I am on the 'wrong' side of the illegal immigration issue because I believe the system is broken, and I want to see illegal immigration stopped. To many posters this makes me a 'racist,' a 'hateful' creepo,' and a 'troll.' No one seems to care that I was the only Anglo invited to be a Charter Member of the Allianza de Federal, or that last year I offered to sponsor a young mexican neighbor for her green card. This doesn't count. Why?
Because I have dared to take a position other than the official liberal position on Illegal Immigration and so I am to be smeared and insulted at will.
I have experienced this before. A few years ago in California I worked in the San Francisco public schools doing play therapy with spanish speaking kids. What I saw made me an ardent opponent of bilingual education. Why? Because it wasn't working. My kids, initially excited about learning english, were being kept in a spanish-speakiing-only ghetto inside the school. They were not learning english, and they were being deprived of an education which might make them competitive in a society that prizes english as its official language. Sure, you may want to see all that changed. Fine. But please don't do it on the backs of a bunch of immigrant kids who only want their shot at the American Dream. What I saw in those schools broke my heart.
But when--as with the illegal immigration issue--I spoke about my experience, about what I actually saw first hand, I was labeled prejudiced, a traitor, a no-goodnik who deserved scorn and humiliation.
I do not understand this willingness to crucify people who disagree with you, particularly when their disagreement is based on first hand information and on real experiences. I know there are people who post and say they have expeience when they don't; but I can usually spot them. I told a story on Friday about my mother being left sitting with a bone sticking out of her wrist in an emergency room at the local hospital. I didn't make this up. Does this sound like something a troll would invent? Surely we can tell the difference. But I don't think we want to. When we hold an opinion ardently, and someone comes along and says, 'Hey, that's not my experience.' We discount them. We don't want to hear it. And we apparently want to make them wrong.
But that doesn't help anything.
For years those of us on the left have taken a shellacking from those on the right. Do we really want to behave exactly like them? Do we want to silence differences? Do we want to gloss over facts and information that doesn't fit our preconceived ideas? I hope not. There are two models out there for a different way to behave: talk shows on the left that welcome all points of view and dont pre-screen their calls. And Media Matters For America. We need to bring fairness, information, and considered opinion rather than bias back into the debate. I would like to ask everyone here to become an ardent proponent, not only of their issues and their subjects, but of the debate, of the give and take. And to see that this occurs with with respect and with dignity. This is what a democracy requires. Because this is what it must have it to survive.