NY Times to Shamnesty Critics: You're All Racist Know-Nothings

They don't come right out and say it in such graphic terms, but you don't have to sift too far through this cliche-ridden dreck to get the messsage.

The immigration compromise collapsed on the floor of the Senate Thursday night. Many of its hard-line foes are celebrating, but their glee is vindictive and hollow. They have blocked one avenue to an immigration overhaul while offering nothing better, thwarting bipartisanship to satisfy their reflexive loathing for amnesty, which they define as anything that helps illegal immigrants get right with the law.

Actually, it's a bit of a shock to see them call this what it is: amnesty; for that matter, how did the word illegal slip through their sophisticated layers of editors?

The tragedy is that the compromise bill was written to bring these restrictionists along, with punitive, detestable provisions that many supporters of comprehensive reform agreed to endorse for the sake of a “grand bargain.” The bill was badly flawed but fixable, as long as there was the possibility of leadership and courage in Congress.

What was so punitive? The thought that someone here illegally would have to cough up $5000? Please.

The bill was badly flawed, they say. That alone is enough to kill any legislation. Or would they prefer badly flawed legislation with a little lipstick on it be allowed to pass?

The anti-immigrant hard-core — no amnesty today, no amnesty tomorrow, no amnesty ever — must not be allowed to hold the nation hostage. Like nativists of generations past, they think the country is being Latinized, and they fear it. The country is changing, but the way it always has, absorbing newcomers, shaping and being shaped by them, inexorably turning them, their children and grandchildren into Americans. Globalization has accelerated and complicated that upheaval, and decades of federal dithering have made things messy and chaotic.

OK, for the last time, we are no anti-immigrant, you idiots. We're anti-illegal aliens. Get it? We're not holding anyone hostage. We are trying to preserve the greatness of America.

Though you ivory tower elitists somehow fail to realize it, there are many groups in this country who are not becoming Americans. Or have you not heard of a radical group named La Raza? Take a look at their home page and see how many times you find the word America.