Immigration

"Hardening toward immigrants legal and illegal" says this Wall Street Journal article. Employers are in a panicked state, no doubt, considering the loss of cheap labor. The average American is thinking about jobs, security and not considering the increase in consumer goods and services, but it seems they care less and less about the pinch to their wallets with each passing day.

Polls show a hardening attitude toward immigrants -- even legal ones. In three Wall Street Journal/NBC and Pew Research Center polls this spring, nearly half those asked said immigration hurts the U.S. by taking jobs, burdening public services or threatening "customs and values."

The rising passion is creating a climate that allows politicians to "rather commonly" say things that only hate groups once uttered, says Mark Potok, who monitors those groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. "When politicians and other leaders speak in this way, rank-and-file people feel they've been freed to do the same and worse," he adds.

Here we go. Let's paint those "rank and file people" who would like to change immigration around to be on the right side of the law as recently liberated racists. How do you explain my Hispanic friends who own a house-cleaning business who feel the same way? Hmmmm? Are they racist, too?

Here's how my view has hardened:

• Health care costs. I have a $6,000 deductible. Recent low-income immigrants may have to wait a while, but they have access to Houston's phenomenal health care system for free via Emergency Room visits and "Gold Card" access. I guess big companies have done the cost-benefit analysis and decided that they save more in taxes and wages, than the increased health care costs. Maybe with their huge negotiating power they're just screwing the Small Business Owner. Some small biz owners don't seem to do the ultimate math either. For every worker, he brings a family that must eat, have health care, be schooled, and ages. That's expensive.
  
• Cultural disregard. The one thing the protests have driven home to me is that these people view themselves as Mexicans in America not Mexican Americans (the ones protesting anyway). While many people I know don't view themselves this way, a growing number do. They live in neighborhoods where the only language spoken is Spanish. Like one lady I read about in LA said "it's like living in Mexico". And we're not even talking about the Muslim populations who are isolated not only culturally but religiously, too. Mexicans, by and large, are Catholic. Their Christian heritage, history of Christian missionaries, etc. make for a similar background. The Muslim centers are Islamo-centric, reinforce misogyny, and other discrimination under the cloak of religious freedom. This is dangerous. We only need to look at Europe to see where it leads.
• Crime and terrorism. It is not irrational to be concerned about a border so porous that any crazy with a rocket launcher could blast Brownsville or San Diego. Are the politicians insane? Do they not see the possibilities here? It isn't racist to want a secure America. It's not just the Drug Lords and Mexican soldiers and Mexican law enforcement on the take and rapists and murderers and gangs that threaten America. It is all of them and the psycho-Islamofascists intent on forcing America's submission to Islam that are concerning. A fence and border enforcement with teeth would at least stem the tide. Can we at least make the bad guys work for their nefarious goals?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm for LEGAL immigration. Make the immigrants legal. Guest worker programs are just so much beuraucratic nonsense and everyone knows it. That "rank and file" Americans are pushing back gives me heart. They have some common sense!

What amazes me, is that by tabling the legislative bottleneck, I'm just wondering if a compromise will be hammered out after the mid-term elections that the vast majority of Americans are against. I have never seen the government so determined to defy the voter's will and cater to one special interest alone--big business. Now, that's anti-American and elitist.

June Kronholz of the WSJ implies this dithering has awoken a sleeping beast. No, Ms. Kronholz, 9/11 awoke the sleeping beast. Thank. God. But her bias shows through:

The debate has energized anti-immigrant or immigration-restrictionist groups. Congress's focus on immigration has "helped create the terrain" for groups like the 18-month-old Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which patrols the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal crossers and has raised money for a border fence, says Devin Burghart of the Center for New Community, a Chicago policy group that monitors a dozen groups aiming to restrict immigration.

Again, I feel that this is a misrepresentation. People want legal immigration with all the demands, tax responsibility, cultural acceptance and melting-pot participation that being a legal American confers.

As far as Muslim immigrants go, I would love to hear an official say what John Howard of Australia essentially said, "Assimilate or leave." Sounds good to me. Why come to a country where you don't want to partake of the culture? If an immigrant legal or illegal just wants to get fat economically but not acknowledge that it is the Judeo-Christian heritage, culture, constitution, and capitalism that causes this, if they believe that Islam and totalitarianism holds wealth-producing and freedom-loving societies, then I recommend they move to one. Love America (and all its imperfections) or leave it!

It has traditionally been challenging to become an American. It should be. It's the greatest citizenship on earth. America has the most open, friendly culture on earth. Don't think for a minute that it can't be destroyed. Greediness for cheap labor and the cheap goods cheap labor provides can be the Trojan Horse that destroys America. It is a "gift" that we will pay for eventually.

Politically correct, progressive multi-culturalism set in a socialistic society will destroy like a hidden cancer too. I'm sorry, moral relativists, but some values are more intrinsically valuable. Some beliefs and creeds support the very diversity you so cherish and others destroy it. Why can't this very obvious fact be acknowledged? Does anyone doubt that Islam as practiced by even "moderate" believers (is there such an animal, I ask again?) is unfriendly to what Americans hold dear and cherish? Can a multiculturalist really be sure that their freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to pursue happiness, will be protected in a society that bows to a law intent on imposing a belief system? Are multiculturist so full of hubris they believe they can change a religion? And isn't that notion antithetical to multiculturalism to want to change a belief system? Well, they've been trying to do that for years to the Christian religion via the court system and denying our country's religious heritage. I see why they're optimistic.

While pundits and editors and CEOs and intelligentsia and the President and Congress and the Academy decide what is good for Americans, the "rank and file" are getting fed up. Far from being racist rubes, I think the "rank and file" see the forest for the trees. It is heartening that they, at least, are less concerned with money and image and more concerned with what's right and will sustain the great run this young country has had.

Ain't nothin' free in life. June Kronholz, the President, Congress and everyone else in the "know better" crowd might want to remember this before disparaging the "rank and file".

H/T Instapundit