Two-plus
decades of following government activity makes me fully aware of the reality
that there is a proper time and place to take actions on issues of controversy.
I
realize it is possible to do something at the “wrong” time, no matter how
proper an act it is, and wind up doing more harm than good to society as a
whole.
BUT
LEARNING HOW President Barack Obama is once again postponing any action on
immigration reform makes me wonder if he realizes how much he’s doing himself
political harm by continuing to wait to act.
For
aides to Obama on Saturday let it be known that Obama won’t do anything on the
immigration issue until after the Nov. 4 election cycle is done. He won’t be
using his executive order powers to implement any kind of solution that
Congress’ Republican members have blatantly refused to even consider.
The
Reuters wire service reported that anonymous aides to Obama were saying that
the president is afraid any action on his part on the issue will only anger
Republican partisans and conservative ideologues to the point where they will
turn out in extra strength to vote for candidates who will oppose him in the future.
I
don’t doubt that any action on immigration policy that does not focus solely on
increased deportations of those foreigners will offend the ideologues.
BUT
IF OBAMA thinks he’s going to appease those people in any way by not acting
now, he’s seriously misguided.
If
anything is going to happen, it is going to be that he’ll drive down the number
of votes from people who want to see serious reform of the nation’s immigration
policy.
He’s
going to increase the hostility of the kind of people who call Obama the “deporter-in-chief,”
in reference to the fact that he has done nothing to stall policies implemented
by past presidents that have boosted the number of deportations that have
occurred in recent years.
Obama
is, if this delay actually occurs, taking actions that are in opposition to the
very people who voted for him in two past presidential elections. Considering
that the basic campaign strategy for Democratic Party operatives in trying to
maintain control of the U.S. Senate is to say that Obama needs a Democratic
majority in at least one chamber of Congress if he is to avoid spending the
final two years of his presidency fighting off ideologue attacks, this move is
merely meant to make people think it doesn’t make one bit of difference who
they vote for come Nov. 4.
HIS
ACTIONS IN favor of immigration policy now might have encouraged sympathetic
voters to turn out. I’m willing to bet now that they’re not going to care much
either way what happens.
And
you know if we do wind up with an ideologue-leaning Republican-controlled
Congress, it ensures nothing will happen on the immigration issue until we get
a new president – regardless of which party.
What
Obama aides are probably trying to disguise as compromise comes across as
little more than cowardice.
For
Congress has just shown too many times, including this past spring and summer,
its unwillingness to act because the Republican officials are too eager to
appease the ideologues who want a government that upholds their ethnic and
racial hang-ups about life.
SO
HERE’S HOPING that Obama can somehow come up with another change of heart.
Because the immigration policy we have now truly is a bureaucratic mess –
particularly in the way it splits up so many families into “legal” and “illegal”
members.
This
is an issue whose time truly came quite a ways back, and for which there will
never be a time when the opponents of sensible immigration policy will ever be
appeased. The longer we, as a society, wait to act, the more ridiculous we come
across as being.
Will
the president – who has talked of wanting to address this issue since before
the days he became president – let his political cowardice become a part of the
problem?
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