It’s good that Sen. Jeff
Sessions (R-AL) is asking these questions, because the elites
in both parties already have their answers: They do, indeed, see the American
people as mere “commodities,” implying that Americans have no particular
special value.
Moreover, they further
think that if we are just fungible commodities, there’s no reason we can’t be
manipulated for their political and economic purposes.
The flashpoint issue, of
course, is the border, and whether or not it should be adequately guarded
against the slow-motion onslaught from the rest of the world. As Sessions put
it in an exclusive June 22 op-ed for Breitbart
News, “No issue better illustrates the current divide between everyday
citizens and our political and business elites than the issue of immigration.”
Indeed, this wide divide
holds true for the elites of both parties.
On the left, Democratic
elites see the American people as a commodity to be subsumed, politically, as
part of an ambitious multicultural, post-nationalist experiment. In fact, since
the Reagan years, the left has not been particularly happy with the American
people—too many Republican victories.
And so the left then set
about fixing its electoral problem, through a simple expedient: opening the floodgates.
And the Democrats have had considerable success with their demographic-change
strategy: California, for example, has gone from being a mostly Republican
state—the GOP carried it in nine of ten presidential elections from 1952 to
1988—to being a solidly Democratic state; the GOP has lost it, badly, in the
last six presidential elections.
Meanwhile, on the right,
Republican elites see the American people as a commodity to be superseded,
economically, as part of a relentless wage-cutting effort. And that’s worked,
too; imported labor has driven down wage costs. In strict terms of economic
efficiency, the market has cleared—although, of course, much of the middle
class has now been demoted down to working class. In other words, a Reverse
American Dream.
One might think that in
partisan terms, the interests of Democrats and Republicans would
counter-balance each other out. That is, D’s would worry about the well-being
of “the people” and thus block excessive immigration, while R’s would worry
about the well-being of their party and thus block a flood of new Democratic
voters.
Yet in fact, the two
parties’ elites have reached a sort of cynical entente: “blue” politicos get
the votes, and “red” business bosses get the lower wages. In other words, for
different reasons, the top interests in both parties are happily in on the
deal.
But as Sessions points
out, there’s a bigger interest that neither party’s elites seem worried about:
the people of the United States. As he asks,
What about Americans who
need jobs? Human beings are not commodities. We need to get our own workers off
of unemployment and into good-paying jobs that can support their families. That
means if a job is hard or strenuous, employers should raise wages and improve
working conditions–why shouldn’t Americans who do tough work get paid more for
their efforts?
It’s not often these days
that a Republican talks like that—about the importance of tightening labor
markets and thus boosting wages. Sure, Republicans want to cut everyone’s
taxes, but the reality for millions of hard-pressed Americans is that they need
a good job even more than they need a small tax cut.
Yet thanks to the efforts
of Sessions, and a few pundits and radio-talk show hosts such as Laura Ingraham
and Mark Levin, the Republican Party, at least, is starting to rise up—not only
against GOP incumbents, but also against the reigning Big Business culture.
Earlier this month, a
populist ballot-box revolution pushed David Brat, a border-closer, to victory
over the pro-amnesty Rep. Eric Cantor in a Virginia GOP primary. Meanwhile, on
Tuesday, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi pushed back a strong Tea Party
challenger, St. Sen. Chris McDaniel, in a primary runoff that reeked of elite
out-of-state money, muscle—and Democratic votes. That is, the national elites
set out to buy an election on behalf of their man Cochran—and that’s what they
did. Cochran got his win, but in so winning, vindicated every insurgent
argument about the true nature of the Cochran Class, and all its cynical ruthlessness.
In those two contests,
Virginia and Mississippi, the Tea Party won one, and the Establishment won
one—although again, by most accounts, the Establishment won mean, if not dirty.
So now, a third
high-profile intra-party challenge. Searching to make it two out of three, Tea
Party insurgency is turning its eyes to the Tennessee primary in August, in
which State Rep. Joe Carr is strongly challenging Sen. Lamar Alexander for his
incumbent seat.
Indeed, Carr, a
border-closer, is sounding a lot like Brat—and Sessions. As Carr told Breitbart
News’ Stephen K. Bannon on Sirius/XM recently, the elites are still, even
now, pushing “comprehensive immigration reform”:
There’s this arrogance
about these people who stay in Washington. The arrogance that they say—you know
what, it doesn’t matter that they are flooding our labor markets with unskilled
labor and driving down American wages, it doesn’t matter as long as we cater to
the United States Chamber of Commerce.
A Republican attacking
business? Targeting the mighty Chamber? In fact, it’s hard to imagine a
Republican Party that isn’t staunchly pro-free enterprise and pro-business, but
at the same time, the realization has crept in that the GOP needs a more proper
balance between the interests of big business, small business—and workers. For
an ambitious politician, campaign cash is nice, but actually winning elections
is nicer. And for an American patriot, protecting the wellbeing of the nation
is the nicest of all.
After all, true
conservatism is about more than commodities. The free market is great for
efficiently allocating “factors of production,” but people can’t be treated
only as production-units without, as a result, destructive social consequences.
That is, any viable economic system must be solidly rooted in the solid of the
society itself.
Capitalists should
understand that you need a fully functioning civil society, as well as an
economy. That’s why we need a wise political system, to help create an ever
more perfect union. And blessedly, thanks to the Founders, we have had such a
system—even if it is today under siege.
The Preamble to the Constitution lays
it all out. It enshrines “liberty,” but it also, in the same 52 words,
emphasizes other goals, too, including “justice,” “domestic tranquility,” “the
common defense,” and the “general welfare.” These are obviously non-economic values,
bespeaking the Founders’ desire to build an enduring political system—a novo
ordus seclorum, a new order for the ages.
And yet American history
shows that if these values prevail, the economy, too, flourishes. A secure and
free country, populated by hard-working and smart people, naturally becomes
rich. It’s axiomatic: You can’t have prosperity if your country suffers from
banditry.
So we can see the need
for a balanced system, in which the rights of the individual are matched with
the imperative of basic security and national survival. Achieving all that was
a stern challenge in 1787, when Ben Franklin proclaimed that yes, the new
Constitution had created a new republic—but only if we Americans
could keep it.
The keeping of that
republic over the last three centuries has been the great work of great
leaders—none of whom saw the American people as merely an economic commodity.
The fighting heroes of Bunker Hill and Bastogne, of Khe Sanh and Kandahar, did
not see themselves as economistic factors of production; they saw themselves as
citizen-soldiers, defending a way of life that was about more than money.
Instead, they were
risking, and even sacrificing, their lives for something more. As Abraham Lincoln put
it, they were giving their all for the American nation, for “mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave.”
By contrast, purist
Libertarianism is an abstract vision that transcends peoples and borders.
That’s a nice utopian theory—of the world made into one by free trade and open
borders—but it’s not a plan for actually running a nation. A nation needs
patriotism aimed at protecting a people and their culture. Liberty means
nothing without security and sovereignty.
If we, as Americans,
can’t manage to privilege ourselves over other peoples of all the other
countries of the world, then we won’t be a country for very long. Indeed,
America will not only cease to exist as a united country, but she will be
overcome by countries.
The post-communist
Russians and the Chinese, for example, don’t think they exist to advance any
particular ideology; they exist to advance the national interests of Russia and
China. In a confrontation with either country—or with Iran, ISIS, or any other
threatening power—the physical sanctity of America will not be based on
theories and abstractions. We need sturdy weapons and soldiers, made in the
USA.
Indeed if we can’t defend
ourselves, then someday, all the sacred monuments in America will be just
historical footnotes; that is, quaint little items on a future tourist map
written in a foreign tongue.
Back in 2007, Mike
Huckabee spoke of “vertical
politics,” by which he meant that the real split is often top vs.
bottom, not left vs. right. As Huckabee put it, “Ultimately, people don't care
about whether an issue comes from the left or the right, what they want to hear
about is an idea that lifts America up and makes us better.” In a way, Huckabee
was anticipating Sessions’ argument: The elites and the masses are not always,
to put it mildly, on the same side.
Huckabee, who strongly
opposed “comprehensive immigration reform,” ultimately fell short in the 2008
presidential campaign, in part because the Republican elites were enraptured
with the open-borders-policies of the Bush 43 administration. Back then, the
GOP was happy to be persuaded that securing Mesopotamia was far more important
than securing Arizona. (And Sen. John McCain, of course, still feels that way.)
Indeed, it’s possible
that even now the GOP elite is still planning an “Amnesty Surprise,” although,
fortunately, each insurgent primary victory makes that prospect less likely.
Yet in the meantime,
Democratic strategists still dream of their “coalition of
the ascendant,” by which they mean, again, a newly enlarged and
“improved” American electorate. And quietly, plenty of top Republicans, and
their business allies, still stand ready to help them.
Indeed, just on Tuesday,
as Breitbart News reported,
Mark Zuckerberg’s bipartisan amnesty front group, Fwd.us,
announced yet another push for their open-borders goal. Indeed, the group’s
president, Joe Green, volunteered that the new #2 and #3 GOP leaders in the
House, Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, “have indicated their support for
fixing our fundamentally broken system multiple times.” Green might as well
have said, “I have McCarthy and Scalise in my back pocket.” Green might be
spinning, of course, but his words are a reminder to the grassroots—vigilance
is always needed.
Yes, it might be the same
dolorous scenario, especially after Cochran’s victory: Democratic elites still
want better voters, and for their part, Republican elites still want cheaper
workers.
In a democracy, where in
theory the people are sovereign, these are harsh charges to hurl against those
in the commanding heights of our government, but Sessions has his proof. As the
Alabaman explains,
The phrase “immigration
reform” has been thoughtlessly applied to any legislation that combines amnesty
with dramatic future increases to our record supply of labor. This is the
singular vision championed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. It
therefore falls on the shoulders of Republicans to stand alone as the one party
representing the interests of everyday working Americans.
Yes, the battle for
America—as a great country, as opposed to merely a commodity—is far from over.
The patriotic grassroots
of today’s Republican Party do, indeed, have a rendezvous with destiny—with or
without the help of their purported leaders. Indeed, that rendezvous with
destiny might well recall a rolling over of many of those leaders.
Fortunately, the American
people—made up of flesh and blood, hearts and souls, not commodities at all—are
strong. And providentially, they have a few champions of their own.
One of the best of them
is Jeff Sessions. In taking on the elites of both parties on the immigration
issue, he and his allies are fighting battles, and winning victories, that are
echoing across the country.
Source:http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/25/Senator-Jeff-Sessions-Leading-Americas-Rendezvous-With-Destiny
Comments
The Elites in the Republican and Democrat
Parties lumped in with the Whitehouse, Wall Street, the UN and the global ‘Banksters’
seem to be on one side and “The People” are on the other side.
The global Internationalist Republican Elite
ran up the National Debt by $5 trillion between 2000 and 2008 and the Democrats
and the White House ran it up another $7 trillion since then. This has turned into inflation making it an
absolute disaster for most Americans.
The global Internationalist Democrats, Republicans,
the Chamber of Communists and the Whitehouse have allowed over 1 million
foreign immigrants to enter the U.S. each year since 1989, ensuring high and
rising systemic, permanent unemployment. If we could take the money out of politics, we
could end this scam. Elections are
bought with corporate money in exchange for special interest policies.
If States pass a Campaign Finance Law that
would allow only registered voters to contribute to political campaigns for
candidates who would be on their ballots, this scam would end. All candidates would be forced to deal with
issues instead of image and voters should pick the issues. States would have to require that they have a
“full disclosure” website, so voters could see their resume, background and positions
on all issues as a requirement to file as a candidate.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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