XPost: us.military.national-guard, alt.politics.immigration, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: noreply@mixmin.net   
      
   It’s long past time America’s immigration optimists and restrictionists   
   came to an arrangement.   
      
   For a decade now, these two groups have been locked in an impassioned,   
   sometimes vicious battle over how best to preserve the country they both   
   cherish.   
      
   And for the most part, that fight has taken place within the confines of   
   the GOP — the only party ready, willing and able to have an honest   
   conversation about migration and its downstream effects on America’s   
   very character.   
      
   On Wednesday, that fight resumed in earnest when Rahmanullah Lakanwal,   
   an Afghan national who came to the United States amid the Biden   
   administration’s chaotic withdrawal from his country, allegedly opened   
   fire on two National Guard troops in Washington, DC.   
      
   One of those troops, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, succumbed to her wounds.   
      
   The other, Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, remains hospitalized in   
   critical condition.   
      
   Though Lakanwal’s exact motive is not yet known, what is self-evident   
   now is that he never had any intention of becoming an American.   
      
   Well, perhaps in the formalistic sense he did.   
      
   After all, American citizenship conveys more benefits than practically   
   any other title in human history.   
      
   And that’s precisely why the bar for bestowing it upon anyone, from any   
   country, should be high.   
      
   Spiritually, though, Lakanwal never would have bled Red, White, and   
   Blue, not even if he had passed a 100 different iterations of the   
   citizenship test. His heart was never in the American creed.   
      
   Which brings us back to the aforementioned, hard-fought immigration   
   debate.   
      
   On Friday, President Donald Trump weighed in on the matter in   
   characteristic fashion.   
      
   “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to   
   allow the U.S. system to fully recover,” announced Trump on X.   
      
   It’s a rational sentiment in light of recent events, but not the right   
   prescription.   
      
   Over the short term, some kind of de facto moratorium might be in order.   
      
   But over the long term, America deserves a sustainable immigration   
   system that keeps the bad apples out, yet also continues to allow it to   
   benefit from the dynamism — as well as the regular infusions of a   
   distinctly American spirit — that the right kind of immigrants provide.   
      
   To do that, the Trump administration shouldn’t close the door to all   
   comers, but must implement a rigorous, multi-layered ideological testing   
   process to determine their suitability for life in America.   
      
   At the center of the debate is a dispute over whether the United States   
   is a land or an idea.   
      
   In truth, though, the two sides agree more than they think.   
      
   The restrictionists say America is more than a set of principles, and   
   they’re right.   
      
   The chief reason they oppose mass migration is because they worry that   
   those coming to our shores have the wrong ethos.   
      
   As a compromise, then, all those who wish to enter the United States   
   should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their answer to each   
   of the following questions is “Yes.”   
      
   One: Do you condemn political violence in all of its forms?   
      
   At the core of the American experiment is a confidence in our system of   
   government and each other to reach the right outcomes independent of   
   intimidation.   
      
   Two: Do you support near-absolute rights to free speech, religion and   
   assembly?   
      
   There is no spiritual American who would seek to curb their countryman’s   
   right to think differently than them.   
      
   Three: Do you believe the United States is the greatest national force   
   for good on the planet?   
      
   This would doubtlessly be the most controversial of these proposed   
   litmus tests, but it’s no less important than the other two.   
      
   It’s true many natural-born Americans have been deceived by unpatriotic   
   elites into believing the United States a boogeyman.   
      
   But immigration policy should be geared toward diluting this corrosive,   
   ahistorical view.   
      
   Anyone who wishes to reside in or immigrate permanently to the United   
   States ought to believe in its inherent goodness; that’s not a political   
   view, it’s common sense.   
      
   Every would-be immigrant ought to be subject to a long, arduous,   
   one-half-strike-and-you’re-out process to prove they want to be   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)