general a necessary condition of
        free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in
        the main with those of nationalities.”

      • How do you think this backs up your point? First of all, the Mexicans had to create their own government from scratch, something they really had no experience or education to do, he was simply saying that they needed a political structure as he had no faith they could create it themselves.

        In the next quote, he simply was saying that the government should not TRY to convince people to immigrate, because clearly, people had proposed just that. He repeatedly stated that the US should accept immigrants who come of their own volition.

        As for Mill, that is a good argument against the European Union, not against a country with an existing national language that immigrants adopt.

      • My point is that Jefferson (who was not “the Founders” as you seem to wish) did not think the thoughts you are projecting onto him. He did not believe in your version of “natural rights”, which is why he was a slave holder. he saw different people as different, and different peoples as very different, and he most certainly did not ever envisage an America to which the people of Africa, Asia, and South America would be able to come whenever they wished it.

      • “Our ancestors… possessed a right, which nature has given to all men, of departing from the country in which chance, not choice, has placed them, of going in quest of new habitations, and of there establishing new societies, under such laws and regulations as, to them, shall seem most likely to promote public happiness.”
        –Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:185, Papers 1:121

        “Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? The Constitution, indeed, has wisely provided that for admission to certain offices of important trust a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character and design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us?”
        –Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:338

        “It [has] been the wise policy of these states to extend the protection of their laws to all those who should settle among them of whatever nation or religion they might be and to admit them to a participation of the benefits of civil and religious freedom, and… the benevolence of this practice as well as its salutary effects [has] rendered it worthy of being continued in future times.”
        –Thomas Jefferson: Proclamation, 1781. Papers 4:505

        “Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.”
        –Thomas Jefferson to Hugh White, 1801. ME 10:258

      • http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa02.htm
        You should read The Federalist Papers: “With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.” -John Jay

      • How does this affect the Constitution and freedom of migration?

    • Migration is a natural right? Ridiculous. Complete BS, all the way through. The United States is our home, and as such, we the people of the United States have the absolute right to determine who enters our nation. If you think otherwise, I suggest you open your own home to some unvetted Syrian “refugees.”

      • Thanks for displaying your ignorance of Natural Rights and the Foundation of America.

        You have no absolute right to tell me who may come to visit me, because it’s absolutely none of your business.

      • I think for the sake of consistency, you ought to admit anyone who shows up at your door. As far as “rights,” no one outside the United States who is not a citizen has the right to enter at his will. If he did, we wouldn’t be a sovereign nation, and you go right ahead and try to maintain the Constitution under circumstances like those.

      • I have the choice. If I want to rent to and employ an immigrant, that is my RIGHT as an American citizen and as a HUMAN.

        If you knew anything at all about the US, you’d know it isn’t actually a nation, but a federal republic and therefore, your thoughts about what a nation is don’t apply whatsoever.

      • Apparently, you have a hard time with logic. Setting aside the question of whether or not it’s Constitutional for the Congress to control immigration, what sense would fifty immigration policies make with freedom of movement between fifty states? Haven’t you paid any attention to the stupidity in Europe the last year? Fifty tax policies, yes; fifty death penalty laws, yes; fifty marriage policies, yes. Not fifty immigration policies. That makes no sense. Think before you write.

    • Private ownership of land is incompatible with natural rights, so this nation never enshrined natural rights.

  19. The NeverTrumpers are people who think Obama has been a pretty good president, all in all, and who would be content with more of the same for the next four to eight years. Their own words make this clear – many of them have spoken much more highly of Obama than they have of Trump.

    “All hail Obama!: – Bill Kristol.

    They rarely come out and express themselves quite as bluntly as Kristol has, but you don’t exactly need to read between the lines to notice where they’re coming from. They – and the donor class which pays their ample salaries – have been making out very well for several years now. They’re basically “court intellectuals”, whose mission in life is to sell the views of the aristocracy to the peasants, not to represent the peasants to the aristocracy.

    • Keep whacking away at those imaginary NeverTrumpers in your head. Decius takes on a specific person, and despite a few points I disagree with–SO tired of this endless and mindless repetition of the “endless wars” charge–, and he delivers a powerful critique, and a needed dividing of ways. But you make up stuff about Bill Kristol, and act as if everyone who is anti-Trump, or as the phrase has it, NeverTrump, is precisely the same. Those Amgreatness readers who want to grapple with real anti-Trump arguments, ones that do not come from the sad likes of Pethokoukis, try Pete Spiliakos at NRO today http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440674/2016-presidential-race-conservatives-donald-trump-democratic-party-republican-party, or go back to my “Donald Trump, the Greater Evil” column from the summer.

      • But that is precisely the point. “Decius” isn’t taking a principled stance, he just doesn’t like any facts or opinions that contradict American Nationalism and closed borders. So he had a temper tantrum over someone’s column.

  20. The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine recently released the results of a study which found that mass immigration is a net economic loss to the tune of $296 billion per year. Even by federal government standards, that’s a LOT of money.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/21/mass-immigration-costs-govt-296-billion-year-natio/

    The open borders crowd rarely even attempt to pretend that their preferred policies make any economic sense for the country. (As opposed to putting a great deal of money in the pockets of the open borders supporters themselves) The most frequent “argument” I see nowdays for open borders and “free trade” is that, while it does indeed make the American middle class worse off, we have to do it anyway – because it makes poor Chinese and Indians richer and that’s the moral thing to do!

    This is “limousine-libertarianism” … the wish to feather ones own nest while posing as being morally virtuous.

  21. The open borders position is explicitly racist, and you rarely have to listen to open borders supporters for very long before their viciously anti-white-gentile bias bubbles to the surface.

    • Oh, please, tell us more. Tell me all about my viciously anti-white bias.

      • Tell me more about your campaign to get Israel to open its borders. After all, migration is a “Natural Right”, isn’t it?

        If Country X is populated by “Xians”, and you are pushing a policy explicitly designed to make the “Xians” a minority in country X, then you’re clearly biased against the Xians. Plug in the name of some other people/countries and this becomes clear enough.

      • Israel shouldn’t even exist as a country, though it’s a little late for that. We should have welcomed all of those Jews with open arms to strengthen our country.

        With a properly functioning Constitution, the make up of the populace doesn’t matter.

      • “With a properly functioning Constitution, the make up of the populace doesn’t matter.”

        Such a statement is unmitigated madness born of a profound ignorance of history and human nature,

      • How so? It worked perfectly for the first 100 years. At no time were immigrants a threat to the government of the US. The biggest threat at all times was the people born here.

      • You said earlier, “with the Constitution properly functioning, the population makeup doesn’t matter.”

        That’s demonstrable nonsense. Will the Constitution work in an Islamic land? No, of course not. The culture of a people is absolutely vital. Nice bit of disdain you show for the founder John Adams, who insisted — and quite rightly so — that the Constitution is fit only for the governance of a moral and religious people, and is inadequate for the governance of any other.

        Furthermore, you don’t know your history. The “Great Wave” into the United States brought us our first “anarchists,” Marxists, and Mediterranean-style troublemakers. Had that “wave” never happened, the likes of Wilson would never have been anywhere near the White House.

        Even furthermore, the idea that immigration is a net plus to the United States is even more complete nonsense. Why would you screw your own populace by introducing downward wage pressure? I’ll tell you — cheap labor, and a perpetual underclass that votes Democrat forever. Which is what we’ve got.

      • First, of course it will, if in force. Because those that violated the rights of others would be jailed, and the government wouldn’t be beheading people for being gay or other dumb reasons.

        As far as John Adams, he was a sad and insecure President, unlike Washington, Jefferson, Madison. Even he didn’t try to make immigration illegal.

        And, again, you can’t blame the voters for a Supreme Court that refuses to do its job.

        Do you know that lower wages means lower priced goods and services? You need to stop thinking that money matters. It is productivity.

      • You are a troll. You really should give your meds more time to kick in before you carry on, since you’re making a mess of every comment thread that you pi$$ all over.

      • Don’t b!tch because I’m better at stating the blindingly obvious than you are.

      • Typical leftist nonsense. Presented with a quote from a historical figure, go ahead and trash his character. But at least he didn’t own slaves!

        And yes, I can blame the voters for a Supreme Court that doesn’t do its job. The Court is to protect the Constitution; we wouldn’t have so many fools, Marxists, and traitors on the court were the voters more fully educated.

        If wages are driven downward artificially, that connection you suggest is broken. Haven’t you noticed the funny games that the Feds play with the money supply, the unemployment rate, the CPI, etc..

      • John Adams famously had bad character. He was a great lawyer, but petty and insecure person who passed signed one of the worst laws in the history of the nation. And again, even he didn’t try make an immigration law. Because here is zero authority for it. And less support.

        So your case is that Americans are too stupid to enforce their Constitutions, and that’s why we need to blame immigrants. BRILLIANT.

      • Whatever you want to say about Adams does not change the fact that his statement on the Constitution is absolutely true.

        And the idea that there’s less than zero support for immigration control? Where’s your head been these past two decades?

      • “There was zero authority”. The Founders never even discussed it. They knew that no state would accept that level of dominion over their population, least of all the slave states. That’s why it was and remains unconstitutional for the Feds to involve themselves in it.

      • If you’re going to keep ignoring Article I, Section 8, which gives the Congress the power to establish uniform naturalization laws, then I don’t know how anyone can hold an intelligent discussion with you. I wish you would take your idiotic trolling elsewhere.

      • Okay, define “naturalization”. Now show me the word “immigration”. Why didn’t the Naturalization Laws ever mention immigration? Ever wonder? No, of course you didn’t and now you are feeling intense cognitive dissonance.

        This why “conservatives” are simply to ignorant, too uneducated, too irrational to be entrusted with government or the Constitution anymore.

      • In your view, the American people are utterly powerless to control settlement in their own land. Brilliant. Your “natural law” idiocy will collapse under the weight of the barbarian horde, as it is doing in Europe at this moment.

      • Nice dodge. And clearly, not only do you not understand the Constitution, but you don’t even know the difference between Natural Law and Natural Rights, you ignorant twit. Geesus, Conservatives used to be the smartest people and now they are the dumbest. #winning.

      • Obviously, the practical aspects of human nature are a complete mystery to you. Not only is that the practical result of your idiocy, but the Constitution will cease to exist if you do not exercise discretion over whom you permit to settle. It barely exists now as it is — you invite hordes with no similar traditions, it will be gone permanently in a generation.

      • Again, show me the historical damage done to the Constitution and contrast that with that done by American citizens themselves. In fact, admitting foreigners that can handle basic logic and language may be the only way of saving the Constitution from uneducated Americans.

      • um, when written Naturalization and Immigration had the same meaning (and you could readily argue that they still do). An immigrant who wants to become a citizen goes through the process of…..Naturalization.

      • Bzzzzt. Incorrect. Please provide any proof of this and then when you can’t, I’ll smash it like a bug. Give it your best shot.

      • shut up, Moron. Nobody likes you. Nobody believes the stupid BS you write.

      • You’ve done a great job showing this twit’s ignorance.

      • Naah… he does such a fine job on his own. But thanks. ;-)

      • I strenuously disagree with Adams. All it takes is an ETHICAL society, that understands the golden rule. That’s all it takes. Morality is arbitrary. Religion is beyond arbitrary and actually superstitious. It’s kind of amusing that people who say “oh, no, my religions is first, I’m an American second” lecture me, when I put the Constitution and Natural Rights ahead of everything, especially my personal fantasies about greater powers.

      • All this is arbitrary, and yet you insist on a government based on “natural rights?” Your trolling leaves you less and less coherent with every post.

      • Natural Rights is not arbitrary. It is the product of great minds and extensive reasoning. Beats an imaginary skygod who goes around killing people in floods while saying “thou shalt not kill”. Dumbdeedumbdumb.

      • Great minds and extensive reasoning led to gas chambers. Meanwhile, if your “skygod” were to say “Don’t kill, but I may,” being God, that’s not exactly a contradiction.

      • Well, screw God then. Maybe that’s the basis of conservatism. You get to tell others how to live, but you are exempted. This is why Natural Rights is the foundation of the Constitution and not religion. One is rational, the other is made up crap and traditions from uneducated people.

      • There’s another shining example of your reading comprehension skills. That’s got nothing to do with exempting oneself from laws — which our Congress does all the time, if you’ll note. You should resign your teaching job today, if this is your idea of coherent thought.

      • I see you couldn’t dispute my point about Natural Rights. And Congress has no authority to exempt itself so…..blame yourself.

      • I’m disputing it. You absolutely ignore and leave out and miss the very basis for those natural “unalienable” rights per the Founders. You can’t just cut that out because you don’t like it.

      • I can, because those rights exist either way. God is not required for Natural Rights. it’s why we don’t call them “God’s Rights”.

      • You’re missing, big time, what the Founders believed the source of those “natural rights” is. i.e., our Creator, i.e., God.

      • Wrong. They are conditionally attributed to God, but in fact, they are rights we divined for ourselves and exist with or without the existence of God.

      • ah, so this is really your animus. You have such disdain for religion that anything good done in the name of that religion you will say “nope, not for the religion, just for the ethical good” so that anything that bad happens you can blame that squarely on religion itself. Good to know you disdain people who believe in a higher power.

      • I don’t have disdain for religion, just idiots who think it is more important than ethics or the Constitution.

      • Bingo. Such as I’ve heard atheist leftists (redundant, actually) argue that the Holocaust must be laid at the feet of Christianity because Hitler was, nominally, a Christian. And Stalin as well because he was born Catholic. These people are so incredibly dishonest it’s almost hard to comprehend.

      • We rejected Jews seeking asylum from Hitler and sent them back to their deaths.

      • And they’ve been getting their revenge on us ever since, whether by drawing up the 1965 immigration act that was designed to undermine our political and demographic power (which is succeeding wonderfully), mass-producing culture that attacks our values, or leading the legal charge against our religion and family structure.

      • I’m pro-gentile. If that strikes you as bigoted, then maybe you have a problem with gentiles too.

      • Yep, that is bigoted. Just like BLM is racist. They have a better excuse though.

      • Nothing I said was untrue. You need a better comeback than a scary label, because they will not win your arguments for you.

      • Well, you simply aren’t saying anything of significance. I’ll wait.

      • No, I simply haven’t said anything you have a decent rebuttal for. Because it’s all true.

        Listen, John. You’re in the comments section of an author whose last several articles have been all about lambasting people who throw around words like ‘Nazi’ and ‘bigot’ in lieu of actual substantive arguments. You *have* to come up with a better argument than a bunch of scary labels, because this is the last place you’re likely to impress anyone with them.

      • Sure, bigots don’t like to be called bigots. I understand that. But when you advocate separating people or being “pro” one type of people, then you are just a vulgar asshole.

      • Dude, you don’t get it. It’s not that people on this site don’t like being called bigots, we just don’t care. It doesn’t mean anything to anyone anymore.

        None of your scary words work on people who don’t care what you think about them. Listen to what I’m telling you: you have to have an argument that works on its own merits, because people who don’t care about your opinion of them will not be moved by your ad homs. I know it bugs you, but nothing you’ve said has even remotely upset anyone here.

      • Well, I wouldn’t expect it to that much. The “best” and most dangerous “bigots” are ones that have rationalized their bigotry and feel no shame in it. That’s when they become irredeemable and deplorable. I just like pointing it out, because it’s important.

      • I think you like bringing it up because you have literally no other argument to make.

        You’re an anonymous guy talking to other anonymous people on the internet. You’re going to have to engage the arguments we make or come to accept the fact that your ad homs fall on deaf ears. Can you make an argument? Are you capable of that?

      • The argument is that “conservatives” will break the Constitution for bigotry or hate, every time.

      • That isn’t an argument, that’s an assertion comprised of ad hominems and vague terms, i.e. whatever it means to “break” the Constitution, or “bigotry” or “hate.” I don’t seem to recall there being anything in the Constitution that legally requires “love” (whatever that means) while outlawing “hate” (whatever that means).

      • “I just like pointing it out …”

        Thanks for providing us the view from Mt. Olympus!

      • And just out of curiosity, why does BLM have a better excuse for bigotry?

      • Because of the way the police act towards black people, both criminal and innocent. The incarceration rates, the death rates, etc.

      • The incarceration rates reflect the higher rates at which they commit crimes, not bias in the system. They reflect a system responding appropriately to different groups that behave differently.
        The death rates are entirely self-inflicted. And studies show cops are twice as likely to shoot a white suspect in a tense situation as a black suspect. When police departments make their cops wear cameras, the number of complaints about police brutality decline drastically. Why? Partially because cops are on their best behavior, but mainly because perps can no longer lie about their treatment.

        No part of BLM’s narrative actually reflects reality.

      • As true as that may be, it doesn’t matter to someone who is an innocent minority and is being shaken down by a jackbooted majority asshole. It feels worse than when you’re a white guy getting shaken down. And 200 million white people complaining that some brown people want to move here doesn’t have much validity to it.

      • Yes, he seems blind to the contradiction between natural rights and a utilitarian ‘ethical good’.

        If we’re ‘divining it ourselves’ through rationalistic means then it’s not what is conventionally understood as natural rights.

      • The “natural rights” upon which our founding documents are based are, explicitly, rights endowed by our Creator. So you obviously consider the Founders and Framers of the Declaration and Constitution to be stupid idiots because of their, in general, believe in a “skygod” who bestowed on us unalienable rights.

      • Or “nature”. Nice try. By nature. By birth. Oops. Newbie.

      • If you put the Constitution first, it is impossible for you to also support either Obama or Hillary Clinton. The two are mutually exclusive.

      • That’s why I support Johnson, the only one who cares about the Constitution.

      • “All it takes is an ETHICAL society, that understands the golden rule. That’s all it takes.”

        A) It takes far more than that.
        B) That’ll never happen anyway.
        C) You’re angry because the world doesn’t conform to your pipe-dream ideal. Grow up.

      • Religion has done nothing but keep people separated and has created all kinds of evil in the country. Religion needs to accept free will and tolerance.

      • A) Religion also brings people together.
        B) There’s nothing wrong with separating people.
        C) ‘Religion’ is a vague term that can mean just about anything.
        D) You have a risibly shallow understanding of how religion works (I’m not even Christian and I can see that).

      • That doesn’t even make sense.

        John, you’re griping about the need to unite people, meanwhile you’re just a guy who’s probably typing away at a public library computer in the middle of the day, without a social life. “Uniting” people won’t make your life any better.

        Besides which, “unite” people behind whose banner?

      • Obama is a petty and insecure person, too. He also shoved through one of the worst laws in the history of the nation. And he routinely disregards, ignores and gives the middle finger to the Constitution. I’ll take Adams any day.

      • Adams did the Alien Acts which were roundly ridiculed and almost broke up the country.

      • Rather than educate the American people, let alone anyone else, you just scapegoat immigrants and call it conservativism. That’s why there is no American Greatness left.

      • Pure idiocy. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the definition of “scapegoat.” With so many people unable to separate their own interests from larger questions of policy and principle, one wonders how deep in the United States your roots are.

      • Oh, I know what scapegoat means, and that’s why I chose it. I don’t have “my interests”, I am concerned about returning us to a Natural Rights government. Something modern “conservatives” can’t understand because they are ignorant and indoctrinated.

      • Yeah, white-minority countries are well-known for their natural rights approach to government.

      • Natural Rights, if it is to have an ethnic or regional growth area, is in the latin and African countries. They are embracing the freedoms we have long ago abandoned. The Libre Initiative, the Coherente movement, various independent movements.

      • You are delusional…. those are the areas known for autocratic police-state dictatorships.

      • Sure, and people are rebelling against them. There is going to be extreme evolution over the next 20 years in these countries.

      • They are embracing communist dictatorships in Africa and South America. And they are being murdered by the millions if they disagree with the Leftist thugs running their countries. The cities in S.A. and Africa have the highest violent crime rates in the world and corruption from top to bottom.

      • Nothing changes overnight, but libertarian parties are being formed to combat socialism. Venezuelans are finally waking up to the reality and so are many others.

      • Yeah right. The followers of Ayn Rand, aka Alisa Rosenbaum from Russia are going to change the world…She did do drugs or so I’ve read. Is that your thing?

      • i really wouldn’t know, I don’t know much about her, nor have read any of her books. She hated libertarians.

      • You don’t seem to know much of anything but that doesn’t stop you from spewing out your uninformed views including Ayn Rand hated libertarians…I think Atlas is really shrugging right now.

      • [Question] Why don’t you approve of the Libertarians, thousands of whom are loyal readers of your works?

        [Rand] Because Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people: they plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose, and they denounce me in a more vicious manner than any communist publication, when that fits their purpose. They are lower than any pragmatists, and what they
        hold against Objectivism is morality. They’d like to have an amoral political program.

      • I have never heard that Rand quote. Some of the Libertarians I know of say they got their ideas from Rand and idolize her… Some Libertarians seem to be O.K., but a whole bunch of them are not. Conservative Americans believe the Founders got it right. Libertarians don’t believe that. Rand seems to be more of an old-style atheist who believed in some sort of morals, while the Libertine-arians are against all laws, especially the ones regarding indecent behavior. The Founders were very much for both laws and morals. They didn’t believe a people could be free without Biblical morals. Rand’s married lover Nathaniel Branden AKA Nathan Blumenthal wrote a book about her where he claimed he “created” her and she didn’t do it on her own. Both of them were friends with other Eastern Europeans and supported many of their ideas which were anti-Christian and anti-moral.

      • Actual Libertarians are precisely of the mind of Thomas Jefferson. We do believe they got it right, and that includes open borders.

      • Where did you get the idea that Thomas Jefferson was for open borders?

      • Right. You wouldn’t happen to have a verifiable quote would you?

      • I’ll be glad to quote it. First, admit that you are ignorant and lazy and therefore need people to explain and prove history to you.

      • You can’t quote it so you resort to name calling. But, you make yourself sound totally ignorant so keep replying.

      • You don’t know diddly squat. Your continued misuse of commonly understood terms proves this.

      • “you just scapegoat immigrants and call it conservativism.”
        What person on the right scapegoats immigrants and calls it conservatism? That’s what progressives do. Most Americans just want immigration laws upheld. That’s not conservatism that’s intellectual honesty. Are you dumb or just really naive?

      • Pretty much all of them. They blame them for the lack of jobs, low wages, etc, etc, yet, somehow, that never happened during the 80s or 90s, because the economy didn’t suck because government didn’t suck like it does today.

      • I agree government sucks and it’s largely due to progressive policies.

      • No, like open borders, a Democratic administration using tax payer money to support Islamic terrorism, out of control spending, lies, disinformation and inept progressive policies.

      • We haven’t had open borders for 150 years. Hitler would be proud of us.

      • It’s open under the current administration and in fact the President is sending invitations to break our laws all the time. Hitler was proud of his association with the Democratic party and especially fond of the party’s eugencs program.

      • And now Republicans proudly parrot Democrat policies. Again, you miss the point. We thrived under open borders for 100 years, but then the Chinese started coming and they worked hard and created businesses. And that scared European Americans.

      • False narrative, pal and I don’t miss points if they are made and so far you haven’t made a point.. What open borders? The immigration policies of the 19th and early 20th century allowed immigration through lawful means. Since the 1965 immigration act the borders have been flooded by illegals and this is the fault of Democrat policies. The Chinese were like any other immigrant group they paid their dues and discrimination toward them was a bi-partisan issue, but hardly different from how the Irish, the Italians and any other ethnic group who reached our shores. the Mexicans and the Muslims have been treated differently. Scared Europeans? That’s ignorant.

      • Homogeneity is strength and diversity is weakness. Obviously if America was still 200 million and 90% White, we’d be much better off. But your freedom loving Hebrews wanted a polygot Empire. After all, the weaker we are, the stronger they are.

      • Read Sir John Glubb. Most regimes only last 200-250 years. In Great Civilizations, another regime rises, usually within a hundred years and a few hundred miles away. But when America falls, it falls for good. Far too much diversity. There’s just no there there anymore. Nothing in common. Hopefully Whites can grab a chunk or two for themselves and build America 2.0 – avoiding the mistakes of the last time, like open borders and minorities.

      • It’s not a race, it’s a RELIGION. A system of beliefs… specific ally, a system of beliefs that advocates that the Constitution is a suicide pact for whites.

      • Gimme a break. White people are descended from black people, you dumbass.

      • Gwen…minor correction. The Jews are NOT Hebrews. The Hebrew relig is guided ONLY by the Old Testament, and most significantly the Torah (aka the Pentateuch — the first 5 books of the Bible). JUDAISM is a satanic heresy, which holds “the [Babylonian] Talmud” as SUPERIOR to the Pentateuch…supposedly to “explain” what the Pentetauch means… but most of these “explanations” lead to utterly immoral conclusions. It’s all Hasbara.

      • You are too stupid for this conversation.

        Either that, or you are a pathological liar.

        While we do not have Open Border de jure, we sure as hell do have Open Borders de facto.

      • You’re too racist for this conversation. Black markets find a way, you can’t outlaw natural human behavior successfully. Not ever.

      • ! MILLION plu IT workers out of work… while we have 1.5 Million H1-Bs in IT jobs…many of them ENTRY LEVEL and just-above entry-level… when the H1-B visa law SPECIFICALLY states that the H10B visa is to be used ONLY for people with rarte skills which cannot be found in the U.S.

        And now, recently, McDonalds corporate headquarters fired 80 accountants and replaced them with 80 Indian H1-B accountants — again, in complete violation of the H1-B law…. because H10B law SPECIFICALLY states that the law shall not EVER be used to replace an already-employed American worker — if the person is working for you, then you HAVE found the talent you’re looking for, and have absolutely NO NEED for an H1-B visa employee with “unobtainable tant or skills”

      • H1-B visas create jobs in the US for the lesser intelligent and lesser skilled. That’s the facts.

      • Do you know how many IT jobs are being created around the world? People need to think globally. Americans are putting up IT all over and they need people.

      • The laws of supply and demand work regardless of individuals. Smearing people for “blaming immigrants” because they want to limit the extent of low-skilled immigration into an economy that no longer rewards low skilled labor with high real wages is as fair as smearing them for “blaming immigrants” for the force of gravity.

        The laws of supply and demand work regardless of blame, and they prove that we do have not have a shortage of low-skilled work for well over 30 years.

      • For a while, I was working, basically, as a glorified garbage man at a local mall. EVERY morning the number of dirty diapers left in the parking lot was appalling. I can tell you EXACTLY where they came from… Middle Eastern, Mexican and Central American women. I’ve SERVED in the army in those regions, and that’s how they behave… Don’t want something… just drop it on the ground. How can you tell if a ghetto neighborhood has been taken over by Mexican who have pushed out the blacks? DIRTY DIAPERS all over the streets.

        These people are utterly UNCIVILIZED, and do not belong here.

      • Wow, you can just smell a diaper and know the race of the person that left it. THAT IS AMAZING!!!!

      • If we are all immigrants, as people of your persuasion are fond of saying, then Trump is not “scapegoating” immigrants but a couple narrow subsets of immigrants. America has the same right to vet immigrants as other countries. Our country is too precious to become a giant homeless shelter. You are the bigot in that you think our mainly Anglo-Saxon culture has no value, no distinctiveness, no right to preserve itself, but I bet you sympathize with the minorities having their cultural festivals and history months.

      • That’s the problem when you think some people have fewer and lesser rights than others based on stupid, bigoted reasons.

      • Of course John hasn’t noticed. He hasn’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.

      • Mass immigration, like all forms of population growth, most certainly does not make housing (aka land) cheaper. Never has, never will.

      • And that is often offset by less expensive building methods, less expensive labor, more apartment buildings. Do you know we have millions and millions of unused apartments and housing units, capable of handing tens of millions of immigrants?

      • I don’t know where you are, but in Minnesota, our vacancy rate for apartments is less than 1% and renting a room (just a room, not even an actual apartment) is generally $600/month. We also have a negative inventory of starter homes (100,000-160,000), so i’m not sure where these millions of units are, but certainly not anywhere that i’ve ever lived.

      • Well, that’s not the norm for the country, look it up.

      • Poor guys. I pay $2200/month to rent “just a room, not even an actual apartment”.

      • i feel for you. Makes me wonder even more where all of John’s millions of vacant apartments and homes are. If they existed, it would lower the average price for everyone, which is sorely needed.

      • Vegas? Two years ago I was renting a 4br house with a quarter acre for $1200 in PA. National housing supply doesn’t really have much to do with local markets.

      • You basically want the country to be overrun. Yup, I get it. You’re evil and anti-American. You’re a traitor, you ingrate.

      • NO. HOusing costs are most definitely NOT offset that way. Just look at trends in housing costs in tUS consumers’ budgets. Housing costs have continued to climb since at least the 1960s. You fail to understand the basics of supply and demand. The great bulk of housing costs are certainly NOT the building costs and labor! They are the LAND costs, which RISE with demand (i.e. population increase). That is why a very large, extremely well-built mansion in a rural area can cost a small fraction of a tiny, extremely chearply built cottage in an urban area with a growing population. That’s why you may depreciate the cost of the built structure, but you may not typically, depreciate the value of the land it is built on.

      • Sure, if the demand goes up, then the market will react to bring that cost back down. That’s why there was such a massive correction in home prices, despite the artificial bubble. The demand was artificial. We actually have enough free housing for 25,000,000 people right now.

      • But that cheap (it’s never free) is housing not where the jobs are by and large and so this trend is helping the bottom very little. Otherwise the percent of US consumers’ incomes needed for housing (and related transportation costs which are largely a form of housing costs) would not be so high relative to what it was to the forty to thirty years ago. When we see a real moderation long term of housing costs to American budgets then we can declare the problem solved, but we aren’t there yet, if we ever will be.

        The trends in housing costs have been unfavorable for the bottom third to half (essentially anyone who cannot earn enough to own outright) over the last 35 years or so. Rising housing costs are part of the cost of mass immigration (in addition to the net fiscal costs already noted by the other commentators) which special interests keep glossing over with their simplistic argument that immigration keeps all costs low. It most certainly does not keep housing prices low which are a far larger part of most peoples budgets than the tiny amount they save on say produce from underpriced farm labor. Tere needs to be more honesty about who benefits most from rising housing prices due to immigration, and a cessation to smearing everyone opposed to current or higher levels of low-skilled immigration as simply “anti-immigrant” or “racist” etc.

      • Madison? Oh you mean that genius who went to war the largest military empire on Earth and got the our freshly built Capital burned to the ground?

      • John it isn’t “in force” for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, is it?

      • “I will work harder.” (If you haven’t read “Animal Farm,” catch up on your education. it’s nice and short.)

      • I really don’t care if some dick on the internet likes me or not.

      • You moron, at that time, we NEEDED immigrants, lest the French in the Mississippi valley and Mexico take the land from us. Once Jefferson accomplished the Louisiana Purchase, we needed MORE people to settle that land, to protect it from being taken by the British up in Canada, and the French down in Mexico.

        NONE of those immigrants came here with their hand out, begging for welfare. All they wanted was a place where they could farm their own land (not somebody elses), and build, with their own hands, their own houses (rather than renting from some parasitical lord of the so-called nobility. And none of them took money out of the economy by sending it via Western Union to their parents back where they left from..

      • We still need immigrants. And we also need less regulation and rules about hiring so we can get to 100% employment. Blame the government if someone is out of a job, not immigrants. Immigrants create jobs because they pass the money they earn on right to another American. Unless you won’t allow them to bring their families, in which case, they send the money out of the country, because black markets have negative side effects, dummy.

      • All of the first Presidents stated the same thing Adams did about being a moral people and that meant Christian to them. All the Leftist garbage we have in the country didn’t happen on a Federal level until after WWII. Then they started getting rid of Christianity in the name of diversity. We hear the same garbage out of the Left today.

      • Right, but that is because Republicans always adopt and grow the unconstitutional librul agenda in the end.

      • Yes, both political parties have been infected with Leftism. Some of the Democrats are out and out Socialists and Communists. The Republicans who go along with the Democrats get their money from the same crony-Capitalists as the Democrats and are materialists just like the ones on the Left.

      • The extension of your logic can be seen in Israel today, with the slow kill off of the Palestinian population to promote a more religiously/racially pure citizenry. Only thing that should sound familiar, it cost us Americans 418,500 lives to eradicate that scourge from the earth. Are you suggesting we need to do that again here in America?

      • Here in the United States, I haven’t suggested we do anything for the moment apart from using our brains to formulate immigration policy and see to it that it serves the interests of American citizens.

        As far as Israel goes, the ones killing off the “Palestinians” are other “Palestinians” and Arabs. Many religions and ethnicities live in relative peace in Israel, but Jews are not permitted to settle in nearby lands without fear of official violence.

      • ‘For the moment?’…ill give you the benefit of the doubt. Yes we do need to reform an immigration policy that serves our interests, values, history, and is constitutional. Anything outside of that is on the scrap heap of history and we will keep it there through our vote.
        I guess you mean like Americans kill Americans everyday, but this is not the same as leaders discussing a public policy to preserve the national identity through means of settlement and control that repeats the scourge that the world defeated and as a result created Isreal. We, and I believe a clear voting majority agree – although there is a very vocal minority who don’t -, will not have our nation reform immigration policy that proposes to keep America ‘cleansed’ of humanity that are here because their parents broke the law or not allowed in because they don’t speak, look, pray, love or vote like current citizens want them too.

      • Since your post sounds to me, anyway, like a combination of race-baiting and hysterics, I’ll just let this go for now. But, I will say that Americans — and indeed, citizens of every country — have the absolute right to keep out non-citizens on any basis they wish. Absolute, no right of appeal, full stop. If we through our representatives choose to keep out persons from one place or another, or of one religion or another, then that’s hard cookies.

      • Yes thats right – vote we will see where we are at.

      • Of course they and we do. There is no meaning of “country” or “nation” without borders controlled by the national populace.

      • Those other lands also persecute Christians, routinely. No complaints from OhSayCanYouSee there, you’ll note.

      • Brother, it’s almost futile to argue with John Ash. He is demonstrably ignorant and a DNC/Leftist talking points machine. The DNC talking points will continue. What a shame we have so many citizens who despise this country. Also known as Obama and Hillary voters.

      • It’s because you have no brain. You put forth nonsense and disinformation like an Islamic terrorist creates chaos through suicide bombers. You make nothing more than two-faced political arguments intended to inflame rather than drive thoughtful commentary. trolls like you are amusing for your lack of knowledge and contempt for the truth.

      • No, that’s you, because you don’t understand the Constitution.

      • Your contempt for the truth and the american people demonstrates no intimate knowledge of the constitution. So, I understand the constitution much better than you, chump.

      • The Constitution would have a better chance of working with Muslims than most people. They have honor and courage, believe in God and family, and rightly condemn people who treat sex as a recreation to be indulged in with strangers with no attached commitment. One of the great ironies of the Project for a New American Century is that conservatives end up vilifying people whose mores are just a stricter version of the mores they have been defending against the “progressive” hedonists for decades. I agree with you about the perpetual underclass that votes Democratic, but, as Hitler demonstrated, ignorant masses can sometimes be turned around. Which is why the left fears what it calls ‘populism.’

      • They have honor and courage, believe in God and family, and rightly
        condemn people who treat sex as a recreation to be indulged in with
        strangers with no attached commitment.

        All true. The thing is, they’ll be the first to tell you that Sharia isn’t compatible with any Western law tradition; violations of those laws (as opposed to mere mores in the west) earns you a trip to the rope at the end of a crane; and while those things are vitally necessary for a healthy free society, those are — as I’m sure you well understand! — hardly sufficient on their own.

      • In America, prostitution is illegal, and homosexuality was illegal until recently. The prohibition against ‘cruel or unusual punishments’ would likely preclude the death penalty for adultery, but not for rape or pedophilia. I strongly doubt Islam favors the death penalty for all violations of sharia. Now, with regard to adultery and homosexuality, I doubt the death penalty would be applied more than rarely. Of course when it is applied the neocons give it front page coverage. Christianity has its share of fanatics and we used to burn witches. Stalin used to execute train conductors for failing to get their trains to run on time. So I am not sure these isolated instances of lynching sexual offenders are more than outliers that give openings to neocon war propagandists. Supposedly there are many thousands of prostitutes in Teheran. If the government’s policy were to behead adulterers that would not be the case. btw in parts of Israel where the Orthodox hold sway there are laws against wearing bikinis, driving on the Sabbath, and so on, and outsiders who flout them have rocks hurled at them, according to the CIA fact book.

      • Just how young are you? There were internment camps for the Japanese and Germans during WWII and we didn’t let them immigrate here while the war was ongoing. We had Ellis Island where new immigrants were quarantined to prevent illnesses from spreading, where their backgrounds were checked before they were allowed into the general populace. Our government has gotten more stupid instead of smarter when it comes to immigration.

      • How young are you, because before all that, immigrants were 100% free to come and go as they pleased without any hassle from the Federal government. Because why? Because it’s not a delegated power of theirs.

      • Can you show me immigration power in the Constitution? No, you can’t. What does the 10th Amendment say about that?

      • Yeah, and the internment camps are now considered a disgraceful episode in our history.

      • Quite intentionally so, so as to boost Democrat voting (legal and fraudulent) numbers.

      • do you understand what happened after those first 100 years as to why it isn’t working as it should any longer? The Champion of Progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, decided that the constitution isn’t an outline of what power belongs to the federal government, but rather only what powers specifically are not. He literally destroyed the 10th amendment without any legal basis, and said anything not specifically prohibited to the federal government is and should be the purview of the federal government. Since then, we’ve just expanded and expanded the scope to the point where they now have considered it legal to require every citizen to buy a product or be punished by the government.

        Bring back the 10th amendment and return anything not specifically designated to the federal government in the constitution back to the states, and we might take a step in the right direction. Even better would return the senators to being selected by state governments so that they will fight for states rights instead of money, and we’ll actually make a little progress.

      • You really took your commie professors’ bleatings seriously, didn’t you? Wow.

      • “It worked perfectly for the first 100 years.” Have you ever read about slavery or the civil war? Early immigration in America was encouraged so that the Spanish, French, and British could not colonize and control Florida, the Mississippi Valley, and the entirety of the west. As this necessity diminished, immigration policy changed to reflect the times as it is changing today.

      • Patently false and ignorant. The worst policy of the last half of the 20th century was the Immigration act of 1965 even worse than Wade vs. Roe. It was based on a lie and has been a source of deceit and dishonesty ever since cementing the notion that Democrats are in the same league of liars and deceivers as the greatest totalitarians of the last century.

      • How about the fact that the “properly functioning Constitution” no longer exists PRECISELY because the Jews who you advocate for so much are the ones who constantly argue that the Constitution does NOT mean what it says.

        By the way, ISREAL has not existed since around 800 BC. All that exists now is Judea….and even though they now have a reclaimed Judea (misnamed Isreal) to go back to… the vast majority refuse to do so..

      • Funny, you’re an anti-semite that can’t spell Israel.

      • Immigrants from England or western Europe are fine. The problems began when the big corporations started recruiting the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Uneducated and illiterate in English, it was nice that they were able to come here and many, such as the Poles, turned into patriots, but others turned into crime gangs or welfare cases. You can’t have democracy if the masses don’t give a damn and are too ignorant to vote intelligently. We have a CULTURE which undergirds our national life and its maintenance should not be taken for granted. I’m not saying diversity cannot be a source of strength but too much diversity and we get the present situation with plutocrats using the media to confuse and manipulate the masses. “Divide and rule.”

      • I think you hold the now-commonplace view that what is called racism and bigotry is factually and morally erroneous. That is a kind of provincialism on your part. In the future what looks like settled dogma to you will be overturned. Does the public not have a right to preferences with regard to the competence and cultural orientation of people who are allowed into the country? Why not?? Are you saying you would be happy with America allowing 500 million South Americans into the US? If not where do you draw the line and on what basis? I draw the line on the basis of whether the applicants would serve our national purposes, which include altruism but also include the preservation of a culture of freedom and Judeo-Christian values as they are called (which values are sometimes better instantiated by people outside these traditions.) What criteria do YOU propose?

      • No, because it strips people of their rights, which is anti-American, anti-Constitutioanl, and anti-Christian.

      • As well as born of a no-doubt lengthy indoctrination by the Left.

      • Hahaha. Tell that to Liberians. You do understand that it’s the people, not the constitution, that makes the constitution “function,” right?

      • And? Conservatives have not only failed spectacularly in upholding the Constitution, but they willfully deviate from it. And then claim that “oh, my, if we let in immigrants, they will destroy the Constitution”. It’s intellectually retarded.

      • hey retard, we actually like having our own country

        i know, surprising

      • But it was stolen from others. And that has lead to 60 years of bloodshed.

      • oh please. “stolen from others”. We had a fair amount of land to ourselves, they all tried to kill us simultaneously, and we beat them back. Israel still repping as one of the smallest countries in the world with no real natural resources to speak of, by the by. Now Palestine suckles at our teat while shooting missiles at us.

        Israel exists because I for one want a country where me and my people are put first. America is great, love it, and I can only hope Americans realise the same thing. Trump 2016.

      • Isreal exists because we (the US) support it. You guys would have been gone long ago without our help.

      • please see the 6 days war. Israel enjoys our help, but its existence is not reliant on it. Perhaps in 1949, but not in 2016

      • Every single country on earth was, at some point, “stolen from others.” That’s how countries are formed and are settled – by the victors. You may not like it because it’s harsh, and it’s not warm and fuzzy, but it’s the truth.

      • And my point is that it was ‘stolen from others’ in an entirely legitimate way.

      • So you are saying the only thing that separates Argentina and Brazil from the US is our Constitution? All three countries were founded by European settlers who revolted against their foreign masters, all three imported both unwilling immigrants (aka African slaves) and willing European immigrants, and all three slaughtered and displaced their indigenous peoples. Were they too dumb or too proud to simply adopt our Constitution? Is it too late for them now?

      • I live in California. All the “invitees” here don’t understand or care about the constitution. And their votes allow the democrats stamp on it daily.

        Expect that as the future after you invite in several more tens of millions. It ain’t pretty.

      • Ignore him. When the Muslims, who are a patient lot, are the majority, we can see how much he likes Sharia Law. If he lives that long being an infidel.

      • Ah, there is the rub. ‘properly functioning Constitution’…liberals believe the Constitution is a living organism, ever changing with the times. That was NOT how it was written. If it was, there would have been no need for Amendments, just reinterpret for the times and leave it at that. But there is a path for Amendments, albeit a difficult one, so that it wouldn’t be changed on a whim. Especially the whim of a president who prefers end-arounds rather than engaging Congress.The makeup of the populace, does indeed matter. If it didn’t, why the sudden push to get as many new immigrants sworn in BEFORE the election? Why such an abnormal rush? If the populace doesn’t matter, why the push to turn illegals into voting citizens BEFORE those that are patiently waiting in line?

      • And when have the Republicans defended the Constitution? The answer is….NEVER. From the beginning, Republicans believed that the 10th Amendment was optional, that the US was a nation, not a republican federation, that “national interests” are more important, that war was the solution, etc, etc, etc.

        The Constitution would be FAR safer if we got rid of all Republicans and replaced them with immigrants.

      • you’re a moron and know nothing of history. It was Wilson who really opposed the 10th and argued that those powers not specifically prohibited by the constitution were the purview of the federal government. That, John, was the death of the 10th, not anything Republicans ever thought about it.

        And as a usual progressive who believes he is better than everyone else, you advocate for the death of everyone who doesn’t share your political philosophy. As usual, that is very inclusive and tolerant of you.

      • Oh, please, the assault has its basis in things done by Lincoln and others. The 1875 Page Act was patently unconstitutional. The attack on the Constitution was started in earnest with Republican nationalists.

      • The Republicans are the ONLY party to believe in the 10th Amendment. The Dems believe ANY & EVERY power is delegated to the Dem Party. The states have NOTHING to say except if granted to them, not by the Constitution, but by THE DEMS, and only THE DEMS.If you got rid of ALL REPS then who would pay for all those free government handouts? Hollywood? The Liberal Elite? Surely not all those taxpayers who pay NO taxes, especially the poor, and, according to Kaine, do NOT support the military, the teachers, the police, the firefighters, etc.

      • Okay, then show me the delegated authority over drug use and immigration. Or a standing national army. Or NASA. Or the Air Force. Or the NSA, FBI, etc. Thanks.

      • Bizarre assertion. So you believe the mindset and culture of the people arriving is unimportant, trivial, meaningless, as long as there’s a “functioning Constitution?” What does that mean? How does a Constitution “function” if not via the voluntary compact between its citizens who are steeped in, respect and observe its fundamental principles?

      • Making a comment like that seems to support the same logic that you shouldn’t exist as a human being.

        Did it enter your mind that some Jews may not have wanted to live here and have a life goal of some higher purpose than your own?

        “With a properly functioning Constitution, the make up of the populace doesn’t matter.”

        Whenever a Progressive cannot make a valid argument they point to the very document they hate. There is a reason why the notion that progressives have a contempt for the truth and the american people as it jumps out in your commentary.

      • Sure, Jews should have been able to live anywhere, but we should have specifically offered them all a place to live. They would have added immensely to our wealth. It would have added up to $300B to our GDP and it only is 8 million people. We have more than enough housing for them right now. But sure, they never needed to go to make a new country and kick out Palestinians.

      • More progressive theories and speculation based on false assumptions. Nice.

        Constantinople was a magnificent city and it never needed the Ottoman Turks to destroy it and kick out the Greeks. what’s your point moron?

      • You’re not arguing against my point, you’re just spewing.

      • You didn’t make a point you just spewed opinion and left wing anti-
        Semite talking points.

      • Have any other countries that you feel that way about? Pakistan, for example, which was created at the same time?

      • If you are for the introduction of an acid to the thing you want to preserve, then you are an idiot. You are an idiot.

      • “With a properly functioning Constitution, the make up of the populace doesn’t matter.”
        Liberia has the exact same constitution as the United States, you absolute idiot.

      • bahahahaha What a joke! Liberia has an identical constitution but it’s just as fucked up as the rest of Africa. Genetics matter, culture matters, race matters.

      • And why has the Constitution increasingly been used AGAINST the American public, starting with the arrival of all those Jews? A document which was created to PROTECT the public from the government and most specifically, the bureaucracy.

      • Please. Your anti-semitism is transparent and pathetic.

      • Typical communist swill. People are interchangable drones

      • Please. Everyone wants the same thing. A safe place and future for their families. World wide.

      • Nothing communist about inviting refugees into your country. It’s the opposite of that.

      • To strengthen our country by promoting the same Bolshevism here they promoted in Europe (and promoted here as best they could)? Don’t mean to be cynical or sound like a bigot but the Communist movement is as Jewish as lox and bagels, though most of the facts are buried. I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and I can tell you Trotsky was more popular than Ike. The idea of a Jewish homeland is a good one for reasons explained by Churchill in his article (which is online), though they could have gone about it more tactfully. The British were feeling desperate and made contradictory promises and basically screwed the Palestinians.

      • Your idea of an argument is to attach a label. I see nothing wrong with being racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, sexist, homophobic — what have I left out? If a group is going to make political demands as a group and in view of its having a distinctive status of some sort, such as having been wronged by some other group, it is perfectly fair to review its claims and dispute them or make counter-claims if warranted. Statistically speaking, blacks commit a lot of crimes and Jews are left-wing. If you deny that there are unchallengeable statistics to prove you wrong. I suspect you would happily endorse negative generalizations about Baptists or Muslims or Catholics or NRA members, or what-have-you, so long as they are taken as generalizations and not as true of every member of the group.

      • Most humans are racist according to the left. But a lot of humans see something wrong with throwing around these labels in lieu of an argument. Why should white people put up with being blamed for everything? Why shouldn’t they turn around and point the accusing finger at some other group?

      • That comment sums you up. You want to conform. You have no idea what the reasoning behind your opinions is, you just know they are considered “politically correct” and that’s good enough for you.

      • Here’s one you’ll like.

        The word ‘racist,’ as defined by you all on the left, is itself inherently racist.

      • I am not a leftist and I use the word “racist” correctly.

      • Judging by your behavior here, neither part of that statement is true.

      • Or your self-awareness is. In any case, the consensus around here is that you’re socially retarded, and all your replies are bearing that out.

      • If that what makes you feel better. At least I understand the Constitution.

      • I don’t think you’re explicitly anti-white. I just think you have such an open mind, your brains fell out.

      • Yeah, keep telling yourself that ace. See if that makes you feel better. Tell you what, empty head, you pay for these illegal immigrants if you’re so keen on having them here. Better still, invite three or four to live with you and your mom. You’re too much of a panty-waste to have a wife.

      • No, seriously. You idiotic libs are always real generous with other people’s money. Tell your Mommy you want to have a dozen or so move in with you….

      • There’s no arguing with people like you. If you think that 3,000+ years of ethical evolution within wildly different social groups around the earth are all a fairy-tale, I have a “bring democracy to…” war to sell you. You don’t have to dislike other ways, you have to merely understand that they are different and–to the extent we import hundreds of thousands (rather than the odd individual), we are importing their deeply-rooted ethics as well, which are often incompatible with ours.

        Some mentalities, cultures and the systems of government that come with them are endemic of certain social groups. Period. You can’t wish this truth away. Magic-dirt theory has been proven to be sheer insanity, as have been the aforementioned “democratizing” wars. That’s what our Fathers understood instinctively (back then, it was considered common-sense, as quaint as it may sound today). That’s why they understood that importing entire POPULATIONS from alien cultures would have been destructive to the fabric of America. QED.

      • Thanks for your display of bigotry, you continue to prove my point.

      • 1 MILLION+ IT workers on unemployment, or worse, have fallen off of unemployment, all so that we the managerial class can employ 1 million barely-competent Indians and Pakistanis.
        (ANd believe me, having worked with H1-B types from the Indian Subcontinent, they display all the creativity of a rock…. And this in a field where creativity is DEMANDED, because nearly every problem is new in someway, or else the problem is fixed through automated scripting, so that in the future, when the problem arises, the computer detects and fixes the issue before it even becomes a noticable problem. No, the Indian and Pakistani way is to do things by hand… just like back home, where their 5,000+ year old civilization has still not discovered the secrets of indoor plumbing and running water — which the Roman civilization accomplished in less than 500 years — and living in the SAME sort of mountainous terrain which is the key to the Roman aqueduct system.

        The Japanese exhibit a GREAT ability to copy, and miniaturize. The Chinese and adequate ability toe copy. The Pakis and Indians haven’t even figured out how to copy 2500 year old technology…. and yet the managers are turning over the country’s high-tech infrastructure to these technologically barely-literate carpet baggers at the expense of the people who built it.

      • You idiot, we don’t hire those people because they are cheap and barely competent, but because they are better than the Americans seeking those jobs. My brother in law is now a highly paid American citizen who beat out other Americans for the job. Sucks to come in second, I guess.

    • I wouldn’t say it’s anti white racism, but more of the being bankrolled by the donor class corruption.

      • Silicon Valley pretenders favor hiring the technology equivalent of cheap lawn care workers for their firms further killing the technical prowess once found in the United States, but not much anymore.

    • If you live in a country where you can be arrested for fishing without a license…but not for entering that country illegally…it’s safe to say that country is run by idiots.

      • You can definitely be arrested for entering the country without papers and spend months in a detainment facility. But the states have the legal authority to arrest you for fishing, the Feds have no authority to arrest immigrants.

      • I think you need to proofread your last sentence. It makes no sense. The Feds say only they have the authority to arrest illegals.

      • The Feds do not make it a habit to arrest illegals and when they do, they are told to let them go. Even murderers… You need a license to fish, and if you don’t conform to the state rules while fishing, you will get a ticket by an armed fish and game officer and if you have a problem with that, you will get arrested and put in jail.

      • That’s what Sam Francis called “anarcho tyranny”. I prefer not to see it as idiocy, but malice.

      • It is a form of racism or cultural genocide, not on the part of the immigrants but on the part of the politicians who want to see whites become a minority, thinking this will facilitate the destruction of the traditional Christian culture. It could blow up in their face though, since most Mexicans are Christians and they don’t give a poop about the Holocaust, nor are they great admirers of Dr. King.

      • Most Mexicans aren’t Christian. Mexico is a socialist country and few people are Christian. Ditto for all of South America. According to Pew, whites will be a minority in America in twenty years. First we will have more Hispanics and then more Asians… and it is about the destruction of traditional Christian culture.

      • According to Pew, 81% of Mexicans identify as Catholics, 18% as Protestants, and 7% say they have no affiliation. Mexican Americans are more secular, with 17% unaffiliated. So either the secular ones come here (younger males) or coming here makes you more secular or both. Socialist societies differ in their attitude to the non-economic stuff.
        http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/08/on-religion-mexicans-are-more-catholic-and-often-more-traditional-than-mexican-americans/

      • Half of the priests in Mexico are not Christians. I guess it depends on your idea of what a Christian is. Socialist societies are hostile to Christians and persecute them almost as much as Communist societies, as we are seeing in this country. So you want the mass immigration of anyone and everyone as long as it is from Mexico. You would love California.

      • I am not a fan of socialism or capitalism. Pre-modernity seems preferable. But why do you say these priests are not Christians? Do they believe the Nicene Creed?

      • Do you mean post-modernism? Why do you bring up a subject you know nothing about? You were talking about Mexicans being potentially great citizens of America due to their being Christian. Their version of Christianity is not the same as an American’s. They know it and you should as well. Many Catholic priests are known for their views and actions on Social Justice, a non-Christian heresy. Post-modernism is re-wrapped Marxism. We have a long history of fighting with Mexico. Now we have a breach of the border which is allowing drugs and illegals to stream in. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has a site with news you can view, plus you can see videos of illegal border crossers on the net… Have you ever heard of La Rasa, Paulo Freire, Aztlan or heard of all the Socialists in the Democratic Party, some of whom are Mexican-Americans? I live in the Southwest and run into Lefty Mexicans and some other bad actors from there more often than I would wish. They are into politics and can be seen regularly on TV in anti-American protests.

      • First of all I meant pre-modernity e.g. monarchism. A constitutional monarchy with a pre-industrial society seems preferable to what we have now in many ways. I was speaking somewhat facetiously. I am familiar with post-modernism, though I am not an expert on it. As for the Mexicans I am sure that SOME priests are as you say. I have heard of Friere and that crowd. I know that the drug imports are a problem though I suspect there are some high-ups in America facilitating the process. We really should invade Mexico: a nation willing to invade any country that makes Israel nervous but unwilling to clean house next door is behaving oddly. The drug gangs are more powerful than the government and need to be wiped out. Just don’t look for support to big banks like HSBC that make profits laundering drug money.Getting back to the clergy, I am not sure you can judge the religious sentiments of the rank and file on the basis of what is fashionable among the clergy. I don’t object to mild socialism since capitalism is now in the hands of shadowy forces. The cultural Marxism you rightly object to is probably not a big enthusiasm for most Latin Americans immigrants. I think they would be more likely to whistle at a pretty girl than the average American at this point!

      • A pre-modern society is also Marxist. That is his Utopia. F. Engels in “Origins” makes the case for Marx that we should go back even further to barbarian days. The 1450s seem for many educated people to be the start of Modernity. What do you like about pre-modernity? A lack of sanitation, no electricity, illiteracy, having kings and queens rule over you, poor nutrition and in general, a short and brutal life? …As for Mexico, when we had our big war with them, the generals asked those in Washington if we should take Mexico City and they said not to. Because we couldn’t expect to get them to become part of the American culture. The Mexicans already in the U.S. were different in their attitudes and beliefs… In Mexico their final revolution was a Socialist one, and now they have a socialist government and that is their big problem and they seem to be fine with it. They’ve had Christian persecution. We gave up on trying to change them. The Democrats of today want them here Because they do not understand or appreciate the Anglo-American culture which was set up here. I happen to live in the Southwest and know quite a bit about Mexicans and Mexican Americans and their politics and religion. And, some of my Anglo ancestors came to the S.W. in the early 1800s and even fought in the Texas Revolution. So, I’ve long been interested in this topic and have studied it more than most, plus I’ve had personal experiences as well.

      • Who argues that the modern period starts in the 1450s? I guess ‘modern’ can mean different things. As for Marx’s view of pre-modernity it certainly wasn’t egalitarian or free from religion so I don’t know why he would see it as a state to strive for. All the technological advances you mention are off topic. I was commenting about my preference for the political and spiritual characteristics of pre-modernity. You could argue that no technological progress can occur without soul-deadening modern attitudes and lifestyles, but it’s a hard case to make and in the end I might prefer to do without video games in order to have better family relationships. I don’t want to bring a lot of Mexicans in but I’m just saying the are not the worst people you could bring in.

      • Technological advances are a gigantic part of what makes modern civilization different than what came before… You sure don’t want to talk about reality. You want some romantic utopian world and then deny that’s what you want. People had hard brutal lives due to the politics and lack of spiritual characteristics in pre-modern times. Ditto, the people in Mexico today. SOCIALISTS want to bring Mexicans in and SOCIALISTS have changed America into the anti-Christian place it is today, just like they have in European nations. I’m not a socialist and I’m against immigration done in order to further change American culture, which is what is being done. We are purposefully bringing in people from all over the world who do not understand or agree with basic Anglo structures, political or otherwise. We have a war on America perpetrated by the Leftists in Washington and the immigrant situation is part of it. Even the diversity textbooks used in the U.S. today are anti-American and anti-Christian. The textbooks are particularly anti-Christian family and pro unwed-motherhood. They even state women having children out of wedlock is a type of family on the same level as a married couple in a Christian home and maybe even superior to it, just as Engels did in the book mentioned above.

      • It’s unfair to give modern ways of thinking about politics or religion credit for technological advance. And a sincere Christian cannot put material advances above spirituality. I agree with the rest of what you say. Can you mention the name of one of these textbooks or an article that talks about them?

      • Do you want the truth or some kind of lies about modern civilization? You can’t have both. In 1453 the Turks (Muslims) cut off all the trading routes to the Orient causing people like Columbus to figure out other ways of going to the East. The second thing in the 1450s, Gutenberg’s Bible was printed opening up knowledge for all, based on the Bible. Most people don’t know these two things, and they are generally not taught in schools today. Modern Civilization is Western European Christian (nearly all Protestant) Civilization. It didn’t happen anywhere else and the entire culture was changed…Now the Left is “changing” it for the worse. Here’s only one of many thousands of books where they teach that everything the Anglos did in America was wrong and the Leftist garbage around today is right: “School and Society, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,” 2006, editor in Chief: Emily Barrosse. McGraw-Hill Co. This book is nothing but propaganda… In the 1940s a decree by Pres. Truman on higher education started the ball rolling on getting Christianity out of the schools and secular humanism in. His decree can be found and read on the net, but be aware there are shorter versions of it and explanations which are incorrect. The decree also states we are a democracy not a republic, which is not how we were founded but is a Leftist idea. In the 1950s our government allowed some communists to write a book “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives,” which taught teachers non-Christian educational objectives. This book is often called “Bloom’s Taxonomy.” Robert J. Marzano also wrote Leftie teaching books… There are more laws and decrees, etc., like getting prayer out of the schools. The Left today wants pornography in the schools and it’s there. But they still show up to school board meetings crying “book burning!” in schools where they won’t have it. And the latest appointed Librarian to Congress is known for bringing pornography into the libraries. Thanks for asking!

      • Thank you for the references. If I were wealthy I would try to put together a collection of leftists textbooks and generally set up a database on leftism. Conservative object to this thing or that but what’s needed is to put it all together, write up an indictment, and demand action from those politicians who want our support. It’s one thing to support the lesser evil, but social conservative throw their support to neocons who plan to deliver absolutely nothing in return. In fact, behind our backs the “big donors” blackball pro-life candidates like Jack Kemp.

      • The big donors support the Democratic Party and RINOs. The crony capitalists make big money doing whatever the Leftists in the government want. They are all totally corrupt. And, you’re right, there seems to be no organized opposition. But, there is some. Whenever anyone starts something like the Tea Party they are vilified and are not supported like they should be. And, many on the right are for homosexual marriage, legalization of pot, and whatever else the Democrats are for. And yes, they teach filth in the schools and go naked in gay pride parades but feign offense at Trump’s language. The Left decided a long time ago that they would take over America by changing it socially. They’ve infiltrated all the institutions and they are now the establishment. The idea that they are for helping the poor is just part of their propaganda. I like your idea of collecting Leftist books and putting a database on the net. Often you can find books there already, if you know where to look, some of them posted by the Communists and Socialists themselves. They tell all on their sites. The atheists have sites and videos as well. They are horrible, nasty people and sell themselves as great… I don’t know much of anything about Jack kemp and his run for office.

      • David Frum says in his 90s book Dead Right that Kemp, very popular and likable, would never be president because the big donors didn’t like his pro-life stance. What if the big donors favored kicking out the blacks. Would the GOP be for that too? … The only way to fight a taboo is to break it. That’s where conservatives fall down. They don’t break the left’s thought and speech taboos (at least not intentionally) and if one does the others condemn him as often as they defend him. And that is because the media right are all shills more or less. Even someone like Alex Jones knows better than to cross swords with certain interests.
        Anti-leftism could catch on if we had more and better role models. Trump’s appeal is partly that he is such a role model, refusing to apologize, etc.

      • It’s very important IMO to propagate the attitude: We do not hope to convince you, we hope to defeat you. It is not necessary to convince everybody. And never apologize for ‘offending’ leftists. I think it’s right to apologize if you hurt someone’s feelings but not if you ‘offend’ them because conservatives put up with being offended every time they turn on the TV.

      • Conservatives are offended every time they turn on the TV or use the net, or even when out shopping by hearing and seeing some of the stuff going on around them.

      • The PRI are not Socialists, they just call themselves that for cred. They are corpratist third-way politics, heavy on mafioso and drug cartels, and globalism. Like the DNC, just professional post-modernist lairs.

      • The DNC is full of Left-wing activists, and they want more, that’s why they want all the immigrants from third world corrupt countries here. There’s nothing stopping a Socialist from being a thug or drug runner, and they are globalists. Socialists are the original globalists. That’s why they started the corrupt United Nations. And, I agree, they are all post-modern liars and cheaters and thieves.

  22. Good essay.

    It used to be that, for many conservatives, to be a conservative meant to stand for whatever it was the liberals stood for thirty years previously. Nowadays, to be a conservative means to stand for whatever it was liberals stood for ten years ago.

    • The writer apparently wants it to stand for whatever the people want it to stand for, because they don’t like being told what it means. Whatever, it’s two faux conservative factions bitching about each other. What made American great was a system of ethical government. Not religion, not morals, not speaking a certain way, not the the ethnic or racial makeup or the language we use. We are so far away from what made America great that it is hilarious watching the various ridiculous factions get all pretentious with each other.

      • “What made American great was a system of ethical government. Not religion, not morals, not speaking a certain way, not the the ethnic or racial makeup or the language we use.”

        So you’re kidding when you claim you’re not a liberal, right?

      • Classical Liberal. As in Thomas Jefferson. Which also makes me a true American Conservative.

  23. Another great piece

    Abandonment of conservatism is the correct strategy. Denounce current conservatism as a fraud and as Conquests Law embodied and blaze the trail for big tent patriotism. Furthermore, the only victory comes when patriots follow alt-rights in rejecting the power of the racism card. If patriots can retain institutions while taking that stand(and the related ones of sexism, homophobia,etc.) it is over for the left. They have enormous cultural and status clout but if challenged openly it will break apart but it demands courage and persistency. No wonder Cuckservatives find it so easy to surrender.

    “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket”

    P.S. Re Economics
    If Publius wants to appeal to someone who could equally run rings around Pethokoukis when it comes to the current state then David Stockman is the guy to read. Peter Schaeffer* is another great figure who often will badger Tyler Cowen and others with inconvienient economic facts about immigration. There is nothing contradictory of restrictionism and economic growth. Most of what passes for free market economics today has been retrofitted so as not to offend leftist cultural sensibilities. One may ask why the single greatest factor in terms of econ growth; IQ, is never mentioned by established economists. One
    wonders…

    *http://www.unz.com/isteve/alex-tabarroks-open-borders-and-the-welfare-state-vs-peter-schaeffers-comment-tsunami/#comments

  24. I suppose if I were pimping for Trump I’d use an alias too.

  25. I get all my conservative views from Vox!

  26. John Ash must be a paid Hillary troll or just an idiot when he writes these kind of stupid comments.

    “John Ash Bill Kristollnacht • a day ago
    Because I’m offended by the author’s combined bad writing, stupid ideas and ridiculous comparisons with his use of Publius. It offends me to my core.

    Without his stolen gravitas, he is just a conventional idiot, easily ignored and entirely harmless.”

    or this little gem

    “John Ash Tehy • 26 minutes ago
    But it was stolen from others. And that has lead to 60 years of bloodshed.

    Think of this. They created Israel for the same reasons Hitler wanted Jews sent to Palestine before the Palestinians said “oh, no, don’t send them here”. White Anglo Saxon Protestants wanted nothing to do with them.

    Israel exists because of anti-semitism and xenophobia.”

  27. It has been about 2 decades since I decided that there was really not a lick of difference between Progs and the eGOP. They have both come out of the closet. Dems have, through Bernie, actually declared themselves socialists. The eGOP has declared it’s loyalty towards…..what exactly? I suppose the closest ideal is the Chamber of Commerce. Both talk the talk, but NEVER, walk the walk.

    Then there is this…..Movement. We, the People, have noted when they piss down our backs and tell us, it’s raining! The entrenched politicians ONLY think about retaining POWER, never what the people actually want. I don’t know if the revolution starts this Nov or further in the future, but it is coming…..if we get stuck with hillary the wreckage will only hasten it. Hopefully, we can contain it to the ballot box and aviod the ammo box.

  28. I’m so sick of the purists on both sides. I’m sick of the lying and spin. Trump is refreshing because he has common sense and doesn’t let the purists infect his vision of what the problems truly are at this time and space.

    Most of all I’m just happy to have JAG back making elegant arguments in defense of us normals.

  29. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, those today who call themselves “conservative,” aren’t. They’re right wing progressives and have no idea what “conservative” really means.

  31. I read both articles and have to side with Publius. And I say that as someone who isn’t particularly supportive of Trump, but can see what “conservatives” like Pethokoukis are really asking for is complete surrender on all issues of the culture wars, particularly borders, so that our movement can somehow gain some type of false respectability in the eyes of the people we are supposed to be fighting and driving to our side!

    Today’s left sees racism in everything. Trump is not suggesting that we destroy everything James P. cherishes in this country, rather stop cowering and accepting the status quo as the best we can do. To do that, we have to stand up and call out the detractors on their bullshit when they try to shut us down with ad hominems. Yea, things could be a lot worse. They could also be a lot better, and if you are so enamored by the Obama year’s economic “success” maybe you should ask why even so many millennials and others flocked to a 70+ yr old socialist over the chosen criminal candidate who embraced it.

  32. People made fun of Trump not for saying ‘black lives are horrible’ but for saying that things had ‘never been worse’ for black people. The latter is obviously absurd, and I hope I don’t have to explain why.

    • As usual, Trump is imprecise with his words and the leftists pounce. Anyone with common sense knows what Trump really meant. But no, we must have the MSM endlessly explain how bigoted/evil/stupid his comments were to us ignoramuses so we understand his inate evilness.

      • “so we understand his innate evilness”

        Not innately evil in this case – it came across like he didn’t know his history and was out of touch with the people he was trying to reach. Excusing that as ‘imprecise with words’ isn’t good enough.

      • Well we’ve got the ‘innately evil’ gotcha now, with that video.

  33. I was really trying to get through this as an exercise in open mindedness but this one stopped me in my tracks:

    “Either way, he—and all the others like him—are obstacles to the near- and long-term project of saving what’s left of American and Western civilization. To climb out of the hole we’re in, we don’t need liberals, we don’t need cowards, and we don’t need traitors. The former dug the hole in the first place, with ample “conservative” assistance. Need any more be said about the latter two?”

    Not mentioning that Reagan of which the author lauds was the conservative author of that “conservative assistance” Reaganomics used Laffer and Keynesian economic policies at the same time. How does the modern father of conservative thought get a way with that one? Cut taxes by 25% and increase defense industrial complex spending that in the end exploded the budget deficit from 1 to 3 trillion dollars is supposed to be a model of achievement that in the authors view is the fault of Liberals? How much did you get paid for that?

  34. Fine article as always, thanks.

    My explanation for the toxic, usually youthful “conservative intellectual” is that they just don’t have the background to understand the flaws in their arguments. They were never working stiffs, they grew up in the same upscale subdivisions and attended the same universities as their outright leftist peers.

    The conclusion I draw from this is not that they were contaminated by their peers, but that both categories are products of the same environment, the only difference being these conservatives are more appreciative of classical economics and less personally immersed in the degenerate counterculture.

    The ones that survive to adulthood will probably learn that a people’s character and government are not separable. A righteous and inoffensive people will choose the same type of government, and will require very little management by it. But a culturally divided people will end up with a government comparatively at war with itself which is what we have now. There is no substitute for neighbors who see and hear the same things as one another.

  35. This should be required reading for any true conservative. God bless you for the best conservative case for Trump I have read yet.

  36. > Leftist: “Black lives are horrible.”

    What “leftists” are saying this..?

    The progressive argument is African Americans to some extent suffer from racism e.g. in the form of police brutality motivated by racial profiling. But conservatives are the only only ones who feel African American society/culture is IN GENERAL “horrible”.

    As for the conservative split, good luck to you, “Decius” … how are you going to keep your nativist movement in the mainstream without folks such as Jim Pethokoukis? Trump is generally trailing in the polls because conservatives with a university degree are rejecting him in droves. His only enthusiastic supporters are uneducated working class whites.

    • If you are using “uneducated” as a euphemism for “not seeing the benefits of our allegedly wonderful economy” you would be correct. However as more and more citizens of all races start to feel “uneducated” and generally dumped on by the globalists, what is mainstream and what is not will change. At this point they have to rely on nearly ubiquitous media bias to keep them even in the running, and that can’t last forever.

      • Your case would be more persuasive if Trump would be attracting “citizens of all races” who feel “generally dumped on by the globalists”.
        Instead, he seems perpetually stuck in the low 40s since only angry white class males without a college degree really love him. He is performing worse than Romney did among just about every other demographic group, including seniors and whites with college degrees which every 21st century Republican presidential nominee to date has overwhelmingly won. Until now, that is.

  37. There is no significant case against conservative here! Between 2000 and 2008, Bush tax cut/economy plan only added 4.33 trillion dollars to US gross debt increasing it from 5.67 trillion (2008) to 10.03 trillion dollars (2016). The Obama tax increase plan added 9.4 trillion dollars to the debt increasing it from 10.0 trillion to 19.4 trillion dollars. Since Bush tax cut is similar to Trump tax cut , it might help in reducing the deficit of the national debt better than Clinton would! After all Clinton’s tax increase is the continuation of Obama tax increase plan. In fact the so called experts had predicted an increase of 4.06 trillion dollars for Obama plan against McCain plan of experts estimated increase of about 7 trillion dollars. Yet Obama tax plan didn’t only surpass McCain’s expert predicted value but also doubled Bush deficit increase.

    This shows that Trump has a winning argument when it comes to tax cut plan, and that experts’ prediction can’t be trusted and can also be bias. Trump needs this argument to nail Clinton in her unrealistic Obama tax plan.

  38. Yeah, everything is not fine, and your Trump is not bound to make everything better. On the contrary.

    • So who is? Hillary? Johnson? None of the above? Typical no-solution libtard.

  39. “[All] conservatives can rouse themselves to address any more is the economy. They rationalize such a narrow focus by insisting economics trumps all.”

    That’s because they ceased being conservatives back in the 90s (sometime between NAFTA and PRC/WTO). They’re really neoliberals now, although they shun any tag with the appellation ‘liberal’ for marketing reasons.

    ‘The conservatism that conserves nothing’ is how I’ve taken to describe it.

  40. “Do any liberals ever write “a liberal case” for something obviously conservative, such as the traditional two-parent family or constitutional originalism?”

    Killer point. Conservatwits are always looking to make us think they mean something other than what they are saying.

  41. Two problems with the Publius response:

    1. Even if the situation is more dire than Pethokoukis says, Trump is not the solution. He is a shallow, self-centered, ignorant, impulsive boor. He is no Reagan. Four years of predictable Clinton will be better than four years of irrational and unpredictable Trump, from every viewpoint–national security, the economy, etc.

    2. Pethokoukis is correct that Trump’s gloomy worldview is not justified. Income and asset inequality and opportunity inequality is the major domestic issue. This is shown by the fact that much of Publius’s response is devoted to issues of inequality. Inequality is fixable. Trump’s tax plan would increase inequality; Clinton’s would not.

    • And here I though Hillary was the “shallow, self-centered, ignorant, impulsive boor.” And an unindicted felon. The only thing “predictable” about Hillary is that there will be unending scandals.

      “Trump’s gloomy worldview?” I would think that saying “we can fix this” is far more optimistic than saying “this is as good as it can get.”

  42. Read me out as well…I’m completely done with a school of thought that is, for all practical purposes, ineffective. It is time for those who wish to fight back to use our collective economic power to start forcing some change. Let’s begin by selecting those universities we support and those we do not. Then, we should decide which media and entertainment we will consume or not. After that, let’s take a look at companies and decide which products to buy based partly on the positions that corporate leaders embrace. We do not need to fund our own destruction. This type of action is easy for conservatives given some leadership and – How about this? – a little marketing/branding.

  43. Welcome to what happens after 35+ years of trickle-down/supply-side Satanomics.

    You want wealth to trickle-down back down to those who do the work that creates the wealth, bring back union thugs.

      • Marry good Soviet woman. She strong like bull, smart like streetcar, and she pull plow.

        You don’t need western style decadent tractor from Gorky.

        P.S. The difference between Stalin sending his goons to take away the majority of people’s private property in the Soviet Union and our own parasite class gaming the system and bribing the political class to redistribute, upwards to themselves, the wealth created by those who do the work, which is also eliminating the majority of people’s private property, is nothing relevant.

        The difference between a small number of parasites pretending to be Capitalists controlling most of the wealth & property under this modern version of Feudalism that 35+ years of trickle-down/supply-side Satanomics has created, is no different than the Soviet ruling class controlling most of the wealth & property under Communism.

  44. James P used to be on my reading list, but as I read him more and more, I read him less and less, if you get my drift. He shows up on Larry Kudlow’s show on Saturday morning and I can’t distinguish anything he says from a leftist.

    Then again, I read a bunch of NR’s reviews of Pence last night. Damned with faint praise because he didn’t outrightly defend some of Trump’s dumb comments. Comments they attack. Goldberg said Pence won, except, well, he didn’t really.

    I’m sick of them all.

  45. I’ve never understood the ludicrous crowing about expanding the GDP. It is individual prosperity that counts and without it the GDP is meaningless.

  46. “left leaning Vox….” that is putting it extremely mildly.

  47. “Reagan’s message in 1980 was, in a nutshell, ‘Things are really bad right now, but I
    know how to make them better and together we can do it.’ (Can you think
    of any candidate who has spoken like that a bit more recently?)”

    Yes, Ted Cruz. Unfortunately the party nominated some lunatic instead.

    • Great. Lyin’ Ted, who can’t keep promises. Until he is forced.

      Thank God that Ted did not get the nomination.

      • Ted just needs to carve off a portion of the US between the two coasts. Then he MIGHT have had a hope in hell.

  48. It is not the dark ages and the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are not showing up on November 9th regardless of who gets elected. More fear mongering from peoples who incompetency has left this republic with 20 trillion in debt and endless wars.

    • Maybe not the Apocalypse, just a Texit – if Hillary wins.

      • Texas has nuclear weapons now, unlike 1865. Think they will stand by and let another Sherman burn cities? You’re dreaming. Modern day northern liberals will not even think about military opposition.

  49. The idea that Trump is a bigot is without question. He continually ascribes negative false characteristics to large groups of people. This is the definition of bigotry. To ignore this or excuse it is morally indefensible and worthy of shunning. But if you want to understand the bigotry that underlies his appeal, look at the comments sections of most news sites following any article that deals with race and religion. Heck look at the comments people write to me based on my nic. I have come to conclude that fully 15 percent of Americans are bigots. Maybe a little more. Not just white bigots. All bigots. And Trump has given most of them a voice. A disgusting voice. Conservatives must fight against Trump because he represents a danger to the republic and a danger to conservatism. Since I am in a comments section, I fully expect bigots to start talking about my religion as a cult, and claiming I can’t be a loyal American and Muslim. Those are bigots. And there are a lot of them supporting Trump.

    • Bull. He is no more bigoted than you are, unless you are a real big bigot.

      • Republicans are bigoted, because they believe that immigrants are all “liberals”, when in fact, most have very conservative ideas and lives and could easily be wooed into being life long Republicans. If you weren’t bigots.

      • Another lie. Republicans are not bigoted against illegal aliens because they may be liberal, they are against illegal aliens because they are illegal.

        Democrats do not care if they are illegal because they think it will add to their voter rolls. They also do not care that these same lower class immigrants will even more impoverish the inner cities. They do not care about the people of the inner cities. No more than the democrats cared about their slaves.

      • Yeah, and apparently, Republicans are also bigtoted against the Constitution.

        I’ll give you $1B if you can show me where delegated immigration authority is in the Constitution.

      • Well, there’s one way to find out. Show me the delegated authority.

      • You are a rare bird ;)

        Still, in my defense, it anti-immigration is right in the platform.

      • All you have to do is say “American Greatness” and they come out like it’s the Pittsburgh Steelers or something. (whatever, I don’t follow team sports, nor team politics)

      • A bigot by your definition, troll, is something to be proud of.

        Bigot = someone i am unable to contradict on the facts and wish to demonize.

    • Count me in as a unrepentant “bigot”, at least by your definition. Funny you resort to quoting percentages. What percentage of American Muslims support Sharia Law? What percentage support ISIS? What percentage thought OBL was AOK?

      You are a member of a religion/cult which remains unchanged since the 7th century. It’s basically unreconcilable with civilization. Barbaric, IOW.

      You can paper it over, claim you’re one of the “good” Muslims, but we know better. When the chips are down, when the imam says “cut off his head” because “he has blasphemed the prophet”, we know you won’t be putting up an argument for your fellow (non-Muslim) Americans. You’ll be grabbing that knife and shouting “god is great’.

      Repent, convert or get the hell out. We know you’re just a Trojan horse. Happy for you to live your benighted life as you like – just not in our house.

      • “a religion/cult which remains unchanged since the 7th century.”

        Gee, you write just like a religious bigot, why not own it?

      • He proved my point. I get this nonsense ALL the time. Even when I am posting about climate change or something completely different. And if you read an article about a hispanic criminal then read the comments you see horrific things said about all Hispanics. These people are a minority in the country (big players online in comments), but not a small minority. They need to be fought (intellectually) and defeated so that this cancer shrinks further than it already has in the last century.

      • No wonder you “get this nonsense all the time”. You’re a liar, and people tend to give liars “nonsense all the time”.

      • You DO account yourself a bigot!
        You’re just as bigoted as Trump and proud of it too.
        I guess you’re just a stinking POS, my apologies for thinking you might be otherwise.

      • Oh darn, just as I was preening myself after getting your approval for been “otherwise”.

        Admit it – you never thought otherwise

      • Gosh, it must suck being you. So many people to hate, so little time.

      • I don’t “hate” anyone in particular, troll, just their demented ideology.

      • “Repent, convert or get the hell out”

        No, you do hate Muslim Americans, who, BTW, have every right to be here.

      • No, they don’t. This country doesn’t belong to the world, it belongs to Americans. We have the right to say who we want for neighbors, they don’t have the right to come here against our will.

      • Muslim Americans are by definition Americans, and entitled to all the rights of citizenship.

      • They are, by definition, a fifth column.

        See, here’s the thing you idiots don’t realize about Muslim immigrants. Arab countries have seen how Israel dictates American foreign policy in the region via AIPAC, and have decided to push for Muslim immigration to the US in order to wrest control from them. Yes, foreign countries are using immigration to try to influence our policy towards them. China and Mexico are doing it as well. But you dipsh*ts let it happen because what’s important to you is that you pat yourselves on the back for your highminded ideals.

        Meanwhile, none of these countries will ever in a million years allow Americans to immigrate and obtain citizenship among them, let alone equal rights, let alone giving them access to free welfare, health care and public education at taxpayer expense, like we do. Especially not Muslim countries, where kaffirun occupy the same legal and social position that blacks had in the late 19th century South.

        Please pull your head out and wake tf up.

      • You’re an ignorant bigot, go put a Trump sign on your front lawn.

      • Uh, no, if you’re for unlimited immigration, then you’re the bigot. Immigration amnesty is a left-wing weapon to undermine white people. Saying that white people have no right to want to stop that makes you a raging anti-white bigot.

        And please understand something. You are not morally superior to Trump conservatives. Being a globalist with a laughably unworkable ideal for society based on a childish understanding of human nature does not make you or your kind morally superior to anyone else. It simply makes you preening virtue signalers who disguise your hostility to white people with a bunch of pie-in-the-sky happy talk. You’re not fooling anyone.

      • Who said I was in favor of unlimited immigration? Or amnesty?
        Those are your straw men.

      • Glad to see you walking your position back. You’re the one plumping for immigration here.

        Anyway, there’s far more to the problem than just, “All nice people who want to live here should be able to live here.” I work with Latinos all the time. We get on great. I like them all.
        Whether or not they’re good people is completely irrelevant. We can reasonably guesstimate that there are somewhere around 4 billion “good people” in the world, if not more. There is no moral imperative requiring America to let them all live here.
        Just like if 30 million white Americans showed up in Mexico, China or the Middle East tomorrow demanding full citizenship, free welfare, free healthcare and free education, all at taxpayer expense, none of those countries would have or feel any moral obligation to give any of that to them. So why should America?

      • “You’re the one plumping for immigration”

        You must be delusional, I never said anything like that.

      • Yes you did. I’m looking at your comments on your profile. #NeverTrump = pro immigration.

      • “I’m a Conservative. #NeverTrump

        see?”

        #NeverTrump is code for “pro-immigration conservative.”

      • Repent, convert were my first words. Shake off that demented ideology. If you continue to hold to that ideology, which is in direct contradiction to the laws, history and culture of the US, then how can you expect to be welcomed in this nation.

        Yes, you may have the legal “right” to remain, but I suggest we also have the “right” to keep a close eye on those Muslims that seem to merit watching, in case some get to scheming against us. We are at war here. Or perhaps you agree with Obama/Hillary? After all, more people die from falling in their bathtub than from terrorists, right? Just acceptable losses, (and don’t mention ISIS).

        We cannot try to pretend that Islam is not in thrall to its more radical elements and that “goodMuslims” have little influence in shaping or denouncing the Islamist ideology. Taken to its logical conclusion (understanding that within Islam, the Koran MUST be accepted as the literal word of Allah), the radicals are “right” and their doctrine is the “correct” one.

        Oh dear. Unsolvable Problem No 1 for any aspiring reformists looking to drag Islam into the 21st century.

        Imagine if, after Pearl Harbour, we had simply ignored the Japanese living amongst us, but gone one step further by also inviting countless new Japanese from war-torn regions, of unknown and unknowable character and background, into the country. Would that have been sensible behaviour? Good strategy? Likely your ilk would find some way of shouting bigotry if we had opposed this madness. That’s just what good progressive DemoRepublicrats do.

        Unlike the civilized Japanese, however, this Muslim tribe, in their own lands, treat women like chattel, throw gays off of buildings and have other beliefs which are inimical to civilization as we know it. BUT, they have a magic progressive talisman. They are a group/tribe that have been “oppressed”, according to the wisdom of the progressive ideologues. This “talisman” trumps the inconvenient fact that the radical elements within the tribe wish to dominate, overthrow and rule us. And that they, not the goodMuslims, are the ones who call the shots. Classic Trojan horse stuff!

        So do we continue to commit slow-motion suicide?

        There’s an old story about the boy who cried bigot. Or was that wolf? You need to reread it.

      • You’re nuts. American Muslims have the same First Amendment right to practice their religion as any other American.

      • Is your reading comprehension faulty? Apparently so. If not, please quote where I purported to deny Muslim Americans their First Amendment rights to practice religion.

        And BTW, after 14 centuries of “practice” isn’t it about time they got it right?

      • I think this proves my point perfectly. You and many like you ARE unrepentant bigots.

        FWIW, you don’t know the difference between Sharia and Sharia law. You don’t know what I think. I want the US to have no religious law of any sort – unlike you. I hate ISIS and the percentage who must support it is <.1 percent in the world. Less in the US. The percent who supported OBL was similar, maybe a tiny bit more. Like .2 percent. The number who engage in or support directly terrorism is .002 PERCENT. Bigot.

        I don't care how much you blaspheme Muhammad. There is no penalty in the Quran for insulting the prophet. In fact, he was insulted regularly while alive and nobody was punished for that.

        I know it is impossible for you to believe that Islam comes in many forms and that most Muslims (and almost all American Muslims) believe in a form that is peaceful and not barbaric at all. The stuff you spout is what terrorists say. Not the average Muslim. I (and everyone I know) simply do not believe what you claim is Islam.

        I see you want to force me to be a Christian or leave. I have lived in the US since I was born. My family has been here for nearly 200 years. Muslims like me helped fight WW2, Vietnam, and every war the US has been in. Muslims like me have died defending the constitution and this country.

        You are disgusting. You are deplorable. You are unrepentant. And you ARE a bigot. By anyone's definition. You are what we have been stamping out of this country for decades now and at the end of the day, you and your like will disappear as we educate your children (or Grandchildren, etc..) to not be bigots and we rightfully make people like you as unacceptable in our society as those who supported slavery.

      • “You are what we have been stamping out of this country”.

        Who’s this “we” you speak of I wonder.

        By making up blatantly false numbers you just prove my point. Doesn’t the Koran say its OK to lie to the unbeliever to promote the cause of Islam?

        “In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified in these circumstances.”
        http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/22/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

        So we have established you as a liar. Need I go further?

      • So I will do this ONCE with you. If I spent my time arguing with every bigot in the comments section who is not going to change their mind anyway, I would not have time for my normal life. Simply put the Quran does NOT say it is OK to lie to promote the cause of Islam. You could interpret it out of there by selective reading and distortion and some Muslims have. The general take on lying in Islam is that it is only OK to save a life which is in immediate danger and then only of corrected quickly. This is mainly a shiite tradition and most Sunnis think it is never OK to lie.

        And let’s deal with your survey question from Pew. If you were a normal person and not a bigot you would look carefully and objectively at that.

        I will post the original question and data in my next comment, but think about it. How many Christian Americans would answer yes to that question? Is it the same or lower or higher? Do you support the dropping of a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima? That was a civilian target. A large percentage of Americans are OK with that. And they are OK with the firebombing of German cities.

        If you were not a bigot you would see that such a question would get some percentage of agreement from any group. It is surprising it is so low. Here is something scary. A pew survey on bombing civilian targets. 56% of Americans approve! But only 7% of Muslims. Hmmm….. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/04/70-years-after-hiroshima-opinions-have-shifted-on-use-of-atomic-bomb/

        Try for once being objective and not filled with hate. Try not listening to propaganda sites and try listening to real Muslims. Try not being a bigot.

      • Islam is Arabic for submission. And it is not the willing, voluntary kind. It is the “forced on any who disagree with us” kind.

        The Qur’an is the word of Allah, as given to the prophet Mohammed. Read Surah 2:191, 2:193, 2:194, 2:216, 4:47, 4:76, 4:89, 3:195, 5:33, 5:45, 8:12, 8:37, 8:67, 9:5, 9:29, 9:111, 9:123, 33:61, 47:4, 47:13. Just for a start. And the Hadith, the record of the life of Mohammed, is worse.

        Islam is at war with the world and always has been, whether we recognize it or not. Recognizing the facts is not Islamophobia; it is just dealing honestly with reality.

      • Sadly, all AMERICANMUSLIM sees are bigots around every corner. He lies and doesn’t even know what is in his own Koran, or at least professes not to.

        I fear I have got him all agitated and trying to defend the indefensible.

      • And the Bible says that God is a dickhead that murdered almost everyone on Earth and that gays and adulterers should be stoned or burned to death. And we would drive out Christians if they did this. It is only because you refrain from this kind of stupidity that we tolerate you.

      • Cough, New Testament, cough.

        Do you have a link to the Koran’s “New Testament” you could send us?

      • So God didn’t flood the world and kill most of humankind? Is God perfect and we should keep killing gays, or is God imperfect and he changed his mind?

      • Again, please send us your link to the Koran’s “New Testament”. That should settle things once and for all.

      • The Jewish Old Testament was very harsh, but Jesus said “Let he who has no sin cast the first stone.”

        Christianity is all about mercy and grace, and self sacrifice in the manner that Jesus demonstrated. Not just for other Christians, but for all people “of every nation and tribe.”

        God has done many things that I do not understand, but as the pot cannot understand the potter’s intentions, so we cannot understand God. Thinking that you can is just hubris.

      • A pot can’t think. I can think. Murder is wrong, whether done by God or man. We are not his toys.

      • This is the details of the question asked about civilian bombing: Q.90 Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are
        justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason,
        this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to
        defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?
        Often
        justified
        Sometimes
        justified
        Rarely
        justified
        Never
        justified
        (VOL.)
        DK/Ref
        Muslim Americans % % % % %
        Apr 14-Jul 22, 2011 1 7 5 81 6
        Jan 24-Apr 30, 2007 1 7 5 78 9

        I am not going to continue to debate you unless you show some modicum of intellectual honesty. That is… if you understand those words in English.

      • This is the full survey from which you extracted one nugget you thought was important (I showed you it was not). It is titled:

        http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslim-americans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/

        Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism
        Mainstream and Moderate Attitudes

        Only a bigot with no respect for the constitution could read that survey and find something to justify making American citizens leave the country based on their religion.

      • Christianity hasn’t changed in 2000 years. And has killed 100s of thousands or millions of people.

      • Secular governments murdered hundreds of millions of people in a few short years.

    • “The idea that Trump is a bigot is without question. He continually ascribes negative false characteristics to large groups of people. This is the definition of bigotry. To ignore this or excuse it is morally indefensible and worthy of shunning.”

      This, along with everything else you just said, describes the Islamic attitude towards non-Muslims perfectly. Shariah, the Koran, it’s all in there. You are far and away the most bigoted, discriminatory religious group on the planet, so please stop acting like your morally superior to people who see your religion for what it is.

      • Religion is endemically bigoted. It is frequently used as the rationalization for bigotry.

      • All organizations are inherently bigoted, they all operate on in-group/out-group dynamics. There’s nothing special about that.

        The difference with Islam is that shariah legislates and enshrines those dynamics to a far greater degree than Christianity ever did. The modern West has no answer for it.

      • Oh please, Christians have conquered entire continents. South America isn’t Muslim.

      • What does conquering entire continents have to do with what I said?

      • You pretend Christianity didn’t do it. It absolutely did. People were tortured and killed for not being “Christian”. All over the planet. Not just in the Middle East or neighboring areas.

      • I didn’t pretend anything. Like I said, the point you’re trying to make here isn’t relevant to the issue we were talking about. I don’t feel the need to defend a religion to which I don’t belong, other than to say, the problem is Islam, not Christianity. Whatever Christianity did to the American Indians 400 years ago, the Muslims did to the Hindus at the same time, and on a larger scale. Christianity isn’t blowing people up today, Islam is.

        You know, for a guy who’s all about unifying people, you sure seem to have a political view that excludes the vast majority of people in the world. You’re pretty much a part of one.

  50. Well said. It is the reason that I also think the republicans supporting Hillary are traitors to the Republican Party and the right. It is truly unforgivable.

  51. The elite on both sides are selling us out and have been for a long time. They care nothing for borders, community, social cohesion or the working man. They measure a nations success by GDP growth and consumer spending.

  52. Pethokoukis’s main point is that the “sky is falling” narrative is demagoguery and not supported by the facts. This “response” confirms it. Characterizing disagreement as “treason” should be embarrassing. So should the rampant name-calling. Go ahead and ridicule Pethokoukis for relying on those pesky facts. Truth shouldn’t matter as long as you feel really strongly about what you believe in. Anyway, that’s what you say when you’re trying to rile up your readers.

    Keep on keeping on. Don’t let the facts get in the way.

    • No. Let us look at where Publius actually used that word:

      And our own side casually throws it in our faces. In this instance, on Vox, where Pethokoukis can
      be sure the charge will delight his left-leaning audience. “See! Even the ‘conservative’ James Pethokoukis agrees with us that Trump and all his supporters are bigots!”

      That’s called giving aid and comfort to the enemy, James. It’s treason. Unless you think Trump and his supporters are your enemies. If so, I think we’ve finally found
      some common ground. If you’re going to treat me like an enemy, I may as well start acting like one.

      Clearly its use in this case is to illustrate how the likes of Pethokoukis — ostensibly a ‘conservative’ — betrays his fellows to Democrats, leftists, and those doing the country harm. He does not use the word “Treason” to characterize simple disagreement.

      Now, if you want real treason, it’s all around you if you’ll only look and believe your own lying eyes.

      • That is stupid. Controlled immigration is a socialist or national socialist ideology. America was founded on open borders and free trade.

      • If you insist on spraying excrement all over like from a fire hose, you should at least make some effort to connect your vapid replies to the post you’re attacking. TROLL

      • I did, that’s why I started with “that is stupid”.

      • I’ve had better arguments than you could face for the last two days. I’m sick of you because you’re a firehose spraying excrement all over the place; you’re rude, juvenile, provocative without being productive, and I’m washing my hands of your idiocy for now.

      • Still banging that trash can lid on the sidewalk I see.

  53. “a smaller pie more evenly distributed among fellow citizens is a more urgent priority than a larger pie with every new slice going to the top.” Contracting the economy to spread the misery around – what a great idea! No wonder you hide behind a pseudonym.

    • As flies flock to ordure, so the small minded flock to defend their dead ideology.

  54. “Whenever you find an article that begins with the title, “The Conservative Case” for or against something, lock your door, check your wallet, and grab your gun. You know what’s coming is an unadulterated sell-out of everything “conservatism” purports to hold dear.” I stopped reading at that point.

  55. God, I hate that pseudonym. The guy has obviously never been within ten miles of a barracks, yet he invokes an obscure Roman consul and war hero to establish his intellectual and patriotic bona fides (Belisarius wouldn’t do, because he’s too well known, you see).

    Listen, man, can you please PLEASE just do us under-40 veterans (in my case, the infantry) a favor in 2020 and just stay the hell out? I’d like a non-leftist president just once more before I hit retirement age. Instead, I’ve got a bunch of non-serving obscurantists with a bizarre penchant for the words “coward” and “traitor” serving up the Presidency to Hillary Clinton on a silver platter. Christ almighty.

  56. “With all due respect…” is always followed by a kick to the groin. “With all due deference to the court…” [kick] [kick] [50 yard kick].

    Pethokoukis and all these two dimensional, gloabalist fraudsters are pounding the drums that any resistence to H1b visa subsidies and endless human migration and trafficking is nothing more than inward-looking protectionism.

    You can’t criticize free trade agreements because they contain the phrase “free trade”, even though a more appropriate phrase would be “reciprocating crony-protectionist agreement”. If you really think about, free trade shouldn’t need a ten thousand page agreement or one at all. Isn’t that point of free trade?

    Not to Pethokoukis and the shallow, sophomoric intellectuals.

  57. Yeah, baby. I too join Decius is giving this word “Conservative” to Petroukoukis.

    *Takes giant C necklace over head, hands to Pethokoukis.*

    It was an albatross. I feel my fortunes changing for the better already.

  59. This is a terrible, incoherently argued piece of writing regardless of its purported “perspective.” “I don’t know who James Pethokoukis is”. At least he writes under his own name.

    • I agree entirely, and worse, he is stealing gravitas from the Founding Fathers who used Publius as a cover for important reasons, not as a publicity stunt.

      Decius is a terrible writer, but worse, his ideas are all wrong.

      • The leftists doth protest too much, methinks.

        Joel, you need to go back to school to learn the meaning of incoherent. John, no-one likes a sycophant, there’s a good fellow.

      • That’s a playground argument troll – “I’m not, YOU are”. I would say try harder, but that sort of indicates you’re already trying as hard as you can, given your limited facilities.

      • Ah, so, you’re the adult, because you initiated the playground argument. Got it.

      • That’s good, I was worried you wouldn’t because of those “limited facilities”.

  60. “like Trump, I too am a “racist.”

    Publius Decius Mus in a rare moment of candor.

    Smells like the alt reich around here….

  61. The left declared war on this nation decades ago. To our credit, the American spirit of independence and freedom has taken this long to be worn down. Even yet, half the nation preserves it, but we are weak, hungry, and for the most part, in retreat. Donald Trump rallies the flag, and asks us to fight again, to preserve a nation and an ideal unparalleled in all of human history. America.
    Those of us who remain fighting, must cast off the traitors. They are not Republicans, they are not conservatives, if they are not willing or able to fight the left.
    The left means to “fundamentally transform” America in the same sense that Lenin meant to fundamentally transform Russia, or Mao to fundamentally transform China. They mean to take it from a nation of laws, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, to a nation of technocrats, imposing their will upon the masses.
    We who fight must understand the nature of the enemy we oppose, and the craven nature of the collaborators who cannot muster the courage to fight.
    We have two primary weapons at our disposal: exposure: and this is key – expose the left for exactly what they are at every opportunity and more when it’s convenient, and protecting our culture. Central to Marx’s ideals were destroying the culture of a society to make way for Marxism. The left has effectively damaged American society almost to the point of collapse, but we still, at this point, have a foundation on which we can rebuild. The family, the church, decency, and morality are the foundation on which we must rebuild.
    Let the slander of the left roll off of you like water off a duck’s back. They no more mean it than they believe that Hillary is honest and trustworthy. It’s a tool, a tactic, and it should be rejected as such.

    “Members and front organizations must continually embarrass, discredit, and degrade our critics. When obstructionists become too irritating, label them as Fascist or Nazi or anti-Semitic. Constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell. The association will, after enough repetition become fact in the public mind ” – Communist directive

    “We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses, hate, revulsion, and scorn towards those who disagree with us.” – Lenin

    • Yup, and it was called the civil war – the soul of America is still being fought for.

      • I wonder what a “civil war” would look like today, seeing as both sides would have nuclear weapons. I doubt there would be a shooting war at all. Just a peaceful secession this time.

        There could be some border skirmishes, as folks try to relocate to one side or the other. Texas might have more issues with its northern border than its southern, since it would finally be able to defend itself, rather than waiting for permission from DC. This of course depends on how many other states decide to join the Texit.

      • I for one am grateful that this was settled – on the battlefield at least – before the MAD era, and as a US veteran who served two of the nations triad – these are a deterrent ONLY. Any person willing to think about proliferation or offensive use is MAD. ‘The grass is always greener on the other side’. Brexit folks are already suffering from buyers remorse which reminds me of another quote ‘Be careful what you ask for because you might get it’. Time will tell if the half of the electorate will one day regret their Brexit vote. Especially under the force of the coming EU Brexit trade sanctions and their fallout. Texit should NOT use Brexit as a model. The 14th amendment guarantees all citizens – not just 50.1 percent Texit vote – due process. I don’t think the threat will be from the north or the south but will be from within – the 49.9 or any level of minority – when the majority tries to deny their US 14th amendment rights. That would in fact be MAD and a SAD day. We will never get there though as the rest of the states will never vote in sufficient numbers to ratify any other states succession. The minority of the 50.1 percent crazy enough to not let go of civil war aspirations and incite an armed insurrection (we call that treason – which has a penalty of death) will run into a non-nuclear – but nonetheless bloody buzzsaw – unfortunately the grass on that side will not be green but red. Be sure of that.

      • The gun controlled north is going to inflict a “bloody buzzsaw” on the armed to the teeth south? LOL. Bring it.

        And why would you think that a bunch of crazy rednecks would be afraid to use nuclear weapons? Or would give a damn if the rest of the states ratified their secession?

      • One you get a badge of courage for hiding behind anonymity talking all that smack of what – now you insinuate – the whole south is ready to follow Texit – ADSURD only can be said behind anonymity.

        Two Texit treasoners will be too busy battling US law enforcement and armed forces to get their hands on enough nukes to then drop on their fellow Texas citizens. What a fratracide that would be.

        Three keep that hood of anonymity on as you insinuate you speak for a sizable enough group of crazies who would even entertain such thoughts – same old trash different medium, but we Americans assure you the same results.

  62. Publius knocks another one right out of the ball park! Excellent article !

  63. Trump is an ignorant bigot and a buffoon. I get the impression that folks here deny his obvious ignorance and agree with his bigotry.

    What sort of place are you running here?

    • An ignorant billionaire? Now there is an oxymoron. I wish I was as “ignorant.”

      One has to drink a lot of Kool Aid to get to the conclusion that Trump is ignorant.

      • Henry Ford was immensely rich.
        He also was an ignorant bigot, he hated Jews.
        You can look it up.

      • But why did he hate them?
        Here’s a hint: it’s because the hard left of his day was disproportionately filled with Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, where they had a well-earned reputation for revolutionary violence and anti-gentile animus.

        I mean honestly, one of these days, you guys are going to have to come up with something better than ad homs.

      • So, do the majority of Blacks, so what’s your reason for being an anti-Semite?

      • Naw, it’s pretty simple: be born to a multimillionaire in the 1940’s. If Trump had simply parked his inheritance in a Vanguard index fund in the 1970’s, he’d be much wealthier today. It’s why self-made billionaires — Mark Cuban, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, etc. — think Trump is a clown.

      • When did Trump receive his inheritance, and how much was he already worth by then? It was not in the 70’s. Look it up, it is educational.

  64. Scathing article. He doesn’t mince words – we need more of this kind of thinking and saying – i.e., no more laying low, no more turning the other cheek, no more agreeing with their premises so as to avoid being called names. They’re the enemy – we need to start treating them like the enemy. Because, after all, that’s how they view us, and is how they’ve been treating us, for decades.

  65. Pethokoukis is not a very good economist either. The idea that “politics is higher than economics” is actually basic to modern welfare economics. In this model the politicians set the overall “social welfare function” for the country, the economists figure out how to achieve that objective in the most efficient way.

    • One cannot engineer welfare where people disagree on what constitutes it. Economics does not address moral questions but can sometimes tell us the economic consequences of policies. Athens and Sparta could have had equal per-capita GDP and there would still be an enormous gulf between the two societies. Neither economists nor the people who interview them notice that the well-being of society cannot be measured by economics alone.

      • Indeed. A given economic outcome achieved through the striving of citizens towards their own chosen goals is – for that very reason – superior to the identical economic outcome achieved through an all-seeing tyranny (or planner). Amartya Sen’s “Development as Freedom” is not bad on this, drawing as it does, if I’m not mistaken, on a somewhat Aristotelian (more comprehensive) idea of human happiness.

      • I vaguely recall that Sen takes a more nuanced position than some of his interlocutors. Aristotle believed that a person’s well-being was largely a matter of their virtue, broadly conceived — an idea that most would laugh at today. Plato and the Stoics thought it was ENTIRELY a matter of virtue. In the Republic, Socrates argues that it is self-defeating to treat another unjustly since in being unjust one harms oneself. It is easy to forget that a large part of one’s sense of well-being comes from the belief that one is living right and that the society around one is wholesome. Today’s cost-benefit moralists agree with Bentham that being a contented cow is as good as it gets. I doubt they even realize there are alternative positions. No matter, in a democracy it is up to the people to tell the economic reductionists to stay in the cow pasture and leave more refined spirits alone.

      • I went back to look at Sen’s “Development as Freedom”. I don’t have any particular brief for this guy, but the book is not half bad, containing an extended critique of utilitarianism, rejection of a purely wealth based approach to economic evaluation, and explicit appeal to Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics as support for his own “capabilities” approach to human flourishing. I guess I’ve been harping on Sen in an effort to make a more general point. You’re right that today’s ‘cost-benefit moralists” in practice rely entirely on Benthamite utilitarian calculation. But there’s nothing in the abstract framework of welfare economics that insists on such a morality. One could just as well specify an alternative normative rule that justifies a bit lower GDP, spread more equally. And this would be just as good economics. It’s not necessary to concede high ground to second-raters like Pethokoukis.

      • I agree, but to take the next step, how does an algorithm of evaluation factor in the wish to preserve the Christian character of society or that outcomes be obtained virtuously or that people are friendly and trustworthy or that great art is produced or that people continue to whistle Waltzing Matilda? And even if there were such an algorithm, rather than planning it would involve government stepping back to provide up the space of alternatives within which virtue and godliness distinguish themselves. I am skeptical of any but the gentlest sort of social engineering.

  66. There is only ONE friggen race. The human race. What we now call racism is a hostile coup attempt over real americans.

  67. Excellent piece. I wonder why it has taken us so many decades to notice the timid, self-defeating and (one might naively suppose) self-hating behavior of the media right. Wealthy liberals control the funding of the “legitimate” right so it is indeed a “controlled opposition.” Case in point: In 1994 there was a fight over the abortion plank in the GOP platform. Pro-life columnists including Tom Sowell and Cal Thomas wrote columns in favor of removing the pro-life plank. The argument they gave was the same one they had been countering for years: “we must not impose our religious views on others.” Can you spell ‘sinecure’?

  68. Instead of “Conservative” perhaps you could try “National Socialist American Workers Party”?

    • Nice try, but the National Socialist party was and has always been endorsed by Democrats. Just ask all your progressive heroes like Margaret Sanders. The only problem the eugenic enthusiasts in the Democrat party saw in the final solution was they got caught.

      • Sanger, not Sanders. Founder of PP, whose basic goal was to eliminate blacks. Now a hero of the left.

      • Thanks for the correction and I did mean Sanger. According to SCOTUS Ginsburg it was undesirables, but I believe she meant those with whom progressives deem unworthy of continued life and following Clinton’s remark about deplorable’s they may be focusing on the american whites whom they disagree with.

      • Democrats have always had trouble recognizing humanity in others. First it was blacks, now the unborn, tomorrow who knows?

      • You are correct in your comment however; what’s even more disgusting is the white progressive who displays an innate sense of moral, intellectual, and personal (read status) superiority over other white Americans, specifically those with whom they disagree and/or live in the heartland of the USA. These Progressives (and some elite Republicans) are driving the racial and class division and they feel compelled to grind those they disagree with into the ground with lies, smears, disinformation and they have a passion for hate. The level of hatred that is being driven by the democratic party towards those who have a different POV has never been so pronounced and their use and abuse of power to destroy the lives of patriotic Americans is speaks to the totalitarian tendency found in Progressives in either party.

      • Ok, just a suggestion.
        How about “White People’s Party”?
        Your flag could be a field of white with a burning cross right in the middle.

      • How about you take your bigotry, hate and ignorance somewhere it plays better like at CAP or Media Matters. There are plenty of like minded bigots filled with hate and rage to soothe your brand of prejudice.

      • You’re the one who sounds angry, I’m having fun.
        “White People’s Party” a non starter?
        What’s the matter, ashamed of your heritage?

      • “You’re the one who sounds angry, I’m having fun.”
        Am I? Where did I say angry, mook? I agree most trolls like you enjoy spreading lies,, disinformation and hate and it’s that you would acknowledge that you enjoy spreading hate, lies, and disinformation.

        “White People’s Party” a non starter?
        Are you dumb or just ignorant, ChuSez?

        “What’s the matter, ashamed of your heritage?”
        Only an ignorant and self loathing bigot would ask that question. Are you ashamed of the pathetic and enduring cultural dysfunction of your heritage? The politics of your paranoid hatred is the crutch of a mental cripple where you protect the source of your dysfunction by projecting it onto phantom enemies. If your commentary wasn’t so sad it would be incredibly humorous.

      • I don’t need help from an intellectually inferior troll. Do you have self-esteem issues?

        Here’s a suggestion why not focus on your own personal prejudices and your own cultural dysfunction because mental cripples should count too.

      • “Know Nothings” is looking like the clear choice here, no socialist overtones at all.
        A proud nativist history for you all to carry on. There’s plenty of Irish to deport. Do we have a winner?

      • What’s wrong with nativism? It’s the belief that a country’s immigration policies should be for the benefit of its citizens, not non-citizens. You’re a native, so why would you have a problem with nativism?

      • Iow, you’re anti-homosexual.

        Jesus, does the bigotry with you people have no end?

      • No, I’m anti nativist, and it’s not because they’re gay.

      • But you insulted them by calling them gay, which makes you deeply homophobic.

      • Since when is being gay an insult?
        Maybe to a homophobe like yourself…

      • If it’s not an insult, then you’re a pro-nativist.

        Come on, guy, at least be consistent.

      • Consistency is code for social justice warrior.
        How long have you been a SJW?

      • Whoa whoa whoa there, big guy.

        Call me gay all you want, but HOW DARE YOU call me a social justice warrior.

        (Especially since we all know ‘social justice warrior’ is code for ‘black’)

      • Listen, enough about the code word jokes, I get it. I put words in your mouth, my bad.

        But here’s the deal. I gather from your avi and your tone that you’re black. You guys are hit far worse by immigration, illegal and otherwise, than any other group. You guys have more intercommunal violence with illegals than we do, by far. So where are you coming from with your anti-nativism?

      • So then, you agree that natives have no right to decide who they want for neighbors. That immigration policy should be designed primarily to benefit immigrants and the wealthy whites who profit from a cheaper labor pool, at the expense of native citizens.

        What do you have against natives?

      • That’s code for doubling everyone’s taxes.
        Why do you want to double taxes?

      • I assume “doubling taxes” is your code for “gloryhole”.

        What’s wrong with you people??

      • Nativism says that the natives have no rights to invite or do business with anyone, from anywhere. It takes away the rights of the natives under the guise of protection.

        I distinctly don’t remember the Founders saying “give me safety!”

      • ‘I distinctly don’t remember the Founders saying “give me safety!”‘

        I am now firmly convinced that you are an emotionally ill man typing this up from a public library computer.

        The whole point of government policy is the safety of its citizens. Jesus Christ.

      • No, actually, it is to protect the governments and territory of the States from invasion. Nice try.

      • The Constitution specifically states “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”

        Posterity means all of the offspring of a given progenitor, which in this case would be the Europeans that helped shape and create the new nation. The Founding Fathers thus implied that the Constitution was for the “natives” and only for the “natives”.

      • Hahahahaha, wow, what a stretch. And yet, they forgot to include that in the Bill of Rights and made sure it covered EVERYONE, including immigrants or anyone even visiting. OOPS. A fail? Or maybe they planned it that way because they weren’t neo-con aholes.

      • Why would they restate it in the Bill of Rights? I don’t even understand your objection.

      • The rationale for creating a law doesn’t limit the size of scope of the law.

        Therefore, if I build a public park because I want a place for my kids to play, that doesn’t mean I am limiting the park only to my children.

      • But the rules of your park do not apply to other parks. As the creator of your park, you have the right to determine who is allowed to play in your park and for how long. You have the right to set the rules for visitors. You also have the right to not allow any visitors. This same concept applies to the “park” called the United States.

    • What’s conservative about national *socialism*?

      The Nazis were left-wingers. It’s right there in the name.

      • What is conservative about Social Security, Medicare, immigration laws, etc? Nothing.

  69. Bravo, Decius! You have recognized the hypocrisy that has been emerging from the likes of NRO, Weekly Standard, Commentary and a host of other sites and publications who purport to be conservative, but in reality they only want to continue be invited to the right parties hosted by their leftists “friends”.

      • The NRO, WS, Commentary crowd will not go without being thrown out. I sense, as the author does, a growing potential majority opposition to liberalism with a much more limited platform of nationalism, smaller and less invasive federal government, less emphasis on policing the world, and border control, but NOT to include social issues used so often as a wedge.

      • I consider myself a Classical Liberal and would advocate the guiding principals to be found in the American Creed which is constitutionally based. I agree with your comment.

  70. They rationalize such a narrow focus by insisting economics trumps all.

    Mainstream conservatives are Marxist of the Right. We natural conservatives find family, country, culture, tradition, identity and religion just as important or more important than economic growth. Arguing that immigration boost the economy, whether true or false, misses the point.

    • That’s fine, but you have no right to force your ideas about morality or culture on everyone else. Tradition changes, morality changes, identity changes, religion changes, culture changes.

      Ethics under the law should be static and consistent.

      • All law forces a view of morality. The liberal mindset is “I will use government to force my view of morality, but the non-liberal has no right to force his view of morality”. This point is obvious, except to committed liberals.

  71. Excellent as always. It’s difficult to tell whether folks like Pethokoukis are just eager lapdogs, or if they sincerely can’t think outside of their narrow economism.

    It was nice to read this as I just taught my students Republic IV, where the relationship of growth to national well-being is taken up explicitly. As the Bloom translation would have it, “up to that point in its growth at which it’s willing to be one, let it grow, and not beyond.” This is a simple principle, really, that political and moral imperatives supervene on economic ones. And yet our public discourse at present exists almost entirely in a place hostile to the very thought.

    At any rate, it’s still incredible to me that the GOP machine folks still believe they’ll be reviving the old ways after a Trump loss. They’re in for some nasty surprises.

      • Probably true at this point. Though I still think many of them don’t realize we’re going to press the point. And they’re quickly going to find themselves in a very bad place.

      • Economics. I can see why that would have gone over your head though.

      • I know economics. The question is whether economics answer for the whole of human affairs. The obtuse do not see this as a question.

      • Ethics is the other half of the equation, which is handled by Natural Rights.

      • That’s to accept a liberal definition of ethics from the get-go.

      • Liberal ethics are the only ethics that matter. Unless you’re talking about libruls. Natural Rights has nothing to do with libruls.

      • Rights prior to duties, rights prior to discussion of society: liberal.

      • Only a liberal would see what I’ve said in those terms, as if human life were a binary switch: free/slave.

        I don’t know you personally, but philosophically speaking, you’re on the enemy’s side.

      • Only if you believe in imposing your morals on others and elevating society above the individual. If that is the case, then yes, I am your enemy. And so is the Constitution.

      • The constitution is not the Declaration. And even the latter speaks of a people. So help yourself to a libertarian dream world that has never existed, will never exist, and can never exist.

        You have confirmed the author’s point.

      • To the contrary, the Federal government functioned as a libertarian organization for nearly 100 years. And Republicans destroyed it.

      • Liberty and libertarian: not the same thing. I don’t care which party to whom you wish to assign the blame for destroying the former.

      • Libertarians have never, and will never, control anything.

      • You forget. We created the US. And ran it for nearly 100 years.

      • The founders were not libertarians. A few moments reading what they actually wrote would be enough to remove that notion.

      • John Adams, maybe. Madison, Jefferson and others were clearly libertarians. Anyone who believes in (and understands) Natural Rights is a libertarian.

      • Employing “natural rights” as rhetoric, and supposing them universally applicable outside of nation or race, as people do today, are very different things. A view of Notes on the State of Virginia should disabuse you of the notion that Jefferson was a libertarian. In many ways the guy was not even fully a Lockean. Not surprising — he was also reading Aristotle, Cicero, Hume, Buffon, Montesquieu, and so on… classical liberalism (to say nothing of classical republicanism) is some distance from libertarianism.

      • The essence of law is to “impose” a theory of morality. The very purpose of government is governance towards the Good. The liberal neutrality you speak of is a disingenuous lie.

      • Well, only if you believe in evil and the need to create it. The Federal government took a libertarian, areligious, amoral stance and that is what worked. Everything else since has been infighting and suffering.

      • No they didn’t. Everything you said is incorrect. The Constitution is not a libertarian doctrine. However, libertarianism is not neutral about morality.

        Libertarianism is a theory of ethics, that simply put, advances the “harm principle”. More specifically, the purpose of government is to protect individuals from “force and fraud”. Libertarianism governs towards a theory of the Good called the “harm principle”. To call this “neutral” illustrates a lack of thinking at best, or flat out manipulation and lying at worst.

      • Ethics and morality aren’t the same. Morality is how people should behave, according to someone, but NR ethics dictates what you mustn’t do, because it would be unethical for a sentient. Libertarianism doesn’t get into questions of morality, as long as there is no direct harm. Show me “God” or “morality” in the Constitution. I’ll wait.

      • You said “morality is how people should behave” and ethics “dictates what you mustn’t do”, which is a different way to say the same thing, as if dictating what someone mustn’t do isn’t telling him about he should behave. An example would be that telling someone “you musn’t steal”, is telling someone that he should behave in a way that respects other peoples property. Telling someone “you musn’t murder” is telling him to behave in a way that respects peoples right to life. You are not interested in a discussion. You are just misusing language,
        equivocating with terms, and redefining things as you see fit, all so you can hide about your lie of being neutral.

      • Morals is telling someone they are going to hell for masturbating.

        Tyranny is arresting someone for it.

        Ethics is saying “hey, as long as you’re not doing it in front of children or an unconsenting adult, go for it.

      • And what’s strange is that such people don’t seem to notice you can be a slave to your ego and whims as much as society.

      • Yes, which brings us back to the initial point I was making about the simple truths of classical philosophy. You just mentioned another of them.

      • It’s comical to see all you atheists latching like a leech onto the concept of “natural rights” – a concept which has absolutely no meaning apart from religion, and in particular the Christian religion.

      • Again, Natural Rights is not “God’s Rights”. It does not require a God, though obviously some give him credit. If you understood Natural Rights, you’d no why God is not a requirement. It is Sentient Rights.

      • Funny stuff – from an English teacher. I suspect you know a whole lot of nothing about science and math.

      • Teaching ESL is something I do for fun. I know plenty about math, science and economics.

      • Sure you do. You “know” exactly what you’re been told by your fellow Randian cultists.

  72. Certainly well put, but I can’t regard Pethokoukis et al as ‘traitors’. I think the term Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party (Walsh – NYP) encapsulates the phenomenon. There’s simply little, very little difference between the Democrat and Republican establishments. Trump is uniquely suited to this time and place, the first real choice in I don’t know how long. So, we’ll see.

    • True. Sadly, just as he gains the upper hand he picks fights which the progressive MSM can get their teeth into and blow up. Speaking in a down-to-earth manner, like an ordinary person, may attract many followers, but too many glitches creep in for easy fodder.

      He cannot let any slight go by without going into battle. When you look at his background its not surprising, but it is disappointing. And frustrating.

      Can he come back once again? Maybe. Goodness knows the country is willing to give him the nod over Hillary if only he could not get distracted.

  73. People gung ho on open borders are usually living in states other than California, Arizona and Texas, whose legal citizens/residents have seen their environment polluted in third world ways, their water, roads and other infrastructure (which they paid for) unduly burdened, their kids crowded out of their public schools, their sick elbowed out of their emergency rooms (those still open), and their own American poor shut out of section 8 housing.

    So spare us the sanctimonious lecture, please.

  75. OMG, the sky is falling! The end is nigh!

    Poor “conservative” babies on both sides of this argument. Too bad medical science has not yet deveoped a treatment for arrested development or enlarged amygdalae.

    • It’s like Sunnis versus Shias arguing over which perverted vision is best.

      • Yeah.. you mencheviks and bolsheviks and your “all perversion, all the time” assault on the culture is getting quite tiring.

      • Culture is a moving changing thing. The Constitution is not. If someone brings new things to our culture, it is richer and better.

  76. This is some cesspool you run here.
    Is it an adjunct of Breitbarts?

    • The deep, deep thoughts of the racist and fascist left on display.

    • All you have to do is say the word “American” and the racists, bigots and homophobes come running.

      • It’s cute to see all you leftards engaging in a mutual circle-jerk.

      • Why do you hate Americans, John Ash?

        Is that why nobody likes you… because you don’t like anybody?

      • I hate ignorant aholes pretending to be American. When they hate the Constitution and the Foundation of America.

  77. As long as America remains open to global talent, capital, and competition, there is reason to stay optimistic

    Pethokoukis is one of those “Americans” who view America as simply a large corporation – AmeriCorp. As a corporation it needs only those things a corporation needs – capital, labor, and a competitive edge over the other corporations.

    A country is not a corporation and the belief that the two can be conflated leads to corporatism and ultimately fascism.

    I describe Pethokoukis as “American” in scare quotes because according to his own definition of terms, the word is meaningless. A person is “American” in the same sense that he’s Googlian” if he happens to work for Google or “Walmartian” if he happens to work for Wal-Mart.

    In the globalist world-view of those like Pethokoukis, identity still exists and is still extremely important – but it’s sub-national identity of the sort which corporate American obsesses over. Are you black? Gay? Hispanic? Female? Asian? Those importance of those identities are waxing as the notion of an American national identity wanes, and this process is quite deliberate.

    • If the US is not a corporation that serves it’s shareholders and customers and that run it, what is It? A dictatorship that is above We the People that we can not control?

      We the People means ALL the people, not just a ruling elite.

      When drafted, We the People might have been interpreted by property owning white male protestants from England, not Scotland or Ireland, because “citizen” was a very elite subclass of the population. But the masses thought differently when they read We the People, and “citizen” and while the elites excluded non-whites and women for a long time, the masses, especially those who labored and fought to build the US, changed the meaning of citizen to expand those who could run government from a minority to everyone who was in the land.

      The evolution of the Constitution was done primarily by Republicans from its founding fathers, Abe Lincoln. The 14th badly confused the meaning of “citizen” by giving babies the right to vote and hold office, and that allowed the original intent to become so mangled. Citizen merely denoted the status of being mature enough and loyal enough to govern, not to denote allowed to be here. If citizen meant the right to be here, women and children and Catholics in some States would be illegally present.

      So, when Congress had the power to define citizenship, it was merely the power to define how soon and on what terms the immigrating masses would be allowed to govern, but voting and holding public office.

      Nothing in the Constitution gives the Congress the power to close any borders.

      The power Congress has is setting how fast immigrants become citizens, ie, shareholders, with the right to vote on who is on the board of directors, the Congress, and who heads it, the President.

      Amendments pushed by Republicans prohibit denying citizenship on account of race, religion, or gender, only on age, and on the time present in the US or parentage if not born on US soil.

      Our identity is We the People. Not We the white People, or We the Men, ….

      • Hahahahahaha, and you’re flailing. Which is a combination of failing and lying.

  78. For decades economic conservatives have claimed that their Hayekian ideas are more appealing and important than those of social conservatives and constitutionalists, but this is a Big Lie. In fact for decades the view that has had the most popular support is populist: socially conservative, constitutionalist, and economically “moderate.” Admittedly, after decades of conning the public about what the public thinks (see Gallop on perceived versus actual public opinion), peer pressure has led to wider acceptance of counter-culture mores among younger people.

    • My IQ is over 140, and as an engineering student, I literally breezed through my econ classes (as in, going through my tests 3 times… first solving the problems algebraically, then going through again solving the problems using analytic geometry, and then going through the questions a 3rd time and solving the problems with calculus… so as to catch any stupid mistakes)….and frankly, Hayek, while interesting, and having some occassionally insightful rhetoric, in the long run, is incomprehensible (and believe me, his ideas are not nearly as complex as the electrical properties and behavior of solid state materials, or discrete and continuous signals and systems analysis).

      • I didn’t mean to imply that Hayek’s ideas were terribly profound of complicated. We don’t WANT economics to be too complicated because we want average people to be able to understand their options and act rationally. When the individual doesn’t have the information to make prudent choices he is tempted to ally himself with one bunch of powerful people or another and hope they look after him. We are becoming that sort of society but we shouldn’t want to. Congratulations on your high IQ. Just bear in mind that girls are really turned off by guys who try to interest them in electrical properties of solid state materials.

  79. No, this self-sabotaging practice is unique to the American Right

    It’s all born out of the overweening pride of mental acuity and reason that each Conservative intellectual feels they must protect against any impurities. It’s incredibly stupid of them to imagine their strictures could encompass enough demographic votes to assure a victory. Thus are the “lesser mortals” a royal pain in the neck for the Buckleyites, even while Buckley himself would reprove such purity tests.

    • This election is the last time that the Bucklyites will ever sabotage TRUE conservatism and rational traditionlism ever again. He made a career out of vilifying the John Birch Society as kooks — and here we are today, and EVERYTHING they predicted has come true. The REAL kook are Buckley and the staff at National Review.

  80. I have multiple advanced degrees in economics and related fields from the most elite universities in the world. Pethokoukis CAN’T run circles around me with statistics, and I assert outright that he is completely full of ****.

    • That’s cool, but that doesn’t make you correct. Most lawyers don’t understand the Constitution, including at least 4 or 5 current Supreme Court Justices.

      • Remember, everybody ….. only English teacher John Ash properly understands the Constitution!

      • It’s more than cool. It’s exceptional, and indicative of the superior level of knowledge I possess, relative to you.

      • Yep… Ginsberg being a prime example. Also the Foolish Latina and the other dyke put on the bench by Obummer.

      • And Roberts. Not even Scalia fully understood the Constitution. Randy Barnett understands the Constitution. I think. Clarence Thomas, who I assume you must hate, is the best SCJ we’ve had in 50 years.

  81. Comparing Trump to Reagan – I thought I’d seen everything. But I must’ve been born yesterday.
    Anyone who thinks Trump is going to bring back that particular repugnant version of America is sadly mistaken. This is a little like comparing Hitler to Caesar, where the equivalence is really to Nero or Caligula.

  82. Electing Trump is the only thing that will prevent America from being absorbed by the third world and all the anti-whiteness, violence, theft, and corruption it entails over the next decade. Possibly longer if we manage to correct course for the long term. If Clinton gets in, we may as well start wearing sombreros and identify as Hispanic so the blacks can’t target us for reparations.

  83. I see the marxist trolls are having a field day here. Do not feed the toady trolls they will never argue with facts. Their god Saul Alinsky taught them to continue to demean your opponent and you never have to account for facts.
    Do not allow them into the conversation and do not respond to their non-arguments.

  84. I have long been irritated by the insistence on subjecting everything to the economic litmus test, with the unstated assumption that it automatically trumps all other considerations. The economic litmus test is a strictly quantitative filter, when the truth is that there are also important qualitative considerations. Heavy industry and manufacturing are important things to have here on our own soil, with a workforce of our own people, because it provides qualitative value even if a strictly quantitative analysis would conclude it is “better” to send it all to China. America was not the “arsenal of democracy” during World War II because of a service economy.

    Nations are supposed to have economies, not the other way around.

  85. “Raceaholism” is the 21st century disease Publius describes that has afflicted the Left.

    Chronic ‘raceaholics’? Sharpton, Jackson, Hussaino, Holder et al.

    I submit that the 21st century ‘racist’ is the ‘new’ 1940s German Jew.

    The ‘real’ Nazis are the raceaholics on the Left, and the new stormtroopers are the BLM looking for a ‘racist’ under every bed.

    • Too bad for them that they can’t hit a target more than 25 feet away.

  86. What a load of whiny bull. The problem with conservatives is they never, ever admit when they’re wrong or change their beliefs – EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE THE EVIDENCE PROVING THEM WRONG IN FRONT OF THEIR FACES. Sad, but they’re getting everything they deserve for turfing their principles in their quest for power after their failed President caused the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. And sadly, it’s doubtful their children will grow up any more intelligent, given that they’ve home schooled them or sent them to impoverished public schools they completely defunded, and made it next to impossible for anyone but the wealthiest to get a college or university education. Ignorance begets ignorance and conservatives are the poster children for that fact.

    • The public schools are no longer schools, they are Marxist indoctrination camps, which is exactly what John Dewey wanted when he promoted universal public education.

      This has been obvious for 25 years.

  88. Brilliant shiv to the jugular of traiterous “conservatives”. They’re worse than the progressive left by a mile.

  89. Your “a smaller pie more evenly distributed among fellow citizens is a more urgent priority than a larger pie with every new slice going to the top” has the unstated assumption that it would be derived from a Trump immigration policy. Given your own assessment that Pethokoukis would run economic circles around you, will you be the first to shut up on any further such conjecture once the all-powerful will-of-people rejects Trump in November?

    Seems odd from a conservative perspective – no matter its latest contortion at defining.

  90. You guys are missing an important part…The reason you think Republicans are liberal handmaidens is because this “2” party system is a farce. They’re all neo-liberals, which is not true liberalism. True liberals don’t exist in American politics. The Dems are center-right and Republicans increasingly more extreme right.

  91. “Do any liberals ever write “a liberal case” for something obviously conservative, such as the traditional two-parent family or constitutional originalism?”

    You bet they do. How about Bill Maher defending Ann Coulter’s right to free speech in Berkeley? Nat Hentoff (now deceased) was strong advocate of free speech and opposed abortion for many years.

    Of course, they rarely use the words “the liberal case” for… However, I have seen that as well. For example, it is (was) somewhat common to see arguments like “the liberal case for a lower minimum wage and higher EITC”.

    However, in general the author is correct “The Conservative Case” usually means “The Left-Wing Case”…