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Entry: Love Among the Bones Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/love_among_the_bones#24354 Post contents: If the Mexican influx were in fact the march of Counter-Reformation Hispanic Catholics into the U.S... it seems silly to contemplate such counterfactuals, doesn't it? If the Spanish Armada had landed, what would Shakespeare have done? If the French had won the 7 Years' War, what role would George Washington have played in the resistance? I enjoy counterfactual novels more than most (I've spent hundreds of dollars on hardcover versions of Harry Turtledove's excellent books--apart from "Ruled Brittania," which seems like Whig propaganda), so I'll play the game: If the Mexicans coming into the U.S. were vigorously Catholic, and likely to keep their Faith--like the Irish and Italians who came before them--I would be confident that they would quickly develop most of the civic virtues which would make them excellent citizens. They would, like the Irish and Italians (and most of all German Catholics) who came before them, quickly learn English and become patriotic Americans. They would be taught in the schools staffed by the countless religious and priests who staffed their parochial schools that patriotism is a moral duty on pain of sin, and that loyalty to the "old country" was strictly secondary to their duties as Americans. They would fit in very nicely, open good restaurants, work hard, form families, and generally make America a better place. That doesn't seem to be happening, so I'm not reacting to the fantasy but to the reality--that Mexicans are being encouraged to assimilate to the American welfare state, our cultural pornocracy, and urban gang culture. Given that reality, I say keep them out--for the sake of our own civic order and (MUCH MUCH MUCH more importantly) their immortal souls. Sent at: 2008 07 06