My dad -- a cantankerous small business owner who was an old-school conservative, which means back in the day when you could be thoughtful and intellectual without being excommunicated for "not being conservative enough" -- always had a great take on the immigration debate.
He used to say, "my opinion is, let everybody into the country that wants to work...and deport everybody that doesn't." He then went on to extoll the virtues of immigrants as laborers and the overall laziness of native-born Americans.
There's much in that viewpoint to piss off right and left alike, but even though I don't endorse his opinion, I sure find it refreshing. Because it's so...intellectually honest, and personally arrived at. Imagine that. I certainly can't imagine my dad, if he were alive, showing up at a Tea Party meeting and finding much of an audience for that sentiment.
I miss my dad's conservatism. But then, he grew up in a time when taking responsibility didn't just stop at the end of your driveway, and when people didn't have thousands of media outlets telling them exactly what to think.
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