Immigration

Republicans control the state government for the first time in the state’s history, and there are growing indications some plan to use this control to impose a far-right agenda.

The signs are ominous the next Oklahoma legislative session will be an ideological crazy-fest featuring bills that ultimately will make the state’s residents seem backwards and intolerant. This can’t be good for economic development here.

Here are some of those signs:

(1) State Rep. Mike Reynolds (R-Oklahoma City) has introduced the Religious Viewpoints AntiDiscrimination Act. Here are a couple of requirements from the bill:

A school district shall treat the voluntary expression by a student of a religious viewpoint, if any, on an otherwise permissible subject in the same manner the district treats the voluntary expression by a student of a secular or other viewpoint on an otherwise permissible subject and may not discriminate against the student based on a religious viewpoint, if any, expressed by the student on an otherwise permissible subject.

Students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.

Essentially, if Reynolds bill passes, schools here will be set-up to become bastions of religious conflict. What if a student’s religious viewpoint conflicts with proven science? Will teachers be able to penalize students for using religion to offer inaccurate views of history?

The bill also requires schools to provide forums that “in a manner that does not discriminate against the voluntary expression by a student of a religious viewpoint . . .”

Ultimately, the bill will make the state seem unconcerned with academic standards. Oklahoma already has well-known problems with preparing high school students for college. This bill will not only exasperate the problem, it will also institutionalize academic mediocrity.

Reynolds has also introduced the "Protection of Human Life Act of 2011,” which deals with embryos. The bill would forbid anyone from conducting “nontherapeutic research that destroys a human embryo or subjects a human embryo to substantial risk of injury or death.”

(2) State Sen. Josh Brecheen, from the Durant area, has announced in a newspaper article that he will propose legislation that will challenge teaching only the theory of evolution in schools. He writes:

Using your tax dollars to teach the unknown, without disclosing the entire scientific findings is incomplete and unacceptable. For years liberals have decried how they want to give students both sides of an argument so they can decide for themselves, however when it comes to evolution vs. creation in the classroom, the rules somehow change. Their beliefs shift, may I say... evolve to suit their ideology.

Because of this, Brecheen “will be introducing legislation this session to ensure our school children have all the facts.”

Essentially, Brecheen’s legislation could allow teachers and students to challenge basic scientific principles based on religious beliefs. Again, this type of legislation makes the state seem backwards no matter how much Brecheen and others dress up intelligent design “theory” (wink, wink, “creationism”) with faux-academic language.

In fact, a federal judge has already ruled that intelligent design ideology is essentially creationism and not a scientific theory. Will Brecheen’s measure, if approved, lead to a costly lawsuit for the state?

(3) State Rep. Randy Terrill (R-Moore) has promised he will introduced an “Arizona-plus” bill that will make the state’s anti-illegal immigration laws even stricter. In 2007, Terrill sponsored a bill that at the time was viewed has the most strictest anti-illegal immigration bill in the country. It passed. Arizona later passed an even stricter law.

Terrill, who now faces a felony bribery charge in a case involving a former legislator, has said he wants to end the practice of giving citizenship to people born to illegal immigrants in the United States.

As I have long argued, the illegal immigration problem deserves a more comprehensive approach and is actually under the purview of the federal government. Terrill’s efforts simply make the state seem intolerant of people from other cultures while making illegal immigrants go deeper into hiding.

Also, expect legislation that, if approved, will allow guns on college campus and open carry of weapons. We can also expect the latest model legislation from the anti-abortion movement.

A bill that would make English the state’s official language is nothing more than a GOP attempt to arouse hated against the state’s Hispanic immigrants.

The bill, proposed by state Sen. Kathleen Wilcoxson (R-Oklahoma City), would designate English as the state’s official language and would allow government agencies to offer documents in English only. The agencies, however, could choose to offer their documents in other languages as well. Some social service agencies now offer documents in Spanish as well as English. This will surely continue to happen because of the quiet but altruistic spirit of the state’s social workers.

What is apparent about this bill is that it’s simply unnecessary on a pragmatic sense level. English is already the official language in the state and country. Why not just pass a bill that claims the sun is hot or water is wet or that George Washington was the nation’s first president? The bill merely plays on anti-immigration, especially anti-Hispanic immigration, sentiment among conservatives in the state.

Ironically, the GOP, led by President George Bush, has failed to bring about any immigration law reform during its recent domination in national politics. Conservatives, such as Wilcoxson, want it both ways. They want you to feel false and wasted anger against immigrants on a personal level by wildly claiming that somehow the English language is under attack, yet the leader of their own party favors a massive guest worker program that helps big business and keeps workers’ wages low.

These are right-wing fanatics now used to manipulating people with fake anger and wedge issues to gain personal political power. Here’s what Wilcoxson, in a bit of Orwellian Doublespeak told a Norman Transcript reporter:

""We all should realize the necessity of learning and using English as our common language. It is something that brings us together. It is that unification that I want to promote with this legislation."

Note the “unification ” comment. That’s rubbish. The bill’s intent is to divide us even further among ethnic and political lines. It’s one of these classic, GOP cultural-wedge issues that does nothing but play on the ignorant, misguided hatred of close-minded people. And then these same rubes support a warmongering presidential administration that will do absolutely nothing to reform immigration laws in this country because it might limit cheap labor for some big businesses.

All this local, wasted energy, ultimately tarnishes the state with a hick image that hurts our economic development.

What would be great is if we were all bilingual and or even multilingual, and there were no language barriers among people in this country. But that would mean supporting something as "radical" as studying other languages. That’s a concept that conservatives such as Wilcoxson, in their political hubris and anger, can’t seem to fathom.

Randy Terrill Leads Hate Frenzy

Oklahoma faces a myriad of challenges as it tries to bolster its economic base and improve its educational systems.

The state’s average household income, for example, is $35,129, ranking it 44th in the nation, and the state needs more college graduates if it wants to attract new jobs. Oklahoma has high rates of mental illness, teenage pregnancies, and children without health insurance. It has high rates of hunger and poverty.

You might think these issues, though daunting and omnipresent, would be the focus for any state legislator who really wanted to make a difference in our state. But not for state Rep. Randy Terrill (R-Moore), the archconservative legislator who is on a personal jihad against undocumented workers and the general Hispanic community in Oklahoma.

Terrill, using the politics of hate and anger perfected by presidential advisor Karl Rove and the Bush administration, is trying to win votes for the conservative cause by making the illegal immigration issue something that it is not. The issue is a federal issue, not a local issue. Terrill does not care. The bottom line is that his party on the federal level has failed to come up with any type of immigration reform because the country’s rich people—a Republican base group—want a cheap labor pool. He can pull as many publicity stunts as he wants, of course, but it is all hot air and hucksterism and freaky.

Terrill’s latest gambit is to decry the number of illegal immigrants in our state prison system. Before that, he wanted to deny the children of illegal immigrants in-state college tuition rates. Last legislative session, he failed to pass a bill eliminating state benefits for illegal immigrants. Again, every hateful gesture he makes is pointless on any real level.

All of Terrill’s initiatives are aimed at Hispanic people, and he is echoed by the Republican leadership up and down the political food chain, including its leader U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook, the religious extremist who is running for governor this year. What these hate mongers want you to do is join them in an orgiastic angry frenzy so they can subtly shift all the wealth in this country to a small group of elite, rich people, the same people who do NOT want immigration reform. Meanwhile, the Christian right stands idly by and allows this immoral shift of wealth.

Terrill and other Republicans attack Hispanic people relentlessly for political gain. Rove’s political playbook teaches Republican candidates to create anger against fictional scapegoats and then to instill fear in people. This is how the Republicans are winning votes these days, and especially in Oklahoma. Forget the real issues, they say, hate, hate, hate, and then hate some more. Last election season, it was gay people. This year, it is Hispanic people.

Meanwhile, energy prices skyrocket, wages remain stagnant, and our health insurance premiums and copays go up almost monthly. (I know someone who was paying more than a $1,000 a month at a state job to insure his family. He left Oklahoma for greener pastures.) Many people do not even seek medical help until it is an emergency because they do not have insurance. The state’s Republicans do not want you to think about these issues. If Oklahomans did focus on these issues, rather than fictional scapegoats in a failed Republican federal policy on illegal immigration, then there would be a Democratic sweep here in November.

The rest of the nation, according to recent polls, have realized what a mess the liar Bush and the Republicans have made of this country and their individual states. Let us hope Oklahoma wakes up soon, so we no longer have to endure the hate, anger and racism that now defines the Republican Party in this state. But the ultra-conservative media here, led by The Daily Oklahoman, will make sure people do not hear the truth.

Not all Republicans are immoral, of course, and many are now bailing on Bush and extreme right-wing platforms, but the foundation of the Republican Party in this state and in this nation right now is vile and disgusting.

Blair Government Lies Again

You are a rube if you do not question the news coming out of England about terrorists blowing up planes bound for America.

The British government, led by feckless Prime Minister Tony Blair, has not offered one fact that proves people and places were in imminent danger. What we have here could simply be a generic plot already described in an older documents dealing with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. People should demand the British authorities provide convincing evidence about the so-called plot. Already skeptics are writing about their concerns, but, of course, the first legal hearing on the plot was closed to public scrutiny. It sounds like yet another ploy to give the Bush administration some political leverage for its botched war on terror.

What is so disconcerting about this is that people can no longer count on the American and British governments to tell their people anything even closely resembling the truth. In addition, the United States has its lost war in Iraq and its surrogate war in Lebanon. Does that make you feel safe?

Oklahoma Heat

The heat in Oklahoma this summer has been oppressive and depressive and repressive and excessive, and it serves as one reminder as to why our population growth continues to lag behind national averages. Who wants to live in a scalding hot place more than eight hours away from the ocean?

Landlocked Oklahoma needs help. State and city leaders need to come up with ideas for new lakes and pools, and especially in the Oklahoma City area. How about a new, huge park and swimming area—no motor boating allowed--in downtown Oklahoma City near Bricktown?

Could it be done? Okie Funk hereby decrees that, yes, it could be done. But it will take visionary leadership.