Welcome to the Tuesday edition of The Mark Steyn Show, with another update from the Summer of Stupid, including roses, walls, illegal parking, Parsifal in your parlor, waking up the Woke, Marie and Marguerite, and border action north and south.
Click above to listen.
If you're a Mark Steyn Club member and you'd like to submit a question for Mark to address on his next show, please leave it in the comments below. Do stay on topic - and no URLS, please, as they wreak havoc with our page formatting.
For Steyn Club members interested in using their personal podcast players to listen to our new Mark Steyn Shows or Tales for Our Time, we have an RSS feed here (and instructions here).
If you prefer to read your radio shows, Steyn Club members can find the transcripts here.
If you're just catching on to these audio diversions, we've done what we did with Mark's video shows and archived them in a Netflix-style tile format that makes it easy to catch up with ones you've missed. You'll find the audio Steyn Show home page here.
The Mark Steyn Show is made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club. As Mark always says, Club membership isn't for everyone, but it if you're interested you can find more information here.
Comment on this item (members only)
Submission of reader comments is restricted to Mark Steyn Club members only. If you are not yet a member, please click here to join. If you are already a member, please log in here:
Member Login
74 Member Comments
Mark,
I believe we are reaching some sort of water shed event with the Kung Flu panic porn:
Bring your own bags is back (Without Warning) I thought these were a health hazard to everyone.
If you ask for a paper bag it's 5 cents. Half of that goes to the insatiable beast known as state government. We have to pay for the illegals and the no work but gimme my pay teachers.
The other and more important is that we are once again getting junk mail, begging for money, to outlaw plastic bags, once all that stood between the health of shoppers and Covid, but now that same plastic bags will end all life on Gaia!
How dare you not write a check!
The first Munk debate I ever watched was the one where Mark and Nigel Farage trounced Simon Schama and Louise Arbor. Thank God for Mark Steyn. That debate should be required viewing for all High School freshmen.
It's hard for me to imagine a more stark, simple contrast of the view of the elitist left and the informed right than the point in the Munk debate that Mark mentions. I have listened to the entire debate, and the part in question many times. I don't believe a fiction writer could create a better contrast; it's so strong, in fact, that I'm not sure it would be believed, were it fiction.
And yet it happened, all on video. It's there for everyone to see.
And it's just so sad that so few will see it, and even fewer will understand its significance.
Well said, George.
Problem is experience has shown us walls almost always fall....e.g. recently Berlin , though Rome's held against the [worn out ?] Carthaginians. But overwhelmingly, they fall.
So, my American friends, you've just to get out there , win the barbarians over. Nice first, give it a try , it's not so bad. And you can be very good at nice.
I like the nice man with the nice rifle in the picture accompanying the text, C., but I don't know how much illegal immigration he actually stops.
Mexico's co-operation would be nice.
Mark,
There's actually been quite a lot of word-of-mouth commentary around your foray into the citadel of Canadian pinkodom with Nigel Farage.
Barbara Kay's excellent column "When Mark Steyn Struck Back" can be read and reread.
I'm actually a member of a (Wuflu-moribund) "diversity book club" (don't ask for more details), and at one meeting you came up. To general kneejerk criticism of your oeuvre from people who might be described as the "usual suspects", I merely had to point out your exploits in shifting the pendulum at the Munk Debate.
Clunk. Criticism cut off.
I've had some similar experiences.
I hope the army (battalion? regiment? company?) of Steyn Club members are doing the same.
Btw, I don't go to Munk Debates any more, although I've been asked (not for a while, though). They wouldn't allow you to extra to go backstage afterwards, as other such functions do.
I have a couple of Simon Schama's books, and remain convinced that the real SS has been kidnapped, and that the twittish apparition on the stage with you was some sort of body snatchers substitute.
I also remember my generally pro-Serbian position was raised a few notches when they barred entry to Louise Arbour.
Get used to it: as the Chinese Virus dissipates, the new normal of global border control will be "quarantine" for citizens while illegal aliens bypass ("immoral") detention.
As the Great Reset of the global economy is rolled out in the wake of its collapse (with the exception outside China of Taiwan... no epidemic, no lockdown, economy fine), new permanent powers under the guise of infection control are being ramped up: get your international CovidPass™, launched by the World Economic Forum next month. It'll be voluntary, of course (so you can avoid two weeks in infection detention). And handy locally if the pandemic police want to see your papers in a place like Victoria, where Chairman Dan plans to declare a State-of-Emergency for 18 months.
For a glimpse of the new tyranny of post-Covid "law enforcement", see YouTube: "Riot police storm Paris bar during Champions League final over lack of social distancing | Covid-19" - August 24th. (It's an interesting contrast with the unpoliced anarchy of US cities. Either way, good citizens will decide the safest option is to stay locked up at home.)
Great comment, K. I hope that you're wrong but fear that you aren't.
Yes, Kate, and I'm already getting the sense of this happening. As the Governor here is reluctant to finish the reopening once and for all, no K through 12 classes yet, only Zoom/online, no dining out-in, local distilleries still churning out the hand sanitizer, I get the sense that people are getting to like working from home, Zoom business meetings, veterinarians keeping owners and paws patients out in their cars in the parking lots, drive through windows for eateries and food trucks are the only dining out options, curb side pick up seems to work for people with cell phones in a hurry who can call ahead. What's not to like in terms of convenience? I have a friend whose husband is extremely risk averse and I had to drop something off for her. I heard the husband say he would answer the door and I think he saw through the peer hole that I was maskless. I heard, "no, you'll have to get it." People will adapt to the cautions for a number of reasons to the heightened risk of getting the virus even after the virus passes. We'll see. Interesting to watch, without any satisfaction, all of this unfold like we're characters in a dystopian novel.
Is there a committee out there that hatches these all grandiose outlandish conspiracies? Last night I learn the WHO is of the belief we cannot go back to normal because of... global warming... Our elites seem particularly adept at secretly conspiring to develop underground Volcano class plans detailed in 50 page policy papers written in impenetrable word salad. I guess they figure if they lay out their Bond villain strategies in plain sight the whole thing has the whiff of implausibility about it and people won't take it seriously. If Gadaffi had gone with the WMD shark route ... nobody would have suspected a thing. A lesson for dictators everyone always always make sure your diabolical plans involve sharks - surefire way to plot without anyone noticing a thing. Or just accuse your rivals of racism that'll buy you at least 5 years with the State Department, 6 if you institute a mandatory diversity training policy at your enrichment facility.
I'm starting to understand why people think this was no accident, S.
It's madness, Fran. I think most people are more scared of being strangled or thrashed by uniformed officers than of the virus they purport to police.
You're right: it's in plain sight. That's how they can pull it off.
Have a look at the WEF twitter feed (including link to short video for "CovidPass").
PS. Thanks for the levity... always appreciated!
Plenty of food for thought, as ever: thank you.
Like most folk, my personal experience plays a role in forming my opinions. In the matter of illegal immigration into the United States, my experience is distinctly at second hand, so I value this opportunity to expand it. I live very far away from the Rio Grande, but I do sometimes chat with like-minded Americans. Few of them (actually, none) seem to have voted for Mr Trump because he promised a wall funded by Mexico. Some explicitly told me that they suppose that chicanos aren't all morons, from whom the secret of ladders could be kept indefinitely, so that border patrolling such as was conducted at the time would remain the crucial element of border control Some even predicted that such a wall would prove to be an expensive white elephant. Others explicitly told me that they understood Mr Trump's talk of a wall to be metaphorical. There were also those who said that they would prefer to employ a hard-working chicano over a unionised, under-skilled, under-productive and overpaid American and that it should not be the government's business to guarantee lucrative jobs for citizens who prefer benefits anyway and could not be bothered to make the effort to secure freely-obtainable lucrative jobs. Some told me that they were going to vote for Mr Trump simply to keep either Mrs Clinton or the Democrats or both from the presidency. At least one told me that she'd vote for the Republican party even if Mrs Clinton had been the Republican candidate, 'though I must admit that the false conundrum was one of my own concoction. And of course I think that I also have the boss-man's very cogent views in the matter.
Now I can quite readily see that improved control and deterrence of illegal immigration is at once an important matter to Republican voters and also something of a weakness in the current administration's record. I would however be very grateful to hear more views as to whether the construction of a coast-to-coast physical wall - or the failure to get it done - was a crucial consideration in the Republican vote and will be in the upcoming election.
For myself, I can't get too serious about it. My own preference is for a well-lit corridor bounded by barbed-wire fence, patrolled by dogs where land-mines can't be installed, with a shoot-on-sight policy in place. No, I can't get too serious about that either. As with the 'flu epidemic, I don't have the solutions. I just doubt whether the politicians do, either.
The Wall is important symbolically and, somewhat, for its actual function.
Far more important than the Wall for stopping illegal immigration is keeping illegal aliens from getting jobs. So it's a matter of worksite enforcement, with E-Verify being made universally mandatory and with criminal penalties for employers who flout the law -- along with removal ("deportation") of the illegal aliens who are detected in traffic stops and any other dealings with officialdom.
Workplace enforcement is one of the main emphases in Jerry Kammer's recent book _Losing Control: How a Left-Right Coalition Blocked Immigration Reform and Provoked the Backlash That Elected Trump_.
S., it's my understanding the wall is still being built. Construction has not stopped entirely in certain states during the virus but there's been an attempt by some localities to stop construction because of the virus. The Dems recently in a bill banned funds from going to wall construction. Sadly, I had to agree with Mark that I haven't heard DJT mention wall much lately.
It's all confusing to me.
I'm not sure what influence the Democratic Governors who continue to keep the states in a partial shutdown have over what the Feds do regarding the wall work. Yet, I'm not clear on what influence the Feds have on the local enforcements. I read the rioting and looting keeps rolling on every time there is an attempt by police to address a situation and it's met with resistance resulting in a shooting. The Governor in Wisconsin called the Natl. Guard in but I guess not enough to still the violence.
One of the engineering companies in town joined in a lawsuit with other agencies to stop construction because of environmental concerns over a couple species of wildlife. You know how lawsuits go. Forever.
One link I saw from the government said that the wall will be finished by the end of 2021. Of course, it's hard to know what to believe anymore. Some sources are not Trump friendly so if I read them I have to take it with some skepticism.
Another hang up in Texas seems to be that lands along the border are privately owned and there maybe be further complications with getting the wall built on those parcels.
Columbus, New Mexico is about ninety minutes from my town and I could take a drive to see for myself what's going on there but chances are good that wall construction is going on right there and businesses are doing well with the workers coming to work every day. I'm going a bit stir crazy around here but maybe when the Fall arrives I'll take a ride down and give an eye-witness report.
We need the wall. There's a beautiful national forest between here and Tucson often named Arizona's Yosemite. I like to meet my daughter halfway for hikes, biking and camping. The signs as you drive through the forest warn against taking caution as it is a high human trafficking corridor. I imagine that goes for more areas than there are signs posted. This means that a large swath of this state and Arizona to the west are not safe for us to enjoy our recreation. We need the wall if for no other reason than basic safety issues.
Correction: the signs warn To take caution
Back in 2012, we took an Alaska cruise with various friends and in-laws. We shared the dinner table with a nice couple from Tucson. Drawing them delicately onto the topic of illegal border crossings, the husband in particular got highly emphatic on the subject, talking about friends who own a ranch and whose livestock have been killed and whose property generally trashed by people passing through on their way to "seeking a better life." He also noted that Arizona was gradually changing politically and voiced his suspicions that some of these people were getting on the voter rolls.
Thanks, P.: you make good sense. The wall is in the nature of an expensive statue, then, and E-Verify does the work of a wall. Well, strength top the arm of E-Verify then, and I'll hunt up the Kammer text. Sooner or later I'll get an education!
Thanks, F. As always, you map the the situation out clearly and comprehensively. Illegal immigration, like drug trafficking, is a menace even to honest people who have nothing to do with the product. You've confirmed that there are Republican voters who see a border wall as the means of stamping it out, and I conclude that there are therefore votes riding on it.
I know that you weren't addressing me, C., but that's useful input. Thanks for joining in.
Sure, this is a common opinion here. Once a person is established here some could invite relatives across the border for weekend registration, I suspect. I stood next to a gal helping her uncle or father to register to vote. He didn't understand a word of English and she pointed to each box and told him how to answer even pointing to where his signature went at the bottom. Do I have proof he was not a citizen? No, but I just found it all very curious. I was over at the county building that morning having lost my voter registration card and just wanted a fresh one, not that I needed it.
To vote here, just give your name and address on Election Day. They compile the data from the office where one registers. There, I didn't need to give any proof of who I was only my name and address. Perhaps it was because I was already on the books, I don't know. Unlike DMV where I have to provide three pieces of evidence which includes a bank statement, besides my Drivers License that I am who I say I am and reside where I do.
If voter fraud is to be a non issue and the Democrats refuse to agree to voter IDs then there could be a compromise and registering to vote could be identical to getting a car registered or title or tag changed on your vehicle. At least, the person would know that to be able to vote is a huge responsibility and it requires a few pieces of proof to make you entitled to vote. It's not perfect but it would be a step in the right direction. Come to think of it, the public library will not issue me a card without a similar piece of formal mail addressed to me. That would be better than no proof at all even for voter registration.
I have a friend from Fabens, Texas who came in from grocery shopping and a Mexican National was traveling north and walked right through her house. She heard something and asked, "hello, is someone here"? She turned the corner and there was this man in her kitchen. He just left and didn't harm her. She said she was not scared just happy he left without a word. Not everyone gets that lucky. She could've been hurt and he could've been shot with a different homeowner.
I read somewhere that the point of the wall is to force border crossers to commit. Otherwise, they can just dance back and forth across the border and even pretend they didn't mean to. Hard to do that when you had to climb a ladder.
You can see the wall being built and how many miles are up by looking up New Border Wall System US Customs and Border Protection, S. The workers look like busy bees with the video sped up a bit. Who knows maybe it will be completed by the end of this year but as Mark suggested with the way things go who knows if it ever gets entirely connected. In the meantime, up north within our borders the rioting and looting just metastasized to two Wisconsin cities. I think this Governor did request assistance from the Feds.
Thanks again, F. Two hundred and sixteen miles down, then. It's a formidable construction, I must say. (And I must admit that I love watching large construction in progress.) From where you stand, can you discern the difference which it makes to illegal immigration?
Wisconsin, wow. The BLM shower has arms everywhere, and so evidently does Antifa. Bit like the mafia. *Somebody* must be profiting from this.
Can I discern the difference? Yes and no. It's hard to tell here if there's an uptick or not because where we are, small crossroad farming/trucking town of east-west interstate with the southern point of the interstate going straight north through Denver to Montana, so if aliens can't find work they can get out of town easily, if they get past the border control checks on the interstates just out of town in the four directions.
It's a large county almost half the size of Israel. There's not much of an economy here other than all the levels of government, local, county and a lot of Feds here with multiple law enforcement agencies, a dozen or more lawyers just for human trafficking (a lawyer once told me), and your soup to nuts attorneys & judges. Police, county sheriffs, state police, university connected with the US Gov being a land grant uni, a branch of NASA here, the Spaceport currently leased to Branson's Virgin Galactic; also many ranchers & farmers, so it's hard to tell that many immigrants here illegally can be absorbed into those kinds of jobs; very doubtfully. I think most illegals who get here get jobs in construction, or as mechanics, body shop workers, custodians, yard maintenance, house help, hotel or restaurant help or ranch and farm hands; also many end up homeless.
I read today there are several dozen homeless high school students. If any here illegally want to get a lucrative job they might hop a chopper shuttle over to the Phoenix area. It's all under the radar mind you. That may not be as prevalent as it was in the nineties, I just am a little out of the loop re the underground illegal employment opportunities. You hear about things. I had a bit of culture shock when we moved here from the eastern seaboard in '90. People seem happy here. A very disciplined, not entirely perfect, law enforcement is appreciated by the community. They are our last line of defense from enemies within and without.
Cartel is here, too, already, most likely but it's just hard to know who because fifty percent of population is of Mexican-Spanish or indigenous heritage speaking Spanish, the other half Anglo. I forgot military families live here or used to because to some extent Obama may have cut way back on funds and the employment opportunities at White Sands Missile Base as well as Holloman AFB. Lots of veterans and retirees and snowbirds, too. Most of the fellows in my climate change skeptics group are retired scientists that worked at WSMB.
Thanks, F. I really appreciate the trouble to which you've been. I feel almost as if I've visited. And it was an enriching visit, at that.
Profiting from it or sinking a fortune into it.
Just so, A.
Hey Mark, when it comes time for you to infiltrate back into America, if you need a clandestine rendezvous at a small fishing port to transport you to the next stop on the underground railway, let me know. It's mighty boring being on lock down and right now a a little human trafficking sounds fun.
Mark:
You are consistently ahead of the march of events. I assume you foresee some horrors that you are loath to report.
Thanks.
I'm no prude and generally avoid euphemisms in my own speech, yet I absolutely agree with Mr. Steyn's choice to reserve foul language for those special occasions when it is most apt. Our discourse is sufficiently coarse just in the subject matter to which we must attend. Save it for when it is most effective.
I agree. An intelligent and articulate person doesn't need to resort to vulgar language to make a point.
One of the jewels of New York is the Frick Collection,next to Fifth Avenue, but facing on to Something-or-other Street. I have been there only once and have always wanted to go back. Then de Blasio happened. And continued happening.
I can't imagine going back to New York under the Cuomo / de Blasio regime, even if I were allowed in. Worse: things are never going to get better for NY in my lifetime. It is developing into Detroit on steroids. New York has had it, this time. Anybody who can still afford to is moving out, so it's more than high time for the cultural institutions of NY to do likewise, wholesale, while they still can, although they should probably leave NYU, Columbia and Fordham behind. Those places of "learning" created half of the mess, after all.
DiBlasio's NYC is the dystopian hell portrayed in the movie Demolition Man except instead of every restaurant being a Taco Bell there are no restaurants period.
Funny. I always thought Demolition Man was one of the more prescient portrayals of the future by showing the people changed more significantly than the technology. Notice how the future police evolved to efficiently enforce the speech and morality code but couldn't confront a violent criminal.
These shows are so informative, not sure how I could live without them. On a stinking hot hazy smoky August day along the border it's like being splashed over the head with buckets of cold water. Now I feel refreshed and I'm awake to the woke end game. I for one admit I did not know who Miles Taylor was, but now I do. I don't care for him and I also admit I'm still obsessed with the wall and in total agreement that it is also a symbol of what the American people have a right to get. The signs still stand in front yards around town. "No Human is illegal." Right! They're not when they're at home taking care of their own business.
The 19th Amendment gave women the vote (Wyoming in 1869) 100 years ago. Did the effect of women voting make us more or less free?
Well, it made women more free...
The ladies tend to be left... so less free.
Well, the double entendre of that song certainly put a smile on my face, and it was definitely better suited to the decorum of the Mark Steyn Club that the eff-bombs from the last show. Profanity is similar to comedy in that it's effectiveness depends on good timing and proper placement. So feel free to continue with the occasional surprise use of profanity just to keep us on our toes. But otherwise stick to that of which you are best.
Regarding the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, it was an embarrassing defeat for one of the Soviet commissars, Josef Stalin. Historians consistently blame him for the Red Army's failure. He acquired a life-long hatred of Poles, evident during the pre-war purges, in the 1939 invasion and its aftermath and in the 1944 invasion and the non-reaction to the Warsaw Uprising, as well as the post-war occupation. He also held grudges against the military commanders of the Red Army in Poland: Tukhachevsky and Yegorov. In 1937, they were two of the five marshals of the Soviet army and were two of the three to be purged by Stalin.
Regarding your triumph of the will winning over so many of The Nice at the Monk Debate, I would be willing to bet Yankee dollars that doggone (back to the old rules) few of the wine sippin', cheese nibblin', CBC lovin' audience changed their vote away from Boy Justin.
I can't believe I am going to quote Parick Swayze's character in the movie Roadhouse (1989) when he was hired as a cooler to turn the roughest, meanest, rowdiest bar in Missouri into a fun safe space where a guy with a mullet could bring his hot girlfriend on Saturday night. He told his crew of bouncers to just be nice. Until it's time to not be nice. The Nice people have to be reminded of Burma policeman George Orwell's 'they sleep soundly in their beds because rough men are willing to do violence in their names.'
I certainly want to be nice but I keep firmly in mind where I want to go and what needs to be preserved. Uncivilized people always have to be dealt with in a less-than-nice way if you want to keep your culture and live in a civil society.
Your movie reference reminds me of two of my own. "Be nice until it's time not to be nice" reminds me of Chazz Palmintieri's last words to the biker gang in A Bronx Tale, after asking them—nicely—to leave the Mob bar: "Now youse can't leave," he said, throwing the door bolt shut and beating the snot out of them. Also, your citation of Orwell's line reveals where Aaron Sorkin found inspiration for Jack Nicholson's eyebrow tour de force in the courtroom scene of A Few Good Men. ("You want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!)
"Uncivilized people always have to be dealt with in a less-than-nice way if you want to keep your culture and live in a civil society." With you, W. So with you. I used to believe that you catch more flies with honey, but I now think that decent people shouldn't have to see their honey being fed to the flies.
With you, too, J., 'though I have a rider, which is that jungle justice is not the same thing as getting as physical as you have to. I think that we all value living in a society of laws which try to ensure that appropriate punishment falls in the right place. I'm far too old to mete out literal kickings now, but for what it's worth, I do know that there is the slenderest line between giving somebody what he deserves and crippling him for life, or even killing him, and there's a world of pain in store for folk who get over-exuberant. I know that salutary extra-judicial beatings are not what you or W. had in mind, of course: just saying.
Sometimes even the best solution remains unsatisfactory. Not everybody agrees that we really need due legal process, but really we do, if only to protect ourselves from the consequences of doing without it. Guess that would be principal among reasons for finding the BLM's "defund the police" demands so ridiculous.
Walt, you had me at "Roadhouse." Based in my state! Great flick. I mean it's fun...."great" may be a bit of a superlative.
I agree- violent, Godless, evil mobs (e.g. BLM and Antifa) are just like the Islamic terrorists in terms of how they should be dealt with. They respect one thing, and one thing only- muscle. They bring fireworks and bottles? The police should use rubber bullets and swinging billy clubs with an almost reckless abandon. And at 5am, just when these degenerates are back home and about to call it a night, that's when the FBI, ATF, and Anti- Gang task forces kick down their door and arrest them. I don't care if you can't make a charge stick. Covertly follow them home, go get a warrant, the next day follow them home again and turn said home upside down. Absolutely destroy it and have no compunction about being polite when you cuff 'em up.
These people are evil, they're cowards, they're very dark, nihilistic and most also have a firm case of solipsism which borders on sociopathic. They want to destroy everything. The cops and the Feds need to get tougher. We (normal Americans) are behind you!
My heart is with you, Q. My head betrays me: it wouldn't want me to be where Kyle Rittenhouse and Derek Chauvin are right now, and where many went before them. such as, memorably, George Zimmerman. It is not only the trash in the streets who conspire to intimidate honest folk.
When it was still legal to travel abroad and not be placed under house arrest on one's return, I travelled quite extensively, but, not being wildly adventurous, usually within organised tours. For whatever reason, one such tour company seemed to be a magnet for public sector people - teachers, retired teachers, civil servants, NHS quacks - all suffused with an invincible sense of their own rectitude.
Last year, I was with one such group, while various actors in the British Parliament were playing games, to try to subvert the Brexit vote. I think there were only two of us ready to admit to being Brexiteers. One of the others was constantly checking his phone for Brexit news from a friend of his in London. She attended an anti-Brexit rally in Parliament Square and texted him:
Text: "The crowd is very thick."
Me: "She got that bit right."
By that stage, I couldn't help myself. When people assume they are incontrovertibly right, it follows that they assume everyone who disagrees, even slightly, is wrong to an equal extent. That leads to claims that Leave supporters are all stupid; that we all fell for lies peddled by the Leave campaign; that Russian advertisements on Facebook swung the vote; that the Leave campaign had illegal sources of finance; and - the latest - that Russian advertisements on Facebook swung the vote. Hey, nobody said these allegations had to be original, did they?
Leaving aside the Russkis, a story blatantly lifted from the 2016 US election, all these stories are projection. If I hadn't been always anti-EEC/EC/EU, anyway, the lies spouted. during the campaign would have made me so. They even had a name at the time: Project Fear. As for finance, the Electoral Commission, a biased, establishment-stacked quango, investigated assertions about Brexit support to a subatomic level, but never once followed far more valid claims against the Remain side.
Finally, the not-actually-Supreme-Court in London smugly inserted itself into the proceedings. They insisted that, not only were the Remainers the Good People, but they also had the law on their side. All of a sudden, the president of the court, Brenda Hale, of whom only her fellow judges, hitherto, had ever heard, was practically getting oxen sacrificed in her honour. As far as the Remainers were concerned and possibly in her own mind, she had established that Remain = right = lawful = Good.
"That leads to claims that Leave supporters are all stupid; that we all fell for lies peddled by the Leave campaign; [...]." Fair comment, O. Do you think that, equally, belief in their opponents' wrongness might have led to claims that Remain supporters are all stupid and that all Remainers fell for lies peddled by the Remain campaign?
Actually, both sides can draw on pretty sound cases and do often draw on stupid ones. There was certainly a lot of fibbing, and one wouldn't want to fib about that. We'll see how resilient the British economy is, in any case. I'm old enough to remember the Wilson/Scargill years. They were not heartening.
We do well to leave the Russians out of the discussion, I think. I have not been comforted much by efforts to pin their involvement on any particular side of politics or to ascribe the success of any particular side of politics to them, certainly in Britain and the United States. It does not surprise me to learn that they have interests and do their best to further those. Countries have to be very small for that not to be pretty much baked into the cake.
Are not the police too busy enforcing mask fiats and arresting small business owners who are trying to open their establishments to be writing parking tickets? And who wants to park in the Chaz zones?
As always, a broadcast that mixes humour, indignation and thought-provokingness (thought-provocation? thought-provocativeness?) in delectable quantities.
However, I think that Pope Benedict XVI (at 22.36) might be rather confused at the statement that he was the first to admit a motion picture crew into the Vatican to film a Mass. In 1920, the future Pope was still seven years away from being born. Your numbering was one out: the relevant pontiff was Benedict XV.
Mark, you should totally and always feel comfortable tooting your own horn about that Munk debate. Toot away! I love your description of that moment-I have to listen again just to make sure I got it right, but your description of looking at Ms. Arbor and you knowing that she knew she had been checkmated is JUST GLORIOUS. Turning the alleged, phoney baloney "nice" of the enlightened anointed ones is a very good strategy indeed. You are a master of this and the Munk debate is the blueprint. I am still annoyed that I couldn't attend that one in person because it was on a Friday night!
I often think about that monumental moment in the debate. When that happened, I wanted to run outside with my arms outstretched above my head screaming in celebration. My first reaction to that was, who in the hell did they think they were debating. In golfing terms, they teed it up for Mark and he WHACKED it 400 yards down the middle! Small wonder why nobody has challenged Mark to a debate since.
There were also admiring toots in a wonderful brief column in The National Post by Barb Kay. Title and subtitle:
"Barbara Kay: When Mark Steyn struck back
"At last week's Munk Debate on refugees, I kind of felt sorry for the two liberals ... because I knew what was coming."
Would Mark comment on Nancy Pelosi's assertion that the Republicans are "enemies of the state"?
I take her meaning to be the totalitarian one that the Party (Democrat) is the State, and the State is the Party.
Those Democrats (millions) who will vote for the empty-suit named Biden are endorsing a plan where the Party will govern the country, if that's not redundant to them.
Rush has warned for years that the Democrats are about done with this democratic election thing. The country is to be governed by judges (hence the Kavanaugh hysteria) and bureaucrats like Miles Taylor and Colonel Vindman.
Meanwhile, the Republican establishment like McConnell and the Bush clan are fighting a rearguard action to maintain the old Uniparty/two sides of the same coin thing (it's worked so well for them for so long).
General Flynn? That's what Nancy means/intends by an enemy of the state.
Dear Mark,
Thanks as always for your thoughtful criticism of how the right is missing the argument. I couldn't agree more: So many of the conservative "leadership" preach only to the choir. And I'm sure you've made this point before, but the phrase "open borders" is another instance of how the left controls the debate by framing the language. We waste time and effort arguing against "open borders", when there is no such thing. Our southern border is not open; it is in the control of violent narco-gangs who terrorize the local population and determine who enters America, and how much they pay to do so. I wish President Trump would empahasize the point that in this conflict no one has suffered more than the Mexican citizens, thousands of whom have been killed and tens of thousands of whom are forced to live in fear amidst corruption and violence. The debate we should be having is not whether we're to have an "open" border, but who is to control our border: violent gangs or the United States Government. And we shouldn't be discussing how much funding to give the border patrol or building bits of wall here and there, we should be sending the Army to seize back our territory from foreign occupation. Perhaps you or Steyn club readers could coin a different term? Something clever, that when first heard would leave no doubt as to which border you're referring to. The "narco-terrorist" border fulfills the second requirement, but not really the first.
Whenever I've get into a discussion with pro-illegal immigrant types I always use the argument that illegal immigration has been grossly unfair to the households of working families who rely on jobs that are gobbled up by illegal immigrants. For example, fifty years ago meat packing jobs used to pay well enough for a worker to support a stay-at-home spouse and children. They certainly didn't get rich doing it, but they were often union jobs with benefits and pensions. Today your average illegal immigrant working as a packing plant employee is paid a fraction of the wages earned by his predecessors two generations ago and does not enjoy receiving a benefits package. Meanwhile, the places where these plants operate have gone from pleasant, stable middle-class communities to ramshackle, blighted crap holes with populations constantly migrating in and out. There are many other industries where the labor and wage profile has been adversely impacted by illegal immigration, thus impacting working families. No segment of our society has been more greatly impacted than African American workers by illegal immigration. I guess Black Lives Matter stops where saving pennies at the checkout lane begins. And we aren't really saving money when you factor in the costs of the economic externalities that emerge when you import tens of millions of illiterate, poor, unskilled non-English speaking workers who are abused by these industries. Next time someone argues in favor of illegal immigration you can respond by saying something like "Oh. That must mean you are in favor of the degradation of working families who have been thrown out of work and their communities because of illegal immigration."
If you can stand to read the NY Times, as I cannot, this story illustrates your point:
" After ICE Raids, a Reckoning in Mississippi's Chicken Country
"A series of federal immigration raids swept up nearly 700 undocumented workers, creating opportunities — and some ethical concerns — for American-born residents."
The beneficiaries of the application of US law were Americans—African Americans. The Times is not convinced that's a good thing.
But it's not unethical to expell U.S. citizens from their jobs and homes in favor of low-wage, neo-slave transient labor who have no stake in their communities. My arse gets tired from this series of arguments, pro-illegal immigration:
1) They're doing the jobs Americans won't do.
Counter) They're doing the jobs Americans won't do for $8/hour and no benefits
2) Well, if we go back to using citizens to work the farms then you'll be paying $10 for a head of lettuce
Counter) We are probably paying $15+ for a head of lettuce. The price you pay at the supermarket plus our health insurance premiums have risen dramatically to pay their health care bill. Our property tax bills have gone up to pay for the innumerable resources in our attempt to provide school meals and elementary and high school education for non-English speaking, illiterate children. Our state and local taxes have gone up because we have to provide interpreters during court proceedings and incarceration costs for illegal immigrants who commit crimes. Our auto insurance premiums have gone up because of the carnage on our roads caused by uninsured illegal immigrant drivers. We now have bed bugs throughout the United States after having eradicated them decades ago. There's a cost to that. We have diseases in our country that we haven't seen prior to 1980. There's a cost to that. The obliteration of our middle class comes with a cost too. Do you think our major cities would have been set alight this summer like they were if we had any kind of middle class? What is the cost for that? So, business owners in the restaurant, hotel, landscaping, meat packing, agriculture and construction industries have made billions if not trillions from illegal immigration over the last 40 years. Do you feel like you've benefited from that? Neither do I.
Fox 2024!
I flattered, but be careful what you wish for!
That lettuce price of $5 is wrong even on its own terms. As I've written elsewhere:
Naturally, we call this claim "the lettuce argument," and it's false for lettuce and other vegetables and fruits. Research by Philip Martin, agricultural economist at the University of California (Davis), tells us that, if a head of lettuce costs $1, about 6 cents of that pays the field workers. So if we tripled wages for field hands -- at which point Americans would do the jobs -- we'd boost the cost of that head of lettuce to $1.12.
Extending this argument to fresh produce in general, consumers' costs would increase less than 15%, so a family that now spends, say, $800 per year on fruits and vegetables (about $15 per week) would incur additional costs of about $100 per year. This is a modest price for ending what amounts to modern-day slavery. (Note that Americans taking such jobs needn't view them as onerous careers. Instead, they are starter jobs, introductions to the world of work for young people.)
You reminded me of the study by folksy populist Jim Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times (1979) where he accused the Land Grant Universities of helping large agribusiness at the expense of stoop labor by developing a firm tomato that could be harvested with mechanized equipment. With today's sensors, computers and AI a large portion of the field labor could be automated and so the vast army of unskilled, illegal immigrants could have more leisure time and we could continue to pay all the indirect cost and get absolutely nothing for it.
This is a country where we fly in fresh fruits and vegetables during the winter from Chile. Air freight from half a world away! Even then, the carbon footprint is probably less than Farmer Jones bringing a couple of bushel baskets to the local farmer's market. So, we have sold out our civilization to get the mythical, fresh, juicy, delicious tomato.
PS. Fun fact, Cal Berkeley was the original ag university in California that conducted ag research.
Paul and Walt, great posts. I'm 100% all in and agree totally. I might add too I've seen the results of an analysis from a few years ago of who is actually picking the fruits and vegetables on U.S. farms. About two-thirds of the labor inside these ag operations are either U.S. citizens or foreign nationals with the proper seasonal ag visas. If it went from two-thirds to three-thirds the marginal labor costs would be negligible. Instead, we must import low- and un-skilled labor illegally by the 10's of millions, most of whom don't work in the agricultural sector, because we're afraid of a spike in the cost of fresh produce which wouldn't materialize. So, we get to shell out 100's of billions of dollars we don't have per year supporting the migration of foreigners who contribute nothing to our economy and who impose harsh burdens on the rest of us. For what? Remind me again why Trump won in 2016?
Hey, I live in Massachusetts, and if my math is correct, this year marks the quatercentenary of the Pilgrims' landing on Plymouth Rock. What time do the festivities start? Hello...? Anyone...?
Hah, just foolin' with ya. Up until about 399 years, the Pilgrims mighta stood a chance at remembrance. In the last year, you hear about Myles and Priscilla and John only in regard to their cancellation. Plimoth Plantation is no more, at least in name. No word on the new moniker, but you can be sure it will be "multivalent": "Does our name reflect the full, multivalent history that is at the core of the museum's mission?" Pilgrim lives matter—to Pilgrims. To the rest of us, Thanksgiving Day will soon follow Columbus Day down the rabbit hole of ignominy.
Josh. If you would like a rather nice souvenir of this historic anniversary either for yourself or as a gift to others I recommend the commemorative ÂŁ2 coins recently issued by the Royal Mint. Priced to suit all pockets as they say. A couple of my US friends will be getting them this Christmas - but not the gold proof version!
First they came for the Italians, and I did not speak out—because I was not Italian.
Then they came for the Pilgrims.
When they come for this Pilgrim they better come in the middle of the night with a 28 person Rainbow SWAT team.
Mark, does the rebuff of Peter McKay, the election of Erin O'Toole and more importantly the strength of Leslyn Lewis's support, signal that Canada actually does have a strong conservative base?
With the caveat that I did not pay much attention to the Conservative leadership race, my impression was Peter McKay did not want to win. Others have said he took it for granted he would win, but I don't agree with that.
I watched the whole of the Monk Lecture on YouTube.
The thought-provoking Conservative Treehouse website uses the term "Cold Anger" to describe its reaction to deep state abuses of power over the last 3 1/2 years. I think in your reply to the old fool Schama you displayed cold anger in its purest form. Even then, rather like Nicolae Ceaucescu in Bucharest, he couldn't fully comprehend what was happening. I believe the closing vote still went against you and Nigel but the narrowing of the margin, in a pretty dammed tough audience, was something to be very proud of.
P.s. in the unlikely event that any club members have not seen the full debate they now know what to do!
People who so strongly favor open borders immigration are guilty of a certain hubris in that they implicitly believe Western Civilization is consistent with human nature and will simply always be. They simply cannot comprehend, or are unwilling to accept, that unfettered immigration from third world countries will kill the societal goose that laid the civilizational egg. And worse yet, they accuse anyone pointing this simple fact out of being racist.
Our problem is made more dire by our inability to teach our own children the value of Western Civilization, much less teach immigrants this value. I suppose this ball really got rolling with Hart-Celler in 1965, and then picked up speed with Simpson-Mazoli in 1986, so it's been 55 years in the making. Now that I think of it, I'm surprised it took this long.
It occurred to me when you were explaining the shifting of the "not nice" label onto your opponent, that you could simply make it that your opponent is "not as nice". Use the kiddos in cages at the US-Mexico border as an example. The left has hung that "not nice" label around the GOP's neck like an anchor. Most of the defense of the actually good policy is that it came from the Clinton Administration and that the children aren't truly with their parents but instead with slave traffickers/kidnappers who abuse these children and have in some cohersive way separated the children from their parents. All the defenses may be true, but the truth is irrelevant because the truth tellers are also not nicely caging children. So to win the issue, maybe the GOP has to embrace being not nice and label the Democrat opponent as less nice. "Sure, I am for caging those children in an effort to save them from the sex trade or worse. Those smugglers aren't their parents! You support child rape and kidnapping. Admit it!" That line is a little over the top, but it would be worse to support child rape than to support child caging, right?