Immigration law

[smc]

Originally Posted by randolph

Republicans take note.

Evidence Arizona Immigration Law May Be Fatal Mistake for GOP

The view expressed in the article you posted above is the conventional wisdom among political scientists across the political spectrum, but at the risk of seeming to defend the positions that have been expressed in this thread I would like to take exception with part of its premise.

The calculus is about electoral success, indeed electoral viability altogether. Those in this thread who agree with the Arizona law, and who have gone further to promote even more direct action against immigrants who are in this country without documentation, should be assumed to be expressing their principled position without regard for whether they are "popular" as measured at the ballot box, either directly in the form of referenda or indirectly in the form of the success of this or that candidate.

I find the views expressed here to be reactionary, in the classical definition of that word in political science, and a recipe for disaster. Nevertheless, I salute those who are willing to express their views with such passion and vigor. The reality of a changing world (not deliberate demographic reengineering, as one poster has suggested) will relegate them to permanent minority status soon enough.