When it comes to illegal immigration, conservatives don't understand liberals' motives

To conservatives:
In comment threads you call liberals stupid, anti-American, cynically trolling for Latino votes.

It's more complicated than that.

There are groups--ethnic, racial, religious--that were persecuted once--and not just by others. By the authorities. By the law. Blacks, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, to name a few. And many more in a somewhat grayer area--basically, anyone who looked/acted different than the majority--people with various handicaps, people who are extra bright or extra slow, even redheads (in England, where they're called Gingers), or just people who are homely or have too many zits, or are extra shy.

Plus there are individuals who may have been none of the above, but who had terrible, tyrannical family lives--usually a father who saw himself as the god almighty of his household, but sometimes a mother like that. Or whose parents treated them abusively because they were alcoholics or dopers.

Such people often develop a hatred of oppression and an identification with whoever they perceive as the underdog.

And those whose tribal identity (religious/ethnic/racial/national) is historically linked with persecution get a double of this underdog-o-philia.

They become liberals, who see what they see as oppression for any as oppression for themselves.

So they defend crazy people as "alternatively mentally enabled" and press lawsuits to get them out of the nuthouses and onto the streets. They argue that homosexuals have the same right to be married as anyone else. And they demand amnesty for illegal aliens.

I'm not saying my armchair psychology here is the only motive liberals have about illegal immigration. But I've known such people for many decades, and it fits what I've seen as an underlying motive, apart from other aspects.

And with those who have, as a group, suffered from government oppression, they may feel that they have to defend what they see as everyone's civil rights in every situation, or they fear that they'll lose their own rights.

I'm against amnesty for illegals myself. So none of this is a justification for amnesty.

I just think it's really, really helpful to understand what makes your opponents tick.