The US is Not "Like Nazi Germany"

Oh, Brother.

I just heard a radio sound bite of some anti-anti-illegal immigration protester claiming that America is like Nazi Germany: We are putting up a border fence in Arizona and storm troopers are demanding to see people's papers.

The easy explanation would be to point out that in Nazi Germany those things were done to keep people in -- in Arizona they are being done to keep people out. That's a significant difference right there, but also an over-simplification itself.

It is commonly agreed that The United States is a nation of immigrants, legal immigrants. For over two hundred years in all parts of the world -- people have left their homes, their extended families, their possessions and moved to the New World of the United States. Those huddled-masses built this nation. An immigrant today doesn't just join us, but in a real sense joins those earlier immigrants, too.

It should be self-evident that the old legal-way worked well; we're all here, aren't we? We all have grand-parents or great grand-parents many times removed who came here from somewhere. They all were escaping a tyrant, a famine, religious oppression, or a backward culture that would abandon them to an eternity of peasantry. All were looking for a new start and a chance at Life. Very few of the world's wealthy left their estates or their villas to move here. Even the Marquis de Lafayette, after serving with George Washington and helping win our independence, moved back to France -- I'll never figure why. So don't fall for a lecture about "America hates poor people". Poor people by the million came to the United States and made it what it is.

The protest focused on Arizona is really a part of the economic resentment directed at the American people as a whole. It is self-serving and ultimately will prove self-defeating. There is no reason now to discard our measured means of selecting, admitting and absorbing new citizens in favor of a lax open border policy that disadvantages the American people.

The recent Arizona law was forced on the Governor, the Legislature and the People of that State by the inaction and fecklessness of the Federal Government. We've all heard the stories. How much murder and kidnapping does the Administration expect the people of Arizona to put up with? Just a little bit more, and then we'll do something? The fact is, the American public is being ignored by those who would benefit from either cheap labor or cheap votes. As Americans we have a right to expect our government to fulfill its commitment to "provide for the common defense" and to "insure domestic tranquility".