The biggest insult was the endlessly repeated claim that illegal aliens "take jobs that Americans won't take." Even in agriculture, where illegal aliens have their biggest impact, three quarters of the workers are not -- repeat, not -- illegal aliens.

In some particular localities, some particular work may be done primarily by illegal aliens. But that does not mean that this work would go undone without them. More pay attracts more people.

New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg is still pushing the line that there would be economic collapse without illegal immigrants. But, despite the scary picture of 12 million illegals being suddenly deported, the cold fact is that 12 million young Americans in the prime of life were removed from our economy to go into the military during World War II and the economy did not collapse.

These 12 million young men went into the military a lot faster than 12 million illegals can be rounded up and deported.

Yet the American economy boomed, producing an incredible amount of output, half of it going into the military to equip and support our own troops and to supply the British and the Russians with vast amounts of war materiel.

Incidentally, the real issue is not how feasible it is to round up and deport 12 million illegals. The real issue is how you prevent 12 million from becoming tens of millions more by allowing amnesty.

There were only about 3 million illegal aliens when an amnesty bill was passed 20 years ago, leading that number to quadruple. Do we want today's 12 million illegals to quadruple?

The other big insult to our intelligence was the claim that amnesty is not amnesty when you call it something else. But, when the people didn't buy it, the politicians had to stop selling it.