Conservatives - THINK!

We conservatives love to shoot ourselves in the foot. We were on the wrong side of the civil rights debate, and we are paying for it 50 years later. Sure, we own all three branches of the national government, but if we are honest, we are there because of our stand on security issues and social issues the core cares about. We do not have enough support from the so-called disinfranchised to put together solid new initiatives in other areas of social responsibility, because we aren't trusted.

We should be the party of jews, blacks, and Mexicans. If you go issue by issue, the vast majority agree with conservative principles. But we aren't trusted by these groups.

Now we are faced, not just a party, but as a nation, with an issue which has the potential to establish one party or the other as the one who solved the immigration issue. We need to agree on a few essentials, but it would appear that the red meat crowd isn't having any of it.

1. We aren't going to round up 12,000,000 people and send them back to Mexico.
2. We aren't going to round up 100,000 people and send them back to Mexico.
3. We aren't going to start putting small business owners in jail for hiring
undocumented labor.
4. We aren't going to stop educating the children of people here illegally.

If you think any of those 4 things are going to happen, you also believe that the Supreme Court is going to rule the income tax unconsitutional.

Therefore, if those things are never going to happen, WHY ARE WE SPOUTING RHETORIC that presupposes that one or more of them might happen.

It does not good to talk about cheaters, and sneakers, and other nasty adjectives and adverbs if you aren't going to send them home. You will just make them mad, and then when they get their citizenship, even if its 20 years from now, they will remember.

It does no good to argue over whose ox is being gored or whose job is being taken. The reality is that in every advanced culture in history, the people lose interest in doing "dirty" jobs. Those cultures then import labor. The imported labor doesn't look like the other folks, don't act like them, and often speak a different language. That creates fear, distrust, and other emotions that lead to discrimination and nativism.

Conservatives! Please! The Mexicans who are here will be staying, make no bones about it. We need to be the party who sets out reasonable plan for their assimilation. And we have to stop using loaded language. NOW!

Need another example. The folks of Mexican heritage who had been in California for at least a full generation overwhelming support tough laws against illegal immigration. But Conservatives lost governance in California for at least a generation when we supported prop 57 in what appeared to be a mean spirited way.

Our values are generally right. On this one, most of the base is WAY OFF.