{"id":353,"date":"2008-01-30T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-30T17:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.wordpress.com\/2008\/01\/30\/immigration-why-the-gop-is-doomed"},"modified":"2008-01-30T17:28:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-30T17:28:00","slug":"immigration-why-the-gop-is-doomed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/immigration-why-the-gop-is-doomed\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration: Why the GOP Is Doomed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The post-mortems are in full swing, each more depressing than the last. They range from Hugh Hewitt\u2019s Pollyannish optimism \u2013 \u201cRomney can still win this!\u201d \u2013 to Michael Graham at National Review<\/a>, who more aptly expresses my own sentiments as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

So it is over. Finished. In November, we’ll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate\u2026 to take on Hillary Clinton\u2014perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy.<\/p>\n

And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.<\/p>\n

You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it.<\/p>\n

Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Graham expects to spend the next nine months drinking himself silly. Right now, I would find that a very attractive option if it weren\u2019t for those darn Mormons.<\/p>\n

I still have no silver linings, but I do have an explanation. John McCain\u2019s nomination is symptomatic of the irreparably fractured conservative movement.<\/p>\n

And the issue that has created that fracture is illegal immigration.<\/p>\n

You may not have noticed, but whenever I cite my own personal list of John McCain\u2019s sins against conservatism \u2013 and they are legion \u2013 I fail to mention one that is at the top of all the talk show host\u2019s lists \u2013 namely McCain\/Kennedy, the so-called amnesty bill.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not because I necessarily think McCain\/Kennedy is a good idea. Certainly it is a politically disastrous one, pragmatically speaking. Very few people fully understand it \u2013 including me \u2013 and the thought of giving amnesty to lawbreakers is unpalatable. The bill is, however, an attempt to solve an intractable problem, one for which real conservatives don\u2019t seem to have any solution, except \u201csecure the borders first,\u201d which, frankly, doesn\u2019t address the problem at all.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with an immutable principle: you cannot repeal the law of supply and demand.<\/p>\n

As long as Mexico and other South American countries remain mired in crushing poverty, people will look to escape that poverty and cross over the border into the United States. \u201cSecure the borders\u201d all you want; they will keep coming. The demand for economic freedom is ever present, and it will not be denied. Certainly the supply is all but unlimited. Fences can be circumvented. Border guards can be eluded. Short of deploying the entire might of the American military on the border, people will continue to break into America in search of a better life.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that we should open our borders entirely. The \u201cno borders\u201d folks sound a lot like those who think we should legalize drugs. After all, both the supply and demand for dope are constant, too, so why not just give in? Because the consequences of legalization would be disastrous. Same with completely open borders. We decrease the demand by enforcing drug laws, just as we decrease demand by enforcing our borders. If we made no attempt to enforce border laws, we would be completely overrun by unskilled immigrants, and our economy would collapse under the strain.<\/p>\n

Both in drugs and in immigration, enforcement of existing laws is necessary, but it is far from sufficient.<\/p>\n

Continuing with the drug analogy, imagine saying \u201clet\u2019s not deal with people who are already addicted until we stop the drug supply first!\u201d That would be lunacy, because current addicts are the primary reason for the continued demand. It\u2019s all part of the same problem; you cannot separate the two.<\/p>\n

Similarly, \u201csecuring the borders\u201d requires some sort of accommodation for the 12 million people who are already here. They\u2019re looking to bring over their families and friends. They\u2019re creating a culture that feeds the demand, and they will not be entirely deterred by a great big fence.<\/p>\n

A guest worker program makes sense, would ease the demand and help solve the problem, and it doesn\u2019t have to be amnesty. If you doubt that, look at the precedent of the former Braceros program, instituted in 1942 for agricultural and railroad projects. Thousands would participate in the program and then return home with their earnings to Mexico. Evidence suggests that many, if not most, of illegal immigrants today would do the same.<\/p>\n

So why don\u2019t we do it today? Well, the problem back then was that Braceros were underbidding the unions, and Jack Kennedy decided to discontinue the program to make the Teamsters happy. And today, to conservatives, any accommodation smells like amnesty. And that\u2019s why Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot.<\/p>\n

Under McCain\/Kennedy, all illegals would instantly be eligible for a Braceros-type guest worker program. If they wanted to be citizens, they\u2019d have to pay $5,000 bucks and get in the back of the application line. Yet Rush and Co. scream \u201camnesty,\u201d because they wouldn\u2019t be deported en masse.<\/p>\n

Holy living crap, folks. Deporting 12 million people is all but impossible.<\/p>\n

OK, you may say. Then lock \u2018em all up! They\u2019re lawbreakers!<\/p>\n

Well, we have six million beds in our jails in this country today. You\u2019d need to triple that number to make this happen. How do you do that? Even more, why would you want to? Most of these people are willing to work, and work hard. They\u2019re guilty of putting the welfare of their families above the law. That\u2019s a crime, yes, but so is speeding. How we punish lawbreakers is tempered by the criminal\u2019s intent, and the impact the crime has on society at large. If we\u2019re going to solve this problem, we\u2019re going to need laws that reflect the reality of the situation.<\/p>\n

I am not saying, however, that McCain\/Kennedy is the answer. It was bungled badly, particularly by Senator McCain, whose heavy-handed arrogance in ramming it down our throats with minimal debate did much to offend the GOP base. But Republican resistance to immigration reform has alienated the massive Hispanic vote, and that\u2019s the reason McCain beat Romney among Latino voters by a ridiculously large 30-point margin.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the main reason Romney lost.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m being squishy here, because I\u2019m not sure what the ultimate answer is. I do know that all immigrants need to learn English. If people want to come to this country, they need to become part of the culture for their own economic survival.<\/p>\n

The Left will have none of that. They want to open the borders, set up a Balkanized nation, and dismantle American culture. It\u2019s atrocious, but it appeals to a large number of people, particularly in the absence of alternatives.<\/p>\n

The Right, in turn, has no solutions. All they have is anger. They want to build a big freakin\u2019 fence, and that\u2019s all they\u2019ve got. It\u2019s not enough. It\u2019s not going to win.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s going to keep on hurting us for decades to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thepost-mortems are in full swing, each more depressing than the last. They range from Hugh Hewitt\u2019s Pollyannish optimism \u2013 \u201cRomney can still win this!\u201d \u2013 to Michael Graham at National Review<\/a>, who more aptly expresses my own sentiments as follows:

So it is over. Finished. In November, we'll be sending out our most liberal, <\/blockquote> ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}