@Smokin Joe I agree with the aphorism, but not the rationale. James Madison suggested that if men were angels, no government would be necessary. And yet Lucifer rebelled, and with him one third of the angels.
Do we, as self-identified Conservatives, and more importantly as Christians, seriously argue that the United States is populated by a moral people? I don't. So I'm not sure that Madison's idea really applies, and I would ground the aphorism in some rationale other than a pervasive morality.
Is the United States populated by a moral people? Well, yes and no. Some are and some aren't, and we are not even sure of the proportions. We have only the babblings and polls of an immoral or amoral Media to indicate one way or another. Part of the problem (obviously) is that the group who are leading the country in all branches are of questionable morals.
However, it has been shown repeatedly, and across a broad spectrum of actions, that laws do not stop people from breaking the basic laws against murder, theft, and corruption, long before those laws intrude into the basic Rights of the law abiding and moral folks out there. Passing laws which intrude on the Civil Rights of Americans which will have little or no effect on the problems they are claimed to alleviate, but worse, have a deleterious effect on the Rights of those who abide by the laws, has only the effect of depriving innocent people of their Rights. That's when the line is crossed, when Government ceases proteting the Rights of its Citizens and starts abridging or infringing on them.
The question I raised up thread is whether *we* can use the idea of citizenship against *their* God-endowed rights precisely when they have left their countries, come to our threshold, and asked to be admitted.
This is a country, and in order to make it sovereign, we need to maintain our borders and
our Citizens' Rights.
Do we have an obligation to protect the Rights of citizens of other countries?
If so, where does that obligation begin, and to what degree do we extend such protection, by what means?
To do so would cross the line, so to speak, by not respecting the Right the people of another country have to choose what powers they will grant (or deny) their government if we interfere in their domestic affairs.
If someone comes to our doorstep, to ask to come here, become part of this nation by seeking citizenship, that's one thing.
We have an established process for that. We can, through legislation or Executive order establish who, how many, and under what circumstances we will permit them to enter our country.
Someone who crashes the gates has already shown contempt for our sovereignty, for our laws and way of life. By their mere presence they have broken our laws (
prima facie).
While we might extend the rights of the accused to those who are accused of other crimes within our borders, the situation is different, in that when they broke that particular law (against entering illegally), they were in more than one jurisdiction, in the act of crossing a boundary. Do we, can we, treat that particular crime the same as other crimes? Do we extend right to counsel and a jury trial to all who seek to enter surreptitiously?
Or is this (especially as shown by the wave assaults on the border of the past few years) something we should treat as a matter of national security, and does it become the purview of military tribunals or another special court just for this particular infraction?
It is still the job, if you will, of their native country, the nation of which they are citizens to protect their Rights.
If that Government is not doing its job, they should change that government.
If they wish to enter here and become Americans, that is a different path spelled out by law.
They could petition the Government of the United States to change its policies and let in more people from elsewhere, but
we have empowered our government to look out for our interests, and that should be out Government's job.
Providing for the common defense was integral to the original compact between the People and the United States Government, and basic to protecting the Rights of Americans. Preserving the essential elements of our culture are paramount to retaining the form of government we were intended to have.
I agree with everything you've said here. But so far no one has told me what ties it all together. And if we can't tie it all together, we can't blame people for treating it like a cafeteria line.
In each of the various factions of Conservatism, the fundamental common ground is that we don't want the Government unnecessarily telling us what to do (or not do) in each of those pet purviews. While we do want to legislate a basic morality, against theft, murder, rape, and various other crimes, there is a libertarian aspect well entrenched that, wants to severely limit the degree of that legislation, and there are varying degrees of regulation which people find appropriate. As a rule, Conservatives find that level best if kept low, at levels which only regulate actions which cause others harm (including, more vacuously, harm to the society as a whole), while those who are not Conservative generally find higher levels of constraint desirable, up to and including totalitarian rule, provided (Of course) that those constraints do not apply to them, especially if they find them onerous.
Conservatives want the freedom to be responsible for their lot, where Leftists want the freedom from being responsible for theirs.
I think overall, though, Conservatives are more optimists, seeking opportunity to build and develop, while Leftists tend to be anything but optimistic, focusing on the worst aspects of our society, while pimping them wholesale, while demanding that others give up any means or liberty they have which might enable them to engage in behaviour the leftists claim to fear and desire to prevent. That is here the moral dividing line really cuts through. Usually, there is a definite increase in the level of hypocrisy among those calling for everyone (else) to be restrained, but among leftists that level of constraint is based on fear of what one might do, rather than on what one has been shown to have done.
A conservative might fine you for walking across that newly planted grass, while a leftist would cut your legs off to prevent it.
Among Conservatives, even the hyphenated ones, comes an abiding respect, not only for the source of our Rights, but for those Rights themselves, whether they are ours or the Rights of another.
Liberals pay lip service to Rights, but only theirs, and not to the degree where they see their actions undertaken under the auspices of, or interpretations of, those rights infringing on the Rights of others if that is in conflict with their personal desires.
Which brings us back to the raw nature of both philosophies. One is based on reason, untwisted, however inconvenient that might be, however heartless it may seem at the surface on occasion, because what doesn't feel good now has profound positive effects in the future.
Leftists seek that which feels good, an emotional basis for decision making, which while it may feel good now, often has unintended, unforeseen, profound, long-term deleterious effects.
For example, the Conservative might not borrow money for a weekend drunk, anticipating the double barrelled misery of being in debt and being hung over afterward, whereas the Leftist would abandon such caution for the immediate effects, and likely blame the lender later for the misery to come.
Those effects, as we are seeing (or will) may not be just limited to the individual, but the headaches and miseries attached to letting genies out of bottles (or whatever), may affect the entire culture down the road. Thus, changes are not to be made flippantly, especially in systems which have worked, but assessment of those systems, their Constitutional validity, their effectiveness, should not be shrouded in the carefully crafted, statistically laden, bureaucratic gobbledygook of agencies which seek, first and foremost, only to extend their existence. Many which go far beyond Original Intent should be eliminated.