The three questions in the article 'says it all'!

 

Country as home

By John M. Grondelski www.americanthinker.com

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/country_as_home.html

If I asked you, “how many guests do you have to have in your home?” your likely response would be, “None.  It’s my home and they are guests.”  

Some people are gregarious and like people.  Their home is like Grand Central Station.  They throw parties all the time.  “My door’s open!”

Some people are introverted.  People wear them down.  They prefer their privacy.  

Some people want to have guests but don’t have the space or the means.  Some people don’t want guests but feel obliged.  Some people are ill but want guests.  Some people are sick and prefer solitude.  Some people are sick and tired of guests.

But everybody seems to agree: How many guests you have is your choice.

So why does that become a problem when we talk immigration policy?

One’s country is, after all, one’s home.  We call it the “homeland.”  We even have a Department of Homeland Security to protect it.

There are all sorts of national homes.  Some have or have had open doors.  Others are hermetically sealed.  Some have lines waiting to get in.  You couldn’t pay people to go to others.  Illegals crashing the U.S.-Mexican border: We may oppose it but we understand the motivation.  Soldier running north across the DMZ into North Korea: Is the guy nuts?

If countries are our national homes, why is the idea that we might want to regulate who comes in so exotic, so unfair, so “un-American” to some?

Now, let’s also recognize my analogy is somewhat askew.  Analogies are like that: There is often less in common than more.  But my analogy is not off in terms of considering a country as a home.  It’s off in talking about the “guests.”

Most of the “guests,” i.e., illegal aliens, are not waiting for an invitation into the house called America.  They’re breaking in.  They are either crashing through the door or sneaking through the window by illegally crossing the border, or they’re guests that don’t know when to go home (visa overstays).  You know: You put out the lights, clean up the food, close the bar…and the stragglers are still on the couch?  Or the “guest” that asked to sack out on your couch for a “a couple of days”…two months ago?

In this situation, is it unfair to call the police to throw those breakers and enterers out?  Is it unfair to say to the “guests” that don’t know when to leave “get out!”? Do you, as homeowner, have a responsibility to play host indefinitely to moochers and home invaders?

Most normal people would say without hesitation, “Of course not!”

So why is normal immigration enforcement so controversial?

Perhaps a sidebar might help explain that controversy.  Why are there problems in some jurisdictions about squatters?  Why is it that in some places, legitimate homeowners have to contend with people illegally occupying their homes?  Why in those places does it seem the burden-of-proof falls on the person who actually owns the home?

It’s these kinds of alienation from the noble and normal principle we inherited from Magna Carta — “my home is my castle” — that explains these frankly inexplicable political postures.  At root is a socialist idea — a very “un-American” one — that private property is evil.  That having something that’s “yours” is unfair and prima facie evidence that somebody was unfairly treated by your possession of it.  So squatters can take over your house and legitimize their occupation the longer they stay and illegals can take over your national house and claim their prolonged presence legitimates it.

When we look at the “logic” of this thinking from the viewpoint of country-as-home, doesn’t it seem…well, illogical?

So, perhaps, we need to recover some basic principles.  Like:

1. My home — personal and national — is mine.
2. Ingress to my home — personal and national — is decided by me.
3. If you enter my home — personal and national — without invitation or refuse to leave when asked, I can evict you.

No, I do not advocate we become misanthropes.  Yes, I understand that countries are “bigger homes” and solidarity demands concern for the common good.  But, as I indicated, there are lots of reasons — good, bad, and neutral — that people may have fewer or no guests, but that the first criterion is that it’s their house and their choice. Which brings me back to the first question: How many guests do you have to have at your house?