Solving the Illegal Immigrant Problem

By some estimates, there are 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States, a number that grows every day. This is a staggering problem, and one created mostly by Democrats.

And yes, that gets me as hot as the next guy. They don't even try to justify it anymore, they just do it.

But assigning blame doesn't change the need to solve the problem.

So, what is the solution?

Donald Trump has been promoting the idea of deportation, and recent polls support this idea.

But, has anyone thought this through? How would you do it?

It took a long time for us to get 2 million soldiers to Europe in World War II. That was one-tenth the logistical challenge.

A 747 holds 400 people. It would take 50,000 flights to get the job done. There are only 434 747s in the world. 

Requisition Icon of the Seas? 

Buses? Do I even have to do the math?

Then there are the optics. Rounding up illegals, detaining them, forcing them on flights...there would be thousands of videotaped scenes of despair and anguish, of families being rounded up, and the media would be there every time. Democrats would make hay. People who thought they supported deportation would change their minds.

Deportation doesn't work on a logistical level, and it doesn't work on a political level. 

It. Will. Never. Happen.

So, what to do?

Here is a five step plan.

1. Shut down the border. Build a wall. Lean on Mexico. These things aren't hard. The first step is containing the problem and not allowing it to get any bigger.

2. Establish hundreds of regional immigration centers. Anyone here illegally must show up and register within three months. As a country, we need to know who is here and have a way to keep track of them. Those registering will be given some sort of provisional resident alien status. No, they will not be allowed to vote.

3. Anyone caught not registering will be subject to immediate deportation, as will anyone caught breaking our laws. 

4. Equally important, any business employing non-registered aliens will be subject to heavy fines. This will give businesses the incentive to pressure their employees to fall in line.

5. Establish a path to citizenship. This would include a citizenship test (in English). 

Yes, I know it seems like this rewards illegal behavior, but we're better off if we can make them Americans. Remember, they're not going anywhere. The alternative is to be like France, with a permanent, resentful sub-class of non-French.

It will take time to fully absorb 20 million people, but it can be done—both economically and culturally (ditch multiculturalism and bring back the melting pot).

What Democrats have done to put us in this situation is disgraceful, but that doesn't alter the reality. It is an historic mess, and now it's time to put solutions in place.

The Assault on Beauty

 

Recently, New York declared an annual "Fat Beach Day."

It was a day when "plus size" people were encouraged to hang out at the beach, proud and unafraid.

Apparently, the idea is spreading (although, if my recent forays to the beach are any indication, every day is plus size day).

One of the organizers described it thus: 

"We're going through something culturally that is impacting us every day on an individual level and a systemic level."

That clear it up for you? (Gosh, these people love the word "systemic.")

Elsewhere, Dove USA, whose principle product is the "Beauty Bar," hired this woman to be a brand ambassador:

Hey, body positivity, people!

And then there are those ubiquitous Gatorade ads...

I could go on but I know I don't have to. We are being told by people who matter that we shouldn't be judgmental about beauty.

At this point, let me state this: I am aware of the old saw, "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder."

But is it, really? Are there no objective standards of beauty, things we can agree on? I think there are, or at least have been. Like this, for instance:

Can we agree that Cindy Crawford is beautiful? And before you say anything, I know that standards of beauty change over time. But I submit if Rubens were alive today he'd be reaching for a damn Pepsi.

This rant, though, is not just about the female form. It's far broader than that. There is an assault on beauty today that is both broad-based and, I believe, ideological.

I'll get to that second part. First, let's see how broad-based this is

How about architecture? 

This is the Boston Public Library. The Renaissance Revival structure, built in the late 19th century, was once described as a "Palace for the People."

Beautiful, no?

Now consider the library's more recent addition, glued right on to the back...

F**king ugly, right? A Brutalist eyesore. (If you disagree, I don't want to know you.) 

But wait, Scott, it was designed by Philip Johnson, and he's such an important architect. We all study him in architecture school! Don't be such a Philistine!

Suck it. I don't want to go to your boring dinner parties anyway. I'd probably bring you a lousy bottle of wine and use the wrong fork.

So, how about art?

Can we agree that this is beautiful?

Or, a few centuries later, this?

Now what about this?

But, Scott, that's a Motherwell, and he's sooo important!

I don't care. It's ugly, and I question how much talent or practice it took to paint it. Imagine if Motherwell had been asked to paint the Sistine Chapel.

A more recent trend is called "vomit art," which is exactly that. Here's a practitioner, hard at work:

How about something mundane, like a drinking fountain? Once, our cities designed them like this...

Now, you're more likely to see this...

How about something as simple as a lamp post? I give you lamp posts, yesterday and today.

(Courtesy of the Culture Critic on X.)

And music! In a single generation we have gone from the sublime craftsmanship of Sgt. Peppers and the aching timelessness of God Only Knows to rap music, deconstructed to the point having no melody, harmony, or discernible connection to actual music at all.

We are a society that has decoded the human genome, explored Mars, and can make a pizza arrive at your door in ten minutes. We do great things!

So, why have we turned our back on beauty? What the heck is going on?

Well, something is going on, and if you're guessing it's not a good thing, you'd be correct.

It is a part of a larger assault on Western society, traditions, and culture.

If you are a loyal Naked Dollar reader, you know I've written about critical theory, cultural Marxism, and perpetual protest culture. One of the key takeaways is that it's never about the nominal thing (black lives, trans rights, climate, Gaza...).

The people marching in their daily protests know virtually nothing about any of the underlying issues. The animating force is a hatred of God and Country, something bred in them at our schools. It's a desire to tear down our country, because, after all, why should we have it so good?

Much of this stems from the nihilistic teachings of our intellectual class, critical theory in particular. Critical theory informs us that there's no such thing as absolute truth, that truth is just a fairy tale concocted by those with power.

This intellectual virus spread, giving everyone permission to dismiss the vast inheritance of Western Civilization and its tenets like the Enlightenment, those things merely being the social constructs of the Dead White Europeans who had power back whenever.

All laws, traditions, and institutions stemming from those times needed to be torn down.

What's occurring in the aesthetic realm is no different. Standards of beauty are constructs of the old ways, just another means of oppression. How dare you insist that an artist spend years leaning a craft when the downtrodden—the other— don't have the resources?

Why, any application of paint (or vomit) to canvas is equally valid!

Call it Critical Aesthetic Theory, or perhaps just, "Critical Aesthetics."

Who are you to judge what's beautiful? You and your classical art and your Cindy Crawford are just relics of the old order, and you don't get to decide what's beautiful anymore. In fact, we reject the entire idea of beauty! If we accept that some things are beautiful, we are implicitly saying other things aren't.

No! 

My 300-pound body is beautiful, and if you say otherwise, you are a vile member of the oppressor class—and you know what we do to them these days.

Worse still, there is an historical connection between beauty and religion. Beauty, as manifested in art or architecture, was understood to be a way of apprehending the divine. The great cathedrals, for instance, reached purposefully for the heavens.

                                                   Chartres

Art was meant to reassure us that while perfection may not be attainable in this life, it would be in the next.

                                            The Birth of Venus

But of all the institutions worthy of Ivy League contempt, surely none rank higher than the church and formalized religion. If traditional attitudes towards beauty have anything to do with those things, well, you know...ick.

Are purveyors of our aesthetic decline self aware? Do vomit artists or Madison Avenue advertising suits think, consciously, I am trying to tear down Western Civilization?

For the most part, no. Like the students setting up little Hamas tent villages, they are the useful idiots, coasting along where the culture takes them.

But there are people driving that culture, from the professoriate at our most elite universities to the radicals running some of our most prestigious NGOs (see: Ford Foundation). These places are the font of the evil philosophies that are polluting our minds.

Should you, dear reader, support any of these institutions, stop. Just stop. If you're on a board, quit, and tell them why. Or, better, stay and raise your hand to the lunacy.

Now, this grumpy white man is going to turn on the radio and find the classic rock station.

It's Not About Gaza

Near the beginning of my book, Campusland, there is the following scene. It takes place as the president of "Devon University" (located in "Havenport," Connecticut—draw your own conclusions) approaches the building that houses his office:

A small knot of protesters were gathered outside the entrance. It was early in the year for that sort of thing, but having spent the last several decades at Devon, Milton Strauss was more than used to it. He even had sympathy for most of the causes, having himself slept several nights in a shanytown that progressives had constructed during the dark days of apartheid. That had been right there, in the stone expanse of Bingham Plaza. What could they be protesting today? No doubt something well-intentioned.

The protesters spotted Milton and instantly became animated. "Hey, Milton, divest from Israel now! Stop the murder! cried one. "Divest now! Divest now!" Their homemade signs thrust up and down like pistons.

Milton smiled and walked over. "It's great to see everyone. Really great." He began shaking hands, much to the bewilderment of the protesters. "Keep up the good work and welcome back to school!"

Then Milton Strauss, the seventeenth president of Devon University, disappeared into Stockbridge Hall.

Campusland came out in 2019, and I probably wrote those words in 2017 or 2018. In the book, the progressive students are disappointed at their lack of traction with the Israel issue, so they readily move on to something else.

In the real world, they wouldn't have to wait long.

I have been told, many times, that Campusland was "prescient."

It wasn't.

I was just paying more attention than most to what was happening on our campuses for many years, right in front of our eyes. Interestingly, there were a few critics of Campusland that accused the satire of being "over the top."

In reality, I dialed the real world back. There were things happening that were so out there, even then, that I decided no one would buy it, even in the form of a satiric novel.

And now here we are, only a couple of years later, and Campusland seems almost tame, particularly as the anti-semitism that pervades academia has risen to the surface.

In the novel, the fecklessness of Milton Strauss and his inability to impose any sort of discipline on his campus, gives rise to chaos.

Sound familiar?

In fact, it is the Milton Strausses of the world, and more particularly the boards that oversee them, that are the targets of my next novel, All the Lovely People (St. Martins Press, due out next spring).

But that's not really the point I want to make today.

What's going on at Columbia, and Yale, and Harvard, and just about everywhere has nothing to do with Gaza. As many have pointed out, most of the protesters couldn't find Gaza on a map. 

I was amused when one journalist approached a student who was chanting, "From the river to the sea..." and asked her exactly what river and sea she was talking about.

Of course, she had no idea.

But this underscores the point I want to make: it's not about Gaza.

Have you noticed that in a mere three years, the animating force behind the street-marching left has morphed from "black lives matter" to "trans rights" and now to "Gaza?"

It wasn't about black lives or trans people then, and it's not about Gaza today. Tomorrow, it will be something else. A bit further back, it was Occupy Wall Street. Does anyone think that was really about the failure of structured mortgage products?

No!

This is about one thing: the tearing down of America, the destruction of our traditions, institutions, and laws. Obama called it the "fundamental transformation of America."

He wasn't kidding.

And it's all the same people, over and over. Their animating influence is a hatred for the very country they live in.

At the heart of this is the radicalization of our education system, all the way down to kindergarten, with DEI at its core. It produces scores of fresh troops for the Movement each and every year.

I have written about this many times, and don't need to make the point again here.

But none of this stops until schools and universities are completely rebooted. If you're giving money, STOP. If you're serving on a board, raise your hand and say WTF! If you're dying for your kid to get into Yale, open your eyes.

Don't sit on your hands and hope others will do the heavy lifting for you.

They won't.

How Now, Democrats?

 

I don't blog about something unless I have something that is (hopefully) original to say, which is why I don't blog a lot. In the world of contemporary politics, especially, it is very difficult to have an original thought. There are literally thousands of pundits out there.

Today, I have an original thought. (At least, I think it is. I don't read everything.) I'll get to that thought in a moment.

This was a remarkable week in Washington as the left and the media were shocked, shocked to discover what all of us already knew, that Joe Biden is a few fries short of a Happy Meal. 

Actually, they did know. Of course they did. The shock was that their own Justice Department said the quiet part out loud. Merrick, you idiot, don't you read these things before they go out? 

My guess is, the conversation went like this:

Garland: So, there are no charges against the president, right?

Special Counsel Hur: Yes, sir.

Garland: Good job Ben—I mean Robert. Release the report.

Garland probably threw up on his shoes when he heard the details later. The half-life of Robert Hur's career can now be measured in nanoseconds.

These events have elevated the "Joe" problem to Defcon One. Various solutions include invoking the 25th Amendment, but that would result in...Kamala. 

You see, it isn't just "what do we do about Joe?" it's also "what do we do about Kamala?"

There's so much hand wringing in Democrat circles that I hear the Beltway has run out of salve. Things would be so much easier if she weren't around. They could just slide in the next guy (or non-binary person, or whatever). 

But Kamala cannot be simply disappeared. The woke wing would throw a tantrum befitting of their juvenile status.

So, while I am loathe to ever make suggestions to help the Democrats, the answer to their problems is one I haven't heard. It involves the following steps:

1. Joe steps down for health reasons sometime around the convention. Dr. Dr. Dr. Jill will have to be talked into this, of course, but at this point things are so bad I believe it could happen.
2. Gavin Newsom rides in as the party's savior at the convention. Democrats and the media rally around Newsom in all the excitement. The weight of having to make excuses for "Old Joe" is off their backs. Note that Newsom deftly manages to avoid the scrutiny of a primary season—an important step, given that his record in California is indefensible.
3. Here's the lynchpin: Because Biden resigned instead of riding things out till January, Kamala gets to be president for a few months. This is her payoff. She'll be the first blah, blah, blah. Picture on stamps, statues, children's books on the presidents. Giant speaking fees and book deals later. No one could take it away from her. 

Step three is what I hear no one discussing and it's the only answer to "what to do" about Kamala. She's an idiot and cannot be allowed near the Supreme Court (despite the precedent for idiots already having been set with Sotomayor). She's already been a senator and no need to get Adam Schiff pissed. 

The Dems will figure that they can hide her at Camp David for a few months, trot her out for a few speeches, and maybe keep her finger away from the button. They certainly won't let her near the Newsom campaign.

This is a very dangerous scenario for the GOP because Newsom is a dangerous man. He can lie to your face and you know he's lying, he knows he's lying, but those teeth! That hair! They all lie, so we might as well have a charming liar, right?

Anyway, tell me I'm wrong.