In which we discuss Babyrider
Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 2:06 am
Here's my reflection on the “Illegal Mexican Immigrant†debate. Perhaps a perspective from a non-American might shed some light.
The notion of who “We†are is worth digging into. BabyRider periodically injects Patriotic Encouragement into the threads, and she knows what she means by American, she knows who's Us and who's Them. If someone from Lubbock or Seattle moves to Detroit, they're Us and they're safe and familiar. If someone from Toronto moves to Detroit, they're Them, they're foreign. I'm sure they'd be welcome but on different and temporary terms. What binds the natives of Lubbock to those of Detroit but keeps residents of Toronto, so much closer physically, so distant emotionally?
Manifest Destiny is usually used in relation to the westward and southward expansion of the USA during the 19th century. When it was first employed, though, it was in relation to the expulsion of the British from North America, particularly in 1812 when Europe (and especially Britain) was preoccupied with ousting Napoleon from power. The original settlement of the Revolutionary War was a border establishing United States control – if they could expel the Spanish and the Indigenous inhabitants – of “all land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakesâ€. The war of 1812-1815 was an expansionist attempt by the United States to bring the whole of Canada into the Union, it being the Manifest Destiny of the United States to control the whole of Continental North America. The settlement left the border untouched, and (with slight friction around Oregon later) that eastern border and the westward expansion along the 49th Parallel has remained the dividing line. The name of what's north of the line has changed but in essence it's still the British zone, no longer a Colony or a Dominion, but still an organic continuity from the days before the Revolutionary War, still essentially at the heart of the Commonwealth of English-Speaking Peoples.
The westward and southern expansion during that hundred year period didn't much change the concept of “we†and “theyâ€, because “they†didn't for the most part become “us†in the process – mostly they died, and most of the remainder fled beyond the expansion either north into Canada or south into Mexico. “We†took possession of empty territory, and where previous occupants stubbornly clung on, provoking an excuse to employ the army and then move out the survivors was a well-recognized final stage of the clearance. The exception was the absorption of New Orleans and Louisiana, the French enclaves which brought even their own legal code into the Union and stubbornly held on to cultural separateness for generations, and even that's gone now.
Let's sum up how far “Manifest Destiny†has progressed to date. Its aim, you'll recall, was control of the whole of Continental North America (and, in its extension into the Monroe Doctrine, the political isolation of the whole of South America, but that's a distraction from this Us and Them story). By the time the dice stopped rolling and nobody could easily adjust American borders any longer (for which read kill the inhabitants), the United States occupied 45% of Continental North America. It may be conventional wisdom that the British lost, but there's other possible interpretations.
So, why are Mexicans and Canadians “Themâ€, and whither Manifest Destiny? If you close your borders you can't ever finish the job of consolidating that other 55% of North America into the States, not without going back to the glory days of extermination camps and death-marches. I think the residents of the States, in promoting patriotism to this pedestal of national identity, have lost the plot in the process. A simple inclusive “We†and a rejection of the “They†mentality might restart the process of expansion.
The notion of who “We†are is worth digging into. BabyRider periodically injects Patriotic Encouragement into the threads, and she knows what she means by American, she knows who's Us and who's Them. If someone from Lubbock or Seattle moves to Detroit, they're Us and they're safe and familiar. If someone from Toronto moves to Detroit, they're Them, they're foreign. I'm sure they'd be welcome but on different and temporary terms. What binds the natives of Lubbock to those of Detroit but keeps residents of Toronto, so much closer physically, so distant emotionally?
Manifest Destiny is usually used in relation to the westward and southward expansion of the USA during the 19th century. When it was first employed, though, it was in relation to the expulsion of the British from North America, particularly in 1812 when Europe (and especially Britain) was preoccupied with ousting Napoleon from power. The original settlement of the Revolutionary War was a border establishing United States control – if they could expel the Spanish and the Indigenous inhabitants – of “all land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakesâ€. The war of 1812-1815 was an expansionist attempt by the United States to bring the whole of Canada into the Union, it being the Manifest Destiny of the United States to control the whole of Continental North America. The settlement left the border untouched, and (with slight friction around Oregon later) that eastern border and the westward expansion along the 49th Parallel has remained the dividing line. The name of what's north of the line has changed but in essence it's still the British zone, no longer a Colony or a Dominion, but still an organic continuity from the days before the Revolutionary War, still essentially at the heart of the Commonwealth of English-Speaking Peoples.
The westward and southern expansion during that hundred year period didn't much change the concept of “we†and “theyâ€, because “they†didn't for the most part become “us†in the process – mostly they died, and most of the remainder fled beyond the expansion either north into Canada or south into Mexico. “We†took possession of empty territory, and where previous occupants stubbornly clung on, provoking an excuse to employ the army and then move out the survivors was a well-recognized final stage of the clearance. The exception was the absorption of New Orleans and Louisiana, the French enclaves which brought even their own legal code into the Union and stubbornly held on to cultural separateness for generations, and even that's gone now.
Let's sum up how far “Manifest Destiny†has progressed to date. Its aim, you'll recall, was control of the whole of Continental North America (and, in its extension into the Monroe Doctrine, the political isolation of the whole of South America, but that's a distraction from this Us and Them story). By the time the dice stopped rolling and nobody could easily adjust American borders any longer (for which read kill the inhabitants), the United States occupied 45% of Continental North America. It may be conventional wisdom that the British lost, but there's other possible interpretations.
So, why are Mexicans and Canadians “Themâ€, and whither Manifest Destiny? If you close your borders you can't ever finish the job of consolidating that other 55% of North America into the States, not without going back to the glory days of extermination camps and death-marches. I think the residents of the States, in promoting patriotism to this pedestal of national identity, have lost the plot in the process. A simple inclusive “We†and a rejection of the “They†mentality might restart the process of expansion.
) who could enter our country illegally and secretly, now that we're paying better attention to the unfriendlies entering boldly with legal visas 
.