For those of you under the misimpression that this weekend’s thwarted terror attack in France is an anomaly, Breitbart London has some sobering news. In a single 18 month span, over 230 people were murdered in jihadist attacks upon that country. And while most of us are aware of the horrors perpetrated in the Bataclan and the offices of Charlie Hebdo, few recall the many acts of terrorism which were prevented by well-trained security forces.

Perhaps, like Londoners, residents of cities like Toulouse, Marseilles, and Paris will just have to adapt to the new normal…if you can call it that.

Rigidly defending the President’s precise formulations will always pose a problem for his supporters. I think even his staunchest backers will acknowledge that Donald Trump isn’t Churchillian in his eloquence. That said, nearly every time he is assailed by his pseudo-sophisticated, morally inverted critics in the culturally Marxist press, it turns out that he was correct.

The manufactured controversy surrounding his remarks about Sweden is simply the latest example of the media’s malicious lying and/or stupendous ignorance. No, President Trump wasn’t referring to a specific terrorist attack in Sweden, although there have been jihadist assaults in that nation, including suicide bombings, but rather to the degradation of that country-as well as others in Central and Northern Europe-occurring as a result of catastrophically wrongheaded immigration policies.

What happened last night, as well as many nights before in immigrant-heavy, Islam-friendly towns and cities in that country, is chaos. Rampant sex crime, tribal warfare, widespread rioting-some of which targets members of the liberal press which is so enamored of non-Swedes-and general lawlessness. In spite of the Swedish government’s refusal to acknowledge reality, censorship of hate facts, and systemic coverup of migrant rape of Swedes, the non-brainwashed know what is happening in Europe.

Despite forbidding the collection of statistics which would identify the ethnicity of those committing crimes in Sweden, we still have a very good idea of who is responsible for many of them. For example, 85% of those sentenced to at least 2 years in prison for rape by a Swedish court of appeals were foreign-born or second-generation immigrants. We have firsthand accounts from career law enforcement officers attesting to the culpability of foreign immigrants and refugees in the diverse array of problems Swedes currently face.

The idea that the state and its accomplices in the media can somehow indefinitely cover up the truth in a networked world, where we can read descriptions of what the multicultural boroughs of Europe are actually like, is the height of absurdity. The facts denied and buried by the mainstream media are at the fingertips of those who choose to obtain them. That is something that will not change any time in the near future, no matter how much our ruling class would like to suppress the truth.

President Obama’s last week in office has brought with it a flood of breaking news. The biggest story, of course, is his commutation of Chelsea Manning’s 35 year prison sentence. My own impression is that his decision is designed as a cynical bit of legacy-building, with the added benefit of perhaps inducing Julian Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy. Although that prospect appears increasingly remote, it very well might have factored into his judgement. Overlooked in news coverage of the Manning commutation is the grant of clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, a leader of the Marxist-Leninist Puerto Rican terror group FALN. Like Bill Clinton’s pardon of previously released FALN terrorists, which was intertwined with his wife’s Senate bid in New York, this decision was politically-based. In this case, as a parting gift to violent socialists who still comprise a significant portion of the Democratic base and will populate future revolutions.

Another early Christmas present for the hard left  comes in the form of the President’s revocation of the federal government’s Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy. It should be recalled that the policy itself was implemented prior to a pivotal election year, when former President Clinton was attempting to empty Guantanamo Bay of Cuban refugees. In order to prevent a repeat of Mariel-which sunk a young Bill Clinton’s chances of being reelected governor of Arkansas-he struck a deal with Fidel Castro which limited the number of Cubans who would be allowed to enter the United States. As Humberto Fontova astutely points out, one of the unreported effects of this adjustment will be an increase in the number of dependents flowing into the United States with a commensurate decrease in the amount of skilled professionals immigrating.

Even as the Obama administration’s days draw to a close, it continues to imperil the health and safety of ordinary American citizens, as ICE and CBP effectively serve as a shuttle service for unidentified illegal aliens under the pretext of being reunited with family. How many innocent people will meet the same fate of Sarah Root because of this willful indifference to the lives of Americans? Even  as people living throughout the United States are placed in imminent danger through the reckless ideology of the outgoing administration, the tide of refugees from Asia, Africa, and broken nations like Haiti shows no signs of ebbing. The conditions Barack Obama and his lawless bureaucracy have established bear all the hallmarks of the disaster we’ve seen unfold across Europe over the past 2 years.

Unfortunately, there are also ominous hints being dropped by President-Elect Donald Trump, who has responded favorably to proposals to salvage his predecessor’s patently unconstitutional administrative amnesty. In addition to going back on one of the central planks of the platform upon which he was elected-and deflating any enthusiasm felt by his staunchest supporters-this maneuver would significantly enhance the prestige and power of the very worst people, e.g. Paul Ryan, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham. The idea that one of the first domestic policy decisions will be to embrace the instincts of open borders fetishists and neoconservatives is unconscionable. If Trump had campaigned on a promise to continue the disastrous immigration policies of the current administration, he never would have made it past New Hampshire. This is an idea which needs to be categorically rejected by any right-thinking immigration patriot.

In order not to black pill the majority of our audience, we should leave you with a bit of good news from abroad. It seems that Norway has finally shown some of the Scandinavian backbone which Sweden surrendered several centuries ago. While the Norwegians haven’t ejected every jihadist apologist and Muslim fifth columnist from their nation, 2016 did see a record number of deportations. Although too many of these deportees were Europeans, it’s significant that there is a growing movement within that country to assert its sovereignty in the face of a Muslim population that has grown to nearly 150,000.

Perhaps it’s not too late to save Europe.

It seems like the Truck of Peace has struck yet again, adding to the nearly 21,000 lives extinguished by this most quiescent, moderate of religions. The ISIS-inspired murderer is on the loose, naturally, although the BBC will be relieved to know that the offending lorry has been taken into custody. As the Alternative for Democracy has stated, these dead can be laid at the feet of Angela Merkel, a woman responsible for more European deaths than the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Ayman al-Zawahiri combined.  She celebrates the cultural enrichment brought by migrants-presumably including the over 100,000 crimes they’ve committed-even as German police buckle under the relentless pressure of Arab-Muslim street gangs.

She has the gall to lament the impact this Muslim-committed atrocity might have on refugees, i.e. potential jihadists, even as Berlin is still soaked in the blood of those who’ve been killed by one of her wayward children. Yet this stupidity hasn’t prevented the same host of global opinion-makers from tut-tutting the potential blowback from the German public. It’s infuriating to those of us who’ve been watching the War on Christmas unfold across Europe and North America over the past 2 decades. We’re being asked to sacrifice our lives-and the lives of our children, grandchildren, sisters, and brothers-upon the alter of multiculturalism and our culture’s demented fealty to political correctness.

Merkel needs to pay the ultimate political price for her actions, which actually are treasonous, i.e. a profound betrayal of her country. She is her nation’s Cromwell-times a hundred-and is accomplishing something even Adolf Hitler couldn’t, i.e. the destruction of Germany. Forgive me if it seems like I’m invoking Godwin’s Law with that comparison, but there’s no more appropriate analogy at this point. We are dealing with a woman who is consciously leading her nation along the path of destruction and eagerly embracing the extermination of her people.

Merkel is finished. She must be, because if she is not, then Germany certainly is. There are limits to ethno-masochism, even in Europe. Merkelism is collective suicide, and it’s time that Germans stood up and said they’re not willing to forfeit their lives on behalf of wretched specimens like Angela Merkel.

Update: Stop carping about your subjugation, you nasty Islamophobe! 

This time in France, a nation where 200 people have been murdered-some after undergoing indescribable torture-and over 800 people maimed in the past year alone. Just as previous generations pondered important questions, e.g. is it live, or is it Memorex? So too we have to repeatedly ask ourselves, is it Islam or insanity? Does it really matter to the past or future victims of Islamic rage? We shouldn’t be asking why they hate us, we should be asking why they are still here. Also, what sort of collective psychosis produces pictures such as the one accompanying this article? The fact that there are soldiers and policemen protecting mosques while the men who worship within them systematically murder helpless Europeans symbolizes how besieged Western civilization is at the moment.

The fact that the vast majority of citizens in countries like Germany now recognize that Islam does not belong in their country might be reassuring if their rulers cared about their lives and concerns, but there is absolutely no indication that they do. In fact, quite the opposite. Europe is now led by men and women whose chief response to this ongoing terror is to deny reality. Don’t expect these people to acknowledge the dreadful mistake they’ve made, a mistake which condemns hundreds of millions of Europeans to a bleak future dominated by fear and despair. The invasion will proceed until the people of Europe decide to stand up to this new form of multiculturalist despotism and stand against the sort of vibrant diversity which asks them to surrender their fundamental values.

Update: It looks like Great Britain will have a new PM. Watch David Cameron’s resignation speech. 

A fascinating chart illustrates the difference in voting patterns between the 1975 referendum on the European Economic Community and yesterday’s Brexit vote. 

A map of how Britain voted in the EU Referendum. 

Nearly 17 and half million votes for British sovereignty. Well done, chaps. Final results. 

Brexit Live, with Sargon of Akkad. 

The Beeb has thrown in the towel. We have achieved Brexit. 

Rotherham votes for Brexit in overwhelming numbers. 

The Telegraph is mapping the results as they come in. 

Nigel Farage is not optimistic.

Courtesy of Sky News.

Addendum: In order to grasp just how destructive mass immigration, in concert with state-enforced multiculturalism, is to social capital take a look at this British poll. As you’ll notice, people living in Northern Ireland-the part of the UK which has been riven by sectarian conflict for over a century-trust their neighbors more than those living in a post-English London. Food for thought. 

One of the chief misconceptions about my immigration views is that they’re born of willful intransigence. The conceit that my political philosophy was shaped years ago-true, to a large degree-and has been unyielding in the face of overwhelming evidence which logically refutes it-completely baseless-is surprisingly widespread among my critics. The truth is that I’m actually desperate to be persuaded, to be convinced that open borders is somehow a desirable-or even workable-state of affairs.

Admitting that you’re wrong, especially about sincerely, long-held convictions, can be psychically devastating for some individuals. One need only read David Horowitz’s disturbing memoir Radical Son to get a sense of how traumatic reevaluating your core ideological beliefs can be to a human being. That said, I am not by nature an ideologue. My identity and my sense of self worth are not wrapped up in the outcome of a particular domestic or international debate. Although not a consequentialist, I do accept reality as it is, which is why I find the intellectual defense of mass, 3rd world immigration to the West so utterly unconvincing.

I want to be persuaded that I’m wrong,  but over the past 2 decades I’ve yet to encounter an even minimally persuasive argument explaining why I am. The most compelling defense of open borders I’ve heard was offered by Julian Castro, the son of a ’60s Chicana militant whose children have been able to profit from the political cachet of faux multiculturalism and our country’s drastically altered demographics. Empty suit though he is, at least he had a rudimentary understanding of the issue being discussed, unlike almost every open borders libertarian I’ve tried to engage on this subject. To cite just one example of the fundamental ignorance they’re operating from, the writer David Marcus routinely extols the beauty of Ellis Island immigration in cliched essays, despite being blissfully unaware of the fact that almost all non-white immigration was prohibited during this halcyon period of American history.

Yevgeniy Feyman is a much more informed interlocutor, yet I came away from his discussion at The Irish Exit this past week with my beliefs, vis-a-vis immigration, fundamentally unchanged. Although an expert in health care policy, Mr. Feyman has a keen interest in the subject of immigration, which he believes should be unfettered. Echoing many of the same arguments used by open borders advocate Bryan Caplan-whose work he referenced-he asserted that there is an ethical and utilitarian case for unrestricted immigration to the West, neither of which I found terribly convincing.

One of my main problems with the latter argument was his insistence upon using gross domestic product as a proxy for economic growth and wealth creation, something that is genuinely perplexing coming from an ostensible proponent of free markets. According to Feyman, economists have postulated a 60% growth in GDP if Western nations completely opened their borders, while a 140% increase would result from global immigration restrictions being completely removed. Even if we were to accept these fantastic claims, it’s far from certain that this would be a good thing for our economy. Even the thousands of largely illiterate, unskilled Somalis imported to the interior of this country collectively boost our GDP. However, I’m sure that serves as scant comfort to the taxpayers forced to support their intergenerational welfare.

Contrary to Feyman’s assertions, immigrants use welfare programs at a greater rate than natives, as well as previous generations of immigrants. This was true in 1996 and it’s true today, despite the meteoric rise in American natives’ exploitation of the social safety net. The only reason the disparity between the 2 groups isn’t greater is because there are a host of programs to which illegal aliens are debarred, a distinction which would be erased were amnesty to be enacted as it’s currently envisioned. The idea that you can’t simultaneously take advantage of welfare programs while working is another myth promulgated by open borders advocates.

What’s more, even though most immigrants come to the United States at the peak of their earning power, one-eighth of the immigrants to this country are over the age of 55! In other words, less than a decade from retirement. Although most of these immigrants will never collect Social Security checks, as the speaker pointed out during his talk, they will still be eligible to take advantage of SSI, a program that is hemorrhaging money, shows no signs of being reformed, and whose costs will continue to soar well into the future.

Feyman seemingly praised the mid-90s efforts to “fence in” welfare use by legal immigrants, efforts now categorically rejected by the presumptive Democratic nominee it should be noted, even as he acknowledged that these attempts at reducing the social and economic costs of immigration had largely failed. Even so, he insisted that these barriers would need to be reintroduced under his proposed scheme of open borders. Why welfare restrictions would be more viable in an electorate with tens of millions more unskilled, welfare-dependent, enfranchised immigrants than it was during the Clinton administration was a question that remained unanswered.

The subject of crime proved similarly elusive, as the crime rate of 1st generation immigrants was touted as definitive proof that open borders would be a panacea, even as Feyman conceded that 2nd generation immigrants had a crime rate identical to, and in some instances exceeding, that of Americans. In a remarkable feat of rhetorical jujitsu, this unpleasant fact was used as a data point IN FAVOR of unfettered immigration, proving as it does that immigrants are assimilating to American culture. Why we should be comforted that foreign gangs which were heretofore unknown in the United States are proliferating, and targeting Americans for extermination, is another question that begs to be answered.

Furthermore, the astronomical crime rate among illegal aliens was only briefly alluded to-and dismissed-during this lecture. Even if you ignore the incalculable human cost of our government’s sanction of criminal aliens, the fiscal cost is staggering. While 2 billion dollars might seem like chump change to a federal government that burns taxpayer wealth at a clip which would make a Saudi prince blush, it’s an oppressive burden to the states and municipalities which have to bear nearly the entire bill. This doesn’t even touch upon the fact that nearly 37% of federal prison sentences in Fiscal Year 2014 involved criminal aliens, let alone the impact of criminal immigrants overseas.

Interestingly, the health care cost of having such a large immigrant population was never broached, despite it being-along with the education-the largest economic burden this group imposes upon state and local governments. A burden which will only increase as the population of immigrants-both illegal and legal-expands, as the rapidly collapsing state of California illustrates.

But even if all of these economic and social metrics supported Yevgeniy’s assertions-and, as I’ve tried to illustrate, they do not-he would still be wrong from a philosophical standpoint. For his proposals are not consonant with liberty as its commonly understood, and they’re certainly not pragmatic, by his own definition. They would eliminate the ability to freely associate and to discriminate, despite these being inherent features of both libertarianism and our republic as it was traditionally conceived.

It’s not surprising then that the only political philosopher he invoked during his lecture was not a libertarian in any sense of the word, but John Rawls, a man whose ideas are the antithesis of those espoused by the Founders. His emphasis on the difference principle and the egalitarian case for opening our borders to the developing world demonstrates the utopian nature of this cause. The idea that inhabitants of third world nations are entitled to the West’s wealth-and that Western societies have no right to deny them-is a popular notion among open borders libertarians, and finds its most ardent advocate in the form of Bryan Caplan, a person who, a la Kevin Williamson, would rather see Americans die than deny the wishes of hundreds of millions of foreign nationals. Call it the Make-A-Wish Foundation for the global village.

The hermetic nature of the discussion among open borders advocates can be seen in the comparisons made between immigration restrictions and government-imposed segregation during the Jim Crow Era. This was another trope invoked by Mr. Famin in order to defend the idea of open borders, one which has its roots in the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which was enacted on a wave of specious comparisons between the struggle of black Americans for civil rights and the desires of foreigners in the third world to relocate to the United States. While correctly citing Robert Putnam’s study demonstrating the negative impact multiculturalism and open borders have on social cohesion, civic trust, and private, communal associations, from that he extrapolated that opponents of open borders must also support segregation along color lines.

There are so many flaws in this analogy that it would be difficult to enumerate them all, so I’ll highlight one of the most glaring. Namely, while Americans have Constitutional, civil rights to equal protection under the law, there is no comparable right for non-Americans to immigrate, settle and exploit the benefits extended to American citizens. It bears repeating that the men who created the framework for our system of government were deeply skeptical of the sorts of free immigration schemes proposed by the likes of Caplan et. al.

Another fundamental problem with this chain of reasoning is the arrogant assumption that the cultures of North America, Europe, and Australia somehow need moral improvement-provided, of course, by an unceasing stream of migrants from the third world. Beyond the obvious paradox at work in this formulation, there is the ahistorical nature of this assertion. It presumes that we don’t already have ample evidence from numerous countries that third world immigration to the West is destructive, not simply eroding the public’s trust in its leaders-which is a good thing-but erasing the very capacity for self-governance.

But even if there were no empirical evidence to support our position, the burden of proof would still be on individuals like Yeveniy Famin to prove that their stance is correct. When someone makes extraordinary claims on behalf of an untested idea that will dramatically alter the status quo, it’s not incumbent upon his opponents to prove a negative. It’s up to him to demonstrate that his idea will result in a positive improvement for individuals and our society. When I brought up the case of A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant who gave us the world’s first Islamic bomb, it wasn’t merely a gotcha question intended to embarrass the speaker or a misguided invocation of the precautionary principle.

There is actually ample evidence that the experiment with Muslim integration in The Netherlands has been a complete failure, and that the cumulative impact of this monumental social change has been decidedly negative for that country and its inhabitants. My point was simply that the adherents to open borders dogmatism couldn’t present a narrative that emphasized a corresponding good that’s resulted from widespread Middle Eastern and North African immigration to Holland. The retort that there are native-born citizens who’ve helped appalling regimes acquire nuclear weapons isn’t quite the devastating rebuttal that its opponents believe it to be. Just like the “there are American scumbags” aphorism, it presumes that just because evil exists we must do nothing within our power to limit our exposure to its most baleful consequences.

This line of reasoning would dictate that a landlord who currently has tenants that are scofflaws and destroy his property allow prospective renters who pose the same threat to live in his building, based upon a rigid devotion to equality. The logical extension of this can be found in Germany, where paying tenants are being evicted in order to make way for refugees, i.e. invaders from the Global South that Angela Merkel, the socialists, and Greens are cultivating as Germany’s new polity.

Open borders is a terrible idea, from both a consequentalist and natural rights perspective. When and if all societies are based upon mutual consent and non-coercion, then by all means, invite whomever you want to live, work, and possibly exploit, your self-contained civilization. I have no problem with Bryan Caplan et. al. inviting downtrodden Haitians or Yemenis to live at his expense, but I vociferously object to them externalizing the costs of their philanthropy to those, like me, who do not share their utopian ideals.

It’s difficult to articulate the precise feeling I have after viewing the international media’s coverage of the anti-rape, anti-jihadist demonstrations which took place in Germany this weekend. Rage, disgust, alienation, and disbelief all fail to capture the degree of revulsion I felt watching the BBC, CNN and other purveyors of disinformation cover the brave PEGIDA protestors. The institutional coverup of the Cologne depredations-which were replicated throughout Europe-now seem less a case of bureaucratic face-saving than one more salvo in the ongoing war against Europeans and Europe.

Look no further than this headline, which makes it clear what most preoccupies German authorities at this moment. Not  the scores of foreign, Islamic invaders looking to rape-both literally and figuratively-their way through the continent, but the courageous few German citizens who are willing to stand up to truncheons and water cannons, to the assault of Marxist fanatics, and the universal defamation of the political and journalistic nomenklatura, in order to preserve their besieged culture. Now even those who willingly perform the roles normally assigned to the police in a functional society-defending the lives and safety of women now being terrorized-are the target of state persecution.

The people of Europe are paying-in blood and treasure-to indulge the warped fantasies of their rulers, and there’s no telling how high the cost will be.