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 Illegal
Aliens: Just Mobbing the Streets Americans Won't Mob
Out of control…
[by Mac Johnson] 3/28/06
To the astonishment
and delight of the news media, Saturday saw an unprecedented
protest by an estimated 500,000 illegal aliens and their advocates
in Los Angeles. Smaller rallies were held in cities across
the country, opposing efforts to secure the border and finally
crack down on illegal entry into America by millions of unscreened
foreigners. Apparently, the protests prove what a “divisive” issue
illegal immigration is. To me, they simply prove that criminals
dislike the prospect of increased law enforcement.
But that’s
not all the protests prove. They also prove how ridiculously
out of control our federal government has let the problem get.
Which is worse -- that a half million immigration criminals
and their descendants and sympathizers can be found in a single
American city, or that the current immigration enforcement
system is such a joke that the half million have nothing to
fear from openly entering the public streets and arguing against
legislation currently before Congress?
Contributor
Mac
Johnson
Mac
Johnson is a freelance writer and biologist in Cambridge,
Mass. Mr. Johnson holds a Doctorate in Molecular and
Cellular Biology from Baylor College of Medicine. He
is a frequent opinion contributor to Human
Events Online. His website can be found at macjohnson.com [go
to Johnson index]
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It’s
as if thieves thought they could form a union to lobby for
fewer cops.
Sadly, many in Congress will actually consider their demands.
You know, just like Mexico would consider the wishes of any American
criminals in their country for profit.
But mostly
the throngs showed how poorly we are assimilating the unprecedented
numbers
of migrants we have received in this
generation. The need to limit immigration to numbers that can
be properly assimilated has always been one of the main arguments
against tolerating illegal immigration, and this weekend’s
pro-illegal-immigration protests did much, ironically, to support
that argument.
Many of the
symptoms of failure to assimilate were obvious. The colossal
crowd,
allegedly gathered to tout their pursuit
of the “American Dream”, held signs in Spanish, waved
mostly Mexican flags, and chanted “Mexico! Mexico!” and “Si
se puede!” (Yes we can!). Which is, it seems, an answer
to the formerly rhetorical question, “Can the whole world
sneak into America?” There was also the predictable invocation
of race and ethnicity that is supposed to obligate American Hispanics
to side with the illegal aliens, at least in the nationalistic
eyes of the illegals themselves.
But there was a subtler symptom of how unassimilated the protesters
were: the quintessentially foreign form of the protest itself.
Due to its size, the protest shocked the American media. A wave
of 500,000 people pouring through Los Angeles is one of the largest
protests in the history of the whole country. Thus, the protests
have been reported as an extraordinary reaction to events in
American politics. But they are not extraordinary at all. They
are just the typical way that governments are influenced in many
Latin American nations.
What the protests truly represent is the colonization of America
by the Latin style of politics. Rally, demonstration, march and
protest are the tools of the politically dispossessed. They carry
with them the intrinsic threat that is always associated with
the gathering of large crowds in acts of political demonstration.
And they are standard fair in the lopsided politics of many foreign
nations, including Mexico.
Consider the following recent examples, all from the BBC World
service coverage of Mexico:
April 24,
2005: “Hundreds of thousands of people have
marched through Mexico City in support of the capital's embattled
mayor…”
September
13, 2001: “Union
leaders in Mexico say they expect thousands of people to take
to the streets on Thursday
in protest at plans to impose taxes on some foods and medicines.”
March 17,
2006: “Most
of the demonstrations in Mexico City remained peaceful, however,
with the violence blamed on
a small number of radical youths.”
March 19,
1999: “Tens
of thousands of demonstrators brought the centre of Mexico
City to a standstill on Thursday in a protest
against government economic policies.”
June 28,
2004: “Mexican
President Vicente Fox has said his government has failed to
defeat violent crime, after a protest
in Mexico City by over 250,000 people.”
November
28, 2003: “Tens
of thousands of people have marched through Mexico City to
protest against energy and tax
reforms...”
January
31, 2003: “Thousands
of farmers gathered in the Mexican capital to demand their
government renegotiate a regional
trade pact...”
August 28,
1999: “Thousands
of demonstrators have taken part in a march in Mexico City
to protest against government
plans to allow private investment in the state-owned electric
power industry.”
Viewed in this light, one can see that the protests are not
unusual at all -- for a Latin American nation. And it is an unassimilated
colony of Latin America that twenty years of corrupt government
inaction on illegal immigration has built in Los Angeles and
Phoenix and Chicago and Houston and dozens of other cities and
towns across America, both large and small.
For demographic reasons, the examples I gave above were drawn
exclusively from Mexico, but similar patterns of political protest
as the default means of lobbying government can be found in Venezuela,
Peru, Uruguay, and other Latin American nations. They are standard
fare, and institutionalized in the culture of the region.
In the United States, we write letters to the editor and vote
and debate. In the Latin world, people march and rally and muster
their numbers before the eyes of government.
What we saw this weekend was not extraordinary. It is the new
normal. It is the predictable and unimpeded flow of the political
culture of Latin America into the United States.
And unless we address the gaping hole in our border, enforce
our laws, deport illegal entrants, and again assimilate legitimate
immigrants into our unique culture, you can count on the United
States becoming more Latin American, and less American, every
day.-ONE-
First appeared at Human Events Online
copyright
2006 Mac Johnson
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