Democrat Spoilers

By the 1920's Harlem had become a magnet (I almost used the improper term of the Islamic pilgrimmage locus...) for talented, energetic, ambitious blacks from all over the U.S. as well as from other territories. It was a sprawling precinct buzzing with writers, painters, dancers, composers, publishers, doctors, teachers, schools, shops, businesses, and enterprises as varied as could be found in any city for any ethnic group. The term "Harlem Renaissance" is used by some people to capture the moment, but in fact, there were centers of black population in a great number of American cities before World War II, each fermenting with the full spectrum from poor, to middle-class, to rich, and from ignorant to academically celebrated.

This is not to deny that America had still not yet fully dealt with the legacies of slavery and racial discrimination. Just to point out that there were healthy communities that offered a wide range of experiences and opportunities.

But... One of the unintended and unforeseen effects of the integration drive from the 1950's onward was that the black professionals and much of the black middle class elected to decamp from the black urban ghettos. We use the word ghetto now in a completely different sense than it had been used before. The word used to refer simply to a neighborhood that was predominantly of one cultural or ethnic group. These days we mean it to refer to a blasted, impoverished, benighted neighborhood, whose residents are prisoners because of their lack of money, skills, or hope.

In the fullness of time, this will pass. There is no question that it's a shameful waste of potential to forcibly segregate and deny full participation to ethnic groups. But the social imperative to allow all individuals and groups to make their own choices inevitably creates temporary imbalances and distortions. Demogogues will inevitably exploit those dislocations.

National borders and trans-national migrations, though, can not be left to sort themselves out the same way. The great difference is that migrations within a country are all at least governed by or subject to the unifying principles and codes of the national will. Everyone agrees that we have no say over the laws Mexico imposes on itself. By the same token, Mexico has no right to tell America what laws to pass or how to enforce those laws. That there are American citizens who cannot accept such an elementary concept is really the underlying problem.

As with so many issues, there is a corrosive partisan aspect to the argument.

When William Jefferson Clinton held the office of President, he maintained a standing policy of intercepting Haitian refugees on the High Seas far from U.S. controlled waters, and forcibly repatriated them. To what end is not clear. The Left were strangely silent both about the interdiction, and the fate of those returned to the hands of the Ton-Ton Macoutes and the brutal factions contending for control of the country. No one questioned Clinton's authority to send those illegal immigrants back to their country of origin.

And just a few years later, the Left in America EMPHATICALLY denied the right of young Elian Gonzalez to stay in the U.S. after his mother had risked everything to cross the open ocean between Cuba and the U.S. to get her son to relatives here. Michael Moore wrote an impassioned (if utterly cynical and condescending) open letter to Elian that blasted the people trying to fight his return, and apologizing for the crappy culture of the U.S. Mr. Moore was so happy he was leaving. Again, the Left were completely supportive of Mr. Clinton's use of black-uniformed masked paramilitary INS agents armed with submachine guns, calling unexpectedly around 3 or 4 am to forcibly extricate Elian G. from his Florida- State-Court-appointed guardian.

That is the same Florida whose Democrat-dominated judiciary worked so hard to intervene a few years later in the presidential vote tally process to void the Republican victory.

So it seems over and over that the LEFT in America — and pretty much everywhere else — are ready to reverse themselves on any issue if it suits their momentary tactics. They are spoilers, without any goal beyond getting back into power. Their agenda is devoid of substance. While they claim to defend women's rights, immigrant rights, prisoner rights, children's rights, they will abandon in an instant any victim whose story does not help their pursuit of power.

The problem common all of these situations is NOT that the solutions are somehow hidden. The fundamental problem is that we have a huge population of contrary children who insist on having their way because they want to be in charge. If they can't have their way, they will make damn sure nobody else gets what they want, regardless of the cost.

I predict this will continue until the Jihadis make a demonstration that clarifies things for everyone.