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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 6, 2006 / 8 Nissan 5766

‘Republican’ immigrants vs. ‘Democratic’ immigrants

By James Lileks


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The entire illegal immigration problem isn't that difficult. Just annex Mexico. Upside: lots of oil at popular prices. Downside: Once the Mexicans are Americans, they will presumably be unwilling to put up drywall or pick tomatoes, since those are "jobs Americans will not do." So maybe that's not a good idea.


Try this, then: Build a wall, tall and long. If you really want to horrify the world, put barbed wire on the top; this signals your intention to violate the most basic human right, namely, the right to go to California for dental care at someone else's expense.


Next step: Make current illegal aliens register, pay a fine and get on the path to legal status. The Amnesty That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Anyone who doesn't pony up gets shipped to the border. There you have it! Security, compassion, firmness. Drywall.


Never happen. Whatever comes of this recent debate — besides GOP bloodletting at the polls in November, if the base thinks they're squishy tools of Big Produce — it'll probably end up as another tourniquet that fails to stop a bleeding arm. Partly because it's not tight enough. Partly because it grandfathers in all the previously spilled blood. And partly because the problem is actually a severed leg. We could secure the borders if we wanted to, but as with nearly everything that requires serious effort these days, that's a big if. You can see that IF from space. It has aircraft warning lights on top. Why?


Depends. Some Republican leaders like cheap labor, and lots of it. Others instinctively wince when immigration comes up; they're called racist if they want to let workers in for exploitation, and they're racist if they want to keep them out for the crime of Immigrating While Dusky. So many Republicans don't speak up — except to assure the base that they're against amnesty and for border control. Of course, when the pastor from the home district intercedes on behalf of a nice illegal with a wife and kids, a guy the INS wants to deport? He gets a congressional intercession. But that's the absolute last one! No more!


Democratic leaders have a different perspective. They look at the throngs marching in the streets the last few weeks, demanding their host country repay their ingratitude with citizenship, free schools, medical care, housing and an abject apology for the time Ponce de Leon spit on the ground without wiping it up, and the Democrats see votes. Millions of them! No one who shows up waving the flag of another nation and complaining about something that happened in 1492 is likely to vote Republican, after all.


If you want to see the Democrats crack down on illegals, convince a million illegals to demonstrate on the Fourth of July with pictures of George Washington, playing Irving Berlin tunes in the Mexicali style. Good Lord, they're assimilating! Build a wall! Dig a trench! Add crocodiles!


Luckily for the Democrats, such large, happy, pro-American rallies are not likely. Unfortunately for the illegal-alien advocates, however, their cause is not helped by angry rallies with inverted U.S. flags and crude signage supporting the "Reconquista," which would make Los Angeles a protectorate of the Tijuana city council.


This doesn't sit well in parts of the country where the practical implications of untrammeled immigration are largely absent. You don't want a wall? Don't cheese off Iowans who would be happy to pay for it. Don't wave the flag of a corrupt, oligarchical sinkhole nation. Don't tell Americans they're required to house, feed and school people who hate their guts — if that was some international law, France would be the 51st state.


Most immigrants assimilate. The culture changes to accommodate the newcomers; the superficial aspects of the American identity are rather protean. But this doesn't mean the nation is required to shout ollie-ollie-in-free and provide a free Spanish translation. So yes, build the wall. Control the borders. Welcome the immigrants. Kick out the scofflaws. And if it bumps up the wages of drywall installers and dishwashers? The Republic will endure.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor James Lileks is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Comment by clicking here.

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© 2006, James Lileks

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