Immigration Reform 2013: Phyllis Schlafly Doesn't Think Hispanics Understand the Bill of Rights

Impact

The Republican Party is doing everything it can to try to make itself more appealing to Hispanic voters, including having multiple senators support an amnesty-laden immigration reform bill. Despite the Hispanic vote being largely unchanged in the past three general elections cycles, the party is insistent on altering their views for an attempt at Hispanic outreach. Phyllis Schlafly, a long-time conservative icon, thinks it's a waste of time, but goes way too far and is turning off Hispanics from the party.

Schlafly in a radio interview said, "They come from a country where they have no experience with limited government. And the types of rights we have in the Bill of Rights, they don't understand that at all, you can't even talk to them about what the Republican principle is.' She also managed to squeeze in this gem, that Hispanics are "running an illegitimacy rate that’s just about the same as the blacks are." Just absolutely throwing offense everywhere. 

These types of statements are both ignorant and offensive.  While the Latin-American community now is flush with Marxism in places like Cuba and Venezuela, that does not mean that the message of limited government and liberty would not appeal to them. To say that a certain ethnicity is not intelligent enough to understand the message of freedom is just flat-out wrong. These are people who have seek opportunity and a better way of life.

One of the things that drew me into the Republican Party was that they always spoke of the American Dream and how great America is and can be. These days, it's just a lot of how bad things are under President Obama. If the party gets back to the message of opportunity that's how you get people into the fold. Hispanics are very socially Catholic and tend to agree with the Republican Party on traditional values, and have left these hard left-leaning countries to pursue the American Dream. No one articulates the land of opportunity like the Republican Party. 

Now my hero, Andrew Breitbart, used to say, "If you can't sell freedom and liberty, you suck!" It's time we get back to selling freedom and liberty and stop selling "Obama is a Marxist" and discounting portions of the population because we don't know how to appeal to them. Preach the American Dream Ronald Reagan and Bill Buckley spoke of.  The rest will follow.