Okay, I admit it - I stretched the title a bit to get your attention. I'm more independent than Republican these days - Republican all my life until John McCain, the last two election cycles I have voted for a third party in protest that the GOP would nominate such tepid men. But I still understand these guys (the Republicans, that is) inside and out, and these days I am feeling some brotherly concern for them. There is trouble in paradise, and I would like to list several suggestions for the Grand Old Party to follow if they are going to turn things around and stop getting trounced by 'dem Dems.
1. Realize you are making a lot of people angry with your immigration policy. Why did you lose the Hispanic vote? Because you want to close the borders. This is persnickety, territorial, small-hearted, and all kinds of things like that. You are reminding people of the Grinch who stole Christmas.
Think about it, my friends. How did you get to this nation? Your grandfather got on a boat and came over here to escape the potato famine in Ireland or the Nazis in Germany or the Communists in Russia. You have no more right to this place than anyone else in the world - it was a gift, opened up to you by God. If you received such grace, who are you to deny this to anyone else?
You may say, I am not against immigration; I am only against illegal immigration. Well, the fact of the matter is, that legal immigration has become so difficult that it's out of the reach of most people. And these people suffer poverty, war, disease, and joblessness in their home lands. Their lives are a dead-end street. So, we need to do two things:
1. Loosen the immigration laws, making it easier for people to get in, and
2. Support a graduated program of amnesty for the current illegals and their children.
Look, I want to keep my job as much as the next guy. But I have lived in Philadelphia for the last 20 years and can tell you, these people are not stealing our jobs. They take the jobs no-one else wants, and do fantastic work at them. They are our janitors, gutter cleaners, fruit pickers, and factory workers. They are honest, hard-working, polite, law-abiding, and friendly. I love these people, and by George, they are way better for our society than a lot of the legal citizens I see.
We worry that there will not be enough land to go around; there will not be enough workers. But the U.S. has become great because we have always been a giving nation. If we stop this now, we will regress into miserliness and ingratitude. We will think that what has been given to us is something that we deserve. This attitude lacks compassion, understanding, and appeal with Hispanic votes, which we need to attract before the window of opportunity closes and we lose their trust for generations.
2. Convince people that they were born to work. Mitt Romney debated job creation with President Obama, touting his ability to fix this economy and create jobs. Kudos to Mr. Romney, and I believed him. (The reason I did not vote for him had nothing to do with his economics, which I believe are light years better for our country than Obama's.) But his point made no difference, because he was talking to about half of a potential workforce that, well, would prefer actually NOT to work. The reason they voted for Obama and not Romney had nothing to do with whether or not they believed Mitt could give them a job - more likely, they were afraid he just might.
You see, we are living in a day and age of entitlements. The devil's bargain made during the Great Depression by Franklin Delano Roosevelt has become the insatiable monster called the entitlement society. FDR cut ties with personal responsibility and bailed the people out of their misery. In exchange, he expected their votes. Well, the people liked being bailed out so much that they never returned to the personal responsibility track. Why work when Uncle Sam will pay the bills? And so now, we have 42 million Americans on food stamps, a 25% increase from only 4 years prior. Millions more take disability, unemployment, Social Security Income, and welfare checks. According to an inner city nurse I know, who works at a clinic serving the poor of North Philadelphia, about half of these need them, and half don't.
So, the message the GOP needs to be bringing to the populace is not, "I can get you a job," but rather, "A job is what you need not just economically, but as a human being. You will be happier if you work, because that's how you are wired." People need to be persuaded of the Republican philosophy of life.
3. Third, and last, the Repubs need a little compassion. I have been thinking about compassion these days. What is it? Paul Miller in Love Walked Among Us suggests that compassion begins with considering and not judging.
"Judging is knee-jerk, quick, and bereft of thought, while compassion is slow and thought-filled. By slowing down so that I could feel compassion, I was closer to both Courtney and Jill. If I'd speeded up and judged, I would have been distant from them. Judging separates and, thus, destroys community; compassion unites and creates commmunity."
Republicans are often accused of lacking compassion and being judgmental. We don't think this about ourselves, myself included. It is obvious to us that our way of life is right, we have done the right things to get there, and the deadbeats who want to take governmental handouts or live illegally in our society or legalize pot are irresponsible, lazy, naive, and dishonest. People should take responsibility for their lives, and buck up.
If, however, compassion is slow and thought-filled, and begins with looking, I think we have to ask ourselves, how much have we actually looked at the situations of those who think differently than we? How many Republicans live, for example, in urban areas? How many even know illegal immigrants? How many have friends who are gay, or a single mother on food stamps? How much have we tried to understand the situations of those whom we oppose before judging and separating ourselves from them? Like Jesus, let us look, consider, and try to understand before forming our conclusions. If we do, I think that we will see we have it far less together than we normally think, and that the possessions and titles we think are "ours" are actually results of heritage, birth circumstance, and societal inequalities over which we had no control. These realizations will make us more humble, loving, and generally likeable to the voting public.
Well, take it or leave it, but this is my blueprint forward for the party that I think has a lot to offer to America. Revise the immigration policy, convince people they were made to work, and exercise more compassion. These three things will make the message of the Republican party more palatable in our rapidly changing public square.
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