A Hypothesis About the Progressive Commitment to Mass (Illegal) Immigration

What's up with this, anyway? Why is the contemporary left so committed to this weird (and destructive) idea?

Well, it's a lot of things, and the left is far from monolithic.

But this morning's thought: it's another social program. A kind of global welfare.

The really radical fringe of the left recognizes it as a way of undermining--"dismantling"--the West.

But that's not what mainstream progressivism wants.

It's also a way of promoting "multiculturalism"--though that term was more central to paleo-PC, the version of political correctness that erupted in universities in the late '80s - early '90s. We don't hear the term that much in the neo-PC era, but it's still in the mix.

There's also the more principle-based argument that we also hear from libertarians: borders and states are arbitrary, and/so we have no principled way to deny people access to our country. On what grounds do we prevent them from crossing the arbitrary line between, e.g., the U.S. and Mexico? (There are no such grounds is the answer they accept.)

But in addition to all that stuff (or so goes this morning's hypothesis), letting people into the country en masse is a kind of global welfare, an analog of wealth "redistribution."

Most such stray thoughts are wrong--but there it is, for your consideration.