We need to keep the focus on the actual issue. That does not risk provoking some on the borderline ideologically, to reject our arguments out of sympathy for the individual targeted. There is too much at stake here, to risk turning off those we could otherwise reach.
For a summary of key points on the general question of immigration policy: Immigration & The American Future.
What follows is a little item I posted in several news groups on usenet, this morning:
The principle argument that those in Washington always rely on in pushing efforts to change America via Immigration, is to refer to us as a "Nation Of Immigrants." This while not strictly true--there is certainly a major part of us, who arrived as settlers in wilderness areas, long before the concept of a Nation and a people, identifying themselves as Americans, emerged from the Revolution--would not be applicable to the present debate, even if it were. The duty of those of us, whose forebears immigrated to America to join that settler Nation, would still be to America, not to the lands that we left; to the continuity of America, her values, mores and unique qualities, not to any foreign people or international pursuits.
For example, while three of my grandparents were immigrants, arriving in Cincinnati between 1877 and 1901; it would be a very shoddy form of betrayal and ingratitude for me to ever seek to compromise the ethnic integrity or culture of the people who accepted us into their ongoing society and body politic. That would be contemptible in the extreme!
But there is another point, here, that is essential to an understanding of the present dispute: European immigrants who came to America from the time of the Revolution up until the radical change in our immigration policy and attitudes after 1965, found the very individualistic concepts and challenges of traditional American society, appealing. They were drawn here because they admired the concepts of the Founding Fathers; in short, they represented an assimilable subset of the populations of the various European nations involved. They did not seek to change America, but to join her. They readily accepted the idea that their loyalty, henceforth, would be to their new homeland. There were some exceptions, admittedly; immigrants who remained in ethnic enclaves in major cities, who tended to bring with them and retain their social views from abroad. To this day, this latter phenomenon accounts for why certain Eastern cities, today, almost always vote for Leftwing candidates.
Yet, again, the bulk of immigrants from the Revolution onward, including also those from certain Asian countries--which actually have higher intelligent quotions than many of the rest of us--actively sought the challenges of a society that expected individuals to make their own way. They were willing to accept the prevailing values and common history of the Americans as their new heritage; willing to defend America and the continuity of her peoples and communities, as a sacred trust. And that always included a duty to defend the space and resources of America for the descendants of those already here, against any foreign interest.
The swarms of Mestizoes from South of the border have never evinced the slightest desire to embrace what they consider the Anglo culture of traditional America. They do not affirm the America of the Founding Fathers, they disparage it. While many, individually, have good work habits; the massing of protestors in Los Angeles and other cities, recently, demonstrated in vivid images that they identify socially with the mass movement, and in their case, a mass movement that demands that we accommodate them! This is not a type of immigrant that would ever have been acceptable in America. They are not acceptable now.
Thomas Jefferson justified the Louisiana Purchase as intended to provide a buffer between our settlements and the world that the illegal intruders, now marching, represent. Does anyone believe that Jefferson was less of an American than George W. Bush? Does anyone believe that Thomas Jefferson had less of an understanding of what was right for America, than Teddy Kennedy? Does anybody believe that any of the appeasers, the Quislings in Congress, was even in the same league with Thomas Jefferson in intelligence? That does not mean that one may not challenge Jefferson's thinking. But our would be betrayers will not even acknowledge that he should be part of the debate. They do not want the issues discussed.
How dare they seek to compromise the integrity of our culture, heritage and legal system, in the manner now proposed! We dare not let this betrayal go unchallenged.
For other essential considerations in any American Immigration Policy: http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa/migrate.htm.
For specific answers to President Bush on relevant points: http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa/bush1.htm.
William Flax
This has many funny lines, and makes many valid points. It is, however, in my opinion, so insulting as to be counter-productive. It detracts from many valid points on the immigration issue, by its too many personal cracks disparaging the President as a person.
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Sounds like you just described an Ann Coulter column.