On facebook a few minutes ago, I ran across a clever satire of a group entitled “Illegals for Brownback.” Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I am both a strong supporter of Senator Brownback’s campaign for President and someone who is not exactly a “hard-liner” on illegal immigration. (I promised a while back in a comment thread I would explain this in a post some day, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.) So, granted, I’m not coming into this unbiased. I’m naturally going to be annoyed by a group that 1) disses my candidate for 2) a reason I don’t think he deserves to be dissed for. So, I’m not going to start a debate on illegal immigration here. I’m not going to ask you hardliners why it’s so bad that he supports what you would call “amnesty,” because I know exactly what you’ll say. That debate’s been done.

Here’s what I do want to know, though. The group does a cute job of pretending to be illegal immigrants grateful for some of the things more likely to give hardliners apoplexy; for example:

“Senator Brownback voted in favor of s. 2611 which would grant amnesty to most undocumented immigrants residing in the United States. It would also give us a chance to receive in-state college tuition rates. Furthermore, we would only have to pay a small fine and would even qualify for some benefits such as Earned Income Tax Credit.”

Okay, I understand the argument against those things. I’m sympathetic to some of those arguments myself. But then we get:

Senator Brownback recognizes the great contributions that Hispanic Americans make to our nation. He believes that, as a nation of immigrants, we should welcome those individuals who would like to come to this country legally and are willing to work hard for the American dream. Senator Brownback has also advocated small-business-friendly policies, which are making it possible for more and more Hispanic Americans and business owners to realize the American dream.

I mean…is this an attempt at smearing him? Judging by the way the group uses quotes of his, it would indeed appear to be, but…uh…am I just being an open-borders-sad-excuse-for-an-American here or is there nothing at all conceivably wrong with that statement???

I don’t think most hardliners are racists at all. In fact, while I am more on the open-borders side policy-wise, I think there are a lot more crazy people on my side. Most of the hardliners are very nice, decent people with whom I simply disagree, while a whole lot of open-borders people are multiculturalists who don’t give a darn for America’s unique identity. (Same problem with being an anti-Iraq War Republican - I may have agreed on policy with the anti-war crowd but my gosh most of them were idiots about it - but that’s a topic for another time.)

So, my hardliner friends, please tell me that this group is totally unrepresentative of you guys. Please.