Someone called politics "the art of the possible." But, in the era of the modern welfare state, politics is largely the art of the impossible.

Starting the amnesty track immediately, while promising border security in the future, means that an irreversible benefit is conferred up front, while only time will tell whether the promise of border security will be kept — as it has not been thus far.

We are importing many foreigners who stay foreign, if not hostile. Blithely turning them into citizens by fiat, rather than because they have committed to the American way of life, is an irreversible decision that can easily turn out to be a dangerous gamble with the future of the whole society.

During decades of watching both collegiate and professional football, I have seen hundreds of touchdowns scored by black players — but not one extra point kicked by a black player.

Is this because blacks are genetically incapable of kicking a football or because racists won't let blacks kick a football?

Most of us would consider either of these explanations ridiculous. Yet genes and discrimination were the predominant explanations of black-white differences offered by intellectuals in the 20th century.

Why are there immigration laws in the first place? For the benefit of the American people — not for the benefit of people in other countries who want to come here.

But political and media elites treat the American people as if they are the problem — a problem to be circumvented with sophistry and pious promises about border security that have not been kept in all these years since the last amnesty, decades ago.

Amid all the heated, emotional advocacy of gun control, have you ever heard even one person present convincing hard evidence that tighter gun control laws have in fact reduced murders?

Unfortunately, we are at a stage where the interests of race hustlers is to cry "unfair" at the tests — and they have a lot more political clout than black Tiger Moms have. So long as the rest of us are silenced by political correctness, racial progress on that front is unlikely.

The Obama administration treated the creation of "democracy" in the Middle East as a Good Thing. Ironically, those who created the United States of America viewed democracy with fear — and created a Constitutional republic instead.

If guns cost more lives than they save, we can always repeal the Second Amendment. But if guns save more lives than they cost, we need to know that, instead of spending time demonizing the National Rifle Association.

Many ideas presented as "new" are just rehashes of old ideas that have been tried before — and have failed before. So it is no surprise that the recent "Growth and Opportunity Project" report to the Republican National Committee is a classic example of what previous generations called "Me too" Republicanism.