A 21-year-old man in Uzbekistan won the lottery in 2010.  This week, eight people lost their lives in Manhattan.  By now you know those two events are tragically intertwined. 

What you may not know is that the man who attacked lower Manhattan this week is not the first terrorist to enter the United States thanks to the Diversity Visa Lottery. 

In the late 1990s, an Egyptian man became a legal resident when his wife won the lottery.  A few years later, he pulled out two Glocks and opened fire at the Los Angeles Airport.  This terrorist, a committed Islamist, targeted the ticket counter of El Al, the Israeli national airline. 

Both men worked as drivers, both were married with children, and both fell under the spell of radical Islam.   

And both were in the USA due to a program that is now coming under very heavy fire. 

By the way, another Egyptian named Mohamed Atta entered the Diversity Visa Lottery twice before he gained entry to the USA on a different type of visa.  

That's the same Mohamed Atta who was a ringleader of the 9/11 attacks.

The now-notorious lottery was established in 1990, during the administration of George H.W. Bush.  

Chuck Schumer, then a Representative from New York, promoted the idea as a way to allow more immigration from "low-admission" countries.  Senator Ted Kennedy was also a driving force, supposedly because he wanted to increase immigration from his beloved Ireland.

It should be noted that many Republicans voted for the larger immigration bill in which the lottery was included, and both parties have passed up opportunities to kill the lottery over the years. 

But while both parties are somewhat culpable, we all know that the very word "diversity" is the province of Democrats and liberals.  It has become a religion unto itself, especially on college campuses. 

This all raises an uncomfortable question:  What's so great about diversity?   

Immigrants from around the world have certainly contributed to America's prosperity.  

But would the United States be a worse place if we did not accept 55,000 lottery winners every year? 

Many of those visas go to people from cultures that make it difficult to assimilate. The NYC attacker’s upbringing in Uzbekistan didn't exactly prepare him to thrive in the USA's hyper-competitive society.  

Instead, he became another ripe target for radical imams. 

There can be no doubt that the Diversity Visa Lottery has enabled some terrific people to come to the USA. The media will soon be filled with heart-warming stories of lottery winners who escaped horrible situations and are now living the American Dream. 

There is also no doubt the lottery has made the diversity-mongers feel much better about themselves.  But the program has cost human lives, most recently the eight people who were mowed down Tuesday. 

A few years ago, Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte introduced a bill to kill the Diversity Visa Lottery, arguing that it could easily be used to get terrorists into the United States.   

The bill went down in flames, but Goodlatte now looks like a modern Cassandra. 

President Trump, who also wants to ax the program, has endorsed a proposal that would give precedence to immigrants with more education and greater skills.  In other words, diversity would take a back seat to competence.   

It's exactly the kind of program that works so well in Canada and Australia. 

Technology companies love the idea of immigration based on skill, but liberal Democrats hate it, partly because it would do away with the lottery.  Democrats are more likely to side with ultra-liberal, Trump-loathing Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who has proposed doubling the number of diversity visas to 110,000 every year. 

Just last month, liberal author Andrew Sullivan wrote a piece for New York magazine, which was headlined, "The Issue That Could Lose the Next Election for Democrats."

That issue is immigration, and the piece was a warning to all those Democrats who actively and vigorously oppose limits on immigration.  While most progressives won't say it out loud, their ultimate goal is open borders and unfettered immigration.

"This is the kind of madness," Sullivan lamented, "that could keep them from power indefinitely."

Democrats and liberals and progressives, lend us your ears and your minds.  The time has come to listen to one of your own and, far more important, to the vast majority of the American people who oppose schemes like the Diversity Visa Lottery. 

You should agree to embrace a sane immigration policy, which might begin by ending the diversity lottery.  

Otherwise, as Andrew Sullivan says, you may be out of power indefinitely.