Defending Bill O'Reilly

There's a pretty strong and long-standing strain of nativism that sees xenophobic policies as necessary to maintain The Culture, and there's nothing more conservative than protecting The Culture. I think he may have intended to do what you're suggesting and unwittingly exposed as central to his type of conservatism that which others are suggesting.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 1, 2007 3:34 PM

Which lefty-multiculturalists are you talking about? The one's inside the minds of Bill O'Reilly and Pat Buchanan? Do they exist anywhere else? I'm not kidding here.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | June 1, 2007 3:40 PM

O'Reilly is right on the money. It's a common fantasy ranging from the left in academia to the neocons that making America more "diverse" will indeed overthrow the hated White Christian Male Power Structure. For example, Tamar Jacoby, the leading neocon shill for the Cheap Labor lobby, sees mass immigration from Mexican as revenge for the slights that her Aunt Bea experienced as an Ellis Island immigrant at the hands of "Anglo-Saxonists."

http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/jacoby.htm

Granted, it's incredibly stupid for Jews to push for immigration policies that bring in more anti-Semites, but ethnic nostalgia -- the desire to refight the battles of a century ago -- runs very deep.

One encouraging sign lately is that a number of Jewish intellectuals have come around on immigration, such as Paul Krugman, Charles Krauthammer, and Stanley Kurtz.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 1, 2007 4:09 PM

Tamar Jacoby, the leading neocon shill

Umm, so now you're casually moving neocons into the lefty bin? I don't say that there's no affinity, but seriously? My understanding is that the neocons formed (congealed? aggregated?) precisely to be anti-lefty.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | June 1, 2007 4:19 PM

Wait a minute- he's caricaturing people who think there is a "White Male Power Structure" but then going on to say "you got to cap with a number" in order to defend it?

Either he thinks the premise is false, in which case he's basing his immigration stance on defending a "Power Structure" that he believes doesn't exist, or he thinks the premise is true and is basing his immigration policy on opposing the "far-left" opponents of a "White Male Power Structure."

The first makes him indefensibly disingenuous, and the second makes him...believe there is such a thing as a "White Male Power Structure." In which case, there is no caricature here...

Posted by P | June 1, 2007 4:26 PM

it seems at least as likely that he's caricaturing lefty views as that he's expressing his deep, dark Christofascist fantasties

Would anybody say with a straight face "I am part of the 'white, Christian, male power structure' that we need to maintain"? The only people who talk about a 'white, Christian, male power structure' are the people who think that such a power structure exists and needs to be destroyed.

But of course, when you speak extemporaneously, some things you say are likely to be ambiguous, and people predisposed to hate you will assume that it means the worst. Same, by the way, with when Bush said that "if you don't want to do what's right for America" you will oppose the immigration bill. Well, everyone opposed to Bush on immigration (which is most people) read that ambiguous statement to mean that Bush thinks that his opponents want to do what's wrong for America, rather than the more obvious (and generous meaning) that he thinks the bill is right for America.

Posted by Al | June 1, 2007 4:36 PM

Since when is the "white, male, Christian power structure" synonymous with "Western Civilization"? Surely we can have the second without the first.

Posted by Dave | June 1, 2007 4:42 PM

look, diversity is great! i mean, look at all the colored people liberals like matt yglesias go on vacation with!

(why is it that i'm always blinded by the white glare when yglesias & co. post picture of social gatherings? ;-)

Posted by razib | June 1, 2007 4:58 PM

"akin to my self-identifying with "the patriarchy," for instance, in a discussion of feminist interpretations of American politics, even though I don't actually think of myself as part of any such beast.)"

Ross--acceptance is the first step to recovery.

Posted by Steven Donegal | June 1, 2007 5:13 PM

If you break "White Christian Male Power Structure" down into its individual components, you'll see that

-- Whites still dominate the really good jobs in America, like 99% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 94% of Hollywood screenwriters.

-- Males still dominate most of the really good jobs, too. For example, in 80 years of Acadedy Awards, women have gotten nominated for Best Director three times, or about 1%.

-- As for Christians, well, Jews are highly over-represented and Buddhists and Hindus are mildly over-represented in good jobs, but the vast majority of Americans are of Christian background.

The irony, of course, is that importing a whole bunch of unskilled immigrants has virtually zero effect on the Power Structure outside of politics where raw voting power counts. The 30 million Mexican-Americans are remarkably under-represented in most elite circles. They don't even show up much on American Idol! They sure don't do much in Silicon Valley (the head of AMD is the exception that proves the rule) or in Hollywood (Rodriguez of Spy Kids being the exception -- there are a number of fine directors from the cultural elite of Mexico, of course, but they are definitely not Mexican American.)

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 1, 2007 6:02 PM

Amazing that we need Steve Sailer to point out that the "white male Christian power structure" might have something to do with empirical fact, though of course he doesn't see it as much of a problem.

I suppose there are definitions of "white male Christian power structure," or, for that matter, "patriarchy," which do indeed describe absurd and unreal entities, but they are not widely used. One might take issue with the "Christian" part, but denying that the rest of it even exists is actually insane.

Posted by BP | June 1, 2007 8:01 PM

Dave (said)

"Since when is the "white, male, Christian power structure" synonymous with "Western Civilization"? Surely we can have the second without the first."

& BP said

"I suppose there are definitions of "white male Christian power structure," or, for that matter, "patriarchy," which do indeed describe absurd and unreal entities, but they are not widely used. One might take issue with the "Christian" part, but denying that the rest of it even exists is actually insane."

This is the crux of a lot of it. Our Civilization cannot be reduced to a Hegelian master/ slave dialectic. It’s not a cauldron of oppression or reducible to mere power dynamics.

So yes... I deny that their is a "white male Christian power structure," & that is hardly "insane"

Posted by Fitz | June 1, 2007 8:40 PM

Who ever suggested reducing our entire civilization to a white male Christian power structure? This is one of its characteristics, not the entire thing. You might as well say that because you can't reduce our entire civilization to capitalism, or the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, those things aren't real.

Posted by BP | June 1, 2007 9:24 PM

So when O'Reilly says that "in that regard, Pat Buchanan is right," it seems to me that he's saying that Buchanan is right on the narrow point that lefty multiculturalists see open borders as a weapon in their struggle to Rigoberta Menchu-ize Western Civilization...

I know I'm spitting in the wind here, but, can we all please dispense with the term "open borders?" It's really one of my pet peeves (rant warning). Who of us doesn't want to be able to leave the country for a Caribbean vacation? Who of us doesn't want a nice family from Ontario to be able to drive down to New York to see the sights. Who of us doesn't want goods and services to be able to flow back and forth across our frontiers? Don't these things require "open borders"? Would y'all prefer the borders to be closed?

Now, I realize a lot of people use the term to refer to an "insecure" border, but all I'm asking for is a little precision in language. Because the thing is, absolutely NOBODY wants the freakin' border to be insecure. I strongly suspect even the most scarily post-modern, leftist, downtown Manhattan dwellin,' crazy America hatin' intellectual doesn't want, say, an al-Qaeda operative smuggling in a nuclear weapon that might well target his own home town. I repeat: exactly nobody wants insecure borders.

What there is a debate about is how to go about best securing the border and what role, if any, immigration policy plays in this process. There's also what should be the utterly unrelated debate about immigration itself (how much, what kind, etc.), and how to go about stopping or reducing the illegal variety. Strangely, the further 9/11/01 recedes into the past, the less we seem to worry about the national security aspects of border control, and the more we seem to worry about, er, overcrowded Northern Virginia boarding houses. Stopping a nuclear terrorist ought to generate a lot more national heat and fury than stopping construction workers and dishwashers. This, perhaps more than anything else, is why I've come to loathe the new restrictionists. Their quest for a chimerical cultural and racial purity is endangering the country, and I resent the hell out of them because of it.

Posted by Jasper | June 2, 2007 12:45 AM

Jasper,

The Wall Street Journal has repeatedly editorialized over a period of many years in favor of a constitutional amendment reading in toto: "There shall be open borders."

With five billion people living in countries poorer than Mexico, obviously that makes zero sense. But zero sense is what you get a lot of on the topic of immigration, where emotion and status-seeking rule.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 2, 2007 2:02 AM

I've occasionally listened to Mr O'Reilly's radio show, and this is nearly word-for-word what I 've heard him spout there twice---the only thing missing is the reference to "Soros", evidently some sort of bogey-man he invokes for an extra-high fear-response in his audience, and the people running big corporations.

That is to say, I've heard him twice say, and it had the sound of a near-nightly refrain, that The Secular Progressives (which describes me nicely) want to bring in millions of immigrants that we might...MOULD them (bwa-ha-ha-ha). Real Americans are mostly traditionalists like O'Reilly, and so are immune to our propaganda; we must import these child-like foreigners that they might support our agenda of legalised drugs, socialised medicine, and debauching YOUR daughter. (He didn't say the last, but it's the best way of encapsulating the flavour of the whole rant.)

The second time I heard it, he answered a lantern on the objection that Mexicans tend to be with him on social issues by claiming that we'd bribe them into changing their minds.

In sum: I think he either believes these things or "believes" them in the sense that his professional persona (a middle-school gymn teacher c. 1965 who listened to a lot of Father Coughlin back when) believes them.

Posted by M. Turyn | June 2, 2007 4:35 AM

That should have been:

[...] "Soros" (evidently some sort of bogey-man he invokes for an extra-high fear-response in his audience) and the people running big corporations.

Mentioning George Soros will not, as my earlier mis-punctuating would have indicated, create any kind of fear-response in the runners of large corporations---his interests are theirs, he just has a different (and I think better) definition of "self-interest" than they: he wants to continue to be a lord of this world, as do they, but he thinks that that position would be more secure and more fun if the world resembled a dung-heap somewhat less.

Posted by M.T. | June 2, 2007 6:48 AM

that conservatives should be opposed to anything that lefty multiculturalists favor

It's amusing that irrational resentment like that is the most charitable interpretation of O'Reilly's statement.

Posted by Consumatopia | June 2, 2007 9:59 AM

"Who ever suggested reducing our entire civilization to a white male Christian power structure? This is one of its characteristics, not the entire thing. You might as well say that because you can't reduce our entire civilization to capitalism, or the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, those things aren't real.'

Those who use terms like "white male Christian power structure" are reductionisms when it comes to our civilization. I am not aware of any analysis of these supposed power structures that is not heavily tinged with Marxism & radicalism.

In as much as this society is European those in power are white. In as much as men tend to dominate public life and women domestic life; positions of power are held by males. In as much as this is a Christian society, positions of power are held by Christians.

Posted by Fitz | June 2, 2007 10:06 AM

Let's face it. BOR's statement was inherently racist. He knows exactly for what and for whom he speaks. There's no need for a big philosophical debate here. Any country which has as it Founding Fathers a bunch of slaveholders just proves the point. As a young child growing up in Detroit I always had a sick feeling in my guts when it came to confronting Slavery and its Legacy in school or wherever.

Make no mistake, I did ask my Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts and Cousins about what they knew about Slavery. The expressions on their faces are still vivid in my mind to this very day. The look of bewilderment and disgust was more than apparent not because they couldn't respond but because they worried about what it was they could say to a young child that would spare them both the inevitable pain that would follow and the just call for justice and retribution. I'm still very close to the crime of Slavery. I have a cousin who is now over 100 Years old and her father was born a slave. I want everyone to stop and consider that for a moment, the gravity of that statement. Slavery is still with us. The whole question of Slavery is still an open wound in American Society. There is an overwhelming refusal to deal with its Legacy. America is in denial.

Don Imus's outburst pales in comparison. A parlor joke at best when you consider the weight of Bill O'Reilly's words. Not to excuse Don Imus for what he said but any black rapper or comedian could have said that and gotten away with it. Don Imus "lost" his position. What will be Bill's fate? I wonder if there will be an enraged outcry from all Americans concerning this shameful and deliberate racist taunt.

Bill O'Reilly and all that he represents should be made history as soon as possible. We can no longer allow these dilettantes an opportunity to spew their idiotic nonsense. To do so will spell our doom. Enough is enough. Basta!!

Darnell Stephen Summers
US Army(1966-70)
CONUS, Germany, Viet Nam

Posted by Darnell Stephen Summers | June 2, 2007 10:59 AM

What Bill O'Reilly is saying is well in line with Supreme Court thinking on the issue of discrimination.

If a given policy is the result of "animus," that is to say, simply dislike of a particular religious, racial, or other group then it is not a legitimate law, even if it SEEMS to be applied in an even-handed fashion. And it can be animus even it if isn't violent or out of control or expressed in exterminatory ways.

For the Supreme Court, this is usually expressed in saying that this or that law (anti-sodomy laws for example) express animus against sexual minorities and hence, even though such laws merely regulate behavior and are not on the face of it directed against groups, they are still unconstitutional.

What Bill O'Reilly is pointing out is that much of the support for high immigration is actually animated by "animus" against groups in the sociological majority (that's the technical term for his white, male, Christian, etc., laundry list). In that assertion, he is unquestionably right. Such animus exists, although it is fairly mild most of the time, and it is driving a significant chunk of the immigration debate. (Poltiical advantage, inertia, business interests, and -- dare I say it -- actual compassion are much of the rest)

Of course, I think the Supreme Court is wrong when it believes it can detect and declare unconstitutional laws stemming from "animus" in any consistent way. "Animus" in this sense is the stuff of politics. You can force it to express itself in civil ways, but you can't get rid of it.

Posted by CPA | June 2, 2007 11:17 AM

Come on Ross. You know that NY Times editors are trying to weigh a lot of factors when it comes to immigration, but they aren't trying to destroy the white christian partriarchy. I am not sure if Bill O'Reilly knows this, and I would take his Christmas crusade to indicate that he on some level does identify with this, so I think defending him, despite how fun it may be to go against CW, is futile.

Posted by Castorp | June 2, 2007 12:33 PM

The irony, of course, is that importing a whole bunch of unskilled immigrants has virtually zero effect on the Power Structure outside of politics where raw voting power counts. The 30 million Mexican-Americans are remarkably under-represented in most elite circles.

This is the irony - the leftists do want to break the power structure, but the (mostly white, male) politicians want to entrench their power via high amounts of immigration. Obviously, they can't both be correct. This paper by Fredo Arias-King highlights why the political class is so enamored of high immigration from Mexico. High immigration, and/or legalizing all of the illegal immigrants in in the U.S., has the effect of supporting the corrupt & entrenched political class in Mexico, since they get to send poor people without jobs here, where said poor people send money back to Mexico. It also has the effect of entrenching the Democrats in power. Initially, this might seem like a good idea if you are a Democrat and/or favor Democratic policies, but in the long run it is not healthy, since politicians become more disconnected & unaccountable when they don't have any serious competition. What's truly remarkable is the delusion that Republican politicians have that they will benefit from this arrangement.

Posted by Mike S. | June 2, 2007 4:40 PM

Jasper,

Now, I realize a lot of people use the term to refer to an "insecure" border, but all I'm asking for is a little precision in language. Because the thing is, absolutely NOBODY wants the freakin' border to be insecure. I strongly suspect even the most scarily post-modern, leftist, downtown Manhattan dwellin,' crazy America hatin' intellectual doesn't want, say, an al-Qaeda operative smuggling in a nuclear weapon that might well target his own home town. I repeat: exactly nobody wants insecure borders.

But that's the point - the policies you and the WSJ editorial page favor make it impossible to know who is and who is not coming into this country. If the policies you favor will inevitably lead to open borders, it's not unfair to label such policies as "open borders".

Given high enough levels of immigration, there is no way to adequately screen everyone, simply as a bureaucratic matter. The immigration agencies are some of the most inefficient and incompetent agencies in the in the federal government. And in the absence of strict enforcement of immigration law, one will inevitably have high levels of illegal immigration. The only viable scenario for having secure borders is to set legal immigration at a level that is logistically feasible (~1 million per year, I'd guess), and to diligently enforce the law.

Posted by Mike S. | June 2, 2007 4:48 PM

Is this a nazi website? Bill O'Reilly is a sickening puddle of misinformation.

Posted by Jon Steinberg | June 2, 2007 10:50 PM

There's nothing wrong with destroying this so-called structure. It's time for America to grow up.

Posted by Jon Steinberg | June 2, 2007 10:53 PM

But that's the point - the policies you and the WSJ editorial page favor make it impossible to know who is and who is not coming into this country.

I don't speak for the WSJ, but I favor a substantially sized program for Latin American immigration. Allow people to come in through the front door, where they can be screened, background-checked, etc., and they shouldn't have a need to come in through the back door, illegally.

Given high enough levels of immigration, there is no way to adequately screen everyone, simply as a bureaucratic matter.

I agree it's not possible to adequately screen "everyone". But under our current policy, some 40-50% of our immigrants aren't screened at all. This strikes me as a maddeningly risky strategy for a nation at war.

Posted by Jasper | June 4, 2007 12:37 PM

This strikes me as a maddeningly risky strategy for a nation at war.

True enough. The point is that the only way to gain control over the situation is to be disciplined about enforcing the law over an extended period of time. Which is what the "enforcement first" crowd wants. Announcing that you are giving amnesty to the illegals here already will only increase the incentives for people to get across the border, making a bad situation even worse.

Posted by Mike S. | June 4, 2007 3:46 PM

True enough. The point is that the only way to gain control over the situation is to be disciplined about enforcing the law over an extended period of time.

This presumes that it is feasible to have excellent levels of enforcement of the immigration laws as they're now written. I think it's not so feasible, in a fashion almost identical to prohibition during the 20s, or indeed to today's drug laws. I think once we end the de facto prohibition of non-familial Latino immigration, we can talk about "disciplined" enforcement. Until then, we'll continue to absorb a vast annual intake of undocumented foreigners -- perfect camouflage for our Islamist enemies. We have some very fine people working in border control and immigration enforcement, but they're only human, and like other law enforcement officials, they tend to be insufficiently effective when fighting against powerful market forces. Not all laws are enforceable.

Posted by Jasper | June 4, 2007 7:08 PM

I think it's not so feasible, in a fashion almost identical to prohibition during the 20s, or indeed to today's drug laws.

The difference is that there was/is widespread demand for alcohol/illicit drugs, whereas there is not widespread support for poor immigrants. The demand side is limited to much of the political class, the racial identity groups like La Raza, and some sectors of big business. These groups are influential, but they are a relatively small number of people. Plus, we have lots of evidence that enforcing prohibitions on alcohol and drugs has limited effectiveness, but we have lots of evidence that enforcement of immigration law is effective. We had low levels of immigration from 1920 to 1965, and post-1965 when we demonstrate the will to enforce the law, either at the border or internally, we see results. Lots of illegals left in the aftermath of 9/11, because they were convinced that the government would start cracking down & deporting people. So the evidence is that enforcing the law works.

I think once we end the de facto prohibition of non-familial Latino immigration, we can talk about "disciplined" enforcement. Until then, we'll continue to absorb a vast annual intake of undocumented foreigners -- perfect camouflage for our Islamist enemies.

You're ignoring the point that large enough levels of immigration, even if it is nominally legal, makes it impossible to adequately screen everyone. You are way underestimating the supply side of the equation. You want to simultaneously say that millions more people can come here legally, and at the same time we can make our screening procedures more efficient. Color me skeptical.

Posted by Mike S. | June 5, 2007 2:11 PM

Well, well.. talk about ironic.. last time I checked Mexicans (and hispanics generally) while not usually classifiable as "white" - being mostly (80%+) Native Ameerican & mestizo - are almost entirely Christian. And not just Christian, but the "worst" type of Christian - rather traditionalist Catholic & Pentacostal, for the most part.

So here we have proof that O'Reilly truly is a moron. As are those leftists who believe naturalizing millions of hispanics is necessarily going to lead to a postmodern socialist paradise. Americans - by that I mean Norte Americanos, gringos - are so deluded. Those hispanics may indeed bring the spirit of PRI north with them.. but the PRI is old school socialism & cronyism, not the hippy dippy feminist freelove crap the intellegentsia advocate over green tea and readings of Foucault and de Beauvoir.. Like old school communists who hold homosexulality to be an expression of bougeois decadance, Latin American leftism is usually of sterner stuff than what passes for radicalism at Berkley these days.. Frieda Kahlo aside, Fidel hasn't much use for buggery, be it hetro or homo..

So O'Reilly should chill: we're almost as likely to get fans of Batista & Pinochet as Castro, Che, Chavez or Morales. I mean that entire macho strongman aesthetic should be right up his ally, I'd think..

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