In the wake of the
Boston bombing, and the changing national dialogue about immigration, I have a
scary warning for you, about some frightening people who have immigrated into
this country.
One group has come to
America because they are religious hardliners and outcasts: they didn’t fit in
where they came from, and when they sought refuge in a second country, they
found life to be too hard economically, they caused trouble for religious reasons,
and they’ve shown themselves to be dead serious about protecting their ethnic
identity rather than assimilating. Finally they were forced to leave the second
country and come to the U.S. Once here, they have been bitterly hostile to
others who don’t share their religious views.
A second, similar
group has followed the first, bringing the same sorts of baggage with them;
they hate the notion that their country would be fighting wars or asking their
people to support those wars.
A third group consists
of poor people forced to work for others who control their lives in every
respect; many of them have been widely assumed to be barbarians of inferior
intellect.
A fourth group has
fled from revolution at home; once they arrived they have resisted assimilating
with the locals or even speaking English.
A fifth group is a
bunch of dirt poor people who live a primitive, clannish existence, hating
other ethnic groups, and suspicious even of members of their own group if they
are outside the local clan.
A sixth group is
heavily loaded with criminals and is also loaded with disease.
A seventh group
consists of economic refugees who cling to their religious sect and don’t get
on well with those professing other religions.
An eighth group
consists of religious separatists fleeing oppression, people who reject
Christianity.
Almost all of these
people lacked proper documents when they arrived, they had serious trouble
supporting themselves and needed help from the people already here, many have
had trouble with the law, and they have often fought violently among themselves
and with members of other groups. And these people launched violent attacks
against the people who were already here in America.
Yuck!
So who are these
ghastly infiltrators who have penetrated our national defenses and infected our
country with their problems and their behavior?
It’s us.
First group, the
Pilgrims from the 1600s. Second group, the Quakers. Third group, slaves and
indentured children. Fourth group, the Germans and Dutch who moved into
Pennsylvania and the Midwest. Fifth, the Scots and Irish in Appalachia. Sixth,
colonists in the South. Seventh, the Irish (and also the Italians). Eighth, the
Jews.
They – we – came here
without documents, poor, fighting among themselves, fighting with the other
groups, killing each other, killing the people who were already here, stealing
land. And once here, “they” fought a bloody insurgency against their
government, an insurgency which involved terrorist attacks, and then fought yet
another insurgency defending the “right” to enslave, beat and kill other people
– an insurgency that killed 600,000. “They” have oppressed ethnic minorities,
religious minorities and women. They committed ethnic cleansing against the
Mexicans, genocide against native Americans, they put innocent Japanese in
concentration camps, and of course the Africans….Millions of “them” embrace
oppressive policies to this day, they are violent, they are impossible to
reason with, and they love guns.
Whose bright idea was
it, to let these dangerously crazy people into our country?
…In other words, we
are all descended from the “bad element”. “Real” Americans are scarier than all
the people they’re afraid of. The people who are trying to remake our
immigration laws, to keep out the “bad element”, should ask themselves whether
their own ancestors could meet the standard they’re trying to establish for the
newcomers.
That should include
the last two GOP candidates for President, one of whom wasn’t even born in this
country and made his name by crashing planes into inanimate objects on several
occasions (McCain). The other is a member of a non-Christian religious sect
launched by a convicted con artist, a man whose grandfather entered the country
illegally (Romney).
Or Marco Rubio, whose
main claim to fame is lying about his family coming to America because they
were fleeing Castro. Or Ted Cruz who megalomaniacally thinks he’s eligible to
be President although he wasn’t even born in this country. Or Huckabee who
wants to put HIV patients in concentration camps. Or Michele Bachmann who
advocated sending armed mobs into Capitol Hill to intimidate Democrats into
voting “the right way”. Or Ron Paul who is mentally unstable and who
essentially wants to dismantle our government. Or Sarah Palin and Rick Perry,
who advocate using the secession tool to break up this country entirely. Or
Piyush Jindal, a religious extremist who changed his name to “Bobby” so no one
would notice that his parents came from a territory right around the corner
from (gasp!) Pakistan. Would any of these unstable people be welcome in this
country if we tightened up the immigration rules, as they insist?