Diana West on the Senate's "Dissolve America Now" Bill

Diana West appeared on Lou Dobbs Tonight earlier this week, arguing that the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill would facilitate the break up of the United States. West argued her position in a Washington Times essay from May 26. Here's a snippet:

The bill's crazy provisions for allowing 66 million new legal immigrants into the United States by 2026 (twice the population of Canada) aside, the Senate bill grants citizenship rights to 10 million to 20 million mainly Mexican illegal aliens who have sneaked into the country since the last U.S. amnesty for illegal aliens in 1986. It also waives any penalties for employers who have been illegally employing them. Such provisions only create conditions for ever greater, ever denser waves of new illegal immigration. This isn't exactly what a rational being would call fixing the problem. And don't even ask about the multi billion-dollar price tag on ballooning social services; the Senate hasn't. What we're left with is not a nation, but a honey trap. If a body can just make it across the border, the Senate guarantees amnesty will always be the light at the end of the tunnel. And who knows? Maybe next time around, such as in 2026, the amnesty bill will be written in Spanish. After all, with 10 percent of Mexico already here, what's to stop 20 or 40 or 60 percent of Mexico from following? Not a law. Not a fence. Certainly not a border. Who needs a border, anyway? This, I'm afraid, is the rhetorical question driving too many of our public servants to abdicate their duty. But why? Why does the American political establishment -- with few genuinely patriotic exceptions -- want to destabilize the American nation? If this were a Democratic era -- a Kerry presidency, a Reid Senate, a Pelosi House -- I would understand. I wouldn't like it any better, but the eradication of U.S. borders and, ultimately, the nation's core European identity is the sort of policy that follows from the West-corroding multiculturalism once uniquely associated with the left. But this is a rock-ribbed Republican moment. Plus, it's a time of war. Sad to say, it's also time for a national shrink, someone to answer the question: Why are we killing ourselves?

Why indeed? I blogged about the cultural element to the immigration reform debate last week. Fortunately, the bill's chances are slim, and it's going to take some late-night legislative miracle to see it through to enactment.