Watch out again for the stupid “illegal immigrant rights” equals “civil rights” propaganda! Check out this NY Times story, Immigrants Rally in Scores of Cities for Legal Status, by Rachel L. Swarns. For some reason, the New York Times thought it would be cool to reprint this quote:
“‘We are in the situation that Rosa Parks was in several years ago,’ said Mr. Rodriguez, who works in the landscaping business. ‘Enough is enough.’”
They really want to hammer home that point, eh?
Well, I can repeat myself too. Even though, “some marchers invoked the tactics and slogans of the civil rights era,” their rallies have nothing to do with civil rights. Civil rights belong to citizens. That’s not being xenophobic. That’s a FACT of SOVEREIGNTY. The United States is not a sovereign entity if everyone is entitled to our benefits. They just don’t understand the notion of a nation, or the notion of laws. That’s why illegal immigrants are a threat to our sovereignty. What happens when illegal immigrants can march in your country and change your laws?
I am in complete agreement with your ideas about rights, laws, and sovereignty, as it has to do with illegal immigrants.
But all that is far less interesting to me than the bigger historical picture. As I may have commented here before (or in an IM convo with you), for me demographics trumps politics.
The broader aspect of the current North-South ‘culture wars’ intrigues me, in much the same way that this is relevant in terms of other global powers or empires in the past (especially the Roman Empire).
For the past quarter-century, the rate of the ‘browning’ of California and other border states has been increasing more rapidly than at any time in the last century. I don’t need any data to support this contention (though these can certainly be found)… it’s pretty much everywhere you look now, in California and elsewhere: immigrants from Central and Latin America, both legal and otherwise, have become an unmistakable and undeniable part of the cultural fabric. For better or for worse.
But see, the legality of it all, or the process by which this migratory influx is happening, does not interest me nearly as much as why it is happening in the first place.
Basically, I see a continuation of the cultural and social ebb and flow that our human civilizations have always experienced, regardless of place and time. A big part of that, of course, manifests itself in wars and armed conflict. But a more subtle and generally unremarked aspect of this ‘war’ takes place within a longer span of time, and does not necessarily involve bloodshed. This aspect is manifested in waves of migration, immigration, out-migration, and the like.
Believe me, having heard first-hand the propaganda of MECHA students concerning “Aztlan” (this was a staple during the student movements of the early to mid-80s at UC Berkeley), the idea that a cultural war is in fact ongoing has long been obvious to me. The U.S. won what used to be Mexican lands fair and square: some of it in armed conflict, some in outright purchase, or some in outright theft. (Not forgetting that, going back further, the Hispanic Mexicans themselves stole those lands from the native Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, etc.)
The current demographic pressures from the south are just a long, historical tidal flow aimed to ‘rectify’ the result of that particular process a century and a half ago.
And you’re quite right: the very sovereign identity of the United States of America is at issue, and at stake.
The relevant questions are: will eventual legalization of 11 million or so illegal immigrants be that big a detriment to the integrity of that sovereignty? Or can they be absorbed into the system in a way that moves the system forward? What might this mean for the particular makeup of America, as a nation of immigrants? Will the relentless ‘browning’ of California and other border-states somehow mean a fracturing of the American identity?
My tentative answer to that last one is: a qualified no, for now. But in another generation? In fifty or so years? It may well be different. As I maintain, demographics trumps politics. Or, put another way, culture is the overarching structure beneath which the political dynamics are played out. The issue is cultural, not political.
Surely, you don’t believe that only the left/liberal are guilty of, or capable of, propagandistic statements are you? In the interest of equal time (equal opportunity! ::chuckle::) how about this…
California Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher declared, at a seal-the-border rally in D.C.: “This is about taking care of our own family before we take care of a foreign family.”
Uh, right on, Congressman. And what, pray tell, was Iraq all about? Your side says it wasn’t about the (non-existent) WMD after all but about freeing the Iraqis from a madman despot.
We certainly took steps to take care of THAT foreign family, didn’t we? Only, that meritorious act has led to plunging them into the national catastrophe of a civil war. Uh-huh. Right on, Congressman.
But yes, it seems to me propaganda is always an insult on the intelligence. ;p
That’s no secret, Shawn… nor should it be. ::chuckle::
It’s straight out of Charles Krauthammer’s most recent column at the WaPo. Looks like you’ve been channeling him? ;-)
It’s the most sensible proposal I’ve read in the whole debate thus far.