Guest post: "Step back from the edge, GOP"

Curmie hasn't written anything here in a long while. It’s certainly not that there haven't been things to write about: quite the contrary, in fact. But it does take a fair amount of time to write a post I’m happy with: a couple of hours, at least... and I’m deep into a production of The Madwoman of Chaillot. When that opens, next Tuesday, I'll start trying to catch up on unfinished business.

In the meantime, here’s a guest post by Bobby Schroeder. Bobby and I have never met, but he’s a friend of a friend, and an active participant on the Curmudgeon Central Facebook page. He’s an especially valued commenter, precisely because he’s probably disagreed with me more often than anyone else since the page went up. He serves as a reminder that not all conservatives are, well, whatever stereotypes progressives have of them. He is both intelligent and well-informed, and the fact that his conclusions are often not the same as mine--or as those of the majority of my readers--is exactly why his voice needs to be heard here.

Anyway, here’s Bobby’s take on Election night...

I’m one of those young conservatives people like to talk about. So, obviously, Tuesday night wasn’t one of the best nights of my life. However, it was an important night. For it was the night that it became crystal clear that the GOP has got to change its ways if it ever wants to sniff the White House again.

Now, young people sometimes get a reputation for being brash, or not wanting to respect our elders, or other foolishness. So I mean no disrespect to the conservatives who have come before me. But this has to be said.

If we want to return to power, there are two things that have to happen. Now. Today.

The first thing we must do is… tell the social conservatives to step aside. They are flat-out ruining the GOP. Honestly, social conservative is an oxymoron. Conservatives stand for small government, less regulation, and personal freedom. Social conservatives stand for the opposite. They want government to tell us who we can marry, what kind of “relations” we can have with our partners, what women can do with their bodies, etc. They want to set the social norms of the nation, by government edict. Their views are antiquated, and they are not shared by a majority of conservatives, much less a majority of Americans. However, these people have been allowed to rise to positions of power, and show much influence. This has got to stop.

The second thing we must do is… reach out to Hispanics. There is no reason whatsoever for this group to vote Democrat north of 70 percent. Having spent a good amount of time in Texas, I can tell you that these people are the single hardest working ethnic group I have ever seen. By far. They don’t want government handouts. They don’t want free stuff. They want to work hard and provide for their families. They come from a place that doesn’t give them that opportunity. On the other hand… having lived in Texas… there are some immigrants that don’t believe in the rule of law. These are a small, small percentage of immigrants, but they give the whole group a really bad name.

For reasons that are unfortunate, too many in the GOP have decided to treat all immigrants as if they are terrible criminals. Now, I am NOT FOR blanket amnesty. Many of these people ARE here illegally. But let’s be real. We can’t deport them all, nor should we. Our nation is broke, we need these people to pay taxes. They deserve an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, just like the rest of us. We need to allow a path for those, who only have committed the crime of improper paperwork, to be able to come clean, and perhaps pay some sort of a penalty (might I suggest community service hours). For those who have not come here yet, we need to dramatically make it easier for them to legally come to our country. And for the few who really are bad criminals, we need to use our full resources to get them out of here, and make sure our border is secure enough to ensure they don’t come back.

Now, certainly, there are other things the GOP should do to move away from being the “old white man party” (reaching out to African-Americans and helping them improve their communities through improved educational and job opportunities would be one thing). But if we allow this minority of our party, who is anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-black, anti-Hispanic, anti-abortion, pro-assault weapons for everyone, etc to dominate our party politics, we might as well give the Democrat party a permanent key to the White House.