2008
Week 8
March 1, 2008

Hi

High spirits and high jinks sparked the week in Nebraska's tall tower of politics. (Politics: the way a community makes decisions.)

Probably over 1,000 home school advocates crowded the tower this week. No one knows how many, as we simply cannot handle crowds. Our largest room seats 150. The hearing was on whether home schools have accountability, whether that is adequate to protect every child and whether the legislature has responsibility for home schools. Yes, No, and Yes!

Third question first. Some parents argued that since the children are not in the common schools of the state, where our constitution guarantees free instruction, state senators should have no say. Imaginative. Shows home schools are doing an excellent job of creative thought, as most are doing. However, the feds and our own law require the state to guarantee an education to every child, whether brilliant, retarded, combative, truant, or what we call normal. We pay for a lot of education outside of the common schools. In Nebraska, quality of education is not stated, but courts have said it is implied.

Now to the other two questions. Do we expect accountability? Yes. Do we get it? Not really. However, that is because we do not inspect, which would be very expensive. The question is open as to whether some sort of report or simple test would help.

That leaves the question of assuring that the system has not hurt even a few students. Not assured. I have heard of employers who were dismayed to find 17 year old graduates to be illiterate. Had not been taught to read. That clearly is unusual, but we are accountable for the unusual.

High spirits #2: immigrants. The hearings for three bills had such animated observers the chair had trouble keeping order. Senator Chambers made a request in the hearing I have never heard before. He asked that he be granted the respect to state his thoughts. I overheard three fellows, still steaming, outside. One said, “I just wanted to tell Chambers to stick it up his nose.” It was not the reference I expected, so I have to credit the men with cultivated, sophisticated thought. (Smile.)

The committee immediately killed two of the bills. High Jinks came the next day as the governor and attorney general held a press conference to chastise the legislative committee. In very strong terms. One branch of government instructing another branch' Well, one was the governor's bill.

Senator Chambers attended and at the end asked if he could have the room next. The two elected officials left and the press stayed as Chambers held forth for another hour. I give some of the details because the press, appropriately, did not give much publicity to the politics. The various sides had only one purpose, to stir up political passions.

One bill would require state agencies to obey the law when dealing with immigrants who may (!) be here illegally. Huh? In the hearing, one senator asked if there is an agency which does not obey the law. This is about illegal immigrants receiving benefits. No one has identified such benefits and other states which have gone searching have spent many times more money than was found. The benefits are prohibited by law, except for education, which is mandated by our constitution (see above).

Another part would require persons to sign as to whether they are legal. A third part would repeal a law we passed by a big majority two years ago. More Republicans than Democrats agreed that immigrant children who go to school and graduate from high school in Nebraska are Nebraska residents. The benefits and signing items were smoke, as the chair offered to consider moving the bill if the resident (tuition) item was omitted. Not acceptable.

The emotions are real, but the content is fake. No college in the state knows whether an applicant is not a citizen unless that person says so. Colleges and universities have stopped requiring social security numbers, the quick way to check on citizenship, for reasons of identify theft. Hackers can get into their computers and steal such info. The school is liable. Even if they checked with S.S. numbers there is such a high error rate in the data base it cannot be used as proof. Schools do check residence, and if the young woman has lived in Lexington for ten years, she is accepted as a resident. Period. There also is no law that a resident must be a citizen.

This is an election year and the whole effort is to invite candidates and the public to use explosive words and images. The governor: “Nebraskans are going to be very upset.... (they) do not want their hard-earned tax dollars to pay for benefits for illegal immigrants.”

This is not picking on the governor. He is to represent the majority. He does it well. Unfortunately, this is the way many folks have been led to react -- by a variety of forces.

I can guarantee we are all frustrated. Senators are steaming. We get every kind of email, from thoughtful to ugly vulgar claptrap wrapped in the flag, criticizing us for spending dollars for benefits to so-called aliens. And the Feds tell us continuously it is none of our business and we are not smart enought to investigate the matter.

Two clear facts. We have a huge problem. We have whole communities turned upside down, increase in crime, children abused by adults who cannot handle the stress, and the prospect of thousands of children (citizens) left behind by fleeing parents.

Second, race is charging the emotion. Most people in Nebraska are products of immigrants, many of whom did not come here legally. Never a word about that. One third of our current so-called illegals flew in from other countries. Never a word about that. A few are rich Mexicans. Never a word about that. We reserve all of our emotions for the poor who are Hispanic in looks. Hispanics who are citizens are being hammered.

The last witness added (quote) One more thing. Two Puerto Ricans crashed into one of our families, causing death and injury. (Should be deported.) Well. Puerto Ricans became U. S. citizens 90 years ago, to help supply our army in World War I. Hey, they look Hispanic.

I understand we are all racist. We see racial traits and assume cultural values from that. However, the racist label applied to an individual is not helpful in dialog nor is it truly accurate language. The two elected leaders accused Chambers of calling them racist. He did not. He said they are riding a wave of racism. Precisely. That is the problem for many of our political leaders. Thankfully, all three prominent presidential candidates have stated their goal of dealing with immigrants without racism. I believe all three of them and yearn for that day.

Understand, emotion is warranted by the trauma in our communities. But the shouting, disrespect, stick it up your nose -- the blue prose and ugly pictures -- are plain racism. We are better than that.

(Note on form. I am told that some email transmission messes with the punctuation, especially quote marks. So I am trying to rewrite with few quotes and no apostrophes. Makes for a few strange sentences. They are cleaned up in the link on my website. Anyone know an alternative?)

Cheers

Lowen