With the New Hampshire presidential primary fast approaching, it might be time to look at two of the Republican candidates who’ve often drawn comparisons in the mainstream media. Namely, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and 2008 GOP runner-up Mitt Romney. The rap on both men is very similar, i.e. both are technocratic, not very inspiring-yet seemingly competent-moderates who have extreme difficulties rallying the Republican faithful. And while Mr. Huntsman has increased the pace of his attacks on Governor Romney in recent days, you can’t help but notice the similarities between the two candidates.

While many conservative pundits have attempted-unsuccessfully in my view-to argue that Huntsman is an unabashed conservative, you can’t help but get the impression that supporters of past presidential campaigns by Pete McCloskey, John Anderson, Arlen Specter, and Lynn Martin, among many other liberal politicians who sought the GOP nod, said the very same thing about their preferred candidate. The fact remains that Huntsman-much like Mitt Romney, who garnered only one percent of  voters who labeled conservatism as their top priority in the Iowa caucuses-appeals predominately to those Republicans who are outliers within the party. They both garner plaudits from institutional left wing media organs and earn scorn from right wing opinion shapers, although Huntsman’s seemingly conscious effort to attack conservative sacred cows, and like defeated presidential candidate John McCain-one of Romney’s newest supporters-gratuitously insult conservatives, no doubt makes him a preferable opponent of President Obama to people like Stephen Colbert. 

Granted, there are some differences, both substantive and superficial, between the two men that require acknowledgement. While Mitt Romney’s rhetorical bellicosity towards China has been much remarked upon during this campaign, Huntsman-reflecting his history as a diplomat-has gone out of his way to allay concerns that a trade war between the PRC and the United States is imminent. Another distinction between the two is their approach with respect to national security and foreign policy issues. A perfect illustration of how they differ can be found in this exchange between the men over what should be done in the Afghanistan theater of war. But perhaps the greatest divide between the two candidates lies in an issue that has thus far escaped critical scrutiny, which is to say immigration.

While Huntsman has adopted the line of the open borders lobby-including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose leadership has slandered any patriotic American who embraces sensible immigration policies even as Mormons die as a result-Romney has thus far espoused one of the toughest stances against illegal immigration to be found among Republican challengers to Barack Obama. He has pledged to veto the DREAM Act, opposed sanctuary cities, supported E-Verify, and highlighted the importance of employer sanctions, which everyone recognizes as the keystone of any successful regime of immigration enforcement in this country. It was the relentless criticism of Romney-and to a lesser extent, Michele Bachmann-that torpedoed the presidential aspirations of Rick Perry, which we can all be grateful for. And perhaps most impressively of all, when pressed to explain how he would deal with illegal aliens who remain in this country despite stepped-up enforcement efforts, he gave the perfect answer.

Even so, there are good arguments to be made against Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy from a patriotic immigration reform perspective. Beyond the accusation that his tough stance against illegal immigration is merely a cynical political ploy-an accusation whose refutation is not helped by gaffes like these-there is Romney’s distressing support for H1-B visas and legal immigration mechanisms that are not only rife with fraud but existentially harmful to American citizens. However, even when you take into account these severe limitations, Mitt Romney still can be said to have a far superior record on issues of immigration and border security than his fellow Mormon ex-governor, Jon Huntsman. Whether good enough is good enough is a question that Republican voters will have to answer for themselves.

This past tuesday I had the distinct pleasure of attending an Intelligence Squared debate whose subject is one that this website has addressed repeatedly in the past, although admittedly, not as often as I would have liked. The drive to thwart repeated amnesty proposals introduced throughout this past year has not given us the opportunity to address the innumerable problems presented by unfettered, mass (legal) immigration.

That’s why I relish the chance to explore the flaws of our current, post-1965 wave of immigration. Or, as the framers of the IQ2 debate phrased their resolution: Don’t Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses.

The title, although slightly cheeky, was appropriate, given the subject under discussion. I have to commend Congressman Tom Tancredo for using his opening statement to debunk many of the myths surrounding The New Colossus, the Emma Lazarus sonnet inscribed upon a plaque inside of the Statue Of Liberty. Contrary to popular opinion-at least, the opinion propounded by supporters of mass immigration-that poem has absolutely nothing to do with immigration, and was in fact penned in connection with the transatlantic fundraising campaign to erect the iconic statue in New York Harbor. The statue itself was designed with the intention of honoring American liberty by French liberals and republicans, not as a tribute to mass immigration; certainly not as a calling card for mass, unskilled, uneducated immigrants from the Old World.

After knocking down one of the chief rhetorical pillars of the pro-immigration mythos constructed by their opponents, Tamar Jacoby and Julian Castro, the current mayor of San Antonio, Tancredo and Secretary of State Kris Kobach proceeded to make the empirical case against our current, misguided federal immigration policies. While Jacoby attempted to justify low skilled immigration on the basis of economic expediency, i.e. it helps the large corporations, and their lobbyists, that are her organization’s chief benefactors, Mayor Castro attempted to limn the legal and political arguments in favor of unfettered immigration as he saw them.

The case by Jacoby is a familiar one, equally unconvincing today as it was when corporate lobbying outfits like the Chamber of Commerce, National Restaurant Association, and American Farm Bureau demanded the imposition of amnesty and guest worker programs opposed by the vast majority of Americans in years past. Secretary Kobach  made a convincing rebuttal to these tedious talking points that focused on the seven million jobs that illegal aliens occupy which could be filled by the over 14 million Americans who currently find themselves unemployed.  He also pounded home the ineluctable fact that low-skilled immigrants from poverty-stricken regions depress the wage scale of every industry in which they’re employed. The perfect illustration of this phenomenon is the meatpacking industry, which has been transformed from a relatively desirable, decently compensated, working class vocation into a way station for underpaid immigrant workers.

It was at this point that the philosophical gulf between the two sides came into stark relief, as Tamar Jacoby repeated the stale platitudes of the Chamber of Commerce and its allies, including the charges that immigrants do the jobs “Americans won’t do,” and that even those who were willing to allegedly demean themselves by embracing “menial” work would eventually quit those jobs once better opportunities for career advancement arose. In response to the affirmative’s citation of the Swift meat processing plant, which continued to thrive in spite of the immigration raids that stripped it of many “hard-working” illegal aliens, Jacoby asserted-with no supporting evidence-that the plant experienced a high turnover rate once it began to rely upon the labor of actual Americans.

Perhaps even more persuasive than the economic argument against our government’s current immigration policy, were the fiscal arguments which Mr. Kobach marshalled with aplomb. He rightly brought up the extremely high percentage of immigrant-headed households  that rely upon one or several different welfare programs, a percentage that outstrips even the large percentage of American citizens who now use those very same programs, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. This was the pivotal moment of the debate from my perspective, with Kobach repeating the famous Milton Friedman quote declaring the mutual incompatibility of a welfare state with unfettered, unskilled immigration.

Even though the negative side attempted to refute the concrete data provided by Kris Kobach, prompting an hilarious exchange where Ms. Jacoby was asked if she thought that National Academy of Sciences was biased against immigrants, the negative fiscal impact of our current immigration pool is, as he said during the debate, indisputable. While conceding that using generous extrapolations of what immigrant families might contribute to the economy in the future-scenarios that are, as Tom Tancredo pointed out, so speculative as to be almost meaningless from an empirical perspective-might show some benefits from unskilled immigration, Mr. Kobach nevertheless provided a litany of devastating facts and figures-including referencing the astounding Robert Rector Heritage Foundation study on the potential costs of Comprehensive Immigration Reform-that, in my opinion, demolished the claims made by the opponents of the debate resolution.

Although Ms. Jacoby’s arguments were, as usual, entirely unconvincing, the other “con” debater, Mayor Julian Castro, made at least an appealing rhetorical case in favor of the post-1965 immigration status quo. While agreeing with Kobach and Tancredo that the vast majority of immigrants today are lower working class, Castro claimed that the dynamism of our economy-as well as the considerable skills these immigrants bring to this country-provided for extreme upward mobility among these same immigrant communities. Unfortunately, he did not address the main concern that the affirmative side expressed throughout the debate. Namely, that the uninterrupted flow of immigrants from the same unskilled, undereducated populace would inalterably change the culture and economy of this country.

It was on this point that I think Tom Tancredo truly hit his stride. While Mayor Castro invoked laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act as an illustration of the government straying from this country’s core tenets, the former Colorado congressman reminded him-as well the audience- that the current wave of  mass immigration from the third world is a relatively recent phenomenon that can be traced back to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, the brain-child of the late Ted Kennedy, a doctrinaire liberal who used his time in the United States Senate to remake this country into a multicultural mosaic, not the melting pot it had traditionally been. He explained how each previous wave of immigrants-whether it was the Irish who came here in the wake of the great potato famine, or the Eastern Europeans who came at the end of the 19th century-was allowed time to assimilate into American society before being deluged with yet more immigrants from the same region and nation.

In the end, I think it was this argument that persuaded the vast majority of “undecided” voters to come over to the affirmative side. While superficially appealing, the arguments advanced by Jacoby and Castro were essentially contentless. They relied upon pulling the emotional strings of the audience, attempting to draw upon the nostalgia most people have for their ancestors-a common theme used by immigration enthusiasts and amnesty supporters is to draw an analogy between this aberrent wave of unrestricted immigration and previous periods of mass immigration. However, they ultimately did not succeed because the opponents of the evening’s resolution could not provide a compelling argument for keeping our doors open to millions of immigrants who do not possess 21st century skill sets, who are not able to support themselves independent of the American taxpayer, and who are entering a nation with a vast welfare state that did not exist in previous generations.

It was a masterful performance by both Kris Kobach and Tom Tancredo and a riveting discussion throughout. I highly recommend you watch the entire debate for yourselves though, and draw your own conclusions.

Update: My good friend was also at at the May Day events and has some fantastic video footage, which you can find at The Silent Majority No More. The rest of her coverage can be found at her website as well. More video from the day’s festivities can be found on Youtube.

As promised, today I will present the conclusion to American Rattlesnake’s May Day coverage, including the robust, sustained-and to our country’s enemies, deeply irritating-counter-protest staged by this website’s editor-in-chief in collaboration with New York Ice.

As you can see by the photo above, our critics-in this case, the feral, reflexively violent antifa thugs who met us at Foley Square-were not eager to be photographed. Whether that was out of concern for being identified by NYPD officers the next time they attempt to assault a peaceful assembly of dissident voices, or out of respect for the hundreds of visitors who would be forced to look at their faces in the following days is something I’ll  let you decide.

Fortunately, there were a few “anti-fascists” who I was able to detain for a brief snapshot. This young woman, for example, evokes memories of a young Faye Dunaway, perhaps after being hit with a tire iron. An arresting image, nonetheless.

This zaftig Mexican girl below was particularly aggrieved by my unobtrusive photography that day, although I can’t for the life of me discern why. After bombarding me with some choice expletives for several minutes, she was gently escorted beyond police barricades by some NYPD officers and asked to remove her  jaunty black bandana/face-mask.

At this point, the street theater they were attempting-by ripping signs from the hands of counter-protesters, showering us with abuse, and generally acting like ignoramuses-descended into farce, as the well-fed IA began to weep like a  young child whose favorite plaything has been ripped from her arms.

Even though these photos might lead you to  believe there was a sarin or mustard gas attack upon Foley Square, the truth is that the nose-holding and face-covering is merely part of the theatrical element antifa crybabies brought to the fore during their ridiculous posturing that day. I think you can judge its effectiveness by the look on the face of the Muslim man pictured below.

As entertaining as the black-clad anarchists were, there was also much amusement to be found throughout the rally, including on stage. The African-American gentleman in the background is, ironically enough, named Clarence Thomas. Leader of the radical International Longshore & Warehouse Union-Local 10, he was joined on stage by the afternoon’s emcee, who spent the better part of two hours explaining why her organization had decided to hold two separate rallies which were both ended prematurely.

I AM ASKED WHY WE DECIDED TO HOLD TWO RALLIES, AND MY ANSWER IS…BECAUSE…!

The last declamation was followed in short order by a tangent having absolutely no bearing on the ostensible reason for staging this rally. In other words, even the people who organized this event had absolutely no clue why they were there in the first place. I wish I could say I was surprised by this revelation.

There were also some festive people in Indian, or as the politically correct stewards of speech would say “indigenous,” dress doing a rain dress which was strangely ineffective.

And of course, what illegal alien friendly event would be complete without someone spouting completely inaccurate, misleading statistics that are easily debunked?

Thankfully, on this day the masses of pro-amnesty, anti-American, revanchist reds were confronted by a group of Americans, some of them immigrants themselves, who saw the need to assert their views amidst the cacophony of stridently anti-American voices. Although initially outnumbered, we stood our ground and endured to the end, even outlasting the loud, obnoxious, but morally bankrupt forces that had tried to colonize Foley Square that afternoon.

My favorite part of the day, bar none, was when a group of hostile illegal aliens and socialists attempted to heckle us into submission but were silenced once we withdrew our driver’s licenses and photo identification. When we asked them where their papers were, accompanied by the chorus to the great 1980s Genesis tune, Illegal Alien, we were greeted with shame-faced silence and dumb stares. A small victory, it was nevertheless an  extremely gratifying moment.

Joanna Marzullo, president of New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement, expresses her point of view. You can find video coverage of her part in the counter-demonstration on Youtube.

Even in the Big Apple, there are people who stand with Arizona, as this past May Day demonstrated.

The lesson to be drawn from this event, IMO, is that no matter how outnumbered you might feel when fighting the hordes of radical, open borders crusaders, there are always people willing to stand by your side when you defend basic American values.