Distasteful Political Ad of the Month

When this (actually, the fourth video down) came up on the news this morning I could only react, "Oh, my goodness!"

Since I watched it, you don't have to. In it, this Nice Young Man is trying to argue that immigration is dangerous to the environment.

Now, let that soak in for just a moment. He isn't saying "illegal immigration," he's saying "immigration" — as in all immigration. He throws in this bogus statistic about how immigrants (again, not illegal immigrants) produce four times as much carbon as they did in their home countries. Well, of course they do, dingleberry, most of them come from considerably less-industrial societies. What a stupid git.

If you should succumb to the temptation to look at their website, you will quickly perceive that this is not an environmentalist group. It really bothers me that this anti-immigration group (again, anti-all-immigration, not just improper immigration) is using Earth Day to try to make the association between environmental degradation and immigration, like they're trying to seduce the tree-huggers into sharing their somewhat troubling attitude. And as a CCTH (Certified California Tree Hugger) myself, I find it somewhat offensive; I refuse to be associated, even second-hand, with this 100% baloney attitude. (Racist? You judge).

I'm fairly liberal when it comes to the question of people who came to the U.S. over the back fence rather than through the front gate, but I can easily understand the point of view of those more hard-core than I when it comes to "illegal immigration." But that's not what these guys are about.

I don't want to waste my energy, or yours, on a refutation of their argument; it seems obvious to me. If that attitude is informed by the fact that my Mom was born in Poland and my Dad's parents in Ukraine, well, there you go. "We came here from someplace else, but you can't." Sounds infantile, really. This reminds me of , or that bumper sticker you sometimes see up North, "Welcome to Oregon, Now Go Home." But those were meant to be sardonic.

Happy Earth Day.