Open-borders conservatives smear their fellow conservatives

What is it with these open-borders “conservatives” such as William Kristol and David Brooks who speak with such contempt about the people who are against amnesty and for enforcement? Don’t these open-borders supporters realize that many of their fellow establishment conservatives are among those they are trashing as know-nothings and xenophobes? What’s going on here? And how come the respectable conservatives who are being smeared have not reproached the smearers?

Below is a partial, tentative list of prominent figures in the conservative camp who are against amnesty and for enforcement. The list started with eight names, and I invite readers to send more. However, I have decided not to include people such as Michael Savage, Terry Anderson, and Lou Dobbs. Savage is too wild to be respectable, and Anderson and Doggs are primarily known as immigration reformers rather than as conservatives per se. For the same reason, paleoconservatives would not fit on this list, since paleocons by definition would be against amnesty. What we need are non-paleocon members in good standing of the mainstream conservative establishment who are amnesty opponents. Such a list demonstrates that the smear artists are smearing their fellow establishment conservatives.

Thomas Sowell
Rush Limbaugh
Sean Hannity
John Fonte
practically all of National Review
Heather Mac Donald
Victor Davis Hanson
Powerline
Michelle Malkin
Cal Thomas
Phyllis Schlafly
Paul Weyrich
Laura Ingraham
Michael Reagan
David Brudnoy (deceased, but he would certainly be against amnesty)
Diana West
John O’Sullivan
Don Feder
Ann Coulter

As this list keeps expanding, and as we remember that the majority of grassroots conservatives are against any scheme to legalize illegals, it suddenly becomes apparent that the open-borders conservatives who denounce amnesty opponents as bigots have become like the New York Times. In 1993, the Times had an editorial saying that the people who wanted to send Haitian refugees back to Haiti were the “farthest far right.” But at the time, polls showed that close to two-thirds of the American people wanted to send the Haitians back. So, according to the Times, two-thirds of the American people were the farthest far right. Similarly, for today’s open-borders “conservatives” such as William Kristol and Fred Barnes, a large majority of conservatives, as well as a very considerable number of conservative writers and pundits, are xenophobes, bigots, know-nothings, and yahoos.

(Note: In order to confirm that each of these parties belongs on the list, it might be useful to find and link an article by each of them in which they unambiguously oppose any amnesty or guest worker program—unlike, say, Robert Samuelson, who wrote a strong column attacking the guest worker proposal but then turned around and advocated amnesty.)

Paul Henri writes:

Ann Coulter really let O’Reilly have it on Friday. In response to his idea of compassion for a pathway for these criminals, she responded by saying, where is your compassion for those who have been waiting in line to immigrate legally? He looked down, shook his head, and graciously said he was glad to have her on.

So add Ann Coulter to the list.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 17, 2006 01:01 PM | Send