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.

Germany recently marked an ignominious anniversary, one which future generations of Germans-assuming there are any-will look back upon with shame and regret. I’m speaking, of course, about Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over a million settlers from the Islamic world into the bosom of her country. The horrific consequences of this monumental decision have been documented on an hourly basis for those who care to look. The fact that a majority of the German population no longer believes she’s fit to serve as Chancellor, and that over two-thirds believe her decision to deconstruct their nation was a bad idea is not nearly as shocking as the significant minority of Germans who still want to proceed along this suicidal path.

Fortunately, there are rumblings of an internal rift within the party she relies upon to maintain power. Whether or not this amounts to anything, the need to dethrone Angela Merkel is clear to anyone who cares about the future of Western civilization. Even if Germany retook control of its borders tomorrow, a pre-existing demographic tidal wave threatens to permanently efface German culture as we’ve known it for millennia. However, if nothing is done to reverse the catastrophic policies pursued by current European leaders, Europe as a continent is going to collapse. The fact that Mama Merkel herself is complaining about the reluctance her Czech, Hungarian, and Polish counterparts have shown in embracing vibrant diversity is telling.

If these migrants, i.e. invaders, are so wonderful, then why would the Mother of Refugees want to “redistribute” them? Think about this for a minute. If the CEO of an extremely lucrative firm were to offer you thousands of stock options in his or her thriving company, would you be filled with resentment? Would you avail yourself of every opportunity to unload those stocks on neighbors and friends? Why is the woman who is singularly responsible for the disaster unfolding across the European continent reluctant to accept more of the men who she has repeatedly assured us constitute an unparalleled boon for the Germany economy and culture? Could it be that she has been deceiving the German public all this time? Might there be some very legitimate reasons why ordinary Germans don’t desire millions more unskilled, virtually unemployable refugees who are responsible for an unprecedented increase in criminal activity? Might vetting future army recruits for ISIS membership not be the most efficacious use of state resources?

These are all rhetorical questions, but they point to the necessity of politically removing the main source of Germany’s-and to a lesser extent, Europe’s-current misery. Regardless of who replaces Merkel, the fact that she needs to go is beyond dispute to any rational observer who wants to prevent Europe from descending into yet another Dark Age. Germany might not survive another year of their Chancellor’s glorious experiment.

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.

I think we’ve established that those who control new media, our primary means of collective communication and social interaction, share neither our beliefs nor goals. The decision by Internet behemoths to enforce draconian abrogations of speech at the behest of the European Union merely crystallizes what we’ve known for some time, i.e. Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues are not our allies, or even politically disinterested capitalists seeking to maximize their profit margins. They are ideological enemies, although posing as neutral parties, who want to see our ideas, insofar as they  militate against egalitarianism, social democracy, open borders, multiculturalism, progressivism, feminism,  dawa, and social justice,  quarantined. If not eliminated altogether. 

We have an inkling of what the future of this cloistered Web will look like, and it’s not something I look forward to. It’s a place where a drawing of Mohammed potentially garnering thousands of dollars can be removed, albeit temporarily, from eBay, along with CSA flags-at the behest of journalists-yet paeans to the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century remain widely available. A place where peaceful critics of the mass importation of rapists and criminals from the third world have their Facebook accounts suspended, even as calls for the killing of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee remain in place.

The Internet has broken the stranglehold exercised by old media over the flow of information. It’s allowed free citizens to access and disseminate facts, even as traditional gatekeepers try to embargo information which intellectually destroys their narratives and reveals unpleasant truths. It’s leveled the playing field between us and them, which is why they repeatedly and openly attempt to seize control of this invaluable tool for global communication. While the Overton window shifts in our favor, we need to recognize and respond to this unprecedented challenge. This threat is so palpable that it’s even seeped into our popular culture, forming the basis of a plot-line to an episode of the popular Netflix series House of Cards. Naturally, reality was inverted, as it was a Republican candidate collaborating with an enormously influential website in order to acquire and retain limitless executive power.

This prompts the question, how should we respond? How do we fight NGOs, bureaucratic institutions, multinational corporations and Internet monopolies that have seemingly endless resources at their disposal, and which control the medium through which we hope to communicate? There are many proposals, but one of the more intriguing ones involves holding these new media giants to their word.  A pro-life musician sued Youtube after her incredibly popular video was removed without explanation. On a much broader scale, Professor Stephen Bainbridge has suggested that wealthy philanthropists bankroll a lawsuit against Twitter in order to put conservative proposals on its annual proxy statement. Although this tactic sounds rather innovative, it actually bears a striking resemblance to a suggestion made by Senator Jesse Helms during the mid-80s which entailed a hostile takeover of the habitually biased CBS by conservative shareholders of the network.

Another legal proposal floated by some right wing analysts concerned about this growing problem is to force the government to classify these social media giants as public utilities, thus affording access for dissenting, anti-leftist thought. There are a number of reasons why I think this path-like the shareholder revolt-would be an ultimately futile effort. Although I welcome the entrance of affluent right wingers into the cultural war-and have been heartened by the courageous actions of Peter Thiel, the right’s real-life version of Batman-I don’t believe that conservatives will be able to engineer a coup, in the best sense of the word, against Twitter. Similarly, I doubt the efficacy of any effort to compel these corporations to enforce access and equitable treatment through the judiciary.

This isn’t because I believe it would allow the left to squelch some of the few remaining outlets of public conservatism outside of the Internet-although I’m certain liberals will continue to cheerlead for the introduction of any measure that mutes non-leftist opinion. I’m of the opinion that the utility of talk radio and the Fox News Channel to the right has waned and will continue to decline in the years ahead-this election being merely  foretaste of things to come. No, I oppose this route because it relies upon a thoroughly misguided view of how our courts currently operate. Beyond the merits of this controversial idea, the notion  that jurists steeped in progressivism will rescue conservatives is absurd on its face. It’s the same misguided thinking which led many to believe that the Roberts Supreme Court would unilaterally abolish Obamacare, i.e. that an instrument of the state would begin to curtail the excesses of another branch of the state.

Another option is to create right wing analogs to existing Web-based resources. The dreary results of this experiment can be seen in QubeTV and Conservapedia, the latter a Christian fundamentalist response to Wikipedia’s perceived biases. Beyond the self-consciously limiting aspect of these projects, their creators are marginalizing a political philosophy which they  hope to spread to the widest possible audience-in effect, doing the very job of the websites they stand in opposition to. Creating a less professional, derivative, albeit conservative, version of a pre-existing Web platform is not the solution to the problems we’re facing. We’re not going to win the battle of ideas by diving into an ideological cul-de-sac. In my next essay, I’ll explore some strategies which might actually work.

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.

Update: Anne Marie Waters makes a salient point. If you’re going to speak the truth, speak it boldly. The progressive smear machine will consign you to the outer darkness in any case, so it’s just as well you don’t mince words. 

While I can’t say I share Mr. Condell’s faith in the democratic process, there’s not much else in this video with which I disagree. The pestilential influence  progressivism has exerted over the United Kingdom can be felt in nearly ever facet of political and social life. However, the most concrete example is undoubtedly the indulgence of a irredentist, rapacious Islamic ideology-a wholly alien import, despite propaganda to the contrary-which has now resulted in the election of a man who can only be described as an Islamist fellow traveler.

The fact that Europe’s premiere city, and one of the financial capitals of the globe, will now be governed by someone who represents both the worst aspects of contemporary leftist non-thought-including an inveterate denial of the threat posed by Islamic dogma-and lack of Islamic self-reflection is no accident. This is the culmination of decades of Labour policy-that party being the embodiment of enlightened progressive values-which systematically effaced Great Britain as it had been historically understood as a nation. It’s why men like Tommy Robinson and Paul Weston have felt the heavy boot of the state simply for describing the reality around them, while others have had to travel to the United States in order to tell simple, undeniable truths about their unraveling kingdom, and why men like Pat Condell-heretofore lifelong Labour supporters and proud liberals-have felt compelled to speak out against the progressive disease which is ineluctably killing Great Britain.

It’s no surprise that the only political party which actually represents British interests is gaining steam, even as it gathers support from disillusioned former Labour supporters. Whatever you think of the utility or ethics of voting, it can’t be disputed that it’s one means of expressing public discontent, perhaps the only way to channel a growing frustration in nations where public dissent is being irrevocably erased.