Noam Chomsky once discussed the notion posited by Walter Lippman in the 1920s of “Manufactured Consent.” That is, that the goal of politics in America is to turn the average citizen into a consumer of the political system, but to deny him any chance whatsoever at being a participant in it. To observe and discuss the decisions being made to rule his life, but never to have a real, active hand in making those decisions. The general populace must be marginalized, which is to say “reduced to apathy and obedience” and eliminate all means by which they can first inform themselves, secondly organize, and thirdly act in such a way as to control decision-making. Reading those words and listening to his lectures today, it might seem as though he had a time machine he hadn’t told anybody about. How perfectly does that describe the focused efforts of today’s “specialized class” of political elites? How perfectly does it describe the steady march of media collusion with the politicians it was intended to monitor and report upon? How accurately does it describe the proliferation of games and toys and distractions and instruments for making the unified action of the governed all but impossible?
Take stock of the world around us right now and you’ll probably have more than enough reason to feel like the loonies are running the asylum. Things that make sense are now called crazy. Common sense is now “hate.” A majority of voting age people in America seem to believe that Rights are granted, licensed and monetized by the Federal Government, subject to repeal at the will and pleasure of the Bureaucracy. It’s been coming to a head for a long time, but the boil has been extraordinarily slow. Partly, I’m sure that’s because there are so many pressure valves to keep people dumb and lazy. We’ve been conditioned to believe that screaming into the void on social media is the same as “doing something,” or that a little “Thoughts and Prayers” frame around a profile picture means you “got involved.” People vent, yell, scream, and rant and their anger dissipates. They melt back into the couch, pick up their phones or their video game controllers, and they go back to doing nothing. Just like the people profiting from this madness want them to. Need proof? Ok. Come with me to a little town called Eagle Pass, Texas.
What I’m not going to do is spend a lot of time on a history and dissertation about the legal and political ins and outs of what’s happening on the Texas border. Instead, I’d prefer to speak plainly in terms of common sense and reason. The sum of what’s happening in Texas and along the entire Southern border is that the Federal Government has failed to enforce the immigration laws we have had on our books since the drafting of the US Constitution. President after president has failed to make border sovereignty the priority that it should have been, and while some have done better than others, none have done particularly well. Looking at the historical trends, especially since the bombast and rhetoric of the Clinton era, Democrats are not only the worst at this, but are the ones most likely to try and use illegal immigration as a policy apparatus for changing the voter landscape of our country. If you were to examine the public statements of Clinton-era Democrats all the way through the Obama presidency, you’d hear what might easily be mistaken for modern day Republicans. Here, check it out for yourself:
So you’d be forgiven for thinking that Democrats see this as a serious issue and are positioned to do something meaningful about it. You’d be wrong, and for a reason familiar to most readers of this Journal - in Washington, if you’re not part of the solution, there’s damned good money to be made in prolonging the problem. If you’re on the side of secure borders, there are PACs and Super PACs collecting millions upon millions each day to support you. If you’re for open borders and a free flow of illegals, they’ve got you covered there too. When it comes to generational issues like this which always seem to be a problem but which nobody ever seems to fix, it is helpful to look at the profits instead of the problem. And in the case of immigration, they’re all making a fortune no matter what side they’re on. That model will almost always hold through challenges, through elections, through public anger and through scandal. The problem persists, the people on each side blame each other, and my God does the money flow. Overcoming that profit machine is no small feat, and it takes a willingness on the part of the general public to do exactly what the “specialized class” has poured all their efforts into preventing:
Inform Themselves.
Get Organized.
Take Action to Control Decision-Making.
I say this with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek - today’s activists are fantastic about step two. One thing that is facilitated exceptionally well by social media and the internet is getting organized. Unfortunately, everyone seems to willfully skip the first step. There are more roving bands of organized idiots out there than ever before, screaming slogans they don’t even understand, wearing knitted genitals as hats, waving signs and engaging in “mostly peaceful” arson and robbery and rioting. But take heart! They also skip step three in its entirety. It takes approximately a forty-sixth of a nanosecond for these “organizers” to realize that they, too can attract donations for their efforts. This has a dual effect on any budding movement - one, it makes the agenda of the movement entirely fluid, depending on where the money is coming from. Two, it makes the organizers stop focusing on change and taking part in decision-making and it focuses them on what color curtains they should hang in their new donor-funded Topanga Canyon mansion. This is a great formula for the people who are really running things. The petty millions it takes to distract would-be action agents are nothing compared with the billions being thrown at both sides to make sure the problem doesn’t go away. That is the way it’s always been. It’s the way it will always be, except in the shining few moments in time when the people get mad enough to do the work.
Eagle Pass, Texas. The US Supreme Court upheld a complaint by the Biden Administration that an effort by Texas to protect the border effectively limited the US Border Patrol’s ability to perform its duties. Texas installed razor wire along the Rio Grande such that, in the event a person were to ignore the global news, warnings about illegal border crossings, about 30 miles of signs leading up to the border that illegal crossing is dangerous and potentially life threatening, and of course the sovereign national border itself, one might entangle themselves in said razor wire and drown in the river they weren’t supposed to be crossing in the first place. The Biden Administration argued that illegals making this trek with the express purpose of breaking our laws could not be subjected to any sort of consequences from their own decision, and that US Border Patrol agents must be allowed to forego any duties they have to protect the border and engage in life-saving medical efforts for such immigrants as may find themselves ensnared in the razor wire. The Supreme Court agreed with Biden in the very narrow and limited scope of “removing wire as necessary to reach immigrants who have already reached US territory.” In so doing, they generated a public debate about whether the US Constitution that our elected officials all swore to uphold and defend actually has any bearing on the law. Consider Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution:
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence."
The Governor of Texas has, by all rights and common sense, declared the influx of undeclared and undocumented foreign nationals through his State’s border “an invasion.” He has also rightly pointed out that despite multiple appeals to the Federal Government and to the Executive Branch (President Joe Biden specifically) to aid and assist Texas in securing the Nation’s border, he has received no help nor correspondence. Governor Abbott released a letter explaining his actions in which he cited Supreme Court decisions related to Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution. Here is an excerpt:
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and the other visionaries who wrote the U.S. Constitution foresaw that States should not be left to the mercy of a lawless president who does nothing to stop external threats like cartels smuggling millions of illegal immigrants across the border. That is why the Framers included both Article IV, § 4, which promises that the federal government “shall protect each [State] against invasion,” and Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which acknowledges “the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
Now consider Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution, and specifically the words of Justice Scalia in his dissent from the majority:
As this Court has said, it is an “ ‘accepted maxim of international law, that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions.’ ” Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 705 (1893) (quoting Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.S. 651, 659 (1892)).
Even in its international relations, the Federal Government must live with the inconvenient fact that it is a Union of independent States, who have their own sovereign powers. This is not the first time it has found that a nuisance and a bother in the conduct of foreign policy. Four years ago, for example, the Government importuned us to interfere with thoroughly constitutional state judicial procedures in the criminal trial of foreign nationals because the international community, and even an opinion of the International Court of Justice, disapproved them. See Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491 (2008). We rejected that request, as we should reject the Executive’s invocation of foreign-affairs considerations here.
In the next week or two, we will see millions of people descend on the little town of Eagle Pass. Many will be there to throw their support behind common sense, reason, and the Government of Texas for doing what the Federal Government cannot seem to break with its profit machine long enough to do. I will predict a media focus like we’ve not seen since its attacks on Donald Trump to cast anyone and everyone who supports Texas as a “right wing extremist” and worse. It should not come as a surprise to any of my readers when the Federal Government tosses out the line “Insurrection, Part Two,” tries to tie it to “MAGA Republicans” and watches as their press lackeys run with the story, parroting one another 24/7 until the election. There will be radicals on all sides, making it vastly more difficult for reason to prevail. There will, in fact be far-right extremists in the crowd, and they will be doing us no favors. They should be denounced as sincerely and immediately as are the inevitable army of left-wing radicals and agitators that will show up to garner their own donations and steal their headlines. There’s an old saying that you always see the Circus before you see the Act. Brace yourselves. This circus will be a madhouse of idiocy on all sides desperately trying to scream above the common sense and reason we all hope will prevail. Don’t lose sight, in the flashing lights and tempest of the circus, of the act that’s driving it. A lot of people will be jockeying for money, power, and control and they will be using the noise to keep you marginalized. Fight back. Get informed. Organize. Take some action to control the decision-making process.
GET INFORMED. ORGANIZE. TAKE ACTION TO CONTROL THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS.
Add to the common sense and reason that should always drive our public policy. Take the wind out of the sails of radicals. This really is the Battlefield of Reason. This is the sort of issue that defines whether Common Sense has any place in the world of today. Are we capable, through the Unified Action of free and sovereign individuals, of beating back a collectivist machine that seeks to marginalize us? If not, then even the most turbulent events playing out in front of us will only serve to cement the status quo. In the words of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr - “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.