By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
When I was still a college student, Save Jerseyans, I remember reading one of the late, great William F. Buckley‘s late-in-life columns, published in 2006 two years before he passed, reacting to then-President George W. Bush‘s grand attempt at immigration reform, an effort which was ultimately doomed by a Republican Congress.
The father of modern conservatism’s position might surprise his political progeny. “The border is too long, and the osmotic processes by which it is penetrated are too varied to oversee except by the kind of Bolshevik exercises used by East Germany before 1989,” Buckley lamented. “These aren’t enterprises the United States would engage in. The running talk of deportation is genially self-betraying.”
Surprised? Don’t be. Here’s Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush discussing immigration and securing the Mexican border back during a 1980 primary debate:
https://www.facebook.com/chroncom/videos/vb.12852567813/10154528827472814/?type=2&theater
If you support a federal socialized medicine regime?
No ambiguity to be found. That’s open and shut; you’re not a good conservative. Self-apply your RINO badge to save us the trouble of doing it for you.
Suggesting that a real immigration solution needs to go beyond, or is more complicated than simply deporting 11+ million people and building a Game of Thrones-style wall with magically-obtained Mexican pesos?
You’re no more-or-less liberal than William F. Buckley, Jr., George H. W. Bush, and yes, Ronald Reagan. Congrats; no matter what the Trumpies may tell you, there’s worse company to have.
SLOW DOWN before you toss a coffee cup at the screen. I am NOT expressing 100% agreement with Reagan’s 1986 reform effort. Hardly; I’ve written candidly about it. Nor am I suggesting that changing circumstances shouldn’t require free-thinking individuals to revisit previously-held beliefs. Times change! Yet politicians are always mere humans (even when they don’t act like it). They’re subject to human frailty and, at best, they’re products of their respective times living on this planet.
But that’s exactly my point, something I hope you can see? Even if immigration is your #1 issue heading into the 2016 primary season? As I’ve consistently argued in the past, we need to avoid turning GOP heroes like Reagan into something they never were. We correspondingly also need to stop cherry-picking issues de jour and mutating them into stand-alone litmus tests for conservative candidates.
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Have to disagree on one point. Right to keep and bear arms is my litmus test. A politician fails it, nothing else matters to me. I think it is a good barometer of their understanding of the relationship between the people and government.
R00n the L00n writes: “There’s a reason Reagan landed 37% of the Hispanic vote in ’84 and, twenty years later, his running mate’s son racked-up 44% of the vote compared to Mitt Romney’s… 27%.”
Like 37% of the beener vote is something to brag about. Here’s a newsflash for ya, shithead: unless we take control of the border we share with a 3rd world toilet, we are going to suffer the same fate as Rome – which also opened its borders to barbarians.
And forget about ever winning the so-called hispanic vote: they all come from a post-colonial, feudalistic, authoritarian culture where Big Daddy Padron takes care of those on whom his favor rests. They have neither the temperament nor the personal fortitude to endure in a free market republic and contribute anything significant to its longevity apart from cleaning pools and mowing lawns.