Substack Notes, Vol. 5.5
Jan. 31st - Feb. 7th, 2024
(My reply: I wrote something very similar just today! Thank God for Substack⊠a flickering flame in the murk and gloom of swirling digital chaos and gentle elitist propaganda campaigns.)
:(My reply: These look like general treatments of the notion of open borders.
was making a claim that OUR Southern border is a huge target for Mexican cartels, which DO traffic people and drugs and commit thousands of murders. Are you really saying that, without any other policy changes (drug legalization, etc) opening the border with Mexico and allowing the unfettered access of Mexican Cartels to their market won't fuel human trafficking and suffering? Do you dispute that the unprecedented numbers of migrants in NYC and elsewhere are leading to situations wherein unhoused women are raped and men are stabbed? None of these sources seem to deal with those claims whatsoever. We're not talking about the concept of borders or the general benefits of immigration averaged across all societies. We're talking about the US Southern border right now. There is a historically unique level of human movement across that border right now and to claim that this movement is not fueling suffering would be a strange claim indeed.If you can give me some sources defending the claim that the changes in border policy which have corresponded with a HUGE surge in migration from Mexico to the US is NOT fueling crime and suffering or creating massive unintended effects for governments or American citizens I would be intensely interested in exploring those. I suspect that none of the academics who authored the works you provided have much direct experience with cartel crime or border control or homeless shelters. That doesn't mean that their perspective is invalid but it does man that it's incomplete.)
Progressives are starting to get worried. They should be.
One of the unspoken assumptions behind democracy is that the proportion of violence-capable males on either side of a policy question is similar. So long as that is the case, it is better to count heads on bodies rather than heads chopped off of bodies, because if both sides have the same proportion of violence-capable males, the larger side is likely to win if it comes to a fight.
This is why early democracies limited the franchise to men, or even to land-owning men. If you were no good in a fight, either personally or via your ability to rally others, your opinion was fundamentally irrelevant to a political question.
As long as the franchise was limited to men, this assumption could go unspoken. Indeed it's so basic we forgot about it. That's starting to change.
We're now entering a period in which political questions are divided along sexual lines. One side is composed of a preponderance of women, while the other has a majority of young, fighting-aged men. Under the current rules of democracy, everyone gets the same vote, so all that matters is which side is larger.
But.
What happens when side A is 55% of the population, but 80% women, and the 20% of men are the least virile of the population? While the other side is say 45% of the population, 80% of men, but contains effectively 100% of the fighting aged men who are actually capable of fighting? Side A will keep outvoting side B at the ballot box because it is larger. But eventually side B realizes that if they just ⊠take over ⊠there is absolutely nothing, from a purely realpolitikal standpoint, standing in their way.
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(My reply: Everything must be relentlessly categorized and the terms and labels much constantly morph and change. This functions partly as a sign to other followers of Critical Theory that the speaker or writer is part of âtheir groupâ and can be openly dealt with (rather than an enemy). Itâs also a status symbol. Real black and brown people on the street never say âBIPOCâ-only well-educated graduate students and privileged Twitter journalists use the term, with a little frisson of self-congratulation, every time.)
(Biden absolutely CAN shut down the border. Whether thatâs a practical step at this point is one question, but he has the explicit legal authority and the resources to intervene whenever he likes, without any congressional action whatsoever.)
Itâs not that I donât want âwokeâ shows or books or cultural products to exist. Thereâs place in a free market for a range of perspectives and values. There are currently two problems, and they are related:
1.) there are still many cultural gatekeepers (critics, studios, hedge funds,legacy media, government agencies, universities) in our society. They tend to bias in favor of Leftist perspectives, even to the point of ostracizing and slandering people who donât toe the line-journalists, celebrities, audiences, etc. This has led to a kind of persecution complex among non-woke liberals and moderates and conservatives.
These gatekeepers are finding that their positions are eroding quickly though.
2.) (more seriously) Critical Theory is a totalizing ideology. It cannot exist in harmony with other opinions or perspectives. It reflexively designates all others as âenemiesâ and begins to consume the institutions into which itâs introduced.
I believe that after the past 5-6 years our society has begun developing an inoculation against Leftist totalitarianism and personality disorders masquerading as political program.. but in a sense the battle is just beginning.
Iâm willing to tolerate anyone whoâs willing to tolerate the existence of media and institutions and thinkers with my values.
Thanks for including me in this roundup!