The glory of our greatest strength, “diversity,” loses its luster as you drive from Nogales, Arizona, up to the scenic Northland.  Traveling north, you notice fewer bars on the windows of businesses and homes, as well as a general reduction in the Australopithecine recycling practices so aptly described by Chilton Williamson, Jr., in his book The Immigration Mystique.  It appears that Aztlan, when it finally triumphs by way of demographics, will at the very least be a consolidated mosaic of rampant crime, trash, fully loaded diapers, abandoned cars, patron politics, and other examples of Latin American “self-determination” stretching from Mexico City all the way to Denver.  As I stew about what is happening to the Southwest, I am faced with a dilemma: Should I move south and jump into the front lines with Ranch Rescue or some other such organization or head as far north as I can, only to look forward to a face-off with our Islamic brethren sneaking across the Canadian border?

Thus, it was refreshing to read Peter Brimelow’s upbeat “we can do it again” account (“Real Reform,” Vital Signs, May).  The fly in the ointment is there in the form of the 14th Amendment, however, which cannot be defanged by simply tinkering with the Citizenship Clause.  In the midst of our current celebration of 50 years of Earl Warren-esque 14th Amendment applications, we should reflect that the teleocratic “civil religion” of the 14th Amendment, which makes citizens into subjects in the name of “one people” (not “peoples”), will prevent, in quasitheocratic fashion, any popular uprising from taking hold.  The 14th Amendment itself ensures that we will not be able, as Mr. Brimelow suggests, to “do it again.”

Eliminating the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause will not ameliorate the immigration mess or return us to republican government.  This “cure” is not enough.  Besides, “cures” initiated by an essentially iatrogenic therapy state should make us run for cover.  The same postmodern politicos who disbelieve in Creation as a basis of legitimate authority yet quack about “the consent of the governed” have made convalescence an enduring way of life in every sphere.  (Have you hugged your therapist/reformer/storm trooper today?)  No, we must excise this political cyst that grants legitimacy to usurpation of local authority.  A good place to start is by never letting up in the fight to teach our populace the real history of this never-legitimately-ratified amendment, which allows the national government to define what the very bulwark against it will be.  Mass immigration would not be the problem it is if it were not protected by the 14th Amendment’s war against constitutional democracy—whereby liberty is defined by community and arbitrary, centralized authority is prevented, through constitutional means, from usurping power.

When natural community is constantly abridged and corrupted by the absolute democracy of termite-mound demographics “legitimized” by avant-garde political theory that protects the cypher-citizen from “States [making or enforcing] any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens [sic] of the United States,” community is simply a “construct” whose definition is up to the whims of the normative authority of the state.  This is not mere philosophizing.  There have been people living on the border of Mexico who have been accused of threatening the “civil rights” of “immigrants” who have trashed their property and terrorized their neighbors simply because they detained the invaders until the border patrol could get there.  The “universitas” sentiment of the 14th Amendment is at work here, paving the way for the great monochrome diversity of “world citizenship,” and, until the 14th Amendment is repealed, there can be no recourse for actual U.S citizens to make or enforce immigration laws that work.

        —Tom Sheeley
Flagstaff, AZ

Mr. Brimelow Replies:

I sympathize with Mr. Sheeley’s point.  The problem can hardly be the 14th Amendment alone, however, since the cutoff of the 1920’s, which ended the 1880-1920’s “First Great Wave” of mass immigration, was obviously enacted long after the 14th Amendment was ratified.  The revolutionary Warren Court, and subsequent rampant judicial imperialism, should more properly be the focus of our attention.  There is no doubt that any attempt by Americans to stop the abolition of their nation-state will now be met with entrenched judicial (and bureaucratic) opposition.  I think it should be remembered, however, that judicial imperialism contains the seeds of its own destruction.  It depends, for its effectiveness, on the popular consent built up by generations of legitimate legal interpretation.  Once that popular consent is withdrawn, because of the dawning realization that the judiciary is behaving lawlessly, the courts’ magic evaporates.  Their decisions can be reversed by statute or, if necessary, by constitutional amendment.  All that is wanting is the will.  Whether the 14th Amendment as currently written will be reformed in this process seems to me to be an interesting question, ultimately dependent on how extreme and intransigent the immigration enthusiasts get.