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The WB emails:

Who edited your column? Are you pissed?

No, not at all. WND regularly edits my column, albeit usually before it appears. I actually turned this one in early, so this was clearly on Mr. Farah’s orders. I happen to know that he really, really, really didn’t like it.

But, to his credit, he didn’t get on my case or even shake his finger at me, he merely exercised his prerogative to edit a piece that appears on his web site. His house, his rules, I have no problem with that. They killed an entire piece of mine two years ago, no one ever knew because I simply wrote another piece on a different topic and that was that.

BW is a bit irritated, however:

WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?! Here we are defending that column, and when I went to refer to it for some quotes to use in rebutting one of Ken Prescott’s fallacies, it was changed. The offending comparison is removed, and, unless I’m mistaken, there are other changes. Can you provide an undedited text?

Of course. This sort of thing is one reason why I provide an alternative column archive that isn’t subject to WND’s concerns. The original piece, as written, is right here.

I disagree with Mr. Farah’s actions, of course, just as I disagreed with his decision to panic and endorse George Bush right before the 2004 election. But you see, I am a genuine libertarian and I don’t expect to control the actions of others. I have no problem with Mr. Farah’s decisions and respect his right to do whatever he likes with his site.

Oso con Queso and Dan, meanwhile, suspect I did it:

Maybe it was Vox who edited the column…. I’m still leaning towards Vox having asked for the edit.

Couldn’t handle the heat?

Right, that’s why I’ve been methodically beating down the illiterates and have an unedited copy on my own site. You two are welcome to stick around, being more rational than most of my critics – you’d be surprised how many regulars started as critics, in fact, not the majority but more than a dozen – but you obviously aren’t very familiar with me.

I’m prepared to believe that you don’t actually advocate murdering all illegal immigrants, but SURELY you must concede that tossing a reference to Nazi Germany into your column was bound to provoke a frenzy. Why exactly did you go with Nazi Germany, when Slobodan Milosevic’s tactics toward Kosovar Albanians seems more in line with what you’re proposing? No need to conjure up images of the Holocaust, trains, and concentration camps when you’ve got a perfectly good roster of historical examples that seem (as far as I understand you) to correspond much more closely to simple, old-fashioned mass deportation….

Why DID you use that particular example? I’m obviously not implying that you’re a neo-fascist or a racial purist. Just wondering why you didn’t instead recommend the Ottoman Empire, Milosevic, and the US vis a vis the Indians as examples, since all of them seem much closer to what you propose.

There were certainly a number of historical examples I could have used, but the one from National Socialist Germany seemed the most apt to me for three reasons. First, the number 12 million has been bandied about lately with regards to illegal aliens and I was reading Robert Wisnich’s book not so long ago, so when I read about Bush declaring how it wouldn’t work to deport so terribly many, the first thing that sprang to mind was something on the order of “for Pete’s sake, the Endlosung took less than four years and that’s half 12 million right there.”

Second, most people are woefully ignorant of history. You’d be amazed at how many people emailed to inform me that the National Socialists KILLED 6 million Jews. No, really, Mr. History PhD? Given that perhaps one in five readers could identify Milosevic or the Ottoman Empire, much less the Polish postwar expulsion and murder of one million ethnic Germans, it made sense to go with something readers would at least have heard of.

Third, I believe that the Third Way politics practiced by the Bush-Clintons and the Blair-Camerons are a modified version of the original Third Way, more infamously known as fascism. I’ve been reading a history entitled FASCISTI by Giordano Bruno Guerri in the last week and the similarities between the development of the historical cult of the nation and the modern cult of multiculturalism are striking.

But it’s a poor effort indeed:

t seems Vox Populi, the blog Vox Day has, is taking me up on the offer. He has already misread my contempt and refusal to tolerate defense of his indefensible column as me being a “Chickenboy”. To do so… well, that says more about you than me, Mr. Day. My anger and disgust with your column comes due to the fact that I think the first principles that this country was founded on mean something. Particularly, when we laid out the reasons for breaking away from England:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Let the irrelevant preening begin!

Now, let’s lay some cards down on the table. If we, as Americans, are to believe what Thomas Jefferson wrote, then the following statement in the President’s speech is non-controversial:

We must always remember that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions, and that every human being has dignity and value no matter what their citizenship papers say.

Then how are we to react when someone writes the following statement?

And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: “Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it’s just not going to work.”

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.

You don’t have to bring Thomas Jefferson into it in order to read the following and very simple argument.

George Bush said X. George Bush lied. Here’s an example of proof to the contrary only 65 years old. The correct way to react is to examine the proof and decide if it is sufficient to determine whether George Bush lied or not. As it happens, he did. I find it interesting that to a man, the conservatives “outraged” by my comments are all Bush supporters; none of them have admitted that my bust of Bush’s lie is spot-on.

Furthermore, Thomas Jefferson is not Holy Writ and while Harold may be informed by the man’s words every time you place fingertips on keyboard, I am not. And finally, deporting an illegal alien does not detract from his basic human worth any more than arresting him for shoplifting does.

Let’s be honest about the Nazis. They felt that there was a super-race – they called it Aryans. Other races were to be subjected – to be slaves, or second-class citizens. They targeted Jews, gypsies, and others for extermination, also known as the Holocaust. And you, Mr. Day, were at the very least, using it as a way to rebut the President of the United States. You might call yourself a libertarian, but your column came across as something far different from that, and extremely odious. It’s not quite the worst that I have seen.

My column came across as nothing of the sort to anyone not looking to preen for the masses and pretend outrage. I neither endorsed mass deportation nor supported a border fence, in fact, I came out explicitly against the latter in case you missed the title and the vast majority of the column. German history is real and provides those who study history with many examples, some evil, some good and some neutral. The mere mention of National Socialist Germany is not synonymous with sympathy for its policies, and unlike you, I actually know what they were.

Since I don’t merely call myself a libertarian but actually happen to be one, I also support far fewer of them than you do, Harold.

That’s what this comes down to. You are either with Thomas Jefferson and President Bush, or you are with the perpetrators of one of the most evil acts in recorded history. I do not think that any sort of middle ground is possible in this – nor can such a blanket endorsement be explained away as merely “drawing upon the lessons of history”. Because if it can be done to 12 million illegals, who else can it be done to?

That’s the most feeble false dichotomy I’ve seen in several years of this blog. You’re a laughable joke, Harold. Mass slaughter has been with mankind for all of recorded history and only by preventing a power imbalance on the side of central government can it be avoided. Thomas Jefferson and George Bush are on different sides of that debate, you sad cretin.

Slopes can get very slippery, as we have seen on other issues. We’ve gone from debates over whether or not a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy or whether someone has the right to have a living will to seeing a Western European country practice out-and-out euthanasia, and debate over whether it should be legalized here.

In the same vein, we also see that from those who wish to practice gun control. It starts with just a few things – bans on guns that have “no legitimate sporting purposes”, as the gun-control advocates claim. But then they demand more and more. Soon, they want to tell you how many you will be allowed to have in a month. Then they want to make you demonstrate to someone else that you need a given gun.

Agreed.

The reason I’m calling you a Nazi, Mr. Day, is because your column seems to have a lot more in common with them than it did with what this country is founded on. So you don’t like Michelle Malkin. Big deal.

Yes, clearly the National Socialists were opposed to strong central government, as I explicitly opposed in my column. Furthermore, I have nothing personal against Michelle Malkin, I opposed her fraudulent defense of internment because it was a) historically inaccurate and b) an advocation of increasing central state power. That is absolutely relevant to the matter under discussion and also eliminates your ridiculous case.

When it comes to the principles espoused by Jefferson vs. the actions of Hitler, there is no middle ground, Mr. Day. You’re with one or the other, as is the case in the war on terror. I’m going to follow the President’s lead and err on the side of Thomas Jefferson’s principles. You are free to say or do otherwise, but complaining when you get called out on it looks bad. A pitcher who complains about a batter charging the mound after getting plunked by a pitch looks better.

False dichotomy, again. I’m not complaining at all, I’m openly mocking quasi-illiterate morons like you, Michael Medved and others who leaped before they looked.

You sent some of your fans to come on over and talk trash. But I see that none of them even tried to defend what you wrote. If you can reconcile citing what Nazi Germany did to Jews with the notion that even illegal immigrants – as human beings – have dignity and value, then do so. If you find that it is impossible, then have the courage – and honesty – to come out and say so. If you lack the ability to do either, then say so. Are you too chicken to do so?

And now Young Harold is reduced to lying. I didn’t send anyone over to his web site, nor, as you can see for yourself, did anyone talk trash. Furthermore, several people openly defended what I wrote, which, if you look at the time stamps of Harold’s second post compared to that of the comments, proves that he is blatantly lying.

There is nothing inherently contradictory in citing something bad that on
e group of people did to another group of people and asserting that human beings have dignity and value. Harold has a strangely limited little mind that sees nonexistent dichotomies everywhere even as he misses rather obvious ones, like Jefferson v. Bush and National Socialism v. libertarianism.

In summary, a truly pathetic attempt, Harold. False dichotomies, demonstrations of both ideological ignorance and reading comprehension problems, and finally, a resort to two outright lies. You would have been better off running home to Mommy.

But on an amusing final note, Harold also posted this:

In the two days since Vox Day’s column, Michelle has to have known that there was a controversy. She has not found the time to say a single word about Mr. Day’s odious column, but did find time to write an insulting column filled with hyperbole, to complain about 22 Senators who didn’t vote the way she would have had them vote, and to live-blog a speech she’d made her mind up on before even listening to.

Yeah, you’ll likely be waiting a long, long time before Michelle Malkin has anything to say about me, Harold. And you can be absolutely sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with her secretly agreeing with me or harboring a hidden passion for my smoldering sexuality.

Jonah Goldberg gets confused playing Animal, Vegetable, Mineral:

So this seems like a propitious time to ask: What if illegal immigrants were crack?

But for me the most interesting similarity is the issue of futility and will. Drug-war doves claim that you can’t win the drug war because you can’t defeat the laws of supply and demand. As long as there is demand for drugs, there will be a supply, and no acceptable amount of militarization of the drug war will change that. This argument gets flipped on its head when it comes to immigration. Suddenly, militarization is essential to the top priority of cutting off supply.

But the fact is, in all likelihood your average illegal immigrant, desperate to start a new life for himself and provide for his family, will be no less determined to sell his labor than a drug dealer would be to sell his goods.

Some drug legalization advocates hang their position on a lot of moral preening about the absolute right of the individual to do what he wants. But many of the same people will then argue that it is—and should be—an outrageous crime to hire an illegal immigrant. Well, conservative economic dogma considers the right to form contracts with whomever you wish to be sacrosanct. It is “the socialist society” according to the philosopher Robert Nozick, “which would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.”

Four obvious problems with Mr. Goldberg’s whacky argument.

1. People are significantly harder to hide than crack. The obvious size differences aside, one gets smoked and is gone. The other has numerous and routine interactions with various local, state and federal employees.

2. Corporations aren’t individuals. The sacrosanct right of the individual to form a contract should not be confused with the right of a government formed, licensed and regulated creation to do so, historic legal fictions notwithstanding.

3. The demand for cheap labor is significantly lower than the demand for crack. One seldom sees CEOs of Fortune 500 companies cruising around bad neighborhoods at night, desperately searching for Mexicans to clean the toilets, after all.

4. The profit incentive is much lower. A cheap illegal Mexican costs one-third to one-half that of a legal American. The profit on crack is considerably more than a mere 100 to 200 percent.

His suggestion was momentarily interesting but after five seconds thought, color me underwhelmed.

I’m not going to be live blogging the Champion’s League final this afternoon because my internet connection is in a different room than the satellite, but I will be keeping a diary for posting after the game for interested Arsenalistas. I hope to post it quite soon after Arsenal defeats Barcelona for some shiny European silverware.

But win or lose, it promises to be a great game tonight between two teams that aren’t afraid to attack and play with a bit of flair.

Prediction: Gunners 2, Barca 1.

Andrew Sullivan gives the Malkin Award to Vox Day.

I can’t imagine he has any idea how massively ironic that is. That is truly funny.

And since a few of the more ostentatious moral preeners have deigned to grace us with their presence, it would seem churlish to ignore Do Not Cross This Line’s saintly statement in political correctness:

Vox’s article is a feeble attempt at the ratchet effect. I’m here to ensure for my part that it fails. To explain: the ratchet effect works to make previously radical ideas acceptable and finally mainstream. The first thing you have to do is find a pivot point. Thus, Vox compares “getting rid” of 12 million people to the efficiency of Nazi extermination camps. He carefully detours around the part where the Nazis murdered people in order to establish his safe rebuttal: “I never advocated killing people. You liberals are just silly and hysterical. Godwin. You lose. Etcetera.”

Yes, because getting rid of six million people is a logistical task rather similar to getting rid of 12 million people. Whether you kill them at the end or buy them all haciendas complete with margarita bars, the task is largely the same. DNCTL is correct to mention that I did not advocate killing anyone, he disingenuously neglects to mention that I didn’t even advocate a massive deportation program. Since I was specific with my recommendations in the article, it’s quite clear that DNCTL, like many other Medvedian morons, is more interested in throwing a hissy fit than responding to the column.

Now, the dialogue has skipped to the right, the fascist right, I might add, in a way that is acceptable. If people pick on Vox’s ridiculous statements, he can always point to the donut hole he left in the middle of them where the real extreme ideas he clearly holds have been carefully elided. And people who are morally revolted by his casual comparison to Nazis can be shamed into admitting they supposedly made a knee-jerk comparison.

They should be ashamed, considering that they revealed themselves to be barely literate morons incapable of reading a 750-word column in its entirety. Given that I’m against the border fence supported by a great many Americans due to my distrust of strong central government, how does it make any sense to invent a nonexistent implication that I favor either mass slaughter or mass deportations. Especially considering that I was the foremost critic of Michelle Malkin’s defense of internments past and future.

I guess there’s a reason you think you’re so smart, Mr. Mensa Vox, but trust me I’m not fooled. What you now intend to do along with a few hundred other bloviating fascists is establish the new ratchet point as perfectly reasonable and gradually reintroduce your hidden premises. You’ve already made great strides toward dehumanizing the vermin, and distracting the gabbling mass of your followers from the real crisis of leadership facing this nation. Now you can crank that ratchet a little more to the right. Un-people are just cattle, after all. We can pack them in boxcars, and if a few of them starve to death on a forced march, well they’re HERE ILLEGALLY so why does it matter?

The only person fooling DNCTL is himself. He invents positions I do not hold, insists he is capable of reading my mind and indulges himself by loudly decrying a mythical beast. The fact that even my usual bete noirs knew better than to jump in with criticism should suffice to demonstrate to even the most skeptical mind that these moral preeners are simply embarrassing themselves with their farcical hysterics.

There are people who will not tolerate the crossing of this line. I’ve read enough history and seen enough racism in person that I have no desire to live in that world. Trust me, I’m pulling off your fucking ratchet right now and breaking it over my knee.

Well, you just put on your “racism sucks” t-shirt and feel good about yourself as the world continues to orbit the sun in complete indifference. I’m sure Mommy will pat you on the head for being such a brave little multicultural soldier. Now go and play with your toys, the adults are talking.

What an unmitigated coward! After boldly declaring “I’m not running away. I’m in the mood for a fight. Bring it on.” Hutchinson responded to his 6th commenter thusly:

I think I read and comprehended what he wrote. At best, he is stupid. At worst, he was endorsing stuff that ranks among the most evil acts of history. Sorry, but there was no excuse for it. If you want to defend crap like that, there are other places to do so. But not here.

You think wrong, Chickenboy. But run away to Mommy, by all means. I’m sure she’ll tell you what a very brave boy you are.

Let’s just say I won’t be holding my breath waiting for a response to my earlier post.

And please notice something here. People only have the power over you that you give them. The truth is the truth. 10,000 bloggers and radio hosts declaring that a libertarian is a National Socialist will not make him one, anymore than their declaring 2+2=5 will make it so. Both the lesser and the greater truths will set you free, you have only to acknowledge and hold to them.

Did I just hear Micheal Medved call you, Vox Day, by name and then refer to you as a Nazi-lover? That’s some rather negative mass advertising, Big Daddy. I hate hearing that. Some caller was referrring to your comments, don’t know who.

Why would it concern me? Michael Medved is an intellectual joke who wouldn’t know a National Socialist from a Volkswagen. We just dropped it like it’s hot, Michael, V-Dub! As I said previously, anyone who is capable of confusing a National Socialist with a libertarian is not capable of adult conversation.

Think of it as something akin to a minimum height at the amusement park. You must be smarter than X if you want to play.

Like most faux conservatives, Medved dislikes libertarians – or in his parlance, losertarians – so calling them Nazi-lovers is a temptation akin to a fat girl diving into her favorite ice cream. The fact that it makes no sense won’t trouble him at all, he’s in radio and no one will remember the words tomorrow, much less next week.

I also declined Mr. Colmes kind invitation and suggested that he simply read the column on the air and let everyone get worked up about it. I’m not interested, since producers are just doing their job in trolling for fodder for the daily Two Minute Hate. As I noted in my email, mere column reading seems to work well enough as outrage-generating material for that Air America lady. Considering that the radio crowd is arguably several points lower on the IQ scale than the Internet crowd, yesterday’s vapors tend to indicate that a reading in Mr. Colmes dulcet tones will inspire the desired Pavlovian reaction.

MC writes:

I’m pretty much as left as left can be and I don’t know what anyone’s in a tizzy about. Please keep in mind that not all of us are reactionary enough to totally flip when we see “Nazi” used in a historical comparison. If they read the whole article they’d know that isn’t what you’re advocating. Besides, anyone who has Valis in their list of top ten books is OK by me.

That’s remarkably sober considering the next email I received from a purported producer at Fox News:

Alan Colmes is very interersted in discussing immigration and border security with you on his national radio show.

To which I replied:

Is this a joke or something? I’d strongly recommend re-reading the piece a little more closely before Mr. Colmes gets his panties in a bunch. It’s not anywhere nearly as controversial as the quasi-illiterates in the blogosphere seem to think.

Anyhow, I don’t do radio, except for the Northern Alliance. And considering Captain Ed’s position, perhaps not even that anymore.

Harold Hutchinson clearly harbors masochistic yearnings:

Let me lay this out front – this is the type of talk that leads people to ask questions about the opponents to the President’s plan. Questions about just what, exactly, it is they want. Questions about whether they went off their anti-psychotic medications – or need to be on them. Questions about just what the hell it is the really want. And the answer never come. They cry “race-baiting” and then claim that nobody wishes to debate them honestly.

The answers never come? Apparently you didn’t read past the mention of German history, or even manage to remember the title of the piece. Very well, shall repeat my desires for Mr. Hutchinson’s benefit. I want illegal aliens to return to their countries of origin. I don’t want a fence. I don’t want a national ID card, the Patriot Act or a Department of Homeland Security. I want the states and private land owners to protect their own land as they see fit without interference from the federal government. I want all social services limited to citizens of the sovereign states. I don’t want mass deportations by the federal government despite believing, contra President Bush’s assertions, that they are emininently practical, because they are unnecessary. I want proven illegals deported immediately.

Is that sufficiently clear, Mr. Hutchinson? Please note that I have not cried “race-baiting” and I am perfectly willing to school anyone who wishes to debate me honestly or otherwise.

I’m sorry, but this is the type of talk – and conduct – that has royally turned me off. What is just as bad is the fact that too many conservatives turn a blind eye to all of this. Other tacitly embrace it. Michelle Malkin, for instance, gives VDARE a one-day head start on her columns (as opposed to Townhall.com). She has also approvingly cited Lawrence Auster and Steve Sailer. She recommends VDARE, despite the fact that it runs stuff from Jared Taylor, who happens to be buddy-buddy with the likes of David Duke and Don Black – the webmaster of Stormfront. See what founders of the site RedState.com (no bastion of political correctness) had to say about Auster and Sailer. Decide for yourself if her claims that those who question these connections are engaged in mischaracterization, as she claimed during the controversy over the UAE’s ports deal, or if she has been turning a blind eye to some serious slime.

If you’re looking for me to defend Me So Michelle, well, you’ll have to look elsewhere. See the August archives for enough detail to make you cry…. I can’t say that turning on someone named Harold has ever been a particular goal of mine.

Do you even give a damn that he’s drawing upon Nazi Germany? Or do you not care as long as the checks clear? Do you really stand with all of this? Do you consider that sort of stuff acceptable? Michelle, do you believe in this stuff? As far as I am concerned, Michelle, Master Gunnery Sergeant Guadalupe Denogean is far more of an American than Taylor, Auster, and Sailer combined. He has certainly risked a lot more for this country and gave far more than Tom Tancredo ever has.

Since when did drawing upon the historical lessons of Germany, be it during the National Socialist era or the Teutoberger Wald era, become verboten? Does Mr. Hutchinson similarly avoid flying on jets because National Socialist scientists developed them? It’s also interesting to see how he is quantifying and ranking Americanness. Such fun! How do blacks rate, Harold? How about Jews with Israeli citizenship? Do you get an extra five points for supporting the Iraqi Occupation?

If it sounds like I’m in the mood for a fight, it’s because I am. I’m sick of being told that somehow, I believe in “post-America” and that my level of commitment to this country is no more than shacking up. I’ve had enough of the abuse that Malkin and others heap on me for not being quiet about the thoughts I have on this issue – all because I have disagreed with them. I’m not running away. I’m in the mood for a fight. Bring it on.

I’m curious to know how many immigrants are considered acceptable by the pro-immigration crowd. We know that 30 million Mexicans and others are acceptable to them, are 300 million Chinese similarly okay? At what point between 12 million immigrants and 300 million immigrants does racism begin? And precisely what quantity of immigrants will cause significant change in the American political system given our quasi-democratic system?

On a tangential note, one supportive reader pointed out that last night Dear Jorge boasted that six million immigrants had already been deported. It seems to me that he just shot himself in the tongue and proved my case that he was previously lying in one fell swoop.