Replies

It sounds to me like you have had this rant tucked away waiting for an opportunity to use it and don’t care much about what you are actually replying to.

I never brought up slavery. As for race, genetically distinct people are known as races, as in the Celtic Race or the Scandinavian Race. As such they were racists in opposing the immigration of the Irish Race. Good thing they never succeeded as the Irish Catholic family that gave us Ronald Reagan would have been shut out.

I’m sorry the only argument you can use against someone who disagrees with is “vacuous and silly.” There is nothing vacuous or silly about my earlier comment. Can I play that game too, using random adjectives? How about if I call your arguments odorous and flammable? Perhaps your arguments are adhesive and frigid.

Go ahead and defend the Know-Nothings, it will vindicate Bill O’Reilly. But please don’t link that group to today’s opposition to criminal illegal immigration where race, religion or nationality have exactly ZERO to do with our concerns now.

It sounds to me like you have had this rant tucked away waiting

Why no. I just found your comment silly considering the actual history. Thought I'd set you straight. Perhaps you've not studied much American political history, I have.

"Genetically distinct" is not a sufficient English label to bring up the word race. But even if it were, you can't use an archaic and quaint term like that to differentiate the Irish from anyone else in Western Europe. Virtually all Western Europeans descend from the group that took refuge in the Iberian Peninsula during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). You can learn about that here: Haplogroup R1b .

To assert that the Know Nothings were racist in opposing the Irish is ridiculous. The Irish are not a "race" in any genetic sense of the word relative to pretty much anybody else in the British Isles or even Northwestern Europe.

They were however nationalist in the political sense, and once again, Catholicism was a political issue (again...you know that, right?), along with English political differences with the Irish nationality.

And as for Mr. Reagan, I guess we could say they redeemed themselves with him, especially considering this other contribution from nationalist Ireland:

But please don’t link that group to today’s opposition to criminal illegal immigration where race, religion or nationality have exactly ZERO to do with our concerns now.

I realize that is the politically correct thing to say, but our failed LEGAL immigration policies are compounded by illegal aliens, most of whom are the uneducated poor of Latin America. It is changing the demographics of this country significantly in a very short period of time

We already have many guest worker programs in the form of various visas such as H1B, H2B, TN Nafta Work visa, L-1 Intra-company Transfer Work visa, Nurse Work visa, O-1 Visa, P Visa, R-1 visa, etc. We have millions of people working here as guest workers under those programs.

We don't need to increase the number of the current one-million legal immigrants we take in annually. We do need to change the existing immigration laws that are not serving us well as a nation. We are taking in more legal immigrants than ever before, just not the ones we need to provide us with the skills and talents required to keep us competitive in the global economy. We don't need to import high school dropouts from Latin America to keep our economy going.

And we are witnessing one of the greatest mass migrations in history, which has changed the demographics and culture of this country in less than 40 years. In 1950, Hispanics comprised 1 percent of the population. Today they are about 15% and by 2050 will be 24.4% per Bureau of the Census projections. What is going on is unprecedented. Little did anyone know that when the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed, the demographics would be so significantly affected. Teddy Kennedy said on the effects of the act in 1965, "...our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset...." The act's supporters not only claimed the law would not change America's ethnic makeup, but that such a change was not desirable.

Oh, how wrong they were. We are not only taking in 1 million legal immigrants a year [60% from Latin America,] up from 178,000 a year prior to the Act, but the ethnic composition of the US has changed dramatically and will continue to do so at warp speed. The additional 500,000 to 1 million illegal aliens, mostly from Latin America add to this flood of immigrants. In 1965 when the Act was passed, the United States was overwhelmingly composed of whites of European descent (89% in 1965), with the only minority group of significant size being blacks (10%). By 2050 non-hispanic whites will be 50% and declining fast. It is not politically correct to state what is happening in this regard, but the real question is can America retain its national identity and culture or will we become Balkanized along linguistic and cultural lines? Demography is destiny.