"fear of Mexico"
You mean, it's "conservative" to promote policies that could drastically destabilize a major nation on our southern border? It's not "fear of Mexico," it's wanting to preserve our security. That kind of long term thinking impresses me as being much more conservative than trying to build a razor wire fence around ourselves. I'm not ignoring what you're saying, I just think you see things in much too narrow a way.
And I won't insult you if you don't insult me.
Diplomacy not backed up by the threat of force is no diplomacy at all.
It is "fear of Mexico". You're afraid of what might happen if we got tough on them.
Which is funny, cuz the *primary* feeling of most folks here in Texas is that this won't end until the US puts pressure on Mexico to reform, or else.
And that's something that crosses conservative/liberal bounds. I saw Edward James Olmos last night push for the same thing.
It's a 'root cause' analysis. The root cause of all this is that Mexico is so corrupt and dangerous it's people are willing to risk all to get out of there. Unless you fix the cause, all the band-aids in the world won't help a bit.
And you *are* ignoring my main comments, about "conservatives are for smaller govt and border security".
I'm assuming you're 'afraid' of dealing with that, too.