I Draw The Line At the Gadsden Purchase

J. Goodrich, on the conservative crack-up:

Immigration is the point where the odd marriage that makes up the Republican base falls apart, the marriage between social conservatives (who are mostly not wealthy) and wealthy business interests. The social conservatives want a big fence around America (as they define it), whereas the business interests want cheap labor to successfully cross that fence. There was no way that Bush could have satisfied both of these desires at the same time.

"As they define it"? Did I miss the memo where immigration restrictionists want to fall back to the Nueces River and build the border fence there? Or the one where they advocated the conquest of the Maritime Provinces, followed by the construction of a Maginot Line along the Quebec-New Brunswick border?

Seriously, how does Goodrich "define" America? Does it include Mexico? France? Or is she too principled a strict-constructionist to recognize the Louisiana Purchase?

Comments

It's not very well-written, but maybe he was referring to the fact that America technically is two continents rather than one country?

Posted by AP | June 4, 2007 6:48 PM

Or is it her point that they have a peculiar way of characterizing the culture of the territory *inside* their desired fence? That "America" means "the land of people like them"? OK, it's a bit awkwardly phrased--but isn't this the blogosphere? This is a bit like jumping on Yglesias's typos, isn't it?

Posted by David | June 4, 2007 6:51 PM

I think she's suggesting that social conservatives want their "big fence around America" to exclude a large number of people who currently dwell inside America... meaning that they define America by culture and ethnicity rather than geography. It's an odd construction, to be sure.

On the other hand, your previous post criticizes Amanda Marcotte and then says you "would have described her prose as Menckenesque," which most writers would consider to be a compliment. Also, in the post before that you appeared to refer to Rod Dreher by the catchy frat-house nickname "Crunchy Condom." So, glass houses and all that.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 4, 2007 7:26 PM

America's an *idea*, baby! It's a *proposition*!

Posted by Alex | June 4, 2007 7:47 PM

EXCELLENT PICTURE OF THE NEOCON TRAITORS

http://i10.tinypic.com/2vabi2u.jpg

WHO SUPPORT AMNESTY

Posted by Jason | June 4, 2007 9:04 PM

US out of Iraq!

US out of Afghanistan!

US out of Kosovo!

US out of Korea!

US out of Germany!

US out of Japan!

US out of Texas!

Posted by Thomas | June 4, 2007 10:47 PM

Thomas: I'm with you on the first one and the last one.

Posted by Dan Miller | June 4, 2007 10:56 PM

I assume the fence is partly metaphorical, and "they" also want a "fence" around, say, traditional gender roles and robust expressions of faith in the public square.

Or it could just mean "white people."

Posted by Trevor | June 4, 2007 11:47 PM

The relevant contrast isn't sociocon vs Wall Street. It's nationalist vs globalist.

Out there among the folks, the same people oppose both immigration and free trade in the name of defense of American manufacturing and wage levels.

Race and culture are not the prime concerns among ordinary people opposing immigration, though they are a concern.

And on the other side the same people - those who actually run the US rather than those who merely wish they did - favor both free trade (or fair, at worst) that enables capital flight to foreign pools of cheap labor and high rates of immigration bringing a flood of cheap labor into America.

Much as capitalist pirates ruined Russia to get rich, capitalist pirates are ruining America to get richer.

Meanwhile, since the Democrats don't much like white working people and the GOP actually rejoices in falling wage levels (recall that 28 GOP senators agreed with George Will and voted to eliminate the federal minimum wage altogether), the bigmouths of both left and right ignore the realities of class war and approach immigration, at least, as primarily about race.

But in truth for the Democrats, anyway, perhaps more than for the GOP, both immigration and trade really are race issues, though this factor is kept pretty well in the background in connection with trade.

When hungry non-whites in Indonesia or in California get jobs lost by previously not so hungry whites, lots of Democrats smile.

Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus | June 5, 2007 6:02 AM

This is the dumbest blog post I've seen for quite awhile, and I read Redstate regularly.

Posted by tequila | June 5, 2007 6:17 AM

Gracchus writes: "Much as capitalist pirates ruined Russia to get rich, capitalist pirates are ruining America to get richer."

Have you been to Russia? I was there shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union , and let me tell you, it was ruined before the captialist pirates even had a chance. What you're seeing now is a salvage operation like digging for gold in a shipwreck.

Posted by Rich | June 5, 2007 10:40 AM

Thanks to tequila for the most stupidly pointless rejoinder I've seen in years. A complete waste of space.

On the other hand, I've never read his blog. Could it be worse?

Rich isn't doing much better. I've never been to Nazi Germany, either. I don't think that's an automatic disqualification of what views I might have on the subject.

Does Rich have an opinion on global warming? Has he been to Greenland or Antarctica? Are only people who have actually been there allowed . . .

Oh, to heck with it.

Posted by Gaius Sempronius Gracchus | June 5, 2007 12:03 PM

Actually I think if you really want to get all formal about it, I think it includes Canada, but people get confused because they use different money up there (though not so different that you can't use the change usually anyway) and have their own Communist kind of bacon or something.

Posted by Sanjay | June 5, 2007 2:15 PM

Why the Gadsen Purchase, Ross? Inquiring minds want to know...

Posted by Mike S. | June 5, 2007 2:19 PM

I think it's pretty clear that Goodrich is talking about a metaphorical fence around a cultural definition of America as a majority-white, English-only nation. Or at least Ross should have given this much benefit of the doubt after arguing that Bill O'Reilly's call to defend the white male Christian power structure was really just a barb aimed at people who want to reform college curricula.

Posted by Ben | June 5, 2007 4:12 PM

"I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missoura."

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Posted by Mario Lee | December 19, 2007 2:36 AM