Mark: You write, concerning selective exclusion of geographical or cultural regions:

“The problem is that this goes against Americans’ basic moral universalism, which I share, and thus is, at the very least, politically untenable. Thus, the other option — reduce immigration overall (for which there are lots of other reasons, too), regardless of nationality. Non-discrimination and mass immigration are just not reconcilable.”

I am curious to know just how “basic” that moral universalism is. In respect of immigration policy, it is a pretty recent addition to our “basics.” Fifty years ago nobody would have known what you were talking about. Everyone understood that immigrants from some regions and cultures were to be preferred over those from others. Even Edward Kennedy, speaking in the U.S. Senate in support of the 1965 Immigration Act, took pains to assure the chamber that: “The ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. … Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa or Asia…” Where is the moral universalism there? If Senator Kennedy had been a moral universalist, or believed that his voters were, why would he have felt the need to say those things? What would it matter what happened to the “ethnic mix,” or which “country or area” immigrants came from?

So far as immigration policy is concerned, the moral universalism you write about is an innovation, and I doubt it has sunk very deep into the collective American psyche. I suspect that this recently-coined moral universalism in respect of immigration is actually:–

(a) An empty moral-status-claiming pose on the part of our money-sheltered elites, to whose ranches, gated communities, and doorman buildings the practical consequences of immigration policy are of no importance, except in so far as they affect the supply of cheap domestic servants.

(b) Vaguely understood by large sections of the middle class as something they “ought” to believe, though very few of them could tell you why.

(c) Hotly disputed by several tens of millions of patriotic and law-abiding U.S. citizens, with Republican voters a large majority among them.

I fear you are right about “politically untenable,” though. A politician who came out for a total ban on all immigration from Muslim countries would be immensely popular; but he would never again hold public office.

I clearly recall the fuss over Enoch Powell’s ”Rivers of Blood“ speech in England in 1968. In the weeks that followed, you could hardly find anyone who disagreed with Powell. (A source of some distress to me: I was a 23-year-old love-the-word socialist at the time.) I half expected Powell to be swept into Prime Ministerial power by public acclamation. Instead, he was kicked out of the Shadow Cabinet and never again held government office.

Of course, all Powell’s dire predictions have come true.

Funny thing, representative democracy.