Nancy Pelosi set some kind of record for talking in the US House of Representatives. Over eight hours straight apparently, reading letter after letter from illegal immigrants. I’ll venture a guess that she didn’t read anything from the many American parents who have lost a child to the activities of illegals. Mind you, she has to be congratulated for staying awake, on her feet in high heels, while all those about her succumbed to dozing off.

This comment from her marathon performance took the cake.

“I’m reminded of my own grandson. He is Irish, English, whatever, whatever, and Italian-American, he is a mix. But he looks more the other side of the family, shall we say. And when he had his sixth birthday… he had a very close friend whose name is Antonio, he’s from Guatemala. And he has beautiful tan skinned, beautiful brown eyes, and this was a proud day for me, because when my grandson blew out the candles on his cake, they said did you make a wish?

He said yes, he made a wish. What is your wish? I wish I had brown skin and brown eyes like Antonio.

So beautiful. So beautiful. The beauty is in the mix. The face of the future for our country is all-American. And that has many versions.”

Leave aside the fact that Pelosi’s mind is unfathomable. I’d like to mess with her story.

I want little Antonio to wish that he were white and blue-eyed, just like Ms Pelosi’s grandson. Now that’s a story she could have conjured with. White envy. Inferiority complexes among the brown young. Yet more evidence of white supremacism insidiously infecting the very young.

Mind you, Pelosi has a point in a screwy kinda way. Otherwise why would all those tanning salons exist? Lots of white people do want to be brown. I remember my mum and sister doing their best to get a tan in Liverpool in the UK whenever the sun popped out. And I worked with one bloke at Ford Motor company in Liverpool who managed to maintain a year-round tan. There was always mystery surrounding his untoward skin colouring and speculation on how he did it. He would never tell; kept referring to holidays and weekends in sunny climes, but that didn’t wash. It remains a known unknown in my mind to this day.

Personally, I am acutely aware that brown bald heads are more attractive than white ones. Alas, there is no viable remedy for fair-skinned Anglo Saxons. I know, I have looked into it.

But back to cringe-worthy lefties, of whom Pelosi is a poster matron. We are living in the most trying of times. Large sections of Western populations are no longer grounded. They have become totally oblivious to why we are free and prosperous.

What goes through their lefty minds in America when people pour across the southern border in search of riches? Without specifically knowing the facts, they probably realise that average incomes in the US are far higher than in most Central and South American countries. For example, according to World Bank data (2016), national income per capita in the US is fifteen times that in Guatemala; twenty-six times that in Honduras, and twenty-seven times that in Nicaragua. All are doing better than Haiti, by the way, where the comparative figure is seventy-three times.

I think what goes through their minds is that America’s riches are either ill-gotten or simply the result of good fortune, which has been cruelly denied poorer countries. Ergo, fairness demands that those from poorer countries be admitted to the land of milk and honey. Also, they convince themselves that nothing bad can happen out of this. Listen to them, they claim that everyone will benefit.

What they don’t do is form any realistic view of why Guatemala is poor and, say, Japan is rich. Now, I don’t accept that skin colour has much to do with the ability of people to live together in harmony; to be tolerant and trusting of each other; to accept democratic principles and the rule of law; to abhor corruption, and to put merit over nepotism and cronyism. However, culture matters as, perhaps, does the environment which it creates over many generations.

Taking evolutionists at their word would suggest that natural selection will produce people best able to navigate their environments. I am not going to go much further with this, because my knowledge is stretched, other than to say that in deeply corrupt societies those with, say, crafty or nepotistic or fatalistic turns of mind might well come to form a greater percentage of populations than would otherwise be the case. All told, poverty is one inevitable outcome.

So, importing people from poor countries is fraught with risk. Yes, Nancy, it might produce people with ready-made suntans. But that might not be the most important factor to weigh in the scheme of things.

Numbers obviously matter. Our prosperous and free Western societies are so strong they can absorb large numbers of those with different outlooks on work and life. But there are limits. And it is a mistake, worthy of the daft, to think we can’t be dragged down no matter how many millions (and tens of millions) of those from poor countries we let pour in.

As it is, those most vulnerable in Western countries are already suffering in their suburbs and towns from influxes of people with clashing values. And this is not to mention the onslaught of crowded schools and hospitals and increased competition for low-paying jobs. Pelosi and her Democrat colleagues, living in cloistered circumstances, are immune from the consequences of the open-borders policy they espouse. Take note, nobody’s grandchildren will be immune if the madness isn’t stopped.