| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Reconquista: Taking Back The American Southwest
What if there was a reconquista and Americans didn’t notice
until it was too late? It was all moving along quite swimmingly
before the recent immigration rallies when most Americans
wouldn’t have known a reconquista from a chimichanga. But
the word is out thanks to those rallies where hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of Hispanics filled American streets
waving Mexican flags, displaying insulting banners and making
incredibly brazen demands of the country.
For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, the
reconquista is a radical movement calling for Mexico to
“reconquer” America’s Southwest, which proponents claim is
land that was stolen from Mexico. But that’s not all.
Reconquista propaganda also claims that the “stolen” land
happens to sit on the territory of the ancient “Nation of
Aztlan,” which was supposedly the cradle of Aztec civilization.
Hmm, that’s odd. I’m looking at a World Book Encyclopedia
map of the Aztec empire as it existed at the height of its power
and it was totally confined to parts of southern Mexico,
hundreds and hundreds of miles south of the Mexican-
American border. Looks like this Aztlan thing can be dismissed
out of hand as the nonsensical poppycock that it is.
And even if Aztlan had been real and had stretched from
Cancun to Spokane, so what? The only argument that could
possibly advance would be to give it all back to the Aztecs, an
even more ridiculous notion.
But forget about Aztlan. Let’s get back to the idea that the
American Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico. Balder-
dash! The United States didn’t unjustly steal land from
Mexico. Rather, land was legally ceded to the United States by
Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo which
ended the Mexican-American War in 1848.
Yes, the United States won that war and you could say that
California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were the spoils of
war, but that doesn’t make it unjust. It certainly wasn’t unjust
for the people who lived in those lands because it saved them
from being a part of the eternally corrupt, unstable, poverty-
ridden country of Mexico.
But that undeniable fact doesn’t mean squat to the illegals
and illegal sympathizers who were displaying this popular
banner during the recent immigration rallies: “If you think I’m
‘illegal’ because I’m a Mexican, learn the true history because I’
m in my homeland.”
So sorry, señor, but no you’re not. And here’s the main thing
you need to realize. If the American Southwest had stayed a
part of Mexico, then you’d be trying to slip into the American
Midwest, or the American Southeast, or the American
Northeast, or the Pacific Northwest, or the Mid-Atlantic, or the
Rocky Mountain West, or the Great Basin, or the Northern
Plains, or anywhere other than the “homeland” you’re now
making claim to. That’s because if the American Southwest
had stayed a part of Mexico, then it would be just as miserable
as the rest of that country.
See, it wasn’t some sort of natural, Edenic utopia where the
living was intrinsically easy and the type of governance didn’t
matter. The reason the American Southwest is prosperous is
because it is part of America and not part of Mexico. America
has the kind of political, social and economic system that
generates prosperity. Mexico, on the other hand, doesn’t.
Despite its beauty, vast natural resources and oil wealth, it’s a
miserable basket case of a country.
But the profoundly arrogant and ignorant marchers who
carried banners like the one described above have zero interest
in trying to fix what’s wrong with their real homeland. It’s so
much easier to just sneak into a large successful country to the
north than it is to hang around and try to turn Mexico into a
decent place.
So, the justification for the desired reconquista is a crock,
and an illogical one at that. Nonetheless, it could still happen
simply as a result of demographic trends. As Jose Angel
Gutierrez, political science professor at the University of Texas
at Arlington, has so aptly pointed out, “We are millions. We
just have to survive. We have an aging white America. They are
not making babies. They are dying. It’s a matter of time. The
explosion is in our population.”
In other words, the fecund Hispanic masses are going to out-
multiply the withering white masses and pull off a de facto
reconquista, assuming current trends continue. It’s pretty cut
and dry for the good professor who, by the way, doesn’t sound
too broken up over the prospect of a dying white America.
White Americans who express the slightest anxiety over the
continuation of such demographic trends or who ask their
leaders to enforce the nation’s immigration laws will naturally
be branded racists. Accusatory banners were all over the place
during the demonstrations.
But in reality, the main concern isn’t over race, it’s over
culture. If a demographic reconquista were to occur and if
Hispanics fail to assimilate and Americanize themselves
sufficiently, then the American Southwest becomes the cultural
equivalent of northern Mexico and it ain’t racist to not want
that to happen. Just ask the reconquista and open borders
crowd to name a country in the world whose people would hap-
pily stand by and watch their culture be overrun by another.
The average illegal immigrant from Mexico probably
doesn’t consider himself part of a vast reconquista conspiracy.
He just wants a better life for himself and his family. But that
doesn’t mean that he and half of Latin America should just be
able to waltz across the border whenever they please.
If the day ever comes when Hispanics outnumber native-
born Americans because of a demographic reconquista fueled
largely by illegal immigration, will those Americans then be
able to complain about their own stolen homeland? Sure, but
not without being called racist.
What if there was a reconquista and Americans didn’t notice
until it was too late? It was all moving along quite swimmingly
before the recent immigration rallies when most Americans
wouldn’t have known a reconquista from a chimichanga. But
the word is out thanks to those rallies where hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of Hispanics filled American streets
waving Mexican flags, displaying insulting banners and making
incredibly brazen demands of the country.
For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, the
reconquista is a radical movement calling for Mexico to
“reconquer” America’s Southwest, which proponents claim is
land that was stolen from Mexico. But that’s not all.
Reconquista propaganda also claims that the “stolen” land
happens to sit on the territory of the ancient “Nation of
Aztlan,” which was supposedly the cradle of Aztec civilization.
Hmm, that’s odd. I’m looking at a World Book Encyclopedia
map of the Aztec empire as it existed at the height of its power
and it was totally confined to parts of southern Mexico,
hundreds and hundreds of miles south of the Mexican-
American border. Looks like this Aztlan thing can be dismissed
out of hand as the nonsensical poppycock that it is.
And even if Aztlan had been real and had stretched from
Cancun to Spokane, so what? The only argument that could
possibly advance would be to give it all back to the Aztecs, an
even more ridiculous notion.
But forget about Aztlan. Let’s get back to the idea that the
American Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico. Balder-
dash! The United States didn’t unjustly steal land from
Mexico. Rather, land was legally ceded to the United States by
Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe de Hidalgo which
ended the Mexican-American War in 1848.
Yes, the United States won that war and you could say that
California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were the spoils of
war, but that doesn’t make it unjust. It certainly wasn’t unjust
for the people who lived in those lands because it saved them
from being a part of the eternally corrupt, unstable, poverty-
ridden country of Mexico.
But that undeniable fact doesn’t mean squat to the illegals
and illegal sympathizers who were displaying this popular
banner during the recent immigration rallies: “If you think I’m
‘illegal’ because I’m a Mexican, learn the true history because I’
m in my homeland.”
So sorry, señor, but no you’re not. And here’s the main thing
you need to realize. If the American Southwest had stayed a
part of Mexico, then you’d be trying to slip into the American
Midwest, or the American Southeast, or the American
Northeast, or the Pacific Northwest, or the Mid-Atlantic, or the
Rocky Mountain West, or the Great Basin, or the Northern
Plains, or anywhere other than the “homeland” you’re now
making claim to. That’s because if the American Southwest
had stayed a part of Mexico, then it would be just as miserable
as the rest of that country.
See, it wasn’t some sort of natural, Edenic utopia where the
living was intrinsically easy and the type of governance didn’t
matter. The reason the American Southwest is prosperous is
because it is part of America and not part of Mexico. America
has the kind of political, social and economic system that
generates prosperity. Mexico, on the other hand, doesn’t.
Despite its beauty, vast natural resources and oil wealth, it’s a
miserable basket case of a country.
But the profoundly arrogant and ignorant marchers who
carried banners like the one described above have zero interest
in trying to fix what’s wrong with their real homeland. It’s so
much easier to just sneak into a large successful country to the
north than it is to hang around and try to turn Mexico into a
decent place.
So, the justification for the desired reconquista is a crock,
and an illogical one at that. Nonetheless, it could still happen
simply as a result of demographic trends. As Jose Angel
Gutierrez, political science professor at the University of Texas
at Arlington, has so aptly pointed out, “We are millions. We
just have to survive. We have an aging white America. They are
not making babies. They are dying. It’s a matter of time. The
explosion is in our population.”
In other words, the fecund Hispanic masses are going to out-
multiply the withering white masses and pull off a de facto
reconquista, assuming current trends continue. It’s pretty cut
and dry for the good professor who, by the way, doesn’t sound
too broken up over the prospect of a dying white America.
White Americans who express the slightest anxiety over the
continuation of such demographic trends or who ask their
leaders to enforce the nation’s immigration laws will naturally
be branded racists. Accusatory banners were all over the place
during the demonstrations.
But in reality, the main concern isn’t over race, it’s over
culture. If a demographic reconquista were to occur and if
Hispanics fail to assimilate and Americanize themselves
sufficiently, then the American Southwest becomes the cultural
equivalent of northern Mexico and it ain’t racist to not want
that to happen. Just ask the reconquista and open borders
crowd to name a country in the world whose people would hap-
pily stand by and watch their culture be overrun by another.
The average illegal immigrant from Mexico probably
doesn’t consider himself part of a vast reconquista conspiracy.
He just wants a better life for himself and his family. But that
doesn’t mean that he and half of Latin America should just be
able to waltz across the border whenever they please.
If the day ever comes when Hispanics outnumber native-
born Americans because of a demographic reconquista fueled
largely by illegal immigration, will those Americans then be
able to complain about their own stolen homeland? Sure, but
not without being called racist.