Text 19730, 125 rader
Skriven 2006-05-09 06:32:53 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Alan Hess
Ärende: Chapman on protests
===========================
Alan Hess -> all wrote:
 AH> What do you think of his take on immigrant protests?  I must say he does
 AH> seem to have a point about the flags.

 AH> *******


 AH>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.chapman08may08,0,4887888.
 AH> story?coll=bal-pe-opinion

 AH>  From the Baltimore Sun
 AH> Outrage over immigrant protests doesn't add up


 AH> By Steve Chapman

 AH> May 8, 2006

 AH> CHICAGO -- The immigration protests held across the country last Monday
 AH> serve as a perfect Rorschach test: What reaction did you have to the
 AH> sight of hundreds of thousands of immigrants marching down American
 AH> streets, calling on Congress to accommodate them? Dismay? Ambivalence?
 AH> Admiration?

 AH> A lot of political debates turn on facts and arguments. This one is
 AH> mostly a matter of competing emotions.

 AH> Among many conservatives, the emotion is outrage. Republican Sen. Trent
 AH> Lott of Mississippi said the protests "make me mad." Republican Rep. Tom
 AH> Tancredo of Colorado fumed, "All these folks that are here illegally
 AH> know they can protest brazenly."

 AH> Mr. Tancredo is one of the prime supporters of a bill passed last year
 AH> by the House that would criminalize being in this country without
 AH> authorization, erect a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and
 AH> bar illegal immigrants already here from gaining legal status. That
 AH> bill, more than anything else, is what has brought so many immigrants
 AH> into the streets to demonstrate - which seems only to harden the views
 AH> of the hard-liners.

 AH> Former presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan wrote in The American
 AH> Conservative magazine, "That hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens,
 AH> all subject to deportation, would defiantly march under foreign flags in
 AH> U.S. cities suggests the government of the United States has lost its
 AH> moral authority." Another contributor said the rallies show "a more
 AH> menacing side" of the illegal population.

 AH> But up close, that side was nowhere to be found. The mood in Chicago was
 AH> cheerful, and the behavior was peaceable. Despite the influx of nearly
 AH> 400,000 people, Chicago police reported no arrests and only one minor
 AH> scuffle.

 AH> This was not a mob bent on upending the social order. Instead, the
 AH> marchers were asking, in a sober and restrained manner, to be included
 AH> in that social order. They were not looking for a fight - they were
 AH> hoping to avoid one.

 AH> As for foreign flags, it will come as news to veterans of St. Patrick's
 AH> Day parades that banners of other countries are inherently offensive.
 AH> But by my count, foreign flags in this protest were outnumbered at least
 AH> 5-to-1 by Old Glory - not counting all the stars and stripes on T-shirts
 AH> and caps.

 AH> The complaint about "foreign flags" is especially nervy coming from Mr.
 AH> Lott, who as a cheerleader at the University of Mississippi used to
 AH> carry a Confederate battle flag onto the football field. Unlike the
 AH> architects of the Confederacy, those people waving flags from Mexico or
 AH> Honduras never tried to tear this country asunder.

 AH> Conservatives defend the Confederate flag as a legitimate way for
 AH> Southerners to honor their heritage. It doesn't occur to Mr. Lott and
 AH> Mr. Buchanan that maybe immigrants brandish the flags of their mother
 AH> countries for similar reasons, not out of contempt for America.

 AH> True, many of these people are violating immigration laws. But whose
 AH> fault is that? Critics act as though we've been invaded by hordes of
 AH> outsiders. In fact, Americans have invited them in by declining to
 AH> enforce our laws and providing them with ample employment opportunities.

 AH> The furor over a Spanish version of the national anthem revives fears
 AH> that Latino immigrants have no interest in assimilating into American
 AH> society. In fact, today's immigrants behave pretty much like those of
 AH> the past. Almost all second-generation Hispanics speak fluent English,
 AH> and 72 percent of third-generation Hispanics speak nothing but English
 AH> at home.

 AH> The closed-border crowd thinks those who violate immigration rules
 AH> represent a danger to law and order. But the opposite is true: Latino
 AH> immigrants are more law-abiding and less inclined to criminality than
 AH> native-born Americans.

 AH> Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson attributes the steep drop in crime
 AH> in the 1990s to the arrival of so many foreigners. His study, he writes,
 AH> "found that immigrants appear in general to be less violent than people
 AH> born in America, particularly when they live in neighborhoods with high
 AH> numbers of other immigrants."

 AH> The immigration hard-liners insist on seeing everything illegal
 AH> immigrants do in the worst light - as hostile and subversive. The
 AH> protests made it clear that they don't want to destroy our way of life.
 AH> They only want to share in it.

 AH> Steve Chapman is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His column appears
 AH> Mondays and Wednesdays in The Sun. His e-mail is schapman@tribune.com.

 AH> Copyright + 2006, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery
 >> Get news on your mobile device at www.baltimoresun.com


These dickheads just don't get it.  It isn't about hating Mexicans or anybody
else.  Its about following the law.  If they enter the country illegally, then
they are criminals and should be prosecuted as such. Obviously, we can't put
them all in jail, so they should be expelled.  I am also against any kind of
amnesty.  And make no mistake, no matter how convoluted the path, anything that
results in citizenship for illegals is amnesty.

Those people want to take back the entire Southwest, and have been advocating
that for decades.  I got into arguments over this with latinos 30 years ago. 
But let them do their thing.  Every time they wave a Mex flag in our streets,
or carry signs advocating taking back Texas or California, they are making it
that much easier for people to agree with whatever it takes to get rid of them.

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