Daniel Greenfield article: The
Opening Round on Immigration

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 08:16 PM PDT

When Arizona passed a law enforcing a Federal statute, Liberals
across America reacted with their usual calm and rational approach of
invoking the Nazis, boycotting anything with Arizona in its name including
products that are not actually made in Arizona, and threatening a barrage
of civil suits and protests to counter a law that the majority of
Arizonians and Americans support.

The irony is that only a few weeks after the media was busy
warning us ominously about all the hate and extremist anti-government
rhetoric in the Tea Party movement, it has done a Full 180 and is now
itself indulging in hateful anti-government rhetoric. Soon enough the very
same reporters who spoke out on the dangers of people protesting on behalf
of their Constitutional rights, will be speaking out on how wonderful it
is to have illegal aliens protesting for their rights in major
cities.

The objections to the bill aren't about fairness toward
individuals. After all this Congress and this Administration just passed a
law compelling everyone to buy health insurance on the suspicion that one
of them might get into an accident and cost the government money. At least
that was the rationalization that Obama himself used in an interview. But
the liberal hypocrisy on preventative policing allows them to call for
preventative policing of factories because they might possibly pollute,
opposition protests because they might possibly get out of hand and
individuals because they might possibly not pay for their own health
care-- while vocally opposing preventative policing in Arizona. Because
it's fair to fine law abiding citizens hundreds of dollars for just
breathing, but it's unfair for police to enforce an existing
law.

This isn't about Federalism either. Liberals have cheered on
states and sanctuary cities that refused to cooperate with immigration
authorities. Because just like anti-government rhetoric, state governments
defying the Federal authorities is one of those things that's right when
it's progressive and wrong when it's conservative. But while that sort of
ideological moral compass whose needle always points left may be fine for
those already on the left, most Americans aren't buying it. And that is
because they don't see illegal immigration as a political issue, but as a
problem that needs solving.

Where Democrats and some Republicans
see a potential voting base, most Americans just see an unregulated
workforce in a time of high unemployment and a drain on social services.
And they see most politicians being more eager to cover their asses than
to do something about. Which is why they support the Governor of Arizona,
and not the little man with the big ears in the White House. While the
latter has leveraged his power to create a nanny state, the former
actually took steps to solve what most residents consider to be a problem.

The current immigration mess is a volatile situation that liberals
created for their own benefit, and are outraged at the thought that their
agenda might be thwarted. The Democratic party's "gut liberal" reaction
was as usual a mistake. And no amount of MSNBC goosestepping rhetoric will
change that. The "gut liberal" reaction plays really well in 1 percent of
the country and falls flat everywhere else. And Obama's aggressive push
against Arizona will just serve to remind voters again that his centrism
was an election day glaze covering up a hard left center.

Arizona's
action not only cuts off the Obama Administration at the pass for its
Amnesty plans, but takes the populist position at a time when Democratic
politicians are already terrified of the upcoming midterm elections. Obama
and Congress thought that they could decide when to launch their amnesty
campaign at their own leisure. But now their hand has been forced, and the
polls are stacked against them. Naturally they will retaliate in the usual
community organizer way, through the press, through political
intimidation, and through their own rights organizations which will
"monitor the situation" searching for an incident they can exploit. But it
is now an uphill battle.

And Arizona's actions have wider
implications beyond immigration. Under Barack Hussein Obama, the
government has badly neglected its core functions of protecting Americans
from external threats, in favor of its round of socialist charades. Now
Washington D.C. has been put on notice that the states will act, even if
Washington D.C. does not. And in the Federal government will not enforce
the law, there are state governments that will. Immigration is not the end
of it. The War on Terror remains an obvious area where the government has
neglected its responsibilities in order to curry favor with Islam. And the
next time an Islamic terrorist kills civilians in a more independent
minded state, its residents may also decide that serious enforcement is
needed.

The fundamental gap between the worldview of the left, in
which government manages the lives of the people under its authority, and
that of ordinary Americans, in which government protects the people
against overriding external threats, has opened up in Arizona. But not
just in Arizona. Because with the left in the driver's seat in D.C., there
is no one to look out for American interests either globally or locally.
To the left, a Mexican illegal alien is no different than a US citizen,
because they don't recognize nations as valid entities. And for all that
Obama wraps himself in the flag when convenient, over the last year his
actions have begun to speak louder than words.

Obama not only does
not believe in American Exceptionalism, though he summons that too in his
speeches when convenient, but he does not see himself as an American
leader, only as the head of an authority that governs the people in his
jurisdiction, regardless of legal status. America to him is just Chicago
writ large. And that's the way he governs. His national politics are no
different than his local politics. Just louder and with a bigger impact,
and more money to take in and spread around. Washington D.C. is nothing
but the new base of his political machine. And like his colleagues on the
left, he sees what is going on in Arizona in terms of class and racial
warfare, a mindset that leaves him unable to sympathize with the valid
concerns of the people of Arizona.

To the current regime, there are
no Americans... only people who happen to live in America. Warm bodies who
are capable of providing resources for the government, and consuming
resources to be repaid with loyalty. The populations of countries are to
them like game pieces on a Risk board, objects on a map to be moved around
in order to claim voting districts. And so the Democrats have been moving
Third World immigrants into America, for the same reasons that Labor moved
Muslim immigrants into Europe. Power. Political power. That is what it
comes down to in the end.

The Democrats' tone deafness on
immigration originates from the extent to which they have tied their own
political fortunes to the demographic transformation of America. And to
their disconnection from the idea of America as anything but a logo and a
flag, more akin to a sports team than anything of substance. They don't
see why anyone would object to pieces being moved around the board, after
all it's just pieces, which means in their minds the only objection has to
be to their color. Because when you engage in class and racial warfare,
you assume that everyone else is too, and that you are only acting in
self-defense. And thus follow the accusations of Nazism, Fascism and
Racism. When in fact the majority of Latinos in Arizona support the law,
precisely because they have the most to lose from the collapse of social
services and the export of Mexico's Cartel Culture into the United
States.

Not that the Republicans don't own their fair share of the
blame. The Republican party has taken too much money from the US Chamber
of Commerce (which is rather liberal on immigration) and numerous
corporations that directly or indirectly profit from illegal aliens to
ever do more than talk tough about it. Add on a few Republican politicians
afraid of losing their limited portion of the Latino vote by opening
themselves up to liberal accusations of racism, and other Republicans
politicians who shamelessly
"farm" the illegal immigration issue, but have absolutely no interest
in seeing anything done about it-- and there's plenty of reasons for the
GOP's general inaction.

And so all too we often we have Republican Presidents and
Senators who push a softer line. We have Republican congressmen who say
the right things, but know that too many of their donors are running
plants filled with illegals, and that either enforcement or amnesty would
hurt them badly. (And what's more the Democrats know it too, which is what
gives them their boldness on an issue that in theory should be an easy
populist home run for the GOP.) Finally of course there are the firebrand
Republican politicians who seem all fired up about illegal immigration,
and are willing to campaign on the issue, but run the other way when an
actual measure is passed that might make a dent in the situation. And
that's because they want to exploit the problem, not solve it.

But
the current economic crisis and its accompanying unemployment have
mobilized public hostility to any idea of legalization, and strengthened a
push for enforcement. Arizona is moving with the public sentiment, the
Democrats are swimming against it, because they've once again forgotten
about the same economic crisis that they exploited to leverage themselves
into power. The Republican party right now is being powered by populism,
because its leading figures have no ideas, just conferences, those of them
that aren't jockeying for a 2012 run. And the smart populist money says
enforcement.

This is still only the opening round on immigration.
Arizona has forced Obama's hand. The Democrats hope to find a silver
lining by exploiting the issue in order to bring out Latino and minority
voters out of a generally moribund midterm election turnout. But they
might not be counting on how many other voters they will bring out as
well. It's doubtful that even the Democrats think they have a winning hand
on the issue, but they're also depending on changing the demographics of
the electorate in order to play the long game. And just as with health
care, they might be prepared to accept short term defeat in 2010 and even
in 2012, in order to achieve long term political gains. Because they're
counting on a Republican party too timid to reverse their policies once
it's in power. And nationally they may be right. Which is why it be up to
the states to do the right thing, after all.