Immigration Irritation

The Geek is linking to this article on California's reaction to illegal immigrants staging boycotts:

California's state senators on Thursday endorsed Monday's boycott of schools, jobs and stores by illegal immigrants and their allies as supporters equated the protest with great social movements in American history.

By a 24-13 vote that split along party lines, the California Senate approved a resolution that calls the one-day protest the Great American Boycott 2006 and describes it as an attempt to educate Americans "about the tremendous contribution immigrants make on a daily basis to our society and economy."

These boycotts are an attempt by the illegal immigrant community to strong arm the rest of us into supporting their position. Everyone, Republican or Democrat, is slowly coming around to this undeniable fact. The difference is how we will react to the thinly veiled threat.

As California demonstrates, when the Democrats are faced with a confrontation they put up some token political resistance so they don't appear like complete cowards and then they go into full appeasement mode. Illegal immigration isn't a problem. They just want honest work. Blah, blah, blah, lets just pay them off with other people's money.

As California also demonstrates, Republicans don't necessarily react that way. This is a problem and problems need to get fixed. The solution is either:

• Lets make these people legal immigrants and get them into the democratic process. Hopefully they'll love us (the Republican especially) for it and vote our way.
• How dare these people enter our country illegally and then start throwing their weight around demanding that we reward them after breaking our laws. Let's built a big damn wall and put as many of them on the other side of it as fast as we can.

I favor the second option because the first seems like little more than wishful thinking, political opportunism. You aren't fixing the problem when you make a whole new big one at the end.

So soon we're going to see how this shakes out. I think most Americans, especially in the immigrant heavy border states, are going to side with the Big Damn Wall methodology. If the Republicans turn into the Democrats with what is basically a program of appeasement through amnesty, then they're going to lose because I see no reason to keep them around. Why? Because I voted for Republicans, you dumbasses! I wanted elected officials who have a pair of big brass ones! It's things like this that make we want to run for office.

UPDATE: McQ thinks this activism is going to backfire as well:

Americans are a generous people. And, as was demonstrated during the civil rights era, they will admit being wrong and work to correct that wrong. But they don't like being pushed and they aren't particularly sympathetic to people who demand things they don't deserve.

Well at least my opinions are in good company.