This showed up in a Key West Newspaper after a great deal of howling over a couple illegal immigrants were scooped up by ICE. The response below is from a respected KW citizen and Marine stating what is causing many conservative a good deal of angst over illegal immigration VS the neoliberal left wing statist movement.
"You hear that your president is repeatedly attempting to grant executive amnesty to tens of millions of illegals after claiming earlier that he didn’t have that power, and he keeps pushing it despite being shot down by judges. You want to tell everyone about it, but most of your friends have not heard of any of this because it’s rarely reported in their media. You won’t be believed, and you’ll just sound like a racist or a kook so you bite your tongue and internalize it.
You understand that most of those who oppose you, knowingly or not, align with the progressive left, meaning they have internalized many Marxist ideals without the Marxist methods. Their movement pursues social justice (aka “group justice” over individual justice) across generations rather than through revolution. And a growing number of them, like John Kerry, believe borders are a relic of the past. So on one side of their mouths they sic activist Justice Department attorneys on border states that dare enforce immigration laws themselves, and on the other side they organize states and cities to nullify those same immigration laws in order to create sanctuaries, all the while pretending to be just following the Constitution or “compassionate”.
But you don’t believe they’re acting out of compassion because most were publicly opposing a path to citizenship 10 years ago! You recognize that the progressive left just wants to roll back constitutional restrictions on government power, and illegal aliens conveniently fit in because they are so disproportionately uneducated that they’re less likely to understand or appreciate America’s founding principles. And they are so economically desperate and come from cultures where so few restrictions exist on what governments can do that they’ll both campaign for and often illegally vote for whoever promises them benefits. You see the slimy duplicity, opportunism, and lies of the “pro-immigrant” left’s leadership and it makes you angry. You see them wanting to do the same with millions of Muslim refugees even though most support Sharia Law. You suspect that it’s because Muslim refugees are also predisposed to submit to authority rather than demand liberty. You want to fight that, but see others who have done so attacked as islamophobes. You know it’s not true, but you’re not a scholar; you haven’t studied this for years, and don’t have time to research delicate responses without making mistakes that will be pounced on! And that just makes you more angry!!!
Then you see reports of illegal aliens, that are organized by progressives, marching down streets and protesting immigration law enforcement. Some are insulting your morals and your president! And you think, “Where the hell, other than America, can someone illegally enter a foreign country, slander it and its people, and then “demand” benefits and citizenship?
So when you come across a Blue Paper report of one or two illegals actually being deported despite being good citizens, you won’t be predisposed to compromise and empathy. You might snap back with something like, “It’s about time” or “They knew what they were doing when they came here.” It’s not that you have no “compassion for this couple”, or only “venom for all who came here without papers”. It’s just that it looks to you like propagandist white washing in the middle of a battle to fundamentally transform a culture based on American values into some kind of progressive statistic utopia, even if the author of the story doesn’t know what she’s part of.
Most people rarely think about this kind of larger political/ideological battle or understand it at all, but it’s always simmering in the background as they go about their lives. And if they don’t recognize it, the players and the politics makes no sense."
And I added my 2 Cents.
grampster says:
March 17, 2017 at 10:15 am
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I’d add to Mr. Carson’s comments that most of us who he describes as conservative are not opposed to immigration at all. We support legal immigration, but controlled by the rule of law. In describing why he thinks some conservatives think and do as they do, his comments at the same time fully describe the mindset and actions of the liberal leftist; so called progressive. It is a mindset that seems to be of short-sighted emotionalism couched in a self centered smugness that boggles the mind when set in a historical context. Sadly, discussion about the issues rarely is productive.
Comments are always made that we are a nation of immigrants. That’s true. Much of that immigration came from people who wanted to be Americans and assimilate into the American culture of constitutional republicanism which provides opportunity and individual freedom, not the oppression and collectivism they fled which reduces the human experience to the lowest common denominator. I am a 3rd generation product of immigration. I admire the bravery of those who dare much to come to America. But many who come here these days seem to not want to assimilate, but rather bring along the very culture and misery they sought to escape. The left celebrates this and that is hard to understand. Ironically this mindset is divisive rather than the E Pluribus Unum that made America the great nation it is.
In addition, a hundred or more years ago we did not have over 315 million Americans. We did not have an entrenched social welfare system that is multi generational and oppressive system which encourages the breakdown of the family and feral youth rather than a hand-up. We weren’t experiencing then how our economic engine is stuttering for many reasons, over-regulation by the federal government and its administrative state, high taxes, and a political party system that acts more in the interests of its officials than the American people among other things. We are living in times that the emotional shortsightedness on the Left should give way to a bit more introspection by those who choose insults and condemnation while ignoring the real issues we face.
