Susan Jones reports at CNSNews.com:

"Immigration is a key element of our country's success," Jeb Bush, a possible contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, told the National Christian Hispanic Leadership Conference in Houston on Wednesday.

An advocate of immigration reform, Bush said the 11 million people who are in the country illegally "should come out from the shadows and receive earned legal status."

He said the United States is the only country that "has the chance to become young and dynamic again," all because of immigration. "This is not the time to abandon something that makes us special and unique," he added.

Memo to Mr. Bush: Immigration is not "something that makes us special and unique."

Rather American specialness and uniqueness is due to everyday citizens -- whether immigrant citizens or not -- who embrace the constitutional and Declaration principles that constitute the enduring mainstream and defining ethos of American governance and civil society.

The Bushes, including Jeb, appear to be nice people. But for all their suits and ties and friendly public manner, they embrace real-world politics that is a not-nice form of governance. Rather than unity and diversity with unalienable rights sourced in the Creator (see the Declaration), they see the United States as a country run by elites who hold power and occupy Washington, D.C.

This is the opposite of what America is really all about. For this is an America of centralized government, a real-world monopoly of power that wars at every level against the freedom, dignity, security, and safety of the man or woman on the street.

Many people understand that monopolies are anathema in the area of business. Well, the monopoly of power centralized into Washington, D.C., is a million times worse.

A business cannot fine you, jail you, or kill you if you decide to take your patronage elsewhere. But governments can and do.

If you doubt this, read the history of the 20th century, with special attention to inhumanities of National Socialist Germany, the Soviet Union, and Communist China. And don't forget the millions of dead via the delegated authority by which a cruel U.S. government via "choice" even now allows the slaughter of preborn human beings. So much for the choices of the "least of these."

The Constitution and Declatration, by contrast, understand that legitimate power and authority in America is rooted in the people, spread across a diversity of forms of self-governance -- from the indvidual, to family, to community, to town, city, state, and so on.

The federal government has a role, and a proper one, but it is a carefully circumscribed role. That role is not defined as that of finding the smartest people and then trying to solve problems.

That understanding of one's role is common to any person in any job or walk of life who wants to do the right thing. Every parent, school board member, mayor, governor, or president ought to operate by that principle.

But do you understand what this means? It means that the principle of "solving problems" is not what defines a specific calling. It is a good and general rule that applies to all callings; but it tells you nothing about what specifically is my legitimate role in a particular job, office, or societal sphere.

The relevant question is: What is my particular job description as parent, as pastor, as professor, as judge, as president, and so on?

The U.S. president's job is not to "run America." No, a thousand times no. That is an expression of authoritarianism, no matter how nicely it is conveyed.

The U.S. president's job is to protect and defend the U.S Constitution, which was ratified to incarnate the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The point is to undercut would-be messiahs from Washington-on-high. These saviors -- whether Republican or Democrat -- do far too much damage.

To operate outside of this constitutional circle of understanding is to violate your presidential oath and, unavoidably, to court tyranny. Even if you are a nice guy, violating the presidential job description is an open door to tyranny.

In the liberating American ethos, there is no concept of a federal government with a blank check able to write for itself its own purchase on power.

In addition, to the degree that a political figure or arm of government operates outside of this mainstream of human liberty, to that degree one is an extremist against the freedom and the dignity of each man and woman. Clearly, this is not good, no matter how much you smile or even if you are married to a minority.

In contrast to Mr. Bush, the Declaration of Independence understands that what makes America "special and unique" is not that nice and smart people win elections, move to Washington, and then run the country.

Rather, the Declaration proclaims that all of us run the country, each in our own sphere of authority, upon the basis that every human being is "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" and "that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Truly, this diversity is our strength.

Here are a couple of suggestions. Let millions who want to immigrate to American first understand and embrace the rules of human freedom and dignity that make America "special and unique." At a minimum, this requires a repudiation of the cheap patriotism of illegal immigration.

And to avoid the blind leading the blind into the ditch of authoritarianism and its attendant inhumanity, those who seek office in America should respect and apply the enduring rules of freedom. Tyrants at home and abroad should fear whoever is elected president of the United States.