Pizzo on the Immigration Issue

Traditional conservative, William F. Buckley was once asked how he would describe a “liberal.” He thought for moment, his snake-like tongue darting about just behind open lips, then spoke.

“A liberal is someone who over-waters their house plants.”

Ouch! That hurt. Because he was right. I knew exactly what he meant. Why would a liberal over-water a house plant? Because they were mean? No. Quite the opposite. They were just trying to help. Because liberals are nice people – sometimes too nice. Liberals have over-developed empathy glands. When a liberal tells you he or she “feels your pain,” they mean it — even if at that particular moment you’re not feeling it.

Now, before you jump all over me, I’m a liberal. (Well, a social liberal anyway, though I tend to be more conservative when it comes to things like balancing the federal checkbook.) But on social issues I’m right there – choice for women, equality for everyone and more than a little suspicious about what the domestic Axis of Evil — corporate/political/media nexus – are up to.

But, just as conservatives always go too far with their proclivities, so too do liberals. And for both, that is always their downfall. We are coming to the end – whew! — of a conservative cycle and just beginning the next liberal cycle. Be assured, it too will inevitably end in excess. But maybe we can avoid some obvious mistakes early on.

Which is why I am risking the ire of the liberal/progressive community to speak frankly about immigration reform. I know the war in Iraq is currently consuming almost all the available attention – and rightfully so. But there are other festering wounds on America’s body-politic that require immediate attention, and one of the biggest is immigration.

But before I put the war aside for a moment, we should all remind ourselves that it took the Democrats were also on the wrong side of that issue – and for way too long. And, though they seem to have now gotten it right, it’s too late. The damage is done, and it’s irreversible. Simply put, Democrats were snookered, bamboozled and herded like sheep to the slaughter by conservatives on the war.

And now they are now being led to the slaughter again, by the same bunch, on immigration reform.

Yes the Neocons are at it again. On the war they played on Democrat’s fear of being seen as sissies. This time Neocons are playing on liberal empathy for the very real plight of illegal immigrants from Mexico. But as laudable as that empathy is, it’s a trap and Democrats have taken the bait – again.

By falling in step with the Bush administration’s so-called “comprehensive immigration reform,” Democrats are driving a dagger into the hearts of working class Americans, particularly those struggling to survive at the bottom of the income scale. In other words, they are about to screw the very people they claim should vote Democrat because only Democrats will help them.