¿Es mi nación su nación?
Do you know why I was happy to read this by Peggy Noonan?
I asked myself a question this week and realized the answer is “Only one.” The question is: Have I ever known an immigrant to America who’s lazy? I have lived on the East Coast all my life, mostly in New York, and immigrants both legal and illegal have been and are part of my daily life, from my childhood when they surrounded me to an adulthood in which they, well, surround me. And the only lazy one I knew was a young woman, 20, European, not mature enough to be fully herself, who actually wanted to be a good worker but found nightlife too alluring and hangovers too debilitating.
But she was the only one. And I think she went home.
Everyone else who comes here works hard, grindingly hard, and I admire them.
Because she follows up with this:
Naturally I hope the new immigration bill fails. It is less a bill than a big dirty ball of mischief, malfeasance and mendacity, with a touch of class malice, and it’s being pushed by a White House that is at once cynical and inept. The bill’s Capitol Hill supporters have a great vain popinjay’s pride in their own higher compassion. They are inclusive and you’re not, you cur, you gun-totin’ truckdriver’s-hat-wearin’ yahoo. It’s all so complex, and you’d understand this if you weren’t sort of dumb.
But it’s not so complex. The past quarter-century an unprecedented wave of illegal immigrants has crossed our borders. The flood is so great that no one–no one–can see or fully imagine all the many implications, all the country-changing facts of it. No one knows exactly what uncontrolled immigration is doing and will do to our country.
Compare that seemingly unique ability to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time with this video of a Wall Street Jounal editorial board meeting on the issue. Their argument for immigration reform boils down to ascribing the worst possible (nativist) motives to their opponents and dismissing or savaging them. I love the Journal, but this attitude is arrogant and intellectually dishonest. Thank God for smart people like Peggy Noonan.