Why won’t conservatives pick a peach?

  The favorite slogan of conservatives has long been “free enterprise, private property, and limited government.” Another conservative favorite is the term “personal responsibility.”

  Since personal responsibility is so important to conservatives, one must ask: Why hasn’t even one conservative taken personal responsibility by traveling to the Midwest and helping farmers pick their crops, given that conservatives are responsible for the massive crop losses that farmers are incurring?

Scott McPherson: Our heritage of open immigration from s***hole countries

  The history of open immigration in this country makes a favorable case for poor and uneducated immigrants. It might just be the huddled masses we need most.

  From the end of the Mexican War, in 1848, until the 1920s, the only obstacle to travel across the southern border was terrain. Usually poor and uneducated, people crossed and traded across this line without restriction and helped to settle the American West. Hispanic Americans today are known for their strong work ethic and commitment to family, religion, and community.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Should states control their borders?

  Given the decades-long, ongoing controversy over immigration, a question must naturally be asked: Should the states of the United States be given the authority to control their respective borders? That is, should they have the same power to control their borders that the federal government has to control the nation’s borders?

  To clarify, I’m not asking whether state borders should be abolished. I’m asking whether state governments should be empowered to control the free movements of goods and people from other states into their states.

Jacob G. Hornberger: How about closed borders between the states?

  Here is an idea to consider, based on the protectionist and anti-immigration positions held by leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and many of his fellow conservatives: Let’s end the system of open borders between the respective states of the Union and impose the same type of controlled system of trade and immigration that Trump favors for America’s international borders.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Embracing nonintervention and open immigration

  One of the libertarian positions that scare some Americans is open immigration. The thought that millions of people from around the world would be free to come to the United States to tour, work, invest, open businesses, or visit people frightens them to death.

  Actually, however, it’s an irrational fear.

  Today, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. As a practical matter, what difference does it make, since nobody knows who is legal and illegal?