I was proud to be an American today.

For all the complexities of the immigration issue -- and there are many -- the rally at the governmental plaza in Greensboro felt really good in an all-American way: people assembling peacefully to make their point, families gathered on a spring afternoon, kids waving the stars and stripes...

             

   (click pics to enlarge)

Comments

[sean coon]

awesome stuff. how anyone could feel otherwise escapes me.

[Fred Gregory]

It is more gordian than a feel good demonstration so go ahead and call me a Bush apologist but it is..

NotAVictimlessCrime

[Ed Cone]

Fred, did you miss this line? "For all the complexities of the immigration issue -- and there are many..."

It's like, 1/5 of the text, man.

Nobody thinks it's as simple as a feelgood rally.

Bush has been president for a long time. If stopping illegal immigration had been a priority for him, he would have done something about it.

But it wasn't, so he didn't. The people he works for like illegal immigration.

[Fred Gregory]

Ed,

Not at all thank you. Blame, blame , blame..please... stop the game. The point was that Stanley Renshon did a supberb job in flushing out the elaborate dynmaics of the problem. Hopefully you and other visitors read the link. Nuff said while I am being nice.

[chip atkinson]

How dare you taunt your citizenship, (Proud to be American) amongst those who don't want to become citizens legally.

[Roch101]

"How dare you taunt your citizenship, (Proud to be American) amongst those who don't want to become citizens legally."

Gee, Chip. How do you know? It's easy to vilify people when you avoid speaking to them, when you can stay home and let Rush tell you what "those people" are all about.

[Ed Cone]

1. What does "taunt your citizenship" mean?

2. I have no idea what the proportion of illegal to legal immigrants was, or the number of citizens in attendance.

3. I also don't know how many of the illegal immigrants would not want to become citizens if they could.

[David Wharton]

One of the signs pictured says, "Slavery was the law. The law was wrong. The law was changed."

Big rhetorical mistake: it offends almost everybody except illegal immigrants.

Crossing the border to get a decent job is hardly like being abducted from your home and forced into a life of brutal servitude!

[Roch101]

"Big rhetorical mistake: it offends almost everybody except illegal immigrants."

It didn't offend me. It was to make the point that bad laws get changed, not that emmigration and abduction into slavery are similar.

[Bubba]

"It was to make the point that bad laws get changed"

In this case, hopefully bad laws won't be made worse. Given the grandstanding, demagoguery, and shameless pandering we've endured recently over this issue, I hold little hope of that situation being avoided.

[David Wharton]

Roch, I think you should be offended. Equating a lax immigration policy with legalized slavery is offensively stupid.

Of course the sign meant to equate current immigration law with slavery.

Otherwise the sign-maker could have chosen any bad law that got changed -- such as Nixon's wage and price controls -- couldn't he?

[Ed Cone]

Analogies are often perilous, but pointing to slavery as a social injustice supported by law is not necessarily the same thing as saying immigration law equals slavery.

"I think you should be offended."

No, thanks, you seem to have that covered. I think there are more important, and interesting, things to talk about here.

[Beth]

You know we walked by Woolworths right before the event, and all I could think is... "Isn't it ironic, don't ya think?"

[Roch101]

BTW, Ed. I shared your sense of pride. I was proud of a country that allows freedom of assembly, proud of the police for being serious but unobtrusive, proud of the gringos who went to see for themselves and proud of the demonstrators for an energetic but peaceful rally that lacked any of the anger or demands others told us we'd hear.

[chip atkinson]

Roch- I was joking. Illegal aliens protesting could only happen in America. And Beth, the Woolworth sit-ins were citizens protesting equal rights. Mexicans have not suffered here, ever.

[Ed Cone]

"Mexicans have not suffered here, ever." -- Chip.

If by "suffered" you mean "been conquered by military force," then you are incorrect.

But if you just mean "discrimated against in a systematic way in areas such as voting rights and economic and educational opportunity, well, then you'd still be wrong.

[chip atkinson]

BS Ed! They were our enemy in the past. We conquered and it is a pity for them we didn't take over the rest of Mexico. Can you imagine how many more people would oppressed, poor and uneducated had the US not put Mexico in their place in the 19th century?

As for suffering here- in Greensboro- I meant, they just got here 10-15 years ago. Beth made mention of Woolworths. But as for the rest of country, how can illegal aliens be persecuted by our Government -like blacks were?

[Anonymous]

David,

The lack of a coherent immigration policy in this country has produced a large group of workers that businesses are glad to have for their willingness to do backbreaking labor, and equally glad to have the current stalemate over immigration keep those same people from voting.

While it is hardly a straight-line equivalence with slavery, there are many parallels. Pre and Post slavery in the US, there have been a variety of alternative constructs of the social contract proposed that were "improvements" on slavery if you set the bar low enough in defining human rights. These included the 3/5ths compromise, sharecropping, poll taxes, Jim Crow laws, and so on.

The situation of illegal immigrants today is significantly better than that of blacks under most of these policies on most accounts, but similarly poor on others.

So maybe "slavery" isn't the perfect word. Which of the immoral policy constructs above best fits current conditions? Jim Crow? White-only institutions of public higher education in the mid-20th century? Take your pick.

The sign is correct, no matter where you sit on this issue. Our immigration laws encourage illegal immigration because legal immigration is so difficult, and our laws are utterly out of touch with the reality of our labor markets.

[David Wharton]

As I said, "big rhetorical mistake".