Adding to the unity of America

Today is John Stuart Mill’s 200th birthday.


Go re-read On Liberty (see how much credit I’m giving you? I’m assuming that you know more about Mill than that “John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.”) His writing tends towards the precise and rational, so he’s not all that quotable, but there’s this: “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.” Speaking of which...

George Bush: “Some people think any proposal short of mass deportation is amnesty. I disagree.” You’d think Bush would want to keep the few words he does know, yet he keeps defining so many of them in such a way that they never apply to anything related to his policies: torture, civil war, amnesty.

Still, there are some words I wouldn’t have thought he even knew, much less that they’d ever pass his chimp-like lips. In today’s radio address, he says that on immigration there is a “rational middle ground” between his two straw men, automatic citizenship and mass deportation.

There is no middle ground for aliens though. “[W]e must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot by helping newcomers assimilate into our society. ... When immigrants assimilate, they will advance in our society, realize their dreams, renew our spirit, and add to the unity of America.” Realize their dreams unless... Hey! You’re dreaming in Spanish, aren’t you? Stop it at once!

What does “add to the unity of America” actually mean?