As an amateur map collector, I appreciate the introduction to strangemaps. As you say, it's a pretty cool site. Thanks.  

Except the point of the ad is not to present a "historically accurate" map (you can tell because the Latin American, South American, and Caribbean borders are modern), it's to show the hemisphere as it "ought" to be, in an "absolut" world. The right wing is already paranoid that Latino immigrants have a sense of historical entitlement to the southwest, a North American reconquista of sorts. How would you expect a version with the Confederate states to play in Boston? Or a version with Israel, sans West Bank or Gaza, to play in Riyadh? It plays right into suspicions and paranoia, justified or not.

I agree that this beer ad is important.

Um . . . are you guys also planning on writing something -- anything at all -- about the fact that Hillary's Clinton's stump story about the woman in Ohio who, along with her baby, was killed by her hospital was apparently manufactured from whole cloth? The New York Times has started covering it, which presumably means you guys are now allowed to discuss it. The Clinton campaign just released a response that essentially concedes that the entire story was a lie ("we weren't able to vet it" . . . apparently, not repeating a story you haven't "vetted" isn't an option).

Is the story just too embarrasing to Hillary to be covered in TNR? (I remember that Crowley thought it was damned unfair of the press to expose Clinton's Tuzla lie.)

To be clear, I'm not saying: "cover this instead of the beer ad." I'm saying: let's talk about the beer ad, and also talk about (or at least make a passing acknowledgement of) the nascent Hillary Clinton scandal.

Josh ... why would the map be "a little distressing (especially to those of [you] from the Southwest!)"?  Are you suggesting you'd hate to be governed by the Mexican establishment?  Or do you fear the "Mexican invasion" the way the Minute Men do?

Bela Tarr ... apparently you didn't vet your liquor knowledge.  Absolut is a vodka, not a beer.

Josh

I find it offensive that you would post a link to the vicious anti-American hate site of that ultra right wing "boom boom long time" gutter snipe Michelle Malkin, as if her opinion or viewpoint is worthy of consideration or even reading.  I realize that Marty lowers the threshold for minimum standards here at TNR on occasion, but I honestly don't see any reason to give that bigoted imbecile a voice around here or anywhere else for that matter.

Yes, and if all of this territory were still Mexico's than a third of North America would suck utterly rather than just 17% of it.

Mexico, with tremendous resources and much territory has created a hell hole from which millions of its citizens have been forced to flee to a foreign country just to survive.

A small oligarchy controls Mexico, it is only quasi Democratic, and the middle class, though it has grown, is still pitifully small.  Entire states of Mexico are controlled by drug gangs and are semi war zones from which Americans have just yesterday been warned not to travel.

If the United States were not so pitifully devolved from its forbears, President Polk would have a stamp, a coin, and large city named after him.

Thank God we took California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.  The Mexicans have not done much good with the large chunk they kept.

AaronBBrown, Josh isn't necessarily endorsing Malkin's viewpoints, only pointing out that she's commented on it. Why would you assume Josh is a Michelle Malkin fan?

Go to the strangemaps website from whence this came (strangemaps.wordpress.com), then scroll down to the March 9 entry. Funniest thing I have read in a very long while.

You mean, they didn't perform too well in *those* *wars* (plural) we had with them. You Yankees only got to beat the Mexicans once.

The Republic of Texas has never lost a war.

It seems to me that anyone who is seriously offended by this map is totally without a sense of humor. Which is perhaps the kindest thing you can say about Michelle Malkin and anyone who agrees with her!

I love the strangemaps website, though.

ChanRobt - Good post, although I'm sure someone will accuse you of being a racist.

epackard-02 - "Are you suggesting you'd hate to be governed by the Mexican establishment?"

Are you saying that your would like to be governed by the Mexican establishment? Did you need directions?

It's a little bit more complicated than lazy Gringos and enterprising Americans Chan.

See Volcker's shock interest rate treatment in the early 80's, which devastated Mexican and other developing economies quickly followed by the attack from Probe International with the intention of devaluing the Mexican peso.

That's just two recent examples. I admit it's not as easily digestible or comforting as your version but it does have historical accuracy going for it.

aaronbbrown,

what is anti-american is telling people what they can't or shouldn't read.

I loved reading the comments at Malkin's blog. It's an amazing amount of pseudo macho posturing mostly about kicking the asses of the Mexicans if they attempt to take over. Clearly no one there grasps the pseudo historical nature of the map.

You see, Absolut Vodka is 40% alcohol by volume, and the USA is 40% Mexico by volume! It makes sense now. Kinda. No.

Personally, I prefer imperialist gin to anti-imperialist vodka (see Bombay Dry) so this marketing campaign will have no effect on me. Absolut is Swedish, so any paranoiacs who have their hackles up should blame them.

So, AaronBBrown, Michelle Malkin is "boom boom long time."  Disagree with her if you feel compelled to do so, but take a long look in the mirror before you call somebody else a bigot, bigot!

Chan, it just occurred to me you would make a great prosecutor.

(Neutral comment, I'll weigh in later on the (in)substance of this controversy.)

guyminuslife-

Texas did pick the wrong side at least once...

The Ignorant Populist compared to the United States, Mexico and all of Latin America have sucked for at least a hundred years.  Argentina is an economic exception having been equivalent to the U.S. in the standard of living equivalent to the U.S. in the early 20th Century.

From a political standpoint, Latin America, and certainly Mexico, have been far inferior.  Although during the latter 30 years of the last century were democratizing to a heartening degree.  Now there's been some backsliding.

The problem is Iberian civilization vs Anglo Saxon civilization.  Very crappy political and economic history and traditions in Spain and Portugal.  And colonial policies in the New World and anywhere else colonized were horrendous for all but the elites and the oligarchies.

Mexicans have had to flee al norte since long before Volcker and the 80s.  It's just that previous to the 80s, we had the balls and belief in our own country to send the illegals back guilt free.

The Baby Boom generation and some a bit older than, with stupid liberal attitudes, changed the immigration laws and polices in the mid-sixties from the highly restrictive ones that protected the interests of the country to the no-rules we have now.

And Ronald Reagan, in a major lapse, ratified all this.

markallshouse, thanks.  And I don't give a sh•t if I'm called a racist.  I'm not.  I'm a nationalist and a United States of America chauvinist.

Anybody who has a problem with that can go back to the Soviet Union.  Except that the Soviet Union proved what morons such people were, and now there is none to go back to.

1.  The  map is not historically accurate.  It's a modern map but with Mexico getting back territory it lost in its wars with Texas and the United States.

2.  Would those who are snickering at this map be so cavalier if Absolut marketed vodka to people in the South with a map of them winning the Civil War?  Or better yet, what about a marketing campaign entitled 'In an Absolut World' with pictures of black people drinking out of Negro-only fountains?  Still funny?

1, again.  Is it too much to ask for people to realize that a map isn't historically accurate if it depicts Panama as independent at a time when Mexico ruled the southwest?  I'm almost more offended by that than I am by the other insinuations.  C'mon, TNR.  Stay smart.

"Clearly no one there grasps the pseudo historical nature of the map," writes bsdespain.

I can't speak for every poster everywhere.  But, plenty of us get it just fine.  And we thank God and President Polk that history turned out differently.  Now we want to make sure that moronic American descendants do not undo what our forefathers so excellently wrought.

And, before somebody points out that Lincoln opposed the Mexican War, I know that.  Nobody could revere Lincoln more than I.  But, I digress from his outlook on that.  

There were very few Mexicans displaced by the Mexican War.  Mexico was a young, hardly effective nation at the time.  Their policies in the northern territories were excerable.  The Yankees brought energy, people, capital, superb government, superb economic policies, and freedom to these territories.  

We have nothing to regret in the Mexican War.  And without California, Texas, and the rest, we might not have had the power and resources to save Europe 90 years later.

Thanks for that, tomeg, whether we otherwise agree or not.

Are you a lawyer?

good comments, phargle.  How about an ad in Germany:  "In an Absolut world..." and we see all of Europe, Britain, and hey, maybe North America, too in German Black and Red.

I'm in advertising, and when I see ignorant, asshole ad agencies run something like this, I'm of a mood to strangle the sons of bitches.

WORDS LEFT OUT:  "And colonial policies in the New World and anywhere else colonized by the Iberian nations were horrendous for all but the elites and the oligarchies."

I thought the ad was pretty funny and made even more so by the response of the nativist American right. I certainly never expected to see a TNR writer expressing even a hint of support for a bigot like Michelle Malkin. To describe the ad as "a little distressing ," is to show a lack of humor.

Unlike ChanRobt I am able to recognize the difference between a map representing roughly the state of North America 200 years ago before the US conquest of the West and the state of Western Europe immedicately following its conquest by Nazi Germany.

Hey chan,

Don't kid yourself that our immigration laws and our inability to exclude illegal aliens is the result of "liberalism."  Liberals are just the beard.  The only reason we have 12 million illegals in the US is that business wants them there both as a source of cheap labor and to keep downward pressure on the wages of workers.  Period.  If you read any of the news on this subject with care, you can see that they will even say so.  Business interests are very frank in stating that if they immigration laws are enforced they will encounter a labor shortage.  But in a market economy, there can be no such shortage for very long.  Wages would simply rise until the labor market clears.  Profits generally would decline as a greater share of output goes to labor (what anyone but the plutocrats should want) and some businesses, that depend on cheap labor to be competitive, would go bust.  No big loss.

Okay, this doesn't happen often, but I'm siding with ChanRobt here. The last thing we need is more revanchist sentiment in the world, if I may use one of Marty's favorite words. Mexicans need to move past 1848. In fact, I was under the impression that most have, and we don't need vodka manufacturers stirring things up, even if their influence is admittedly pretty minor.

Also, Absolut's statement about the map was just pathetic, it essentially amounted to "we didn't intend for Americans to find out about this."

Channy did you read my post? I wasn't talking about you but rather many of the commentators at Malkin's blog. I tend to agree with you. Had we completely annexed Mexico it would have been in far better shape.

" Now we want to make sure that moronic American descendants do not undo what our forefathers so excellently wrought."

Keep in mind, it's just a vodka ad running in Mexico City.  I think the overblown hysteria over the ad is silly. The nativist part of America finds the funniest things to get mad at. Instead of actually addressing the reason that people are flooding over the border (Corporations and business owners are giving them jobs), they pick things like this which are ultimately incredibly trivial in the scheme of things.

"Crapy Iberian civilization" vs. "Wonderful Anglo civilization"

I am not going to discuss if there are two civilizations at stake (even if it is very doubtful).

The strange thing is how the British could pass to mainstream American culture their national narratives, as imprecise and historically inacurate as they are (starting with mighty British "explorers" of the world when the Brits really were pirates taking what others had already discovered through means that today would be qualified as "terrorism").

And they could pass as well some of their racism (that today in Europe only really survives in Britain, since they are the only ones that persistently keep lying themselves about their history as a glorious history), a racism that very much presided over their colonization (a colonization with no miscegenation at all of populations since they had lost, through their "Protestantism", any of the universalism that bounded Catholics: there isn't a single British Bartolomeu de las Casas, the Indians in America are not integrated in any population but either died or live in reservations...).

And the strange thing is how this imperial "WASP" (mis-)history doesn't allow the mighty WASP Americans to understand that in the second half of the 20th century, America commited exactly the same mistakes that Spain comited during it's period of dominance. Excess of self-confidence leading to grim results with long-lasting consequences... But keep lying to yourselves and point to other peoples' mistakes and failures. That will take you far...

Seriously, chill out everyone. It's just an ad. Jeez.

As a retired vodka hound all I can say is, "Let my Soylent Green go!"

As an editor, I loathe the fact that the "e" that should be quietly ending "Absolut" has instead been unhitched like a wayward caboose, set adrift to roll backwards, picking up speed until it smashes into the front of a perfectly good word, thus destroying it for all posterity (e.g., "Harmony" becomes "eHarmony").

As a former geography major (major in everything, master of none) my reaction to this flap is that Michelle Malkin obviously needs a nice hot oil massage. There are spas in New Mexico where she can get one with all the trimmings, as long as she remembers to tip "Maria."

As part of the problem (I hire illegals to do construction work around my ranch) I think you can order old maps at Borders, except Borders are mainly in the Mind, and anyway when you find a human being whom you trust, whom you like, who works hard for you, who is good to his family, who is sober, who is honest, who is courteous, who is respectful, who is highly skilled, whose labor has added to your net worth far more than you have compensated him, and who speaks English better than you will ever speak Spanish, and therefore in sum strikes you as superior in most aspects, or at least the most important ones, to your fellow pale homies, most of whom you can much more easily live without, because a man's (or woman's) talk will forever be trumped by another man's (or woman's) labor, because you honor labor--particularly hard, manual, back-breaking labor--and you don't honor talk, you know that your bond with that person transcends whichever dotted line he happened to swim across a decade or so ago, and thus Malkin et al. know which part of the map they can stuff opinions to the contrary.

Beautiful post Louis. I was wondering when you would respond to Chan's charge. You also forget their economics, which to a large extent has been exported to the US with it's emphasis on speculation instead of investment.

Channy, rant and scream as you want it will do no good, you are screaming at the incoming tide, the process of Mexamerica is proceeding apace. Drink thy fill now, because in your dotage your cup shall be overflowing with bitter ashes, and your caretakers in your retirement facility will tormen you in Spanish. It is simple demographics, the combination of illegal immigration and the larger families of Latinos shall overwhelm you. Might I suggest Alaska as a permanent refuge?

The ad is tongue in cheek funny to me. Anyone who takes it remotely seriously is by nature an idiot, as though the printing of a make believe map has predictive powers.

I showed the ad to my Mexican University students, all of them thought the map was from the 1800's and thought nothing else of it, and they all missed the point that the map was supposed to be contemporary. Not a single one realized any broader implications to it. As to Willpastors contention that Mexicans need to get over 1848,  can you provide any evidence that they haven't? Why the unneccessary smear? It seems the people who are doing all this projections don't in fact know any real Mexicans, nor has it occurred to ask any of them what they think about it.

oh, wait, some people went on vacation to Mexico a few times, and are now experts on Mexican society. I have been living here over 3 years, and I have not even scratched the surface yet.

Well said William.

Let's end this thread with williamyard's brilliant thread-ender.

@ epackard:

Oy -- that is a pretly embarrassing goof on my part . . . the kind of mistake that "Ol' Gramps" might make.

You kids, with your Absolut beer and your Fat Tire vodka . . .

roid, I mainly agree with you and blame the Right more than the Left for illegals.  You're absolutely right--cheap labor has been the main impetus.

However, the Left has given intellectual and philosophical support for the illegals as well, based on a notion that borders are immoral and that it is somehow racist to decide that an advanced economy is better served by well educated immigrants than by the least and the poorest.

You and I have not so much light between us on this one.  And I have expressed this sshared sentiment of ours many times on these pages.

bsdespain, I think that by 1848 it was too late for us to have shpaed Mexico's future for the better.  The population was large and the culture deeply engrained.  

That we limited our annexation to the sparsely populated territories north of what was essentially Mexico Proper and north of the Rio Grande was much more in our power to improve.

And in the mere century between 1848 and 1948, the extent of our positive development of this vast territory is remarkable.

Thank God we had the resources of those territories and the positive way they had been developed in time for WW2.

luispc, you couldn't have a better laboratory for comparing civilizations and their effect on the large majority of their populations than the nations that evolved from the British Empire-- the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India.  

And those that evolved from the Spanish and Portugese Empires.  

This is not to say that there aren't many elements of civilization as they exist in Spain, Portugal and South America that aren't attractive and worthy.  Of course they are.

But, you have to judge by the welfare of the peoples of these former colonies.  Unstable governments, rampant tyranny and dictatorship, oligarchy, inferior economies, or economic systems that primarily benefit the few and have not created a large middle class.

Or, put it this way, luispc, people vote with their feet.

You and I often agree on moral issues.  But you have to rationalize like crazy to say that Latin America is anything but lamentable in comparison to Anglo America.

Ignorant Populist writes, "Seriously, chill out everyone. It's just an ad. Jeez."

Yeah, well come to Los Angeles and you'll see in the ruined schools, hospitals and other once magnificent infrastructure that this is not entirely a joke.

Ah, nice to see the Zimmerman Telegram made into a marketing campaign. Or perhaps the point of the ad is that you have to be very, very drunk (and very nationalist or nativist, depending on whether the Rio Grande is to the North or South) to see the world like this?

If you want good vodka go with Lususkowa. I wouldn't clean my grill with Absolut.

"Yeah, well come to Los Angeles and you'll see in the ruined schools, hospitals and other once magnificent infrastructure that this is not entirely a joke."

Repeal Prop 13 and then we'll talk.

Blackton, the next sentence of my post was that I was under the impression that most Mexicans had moved on.

That said, there are a few academics and activists in the US who feel that because the southwestern United States was a Mexican frontier territory at one point, Mexicans are autimatically entitled to move to the southwestern United States. Less commonly, I've heard academics argue that because the people in much of northern Mexico are descendents of tribes that originated in New Mexico and Arizona, the illegal immigrants are part of a "reverse migration" that we have no right to oppose. I don't doubt that these views are more common in academia than in Mexico, but ideas put forward by activists and intellectuals can spread to the general public. And for the record, I'm not anti-immigration, I just feel that Mexicans have no more intrinsic right to emigrate to the United States than Koreans or Sudanese or Nigerians do.

Comparing this map to a map of Germany in 1941 is over the top, but how about if they marketed in Germany with a map of Germany 1871? Germany's 1871 borders were not terribly unfair, but it is irresponsible to launch marketing campaigns based on appeals to the good old days when your country was a lot larger.

cleavet, most people are not protected by Prop 13.  Those who are are older people who would be thrown out on the street because they couldn't pay taxes on homes that increased geometrically in market value since they bought them in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and early 70's.

Those people will die soon enough and their homes will go on the tax rolls at the new tax assessments.

Meanwhile, California collects plenty of taxes.  And the Democratic legislature wastes vast oceans of it on crap expenditures.

The state has been innundated by underpaid people who don't pay much income tax, property tax (when multiple familes are living in garages or single family apartments), or sales tax, for that matter.

I think this Catholic immigration to the United States should be stopped.  These people have no understanding of democratic rights and responsibilities.  Oh, and I think the Mexicans need to move beyond 1848 too.

More seriously, the Europeans moved beyond the EFTA of the 50s to the EEC and eventually the European Union.  This involved infrastructural assistance to the fringe areas (Ireland, Portugal, the Scottish Highland, southern Italy) in order to build up the economic strength of those regions.  This prevented mass migration to the industrial centers and created stability and a new consumer base in the outlying areas of the EU.

An idea, perhaps?

You guys shouldn't attack AaronBBrown. The man brings us the perspective of Communist Party USA, International Solidarity Movement and other such mouth-foaming and deranged groups. I think we should welcome the messenger from the caves.

Wonder whether Pernod's deal has some clause in it that allows them to retroactively adjust the price for seller's actions that impair goodwill....

Absolut idiocy: prob'y shaved a few hundred million off the brand's equity. Not like vodka drinkers can really tell the difference between one [non-Rusian] vodka and another. It's all about image, and Absolut's clever little stunt has probably ruined their image in most bars in this country for at least a few years.

Funny, reminds me of Benetton's ad agency's forays into political post-modernism back in the late 1980s: ads about abortions idiotic ads showing black babies as devils next to white babies as angels (don't ask me; struck me too as retarded).

A costly error.

I just hope I'm alive long enough for history to comment on the irony of President Obama's immigration reform and the impact it had on the African-American underclass.  There's not enough Absolut in the world to dull that pain.

Ad notwithstanding I get the impression that folks coming to the US legal or no are here to cut out a piece of America for themselves. I am, by and large, approving of the efforts. I have worked side by side my latino friends and can say without reservation that these are some of the hardest working conscientious folks I've ever had the honor to know.

That said, it would be more than a good thing to make our immigration situation sensible. This requires rules and restrictions, responsibilities and covenants lest our gardening efforts suffer.

boxfrox, nobody denies that Latinos are hardworking, decent people.  But, a nation must decide its own immigration policy and enforce its borders.  Otherwise, it is not a nation.

We have suffered nothing less than a de facto invasion for the last 35 years.  And unlike previous immigrations to the U.S., this one has been far too large to be digested.  

We don't need to replicate Balkan like problems in America.  If we do, the very things that have attracted so many here will be trampled out of existence.  A villa invaded by a mob is no longer a villa.

teplu, I can tell you that most people in ad agency creative departments are not too shrewd about politics.

blackton, what are you gloating about?  Just because you live in Mexico and have spent a lot of time in Asia, America is still your country, too.

If you were French would you have been gloating in 1940 about the demographic inevitability of Teutonic culture?

In any event, the original problem was/is not demographic, it is will.  This nation has the ability to enforce its borders if it wished and wishes.  What we have is a generation that is ambivalent about preserving the nation.  For a variety of reasons from Leftist ideology to Rightist greed.  Both are repellent for different reasons.

"you couldn't have a better laboratory for comparing civilizations and their effect on the large majority of their populations than the nations that evolved from the British Empire"

Are you talking about the African British Empire? Meaning, Zimbabwe, for instance? If it is so, then the results from "evolution from the British Empire" are much darker than the ones being observed right now in other parts of Africa, colonized by Portugal. The parts of ex-portuguese Africa are the most peacefull, fastest growing in the Continent. Since, once again, colonization, with it's many defaults, was not faced as exploration of the other and, when we left, we left some sort of cultural legacy that allowed those populations to live without fratricide...

And what is different in old British India and in old Portuguese India? If there is something different, old Portuguese India wins in the comparison. For instance the areas that we left were not immediately taken over by civil war between hindus and muslims, leading to the still explosive situation between India and Pakistan. The areas that we left were and remain peaceful, mainly Christian ones (since, once again, Portuguese colonization was always accompanied by a missionary spirit that, if possibly wrong, had the merit of revealling that the native populations were not to be faced as inferior ones, unable to understand our supposed "moral superiority").

And in what concerns Australia and Northern America, well, there are no native populations involved. They were simply destroyed (which didn't happen in South America, and when it did was punished, leading to excomunications, and revised...).

There are many reasons for South America to have become what it is today. Reasons that are able to explain it's oligarchic class structure with the inherent effects in political and economic instability. It hasn't only to do with importation of oligarchic elements in Iberian societies (these were as great as in British societies). It has very much to do with it's natural wealth (bigger than in Northern America, leading to exploration based on naked profits and not on effective colonization) with methods of agricultural exploration (in northern America, the quality of the soils led to equitative distribution of lands, which didn't happen in South America, where the model was based on large extensions of land under one, using African and native population as a work force) and with the climate. If you're interested in a serious discussion of the subject, read David S. Landes' "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations".

Anyway, I don't know how you accuse South America of being oligarchic today when USA  is increasingly looking like an economic oligachy with massive levels of poverty and lack of access to good education and health. If you had a good start, you're increasingly running to a very bad finish. At the fault is surely not of "latinos", as scapegoated as they are being... My hunch is that it has very much to do with importing aspects of instrumental rationality and economic exploration (yes, speculation) that very much marked the "British civilization" and that now are completely destroying the American society.

And if you thing that the US "evolved from the British Empire" and from it's cultural factors, you're much mistaken. The genetic code of America as expressed in the America Revolution was very much anti-British. And if that hadn't happen, well, the American culture (the culture of the America that was once great) hadn't been possible.

And if the "culture" of contemporary America was as  "superior" as you imagine it is, you wouldn't feel so threatened by everyone that is a foreigner. You would be self-confident enough to know that the good things about it could be extended to others. But this was never the British perspective (an exclusivist, racist perspective...). And that's exactly why you're loosing it now...

One other thing: if we may agree on "moral issues", we most certainly do not agree on a moral perspective. For once I would never feel that my morals gave me any sort of superiority over others. My morals, on the contrary, bound me to intrinsic worth of others and compel me to treat them with respect. So our agreement can only be occasional and superficial.

"I think this Catholic immigration to the United States should be stopped.  These people have no understanding of democratic rights and responsibilities.  Oh, and I think the Mexicans need to move beyond 1848 too.

More seriously, the Europeans moved beyond the EFTA of the 50s to the EEC and eventually the European Union.  This involved infrastructural assistance to the fringe areas (Ireland, Portugal, the Scottish Highland, southern Italy) in order to build up the economic strength of those regions.  This prevented mass migration to the industrial centers and created stability and a new consumer base in the outlying areas of the EU.

An idea, perhaps?"

One cannot even start to understand what is so repellent about this post. Anyway, one thing is for sure. The one that wrote it hasn't got a clue about the meaning of the EU. A meaning, by the way, that English never could understand. And if the EU is a very great success today (and an impressive example of integration that, if followed by others, would lead to a much better world), it has nothing to do with the English. On the contrary, they made (and are still making) every effort to destroy it. General De Gaulle didn't want them, stating that any Europe with England on had an enemy inside... His predictions were right, but today, not even them can destroy the cultural dynamic that created the EU, a dynamic that they simply cannot understand (since they are simply unable to get out of their positivistic and instrumental way of thinking about the world and the others...)

"That said, it would be more than a good thing to make our immigration situation sensible. This requires rules and restrictions, responsibilities and covenants lest our gardening efforts suffer."

This is right and no one in his right mind questions that immigration anywhere must be under rules and restrictions, responsibilities and convenants.

But the problem, from my perspective, is that USA has completely lost the sense of it's founding communautarian convenant. That's why it is feelling so threatened and is unable to define a policy and to implement it sensibly. Every other European country can do that (Spain, for instance, is being very successfull with it's immigration and integration policies that allow to face realistically a phenomenon with a much greater cultural  complexity than the one being faced by America)

So, having lost touch with it's founding commitments, political speech in America is dominated by demagogues, both on the Left and on the Right.

Channy. Your right. I said as much in my proviso. As a practicality it matters not one iota whether any immigration objections are based upon what some choose to characterize as racism or Anglo-centrism or any other such. Too many people on the boat will overwhelm and all will be left to swim among the sharks.

"So, having lost touch with it's founding commitments, political speech in America is dominated by demagogues, both on the Left and on the Right."

Luis. Our foundational commitments are in and of themselves based upon a kind of bedrock which you perceive we have lost. The truth is we have been fighting about their realization from the beginning. So too, the world. Where the left and right diverge is 'the pursuit of happiness'. The left would make this a guarantee. The right will guarantee that this is a recipe for failure in that there are no promises in pursuit. So we go about cutting out our path with the competing Individual and Collective efforting. We are on the front lines of this proposition. All told and with all of our shortcomings we do a pretty damned good job of it and are willing to shoulder the still very dynamic aspects of our commitments. We are unique. We are where the action is. We lead. We make mistakes. We have success. But carry it we do. And will continue to.

LuisPC writes, "...But the problem, from my perspective, is that USA has completely lost the sense of it's founding communautarian convenant. That's why it is feelling so threatened and is unable to define a policy and to implement it sensibly."

We find common cause on this one, Luis.  Absolutely correct.  

Bizarre ideologies that became ascendant in the 60s have much eclipsed our founding covenant.

Am I alone in thinking this is just a funny ad? I'm all for enforcing the borders and putting Polk on the $10 bill and while I'm not ignorant enough to believe Chan's story that there was no downside to the results of the Mexican War, neither am I particularly bothered by the war, the dishonesty and corruption that went into making it, or the results for either country. But how does any of that matter? It's just an ad, and it's kind of funny.

I mean, I wouldn't find an "Absolut South" ad with a victorious Confederacy, or an "Absolut Palestine" ad with Israel wiped off the map, to be funny. But then again, Mexico is not the Confederacy -- Mexicans never committed treason against the United States -- and it's not Hamas. What if this were an ad showing the United States occupying all the territory Polk wanted -- including most of Canada west of the Great Lakes up to 54'40" and Mexico down to the Yucatan? I'd get a laugh out of that, too.

Anyway, I have a hard time understanding how protesting this ad differs in any material way from Islamists burning Danish flags because of Muhammed cartoons.

"Our foundational commitments are in and of themselves based upon a kind of bedrock which you perceive we have lost. The truth is we have been fighting about their realization from the beginning. "

Yes, you're right. And I do hope that the "morally framing intention" is still there. Since the "pursuit of happiness" (as life and liberty) are the consequences of a framing commitment in which "all men are created equal". THIS is the ultimate founding "self-evident truth".

And my problem is that the political speech was somewhat inverted. I'm affraid that we are increasingly watching the erosion of a collective unconscious framed on that fundamental truth. Being replaced by narratives in which "liberty" and "pursuit of happiness" are taken as self-sustaining truths. Which they are not and never were.

Months (or years) ago, there was an article on TNR by Elisabeth Lasch-Quin in which he denounced that a speech focused on the surface (on liberty or on the pursuit of happiness by themselves) was depriving people from access to the very "moral sources" of liberty (and of that pursuit), being this a very "bitter irony".

Anyway, I do hope that you are able to overcome such difficulties. And I believe you will. Something very important (and fecund, also from a universal point of view) would be lost if you didn't.

Anyway, what I also wish to stress is that effort is an effort of collective self-searching and self-correcting that in no way can pass through the identification of scapegoats. This last step is the very opposite of that process...

And tell me, are those Republicans and Democrats really interested in solving the problem of immigration sensibly? My hunch is that they aren't. Particularly the Republicans are raising votes through scapegoating soundbites without any correspondence in feaseble and simultaneously humane immigration policies. The need of which I do not question. But a polity that is persistently runned on soundbites is not able to face anything conveniently and ends up discussing Vodka adds and "Iberian civilization".

channy, thanks to the (by a large measure) American created global warming and the attendant changes in weather patterns in the southwest (increased desertification) I can guarantee that all the will in the world can't create water where none exists. There will come a day when the fat, pasty faced Anglo-Americans will tire of scurrying like cockroaches from one air conditioned environment to another, and will then decamp northwards all the while demanding Government buyouts. I doubt taxpayers in the north will be so willing to buy them out. So realistically, the only people who will be willing to live there are the people who have long ago acclimatized to such an environment.

The main difference between you and I is that I don't find Mexican culture or Mexican people to be a threat, in fact, if Global warming turns out worse than predicted, they may ultimately be the saviors of large swaths of America. In any event, I don't see white as representing right, not in the way you do. (ok, Anglo but white does rhyme). America will still be America, just one that has more Latinos.

I don't know why you think I am gloating, I am simply having fun while facing facts. I just find the sight of a bunch of people yelling at the incoming tide to be hilarious.

Ah. There's the rub. Equality. And has it not ever thus to our knowledge a tension inherent in devolution from unconscious "We' and 'Us'? Equal to pursue liberty and happiness with it's concomitant concessions in both regards and direction. What extent those concessions is the ever arbited 'do unto'. I have been afforded by luck, design, spin and toil an extent which will never be temporally equal in both quality and deficiency accorded others. Where do I find happiness if this is so?

Luis. You're a smart guy and it's always a pleasure.

Blackie. You gloat a bit as if your wisdom is a comeuppance. Certainly you can see the shortcomings of investing exclusively in the temporal as evidence of realization. So one day we all look alike? What will that guarantee? I'd say a disappointment in such futures positions. I'm on the short side of that trade.

"Do unto" to whom? And exactly WHY? And there is liberty and pursuit of happiness outside the "do unto"? Is happiness even possible outside? These are the forgotten questions...

boxy, no disappointment, that entails a certain level of appointment. I certainly don't think we will all one day look alike, but I am not sure in the logic that says we must all sound alike.

blackie, if, as you postulate, we abandon the Southwest and the West because we run out of water and aren't willing to live without swimming pools and green lawns, then we deserve to lose same.

And good luck to the Mexicans who take over our abandoned states.

I suspect that we are a little more resilient and adaptable than that.  But, meanwhile, I'm not ready to abandon anything to squatters.

And, blackie, if you can't see a qualitative difference between the United States and Mexico, all I can tell you is that 20 million Mexicans can.  That's why they snuck across the border.

Nobody can blame them.  But, it doesn't mean we ought to accede to it.

To all of the posters who say, this is just an ad, just a joke, I'd reply that the joke would have gone over fine in 1969.

It ain't so funny 20 million illegals later.

Aye. Is it forgotten or unrealized? Re-remembered or discovered? Is free will free? And what colored stripes bondage?

Fecund indeed. I think it is miracle the US hasn't come completely undone by it's charge. It nearly did you know. How does one negotiate hubris and humility? Is this an applicable question regarding Iraq? What would the world look like today with Saddam Hussein still in power? More dangerous or less?

Most Americans wrestle with these questions in sincerity. How much can we give? How much should we give? How much is possible to give without encouraging the worst aspects of entitlement attitudes to prevail? We are not an Atlas shrugged nation. If we were the globe would look much different today. So we argue and have elections. We cajole and push. We scrum and sometimes the ball goes wild. This election cycle is one where the ball is truly up for grabs.

God bless America I say.

blackie. That was pleasantly poetic and I'm a sucker for such. Though the universal conclusion would lead one to postulate a sympathetic common language. If sounding is an expression of spirit then I accept your conclusion.

Scrap the Mexican debt. No to the IMF!

Sorry protest flashback there.

Seriously, scrap the debt and lift the restrictions on investment. Then let's see how well Mexico compares Chan.

I suspect you might be pleasently surprised.

It is self-discovered. And there is no "free will". There simply isn't, ontologically speaking. We are creatures of the frames we internalized. And our only possible reconciliation lies in the humble acceptance of this fact, as apparently humiliating as it may be. At the same time this is liberating. It is the only kind of liberation, really. Everything else restricts us to an increasingly restricted place, be it the island of Robinson Crusoe, be it the Castle of Franz Kafka.

"in this acceptance of his condition as sheperd of Being and not as lord of the Self, man looses not. He gains. In this moment, he feels the calling"

And don't feel compelled to defend America Jack. I admire it. Truly (not the Iraq mistake though that from my point of view, reveals, together with other things, that something is going terribly wrong)

luispc, I have to say I'm confused.  You describe my post as "repellent" (a pretty extreme term) -- and then you go on to agree with it!!??

This is not good on a Monday afternoon.

I agreed on what? On preventing "Catholic immigration"? Or on EU as a means of preventing "Catholic immigration" to the "industrial centers"? If this was what you meant, I surely do not want to have anything to do with it.

I haven't a clue what you are talking about.  My joke was about the anti-Catholic hostility in the U.S. in the nineteenth century (riffing off of "the mexicans should get beyond 1848").  My serious remark (signalled by the phrase "more seriously") was about the development that Europe has acheived from the EFTA days of the 1950s through to the integrated EU of today -- very much marked by targeted assistance to the remoter fringes of the continent ("structurally disadvantaged regions").

To put it another way, the money that they want to pour into border "protection" here in the U.S. would be better spent assisting the economic growth of those parts of Mexico that produce the most illegal immigrants.  If injectons of capital could turn these regions, on the model of the European structural funds, into economically vibrant areas, the intense pressure to emigrate would be lifted and a consumer base could be stabliized.  However, that would require a major tectonic shift in NAFTA and attitudes toward it that would be an impossible sell here in the U.S.

Your brief description of the EU seemed to match mine pretty exactly -- and I couldn't understand either where the "English" came into it.  I'm not English.

The IggyP, I wish Mexico well.  I wish she were like France or Italy or modern Spain.  I would like to see her do a metamorphis like Ireland.  

I would love to see Mexicans be able to live in Mexico, because they are mainly here just for the money and prefer their own home country as much as we would prefer ours.

I don't know anybody who doesn't like the Mexican people.  Or doesn't respect the resourcefulness and hard work of his (illegal probably, we're all taking advantage of it) gardener.

But, even what's left of Mexico after 1848-- and it's a lot-- has lots of resources.  Far more, say, than Japan.  It is the crappy organization-- the government and social and economic system which is their inheritance from colonial Spain, that is what has held her down.

As the Mexicans say, "So far from God, so close to the United States."

ironyroad, much as I want to be on your side on this, I believe the money we spend on "border security" is a pittance compared to what we would have to spend to reform Mexico's economy.

And the truth is, if you don't have some sort of control over how a nation is governed, or can trust that nation to govern itself honestly and without corruption, what's the point of pouring the money in to pay for  villas and billions in Swiss banks.

irony writes, "...I couldn't understand either where the "English" came into it.  I'm not English."

This would probably derive from the same convention by which Hispanics refer to Jews, Italians, Irish, etc as "Anglos".  It means "white," dude.

LuisPC, I doubt that the comparison of Portugese India (small coastal enclaves) to British India (the entire sub-continent) holds us as a very good analog.

And the situation of Britain's exiting Inida-- precipitously as the result of being bankrupted by WW2 and the pressures it was already subjected to before the war by rebellious elements in India.

But after the horrors did pass, India was left with a system of railroads, a system of democratic government, a system of civil service, a system of jurisprudence, and, a common language.  India wasn't really one nation before the British and would likely today be be more like Africa or midieval Europe had Britain never come.

Clearly India is filled with highly talented and resourceful people.  But, without the amalgamating and modernizing force of the British Raj, would not have been in a position ever to unite themselves.

Any more than South America ever has.  And without denying that some of the factors you point out are the case, since Latin America seems pretty much to mirror the evils of Spain itself up through Franco, it's hard to blame it all on the local circumstances and the benign policy of the Spanish not to eradicate Indians.  

You realize there is a kind of racism inherent in the too decent to kill them theory.  In effect you are saying that all those surviving Indians are South America's problem.

As to the American Colonialist being anti-British, well that is both self-evident and wrong.  They valued very  highly their status as Englishmen.  And all the freedom and value of the individual that this status brought with it.

One of the main causus belli of the American Revolution was the sense that American were by right and ought to share the rights of an Englishman.  Which they were being denied, primarily by not be represented in Parliament.

Obviously there was much wrong on that tight little island, with its restrictions borne of ancient privilege of the relatively few.  But the seeds of freedom had flowered pretty widely by the late 18th century in Britain, certainly compared to Europe, down upon whom the English mostly looked.

And hatred of Spain and its tyranny along with memories of King Phillip and his nasty Armada, his presumptions upon England, his cruelty in Holland, all gave us plenty of motivation to drive Spain out of every Florida or anywhere else they deigned to put plant a flag in shooting distance of Anglo Saxon America.

The United States, if France or Spain had prevailed over the British before 1776 or after, would not have evolved into the beacon of freedom and opportunity that it still (obviously to 20 million Mexicans and many others) still is.

And, yes, some of the signs of plutocracy if not oligarchy can be seen in contemporary United States.  But, our middle class is still astoundingly vast.  Opportunities to go from garage to Apple or Google or Microsoft or Oracle have not gone away.  And the United States, as it proved in a much worse time during the Great Depression, has the political and social means to heal itself.

So, LuisPC, don't bet against America.  You may make money on Euros in the short term.  But, not in the long run, I do not believe.  And places like China, though impressive with their economic growth now, will eventually hit a wall of social unrest if it does not find a way to provide redress to its "masses".

luisPC, I believe that most of us understood that irony was being ironic with his "keep out the Catholic riff".  I don't think English is your first language, Luis, so it would be easy to miss that he was kidding.  And, perhaps, you don't know the historic reference to anti-Irish (considered synonymous to Catholic) sentiment in the mid 19th century, a result of the precipitous Irish immigration to the U.S. in the wake of the potato famine.

Yeah, I think luispc and myself had a similar type of weird misunderstanding a long time ago, where I couldn't understand the mixture of reasonably close agreement and open hostility.

Oops! Sorry Ironyroad!

I'm not betting against America, Chan. I love America and wish it all the best. My problem is that history cannot be framed within simplistic narratives of mighty anglos vs. iberians. It's much more complex than that. And you are deceiving yourself if you frame it this way. Since you'll stop looking at your own problems to try justify them in weird foreign influences. This is a most grave and politically dangerous step.

And on infrastructure left in ancient colonies, look at Mozambique and Angola when we left. Cities, roads, railways and the biggest damns in Africa. If these were later destroyed by marxists taking over power (even if not completely, Caborabassa, for instance is still the greatest damn in Africa), it's not our fault. And, anyway, when marxism died, our ex-colonies became to do well. Which pleases me very much.

On the history of Northern America vs. South America, please do read Landes. It's a great book.

One more thing. On Filipe II, do read a biography written by Kammen. It's most illuminating in the destruction of some anglo myths about him and Spain.

The biography I was refering to is named "Philip of Spain". The author is Henry Kamen.

LuisPC, I thank you for the Landes book that you commended.

I am not judging peoples harshly here.  I am saying that nations evolve differently politically, socially, and economically, depending on their historical circumstances, their geography, latitude, and likely some X-factor that has to do with different gene pools.  

There certainly do seem to be general national personalities, although obviously within a given individual there is wide latitude from any generalization or "stereotype" if you will.

I choose in my language here to be blunt because I am tired of apologists in my own nation who refuse to acknowlege that this country has been successful relative to other nations in the New World and elsewhere, and that is to a great deal due to our political organization and heritage and an inherited philosophy about the role and the autonomy and the initiative of the individual.

We have to be willing to make difficult and even arbitrary judgements simply to enforce borders.  From a humane standpoint, who would wish to close the gates on anyone?

But, I notice that the gates of Harvard, Yale, and the University of California are very sturdy, indeed.  And places like this are hotbeds of relativist thinking.  And have taken their fears of chauvinism and jingoism so far as to not be willing to make positive value judgements about our own country.  

As I say, the peoples of the world have voted with their feet about America.  They ain't running in the other direction.

I will say once again, if the 1846 map had been left intact, and Mexico had held sway over all that marvelous (and then  pretty much empty) territory, then California and the rest would much more resemble modern Mexico than the California and the rest as they have evolved.

This would have been very much to the detriment of the United States, of Europe which was later saved by the United States, and of the world which has mainly benefited from the U.S. as a powerful and in historical terms benign influence on the planet.

I am willing to accept all you say, luisPC, about Portuguese rule in Africa etc being beneficial to its native inhabitants.  But, at the same time, I will insist that Anglo Saxon traditions holding sway in North America has made it a much greater power than it would have been under any Latin power, including in that grouping France.  

One might wonder why the Latin powers, including France, Italy, and South America are so unstable politically.  Certainly Britain has benefited by being an island nation, relatively unsullied by the corruption and treachery and rampant tribalism of Europe.  

I am not unmindful of the savagery in English history.  But, it has been a contained savagery, that perhaps because of its harshness was forced to evolve into the kind of Democracy it became in order to keep it from cannabilizing itself.

I see parallels in the orderliness of the English and that of the Japanese.  Both island nations of few physical resources forced by the discipline imposed by such an environment to organize and stabilize themselves.  And to rely on their intellects to invent their own prosperity, somewhat out of the ether.

I'll gladly, LuisPC, read about Eilipe II, as well.  But, you cannot deny that the Spanish boot was an ugly thing  in the Netherlands, which those sturdy people happily threw off.

And the Armada's intentions against England were not merely to show the flag.  What a calamity that would have been for the world if Spain had ever gained political hegemony or control over England.