“Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of
tomorrow dream away
in the wind of change.”
So proferred Scorpion. Perhaps, a dated, pseudo-anthem from only a marginal metal
band from Germany, but, I only had so much time to think of a quote, so that’s the one you get.
It is relevant, however. As immigration continues to be hotly debated, there is change in the wind from what was once hardline rhetoric from the right. Republicans, still smarting from President Obama’s decisive victory among Hispanics (71% in 2012 and 4% higher than 2008), have had a come-to-Jesus (hay-soose) awakening.
Governors, including Jan Brewer of Arizona and Alabama’s Robert Bentley have avoided discussing their get-tough approaches on immigration in recent months as the party seeks to soften its position. Republicans are looking for a way to reshape their image with the fastest-growing block of eligible voters.
At least that is what Republican leadership is saying. As for the rank and file, right wing voter…well, not quite so much. As I nodded off to sleep the other night I was watching the viewer mail segment on CNN and some of it addressed immigration and cited the Arizona immigration law as being the template America should follow. All but one condemned the Federal Government for filing law suits against Arizona to question the legality of the law. One said: “Obama does not listen to the will of the American people and continues to force his liberal agenda onto us.”
An interesting irony may reveal itself soon as these voters inflict their will onto their own party leadership who, for survival (and relevance) may have already succumbed to the “winds of change.”
Perhaps, if there could be a better understanding of what it is that leadership is supposed to do, within a Republic, we could move in a more cooperative direction. What I hear over and over is that the role of the President (and government) is to do the bidding of the majority; to be their proxy. It isn’t.
This is actually a rather simple concept to grasp, but it seems to fall on deaf ears: Simply because a majority of people feel one way does not mean that it is a realization of truth or justice. Once upon a time a “majority” of people thought the world was flat. So…was it?
Did it only become a sphere when most people agreed that it’s so?
I use the next example often, but once upon a time most people didn’t think women had the necessary acumen to participate in politics. Did that false assumption only become untrue when more people came to realize that women were entitled to the same participation as men? These aren’t just misguided mistakes from the distant past either; guaranteeing the civil rights of minorities, contrary to the will of a majority, happened in my lifetime.
Truth is not determined by the opinion of a majority.
Democracy can be as misunderstood. We use it as a blanket description of what America stands for and the freedom we embrace, but it’s actually only a component of the Republic for which we stand. The concept of freedom set forth contends that Inalienable Rights extend equally to even the quietest among us, the smallest voice, the minority, as well as the majority.
So what’s this have to do with the Arizona Immigration Law and what appears to be a majority opinion in favor of it?
Simple: We live in the United States of America– We are not a police state- Our freedom extends to every citizen and that means that we are not required to carry our Citizenship Papers in order to pass freely. We cannot be subjected to random profiling. To acquiesce to that “protection” is the sharpest turn toward tyranny, oligarchy, plutocracy, anarchy (name your “y” form of repression) we can possibly make.
There is a price to the freedom we embrace and defend. Freedom is vulnerable and it can even be dangerous. The realization of freedom can lead to consequences that are unfavorable even to a majority, but we have to accept those risks in order to maintain its strength. That doesn’t mean that we don’t vigorously try and correct flaws, but we must do it judiciously, compassionately and legally. Once we begin to allow our fears to confine the reach of freedom and justice, we take steps toward minimizing what it means to truly be free.
Illegal immigration does cost states a lot of money as services are provided for people who are not fairly contributing to the system and I have no argument with the fact that it must be curbed, but immigration processes should be examined and amended to allow for better “legal” immigration. “Profiling” cannot be used to enforce these laws. We cannot defy our own Constitution and the application of justice in order to combat the problem. We all lose that way. The Arizona law offends what is clearly outlined as our Constitutional protection of freedom, no matter how effective (or popular) it might be.
It is not the President’s duty to blindly support the will of a majority, but, rather, to challenge any act that offends America’s promise of Freedom. It’s OUR job to hold the President, and all elected officials, accountable, but, that only works when we know what it is that America stands for.
