The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration by John Zmirak

Author:John Zmirak
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781621577584
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2018-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

Compare and Contrast: The United States versus Mexico

Mexico is a vast, complex, and beautiful country full of hard-working people of enormous creativity and faith, which has for most of its history been crassly misgoverned—wasting its great potential, and driving millions to flee their homes for America, in defiance of our just and democratically enacted immigration laws.

The stark contrast between American and Mexican history can be traced all the way back to the culture and politics of the nations that colonized them. The English who settled in North America came from a kingdom where the Magna Carta had prevailed for more than centuries, guaranteeing due process and property rights. The rule of the king of England was dependent on the consent of Parliament. Local government was strong, and much of the power decentralized. The English Reformation, for all the cruelty that was practiced on both sides, had underlined the need for restraints on royal power, as non-conforming Protestants cited medieval Catholic precedents in Common Law to protect their political and religious freedom.

By contrast, the kingdom of Spain had made itself religiously homogeneous in 1492 when it expelled the last Jews and Muslims. In 1520–1521 the Spanish Crown crushed the revolts of localists. Its kings repealed the fueros, the Spanish Magna Cartas that had once guaranteed the rights of citizens and small communities. Spain’s kings rejected as inefficient and antiquated medieval restraints on monarchs and governed according to the new theory of absolute monarchy. Order was not seen as something that grew organically from the ground, but as a magnetic force that proceeded from a single all-powerful center.

These contrasting political philosophies set the tone for the histories of two nations. While English colonies developed vibrant town councils and colonial legislatures, mostly rejecting attempts to impose royal governors from England, the provinces of New Spain were run by appointees arriving from Spain. The initiative for laws came not from the citizens of Mexico City or Monterrey, but from faraway Madrid.

Nor did the Spanish legal system provide the same robust protections for property rights as those English citizens and colonists could rely on.

When England tried to impose protectionism on the residents of its colonies, their local governments resisted, winking at smuggling to avoid the crippling tariffs. By contrast, New Spain’s governors were perfectly willing to govern that province in Spain’s (not New Spain’s) interests, suppressing whole industries if Spain found the competition obnoxious. The path to wealth in New Spain lay through royal patronage and vast land grants, not industry or commerce.

When the United States and Mexico cast off their colonial masters, each followed in the tracks which their past had lain down. While the American Founders built elaborate checks and balances into their Constitution and reserved most taxing and governing power to states and even towns, the elites who seized power in newly founded Mexico continued to act like Spanish grandees, seeing those whom they governed not so much as citizens but as subjects.

It was only the Catholic Church that preserved some land

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.