Pirate's Cove

And probably a raaaaacist, too boot. So says Robert Kagen of the left leaning Brookings Institute

Immigration reform can prove U.S. strength and security

The debate over immigration will tell us a lot about the state of the national psyche. How do Americans feel about themselves and their nation? Are they confident or insecure? Do they want to go out and compete in new ways in a more competitive world, or do they want to try to shield themselves from the world’s new challenges? Are they in a declinist mode or a revivalist mode? Is the predominant sentiment one of fear or national assertiveness?

Where’s the part about enforcing the rule of law? That seems to be missing.

Historically, there has often been a correlation between national anxiety and insecurity and the desire to limit immigration. The “know-nothings” of the 1850s genuinely feared that U.S. democracy was in danger of being subverted by the wave of Irish and German Catholics who, they alleged, took their orders directly from that great “ally of tyranny,” Pope Pius IX. Proponents of Asian exclusion in the early 1900s feared that Japanese immigrants were, among other things, an advance guard for the coming invasion by the “yellow peril.” And it wasn’t a complete coincidence that the most severe crackdown on immigration came in the 1920s, when Americans, disillusioned by their involvement in World War I and suspicious of a chaotic world, turned determinedly inward. Part of shutting ourselves off from the world included shutting our borders to the world’s refugees.

Again, what’s missing? Well, that would be any mention that those were all positions of the Democrat Party (turning inward also involved Republicans, as the world went into the Great Depression). Democrats made restricting immigration from certain groups official parts of the Party Platforms.

It’s probably not a coincidence that, in today’s debate, the opponents of reform express a mood of pessimism, warning about both the loss of jobs to immigrant workers and the threat of terrorism, as if the present system were ideally suited to protecting jobs or guarding against attacks like that at the Boston Marathon.

Nothing is being reformed: illegals would simply be legalized, then offered a pathway to citizenship. But, hey, you opponents are just silly thinking that adding tens of millions of low wage unskilled workers, soon to be entirely dependent on government handouts is a Bad Idea.

Proponents of reform, on the other hand, take an optimistic view of the U.S. capacity to absorb and benefit from immigration. On the Republican side, they also happen to be the leading proponents of active U.S. involvement in the world, such as longtime internationalists John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Like them, another of the immigration reform bill’s sponsors in the Senate, Marco Rubio, has been a strong advocate for U.S. global leadership. His support for immigration reform clearly stems from his basic confidence in the United States and his desire to ensure that it can continue to compete and lead effectively.

But the majority of Republicans think those 3 Republicans are complete chumps and fools. Democrats now love them because they’re optimistic that by adding roughly 28 million new citizens will create a permanent Democrat controlled government, with so many of them beholden to the government programs. Law? Democrats couldn’t care less about that.

But, if you’re against turning those who broke our laws, abuse our public and private systems, more often than not refuse to learn and speak English, and commit crimes against Americans (like identity theft, rape, burglary, and murder) into citizens quickly, you must be insecure and fearful or something. None of the proponents of the shamnesty scheme can truly offer up deep meaning rationales for legalizing them beyond meaningless platitudes, so they tend to couch it in terms of feelings.