Mark Krikorian talks about the role immigration played in California’s recent election. It being National Review, he asserts that the fact that Dan Lungren & Bill Simon ran away from this issue is why they lost to Gray Davis, rather than the fact that they were social conservatives in a state that is socially liberal.
One thing about California and its electorate-I am sure that many of the white liberals are saving up money to join the New Eco-topia demographic. This group is 1% of the national population, but 20% of Vermont’s population, according to Michael Weiss’ Clustered World. They are concerned about immigration as it relates to quality-of-life & environmentalism (internal and external immigrants!), but political correctness compels them to simply flee the sinking boat rather than righting the ship (of course they have the means). I live in a small town 10 miles north of the California border that is in Imbler, but not of Oregon. Many of the residents are liberal refugees-oops-retirees, from California. They are the types that hate G.W. Bush, but would benefit from his tax cuts, and they are the types that praise diversity and bemoan the lack of it in their environs (what makes me wonder is that so many are from San Francisco and Los Angeles!)[1]. The United States is a big country, big enough that we can put off addressing issues of nation-hood and quality-of-life because we can run away from them, but for how long?[2]
On a different note-I wonder if it is a coincidence that the last name of the person who is the public face for The Center for Immigration Studies, which acts as the intellectual focus for the movement toward restrictionism, is "Krikorian." Kevin MacDonald et al. are fond of pointing out that Jewish movements have gentile figureheads, I wonder if most of the people on the board for the CIS have names as "ethnic" as Mark’s.
fn1. I do not doubt that many people enjoy diversity, the problem is that the issue is de-coupled from other determinants of quality-of-life when used rhetorically, but such variables are always considered when making pragmatic decisions about residence, schooling, etc. Also, if you followed the above link that illustrated the lack of diversity of my home town, you will note that 91.6% of the residents are non-Hispanic whites. This papers over the divisions between "townies," retirees, hippies, etc. that do make the town diverse in its own way. Additionally, there is a large local Buddhist community (various sects) and I would not be surprised if 10% of the population was Jewish (3 temples).
fn2. To read about why conservative intellectuals tend to live in liberal metropolii read John Derbyshire’s Confessions of a Metropolitan Conservative. Metrocons are the inverse of New Eco-topians, racing toward the amoral cities that they decry to enjoy the good life.
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