In a recent ‘counter-protest’ against the ‘riots’ there was a man wearing a t-shirt which said, “We Are All Immigrants.”
I am going to be generous and call this a “paradox” and not a “lie”. This is because I’m a sceptic. If I were solemn, stern and severe, then I would have to say that it is a lie. We are not all immigrants.
But with language we have to be sceptical, not pedantic or solemn: and being sceptical involves being humorous, admitting a bit of mixed signals and crossed frequencies and unintended consequences and also – the grand political possibility that we may assert that something is the case when it is not the case (in one sense) although it magically becomes the case (in another sense) just because we have asserted it.
“We Are All Immigrants” is true and not true.
It is not true because we are not all immigrants. On the contrary, as Andrew Collingwood has shown in these pages, following Benjamin Schwarz, three-quarters of us – if we are descended from anyone living in the United Kingdom before, say, 1950 – have roots going back six thousand years and almost all of us have roots going back as far as the Angles and Saxons. No one knows exactly how many Vikings or Normans settled here, probably more of the former than the latter, but it is estimated that the only major ingresses of population between 1100 and 1950 were the Huguenots in the 16th Century and the Jews in the 19th and 20th Centuries, fleeing oppression. In short, historians and historical geneticists agree that Britain had until recently probably the most stable population on earth, not only for reasons to do with limited immigration but also to do with the remarkable continuity of laws and institutions that historians like Hume and Stubbs and Maitland liked to write about and considered constitutive of whatever good order we happen to enjoy.
But it is true because it is not a statement of fact but a statement of right. It exists, in the mind of the t-shirt wearing bien-pensants, as a statement of attitude, belief, aspiration. There has always been plenty of black in the Union Jack, as well as brown, yellow, green, and other assorted rainbow colours.
De facto, then, nay, we are not all immigrants, never were, bloody rubbish.
De iure, then, yea, we are all immigrants, not least because we want to show the world that we respect other cultures, are ‘open’, inclusive, diverse, etc.
Note that the first is a fact, and the second is a hope. The problem is not with the hope itself, but with the fact that the fact is obscured and even obliterated by the hope. The t-shirt-wearing ‘nice’ people believe, somehow, in their tiny factual minds, that the hope that “We Are All Immigrants” is, in fact, a fact.
What is this all about?
It is about the dread word, “solidarity”…
…as it gets mixed up with another word, “liberalism”.
Solidarity is a good old collectivist word. It means the status of “standing solid” with others. Surely a good thing. But it has been given a twist by liberalism.
Liberalism is a good old individualist word, oddly enough. It means the consciousness held by someone “standing somewhat apart from others” but it also means, “nonetheless standing in an attitude of generosity to others”.
What we have nowadays is a mixture of collectivism and individualism in this liberal solidarity. It involves a particularly generous form of standing solid with others. It means siding with the lower, the lesser, the excluded, the exploited, the subjugated. Siding with the murdered, the raped and the hated. With the poor, the lepers, the lame. The immigrants, the refugees, the decolonised. Oh, and, a bit more awkwardly, the women.
And this, in our time, has given us phenomena such as “Je suis Charlie”, #MeToo and now “We Are All Immigrants”.
The logic is: “I, a privileged member of a privileged society, acknowledge my privileges (simplified into a singular ‘privilege’), and ostentatiously and symbolically sacrifice this privilege by making political genuflections to certain (er, privileged) causes which always involve putting myself into the position of the less privileged – thus, happily, though ironically, raising my status.”
“Je suis Charlie” was relatively specific, since it concerned a single event.
#MeToo was a bit odd as it stretched from specific sympathy for those with Hollywood stories of being sexually exploited by others, to a general sympathy for everyone who might ever be exploited in this way. But notice the shape of the slogans. Not “Poor old Charlie” but Je suis Charlie. I sympathise with Charlie so much that I become Charlie. Solidarity becomes identification. Not “#HerToo” and not “#YouToo”, but “#MeToo”. #MeToo says: “Not only you are exploited: it is we women, we everyone, as well.”
And “We Are All Immigrants” generalises the point even further. Not merely is it I, Je, Me, but the collective We. Now we are no longer involved in individual identification: it is no longer a matter of willing, or hoping, or wanting. Nay, it is a matter of destiny. The t-shirt which says “We Are All Immigrants” says in full: “Sorry, you cannot argue with this. Whether you like it or not, Mr. Far-Right, and Mr. Mediocre White Male, you are like the Jamaicans who have come since the 1950s, the Poles who have come since the 2000s, the Bulgarians who have come since the 2010s, and the Syrians and Somalians who have come since the 2020s: you are a bleedin’ immigrant. And as for you, Mr. Nodogsnoblacksnoirish, you should refuse to let yourself into your own pub.”
Our slogan henceforth could be:
#Je-suis-Everyone (except those who reject this sentiment).
The tragedy of all this – the fact that I write about it in comic manner does not mean I want to suggest that it all just Wodehousian persiflage – is that what we are seeing running through our society at the moment is a great battle, or culture war, if you prefer, between the extremist grandads and the centrist dads:
- The extremist grandads are the people who – mostly out of prejudice (but sometimes out of conscious reflection) – observe that “We Are Not All Immigrants”: these are the people who base everything on this fact, and then perhaps add to this fact a hope that immigrants can be kept out, or limited somehow (for the sake of nation, tradition, culture, etc.); and
- The centrist dads are the people who are ostentatiously ‘nice’ and who therefore care not for facts, and live entirely in the hope that we can “imagine-all-the-people” lying down with lambs and lions and jackals in genial UN- and WEF- and WHO- and IPCC- and IOC-type harmony, living in a world free of Piketty-type inequalities, Fauci-type viruses and Packham-type meltdowns. These are the ones who say: “We Are All Immigrants.”
Needless to say, it is the latter who are either, if we are harsh, lying, or, if we are less harsh, stuck in a paradox. Either way, what they are saying cannot be simply true.
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-many-flaws-in-sunaks-smoking-wheeze/
Why is he doing this? Basically, because he can. The Davos Deviants want to rub our noses in their power plays so that is why Fishy the WEF underling is being told to push this totalitarian crap.
This is a thinly disguised insult to the British people. The boot on the face.
What a Next Tuesday.
It certainly advances the idea that the state is responsible for managing the “health” of the population.
And anyone who doesn’t realise that after smoking it will be the next thing, and then the next thing and then the next thing after that is quite frankly a menace to society at this point. A dangerous idiot.
…yes..you are right……leading to when you don’t want to eat that mandated lab-made burger, with a side of cricket chips…which Bill made millions from, and is telling you is much more healthy and ‘sustainable’ than a real meat burger….
Even if they are right that smoking is bad for you, it’s my choice.
The real danger isn’t when they are wrong. That falls apart quickly. It’s when they are right in what they tell you is healthy or unhealthy that it becomes dangerous.
Because it doesn’t seem that our society is prepared to accept the right of each individual to decide to do things that aren’t necessarily good for them. People seem prepared to accept being treated like children.
“Even if they are right that smoking is bad for you, it’s my choice.”
But not if the consequences of your choice result in extra cost for the publicly-funded NHS … they go on to argue.
I know, that is what is so spectacularly dangerous. Because where do you stop?
Do you treat an obese person?
Someone who has a motorbike accident?
Someone who breaks a leg playing football?
Someone who falls over and hurts themselves and are found to be over the limit of alcohol?
It opens the door to regulating all risk taking, with no limits.
The people who push themselves forward to decide these things for us, you can be sure those people have no limits. They are insatiable in their appetite to rule over others.
Yes..the Russel Brand segment I have posted speaks to this…couching censorship and restrictions in words like equality, being kind, being inclusive…etc….
No one is safe until everyone is safe…
…so ultimately no one will be able to do anything…..
The middle and upper classes have always seen it as part of their responsibility to tell the oiks how to live. That restrictiveness doesn’t extend as far as highly moral and disciplined people such as themselves of course. Just the oiks….
It does demonstrate that top-down authoritarian ideology is behind whatever policies are pursued.
Next: sweets, dairy food, ICE vehicles, meat. Now, if only there were an easy, digital way for govt to identify who you are, how old you are, and what you’re trying to spend your money on, so that your purchase could be stopped by a centrally imposed algorithm. And if only there were a software development house – owned by a close family relative, say – which had recognised expertise in developing these sorts of digital control systems. And if only those trying to use cash could have their details checked using facial recognition based, say, on a passport photograph. But that would be too many coincidences, wouldn’t it?
Giving up smoking is good for you. Do it regularly.
There’ll be an even bigger black market on smuggled in tobacco, is all…
‘Kemi Badenoch shows why she is the the obvious choice for next Tory leader’
We can still hope that Rishi has enough political sense to read the mood in the country and do what is needed, e.g. withdrawing from the ECHR so the Rwanda scheme can start and rolling back more net zero commitments, to win the next election.
I’m not a big fan of Fishy but would much rather see him get another 5 years than see Starmer get the chance to completely trash the country especially if he needs SNP support to form a government.
If Rishi has to go I’m not sure if I’d prefer Badenoch, Braverman or even Pritti Patel to be the next Tory leader, although chances are a Tory wet will stand for leader and be elected by the parliamentary party regardless of what the grassroots members want.
Our salvation will not arrive via the ballot box.
“Rishi’s war on waste has defeated HS2. Now he must scrap Net Zero”
We have become addicted to public expenditure, and government intervention. Most folks don’t even think about why they are taxed on everything the earn, and everything they spend, and why this may not be a good thing. There are so many people being paid from the public purse, self preservation is deeply in play. Yet, as Elon Musk said when asked how it was possible to fire 80% of Twitter staff and still be able to function, “Turns out you just don’t need that many people”
Really? The fake onservatives (no ‘c’, not little ‘c’) have been in power for 13 years, 8 of those completely unimpeded and were voted in at the last election with an 80 seat majority. They have been at the helm while I’ve been made to watch my country be torn apart by an insidious mix of totalitarian beliefs and woke ideology. And now they want to change things? What, with an election round the corner? Surely nobody is stupid enough to buy this sh*t? But then…
Isn’t this a disgrace? Criminal actually. Guy Hatchard is in New Zealand but I wonder if it happened in other countries.
”I have made enquiries and found some staff prepared to leak information. One source has told me that 95 consultants in the Dunedin region alone benefitted from vaccine exemptions. Another source has pointed to a group of doctors working in Northland who arranged among themselves to remain unvaccinated. The total appears to run to hundreds and possibly more.
It seems that those granted exemptions were restrained by gag orders. In other words, they could not tell anyone that they had been granted exemptions—it was a secretive process that the Ministry of Health was anxious to hide from the public.
In any case, any doctor advising a patient that mRNA Covid vaccination might be risky faced disciplinary action and many were actually suspended.
So medical staff allowed themselves to be manipulated into a position whereby, if they were unvaccinated themselves, they were still required to advise their patients to vaccinate—a recipe for widespread hypocrisy in the health service.
The criteria for granting exemptions apparently entailed an assessment concerning how vital staff were to the working of the health service. In other words, senior figures and those holding key surgical positions could actually insist they remain unvaccinated and continue to be allowed to work. Whilst unvaccinated nurses for example could not gain exemptions and lost their positions.
If senior staff who wished to remain unvaccinated had spoken out publicly, the issue of Covid vaccine safety might have been given a public airing. Instead the Ministry of Health and the government kept a lid on all and any discussion. It did so through liaison with mainstream and social media outlets to censor content and through tight control of staff.”
https://hatchardreport.com/the-ministry-of-health-granted-vaccine-exemptions-to-hundreds-among-its-key-staff/
And on the topic of NZ. What a f*cking prat!
https://twitter.com/c_plushie/status/1708463821604708803
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/nz-doctors-avoided-covid-jabs-while-insisting-the-public-had-them/
This is in today’s TCW.
And if staff in the health service managed to get sly exemptions what’s the betting that dick of a PM got the real deal?
Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s raining.
Exactly.
There was an update:
‘It appears from the OIA HNZ00023978 dated 2 August 2023 that we reported yesterday that the actual total may be as high as 11,005. This figure includes over 1,500 administrative managers.
The health service employs around 80,500 staff. This means that as many as 14% of MoH staff were granted exemptions.’
I wonder how many of the ‘exempted’ participated in the mass jabbing of others? I sincerely hope that none did.
Latest leaflet Net Zero Britain Committing Economic Suicide
Why is “fat lesbian” an insult?
Don’t they keep telling us it’s wonderful to be homosexual and transexual?
And if the woman is overweight? Can you be thrown in jail for stating an observable fact?
This is how insane things are getting. Not even the censors are clear about what they want to censor,
They want to stop misinformation, no hold on, hate, they want to stop hate speech. Wait no, harm, that’s it harm is what they want to avoid. Or is it fake news?
Confusing right?
Not really, here is what they really want. They want to intimidate you and shut you up whenever they want. They want to have at their disposal a set of tools that allows them to arbitrarily go after whoever they want any time they want.
Don’t they also keep telling us it’s wonderful to be fat? So being called a fat lesbian seems to be the highest form of praise one could wish for.
Joking aside, it’s just someone being a bit nasty. How can that be a police matter?!
I have slowly come to realise that this isn’t the system failing, over reaching.
This is a systematic and deliberate change in how things are done. Basically a societal take over by totalitarians
The ambiguous norms are a well known feature not a bug of totalitarian regimes. Whether we will end up with one remains to be seen, but they are definitely trying.
..I’m suing the next fecker that calls me a tall, curly haired Yorkshire bird…..!!
It’s all true, but what the hell..they have no right to be observant or fecking call out the truth!!?
Barstewards!!
Calvin Robinson in this 10min vid talking about what it’s really like at GBN. Really sad that this is the reality actually.
”How long can a station keep calling itself “the home of free speech” when it continues to engage in cancel culture?
I supported my friends/colleagues and will continue to do so. That should not be a fireable offence.
GB News is controlled opposition.”
https://twitter.com/calvinrobinson
I think that at this point anyone who tries to operate within “acceptable” boundaries is going to look like controlled opposition. If for no other reason that the norms are constantly shifting, highly arbitrary and capricious. The only way it is possible to stay within these fuzzy lines is to try to guess and anticipate what they want to hear and what they don’t find acceptable.
The opening scenes of the film The Death of Stalin come to mind, where everyone is constantly looking at Stalin to see his reaction before they laugh or scowl at a comment. Basically they all know there are no norms, the norm is you can say what a Stalin approves of and your job is to quickly suss out what he thinks.
This is what the modern town square has become. A tyrannical, totalitarian capricious creature that you need to be constantly assessing to make sure it doesn’t devour you.
I agree with him, he shouldn’t be fired for just supporting his mate but why did he get involved in this spat in the first place? Surely he can see that there is free speech (but if you speak freely, there may be consequences) and there are codes of acceptable conduct which GB News has the right to insist on. A good example is right here where the DS promotes free speech but insists on no swearing in the comments section – that’s just the house rules. I always taught my kids to abide by the house rules of the person we were visiting, whether we thought they were a good idea or not.
I wouldn’t say the presenters at GB News are “controlled opposition” but I do think you have to hold in mind that its biggest contributor to the tune of £60 m is the Legatum hedge fund. It seems reasonable to assume that they might have an agenda ….
https://twitter.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1561663678935695361
The sad thing about all this is that the very serious issue that we should be talking about, male suicide, has been overshadowed by this.
Just Stop Oil just stops freedom
This episode of Tucker is a really good one. He is talking to Victor Davis Hanson…
They are talking about the USA, but so much of it relates to us all….immigration, lies, censorship, wokism..Democracy, and how do we fight back?
Well worth a watch…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUr3XP59-CU
Seconded – excellent discussion…
https://rumble.com/v3moc81-this-is-end-game-canadas-authoritarian-crackdown-on-dissent-stay-free-215.html
A good episode of Russel Brand talking about Canada..but also an interview with Stella Assange @1.14 ….
#free Julian Assange ….
England must be smoke free by 2030 – some background:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-khan-review-making-smoking-obsolete/making-smoking-obsolete-summary
Ethical Skeptic https://abs-0.twimg.com/emoji/v2/svg/2600.svg
@EthicalSkeptic
“The CDC decides to no longer publish US Excess Mortality Data, when it was not going away and was rising for a third straight year.
Therefore, make access go away.
Here was our final chart using the old system.
4,200 excess deaths in wk 37. 601,000 excess deaths, and rising.”
Contd….
”Here was our final Excess Non-Natural Cause Mortality chart, before the new director shut down the CDC reporting engine.
20.2% to the excess, 3.5 years past our coercive and panic-fueled decisions – with no sign of abating.
175 K dead.”
Del Bigtree’s Highwire from last week…
https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/turbo-trouble/
It is a fantastic episode..it starts with the Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo , who is always worth watching…
but if you haven’t the time or inclination to watch it all….the main thing that is a must watch is the Jaxon Report about @40 in…
A court order has released the fact that yet another thing that we were told..namely that the vaxx Spike Protein acts like a natural infection and leaves the body in a couple of days?? Was a lie….
They never even looked into it…..at all…
“The (Spike) Protein encoded by the RNA in BNT162b2 (Pfizer) is expected to be proteolytically degraded like other endogenous proteins.
Therefore no RNA or Protein metabolism or excretion studies will be conducted…”
I know this has been inferred or surmised by many..but here is the proof…..utterly shocking…
You could NOT make this up….
BREAKING: The Biden administration says there is an “immediate need” to wave regulations and build a border wall as the migrant crisis spirals out of control.
Remarkable. 4 years ago this was “racist.” Now they’re advocating for it.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas pursuant to sections 102(a) and 102(b) of [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996],” Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas said in an announcement.
Gee, maybe they shouldn’t have sold all the border wall parts.
Funny that, an election on the way and Trump likely to walk it.
….yes I’m sure that is the point..
the mayor of New York, who said it was a ‘Sanctuary City’ until there were millions of the blighters having to be dealt with …. has been ‘on the border today’…funny how, when it bothers the wokist’s in New York…suddenly they look for a solution.!!??