Calderon Lectures US

Lawyers for Mexico have asked a federal court in Arizona to pronounce Arizona’s immigration law unconstitutional, citing “grave concerns” for its citizens and (begin italics) Mexico’s (end italics) interests.  This followed soon after Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon, scolded the US over the Arizona law before both houses of Congress. 

Democrats treated Mr. Calderon to a standing ovation; Republicans, for their part, sat on their hands, allowing his rebuke of their country to go unanswered. 

Calderon had previously accused Arizona of introducing “intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement.”

It is reasonable to ask, what is going on? 

The leader of a developing nation unable to employ or properly educate its citizens, that enjoys a per capita income roughly a fourth of ours, with rampant government corruption, and unrepentant drug cartels brazenly challenging the power of the state by murdering its officials, would generally not come to the US to criticize and challenge its laws.

Unless, of course, the leader knew there was a receptive audience for such outlandish behavior, which, unfortunately, there is. 

Indeed, it has come that multicultural America, the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth, champion of Western culture and civilization, history’s greatest example of democratic practice and republican achievement, is now beset by liberal guilt and cynicism; furthermore, it revels in its own denigration, even by outsiders in its own halls of power.

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the country and so in the era of “diversity” and “preferential politics,” politicians will pander to them to secure votes and advance an agenda, even to the detriment of the nation, even if it means celebrating the insults of a stranger in our own house. 

But then modern liberalism is nothing if not a balkanization of the country, a division of society based on race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status; it eagerly embraces the unending censure of the nation for perceived racial shortcomings; it also fails to acknowledge even the slightest hint of progress in such realms - even after the ascension of our first black President. 

The Calderon event was decidedly not a high point in our country’s history, an example of high minded “tolerance”; rather, it was a harbinger of a country pushing towards further fragmentation, disunity, and weakness. 

For it is axiomatic that we should secure our borders and enforce our laws; we should not give foreigners access to our social programs or provide amnesty to illegal aliens; we should not employ them or grant citizenship to their children.

But to utter such manifest truisms in today’s politically correct America is to invite the worst sort of slander and racial slur. 

In this way does modern liberalism cordon off whole areas of the public discourse from free debate. 

The strategy of appealing to favored racial groups for political gain, however, is not without consequences: it is divisive and unhealthy for the nation.

Mexico, of course, knows all this, and simply presses its advantage; it understands that the giant to the north is limping badly, weakened not so much by recession, but by cultural insecurity. 

For when a nation’s foundations are assaulted repeatedly, defined by so many on the left as rotten to the core, stained by the Original Sin of racism (and sexism, xenophobia, inequality, capitalism, etc.), the society is rendered impotent, unable to defend itself intellectually or morally.  

The “Calderons” of the world, indeed, can then condemn us at will without repercussions, even, as we have seen, to thunderous applause.  

But one wonders if even hidebound liberals (and some confused conservatives) truly believe that the ongoing influx of millions of illegal Mexican immigrants, poor and unskilled, possessed of at best rudimentary education, burdening our already overcrowded schools, hospitals, and prisons and partaking of our teetering public programs, serves the national interest? 

Let us ponder Mexico’s approach to its own illegal immigrant problem from south of their border.

As Michelle Malkin has written: Illegal entry in Mexico is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years imprisonment.  Evading deportation is a crime; illegal reentry after deportation is punishable by ten years imprisonment.  Outsiders may be thrown out of the country without due process.  Law enforcement officials at all levels, local, state, and federal, must enforce immigration laws.  The Mexican military must also assist in such operations including deportations.  Visitors who do not have proper documentation are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.  Non-citizens are prohibited from participating in political matters.

Mexico is also well known for its abuse of illegal Central American immigrants; it does not contemplate “comprehensive immigration reform” or the granting of “amnesty” or any other such self-destructive policy to pacify a constituency or a particular ethnic community.

Mexico, in other words, is uncompromising in its handling of illegal immigration; the US, in comparison, is inept and confused.

The irony of Mexican President Calderon lecturing our Congress on Arizona’s rather reasonable response (it mirrors existing federal law) to the overwhelming problems it faces from illegal immigration is probably not lost on him.  More likely, he doesn’t care.  He does not suffer pangs of liberal guilt nor is he burdened by political correctness. 

He enforces the laws of his country and pursues his nation’s interest.

As we should.