By Larry Craig

Much is being made in the news recently of what is called “replacement theory.” It’s called a conspiracy theory, which means that we are not permitted to discuss the issue, as if it should be obvious to the most casual observer that nothing like this could possibly be taking place.

The basic idea is that the people in power, whether bureaucrats or Congress or the administration, want to replace the white majority population in our country with minorities, and this is supposed to ensure that the Democrats will have a lock on all future elections. Or something like that.

A variation of this is that the goal is to replace the Christian majority in our country with non-Christian religions so we can kill once and for all the notion that we are a Christian nation, at least in practice.

Now these are not the kinds of things we would expect to hear anybody in power talk about openly, so people are left to speculate and ponder on their own when they hear such things.

There are three facts that feed this conspiracy theory.

One is that there has definitely been a change in our country’s demographics over the last few generations. I have read predictions that our country will be a white minority country in 10-15 years, and this is applauded in many circles.

This started in 1965 with the Immigration and Nationality Act. Prior to this time, the long-held thinking on immigration was to retain the racial and ethnic balance that already existed. If the nation was 40% German, immigration should be 40% German as well.

Since then, immigrants have been overwhelmingly minority.

The second fact is that illegal immigration has been rampant, primarily on our southern border, for decades now. There is also a huge problem with people who overstay their visas, and thus they become illegal immigrants as well. However, at least in those cases, the people passed a basic approval process first. With the illegal immigration at the southern border, we have no idea who is coming in. They could be criminals fleeing the law, criminals looking for new opportunities, carriers of rare infectious diseases, anarchists, or terrorists. Of course, most are not, but how many criminals, terrorists, and seriously sick people should we allow in? And, no, they are not all Latinos. People from all over the world come to Mexico to cross our border there.

I have no problem with people coming here to get a better life. The problem is that if we give them generous financial assistance, almost anybody in the world will get a better life here, and they don’t even need to work for it. And that is wrong.

Yes, we are a nation of immigrants, but we got that reputation long before we even had a welfare system.

The third fact is that this massive illegal immigration at our southern border is a priority of only one political party. It has no intention or interest in reducing the number of illegal immigrants, and it is intent on making life better for them while they are here, ignoring or even defying the laws on immigration that Congress has made.

The previously mentioned conspiracy theory claims to know the intent of all those who are making these facts to be facts. It offers an explanation for what I think are poor policy decisions by our political leaders.

If the conspiracy theory is baloney, I would sincerely like to know what the bleep our political leaders are thinking.

I wish we could have a national conversation on these issues. But that’s not likely to take place as long as people label them as conspiracy theories. They don’t want people to discuss these things.

I have a theory about that.