Special Report
Instead of Immigration, Let’s Try Colonialism
The Party of Compassion needs to spread its wings.
By William Tucker – 7.25.14
Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi visits shelters housing the thousands of children streaming across the border from Central America and says, “We’re all North Americans” and she’d like to take them all home with her.
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont thunders that 9-year-old girls are being raped on the streets of Guatemala and that we must take them in to save them.
And Democratic Congressman John Lewis of Georgia is even more generous. He says that there’s no sense in having borders anymore. America belongs to the whole world and we should open our doors to let everyone in.
Democrats are obviously the “Party of Compassion.” They want to extend the blessings of America to the whole world. They believe, it would seem, that we have created something close to the perfect society here — a society in which only half the population has to work, where 20 percent receive food stamps, where 10 million people are on disability and where, in the words of Pelosi herself, government healthcare enables people to “quit their job to stay home and write poetry.”
Having achieved all this, Democrats now want to extend these benefits to the whole world. After all, the globe is speckled with backward nations filled with victims of poverty, repressive government, civil warfare, violent drug gangs and murderous rebel armies kidnapping young girls. Why not open our doors to all these victims of hardship and atrocity? Have we no feeling for our fellow humans?
Well, there are a few problems. When Nancy Pelosi says she wants to take all those children home with her, she probably doesn’t mean to her own home. She probably means the homes of people in her district - or better yet some remote district of Iowa or Virginia where there are fewer of her loyal voters. In fact, there are many difficulties with the idea of America as the Day Care Center of the World. Unfortunately, this country is filled with rednecks, yahoos, and nativists whose racism, and sexism and every other ism, prevents them from honoring the compassion that lies in every Democratic heart.
So I would like to propose a solution. Let’s try colonialism. Instead of performing these miracles of compassion within our borders, why not erase these useless borders and extend them to the whole world?
Now I know what you’re going to say. “Colonialism! That was European countries exploiting the poor and backward peoples of the Third World.” But that is not entirely true. When the British and French assembled their colonial empires in Africa and Asia during the 19th century, they honestly believed they were a superior civilization that was bringing peace and prosperity to oppressed populations. And to a large extent this was true. Everywhere the British went, they ended tribal warfare among people who had been fighting with each other almost since time began. In place of primitive autocracies, they established parliamentary governments that still stand. Moreover, tens of thousands of well-meaning people from the home nation were able to “head for the Colonies” to teach school, bring the benefits of contemporary medicine (remember Albert Schweitzer?), and improve the lives of these benighted people. So instead of waiting for refugees to come to our border, why not just extend these miracles of civilization to the whole world?
All this would not only lift the lives of people in Guatemala and El Salvador. It would also serve as a useful outlet for the surplus of compassion that obviously affects so many of our political leaders. Instead of muddling along as one of 435 Congressmen, for instance, John Lewis could serve as Viceroy of Guatemala with a whole nation at his command. Nancy Pelosi could serve as Minister of Education and take the entire youth population under her wing. Senator Patrick Leahy could be Minister of Justice and start protecting those rape victims in their own homes instead of forcing them to make a perilous journey to our borders.
An American colonialism would not only bring peace and prosperity to backward portions of the world, it would also serve the useful function of giving all those compassionate Democrats in Washington something to do. They obviously enjoy running other people’s lives. The problem with the United States is it is filled with people like Tea Party members who stubbornly resist all the wonderful things that government can do for them. Colonizing Central America and beyond would not only spread the Age of American Enlightenment to other parts of the globe — it would clear all these compassionate people out of Washington and leave this country to those of us who would rather take care of ourselves.
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Source URL:
http://spectator.org/articles/60074/instead-immigration-let%E2%80%99s-try-colonialism
