How Do We Define Americanness?

Mark Krikorian of The Corner makes a point that’s spot on regarding the attitude of illegal immigrants and their supporters.

As one illegal-alien spokesman after another claims that they’re actually Americans, and we just need to recognize that fact (a couple examples in this Post preview story on today’s marches), it’s hard not to conclude that the problem is that they really believe it’s true. In other words, our elite has so completely erased the distinction between citizens and foreigners, devaluing the meaning of Americanness to merely working and paying taxes on American territory, that the illegals (and legal non-citizens) actually have come to believe it — and are simply demanding the fulfillment of what they consider to already have been promised. Obviously, the point is not to excuse the foreigners’ will to power, but rather that you teach people how to treat you — and we’ve taught foreigners to make these aggressive demands against us.

Mark makes a great point. Now that these folks are here, although by illegal means, working and paying taxes, they think they are being denied what is rightfully theirs already: American citizenship.

So are members of the House and Senate going to pull a Chirac and surrender to the demands of illegal aliens or are they going to stand up for entering this country and becoming an American citizen legally?

Democrats Recruiting at Illegal Immigrant Protests
Chirac and De Villepin Wave the White Flag of Surrender

7 Comments

  1. pennywit April 10, 2006
  2. JohnAnnArbor April 10, 2006
  3. krkrjak April 10, 2006
  4. ed April 10, 2006
  5. docjim505 April 11, 2006
  6. david April 11, 2006
  7. Buck May 2, 2006