[Snowbirds] upped stakes, bought houses in Phoenix, and woke up one morning with the disturbing sensation that everything around their new domiciles is a little spicier, more colorful, and suntannier than it really ought to be.

 

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At least, once you scratch through the bullshit concerns about crime (hint: violent crime is down statewide), and get past the relatively small portion of the population really fearful of competition for jobs (strangely few native-born Americans hanker to repair roofs when it’s 115 in the shade), the conversation always seems to turn to fears that American culture is being swamped by a cilantro-seasoned wave of foreignness.

 

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Unfortunately, the part of the American tradition that I like the most — that of the restrained state — is being jettisoned by the nativists themselves. Fearful of the alien influx from the south, the know-nothings are turning their back on America’s original distrust of overbearing rules enforced by armed government employees, and turning — or trying to turn — the U.S. into a European-style bureaucratic state. They’re not trying to defend the entire culture, you see, just the bland, repressed part.

 

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