Republicans up to their old tricks
Those Republicans are at it again. They’d vowed to take a fresh look at themselves; then make concerted efforts to become a “more inclusive” political organization. That must’ve been a momentary self-delusion.
They’re back to finding new ways to alienate everybody who isn’t a Republican — and worse — even some of their fellow Republicans. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) recently claimed his father “used to hire 50 to 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes.” For a party that claims it understands it’s in need of some serious “minority outreach,” having a longtime member of the flock refer to Latinos as “wetbacks,” sent shock waves through the Republican Party.
Young issued an apology, apparently to quell the Republican firestorm. “I’m sorry that this has shifted our focus away from comprehensive immigration reform,” Young remarked.
Oh?
Young, an Alaskan, who lives about as far away from the border with Mexico as any American — save Hawaiians — isn’t the only conservative who’s getting in the way of serious “minority outreach.”
Conservative gadfly Tucker Carlson recently claimed, “We bring a ton of low-skilled workers with no education, who become generationally mired in the welfare system.” Carlson’s contempt for Mexican immigrants extends to their supposed penchant for jumping the fence and immediately joining street gangs. But only a few sentences later, he claimed they become “subsidized labor. So it undercuts American workers.”
Huh?
How do they get so “mired in the welfare system” and take away all of those American jobs at the same time they join street gangs in their free time?
Steve King (R-Iowa) is co-sponsoring a bill in Congress that will require that “all official functions of the United States be conducted in English.” That means when anybody, let’s just say Hispanics, walk into voting booths, there’ll only be ballots printed in English.
How’s that for “minority outreach?”
Even though studies show that 80 percent of second-generation immigrants speak English and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 mandates ballots in certain areas that have large numbers of non-English speakers must be printed accordingly, Republicans are still pushing for “English only” documents.
While the U.S. Congress is dealing with the sticky issue of gun control, a few conservatives down in Nelson, Ga., think they’ve come up with a solution. They’ve passed the “Family Protection Ordinance,” which mandates that every adult in the town of 1,300 must buy a gun. Some of the city fathers freely admit crime isn’t much of a problem in Nelson. And here’s the kicker. The new law, which doesn’t carry any penalties, exempts people who don’t want a gun to buy one. It’s a non-solution to a non-problem.
Then there’s Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas. He’s known for having unusual takes on the issues. Gohmert claims that limiting the number of rounds gun owners can buy could become a “slippery slope” that he likens to gay marriage leading to bestiality. “It’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?” Gohmert asks.
There are two Republican legislators down in Tennessee who’ve just introduced a bill that would lead to cuts in welfare benefits by 30 percent for families whose children don’t meet certain satisfactory criteria in school. This could become a huge problem. If a child already lives in a home where food is a luxury, why would you penalize that child even further聽 for having low grades?
And, too, how would you penalize a child who’s a member of a family that doesn’t get welfare benefits? This is one of those Republican “solutions” that’s sure to create more problems than its worth.
But televangelist Pat Robertson tops my list of curious conserva-speakers. He claims that because “Africans are “simple” and “humble,” more miracles “happen with great frequency in Africa” than they do “here in the USA.” Americans, according to Robertson, are just too sophisticated to experience miracles, “because we think we’ve got everything figured out.”
Well, some of us.
Uniontown native Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net