WUI (Writing under the influence)

I said in this post that the liberal guilt was mostly to blame for the unbelievably pathetic attitude many on the left (and even on the right) have exhibited over the past couple of days.

It all started with this infamous quote from a known lefty:

[...] "illegal immigrants" are simply returning to the land that was once theirs (meaning crossing the current border), before the US stole it "fair and square" in an unjust war [...]

Of course, I'm not the only one who thinks that the combination of liberal guilt and some past grudges are causing what amounts to uprising of some kind in American streets. Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters says this, for example:

The rallies in Southern California only ripped the lid off of a well-known dynamic in the culture that mixes native guilt with radical illegal-immigrant activism to fuel the La Raza dream of Aztlan, the reconquest of the the Southwest and its return to Mexico or existence as a separate nation. This radical notion has been around since 1969 and plays a part in the fringe politics of the Southwest. However, the increasing sense of entitlement for illegals in the area has led this impulse out of the shadows and into the forefront of the amnesty movement by enabling people to argue that the illegals are returning to their own land and that the US lacks the sovereignty to declare otherwise.

So it's "native guilt with radical illegal-immigrant activism" according to Captain Ed. If true, this would be even more important reason to oppose this particular type of illegal immigration than the usual economic and fairness rationale.

A reader left this comment on my blog the other day:

[...] My wife, who is a mestizo immigrant (legal) from Mexico, supports enforcing immigration laws but across the board. That would include the one in seven coming from Canada. Somehow this inflow is ignored. Could it be because they are not brown?

I didn't answer right away because I didn't think that restating my usual position would have been good enough anymore.

[For the record, my reason to oppose illegal immigration from any country has to do mostly with economics and simple fairness, and, let's not forget, that pesky thing called the law. As far as fairness is concerned, the illegal immigrants are on the receiving end of the social contract we have in this country. Freeloaders are everywhere and that's already a good reason to oppose many of the social programs we already have. But because they are not going away, one way to eliminate potential abusers is to eliminate illegal immigration. If we go back to the times when the US welcomed almost everybody and when there were no income taxes, government schools, guaranteed health care, subsidized housing, etc., I won't complain as much.
IBD has a good editorial on this subject here.]

But the growing awareness that illegal immigration from the South may be after more than just economic opportunity, makes me worry less about fairness and more about this country. So the only answer I can give today is a quote from liberals' most favorite president courtesy of Rob and his Say Anything blog:

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

One country, one culture, one flag, one language...