The Economic Nationalist

William Hawkins writes today in the Washington Times,

Release of International Monetary Fund economic growth projections for 2007 set off a rash of misleading headlines. Many claimed that because China will lead the world with a national gross domestic product growth of 11.2 percent, it is the “engine of the global economy.” This implies what is happening in China benefits the rest of the world, when in fact it is really only empowering China. Its impact on other countries is problematic.

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Do you know of any better way a recent immigrant could prove real loyalty to the United States than to demand the end of immigration from his old home country? I do. He could serve a tour in the U.S. Army, then upon honorable discharge demand the end of immigration from his old home country.

He could be more American than the Americans. There are immigrants who do this, you know.

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Though The Economic Nationalist endorses no presidential candidate yet, now seems as good a time as any to update the blog’s running presidential preference list. The list is found below.

Before giving the list, I should remind readers that this blog is a patriotic effort by a rank-and-file, right-wing Republican but is absolutely not a formal partisan operation. I prefer Republicans and seldom vote for Democrats, but for various reasons (not all of which have to do with economic nationalism as such) some Democrats rank here higher than some Republicans. The list includes both viable and interesting candidates, without comment as to which is which, and includes a few plausible noncandidates. It excludes candidates the blog finds neither viable nor especially interesting, but it does include the blog’s subjective letter grade for each candidate it does list.

1. Tom Tancredo (GOP) (A)
2. Duncan Hunter (GOP) (A–)
3. Mitt Romney (GOP) (A–)
4. Dick Cheney (GOP) (B+)
5. Mike Huckabee (GOP) (B+)
6. Fred Thompson (GOP) (B)
7. Byron Dorgan (Dem.) (B)
8. Ron Paul (GOP) (B)
9. Sam Brownback (GOP) (B–)
10. Newt Gingrich (GOP) (B–)
11. Dick Gephardt (Dem.) (B–)
12. Rudy Giuliani (GOP) (C)
13. Al Gore (Dem.) (C)
14. Joe Lieberman (if Dem.) (C–)
15. Joe Biden (Dem.) (C–)
16. Hillary Clinton (Dem.) (D+)
17. The Constitution party nominee (D+)
18. The Libertarian party nominee (D)
19. Joe Lieberman (if Indep.) (D)
20. Bill Richardson (Dem.) (D)
21. John McCain (GOP) (D–)
22. John Edwards (Dem.) (F)
23. Barack Obama (Dem.) (F)
24. Michael Bloomberg (Indep.) (F)

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If you have children (or maybe you remember your own childhood), then you will have seen a child try to force something, like a key in a lock or the buckle on a belt, or a door when something is caught in the frame below the hinge. When the thing does not go, you and I stop, back off and reassess, but the child applies more force until the thing bends, warps or breaks. Crack! Oops.

It seems to me that our nation’s leading free traders increasingly approach U.S. trade policy in such a manner. The thing the free trader forces however, is not a key, a buckle or a door, but an economy and a nation. One wonders what it would take to teach today’s free trade theorists the simple wisdom to stop, back off and reassess. What exactly is so important to them about the theory, anyway, that for its sake they insist on pounding every last millimeter of the square national peg into the round international hole?

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Writing publicly to me, a reader named Mitch has raised a relevant point, I think. I would like to highlight it here.

Perhaps I was being unduly presumptious thinking that economic protectionists, regardless of where they stand on everything else, could get along and devote themselves to the core issues. One of my presumptions that was in error was that economic-nationalism / trade protection is a core issue with you. You obviously have other things that you hold … dearer to your political being. You seem to be more in line with racialist Identity politics, and your “nationalism” waxes more like the Blood&Soil type than civic. (more…)

Events have brought the issue of immigration into play this year, such that the issue seems more or less to have taken the blog over. What then has happened to the trade issue? Well, here is what has happened to it. The United States can solve her trade problem three times over and it won’t make a bit of difference to you and me, if the country is not even inhabited by Americans any longer. Trade reform is important, but immigration reform comes first.

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These words emerged in a discussion with my blogging doppelgaenger Mitch. The words are mine:

A nation may be a people with an idea, but she is never an idea with a people. Pull the blood-red thread out of the fabric of a nation; watch the nation unravel.

Somehow, I liked the way that came out. If you did, too, then the expression seemed worth excerpting for the record here.

HJH

The Economic Nationalist is not a “red-meat,” purposely provocative conservative blog. It is a populist blog and, hopefully, a reasonably thoughtful one (I see little inherent conflict between populism and moderate thoughtfulness in this country; such is the deep-seated nature of the American race). The blog’s style is Paul Weyrich, not Sean Hannity. I admit that as I age I find myself less and less fond of extremes.

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Have you been following this? I don’t know about you, but I find it riveting.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a long-awaited overture to disaffected Catholic traditionalists, Pope Benedict XVI relaxed restrictions on the use of the Tridentine Mass, the Latin-language liturgy that predates the Second Vatican Council.

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Opening the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote of that “decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind [which] requires that [one] should declare the causes which impel [him].” Though not fully a Jeffersonian, I find myself today in a position I think Mr. Jefferson would understand.

Other than the lurking shadow of nuclear war, I doubt that any issue brings our nation implications so profound as race and religion do today. Having fought a bloody War between the States in part over race, having ransacked our good 1950s society by the 1960s Civil Rights movement, having suffered 9/11, one would think that Americans would grasp this instinctively.

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