Is President Obama shifting to the right?
Probably not.
But his party’s dramatic tilt to the left sure makes it look like he’s suddenly becoming a moderate.
A few weeks ago, Obama told Democrats that their programs were too expensive and that they hadn’t figured out how to pay for them yet. Last week, he told progressives that they were their own worst enemy because their demands always end up destroying their allies. Now, he’s telling liberals that it is NOT racist to demand that new immigrants assimilateit is NOT racist to demand that new immigrants assimilate into our society.
“If you’re going to have a coherent, cohesive society, then everybody has to have some agreed-upon rules. And there are going to have to be some accommodations that everybody makes. And that includes the people who are newcomers. The question is, are those fair?” Obama said.
“Should we want to encourage newcomers to learn the language of the country that they’re moving to? Of course,” he continued. “Does that mean that they can never use their own language? No, of course it doesn’t mean that, but it’s not racist to say, ‘Ah, if you’re going to be here then you should learn the language of the country that you just arrived at because we need to have some sort of common language in which all of us can work, and learn and understand each other.
“It gets more sensitive, obviously, around religious issues. That becomes more challenging, and I don’t have simple solutions to all of that,” the former president said. “But, I guess what I think we have to do in order to push back against…what are clearly racist motives of some… we can’t label everybody who is disturbed by immigration as a racist.”
He’s obviously right on this.
Those of us who are not happy with the illegal immigration crisis are not racists (a few may be), we are simply concerned with the rule of law and the dangers that illegal immigration pose. In particular, some of us are concerned that the flood of illegal immigrants is hurting our ability to bring legal immigrants into the fold.
Whatever our reasons for concern, there is simply no need to jump to the “racist” conclusion.
As Obama indicates, being concerned with illegal immigration (or even immigration in general) is a completely rational stance.
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