Timmer’s “upside-down, and subject, American flag” pic, and more, can be found here. As I stated here, I understand what the protesters are trying to say; but I find the way they have framed their argument incredibly stupid.

Particular among their faux pas is the “stolen land” argument. And, although any Californian student of our history can’t help but be ashamed at the way our forebears wrested the land from the old grantholders, to use that argument, our Mexican-American cousins would have to also concede that the land was previously “stolen” from the Native Americans. (Admittedly, most Mexicans, and even moreso, Mexican-Americans, have a high percentage of “native blood.” But that almost exclusively is from other tribes, further to the south.)

In this comment, I made light of Timmer’s making the same case I am covering here, by mentioning the Israelis. But that’s only humorous because the idea of “their ancestral homeland” has currency with so many of the same people who would deny this land to those who have come before us. Indeed, the Israelites “stole” the land from the Canaanites, who moved northward, crossbred with the “Sea People” (most likely Minoans), became the Phoenicians, and became the most powerful empire of the transition from the Bronze to Iron Ages (not to mention great friends and trading partners with the Israelites). Now, many of their progeny are “Palestinians”, and living in far greater squalor than their “Israeli-Arab” cousins. Crying over lost land, like any embrace of victimhood, gets one nowhere.

And I grow weary of idiotarians, like Kathy McKee, saying that Mexico is the “5th richest” economy in the world [she’s wrong about that, it’s between the floundering France, and California (even without California, the US is still #1)], and they “should take care of their own.” Well, applying that standard, we would have excluded the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Ashkenazi Jews… . What those “student protestors” should be saying is that immigrants are the embodiment of the American Dream. They should chant loud and clear the words of Emma Lazarus:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

The “answer” to the illegal immigration problem is simple: Increase quotas to reasonable levels (or eliminate them entirely), and eliminate the obviously racist and xenophobically inspired red tape for Mexicans, and others from “those” nations, to come to the US (even as visitors).

Oh, and as for “amnesty”, once one admits that the law, as it stands, is an ass, it becomes much easier to swallow.