Obama has pleased most of the country with his recent expression of humanity towards children of illegal immigrants, but he has really pissed off the right wing. Mitt Romney is being forced into a more hard line position, which will make it more difficult for Republicans to win Hispanic votes. Conservatives on the internet are becoming quite hysterical. I’ve received a few emails wondering how anyone could support Obama, between doing something they believe is unconstitutional to warning of dire consequences if all these foreigners are allowed to stay. It is hard to decide which part of the conservative argument is more comical.
The claims of Obama’s act being unconstitutional is clearly absurd, but it does point out how conservatives view the Constitution. Note that most conservatives had no problem with real attempts to ignore the Constitution and increase Executive power during the Bush years. Did these conservatives complain about Dick Cheney’s unitary executive theory? They certainly show no respect for separation of church and state. I think that to conservatives, the Constitution is like Mitt Romney’s Etch-A-Sketch, having no relationship to the document actually written by the Founding Fathers. It changes to allow what they support and opposed what they disagree with.
As I was pushing the delete button on conservative email prophesying g all types of doom if we allowed these foreigners to stay, I was wondering why they are so worked up about an imaginary, overblown threat, while they ignore real problems which endanger the country, such as climate change or Republican economic policies which are destroying the middle class. Is there any explanation for this inconsistency beyond racism?
