That very line was uttered, reflexively, by Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson Monday night while discussing how one percent of Guatemalans have left for our country in just the last year. It's a qualifier reflecting that one has been put on the defensive — in a losing position.

Conditioned responses are funny things. One of them, the statement that they're "probably all nice people" — oft used when discussing illegal migrants — is also a dangerous thing.

No, this isn't an attack on Carlson, who's the best mainstream cable news and commentary host in the business. Rather, it's a cautionary tale: that an intrepid culture warrior such as Carlson can be conditioned to behave defensively — when he should be unabashedly taking the offense (the best defense) — speaks volumes about the effectiveness of leftist conditioning.

The quoted statement is illogical. No large group contains member who are "all" nice people. Moreover, as Carlson himself pointed out last year, citing data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (video below), illegals do, unsurprisingly, commit an inordinate amount of crime. Nice people?

It follows that those migrating illegally — making a conscious decision to violate another nation's sovereignty and laws — would include an inordinate number of not so nice people.

That said, let me be clear: I couldn't care less, and it's wholly irrelevant, whether those invading our country are or aren't Nice People™. I'm not God; my job isn't to judge their souls. (Interestingly, many who'll scold, "Do not judge lest you be judged" when hearing others judge people as bad will themselves judge the same people as good. But if one can't judge hearts, that would include positive judgments.) I simply want them to stay the heck out of my country — and be expelled if they've already invaded.

If you can't say this, unabashedly, you've already lost the migration debate. Realize that the Left, some in whose vanguard are master manipulators, has conned us into apologizing for doing what's right, for enforcing just laws. But what other crime do we address so sheepishly, qualifying our opposition to it with notions that the perps are "just seeking a better life" and may be "nice people"? Why, I met counterfeiters who were nice people. What's niceness got to do with it?

This is no small point. It's safe to say most of the German soldiers — being average young men conscripted into service — invading Poland in 1939 and the USSR in '41 were "nice people." Should they have been given blankets; lawyers; court dates; handouts; and, ultimately, invitations to stay?

Then, a family hosting me in France years ago one day brought me to the home of a friend who was a communist — but a nice person. (He really was. He had an easy smile, and said he realized that the ideology doesn't work, so perhaps he was a sort of theoretical communist.) I liked him, and I do to this day, but I still wouldn't want a few million like him in my country.

"Nice" is irrelevant. Nice doesn't save civilization. Nice never won a war, hot or cold, actual or cultural. Theological correctness informs that man is good by nature — though that nature is fallen — because he was made by God and for God. Reflecting this, most people want to do good, though often don't know what good is. "Nice" is not unique.

And it's neither good nor nice to invite into our midst people who, well intentioned or not, will irrevocably alter our culture for the worse, transforming our land into something more closely resembling what they left. Relevant here is that 70 to 90-plus percent of these illegals, not to mention the same percentage of (legal) immigrants, vote for leftists upon being naturalized (and sometimes before). Why do you think the Democrats want them here? Because they're "nice"?

So let's stop with the nice-illegals qualifier. It doesn't matter if they're nice — only that they're here and not where they're supposed to be: at home, building up their own darn countries.

After all, if they can't make their own lands better, why should we think they wouldn't make ours worse?

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Image: Fox News via YouTube.