Bush v. Reagan on Immigration

Scott Summner posted this beautiful exchange between Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. on immigration. Direct link (youtube).

Scott titles the post "when the GOP still had some decency," which I think he should more accurately state as "when the two leading GOP presidential candidates still had some decency." There are many people in the party -- in Congress, governors, state legislators, losing Presidential candidates, in Republican think tanks and so forth --with quite sensible ideas on immigration, and with the kind of personal decency Scott notices in the video, and lacking of the presidential candidates today.  There are also many decent and sensible Democrats too.

In this era that the battles within parties are as important as those between them, we have to get out of the habit of tarring whole parties with the behaviors and attitudes of some people in them.

Scott also characterizes the debate as "Bush stakes out a very liberal position on immigration, and then Reagan responds from a position even further to the left.." That's not quite accurate either. While it's accurate that the "left" wants to allow "undocumented immigrants" access to schools and services,  they typically do not want to open labor markets. Both Bush and Reagan explicitly welcomed people to come and work. Letting people come and not letting them work is a recipe for disaster. These are now libertarian positions, not right vs. left.

But I'm quibbling. Thanks Scott for a great video.