“Hi, I’m Mirror Trump. But enough about me. I’d like to hear about you.”

Here in our universe, Donald Trump made a fool of himself yesterday, calling for the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Trump’s spokeswoman confirmed the obvious, literal meaning of his statement, specifically that it would apply to all Muslims, regardless of citizens’ status. Later in the day, Trump attempted to jog this back, but neither acknowledged any difference between his earlier and subsequent comments nor refuted his spokeswoman. It’s the sort of loud-mouthed, thoughtless, cheap machismo that’s typified Trump’s candidacy from the very beginning.

Meanwhile in the Mirror Universe — where Trump is still an immigration skeptic but sports a goatee, has restrained taste in home decor, doesn’t mock physical handicaps, and is daily derided as “an impotent bore” by noted flame-thrower Mirror Mona Charen — the leading Republican candidate made rather different remarks on the same matter. Having acquired Mirror Trump’s remarks through use of a multidimensional ISP, I’m curious as to how well it will be received by the Prime Ricochetti:

My fellow Americans, it’s a deep honor to be considered as a candidate for the presidency of these United States, especially considering how many other worthy candidates there are to choose among. I did not seek this role, but Ivana and I are both touched and humbled by your support. Should I be elected, I pray that I will have the strength and wisdom to meet your expectations.

Today, the United States is in the enviable position of being the preferred destination of most of the world and of having a geography that enables us to have some degree of control over our immigration policy. Essentially, everyone wants to come here and we have the luxury of being able to choose those who meet our standards.

However, as the events of last week show, not all who wish to come here have good intent, and their potential to cause harm is enormous. Overwhelmingly, the people who meet this description come from Muslim countries and are inspired by poisonous interpretations of Islam that call for Jihad against us all. Moreover, even people who are non-violent from these societies often struggle to integrate into Western Civilization in a way other immigrants do not. How should we deal with this?

Permit me a silly but — I think — illustrative analogy. Imagine that a highly prestigious, private university opened in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Within a few short years, “Northern Alaska College” became one of the most-highly sought after institutes of higher learning, receiving ten times the number of applications from qualified candidates as it had dormitories to accommodate. Talk about good problems to have!

In recent years, however, there have been controversies regarding some students from Hawaii at NAC: specifically, they find it uniquely difficult to adjust to the punishing winters and a few troublemakers keep sabotaging the thermostats, driving up heating bills and making things physically uncomfortable for other students who prefer to not have to change into shorts every time they come in from the cold.

Given these circumstances — the college’s unique culture, its desire to cater effectively to those who chose it for what it was, the specific issue overwhelmingly limited to students from Hawaii (though not constituting all of them), and the abundance of qualified students from elsewhere who are far less likely to have this problem — the school’s administration adopts a controversial policy: it will ignore all applications received from a zip code that begins with “96.”

Undoubtedly, this policy is unfair toward qualified Hawaiian students who don’t mind a little cold. But that doesn’t necessarily make the policy a bad one, or necessarily unfair. There’s no shortage of qualified students from elsewhere to account for, as well as the student already at NAC who are frustrated by having to turn the thermostat down and having their room & board increase as a result. Besides, there’s no shortage of other schools available in the country that would be more than happy to take the handful of Hawaiians who would otherwise be admitted to NAC.

And while the policy is imprecise — as being from Hawaii is hardly a guarantor of not being able to handle the cold, nor is not being from Hawaii a guarantor of winter hardiness — but that’s also not sufficient reason to reject it out of hand. What it lacks in precision it may well make up for in efficiency by virtue of convenience. It’s a heuristic, and heuristics can be useful.

Might such a policy make Hawaiian students feel “unwelcome” at NAC? Given both human nature and the current madness that afflicts our campuses, it’s all but certain. But just because that would be an understandable response does not make it a rational one. The college could — and probably should — address that problem through some simple outreach, emphasizing that those Hawaiians already at NAC are no less full students and members of the campus community.

That is why — should you choose me as your next president — I would instruct the State Department to cease all new immigration from Muslim-majority countries, with individual exceptions being made personally by the Secretary of State, who will report them to me. Moreover, we will divert resources into applying additional scrutiny to those Muslims who are currently in the process of getting their visas or becoming US citizens to the extent due process allows.

Please note that I am referring exclusively to non-citizens: American Muslims are every whit as much my fellow citizen as the next person. Moreover, Muslim American patriots are uniquely qualified to help us combat one of the greatest social challenges of the 21st century: finding a way to reconcile Islam to modernity in the same way Judaism and Christianity did hundreds of years ago.

Thank you, and good night.

Photo Credit: our own EJ Hill.