A Neocon Supports Border Controls—Except When Writing For WSJ! [Southern Sympathizer] - 09/19/04Great news! A neoconservative who now favors border control! Mark Helprin writes in the Fall issue of the Claremont Review of Books: “the borders must be controlled absolutely, as is the right of every sovereign nation. It is hardly impossible and would demand no more than adding to the Border Patrol a paramilitary force of roughly 30,000, equipped with vehicles, helicopters, unmanned aerial drones, fences, and sensors….The sea frontiers can be secured if we undertake to supplement the Coast Guard with a few dozen high endurance cutters, 100 coastal patrol vessels, 50 long-range reconnaissance aircraft, 100 helicopters, and the appropriate additional personnel…” noting the additional benefit: “Actual control of the borders would shut down the world's largest market for the transnational trade in illegal drugs.” VDARE.COM friends will also appreciate Helprin’s deviation from the prevailing assumption that ethnic differences don’t exist/matter. He explicitly rejects as a foreign policy objective “the infinitely open-ended notion of changing the nature of the Middle East, changing the nature of the Arabs, changing the nature of Islam, and changing the nature of man. No army can do that. No army ever could.” They may not be quite as pleased to find all of this is in the context of demanding the injection of 280, 000 US troops into bases in northern Saudi Arabia, from which enclave they will treat the Middle East (including Iran) as a free fire zone, sallying out from time to time to devastate any state deemed not to be properly subservient. Helprin’s confidence that this can be done for a bit less than 10% of the US GNP is not likely to be seen as comforting. I see NRO carries a column signed (and maybe even written) by William F. Buckley, shilling for Helprin’s essay: “The challenge we face is brilliantly addressed by Mark Helprin of the Claremont Institute” Buckley fails to notice the detail that Helprin wants incessant attacks on Middle East countries, nor his support for effective U.S. border control. Well, he’s getting on. Another funny thing: Last Monday, Helprin published a version of this essay in the Wall Street Journal, where he, like every self-respecting neoconservative, is a contributing editor. Oddly, his border control point was left out. No doubt a treezine space shortage. Dispossessing A Majority [Peter Brimelow] - 09/19/04Canadian politics are a specialized taste—alas, I once wrote a book on the subject. But this fine column by an honest Canadian liberal, Richard Gwyn, is an important case study of how a majority, in this case Canada’s English-speakers, can be maneuvered into an “asymmetric” relationship with a minority, in this case Canada’s French-speakers, by an unscrupulous governing class that thinks it’s going to get to run the whole corrupt racket. Think affirmative action |
