Backlash

From the Washington Post:

Herndon voters yesterday unseated the mayor and two Town Council members who supported a bitterly debated day-labor center for immigrant workers in a contest that emerged as a mini-referendum on the turbulent national issue of illegal immigration.

Residents replaced the incumbents with challengers who immediately called for significant changes at the center. Some want to bar public funds from being spent on the facility or restrict it to workers living in the country legally. Others want it moved to an industrial site away from the residential neighborhood where it is located.

This will be the first of many nasty surprises for politicians who fail accurately to judge the mood of the electorate concerning illegal aliens. While this was a local election, and certainly some of the issues that resulted in unseating the incumbents are not relevant on a national scale, the outrage felt by many Americans has been grossly underreported.

Americans, though a generous people, don't like to have that generosity taken for granted, or extorted by mass in-your-face protests. And the issue has daily irritating reminders; pressing "1" for English being perhaps the most common example.

Illegal aliens and their supporters have chosen a confrontational path, including a re-written, Spanish version of The Star Spangled Banner. When you come to the American people with your hand out, don't be slapping them with the other hand.

Cross-posted at The Jawa Report, Stop the ACLU, and Vince Aut Morire.