Immigration protest: The good, the bad, and the ugly

I predict we're going to see a lot more of this until the United States decides whether it's going to have borders or not. As it stands, the immigration boosters and the immigration restrictionists can both reasonably claim they're in the right, based on current policies.

To begin by giving credit where it's due, the Newark Star-Ledger story appears to be reasonably even-handed. (I say "appears" because I wasn't at the event, so I don't know what may have been left out.) It's refreshing to read a piece that doesn't automatically put the pro-immigration speakers in the lead paragraph and give them far more space than the other side, who are relegated to a token quote or two way down the line, followed by a "rebuttal" from the immigrationists.

Otherwise, the report of this demonstration makes for pretty dismal reading. Insofar as they are quoted, both factions sound bad, and the whole business feels ugly. Especially when viewed as a preview of more, and worse, to come.

Although I'm for stopping and reversing the immigration debacle, the case doesn't lend itself to sound nuggets and bumper-sticker slogans. The good guys in Morristown seemed to be trying to act like oafs, and succeeded.

When he took the stage, the mayor, who is seeking to deputize local police officers as federal immigration agents, condemned his opponents for stalling his efforts.

"How dare they, how dare they question my right as mayor of this community to move this program forward?" he asked.

Huh? Mayor, you must have sounded like Mussolini up there on his balcony with his arms crossed and chin out. What do you mean, "how dare they" question your right? You're a politician, man. People are going to question everything down to whether your tie clashes with your shirt.

[Mayor] Cresitello retaliated with a warning. "To the Communists across the street, and the Marxists, we know your motives, and we will not continue to let you go forward with your intent to take over our country," he said.

Oh, deliver me. Let's not mix the immigration problem up with Red-baiting. Even the malignant politicians, business interests, and media propagandists who promote open borders aren't Commies. Criticize them for greed, exploitation, indifference to the general good, overpopulation promotion, and plenty else … but they don't have eyes to create a dictatorship of the proletariat. If anything, they're out to destroy what little remains of a solvent American working class, replacing it with a sub-working class of welfare-supported galley slaves.

On the immigrationist side, the arguments, if you can dignify them with that term, were as scurrilous and dopey as usual — "Mayor KKK," etc.

"That side is hatred, and hatred is what causes the problems here," Miculiani yelled, pointing at the crowd outside town hall. "It's these kind of people, they're no better than the terrorists on 9/11!"

It's scary that people as demented as this inhabit the same country I do. And of course you have the inevitable priestly twit, calling on God to send the Church in the United States more peasant faithful to fulfill the quotas for fund raising, weeping statues and Mary sightings.

Father Hernan Arias, pastor of the church, asked God to help the country's immigrant workers. "In your eyes and ears we are all legal, because we are your sons and daughters," Arias said.

Begging your pardon, Father, but I expect the nuns taught you Latin when you were in school, maybe even the term non sequitur. You would no doubt agree that God has endowed everyone with an immortal soul — making them his "sons and daughters," so to speak — including murderers, torturers, rapists, pederast priests: all sons and daughters of God, however twisted. Does that mean they, or their actions, are all "legal"? I'm afraid, old boy, you are seriously confusing God's universal love with human society's need to set rules so it can function reasonably well for everyone, not just for your victim class of the month.

We're likely to see such ugly scenes as this demonstration multiply, and probably grow violent. Because the longer we have national borders in name only, the more "migrants" are going to flow in with an attitude of entitlement and a big family.