Donnel Jones

I know illegal immigration makes billions for the U.S. economy. I don’t support a Gestapo-like tactic of weeding out illegal immigrants and sending them back south. Besides, such a measure is still-born in the Senate.

We can always increase the numbers allowed in legally, build a wall, and hope for the best. Most illegals are, of course, not bad people, but desperate for a way to make a living.

Yet, there are limits to my liberal take on this issue.

In Portland Maine, a youth was beaten and bloodied for simply, well, speaking his mind and protesting that illegal immigrants have no rights. Yet, Rev. Virginia Maria Rincon, a leading activist for illegal immigrants, who can only be described as a demagogue, said of the event:

When you promote violence, you get violence. Our rally is about promoting a peaceful dialogue

Huh? Since when did peaceful dialogue consist of beating someone up because that person doesn’t agree with you? What violence did this youth promote in practicing free speech? After all, the youth was exercising the same rights that the perpetrator possesses–that is, free-speech and the right of assembly, even as the latter just might be an illegal immigrant. No rights? Indeed, the perpetrator, if he’s from Mexico for example, has more rights as an illegal immigrant in the U.S. than he does as a citizen in Mexico. It’s not as if the youth he attacked was the Mexican police!

My second concern is the description of the attacker, who is for the record an Hispanic, as wearing a bandana to hide his face.

Does it remind you of anything? Yes, the attacker reminds one of a Hamas demonstrator, whose identity is hidden behind a bandana. We could also say it is the practice of the KKK. In either case, I have to ask these impertinent questions:

Why is so much rage directed at a nation that is generous toward immigrants when, instead, such anger could be directed at their nations of origin, which refuse to reform, adopt a free market economy, and provide jobs for their native citizens?

Why, then, do they not rise up against their corrupt governments that keep them poor, rather than trail up north to demand something they should get at home?

It is true that for many generations immigrants have been leaving behind their homeland that offered them little and came to live in the U.S., but they did so legally and chose to assimilate. This is not always the case with illegal immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere. Part of this is the severe damage done by the concept of “negritude” and the multi-cultural trends of the past half-century, the history of which is yet to be written.

Another aspect, as Mickey Kaus points out, is that many illegals and leaders like Rev. Rincon are irredentists bent upon reclaiming for Mexicans what was won as war booty after the war of 1848, which Mexico lost. Why assimilate and obey the laws of a sovereign nation when you, by right of ancestry, are already on land you claim to be your own?

Yes, most demonstrators are peaceful, but events like in Maine and the leaders who excuse them are a very dangerous sign that assimilation is not always valued among immigrants and, in the last analysis, some seek to make things in this country resemble more like they are down south, rather than taking a cue and making the south more like home.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, is threatening to expel the U.S. ambassador from his country. Chavez blames Ambassador William Brownfield for stirring up trouble, but it is Chavez who is the real provocateur — i.e., a lunatic, megalomaniac, and/or populist of the worst kind. Here’s Brownfield’s “crime,” from the AP:

Brownfield had visited a ballpark in Caracas’ Catia slums, a Chavez stronghold, to donate baseball equipment to a youth league.

The response to his visit Friday was the third time in three weeks that Brownfield has been met by protests. Earlier, demonstrators burned tires and torched an American flag.

Here’s Hugo’s response (provocation, incitement, slight?):

“I’m going to throw you out of Venezuela if you continue provoking the Venezuelan people,” Chavez said in a nationally televised speech addressed to U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield.

Perhaps “casus belli” would be a better term for Chavez’s dementia. G#d knows how many successful revolutions have been won with baseball equipment.

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