Ann Don't Know Nothing
By Steve Kellmeyer (06/08/07)
For years now, I have argued that the animus against Hispanic immigrants who cross the border without first asking permission from the Border Patrol was driven more by anti-Catholicism than it was by a concern about the lack of papers.
Now, Ann Coulter(1) has taken the wraps off the facts and demonstrated that truth in spades. America is great because it is Protestant, and if it ceases to be Protestant, it will cease to be great.
Unlike Abraham Lincoln, the Republican who opposed and voted against the Mexican-American war during his tenure in Congress, unlike Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican President who said America's theft of Mexican territory was the only armed action he had ever been ashamed to be involved in, and unlike Henry David Thoreau, who wrote an entire book, Civil Disobedience, while serving jail time for refusing to pay taxes to support our illegal invasion of Mexico, Ann is fine with Protestant Manifest Destiny.
The main problem with illegal immigration isn't the illegal part, it's the Catholics.
The First Time
When President Polk declared war on Mexico in 1846, he claimed that "American troops had been shot on American soil." In fact, Mexican troops had fired on American troops that had deliberately violated disputed territory between Texas and Mexico. The Mexican province of Texas itself had been forced into rebellion by illegal American Protestant immigrants, who refused to abide by Mexican law and become Catholic, as was required of all settlers. Many of the WASPs also enjoyed holding slaves, even though this was outlawed by the Mexican constitution of 1824.
As an interesting sidenote, Sam Houston, the illustrious leader of the band of invading WASPs (the American version of killer bees), was actually on the run from his family at the time, trying to avoid having to financially support his wife and children in Tennessee. In short, he was sort of an early Bill Clinton.
When Abraham Lincoln demanded to know exactly what spot of American soil had been violated, the Democrats began an illustrious tradition: they ignored the question. Democrats supported the war because it held the opportunity of bringing in more slave states.
As a result, John Quincy Adams joined Lincoln and fourteen other Whigs in voting against the American invasion of Mexico. Though they lost the vote in the House by a wide margin, the Senate only approved the war by a single vote. The results were well-known - we successfully provoked a war and got the land we wanted.
The Second Time
Unfortunately, going to war against Catholics in order to grab Catholic territory was not a trait peculiar to Lincoln's generation of WASPs. The Spanish-American war fifty years later was nothing more than American interference in the internal affairs of Catholic Spain and her colony, Cuba, in order to gain still more land.
Journalists Joseph Pulitzer and William Hearst successfully inflamed existing Protestant opinion, that of the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing and Ku Klux Klan factions, through their stridently skewed journalism, with Hearst reportedly telling his photographers, "You supply the pictures, I'll supply the war." By the end of that war, Protestant America picked up Catholic Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
The Third Time
But assaults against Catholics didn't stop there. Although the Spanish American War ended hostilities on August 12, 1898, with a peace treaty signed on December 10, the Catholic Philippines had already declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898. Despite this, America had sent 11,000 occupying troops by August of the year.
We also insisted on "buying" the Philippines from Spain for $20 million in December. Then, we proceeded to start yet another war of pacification in that new Catholic territory by February 1899.
What was the provocation this time? Well, a Filipino man crossed San Juan bridge into US-occupied Manila. Not understanding English, he ignored an order to halt as he walked across, and was summarily shot by American troops. That's what those damned foreigners get for not understanding English.
President William McKinley, who had to look on a map in order to find the Philippines, would later describe the incident to reporters by saying "the insurgents had attacked Manila." A better description of the offense might be "walking while Catholic."
This war, never formally declared, limped on violently for years. As a result of the United States' inability to pacify the region, the U.S. imposed strict quotas against Filipino immigration. Asians were already barred from US citizenship by 1870, and any American woman who married an Asian automatically lost her citizenship. By 1934, the annual immigration quote for Filipinos was fifty (50).
Catholics Need Not Apply
We make up 25% of the population, we have supplied some of the greatest scientists the world has ever seen, we have surrendered our Faith through endless political compromise, staunchly supporting the American Protestant worldview for decades. Our thanks?
Get the hell out. This is America. Catholics who insist on being Catholic aren't wanted here.
Steve Kellmeyer
1) http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=188
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