Whenever opportunity knocks craven Governors like Greg Abbott will whip out the fear card. This time the fear mongering is a cowardly demonization of Syrian refugees in the wake of last Friday’s unspeakable ISIS terror attacks in Paris.
Demeaning others seems to be a favorite of Greg Abbott and the state’s conservatives. How the Good ol' Boy Republicans, Bigots, Preachers Sold Hate in Houston
Several weeks ago Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, former Harris County Republican Party Chair Jared Woodfill and the city’s leading conservative homophobe vilified the GLBT community whose protections were included in the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. The conservatives ran a disgusting ad that called HERO a bathroom ordinance in which men can use women’s restrooms in order to commit rape. The conservatives completely ignored the fifteen groups that HERO would have protected (the disabled, elderly, veterans, minorities, pregnant women, the homeless and yes, the GLBT community too). HERO went down in flames at the ballot box thanks to disingenuous fear mongering.
It didn’t take the Texas GOP long before it found another group to demean. When I volunteered at the Houston area Democratic Party on Monday afternoon, a cable TV news channel played in the background. When I heard a very familiar voice I looked at the TV. And there was the Texas Governor telling news reporters why his state would not accept Syrian refugees. My heart sank as I and others in the office groaned. Here we go again. Our Governor couldn’t wait to politicize the desperate plight of frantic people. Mainly because they are Muslim and are from Syria, home to ISIS. That and because President Obama said the U.S. would accept 10,000 Syrian refugees. Let’s stick it to that black dude in the White House again. So, I am not in the least surprised most of the Republican Governors piled on board the hate train. It is as if the GOP’s head spin doctor issued talking points and all of the Party’s Governors parroted the edict. All say essentially the same thing, i.e. we as Governors are spineless cowards who will prey upon our constituents’ deepest fears.
An editorial in Tuesday’s Houston Chronicle nailed Abbott for his narrow pettiness. Don't say no to Syrian refugees.
Never one to hesitate when he sees an opportunity to pander to the nativists and the narrow-minded among us, Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday became one of 11 Republican governors (as of this writing) to declare his state would shut the door on Syrian refugees in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Paris.
I am glad the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board gave Greg Abbott a local history lesson. Of course in Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the U.S. with a refugee population, despite rotten apples such as the bathroom fixated Mr. Woodfill and Dr. Hotze, most of us are reasonable, rational and compassionate people.
Treating the very people who are most harmed by terrorism as putative terrorists themselves is unworthy of a great state with a rich and venerable tradition of welcoming refugees. A partial list of those who found refuge and new lives in the Lone Star State would include Germans and Czechs fleeing wars and conscription in the 1850s; Jews fleeing pogroms in the late 1800s and Nazism a few decades later; Mexicans fleeing revolution in the early 1900s; Cubans fleeing Castro; Vietnamese fleeing communism; and, yes, Lebanese-Syrians fleeing wars and religious persecution prior to World War I. (Perhaps the names DeBakey, Jamail, Halbouty and Haggar ring a bell.)
Perhaps Texas deserves a far better Governor than Greg Abbott. But since G.W. became the state’s Governor, followed by Rick Perry and now Greg Abbott Texas has been stuck with self-serving meager lame brains for far too long. Unfortunately we get stuck with the worst when we either don’t bother to vote or knee jerk straight party vote without knowing much about the candidates on the ballot.
How refreshing it would be to have a governor who exemplifies to the rest of the world the state's expansive heritage, whose first instinct is not to kowtow to the small-minded but to evoke those attributes of strength and confidence that are truly Texan. Greg Abbott, sadly, is not that governor. His response to a people in desperate need calls to mind an observation the late Bob Eckhardt, a Houston congressman, made about the Texas Capitol: Built for giants, inhabited by pygmies.
But an editorial in one of the state’s biggest newspapers won’t hold any sway over Greg Abbott or any fear mongering Republican who are dead set terrified of potential five year old terrorists and three year old orphans. Don’t expect any rational thinking on this issue from the right, either. For the GOP has worked itself into a frenzy over the refugees to the point that some are threatening to shut down the federal government. Senator Ted Cruz must be ebullient. This is his kind of government. The kind that cannot function or outright anarchy.
No amount of reasoning will be effective with the willful maligners, either. They don’t seem to know or care that conflating a desperate group of people with potential terrorists plays straight into the hands of ISIS. Be afraid, very afraid. And the Republican Governors are.
Calls to ban Syrian refugees play right into terrorist's hands
Terrorism is all about dividing us. It is about making us scared and angry and vengeful.
But it is our choice whether to give in to those emotions.
Gov. Greg Abbott, and other governors across the country, seem to be making that choice with vows to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees.
Because some refugees are Muslim, and because some terrorists falsely claim to be Muslim, we would slam the door shut on an entire nationality desperately seeking to escape such terrorism?
The Republican Party has frequently reverted to fear tactics. The G.W. Bush Administration preyed upon our angst after 9/11 with its warnings about non existent WMD’s in Iraq. We are presently living the outcome of that mind blowing fiasco.
Former President Nixon accused Democrats of being “soft on communism” when communism was the biggest bogeyman. Donald Trumps evokes fear when he rails against “illegal aliens.” They are “murderers” and “rapists.” Ted Cruz is freaked over gay marriage because he sees it as a threat to religious liberty. (Only his base would understand how.) And most recently in Houston right wing bigots had people up in arms over fictional men wearing dresses in women’s restrooms for the sole purpose of deviance. Yes indeed, scaring the living daylights out of people is a long standing tradition with the GOP.
And so it goes. Greg Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice, knows the law. He does not have the power to block refugees from the settling in the state but he acts as if he does. The Governor wants to play tough guy for his base. This group loves trashing “others” too, and the Governor knows it.
I want to believe that Abbott's declaration to President Obama is born of something more substantive than political considerations. I want to believe it's born of the heavy burden to keep Texans safe. But attempting to ban Syrian refugees from Texas is as illegal as it is illogical.
Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice and attorney general, knows the law.
Restricting state resettlement services to refugees who come from particular countries, or have particular religious beliefs, violates federal and Texas law. It also could be construed as interfering with federal executive power to regulate immigration.
Greg Abbott and the other Republican Governors are not interested in what immigration experts have to say about the refugees, either.
Confronting terrorism is necessary, but attempting to block Syrian refugees isn't the way to do it, said Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic.
He said it plays right into the hands of terrorists since it disadvantages the very people - Yazidis, ethnic minorities, families, women and children - who are running away from them.
"We cannot and should not retreat into xenophobia and desperate jingoism, at the expense of compassion, human rights, and our moral and legal obligations to help people in need," Hoffman said.
Compassion, human rights, moral and legal obligations don’t seem to hold much value for Republican lawmakers. Especially in Texas. They are fomenting fear with Syrian refugees just like they did with Ebola and everything and then some as mentioned above. Xenophobia, homophobia, bigotry and desperate jingoism works for the Party.
I wonder why the same level of fear mongering and outrage doesn’t kick in when crazed American gunmen kill elementary school children, mow down movie goers and when a white supremacist cold-bloodedly murders church goers? How come we are not supposed to be afraid of the domestic terrorism that lurks in our own backyard?
Oh wait. The NRA. Open carry. Money in politics. And one more reason why we get stuck with petty pygmies instead of principled giants.
