Pretending...

Ace of Spades has this headline:

Obama's DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson: The Democrats' Immigration Rhetoric Is Essentially a Declaration of Open Borders Which Would Cause Mass Illegal Immigration to Explode

And they're not bringing in all those illegals to have them not vote in elections.

These are millions of Democrats For Life we're talking here -- never let a crisis go to waste.

...Democrats are for open borders, Republicans are for having a border -- BOTH SIDES are "extreme," you see, and we need a reasonable moderate like AllahPundit to lecture us like a whitebread Obama.

AllahPundit is a dishonest defender of the Bush/Business Cadre consensus -- we don't want to have actual border enforcement, but we also don't want to admit we're in favor of Open Borders because we have to trick the rubes.

So we'll pretend we're in favor of the border generally while objecting to every specific measure or proposal to enforce it.

Their opposition to open borders is purely rhetorical; they just don't want you to call it open borders, so they can continue playing the game of, "Of course I support the idea of the border, but only the idea of it. Any attempt to make it tangible and enforceable in the real world is just ethnonatitonalist, white supremacist extremism. But you can pretend there's a border, just as you can pretend the GOP is a pro-life party in its leadership ranks.

"In our boundless generosity, we will allow you the privilege of pretending that we're allied with you on key issues. But the moment you notice we're actually opposed to you on these principles, you're an Alt-Right Nazi who must be deplatformed."

Mwah! C'est magnifique!

You know, if someone claims he's against government spending, but then bewails every single proposal to cut spending as "cruel" and "extreme," you might begin to suspect that that person isn't actually in favor of cutting spending, but simply finds it useful to claim to be such.

And for those Johnny Come Latelys who now pretend that they're ultra-conservative for pushing for cutting spending: Where were you guys when Rand Paul proposed cutting spending by 10% across the board? Did you deem that to be "too extreme," too? Did you once again pretend at being in favor of reduced spending while, get this!, finding yet another excuse to oppose a proposal for actually cutting spending?

Here's your Vocab Builder Political Word of the Day:

velleity
vel-le-i-ty

noun FORMAL


a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to action.

Another definition calls this "the weakest form of volition (a desire) that could still be characterized as volition at all."

So, the True Conservatives have a velleity in favor of enforcing the border, as long as any enforcement never detain, deport, or inconvenience a single illegal immigrant. Ever.

Ev-er.

Oddly enough, this looks a lot like Obama's immigration policy, except with even fewer deportations.

Same for cutting spending, same for curbing abortion.

Oddly enough, this looks a lot like Obama's positions on cutting spending and curbing abortion.

I guess that's all just a coincidence, though.

The Fake Conservatives have a lot of velleities they claim to be champions of, but whenever someone proposes actual action to advance them, suddenly they are just full of caveats and cavils.