by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Until the appearance of Barack Obama on the national scene, I knew of \u201cthem\u201d only from an old sci-fi movie in which huge ants (\u201cThem!\u201d) ate people.<\/p>\n But there are new monsters in America, and I am starting to wonder whether I am to be considered among them: those of the uninvolved and uninformed lives, the bar-raisers, the downright mean ones, the never deserving of respect ones, the Vegas junketeers, the Super Bowl jet setters, the tuition stealers, the faux-Christians who do not pay higher taxes, the too much income makers, the tormenters of autistic children, the polluters, the enemies deserving of punishment, the targets to bring a gun against, the faces to get in front of, the limb-loppers, the tonsil pullers, the fat cats, the corporate jet owners, the one-percenters, the stupidly acting, the not paying their fair sharers, the discriminators on the \u201cway you look,\u201d the alligator raisers and moat builders, the vote deniers, the clingers, the typical-something persons, the hunters of kids at ice cream parlors, the stereotypers and profilers, the cowards, the lazy and soft, the non-spreaders of money, the not-my-people people, the Tea party racists, the not been perfect and mistake makers, the disengaged and the dictating, the not-the-time-to-profiteers, the ones who did not know when to quit making money, and on and on.<\/p>\n My God, man, how did Barack Obama & Co. conjure up so many demons?<\/p>\n So Are You One of the Culpable?<\/strong><\/p>\n This is proving to be a Manichean administration. It sees the world in terms dark and light, of us\/them, and then must create the necessary binaries to divide and demonize \u2014 so strange given this was the narrative of the Obama campaign against Bush, not so strange given the Chicago origins.<\/p>\n After three years, I realize that lots of us are on the downside of about every one of the president\u2019s new Mason-Dixon lines. Yet I am not a one-percenter like Jon Corzine or Nancy Pelosi. I did not send my kids to private schools as did the Obamas in Chicago. I live in a racially mixed area, one of the poorest in the nation \u2014unlike the mostly white mansion environs of John Kerry. My siblings\u2019 families are racially mixed; I\u2019ve never bought and sold real estate, or made much money on investments. I am certainly, then, no Rahm Emanuel, Jamie Gorelick, or Franklin Raines. I never had any developer give me a sweetheart deal to expand my backyard as did Barack Obama. I have never in my life used the term \u201ctypical black person\u201d and would not dream of talking in terms of being a \u201cwise white guy.\u201d I have never been in a church where the pastor used the Lord\u2019s name to amplify his cursing.<\/p>\n Sorry, No Medieval Penance for Us?<\/strong><\/p>\n Unlike Timothy Geithner, I have always paid my taxes as I should. And unlike Barbara Boxer, I for a number of years made a living driving a tractor and pruning. In other words, I should be sorta OK in the Obama\u2019s us\/them class divides. But I also have not purchased an exemption from the Obama adjudicators, and feel no guilt about anything. I did not vote for Barack Obama and I have a bad habit of criticizing much of what he wishes to do for America. Professing to being liberal and caring, after all, in this era, is more important than being so. So instead, like many of you, I am getting the feeling that Obama plans to run for reelection on the premise that millions of Americans like us have done or are doing something quite wrong to people more noble than ourselves, both here and abroad.<\/p>\n Punish Our Enemies?<\/strong><\/p>\n In the last week, there was more talk on illegal immigration from open-borders activists, the Obama administration, and Mexico \u2014 all to the effect that the United States has to shape up, be more caring, and start granting amnesty (\u201ccomprehensive immigration reform\u201d). But what are we missing? Did not over 11 million people enter the US illegally, and without apparent care about the law? I would not drive into Mexico without legal identification, or sign affidavits that I knew were false, or abandon my car at the scene of an accident in Acapulco, or register for public assistance in Mexico City, but I am to expect others can do the reverse with impunity?<\/p>\n Does not the US allow almost $50 billion to leave the country for Latin America in remittances? Are not American social services extended to illegal aliens at a time when states are near bankrupt? Are not nearly 50,000 illegal aliens housed in California prisons at a cost of at least $40,000 each per annum?<\/p>\n In other words, the United States seems to have been a generous host. Why then the unending anger and accusations, rather than frequent gratitude that one is living in Fresno rather than Oaxaca? Whether intended or not, the message is hourly becoming \u201cyou better let me come into your insensitive, illiberal, and uncaring country\u2014or else!\u201d<\/p>\n Rarely in the history of US immigration have the representatives of want-to-be citizens been so angry at the majority of the country into which their constituents have decided to move. Only Orwell could explain why the Mexican government is suing the state of Arizona to force it to accept its own apparently unwanted Mexican nationals who have entered that state illegally: \u201cYou better let us export to you our own whom we cannot house or feed adequately (and often will not care to) \u2014 or else!\u201d<\/p>\n