Spain, the end of nationhood, and the wonderful migrants
A remarkably candid column appeared in the New York Times this week by Spain’s left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who recently announced his government would grant amnesty to half a million illegal immigrants living in Spain. Framed as an argument for “why the West needs migrants,” Sánchez’s essay is really an admission of moral collapse, and a frank declaration that he intends to destroy his nation in exchange for short-term economic gain.
It is an admission of moral collapse because the Spanish government has signaled its willingness to erase their country, put the interests of foreigners above those of native citizens, and turn Spain into a magnet for Third World migration.
There is some irony in this, because Sánchez claims the primary reason to enact mass amnesty is moral. He argues that because so many Spaniards emigrated to the United States and Europe beginning in the middle of the last century, and because Spain’s economy is now flourishing, the country must grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants: “It is our duty to become the welcoming and tolerant society that our own relatives would have hoped to find on the other side of our borders.”
Tellingly, Sánchez does not mention the moral duty the Spanish government has to his own people. Nor does he even attempt to explain why Spain has a moral obligation to legalize these migrants. The parallel he draws between Spanish nationals emigrating to Europe and the United States, and migrants from South America and Asia illegally entering Spain, is disingenuous to the point of absurdity. There is no more similarity between the two than there is between a guest one invites over for dinner and a thief who breaks into one’s home.
This brings up the question: what is a nation these days? Nations make decisions about how many immigrants to let in legally, but it seems that more and more often these limits are ignored in favor of open-door compassion – or what Gad Saad calls “suicial compassion.”. And of course, these days some of the immigrants (legal and illegal, but probably more of the latter) are coming with takeover in mind. An undoing of the Reconquista?
Many leftists appear to consider illegal aliens as sacred cows – quite wonderful and to be protected at all costs. The virtue-signaling is immense. But it’s not just virtue-signaling, as Sanchez’s Times piece goes on to say:
But the moral duty argument isn’t the only one Sánchez proffers. He also claims that the West “needs people.” Unless western countries embrace mass migration, “they will experience a sharp demographic decline that will prevent them from keeping their economies and public services afloat. Their gross domestic product will stagnate. Their public health care and pension systems will suffer.” The only way to avoid decline, he says, is to accept mass migration and integrate migrant groups as much as possible.
What Sánchez hints at but does not say outright is that he thinks Spain needs an low-wage underclass …
The demographic decline has to do mostly with birthrates, I believe, which have fallen precipitously in most developed nations. It’s a real problem, but importing newcomers who don’t share the values and belief system of the host country, and who have no intention of assimilating into those values and beliefs, is not the answer although it’s the answer a great many national leaders give these days.
There’s a great deal more at the link, but this is especially insightful, I think:
That is to say, the leftist regime in Spain, much like regimes across western Europe, has essentially decided to impose on their own people an imperial form of government that they once imposed overseas, and to govern their nations like colonies full of squabbling tribes and ethnic groups.
And some leaders are quite honest about the goals:
Irene Montero, Spain’s former Minister of Equality and leader of Podemos, celebrates replacing native Spaniards:
“Of course I hope for replacement theory, I hope we can sweep this country of fascists and racists with immigrants.”
Give her points for honesty – and little else.
Anybody catch Gad Saad’s interview by the CBT (Chief British Twit) Piers Morgan? It’s a daisy. Piers completely ignored the truths being spoken by Saad about the dangers of continuing to import moslems, falling back on those old canards that “most moslems are peaceful,” and “most crimes of violence are committed by white men,” when Saad attempted to explain his positions. It seems terms like “per capita” are beyond Morgans’ limited intellect. He completely failed to understand the unimpeachable logic of Saad’s arguments. Or perhaps he simply ignored it, as do all leftist useful idiots, preferring instead to rely on their ideological slogans.
The birth rate in supposedly Catholic Spain is terrible: 1.2 to 1.4 children per woman.
The second highest is Somalia at 5.91.
Well, Spain was run by Muslims for around 800 years so what do you expect.
It isn’t ‘compassion’. Illegal immigrants and bogus refugees are a political tool.
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Please note also that in recent public opinion surveys, Spain’s leftist parties have polled about 40% of the vote and some of that is held by refractory regionalist parties.
Cornhead — “The second highest is Somalia at 5.91.”
What is the highest?
I heard last week in a quick news snip that Sweden’s leaders are offering immigrants $37,000 to self-deport!
Wow. … Just wow.
They’ve so betrayed their country.
Selling out the natives, coming and going.
I wonder how many will take the offer.
ah musket morgan (because of his anti gun stance) has somewhat been rehabilitated, but still he often removes doubt, the gods of the copybook headings are quite clear, you can add the words of kipling, there was an anecdote in Michener’s Iberia, that noted the circumstances that preceded the takeover by the Saracens, a faithless Visigoth prince, history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme,
Spain’s historical trajectory has been downward since 1588.
One may well argue that Western Civilization is on a similar trajectory.
As events continue to unfold in that direction in this increasingly mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world, I find myself becoming, increasingly, an ethno-nationalist.
Mistuh Kurz, he dead . . .
A commenter on Althouse remarked that this wasn’t causing much uproar in Spain because many of the immigrants in question come from the old Spanish colonies.
Ironically, while Spain appears to be granting near-instant legal residence to illegal immigrants, red tape is impeding the citizenship papers of descendants of emigrants from Spain–who will be assimilated much more easily into Spain than illegals from Africa or Asia.
Over a million descendants of Spaniards have applied for citizenship, overwhelming consulates.
I have thought for a while now that we probably ought to consider the need to grow (over the next 30 to 80 years) to a USA population of approx. 400 million so as to better counter the global impacts from China (whether they are at the 1400 million level or really the lower levels of 600 to 800 million mentioned in some sources.)
Comments like this post and related news about “Europe” taking on their own defense, and staying or becoming a formidable and large economic force as well, suggest the USA 400 million might well be desired to resist initiatives from our former civilizational partners in Europe as well.
Another example of the lefty progressive assumption that “there are bigots among us, but furriners are not bigots.”
I am reminded of a friend who went to a UPS office to mail a package to her aunt in Israel. The UPS proprietor, of Arab descent and accent, refused to mail her package to Israel. To the credit of the other customers in the UPS store who heard this, they left the store without completing their transactions.
(BTW, the aunt in Israel is from Morocco, so the European colonialist canard that the Hamasniks apply to Israeli Jews doesn’t quite apply.)
Gringo, did your friend complain to the UPS about this unconscionable bigtotry? I hope she squawked LOUDLY.
Her aunt is hardly an outlier. Around half if not more of Israeli Jews are of non-European descent, many of them or their ancestors kicked or driven out of Arab countries after the birth of Israel. At one point I had thought the growing Mizrahi (Jews from the Middle East and North Africa) population in Israel would lead to its gradual acceptance in the region but it hasn’t worked out that way. Even the very grudging acceptance of Israel by some Arabs now is based mostly on a common enemy, the Iranian mullahs. It is pure Muslim antisemitism straight up.
One of the unmentioned problems with demographic decline, or even insufficiently rapid population growth, is that government old age pensions are basically Ponzi schemes. In order to avoid raising the taxes that fund the pensions, you need a continually expanding (and exponentially at that) workforce.
If it requires taxes from 5 workers to support one pensioner, then each of those 5 needs 5 more when they retire. Increasing productivity, and thus wages, can cover somewhat, but not anywhere near completely.*
With birthrates across the industrialized world falling, mass immigration is one way to make up the gap.
* It’s worth noting that this is one area (among many) where left-liberal ideologies are at cross purposes: government funded retirement benefits have been a part of progressive-left political programs going back a century or more, while zero or near-zero population growth is a big part of left environmentalist ideology.
Ironic that Christian forces retook Spain from Muslim occupation during the very hard won Reconquista, a series of military campaigns which started in 718 and culminated in the fall of Grenada in 1492 and, now, Spain’s current leaders are giving it back again.
Our Marxists sure seem to want to live or die on the No Borders hill as well.
Dave L.,
Regarding your asterisk, they are also, typically against organized religion despite the fact that Western natives in Liberal societies tend to be the breeders they need to support their social welfare wishes.
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If they must import Muslims import the ones who created Alhambra! Magnificent work.
If they can keep the immigration to Mexico and good areas of Asia Spain may change but not get wrecked.
It is not a hard reach to perceive that a black tide of stupidity, ignorance, and evil is sweeping over the Western world.
is that government old age pensions are basically Ponzi schemes.
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They aren’t.
The UPS proprietor, of Arab descent and accent, refused to mail her package to Israel.
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UPS should either strip this man of his franchise or explain why they’re legally debarred from so doing.
FOAF
Gringo, did your friend complain to the UPS about this unconscionable bigtotry? I hope she squawked LOUDLY.
She did squawk. UPS informed her that store owners/franchisers set policy in the store.
because many of the immigrants in question come from the old Spanish colonies.
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The ‘old Spanish colonies’ would consist of four pieces of territory which might have had a population of about 1.8 million in 1960. Most of the population lived in a segment of Morocco which was not securely held until 1928 or thereabouts and was relinquished in 1956.
Spain’s historical trajectory has been downward since 1588.
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This is a silly remark.
The ‘old Spanish colonies’ would consist of four pieces of territory
And large parts of South America and the Caribbean.
One of the expert commentators on China I follow is a native of South Africa–now living here in the U.S.–who goes by the Internet handle Serpentza, and here is his video report on how South Africa has been destroyed under the ruling African National Congress.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0sbFFvVyx8
And large parts of South America and the Caribbean.
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South America and the Caribbean are not populated with Arabs and Berbers and were relinquished by Spain 200 years ago.
She did squawk. UPS informed her that store owners/franchisers set policy in the store.
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I don’t think McDonald’s is going to say ‘store policy’ if they discover a franchisee’s workforce is spitting in the food of Jewish customers. And I doubt that was what UPS actually told her.
Art Deco seems to be my view that Spain hit its high point around 1588 as well.
Art Deco seems to be my view that Spain hit its high point around 1588 as well.
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Why not compare economic historians’ estimates of per capita product in 1588 and any time later?
is that government old age pensions are basically Ponzi schemes.
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They aren’t.
They certainly have the same structure as a Ponzi scheme: The money coming in gets used to pay the money going out rather than being invested. The only real difference is that the money keeps coming in because it’s required by law, so it can’t collapse like a voluntary scheme, though it can certainly run short on incoming funds. I doubt anyone under 40 or even 50 would pay into Social Security voluntarily.
— Art Deco
This. One thousand times this.
All the talk of ‘moral duties’ and ‘tolerance and diversity’, and all the rest, it’s garbage. Noise. The signal, ever since the 1970s, has been that the business-wing Right wants to import customers and labor to keep wages down and maintain sales, and the Left wants to dilute the native population for various reasons, some of which boil down to sheer hatred and contempt on the part of the educated elite Left for their own countrymen and culture.
(There was a Labour figure in Britain who admitted that one reason Tony Blair’s Government was so gung ho on immigration was to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity’.)
It’s a mistake to get bogged down in an argument with an establishment figure about the glories of immigration, because they themselves don’t care about that (well, some do, but not the ones who matter). The elite class hates and fears the commoners.
They certainly have the same structure as a Ponzi scheme:
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No, they don’t
van Gough’s “The Potato Eaters” captured the elite’s view of the poor citizens of Europe. Quite controversial at the time. Little has changed.
Dave L. on February 22, 2026 at 2:37 am said:
One of the unmentioned problems with demographic decline, or even insufficiently rapid population growth, is that government old age pensions are basically Ponzi schemes. In order to avoid raising the taxes that fund the pensions, you need a continually expanding (and exponentially at that) workforce.
But the imported workforce will make significant use of welfare while the ones who work will be a low pay jobs. And they will have high crime rates, etc.
They are not going to pay the bills.
Globalism is the goal, and unchecked immigration is the process they’re using to achieve it.
Art Deco seems to be my view that Spain hit its high point around 1588 as well.
Spain was the dominate power in Europe until late in the 30 Years War.
Spain was the dominate power in Europe until late in the 30 Years War.
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Spain had a period of pre-eminence. The last dominant power in Europe was Charlemagne. You want Spain’s agricultural productivity ca. 1600, it’s all yours.