Diana Mary Sitek, American Thinker, January 3, 2020

The fatuous Democrat governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, recently rejected President Trump’s executive order on seeking local involvement and approval of refugee resettlement. Walz sanctimoniously declared, “The inn is not full in Minnesota.”

In justification, he cited the benefits refugees bring but omitted to mention Somali welfare fraud; Somali unemployment, which is triple that of the state as a whole; and from the anecdotal story of a former teacher friend of mine, the Somali response of, “My parents said I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not a Muslim!” And that is the tip of the iceberg. Local Somalis prefer sharia law, and from studies undertaken in Europe, it is clear that practicing Muslims integrate less well into Western society than any other ethnic or religious group. I forgo discussing the effect of pro-Somali H.R. policies, which led to the criminal shooting death of an Australian woman by a Minneapolis Somali police officer, or the shady Muslim attorney general, Keith Ellison, or the lying, cheating Ilhan Omar!

The Hmongs in Minnesota also had problems integrating, but they have embraced the American Way, and as a young Hmong technician said to me the other day, “we are Americans now.”

The Danes and Swedes, who decamped here from Europe in the 19th century, ought to take a hard look at what has happened to their ancestral homelands. Tommy Moller, professor of political science at Stockholm University, warned on December 27, 2019 that the stability that previously characterized the Swedish political system is headed for the museum. The consensus that glues the culture together is dissolving due to Merkel’s mass migration invasion policy, begun in 2015.

Hopefully, this year there will be elections in Somalia. I suggest that many Somalis ought to be encouraged to return home. In fact, the concept of refugee repatriation has received far too little attention! Why are we accepting a continuous cycle of round-the-clock, elongated refugee crises when a threat to cut off aid — or worse — if they don’t sort themselves out might resolve the situation? Better keep the flow coming, because at bottom it’s a financial racket. The churches are funded for “settling” the refugees. The growth in bureaucracy, in order to “administer” the problems arising from bringing in undereducated, barely employable people from undemocratic cultures, sharing zero common history or values with their host, has led to a vast expansion of government power — on the taxpayer’s dime! And what does the taxpayer get out of it? Former Minnesota governor Mark Dayton told the fourth- and fifth-generation residents of the Minneapolis suburb St. Cloud to “find another state if you don’t want Muslim refugees.”

The Democrats’ spurious moral argument strangely does not extend to persecuted Christians, whom they hate. And as they also despise Israel, they do not welcome Jewish refugees, either. No doubt, they’d rather have Palestinians!

Why is Minnesota so left-wing? Kurt Weber, a local guy, claims there are three reasons. The chief one is the Lutheran Church, which has the largest Lutheran congregation in the nation and is chock full of progressives, do-gooders, and “Minnesota-nice” people, who have turned the church into a vast social justice network. They are backed up by the media. The Star Tribune is an arm of the Democrat Party, and NPR enjoys Soros funding. (If it’s not reported on NPR, it didn’t happen.)

Secondly, there is a thriving LGBT community, probably because they were welcomed by the Lutherans. They uniformly march to the Left’s drumbeat.

Finally, there is the North Shore of Lake Superior. The miners in the Iron Ranges were unionized, as were the port towns of Duluth and Superior. From the 1960s, the North Shore attracted the “Make Love Not War” crowd, who are still at it, albeit perhaps with a change of partner, a graying ponytail, and wrinkles from a life in the great outdoors. Hardy, idealistic folk, but there’s nary a mosque in sight up at Grand Marais — as yet!

It has to be said that Minnesotans of the Left denomination are not peasants. And they don’t like to think of themselves as inhabiting “flyover country.” They are highly educated people and would rather identify with New York or Los Angeles than the unsophisticated, conservative rural hinterland.

However, the Left-wing cultural milieu makes it difficult to fit in. I have had to abandon many organizations because I could no longer sit smiling and listen to P.C. views without exploding. Minnesotans, being such nice people, are very sensitive, too, and the first whiff of Trump will devastate them totally. I couldn’t bring myself to cause them such misery — so I leave. But as a potential refugee from Minnesota, where can I go?

As a parting thought, I have noticed two Minnesota phenomena — the fascinating, primeval loon bird and the vile deer tick. It seems that in this great state, a “loon” and “a tick” (lunatic) are all too frequently found together.