The Conservative’s Identity Crisis
Nowadays, conservatives are too nice and too busy cooing at the filthiest variations of human life (i.e., liberals). They are consumed by the notions of being accepted, being liked, being popular, or, at the very least, being appreciated. Quite oddly, conservatives have forgotten their conservative roots, their ideals. They have gone the way of liberals.
Viewpoints writer John Lovejoy, who advocated a federally sponsored voucher program for schools, is one such conservative gone astray. Any true-to-the-core conservative knows that economically deprived children don’t belong in school at all. No, the Fates have already chosen their future: a career in meatpacking.
The Big Picture
Before I go on, I must back up a bit and look at the bigger picture. Conservatives really aren’t very sure what to do about illegal immigrants from Mexico. From one point of view, they’re great. They pick apples, they wash dishes, they move furniture, and they clean up after children (mummy and daddy are always at the club). But from another point of view, they’re a pain. They don’t pay federal income taxes, they don’t speak English, and they wear sombreros.
For some reason—probably too much sombrero wearing—Americans became so annoyed with Mexican immigrants that we passed NAFTA. By moving American jobs to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, we tried to curtail illegal immigration from Mexico altogether. “Don’t come here; we’ll go there.” But this had dire consequences. By moving jobs across the border, NAFTA undermined the financial stability of working-class America, causing the further decline of the urban landscape.
Killing Two Birds With One Stone
It boils down to this: How do we keep Mexicans in Mexico but maintain a large supply of unskilled labor? And how do we deal with all those kids who attend failing schools?
Easy—put economically deprived children into the work force. As it is, children are a major financial drain on the country; schools are expensive. Indeed, if children were sent to work in meatpacking factories, they wouldn’t consume resources, they would produce resources. Instead of buying Barbie dolls, Nike sneakers, and pre-packaged meat, America’s urban youth would produce them. Furthermore, we would keep American jobs in America and all Mexican immigrants in Mexico. After all, since all the apple picking, dishwashing, and furniture moving positions would already be taken up by poor younglings, Mexicans would stay in Mexico happily wearing their sombreros.
Our Future?
The common belief is that “children are our future.” Well, yes and no. Only some children are our future. These children attend Andover and Exeter, then Harvard and Princeton (Chicago?), and eventually become doctors and lawyers. These are the few that American taxpayers should take an interest in. As for everyone else, “Let them eat cake.”
A Better World
This is what true-to-the-core conservatism is all about: creating a happy, orderly world. This is a world in which some spend their free time in Nantucket while others spend their free time in prison (indeed, a nice break from meatpacking), and a world in which some learn Postmodern Theory while others learn how to trim a rack of lamb, a world of lords and serfs. “Muffy, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Thank God, we’re doing the eating.”
