I was raised as a Liberal. The first time I met a black man with a white wife, my mom afterward wanted me to know "that was OK". As a 7th grader at the time, what I had seen was a large, good looking, charismatic black man married to a distinctly unattractive white woman. Using all I knew about romance at my advanced age of 13, I thought he should've done better. It never occurred to me that someone who have a problem with it.
I bring that story up, just to ward off the inevitable charges of racism that come up when talking about our southern border.
(Thanks, halfwits
)
But I also grew up Atheist, so my outgroup growing up, was conservative Christians. What with their crazy prayer in schools crusade, Moral Majority trying to take away my porn, etc. I bought into all the characterizations of the conservative Right propagated by the Left.
But my time in the service, raised some questions. And I started looking closer, things were not as they were portrayed.
Then, I married into a cult. You know the one, the white one in the mountains, who supported Prop 8. All my in-laws are cultists, and conservative. Yet they are very tolerant of my Atheism, and DW's Apostasy. (DW may not share that opinion, but they are more tolerant than I ever expected.)
This has given me a chance to see my outgroup from my youth in a different light. Let me describe what I have seen, comparing extreme left culture with extreme right.
First, righties mature faster. I didn't expect this, but it is absolutely true. Working with a life script that revolves around family and community, many of my in-laws are more mature at 22 than I was in my early 30's. Then they have kids, and there is a second stage of maturity that comes of being a parent. They then tend to double down on the family and community aspects.
They are able to do this, because they have a culture that does much of the "growing up" work for them, and I had to figure this out on my own. Simply by conforming to the norms as laid out by the community, they had a script to go by, and adult education infrastructure built in to the culture. I don't think this system is better than that of the left, but it is different, and has different results.
One of those results, is extreme sensitivity to cultural changes, and a groupthink tied to identifying bad influences on culture. The primary difference between left and right culture is how they react to those bad influences.
Every conservative I have ever met, understands that rules that are not enforced, whatever they be, are bad. Unquestionably bad. Rules that are not enforced, will be selectively enforced, when the hand that holds the sword decides to enforce them. This is the road to tyranny. Rule 1 is rules need to be enforced. Unenforced rules train people that the rules don't matter. This undermines the basis of their culture.
So these people see the lefties as incapable of understanding basic civics. Lefties tend to be much more concerned with what the rules are, not how, why or if, they are enforced. A bad law, that is no longer enforced, is a solution, not a problem.
Now think of how this applies in our border war states.
Violent crime is high. Gangs rule territories virtually unchallenged by law enforcement. There are large populations unprotected by law. Businesses are taking advantage of the ambiguity, drawing in these same people, and treating them very badly, and the externalities of that fall squarely on the locals. Uninsured, unlicensed drivers, and all the havoc that plays. Too much drain on local charities and the tax revenues. Schools that need to address foreign cultures and ESL, when they are already failing to provide the same education levels achieved a generation prior. In a world that requires more credentials to maintain standard of living, their children are being held back to support the causes of urban elites, just as those same elites are raising the bar for attaining those credentials.
And when conservatives complain about this, Progressives calls them racists. The same people who mock them, ignoring the problems created by leftist policies, are closing door on opportunities for the children of rural conservatives.
The media tries to get morons to be morons on camera, so they can paint everyone with the same brush (This is just click motivated media, the left feels the same when the media interviews SJWs. But it's very clear that most media is produced by and for the left.). Flame wars erupt, and we get what we have today:
One side wanting a wall, knowing it won't solve anything, but at least it will last beyond the next election cycle.
The other calling for sanctuary cities and shaming anyone who complains about the effects.
And a growing group in the middle, who are ready to stop hearing from each. About anything, ever.
And to the center, I propose a solution that I think 60% of Americans could support.
Militarize the southern border. We are a nation at war. Border security should not be controversial. Build the wall to far enough on each side of any population center, that there can be no accidental crossings. Enforce with rifle fire. Enforce the rest by artillery and Argos drone systems. Close this zone of lawlessness down, with extreme prejudice. Any human attempting to move thru this area is to be treated as an enemy combatant. Surrender is possible, but a dangerous proposition. This may seem inhumane, but by comparison to what we currently tolerate, it seems kind.
This would end the low grade war currently raging on the border. People will try to cross a border and dodge patrols, when the downside is deportation. Not so much when faced with artillery strikes, called in by aerial camera systems that spot movement. Smuggling and human trafficking will move to border crossing stations and the coasts, easier places to secure. Easier enforcement will raise the cost of attempts, reducing the problem.
Comprehensive immigration reform. We need a guest worker program. Work visas that only require speaking English as a written and verbal test, fingerprinting, facial recognition, and DNA tests. Allow businesses to recruit guest workers for any position that conforms to employment regulations, in their entirety, that can't be filled from local labor pools. That means the chicken processing plants will have to pay at least minimum wages, and the wealthy won't have cheap gardeners and housekeepers. We NEED to eliminate the market for illegal labor. I suggest a fine of a year's wages at minimum wage to any business for each nonconforming employee. Anyone fleeing a work site during an inspection, will be assumed to be a nonconforming employee, and fines will be assessed as such. The businesses can appeal with whatever evidence they can gather on their own. End all agricultural exceptions to employment law. Any business that can't be profitable paying American wages and benefits, has no business on American soil. We, the public, don't want or need these externalities, and damned sure shouldn't tolerate them.
Current illegal immigrants will receive amnesty, in the form a of a guest worker visa. Guest worker visas are revoked easily, and automatically, with any misdemeanor or federal convictions. Think of it as a two strikes policy. Guest worker visas go away with the first strike. This isn't justice, this is opportunity spread to what we expect to be a better prospective neighbor. Guest worker visas expire after 5 years, and can be renewed, by local support by the guest worker's neighboring citizens and coworkers. I stole this from Swiss immigration policy, where immigrants must be supported by a vote of their neighbors. This seems like a great compromise of workability, and morality. We want good, ambitious, immigrants. We don't want or need any more criminals, or drains on our resources. Our neighbors and coworkers know us best. We shouldn't require a conviction to remove bad actors.
Guest worker visas will alleviate the main cultural damage that concerns conservatives, give a legitimacy to our current crop of illegals, and the quick auto-default policies to eliminate problems, without the current quagmire of unenforced, and unenforceable policies conservatives fear. Most conservatives would get behind a one strike policy for illegals, if we suddenly removed all the other concerns of current illegal immigrant presence. But there needs to be a immediate deportation policy for anyone not conforming to these new rules, after an application window closes. Get a guest worker visa, available in each major city, pay taxes, come out in the open, with a legitimacy currently denied to illegal immigrants. No tolerance for noncompliance. Immediate deportation after criminal sentence is completed, no further due process. No delaying tactics or reviews. Compliance or deportation, these are not citizens, they have not yet earned better treatment.
We need a path to naturalization from the guest worker program, for those who want it. If one can go 5 years without a strike, pay their taxes, and get the support of coworkers and neighbors, that is someone who has made a solid case for assimilation. We should welcome them. By the same token, we shouldn't require it, allowing guest workers to continue working as guest workers as long as that is beneficial to both parties.
Comprehensive immigration policy reform will greatly reduce demand for the human trafficking. Human trafficking will not be used to smoke out border patrols to clear lanes for smuggling. Move immigration of unskilled labor from a net negative, to a net positive for our society. And stop allowing a second class of people, unprotected among us, that allows all of the abuses to such people. People in hiding are subject to massive abuses, and very limited recourse. It is unconscionable that we tolerate this on our soil. It is unwise, to have a vulnerable population in our midst to train and feed organized crime. We should protect them, to protect ourselves.
Of course, we still won't have secured the coasts, but those are much more heavily populated, and moving border problems to the urban centers that have so thoroughly embraced immigrant rights seems to have a delicious irony. Sanctuary Cities can pay the costs of attracting illegal immigrants, on their own.
Now I can understand that a 3000 mile "no man's land" doesn't seem like much of a solution, and it's downright distasteful. As it should be. But remember that it's not a choice between a working, peaceful solution and a war zone. It's a choice between a distasteful "no man's land", or trophy trees.