[spunkets]

"But the birth of an American nation will not be found in any act of immigration. America did not arise somewhere else to be transported hither, nor form a motivation for an original settlement."

The driving force was a quest for Freedom and opportunity. Those are concepts that existed long before America became the destination of those seeking the above. It was the folks that loved Freedom and opportunity that gave us that gift with Independence and a Constitution that honored it. They broke the friggin' law to do that. Moreover, they were originally able to stay, because the native Americans didn't have the combat power to enforce their immigration laws.

[Ohioan]

Freedom and opportunity are broad words that have been misused by politicians for many generations. The early settlers, during those generations before the concept of an American was born out of what their descendants found they had in common, came here for a variety of reasons, probably the most common was to obtain land. (That pursuit is involved in the American concept of freedom and opportunity, I will grant you. But it is not the same thing as itself defining the American ethos.)

The common values, the descendants of those settlers--including those who abandoned land in Europe, either because they were driven out for religious reasons, or simply could not inherit because of the laws of inheritance, or whatever--the common values they developed, involved a level of individual responsibility and self-reliance, found in very few other places on this earth, at any time. The composite of this produced both the characteristics of our public documents and papers (such as the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, The Federalis Papers, etc..) and the attitudes which supported them and the values inherent therein. That composite also, set the stage for the extraordinary success that followed.

None of that is the slightest justification for allowing any wholesale new immigration, not consistent with the ethnic values of the creators of America, into an already rather crowded sub-continent. (Sure, there are great open spaces still. But neither the old settler families, the descendants of the immigrants who followed (such as this Ohioan), or any of those sneaking over the border, plan to locate new population centers on mountainsides, in the desert, or in various other places that have never been so used.)

The new arrivals--including the illegals--are swarming into already over-crowded areas, where they are negatively impacting the traditional American lifestyle.

I wish the Mexican people all the best. I would not support any future American design on any of their remaining land. Common sense would dictate friendship with our Southern neighbor. And common sense would also dictate Mexico for the Mexicans and America for the Americans.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site