El Fin del Sueño Americano

I read the other day there was a movement to counter the Latino’s Day Without a Mexican, scheduled with unintentional irony on May Day. The plan is to have a similar day to demonstrate the power wielded by another special interest group, in this case a forgotten special interest group, and have A Day Without an American. I have an inkling the consequences of the latter would reverberate a bit more. That is if we could get the average American to believe taking a day off work to demonstrate had a real value.

And what is an American? Aren’t most of the Latinos demonstrating either American or people seeking to become American? With the exception of Native Americans and the occasional Viking, we’re all from someplace else, but we’ve melted into a weird and homogenized nation better than any other country on the planet so it’s difficult to notice national origins now. Why is it too much for anyone who wants to find a better life in America to be asked to share in this miracle of assimilation?

The Europeans are struggling with a huge surge in immigration, principally from Muslims, and are facing chaos as a result. The reason isn’t so much the surge as the fact that there is no desire of the immigrants to mix so much as a thimble full of European culture into the culture they have brought with them. For the most part, the immigrants live in segregated enclaves in the poorest sections of Europe’s major cities with no opportunity to find work and no desire to learn anything about their host country. The U.S. will face a similar reality if it doesn’t continue an organized route to citizenship.

The immigrants knocking on our door may be seeking an orderly process or maybe just a free-for-all at Ellis Island. It’s far from clear what the demonstrators want. Is it blanket amnesty and then have the door closed behind them? This was done in 1986 when we gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants with the proviso that there would be no more free passes to enter the country illegally. On the surface, it appears the demand is for the 10 million or more people in the country illegally to bypass the due process faced by all other immigrants, including criminal background checks, and be given citizenship. This is akin to someone breaking into your house and taking up residence in your basement and then telling you there is a good chance that 10 other members of his family will be joining him.

We also hear a lot of noise about this being the next civil rights crusade. This should be an insult of the highest degree to blacks who fought for simple acceptance on the basic principle of the founding of the nation that all men were created equal. They sought the right to vote, the right to enter our schools, basic equal treatment and to no longer be forced into segregation. But there stood Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, forever shameless racial ambulance chasers, equating the two struggles.

Latinos would do better by learning how to articulate and frame their goals. Americans instinctively know the difference between these two civil rights crusades. Blacks were owed. For centuries they had been the victims of a historic national crime. The principal crime involved in the immigrant crusade is the violation of immigration laws by the illegals themselves.

Just to make this mess even messier, politicians have decided to wade into this to shore up votes from all the proposed incoming voters. Nothing snaps a politician into action faster than an opportunity to appeal to millions of newly registered voters. This occurs to Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal. She is the granddaughter of immigrants, and writes movingly and with touching sentiment about the bravery and courage of desperate men and women who leave their homeland in search of a good life. Nevertheless, she says, "I think open-borders proponents are, simply, wrong. I think those who call good people like members of the voluntary border patrols 'yahoos' are snobs. I think those whose primary concern is preserving the Hispanic vote for the Democratic Party, or not losing the Hispanic vote for the Republican Party, are being cynical, selfish, and stupid, too. It's not at all about who gets what vote, it's about continuing a system of laws that has allowed America to become, among many other things, a place immigrants want to come to. And it's about admitting immigrants in a coherent, orderly, legal manner, with an eye first to what America needs. That's how you continue a good thing, which is what we've had." I couldn’t have said this better myself.

If things continue down this negative path, I might just have to apply for immigrant status in New Zealand. In 10 years, after proving my value to the country, I just may get there. And, if you need a humorous take on this, read the Sladed Blog for a laugh at http://sladed.blogspot.com/.