Really creative writing

Politicians who are in favour of mass immigration sometimes advocate the argument that `we (meaning the entire population) are a nation of immigrants.’
A pro-immigration member of the British government recently used this argument and I believe that it has also been used as an argument by pro-immigration politicians in the United States. But before I analyse (ok, I confess, tear apart) this `nation of immigrants’ notion let me make it clear that I don’t have a problem with controlled immigration and I’m not a racist.
But what I do have a problem with is governments that try to persuade myself and millions of other people that something is true when in fact it isn’t true.
The statement `we are a nation of immigrants’ patently means that everyone who is a citizen of that nation is an immigrant. So someone whose ancestors settled in that nation a few centuries ago is still an immigrant.
My ancestors settled in England 300 years ago. Your ancestors might have settled in America 100 years ago, 200 years ago or maybe you are descended from the colonists that settled in America in the 1600’s.

Either way, according to this political dictat, we are still immigrants. Nothing has happened since our ancestors first arrived in England or America. I am transfixed in 18th century England, when according to family folk lore my ancestors emigrated here from Holland, and you are transfixed in 17th, 18th or 19th. century America, when your ancestors might have arrived in America from the British Isles, Germany, Italy, Poland or Africa etc.
This transfixation could create real problems for me - and it could also create problems for you. I’ll have to start thinking traditional Dutch windmills rather than wind-farms, and wooden clogs rather than loafers. Currently pretty fun-loving, I’ll have to adapt to the Dutch Reformed Church’s idea of fun. Can’t wait.
If you aren’t too au fait with your ancestry you’ll just have to do a little research, or maybe take a chance, just kind of look like an immigrant - wear a frock coat, stove pipe hat and park a covered wagon in the drive.
I realise that political speech-writers, memorable-phrase-machinists etc. have to be brief when they create their slogans, but would it really be so difficult to create a slogan that is brief and accurate?

by Paul Gooch, may only be reproduced with the permission of the author.