A Barbaric Idea is Aired
By Jeffrey Page
It’s a different time with different concerns and different people, but the words ring as true now as they did in 1954.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” Joseph C. Welch said, sounding the beginning of the end of Senator Joe McCarthy.
Nowadays, those questions are justifiably addressed to Rep. Duncan Duane Hunter, a Republican from Southern California, who would tackle the problem of illegal immigration to the United States by deporting the native-born children of illegal immigrants.
In other words, Hunter would trash the Bill of Rights and deport American citizens. This Orwellian solution would be a first for America, a place where we have always prided ourselves for granting rights, not eliminating them.
The shameless Hunter is not the only person who must be asked about a sense of decency. The question also should be put to the nativists in our midst who talk up the matter of “family values” and yet have no problem with the idea of separating families. Certain families, anyway. Can you guess which ones? More on this in a moment.
In order for Hunter to get what he wants, America would have to suspend the 14th Amendment, whose first sentence is: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Changing the Constitution is something not to be taken lightly. To amend it would require approval in the Congress by two-thirds majorities plus subsequent approval by three-quarters of the states, or by a Constitutional convention.
As it stands, if you were born here you belong here. You’re a citizen. You could be president or a judge or even a member of the House of Representatives from southern California, and no yahoo back-bencher like Duncan Duane Hunter can change that.
The question of Hunter’s easy one-syllable immigration fix came up at a recent Tea Party gathering in Ramona, Calif., about halfway between San Diego and Escondido. Hunter was asked if he supports such deportations. “I would have to, yes,” he said.
Here’s why Duncan Duane Hunter isn’t the only person who needs to be questioned about a willingness to divide families and about his monumental ignorance of the framers’ desire “to promote the general welfare and [to] secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
Hunter’s remarks in Ramona were before a Tea Party. Did they scoff at his suggestion to send children back? (Back to where, by the way?) They did no such thing.
Did the tea partiers, whose fondness for family values is evident on many of the signs they carry whenever they gather, greet him with jeers and thumbs-down gestures? They did not.
In fact, they burst into applause and cheers. To cheer Hunter’s idea is to declare that only Anglo values can count as family values.
“We’re not being mean,” Hunter said. Whoa! As long as he brought up the subjective question of meanness, let’s at least be honest. His idea is among the meanest imaginable.
He continued: “We’re just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.”
Duncan Duane Hunter doesn’t know what he’s talking about. First of all, no one thinks that to become a U.S. citizen, you simply walk across a border. And second, no one – not even Duncan Duane Hunter – should ever presume to know what is in the souls of others.
Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com.
Tags: Jeffrey Page
May 9th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Sad as it is – the further we are from an event…
The current immigrants will understand your point, but those who are 2nd, 3rd generation may miss it completely.
Ellis Island?
I recently got into just this debate with a younger man who said to me, straight faced, “We’re not a nation of immigrants.”
I hear no one suggesting a wall on the Canadian border.
Is there no illegal immigration from the northern border?
Ah, but for the most part – they are white.