Some time ago Walter Russel Meade proposed that America, and her leaders, were divided into four tribes. The largest of which are the Jacksonians. A quick description would be “Good old Boys” in it’s fondest sense: genial, generous and willing to put up with a lot until you push too far…then watch out.
Frequent commenter Chuckles has a description of Meade’s foreign policy tribes as well as an article of Meade’s which describes the culture.
If Jeffersonianism is the book-ideology of the United States, Jacksonian populism is its folk-ideology. Historically, American populism has been based less on the ideas of the Enlightenment than on the community values and sense of identity among the British colonizers who first settled this country. In particular, as David Hackett Fischer has shown, Jacksonian populism can be originally identified with a subgroup among these settlers, the so-called “Scots-Irish”, who settled the back country regions of the Carolinas and Virginia, and who went on to settle much of the Old West—West Virginia, Kentucky, parts of Indiana and Illinois—and the southern and south central states of Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. Jacksonian populism today has moved beyond its original ethnic and geographical limits. Like country music, another product of Jacksonian culture, Jacksonian politics and folk feeling has become a basic element in American consciousness that can be found from one end of the country to the other.The Scots-Irish were a hardy and warlike people, with a culture and outlook formed by centuries of bitter warfare before they came to the United States. Fischer shows how, trapped on the frontiers between England and Scotland, or planted as Protestant colonies in the hostile soil of Ireland, this culture was shaped through centuries of constant, bloody war. The Revolutionary struggle and generations of savage frontier conflict in the United States reproduced these conditions in the New World; the Civil War—fought with particular ferocity in the border states—renewed the cultural heritage of war.
Jacksonians basically believe that government should protect us from the elites, be there to help us when we fall and punish the criminals that we can’t; all while staying out of our way. If we do fight, it should be against an aggressor and it should be to the knife.
IF you know the Good Old Boy type I’m speaking of then you’ll recognize the following description. If you don’t, particularly if you live in a Blue State, then I reccommend that you go back to the second link listed above and read about the Jacksonians. We’ll wait until you get back.
***
The second principle of the code is equality. Among those members of the folk community who do pull their weight, there is an absolute equality of dignity and right. No one has a right to tell the self-reliant Jacksonian what to say, do or think. Any infringement on equality will be met with defiance and resistance. Male or female, the Jacksonian is, and insists on remaining, independent of church, state, social hierarchy, political parties and labor unions. Jacksonians may choose to accept the authority of a leader or movement or faith, but will never yield to an imposed authority. The young are independent of the old: “free, white and twenty-one” is an old Jacksonian expression; the color line has softened, but otherwise the sentiment is as true as it ever was.
Jacksonian America isn’t a Democrat or Republican, he may be either. Jacksonian America isn’t an ethnicity; she may be a member of any race. Part of Jacksonian America is the mythical Silent Majority. Most Jacksonian Americans only talk about Politics the week before the Presidential Election, they remain blissfully ignorant of that which doesn’t directly affect their lives. They will parrot the party line as it is simply too much trouble to do differently…they are too busy raising families and working hard.
Until some idiot pushes himself once too many times into Jacksonian America’s face.
Iraq briefly enjoyed the support of Jacksonians until they came to feel that there weren’t enough troops to win, the overall strategy was wrong and there wasn’t a domestic threat.
Most important of these reasons is the lack of apparent threat to domestic security. That really triggers the Jacksonian call to arms.
And that is exactly what the recent protests by illegal aliens and their supporters have done. These people come off as a credible “clear and present danger” to the United States. They are seen as ingrates who are now not pulling their weight. A strict tabboo in Jacksonian America.
People who really couldn’t have cared less are now incensed by the actions of the illegal aliens. A growing tide of public feeling is now being shown. The first step that so many agree on is clamping down the border. Then comes the means of dealing with over 11 million law breakers; which can’t be seen to be an amenesty.
What ever the neo-coms who organized this event thought getting Joe Six-Pack to support their movement is simply absurd; as per usual for commies, in their elitist way, forget what the common man truly wants.
My 2 cents:
I think lots of groups have been counting on Joe 6-pack’s ignorance of immigration issues.
Neo-commie groups, including the shithead reconquistadors, were hoping to hide behind the general ignorance and unfocused nature of the ‘protest’. Problem is, when you wave flags and images of Che and a ‘greater Mexico’, Joe 6-pack gets a little irritated. The other problem is, just what the hell are they protesting? The right not to work? Wait a minute, you’re not protected by US Labor law, you illegal twerp!
Also, bleeding heart liberals here want to extend our citizens’ rights to all illegal’s, with no regard to the cost or legal implications (someone else will pay for it?). These twits get all self-righteous and claim we are being hypocrites by regulating immigration, and it’s all just plain racist. Again, Joe 6-pack gets a case of the ass when his taxes get jacked to pay for bi-lingual teachers, text books, laws, etc. Never mind that our history is FULL of immigration regulation…just ask the Irish back in the last potato famine. Their bad luck was to be on the tail end of a massive European immigration to the US…just as the US was slamming the door shut. Lots o’ Irish didn’t make it. BHL also like to pretend incidents like this never happened, because it runs directly counter to their ‘I’m just a victim of discrimination because of the color of my skin’ crap, because our history is full of clamping down on European immigration.
However, there are a lot of businesses and economic sectors that can’t use over priced, coddled American union labor (especially the agri sector). They’ve been relying on our shoddy immigration/naturalization service to bypass the union label, which keeps our food prices down. Immigrants, legal or not, won’t stay on the economic bottom rung, and many move up to more skilled jobs. This pisses off labor unions (and non unionized, legal workers) who see this upward mobility by illegal immigrants as a threat (rightfully so).
I think their concern is that if the US is serious about reforming immigration law in order to keep criminals (and possibly terrorists) out, we might choke off their labor supply.
So how do we get around it? Expose the commies/revisionists and liberal wankers for what they are (lots of coverage on blogs and Fox). Focus on the core issue: US needs cheap labor IN AMERICA, or else the price of food and goods/services from other sectors that rely on cheap labor will go through the roof.
If we want to keep the costs of these goods/services down, then we need immigration reform…to get the right kind of immigrants in and keep the wrong ones out. We want to make it easy for the ones who want to work, obey the law, and learn English to stay in America. We need laws that better screen out the lazy, socialist/welfare pukes and criminals.
To do this, we need an INS that’s worth a fuck. And by worth a fuck, I mean a quick and effective means of screening and granting/updating visas (and later naturalization) for the keepers, and enforcement to weed out the chum (and a border fence, with guns, to keep the chum from coming back).
That is what I think America’s business needs, and stays true to our principles without the open border anarchy that some whackos want. Play by the rules: you get to stay. Turn into a useless leech (or worse): out with the trash.
If Mexico doesn’t like it, then let them go to war over it…that’s how they lost the northern half of their territory last time (over 150 years ago).
Blackhawk
Now THAT’S a reply!
Agreed completely, especially on “we need to get the right kind of immigrants in and keep the wrong ones out.”
I’m an illegal immigrant. Partially aside from the fact that no way in hell am I ever going to celebrate anything on May 1 because it’s a communist holiday, I didn’t march in those protests; in fact, I worked a twelve-hour day.
I think most Americans are fine with the idea of giving those who’ve worked hard, a shot at legality. Maybe a temporary visa, and if you prove yourself, pay taxes, etc, a pathway to a green card.
That’s not what these protest-organizing scumbags are asking for. They want a free ride, and they can go screw themselves. They want to move here and not learn English; they can go die. They want to move here and get all the rights with none of the responsibilities? They can go to hell.
Speaking as an illegal myself, I don’t want these socialist wackos getting what they want. (Other illegals I know: most of them either worked business-as-usual on the protest day, or they took the day off because their companies shut down… and then spent the day doing household stuff, playing video games, etc. The protests were NOT as representative as everyone makes them out to be – just do the math and see how many illegals did NOT attend.)
Nice to see a different perspective on the issue. Many immigrants try to work with the system so they aren’t ‘illegal’, but our immigration service needs serious overhauling to be effective. I have met many service members who struggle to get their spouses into country legally, many great would-be Americans who work for our government and want US citizenship, and many honest, good hard working folks in the US who are being punished by the ineffectiveness of our ability to effectively regulate immigration.
Immigration reform is more than just our situation with Mexicans and Latinos…it affects all immigration from all countries. It affects not just our southern borders, but also our ports and island states/territories/possessions. If the government is serious about immigration ‘control’, then they need to fix the entire problem, not just one emotional aspect of it (regardless of my rant above). We have turned a blind eye to this situation for decades because it was convenient, and no solution is going to be painless. I was in high school in the Midwest when Regan finally pulled the plug on the long standing savings and loans fiasco. It hurt a lot of folks, but it ended years of corruption and neo-socialist practices by the government. Fixing the INS/IES (or whatever they’re called today) will most likely have some ugly, short term consequences, but I think it needs to be done.
As for the issue of amnesty, or some type of retroactive acceptance for illegals currently in country, I am in favor of it. I think it is unfair to punish illegals who have been trying to earn an honest living, obeying the law, and have been frustrated over the inefficiency of our current immigration policy. I also believe that this amnesty should not be a blanket policy, but a screening with many details that will have to be resolved. That way we don’t throw out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. I am just guessing, but I think most illegals would welcome an opportunity to resolve their status and no longer be in limbo…provided that the screening mechanism isn’t a witch hunt.
America is the land of opportunity. This is how we preserve that reputation. Immigrants are a vital part of our future…it’s how our economy remains diversified and robust. Without immigrants, our economy will shift more and more to a service sector only economy, and we will become even more dependant on foreign trade. ‘Made in the USA’ will go away. Immigrants are not going to stay on the bottom rung of the economy…nor should they. Our immigrant parents didn’t, so don’t expect the current generation to do so.
12 million illegals and 1 million protestors…many of which were legal or anchor babies.