David Bernstein, posting on the Volokh Conspiracy, notes that:
The political views of Latinos are troubling for advocates of limited government, who also tend to be advocates of liberal immigration policies. As the New York Times reported yesterday, and has been well-known for some time by those who follow such things, Latinos, like prior waves of immigrants from poor Catholic countries, tend to be socially conservative and in favor of big government in the economic realm. In the famous Nolan Chart, Latino voters are disproportionately in the “authoritarian” quadrant, the opposite quadrant from limited government-oriented libertarians.
Given that Latinos are already considered a very important swing vote, and will become ever more important as they become a larger percentage of voters, the current volume of Latino immigration can’t be good news in the short to medium term for fans of limited government.
This is depressing news, given that Latinos are such a large and rapidly growing ethnic group in the US, and have been identified by both parties as a critical consituency to court. Identifying Latinos are social conservatives likely to, say, oppose gay marriage could go a long way toward explaining the apparent ease with which leading Democrats and Republicans have come out in opposition to the idea. The pursuit of the Latino vote, while it may lead to pandering/sensitivity (take your pick) on immigration issues that is congenial to at least some libertarians, may also lead both parties further into the swamps of government-enforced morality.
One wonders if there are any ethnic groups that are culturally predisposed to liberty. One also wonders whether the fabled ‘self-selection’ of the immigration ordeal skews the immigrant profile toward those who want more freedom than they have at home, or toward those who are inured to enduring the immigration and naturalization bureaucracy.
There are permalinks / direct links at Volokh. The timestamp is a link to the entry.
well I see you figured it out 🙂
Illustrious Editor rode to the rescue, dave.
With respect to immigration as also to other subjects, libertarians believe in principles without reference to their immediate consequences.
In an era when population movement is easier than it has ever been in the past and communications with immigrants’ native countries are instantaneous, why would we not expect immigrants to bring their cultural and social attitudes and beliefs with them? If as a matter of principle one supports unrestricted immigration, one is implicitly acquiescing in the gradual change of society to reflect the values of the new immigrants, whatever these might be. Rejecting the idea that new immigrants ought to be under some compulsion to conform their values to ours — say, by requiring them to learn English or forbidding them to practice Wahhabism — puts an exclamation point on that acquiescence.
Americans are apt to think of liberty as a set of values universally true, but our conception of liberty is also the product of a specific history and heritage, especially religious heritage, shared in part by the other English speaking countries and by no one else. Beyond a certain point, immigrants will introduce different ideas about liberty, and American libertarians can even figure out some way to deal with those ideas, or decide how important a principle they think unrestricted immigration really is.
It also shows why I am not opposed to policies as such but rather to politics, including democratic politics. The US constitution attempted to put whole swathes of what civil society did off-limits to politics (like free speech for example) … great idea, but not nearly radical enough.
Until enough people refuse to accept that just beacuse x number of people want something on election day that somehow sanctifies any political action, this sort of thing will always be a concern.
I agree with Perry. However, defining the principle is the easy bit. Getting there from here is hell of a lot harder.
This just emphasizes how important assimilation is.
Our problem in America is not with immigrants but with commuters who can vote here but do not become American and in fact retain irredentist ambitions. This may cause Mexicans to take a generation longer to become Americans than most others. But they will be absorbed as have been all the other dregs whose descendents make up the greatest nation in the world.
“One wonders if there are any ethnic groups that are culturally predisposed to liberty.”
No ethnic group is predisposed to liberty, only individuals from every ethinc are. There is no greater lover of liberty in American than an immigrant who came here because of a dream of liberty that was a relief from a nightmare of tyranny. Send more soon.
This just emphasizes how important assimilation is.
Assimilation is dilution. Past immigrant groups assimilated American into their statist ways.
I wonder if anyone’s done a similar study on the political views of Asian-Americans. Asian immigrants tend to be both socially and fiscally conservative, but their kids tend to be more socially liberal – I can’t say for sure about where their economic beliefs stand. At 4% of the population, Asians are a much smaller minority than Latinos, but they’re growing even faster. And like Jewish-Americans, their wealth could allow them to attain political influence disproportionate to their numbers.
D Anghelone is correct. With the mass immigration from eastern Europe and the great depression the US became much more socialist in the ’30s. And Mexicans are children of socialism.
I’m an Argentinian not-yet-immigrant to the US; waiting for the day when my green card process will get completed. I would define myself as a classical liberal who likes his government minimal and his society liberalized.
I agree with the assimilation issue — and I think the US public schools should put more emphasis on teaching the kids what a great country America is and why Western Civilization is good. By the way, the public school system worked wonders in Argentina, making millions of children of immigrants into Argentine citizens. We even had three 2nd generation immigrant presidents in the 20th century (one of them, Carlos Menem, learned Spanish as a 2nd language in first grade). Not that they were very good, but…
Is there any research as to the proportion of Chicano immigrants in the south-west who want not assimilation but balkanisation?
We here in Southern California (for those not familiar with U.S. geography, SoCal is right next to Mexico, whereas Wisconsin is all the way across the country in the snowy north next to Canada) are experiencing the libertarian dream of open borders first-hand. Or, at least a variant of open borders, in that they are completely open one way, and generally shut the other. How many Americans live in Mexico, own businesses and property, build buildings, start newspapers, etc. etc.? Perhaps we could call a halt to this libertarian utopia until such time as all the other countries of the world join in the fun.
Also, I don’t think it’s too instructive to refer to the “Latino vote.” I briefly looked at a chart in a book from a few years back which showed voting patterns by Hispanic country of origin. Dominicans lead with political participation (I forget how that was defined), followed by Cubans with Mexicans and Central Americans at the bottom. The Cubans voted right, most of the others left. In the last presidental election, I’ve been told that just 3% of the vote was due to Mexican-Americans.
Due to multiculturalism, and the actions of the Mexican government and of traitorous U.S. politicians, assimilation is no longer a good thing that we are expected to demand of immigrants. Instead, just coming here is now good enough.
But, it’s even worse. Consider the quotes here and here:
“We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”
“Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future! You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die. . . . Through love of having children, we are going to take over.”
Admittedly, those quotes are from extremists (the first from a college professor). However, due to multiculturalism, those who utter slightly less inflammatory statements are not just not punished, they’re given things like Congressional Medals of Honor or Chairmanships of the California Democratic Party.
For more information, see my “Immigration” category.
Let’s try this what-if: If immigration by ethnic Germans into France in the 30s was going to lead to the spread of Naziism, knowing everything we know now, would the libertarian response be to think that that immigration was a good thing?
Isn’t the sad truth that (though some cultural groups may be a bit better than others in varying respects) social and economic authoritarians are in a majority in every nation? Most people are particularistic and can’t see the advantage to their world in the other fellow having freedom.
Guy,
When “the other fellow having freedom” comes to California not by himself but in millions and, insodoing, creates a majority for himself in the state is there no sense in which the freedom of established Californians is compromised?
I entirely agree with GuessedWorker and LoneWacko, and am personally in favour of strict migration controls. They are necessary to preserve liberty when a state is threatened by an invasion of socialist migrants, who would otherwise take over the legislature and enact various laws restricting freedom.
This is why I think that Texas should close the border with California. This may sound a bit draconian, but it is necessary in order to defend Texan values such as individual responsibility and the right to bear arms. Otherwise, Californians could just come in, taking their collectivist nanny-state values with them, and start voting for gun control, high taxes, socialised healthcare, racial discrimination in universities, price controls, and other Soviet-era monstrosities.
I would also advocate closing the borders to anyone who has lived or worked in Washington DC, for the same reason.
Isn’t it time to stop complaining about the flood and turn it to our advantage? The Mexicans are drawn by the prospect of work. There is no way to stop this movement. You might as well declare some drugs illegal and try to stop them at the border. Been there. Done that.
If we want a libertarian world we are going to have to include the Mexicans some time. Why not now?
I note that in American schools there are teaching materials on the Constitution in Spanish.
This is either a problem or an opportunity. Your choice.
Isn’t it time to stop complaining about the flood and turn it to our advantage?
How? Libertarians have been unable to turn any situation involving current citizens to their advantage.
If we want a libertarian world we are going to have to include the Mexicans some time.
Mexicans are currently part of the world as are all people. Do we want a libertarian world? Is that an individualist form of libertarianism or a collectivist form?
Why not now?
Why not there? Is there some magic to U.S. geography?
This is either a problem or an opportunity. Your choice.
About as much choice as paying taxes.
How odd. I wasn’t suggesting anyone here had grounded their case in particularism.
I meant to make a point about the prevalence of libertarian culture generally, as the original posting invited. My point was: there really isn’t very much libertarianism in any population.
In the US as a whole, according to the Advocates for Self-Government poll, only 16% fall in the “Libertarian” quadrant of the smallest political test. The NY Times article quoted doesn’t use this measure so comparison is hard to get at. But if Hispanics are disproportionately anti-libertarian, they are still just joining a large majority, not tipping an even balance against us…
It is also worth noting that the article appears to be quoting raw figures. We need rather more numbers and crunching thereof to figure out whether or not all the NYT/CBS poll says is that Hispanics are disproportionately working-class with a working-class attitude distribution to match. It would scarcely be a surprise if that were the case.
Is this story perhaps, not a story at all? Just the NYT needing to say something about an expensive exercise… and getting the inclusive, multicultural vapours at uncomfortable redneck attitudes among those it envisages should be nice liberal Democrats given a bit of mother-tongue education.
One of the saddest observations of my working life was discovering that most people like being told what to do (almost as much as they like telling other people what to do). As long as the pressure doesn’t become too onerous, they prefer to be in a position to bitch and grouse about the boss and the workload, then shrug a whatryougonnado? It’s a lot of hard, thankless work, taking full responsibility for yourself.
From personal observation, I’d say 16% libertarian – people who dislike taking or giving orders – sounds about right.
It seems to me that the its not the number of people that make a political difference – but how vocal any group is. Often the pressure groups are a very small proportion of the population – but they are extremely vocal, extremely visible… and often seem to survive by one solitary idea: “If you repeat something enough times people will come believe it.”
I draw the conclusion that “libertarians/individualists/freedom-lovers/etc” are really a larger group than many of the groups that get greater publicity. They lose out on being heard because of their individual nature and “anti-forcemyneighbourtobejustlikemeness”. All libertarians have to do to get their case across is to shout the simple basics loud and clear at every opportunity.
For those who blame 30’s socialism on immigrants – immigration had been largely throttled by various legislation in the early 20s, and the tap had been turned off. The America of 1945 had a higher percentage of native-born citizens than in periods in either direction, and I challenge anyone to assert that America in 1945 was more libertarian than America in, say, 1900, at the height of the immigration floods.
I’ve noticed that American libertarians often harbor an odd streak of nativism.
Of course, I’m being somewhat unfair, as I don’t live in a high-immigration section of the country – my part of central Pennsylvania isn’t exactly a Latino wonderland. I’m not in a position to be constantly irritated by Latino culture – which I really don’t have much use for. Nevertheless, I have to object to the notion that immigrants are “unsuited” to be American citizens based on some racial notion of cultural ideology. It wasn’t that long ago that a previous generation of American nativists were saying much the same thing about my “Dutch” ancestors.
This really isn’t as simple as simply trying to turn off the immigration socket. And I think Mitch H. is dead on in saying that immigration wasn’t necessarily what lead to creeping American socialism. In my experience most socialist ideas (both moderate and extreme) in America are pushed by non-immigrant upper middle class white academics/career bureaucrats and or non-immigrant black academics/career bureaucrats. This naturally is a generalization, but I really have a hard time labeling immigrants of any ethnicity as being pre-disposed to socialism.
What’s really at fault, as some here have implied, is the reigning academic philosophy of multiculralism which is totally opposed to the concept of assimilation. And someone here said that American schools need to teach about the strengths of America and American civil sociiety. I’m with you, but sadly, that would require a near impossible paradigm shift in Academia. Most of modern academia teaches that America is to blame for most of the worlds problems and that all other cultures are to be respected, to the point of never leveling blame on any aspect of a foreign culture, ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Throw in bi-lingual education and you have the complete removal of immigrant assimilation as a virtue to be valued.
Assimilation is a bad word to most public educators. It is either a) associated with a Star Trek bad guy or b) is considered racists.
But, I have seen to many immigrants come here and adopt the values that lead to success in America: self-reliance, entrepreneaurship (sp?) and hard work. That’s why I refuse to believe any ethnicity is necessarily pre-disposed to political philosophy of really any kind.
Mitch,
I did not blame the rise on socialism of the ’30s on immigrants in general. But there was a huge flood of socialist intelligensia and academics from Europe to escape Nazism. And they began teaching immediately in our universities. These people were definitely not libertarians, a great many were well respected and absolutely enamored with the USSR and Stalin.
D2D – That is one of the most astute comments I have ever read on any thread and I’ve never seen this mentioned before (at least on the internet). These frightfully thoughtful, frightfully superior, very self-assured (if very limited in their experience outside their own culture) emigrés came into America with, they thought, all the answers to non-problems they had defined in their previous existences; not from actual experience of America. And they came with grand academic credentials which intimidated, no doubt, native sane thinkers. Thus, they began to poison the well. Most of them never understood, nor were interested in understanding, America.
D2D and EU DE:
Anything else you can tell us about this flood that overwhelmed the uncredentialed Ur-America and turned it in to the socialist bastion it is today? Are there remnants of the invaders still here? Are we once again importing intelligensia to staff our Universities because we are unable to grow opur own? Where does today’s threat to our precious bodily fluids come from and how can we defend ourselves?
Richard,
Are you kidding? Check the Frankfurt School, especially Theodore Adorno. These guys, nearly all of them jewish intellectuals escaping 1930’s Germany, were the creators of cultural marxism (as opposed to the usual economic model).
Those that you might like to consider remnants are the guiding spirits of academia, human rights, NGO’s etc right across the western world, not just in America. You have, I take it, heard of The Long March Through The Institutions. These people are no longer described as cultural marxists as such, though they continue to employ marxian theory. Today they are the exponents of cultural studies, and “struggle” for a totally egalitarian society controlled by themselves in the form of a therapeutic state machinery. When you see political correctness or identity politics used against white interests, especially white male heterosexuals, there you will find these poisoned and poisonous people.
So you understand the full breadth of their assault on whiteness and western civilisation I’ll repeat a passage written by one of them, the black British intellectual, Stuart Hall, in 1988.
“the global postmodern signifies an ambiguous opening to difference and to the margins and makes a certain kind of decentering of the Western
narrative a likely possibility; it is matched, from the very heartland of cultural politics, by the backlash: the aggressive resistance to difference; the attempt to restore the canon of Western civilization; the assault, direct and indirect, on the multicultural; the return to the grand narratives of history, language, and literature (the three great supporting pillars of national identity and national culture); the defence of ethnic absolutism, of a cultural racism that has marked Thatcher and the Reagan eras; and the xenophobias that are about to overwhelm fortress Europe.”
Libertarianism has nothing to say about this. Or if it has, I haven’t heard it said. I think “complacent” is the kindest judgement one can make.
“This is why I think that Texas should close the border with California”
Since this came from a .uk email address, just FYI there are two rather wide states between TX and CA. However, that is how a lot of people in nearby states (TX,AZ,NV,WA,OR) feel. Oregonians are especially displeased about CAians. Likewise, those in Northern New England aren’t happy with New Yorkers and others who come up there and buy second homes.
Mitch sez: “I have to object to the notion that immigrants are “unsuited” to be American citizens based on some racial notion of cultural ideology. It wasn’t that long ago that a previous generation of American nativists were saying much the same thing about my “Dutch” ancestors.”
Maybe the objection stems not so much from a “liberal” slur like nativism, but more from, oh, I dunno, an objection to publicly stated attempts at ethnic cleansing?
There are also big differences between those Dutch ancestors and the current crop of immigrants.
Did your Dutch ancestors think that because of the Dutch founding of NYC that therefore they were the righful owners of NYC? Were they attempting to breed other ethnic groups out of NYC and stating that they were going to control NYC and convert it into New Amsterdam?
M. Simon sez: “There is no way to stop this movement”
Actually, that’s not entirely correct. Past attempts to deport illegal immigrants have been successful, largely because they were intended to be successful in the first place and weren’t just there for show or to be sabotaged.
Here in CA, there’s currently a bill to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Gov. Davis, facing a recall, has decided between his job and his country, and is backing the bill. What happens if the bill passes? One effect will be to invite millions more illegal immigrants to come to CA. Why not? All they need to do is pay a coyote to take them over the border (or, even easier, just overstay their visa), and they’ll have almost all the rights of a citizen with few of the responsibilities.
So, if you want to reduce illegal immigration, giving driver’s licenses to them is a bad idea.
On the other hand, if you made it clear that illegal immigrants will not get driver’s licenses, that would seem to send the message that said immigrants aren’t too very welcome, no? Some would still come, but certainly not as many as if the bill is passed.
Also, most of these immigrants come here to work. They have to work for somebody, no? Many years ago, the INS would conduct roundups at businesses and deport illegal aliens. If they still do that, it’s on a much smaller scale. Cesar Chavez was referred to as a surrogate for the INS because he didn’t want illegals undercutting his legal workers’ wages, and he would turn them in.
Even more effective are civil and criminal penalties against employers. Tyson Chicken executives were recently convicted of transporting illegal aliens. I don’t know whether they got time, but at the least it probably cost them a good deal of money.
Also, FAIR has funded and won unfair competition suits brought by those who employ legal workers against those who employ illegals.
Then, there’s the issue of language. The U.S. Commerce Dep’t recently started a Spanish-language website. We’ve got bilingual education, bilingual phone messages (oprima numero dos por espanol), bilingual operators, bilingual government workers, etc. etc. etc. That only serves the interests of those who believe in “multiculturalism” instead of assimilation, and makes it very easy for illegal aliens to come here without really having to leave home.
“Dutch” is in sneer quotes because the ancestors in question were actually German. The nativists didn’t care to make distinctions, a failing that seems common to nativist thinking regardless of the generation. And “nativist” is by no means a “liberal” tag, but rather a clinical description of those that wish to purify the body politic by keeping out aliens. The nativists of that generation were, in fact, quite paranoid that another group – the Irish Catholics – were set on an intentional policy of out-breeding the “natives” (alternately “Americans”) in cities like New York City and Philadelphia. Quite moderate and conservative Whigs sympathized and worried that the Continental immigrants would swamp republican institutions with their serfish habits of thought and devotion to the despotic Catholic Church. It took remarkably little time for these otherwise moderate and conservative Whigs to find themselves joining a conspiratorial, underground organization known to posterity as the “Know Nothings”.
For the theory that 30’s American socialism was driven by anti-fascist refugees, I’d like to point out that said cadre of refugees included, among others, Leo Strauss and Ayn Rand. The anti-fascist right came in nearly the same boats as the socialist left.
Ah, those Jewish intellectuals and their socialist scion like Perle, Wolfowitz, Kristol and the rest of the cabal. If only we’d kept them from our virginal shores their ideas would never have polluted our intellectual elites and Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White would have remained true, (red, white and) blue Americans.
And those blacks like Rice, Powell, and Thomas, leading the assault on my whiteness. I’ll be on the lookout for them and their nefarious socialist croneys.
The protests against the “D(e)ut(s)ch” go back to the mid-late 1700’s and relate not so much to ethnic cleansing as to their failure to cleanse anything, especially their own bodies that could be smelt even before they got off the boat. I suggest you read Albion’s Seed to see how they were welcomed to America by the liberal Quackers.
There is no question that California’s, where I too live, politicians have a problem enforcing the laws dealing with illegal immigrants as well as passing laws that are just plain stupid, like the driver’s license law to which you refer. They also have difficulty obeying the laws the people pass in referenda when they cannot find a basis to have the Supreme Court overturn them. But it is difficult for me to blame the immigrants for the stupidity and corruption of California’s politicians. If you don’t like what’s happening in the Golden State, I suggest you emigrate. That’s what I plan to do. Because it’s still a free country.
I did not blame the rise on socialism of the ’30s on immigrants in general. But there was a huge flood of socialist intelligensia and academics from Europe to escape Nazism. And they began teaching immediately in our universities. These people were definitely not libertarians, a great many were well respected and absolutely enamored with the USSR and Stalin.
It’s really not a matter of “blame” anyway. Just looking at what has occurred.
Your focus on “intelligensia and academics” would not be mine. I think of politicians and who they could get to vote for them and why. And the labor unions and who were their members and who they supported.
“but rather a clinical description of those that wish to purify the body politic by keeping out aliens”
OK, let’s make this as simple as possible. Let’s let “A” stand for this: “statements desiring returning California to its mythical past as part of the homeland of the Aztecs, along with ethnic domination even to include ethnic cleansing.”
Is an objection to “A” nativism?
RAH sez: “But it is difficult for me to blame the immigrants for the stupidity and corruption of California’s politicians”
In what way was I blaming individual immigrants? There are certainly problems with immigrants considered as a large group (for instance, according to a poll done in Mexico 58% of those polled thought Mexico was the rightful owner of the U.S. southwest). However, the main problem is with the elites: the elites of U.S., the largely European elites of MX, ethnic demagogues, traitorous U.S. politicians, greedy corporations, and the like.
Did you hear me endorsing the rantings of la Raza & Co? Bomb-throwing anarchists came in the same boats as my grandmother’s parents, give or take a hull or two. Immigrants aren’t saints, nor are they an undifferentiated mass of the elect by virtue of the grace of American soil. But they are people, and American principles are so much over-inked toilet-paper if they cannot or will not be applied to all people who resort to these shores.
So please spare me your “Gangs of New York” pseudo-intellectual rumbles, pitting nativists versus Latino fascists. In such fights, the neutral observer wishes fervently for mutually assured discreditation.
Lonewacko,
Glad we agree on that. Sorry if I seemed to be imputing those thoughts to you, but there are a lot of folks in this thread. Or were.
May I state a few points? I am from the Dominican Republic, born and raised. No, not proud of it. Don’t care either. Just don’t call me “Dominican”.
The country, like the overwhelimg majority of Latin America, is heavily socialistic. Socialistic to an extent that native born Americans as yourselves could not possibly believe. They literally expect the government to take full charge in most matters, social and economic, and hold it responsible for any prosperity or failure. Individualism, the core of Libertarianism, is considered a lesser value. The family (your extended family) is your first loyalty, and your first priority, and you answer to them, and work for them. The culture is socialistic in nature.
Now, having said that, the question is simply a question of principle. It is a question of right. Government, in its proper form, exists only to protect private property and life from the use f force. Have we any right from preventing them from comming, when they have no criminal history and we have no reson to expect such a violation? The question is not of ability. We could just nuke Mexico and prevent any more deadly socialist influx. The question is about whether we have the right to prevent a free, law abiding human being from exercising his god given legs as best he sees fit. Pragmatism often smells like moral cowardice, and makes it difficult to take the moral high ground. I am not a citizen yet, but I consider myself an American. We demean ourselves by forgetting our moral compass and our history as a nation of immigrants. And our commitment to individualism and self-government. I think that about covers it.