Sebastian Mallaby’s column in today’s WaPo nicely encapsulates the core of the immigration debate. Though he low-balls the economic effects of immigration, how you answer his question is key:
Is it right to push native workers’ pay up by 2 percent if that means depriving poor Mexicans of a chance to triple their incomes?
Formulated this way, a patriot would have to answer yes, of course; Mallaby answers no. Apparently, in his world, America exists to enrich poor Mexicans, rather than promote the interests of the American people. Actually, “post-Americanism” may not even be the right heading for this item, since it’s not clear whether Mallaby has even bothered to become a citizen yet. His job title, though, is almost a parody of post-Americanism: deputy director of the David Rockefeller Studies Program at the Council on Foreign Relations!