When I was a kid there were these two cats in our class who were very unpopular. To this day, I am not sure why they were unpopular. All I can say is, they just were. Pretty soon it was well known, anyone who wanted to boost their own “popularity ratings” could pounce on the backs of one of these two kids and, abra cadabra, instant popularity!
Meanwhile, the two kids suffered abuse which was beyond the pale of cruelty. Kids do that, you know.
Modern day politics seem to work the same way today that immature children did over 40 years ago. All you have to do to gain popularity is jump on the backs of certain unpopular citizens.
I can understand jumping on sex offenders and I can understand jumping on criminals who refuse to choose rehabilitation over recidivism. However, lately, there is one group that is getting splattered every time a politician wants notoriety and for the life of me it does not make any sense! That group is 12 million undocumented workers in this country!
Now, Florida’s attorney general, Bill McCollum, wants to jump on the bully wagon. He is proposing a law like the one in Arizona, SB 1070, with some key changes to keep it out of the hands of a judge. McCollum says he wants to allow police to ask for “papers please” when they do a traffic stop. However, McCollum would prohibit stopping people based upon race or national origin.
Wow! I wonder who they will know to stop in Florida if this law gets by the Republican controlled state legislature. It probably won’t be guys like McCollum, who happens, of course, to be white.
Worse, I will give you ten guesses why Billy might be on the bully pulpit. Well, let’s cut that down to one guess. Yep, you guessed it, Billy is running for office. He would like to be the next Governor of Florida and he has decided to pick on undocumented workers to boost his “popularity ratings”.
Ron Saunders, Democrat, from the Florida House of Representatives, wants to know why McCollum decided now was the time to pounce on the backs of undocumented workers. He says Florida’s immigrants have made a huge contribution to the state. Were it not for political popularity, he doubts Republican Bill McCollum would have proposed the law at all!
Alas, what can you do? Undocumented workers have been made scapegoats by little people who want to be big-shots. A bully is a bully. That is how it was when I was a kid. That is how it is now. What has changed? In my day, demonizing for the benefit of personal popularity was a game for children! Some things never change!
By the way, I was one of those two most unpopular kids!
No comments:
Post a Comment