The Watcher's Council's Birthday Present

Gates of Vienna placed first this week on -- ta da -- May 26th, my birthday. Let Us Make Them All Welcome won. Writing the post made me stop and think: why are these immigrants welcome, while at the same time the idea of a wall and strict enforcement re illegal aliens is an appealing idea?

Well, for one thing, those whom I want to make welcome are coming here legally, toting their passports (that is, if the Netherlands ever gives Hirsi Ali her passport back, she’ll be here). For another, the people I welcome are being actively persecuted. And last, they have skills and experience that will add to the American experiment, not attempt to rip it asunder.

I like Mexicans: I like their food, their music, and much of their culture. I like the legal ones who come here, work hard, learn the language, and strengthen our commonweal. I do not trust anyone who comes into this country complaining about our inferiority, refusing to assimilate, and threatening to take over a land to which they are not entitled. I am sorry for Mexican citizens who are forced to live under a yoke of corruption and repression in the land of their birth. But overwhelming our social structure is not a cure for Mexico’s deeply systemic problems. An unlimited, unchecked and overwhelming assault of our borders amounts to a viral infection that could kill us at the root. Funny thing about viruses: they don’t really care what happens to the host.

And what do you know: The Glittering Eye took second place for his essay, Assessing the Threat at Our Southern Border. He quotes from the chief of the Border Security Patrol:

”The U.S. continues to experience a rising influx of other than Mexican nationals (OTMs) illegally entering the country. Apprehensions are running at a rate of 175% for FY05 over FY 04’s record number of OTM apprehensions on the southwest border, and 131% over the record national FY 04 OTM apprehension figure of 75,371. The exponential growth in the apprehension of OTM illegal entrant aliens and, in most cases, their subsequent release is a major impediment to the removal process.”

And he concludes with his own on-going concern:

I’m going to continue to document the actual security threat at our southern border using the best sources I can identify but I think I’ve achieved my goal: a single source would be enough to disprove the claim that there’s no security threat whatever from our southern border and I’ve provided several.

Five years ago I believed that our first priority in improving the security of the American people—significantly more important than military action which I generally opposed—should be in devoting more attention to securing the ports of entry to the country against entry by those who would do us harm whether they were attempting to enter the country by legal or illegal means. I continue to believe that. I think that our time would better be used in debating ways and means for doing that than in a shouting match between those who will accept no alternative other than building an impenetrable wall between the United States and Mexico and expelling all illegal migrants and those who will accept no alternative other than open borders.

As usual, Dave’s essay is thoughtful and informative. I’m not sure that I would call the current conflict about what is to be done re the borders “a shouting match,” but on the other hand, we Americans do tend to resort to verbal brickbats as we work our way to consensus. Or not.

Third place was Dr. Sanity. I don’t normally feature the third place winner, but you ought to read this. The Narcissistic Synthesis has a table which would serve well as the basis for a book. If you don’t read the whole essay, look at the table and ponder the information. Someday, that’ s going to be in a book somewhere; it has a wealth of information contained in just that one schematic.

In the non-Council section, The Anchoress is in fine fettle. Her essay, The Essential President Bush obviously struck a chord with many of the council since she won handily. Here is just a small part of a long, quite coherent, rant:

Let me tell you what has surprised me about George W. Bush. I have been surprised by his ability to keep from attacking-in-kind the “public servants” in Washington who - for five years - have not been able to speak of the American President with the respect he is due, by virtue of both his office and his humanity, because they are enthralled with hate and owned by opportunism. I have been surprised that he has kept his commitment to “changing the tone” even when it has long been clear that the only way the tone in Washington will ever change is if everyone named Bush or Clinton or Kennedy is cleared out and “career politicians” are shown the door and - it must be said - every university “School of Journalism” is converted to a daisy garden, maaaan. We are stardust. We are golden.

I wasn’t surprised when President Bush thought that New Orleans had dodged a bullet after Hurricane Katrina, and therefore let down his guard. After all, we all thought NOLA had done so. I wasn’t surprised that he had - similarly to his actions the year before, re Hurricane Charlie - asked the Democrat Governor of Louisiana (and the Mayor) to order evacuations and suggested to her that she put the issue under Fed control to speed up processes (she did not, btw for a long while). But I was surprised that, when the press “picked and choosed” their stories while launching an unprecedented, emotion-charged, often completely inaccurate (10,000 bodies!) attack on the President - the rising waters were all his fault and he was suddenly “the uncaring racist attempting genocide by indifference” - the President did not fight back against the sea of made-up news and boilerplate, fantastic charges against him.

This has surprised me, too. Sometimes it has made me angry, that he won’t fight back. It’s a part of leadership to do that. His hiring of Tony Snow will go a long way toward helping in that regard. Our commander-in-chief doesn’t need to answer every sophomoric idjit within the Beltway or the pages of The New York Times. However, he does need agile, articulate spokespeople to counter the poison from the professionals.

A fine disquisition, Anchoress. Thank you. But would you ask him to stop signing away so much money?

SigCarlAlfred came in second with another rant. A wild and wooly discourse he calls simply SC&A Vent.

The time has come once more for SC&A to unload.

We don’t care who we insult or who takes offense. Unlike the other brilliant therapists who regularly blog, we are dead and thus don’t give a rats ass about what you think. Further, we are smarter than you, better looking than you and the object of desire of m fabulous and good looking women. For you whiny, metro-sexual and sensitive bastards out there, we concede you look very nice in your pink shirt, yellow paisley tie and dress flip-flops with tassels.

Onwards.

Let’s get real about immigration. The same cheap ass bigotry that is on display today in much of the right wing blogosphere, predates you. That’s right — your high minded bigotry, couched as ‘concern,’ is nothing new.

When the Irish Catholics came off the boat in New York, escaping from famine and certain death, high minded Americans beat the crap out of them because the freakin’ Catholic papist evil bastards were going to ruin the country.

When the Italians and the Jews got off the boat in New York, there were those who met them at the docks and welcomed them with baseball bats — literally. Why? Because the damn Jews and more papist evil bastards Italians were going to ruin America. Later migrations of other ethnic groups were met with similar experiences. If the welcome in New York wasn’t enough, that human flotsam that boarded trains to middle America had it even worse. There was no ‘neighborhood,’ there was not much of an immigrant community to find refuge. Immigrants to these shores faced hatred and bigotry that was unimaginable. Some of this fine and caring ‘immigrant aid societies’ sold children into servitude in the Midwest (Norman Rockwell never got around to painting pictures of Italian and Irish kids being beaten and worked like farm animals), to never again see their parents.

[…]

Incredibly, immigrants survived despite the bigotry of many of this country’s citizens. Now, pay attention lefties and stop touching yourselves. Your as racist and bigoted as any on the left. We’ll get to your sorry and miserable asses later. As for the Hispanics reading this, stick around — you too, are in need of a reality check.

Here’s the deal — Hispanic immigrants aren’t going to ruin America. You know why? Because they come here as ‘wretched refuse.’ They have no other place to go. They see the buffet and smorgasbord of possibilities and are willing to work for their share.

[…]

Just to give you the flavor. Well salted and peppered, wouldn’t you say?

The rest of the offerings are at their usual spot, The Watcher's Place.

Mangez!