Royal Masset is saying the right thing. Ronald Reagan was a compassionate conservative and the currant Republican Party is not compassionate. The former Political Director of the Republican Party of Texas is saying that his party is now being run by talk show hosts and leaders who cannot take the political hit to do the right thing when it comes to immigration. I assume he is putting our two GOP U.S. Senators in that group. Talk about lack of leadership, both Cornyn and Hutchinson should be sent back to public policy school.

And who says that the U.S. voters are against the proposed policy on immigration. All the polls I have seen says that they supported the proposed solution. So once again the folks are a head of their so called leaders. Their leaders are being pushed by talk radio and the likes of Rush and even our local blowhards.

And while we are on polls have you noticed lately that the American public is not very conservative?On issue after issue, polling present a picture starkly at odds with the conservative stereotype.

• Abortion? Sixty-two percent of us oppose overturning Roe v. Wade.

• Stem cells? Sixty-one percent of us support using them for research.

• Guns? Sixty percent of us would like to see more government restriction.

Here is Royal's very well thought out story from the Quorum Report on what has happened to the GOP:

"MASSET: REPUBLICAN EXCEPTIONALISM IS DEAD -- 1980-2006 RIP

Long time RPT political director, Royal Masset mourns the death of the Party of Reagan and the dangerous future it portends

The world is a better place because of those who made the Republican Party of Texas one of the finest institutions on the face on the earth. We Texan Republicans revived the national Republican Party after Nixon. But we now have to face one great truth. The party whose philosophy, articulated by Ronald Reagan, won the cold war and changed world history by promoting economic liberty and led the Unites Sates into a golden age, is no more. RIP Republicans. Our previous leaders were giants. But the era of Republican Exceptionalism is dead. It is over.

The Immigration debate highlights what has gone wrong with the Republican Party. Our party was once united by a coherent conservative philosophy long before we found our spokesman in The Great Communicator. Our Judeo-Christian faith and American culture was something we lived, not something we relegated to political slogans. We believed we had a mission to build an America that would be an example for all mankind, a shiny city on a hill. In one of his last speeches Reagan counseled us to appeal to the better angels of our nature by focusing on our hopes and not our fears.

Unfortunately the current Republican leadership isn’t following Reagan’s wish. If the Republican Party has a coherent philosophy I don’t know what it is. We’re certainly not on the side of liberty. We used to believe in family. But now we oppose the Latino culture that is far more family friendly than ours. We used to believe in the sacredness of life. Now almost a majority of Republicans support pro-abortion candidates. But to show our conservative righteousness we make a big deal of opposing letting people die in peace, same sex marriage and favoring the rights of embryonic stem cells. For living people faced with real problems we offer little help and no hope. Our failure to enact immigration reform is a disgrace.

Republican leaders replaced by radio/cable entertainers

A large part of the problem is that we used to be led by real community leaders who had well reasoned philosophies honed by a lifetime of public services. Our candidates actually believed in public service. Our party leaders served as public opinion gatekeepers. They could view issues in the context of our age and the limits of the possible. Now our leadership has been replaced by talk radio and cable TV hosts. I love talk radio. Talk radio makes government more accountable and opens up the inner working of Washington to average citizens.

But these talk and cable show hosts are entertainers. They do their gigs to make money. Like their Hollywood cousins they confuse their celebrity for knowledge and artistic ability to manipulate crowds with leadership. And unfortunately an incredible number of citizens, who should know better, also see them as political leaders, and not the entertainers they are. Their opinions are not shaped by the twin crucibles of wisdom and experience.

Trent Lott was right when he said, "Talk radio is running America." It and cable TV can be a problem when lies are acceptable. For example in the last few weeks I’ve received thousands of e-mails referring to the immigration proposal as amnesty. It isn’t amnesty but our talk show leadership won’t let facts get in the way of their demagogic diatribes.

George Will wrote "conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France."

I’ve watched FOX News for years and appreciate their correct view of the world. But even I have become disgusted by the unremitting racism, hate and lies of entertainers such as Lou Dobbs, Neal Boortz and Bill O’Reilly. Anyone who can’t see their racism and hatred is in denial. They are High Tech bullies who appeal to a small base of storm troopers with computers, who can do real damage to important things like immigration reform.

The Cause of the Immigration debacle

The cause of the immigration debacle is not difficult to understand. The United States, like much of Europe has a birthrate well below the replacement level. The generation following us baby boomers has about 10,000,000 fewer workers than ours. The USA also has a problem in that our elitist education system had devalued manual labor. Americans used to value hard work. Rolling up one’s sleeves used to be a badge of honor. Now this is ridiculed as being menial dead end work beneath the dignity of a college graduate. College education is sold as an opportunity to avoid physical labor and derive a good income from a "position", not a job, obtained through credentials rather than productivity.

As a result of this we have imported around 12 million illegal aliens to do the work that Americans are too good to do. After September 11, it occurred to many sensible people that tracking terrorists would be easier if we could identify these illegal aliens and remove pockets of shadow communities where terrorists could hide. The solution was difficult but doable. But then politics got in the way. For reasons history has yet to reveal, Republicans have abandoned their legitimate leaders’, like President Bush, sensible fight for immigration reform and instead followed hate filled media street thugs masquerading as civic leaders. This is really stupid because Republicans need at least 40% of the Latino vote in order to keep control of the Presidency and both Chambers of Congress. Latinos supported President Bush with 44% of the vote. Most Latinos believe in the same things as most Republicans. But our idiocy will make them vote Democrat for the net forty years. And we wonder why Hillary will be so easily elected President?

Incompetent immigration policies have fueled the fires

Citizens have many valid reasons to be angry about our complete failure to control our borders. East Germany managed to close off its border with Berlin and West Germany in one day, August 13, 1961. After one year we have constructed 2 additional miles of border fence with Mexico. My guess is that the original Berlin Wall was little more than barbed wire backed by rifles. But few people ever crossed those walls because East German Border guards were ordered either to kill them or be shot themselves.

The complete lack of will to secure our borders has undermined people’s faith in our government to do anything meaningful to control immigration. People correctly wonder how our government will plug up our border when it hasn’t followed through on the tough laws that were part of the 1986 Amnesty bill. For that matter it can’t even issue passports to American citizens in a timely fashion. So how is it going to give and follow visas to 12 million illegal aliens?

Still, comprehensive immigration reform is mandatory. A solution is not difficult to design. But talk shows and a weakened Republican Party leadership have made forging the necessary compromises impossible. And don’t even talk about the fact that we have 5525 miles of border with Canada compared to only 1989 with Mexico. There are far fewer guards for all of Canada, about one-twentieth the number used to guard Mexico. Guess where terrorist will most likely enter the US?

In 1914 Europe had known Peace for 99 years. European colonialism ruled the world. The future appeared limitless. Science, health and the economy were rapidly growing. England and Germany had been strong allies for two centuries, even having its monarchs come from the same family. In June of 1914 England had joint naval maneuvers with Germany. Yet because of a single bullet, fired in a far off land, within five weeks millions of Germans and British soldiers were ordered to kill each other. Within the next 31 years hundreds of millions would die and Europe would lose its ascendancy forever.

Not solving our immigration crisis will not cause a world war. But it will fester like nothing in our history since the civil war. So far we have been lucky. Few shots have yet been fired in this smoldering conflict. But in time violence will increase. Escalating retaliations will make the border ugly fast. And if a madman’s bullet, as in Sarajevo, hits a major leader, all hell will break lose. I suspect those hate filled talk show hosts will be the first to call for a Krystal Nactht (Crystal Night) against aliens, whom they already demonize as being dangerous criminals. We will need to follow the counsel of a real Republican leader:

"Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way." Ronald Reagan"