OBSERVATION: What a country America is.

You have to admit that this is one great country. Sure, we are having a spat of bad publicity at the hands of foreigners who are hatefully jealous, competitor nations eager to gain global market share and a bunch of local liberal whiners. However, the carping of critics, left and right, cannot negate the implication of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens within our national embrace demonstrating their desire to become part of America.

Many of my conservative colleagues are offended by televisions images of foreign nationals protesting efforts to deport them. I was not offended. In fact, I found the coast-to-coast demonstrations a reaffirmation of the meaning of America. The demonstrators not only represented themselves, but the millions of people from all over the world who want to be in America … work in America … and become American citizens.

You tell me what country on earth has millions of foreigners risking life and limb to gain entry every year. Cubans drowning at sea and Mexicans suffocating in sealed trucks? Where else on earth have you witnessed so many non-citizens assembled to protest against a government only prospectively their own. In what other country would they have been allowed to exercise their right to assemble and speak freely? “Right?,” you may ask. How can they have a right if they are not citizens – worse yet, here illegally?

It is very simple. The United States Constitution does not grant our citizens the right of free speech or the right to peacefully assembly. It is an inalienable right, some believe granted by God, that is only recognized and protected by the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence makes that very point. The rights are inherent to the person … each and every person. You and me. AND the illegal alien on the streets of Los Angeles. The rights they exercise are not the possession of government to be granted or withdrawn by legislation, adjudication or edict. Government has no right to suspend or limit our inalienable rights.

However those demonstrators arrived in America, they brought with them their basic human rights – and they brought them to one of the few places on earth were they could exercise them freely and openly. That is the attraction of America.

Of course, there is no inherent right of citizenship. Our government has the rightful power to bestow or strip citizenship. That is a whole ‘nother issue. More about that later. For now I prefer to ponder the uncomplicated truth of human rights.