Hang onto your matriculas, everybody! Chicago’s illegal alien population and their anarchist apologists will hit the bricks again on July 19, and this time they mean business:

In recent weeks, some of the organizers’ rhetoric and positions have become more forceful. After expressing general support for immigrants in the first two marches, many organizers now say they want a plan that legalizes all immigrants, They say they will not accept a compromise. ["Immigration activists to go back on march," Chicago Tribune, July 14.]

Did you get that? Advocates for lawbreakers say they are unwilling to at least meet supporters of the rule of law half way on what U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlo Gutierrez says is the key social issue facing the U.S. What’s going on here?

“We will show them that we are not afraid and that we will stand up,” says Claudio Gaete, an organizer with the Coalition of African, Asian, Arab, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois–a participant in Wednesday’s march–compared recent raids on workplaces that employ illegal immigrants to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In both cases, he said, the government targeted a specific ethnic group.

Whew! Are you people feeling guilty yet?

I say bring it on, Claudio. Bring on “El Pistolero.” By all means, demonstrate once again to the people of Chicago - and the nation - just how much you despise the rule of law and the sovereignty of the American people. Show up again waving the American flag instead of the ones your participants would much rather be showcasing. We’re on to you and your ilk and have but one question: Why aren’t illegal aliens back in their own countries showing the same arrogant resolve and determination they have to circumvent our immigration laws to make their homelands a place where they want to live and work? Why aren’t they demanding of those governments what they have no right to demand of ours?

I think the answer is pretty obvious, Claudio: They’re cowards.

In honor of Bastille Day, Mark Steyn reprints a 2002 column on Jean Marie Le Pen –Scroll down here or read the original here in which he makes the point that the success of “far right” candidates in European elections is a result of the the same bipartisanship that exists in the United States, in which both sides of the political fence agree to do nothing about immigration, and by extension, do nothing about immigration related crime:

M. Le Pen wants to restrict immigration; Chirac and Jospin think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen thinks the euro is a “currency of occupation”; Chospin and Jirac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to pull out of the EU; Chipin and Josrac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to get tough on crime; Chispac and Jorin think this, too, is beneath discussion, and that may have been their mistake. European Union and even immigration are lofty, philosophical issues. But crime is personal. The French are undergoing a terrible wave of criminality, in which thousands of cars are routinely torched for fun and more and more immigrant suburbs are no-go areas for the police. Chirac and Jospin’s unwillingness even to address this issue only confirmed their image as the arrogant co-regents of a remote, insulated elite.

Europe’s ruling class has effortlessly refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it. You might disapprove of what Le Pen says on immigration, but to declare that the subject cannot even be raised is profoundly unhealthy for a democracy.

You can read some coverage of Le Pen on Vdare.com here and here, I’ve never really thought much of him myself, the only way he can look good at all is by comparison with other French politicians.

As for Bastille Day itself, I’m afraid that that having political opponents who dislike the French is no excuse for actually liking them yourself, and suggest that in honor of Bastille Day, you read Operation Parricide, by Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, about the horrors of the French Revolution.