One after another, township supervisors and borough councils are dabbling in ordinances relating to immigration. Forget for the time being that this is a federal problem and it is unlikely that any of these local laws are legal. That hardly matters to the local yokels pushing them -- the anti-immigration frenzy gives them cover for their bigotry. Some clear thinking today from the Pocono Record on yet another municipality caught up in the latest fad:
The federal government — with a president, a House of Representatives and a Senate all controlled by one political party — has done nothing about immigration laws in the last five years. Now, with that President's popularity at an all time low and midterm elections looming, that party has reached into its arsenal of campaign weapons and pulled out "fear of illegal immigrants" as a way to win elections in November.
Folks, if they did nothing to solve this problem for five years, why let them use it as a campaign issue now?
And why encourage municipalities to act in an area where effective action is only possible at a national level?
This political party has, since the first campaign of George W. Bush, specialized in mobilizing its voters through fear. Do not encourage them. Do not help them. And do not think that a municipal ordinance is going to solve a problem that may not even exist.
What should be happening right now is this: Millions of Americans ask the political party in power why it is shouting about an alleged problem it has had the ability to solve any time it wanted. Do they think we are all gullible, that we can't see through the threadbare tactics of xenophia?
1 comment:
Now my little town of Plains is talking about enacting such a law. I can give our town fathers a long list that needs to be addreesed before this nonsense
Post a Comment