Some of the supporters of illegal aliens are carrying signs at rallies that repeat the old saw that illegal aliens from points south and especially Mexico (being "bronze people" don't you know, and thus related to Native Americans), are the real owners of North America.

It's a play on the tired cliché about the U.S. being a nation of immigrants, and maintains that unless you're a Native American, Bunky, you're just a friggin' immigrant and you've got no business trying to kick out the bronze people, who as cousins of the red people, own the damn place and are thus not illegal immigrants, but you damn white people, well...you gotta go. Ho hum. Yawn.

Without belaboring this silliness too much, consider that every friggin' nation on the damn planet has seen the ebb and flow of peoples. We've all got legs and feet, and we walk all over the damn place whenever we get crowded or hungry or see that someone else has something we want. All nations are nations of immigrants. So what? That doesn't mean that the people in any nation at any given time can't have borders and can't enforce immigration laws. They derive this right from being the possessors of the land at the time they do these things.

Nature has a whole bunch of laws that one doesn't have to write down. They just are. One of those laws is that nature abhors a vacuum. And, this not only applies to why water just naturally flows into an empty chamber, it also applies to why people move about the planet.

If a people living in a desirable land does not fully populate its land or doesn't successfully maintain its sovereignty and protect its borders, then it should expect others to flow in to populate the land and to take advantage of those desirable conditions.

The Native Americans failed to populate what is now the United States and they failed to maintain its sovereignty. Europeans flowed in because this was a less crowded land and it was more comfortable for our European ancestors than Europe at that time. Also the Native Americans seem to have had elite leaders who were as goofy as our present day elite leaders. They left the damn door open, and we came in and then forced them out. We were doing work the Native Americans wouldn't do.

That's just the way it works throughout nature. All life seeks to be where it is comfortable and will try to flow to where it is, indeed, most comfortable.

Even flatworms in a Petri dish will "immigrate" to the part of the dish that is most comfortable for them. If other flatworms are already there, then something has to give because two objects can't occupy the same space. Eventually, the once comfortable part of the Petri dish is no longer comfortable either for the ones that were there first or for the new arrivals. Think United States with a population of about 300 million and then add in many millions more illegal aliens.

Who, in a cosmic sense, has the right to that better spot in the Petri dish? Do the flatworms who were there first have that right, just because they were first, or do the ones who are willing to struggle the most to be there, whether they were there first or not have that right? Ponder.

And, while you're pondering, consider that the basic principles about who has the right to something can be made clearer when we put it in the context of sports. Who has the right to win the prize or the trophy? It's the one who wins it. If one side doesn't win or just gives up, then the other side has the right to the prize. It's the same with nations.

In the U.S. today, we're seeing the elites giving up and allowing our land to be taken over. Of course, the elites aren't really giving up something they want. They're giving up what the average Americans want. Most of the elites aren't really Americans. They're internationalists who simply are staying in the U.S. Oh, they'll wave the flag and pretend they're patriots, but most really aren't. They really see themselves as citizens of the world. Average Americans, on the other hand, are usually not internationalists or citizens of the world. Foreign nations really are foreign to most Americans, they're not places where one has another home or places where one can run if things get tough in the U.S. The elites are giving away America that was built by average American citizens to be a comfortable place. The elites are simply discarding average Americans. And, yes, the chief discarder is President Bush.

The elites benefit from cheap labor and easy votes and they're insulated from the hoi polloi (you and I) by living in mansions or on well guarded ranches where they can pretend they're cowboys. That's not the way it is for average blue collar and middle class U.S. citizens. We're the ones who are getting the shaft. We're the ones who send our kids to public schools that are failing. We're the ones who face the crime on our streets because of illegal aliens. We're the ones who see our neighborhoods falling apart because of illegal aliens. We're the ones who have problems with getting medical care because emergency rooms are closing because of illegal aliens. We're the ones who are getting screwed.

In other words, it can be argued that illegal aliens are doing to us what we did to the Native Americans and what the Native Americans did to the people who were before them and so on down through the ages--they're simply moving to where it's more comfortable for them. Of course, what's happening is that they're making the nation less comfortable for us.

There's no moral right or wrong, in a cosmic sense, in this. It just depends on whether you're on the giving or receiving end of things and whether you're willing to secure and keep the comfortable spot in the Petri dish or wimp out (as our so-called leaders are doing) and let others take that comfortable spot.

To the elites, it doesn't matter if average Americas are screwed--hell, average Americans ask too much for their labor and they're uppity enough to want medical and other benefits. Screw them, is the attitude of the elites. The elites see people as machines made of flesh and blood to be used to produce wealth for the elites. If you can find a cheaper flesh and blood machine--illegal aliens, for example--there's more wealth for the elites.

But, there's another twist to this business of "first-one-in-owns-the-place" stuff. Native Americans may not have preceded Europeans in North America after all. There are many reports of Europeans being here first.

One interesting case that I wrote about several years ago concerns the so-called Kennewick Man. Here's a version of that column:

STARLOG: REMAINS FOUND OF STARSHIP CAPTAIN BEAMED DOWN TO PRIMITIVE PLANET 9,000 YEARS AGO--BURY HIM FAST BEFORE ANYONE CATCHES ON

Some years ago, some obviously ancient bones were found near Kennewick in Washington State. At first, scientists thought they were the bones of a Native American. Then, after a closer look, they realized that bones appeared to be those of a European.

The problem was that the bones were of a man who had died 9,000 years ago (about 7,000 B. C.). Not only should there not have been any Europeans in the area at that time, but this was also 6,000 years before any Native Americans were supposed to be there.

The Kennewick Man story is one of those inconvenient things that pop up every so often that cut the legs out from under various PC dogmatic "truths."

Suddenly, some Native Americans who had been claiming to a moral high ground, based on a claim that they were the first people in North America, had a rival.

While scientists wanted to conduct more studies of the bones, Native Americans demanded that the bones not be studied and that they be handed over to the Native Americans for burial. The scientists disagreed and the matter went through the courts.

Sometime ago, the court said the scientists could study the bones. At last report that's what they were doing. Whether or not the Kennewick Man eventually turns out to have been European or not is not the point of this column--there are many other similar cases that might give Europeans such a claim on North America. The point is that people move from one area to another all the time.

An interesting thing about the Kennewick Man is that the reconstruction of his head, done from his skull, bears a striking resemblance to the actor Patrick Stewart who plays Captain Piccard of the Starship Enterprise. In fact, the resemblance is so strong that one is hard pressed to tell one from the other.

Perhaps we need to look at Stewart's family tree to see if one of his ancestors disappeared from Europe while he was out fishing in his boat one day about 9,000 years ago.

If some are going to push the notion that the first one in gets the land or has the moral high ground, then Kennewick Man or some similar individual may have established a claim on North America and the Native Americans may be claim jumpers.