Would you give Andy Dick a room in your house? (An answer to the illegal immigration question.)

There are two distinctly different sides given to the story about the big pro-criminal … errrr … pro-illegal-immigration rallies that took place in cities around the country Monday. (Didn’t have to worry about doing it on a weekend, when the participants would be off work, huh?)

One side is the warm-and-fuzzy human interest story, where the photojournalists took pictures of calm and gentle Mexpatriates waving American flags. There is no violence, no epithets, no anger or hatred shown in the pictures – these pictures show more of a pleading of the case instead of what you normally see at protests (that is to say, general assholishness and thuggery).

The other side is a little more visceral, a little more in step with the normal culture of contemporary protests. “Honkies ...” “Reconquista!” “Bush lied, kids died!” (Just kidding about that last one, but that sign is so funny that it bears posting again ...)

One of the protestors carried a sign that said “Immigration built this country.” And didn’t it – just like rock and roll built this city! However, a key modifier was left off the sign: it was legal immigration that built the country, and not the kind preferred by people who sneak into the country in the dead of night and demand all the rights of Americans without acceptance of any of the responsibilities. (There are enough American citizens who already make that their M.O., anyway.)

We’re all familiar with the accounts of millions of Europeans flooding Ellis Island in the early part of the last century – folks who were searching for a better life away from the potato famines and religious persecution and whatnot, and went through the process to find it. This stands in stark contrast to the process (or lack thereof) detailed in the previous paragraph.

Me? I think we should just give them New Mexico and be done with it. We’re not using it, are we? (Hell, there are enough people in this country who think that New Mexico is a foreign land, anyway.)

Seriously:

Let's suppose that Andy Dick (or John Belushi, or Paris Hilton for you girls in the audience) says to you, "Hey, you have about four acres of open land here that you're not using - I'll just borrow your tent and move in on some of your acreage." And let's say that while private property laws exist, you are essentially powerless to do anything about it, for the authorities are too strapped to do more than shrug and say, "That's too bad." (They are, however, quick to prosecute vigilantes.)

You even fire a few warning shots in the air to scare them off, the way you would a coyote or other stray rabid animal. This, of course, only strengthens Andy Dick's (or Belushi's, or Hilton's) resolve, and he/she digs in for the long haul.

So, you have some unsavory character on your land and living rent-free. They may work, but all of their money is being sent back to their addict friends in New York or Los Angeles. And living with no expenses on your land sounds like a pretty sweet deal to those friends, so next thing you know, you've got a virtual jackass Woodstock in your backyard. (Kinda like the original, no?)

In time, the current situation is no longer good enough for the people living in your yard. So they abandon the tent they were living in and avail themselves to your house, eating your food, wearing your clothes and bedding your spouse (jobs that Americans are unwilling to do, you know). All with no consequences. They get your children addicted to drugs, wreck your car and burn a hole in your mattress. You're going broke - you've got more money going out than coming in because you're supporting this new family that you really can't afford to support - the toilet's sprang a leak, the refrigerator's broke because someone keeps leaving the door open, and three of your windows are broken.

Your complicity - i.e., the fact that you didn't put a bullet in them the minute they set foot on your land because you have this thing about not breaking the law or the Commandments - is construed as an open invitation to continue supporting them, all on your dime. Where does it stop?

"Well, I wouldn't have let it happen in the first place. I'd have put me an electric fence up all along my property line, maybe post some guard dogs there to keep the sumbitches out. And who the hell's Andy Dick, anyway?"

How is illegal immigration any different, then?