A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Gazette, Colorado Springs, Colo., May 29, on the GOP’s alleged opposition to bilingualism:
Part of the conservative crackup that threatens to empower statists on the left involves a de facto platform of xenophobia. Countless leading conservatives have crusaded against the unlawful border crossings into the United States—a minor legal infraction—scurrilously portraying immigrant workers as criminals who will destroy the culture. How this became a “conservative” theme remains anybody’s guess.
The lunacy reached new levels Wednesday and Thursday when conservative talk show hosts and bloggers attacked Barack Obama for one of the more lucid comments he has made during a campaign of nothing-speak. After addressing a crowd near Denver, Obama was asked what he might do about school children who don’t speak English. Obama said:
“When it comes to second-language learners, the most important thing is not to get bogged down in ideology, but figure out what works. Understand that my starting principle is, everybody should be bilingual or everybody should be trilingual.”
Absolutely. President Bush is bilingual, occasionally addressing Latinos in Spanish. Much of the world outside the United States is bilingual. The population of India speaks such fluent English that it has been able to take an entire segment of the telecommunications industry—customer and technical support—from the United States. The Chinese have become so fluent in English that even the owners of American mom & pop businesses are comfortable contracting with them. In the United States, professionals who speak more than one language can make more money than their English-only peers.
The advantages of knowing two or more languages are so enormous, and so obvious, that it’s hard to imagine anyone disputing Obama’s “starting principle.” A statement like “I appreciate air” should have been more controversial.
Remarkably, some conservatives opted to object. Denver-based talk show host Dan Caplis, an erudite conservative lawyer on a major Clear Channel station, balked at the notion of Americans learning Spanish in order to help Latino children. He criticized Obama for not supporting a law that would make English the official language of the United States.
Obama didn’t say Americans should solve the problems of immigrant children who don’t speak English. He said “everybody” should learn two or three languages. Included in “everybody” would be children who speak only Spanish. How can it possibly be a bad thing for a Spanish-speaking child to learn English? To oppose that, one must be stupid, mean or both.
Leading conservative blogs attracted posts like these:
Bull. English is the language of commerce and should stay that way.
Everyone should be bilingual. Why? I live in America and I don’t plan on living anywhere else. As long as I live in America, speaking English is sufficient.
Conservatives, of all Americans, should know that prosperity results from innovation and free trade. More and better communication and education can only bolster the tenets of prosperity. Conservatives should know that bilingual people have more options than those constrained by a single language.
In recent years, unfortunately, the conservative movement launched by economic and social intellectuals has morphed into a political culture of stupidity. A movement that once championed productivity and the value of work, today denounces and attacks some of the most productive members of society: Latino immigrants. Why? Because many committed a minor infraction, crossing a political boundary, in order to get to their jobs. True conservatives would criticize the regulatory barrier to progress; pseudo conservatives fear the new minority. They so despise this immigration wave, it appears, that they also fear the Spanish language.
Conservatives who understand the fundamental principles of liberty, human rights and free market prosperity should applaud anyone who advocates multi-lingual education. But millions of so called conservatives no longer understand the guiding ideology that once made the movement America’s great hope. They serve as caricatures that could have been drawn by the movement’s most rabid opponents—those who would cast them as xenophobic redneck dolts who fear knowledge.
Conservatives need to understand that when a liberal advocates bilingual education, the liberal is right. To him, your criticism comes as a gift. The conservative movement cannot succeed by embracing the politics of stupidity. Criticizing the value of learning a language? That’s just plain stupid.
Newspaper:
———
The Durango Herald, June 2, on China’s earthquake:
It has been three weeks since a major earthquake hit an isolated interior province of China, and still the tragic news continues.
More than 68,000 are known dead, and another 18,000 are missing.
We know about the unusually large number of school children who died in the daytime quake, largely because school buildings in that impoverished mountain country had been so poorly constructed. There have been charges that because those poor communities lacked political influence, public construction projects lacked quality oversight and were a source of graft.
In some cases, children died while their parents were hundreds of miles away working at better-paying jobs that did not exist in the mountain areas. The economic gap between the isolated interior and the thriving cities nearer the coast was clear.
The deep valleys and steep mountain sides continue to present monumental challenges. In some cases, roads were impassable to vehicles and rescue workers, including the military, had to walk a few miles with shovels and supplies on their backs. Helicopters eventually brought in some heavy equipment to aid in the search for victims, but only in small quantities and not until days had passed.
The May 12 earthquake sent whole hillsides sliding down into river valleys, creating dams that with spring runoff are now a threat to several million people downstream. Chinese are laboring hard, much of it by hand, to dig channels that will allow somewhat controlled water releases around the nature-caused dams instead of the inevitable explosive breaching. The numbers continue to be astounding. More than a hundred thousand people have been relocated from below one large lake in recent days, with perhaps a million to follow. Some 30 new lakes were suddenly created, and water levels are rising.
What makes this tragedy all the more extraordinary is that for the most part Chinese authorities have allowed reporters, Chinese and non-Chinese, to report on conditions as they unfold. Heart-wrenching photos of trapped and dead children and stories of fearful parents returning home from their distant jobs have been memorable.
While photos also have clearly shown collapsed school buildings adjacent to buildings that were almost untouched, the likelihood of incompetence and corruption in school construction is a topic that the Chinese at least so far have been unwilling to talk about. Officials talk of investigations, but will not be quoted. It is easier to be candid about the effects of natural disasters than man-made ones.
With so many missing, the death toll in China is certain to climb. Dam breaks would bring more fatalities. More positively, so far there have been no outbreaks of communicable diseases.
The world knows more about mountainous China than it did before as a result of the extensive reporting on this calamity. That could be considered to be of equal importance to coverage of the buildup to the summer Olympics in Beijing.
Editorial: n&article—path/opinion/opin080602—1.htm
———
STATE/REGIONAL:
The Denver Post, June 2, on the “personhood” amendment:
A proposed amendment to the Colorado state constitution that would define a human egg as a “person” from the moment of fertilization would go far beyond its intended purpose of outlawing practically all abortions.
Philosophers may debate when human life begins, but scientists are unanimous on the subject of when pregnancy begins: it’s when a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus.
But the proposed Amendment 48 specifies that the egg be considered a “person” in the eyes of the law even before it is implanted in the uterus. That means, effectively, that those forms of birth control that prevent such implantation would be classified as homicide under the proposal.
Even without the use of drugs, many eggs just naturally fail to implant in the uterus. Likewise, many eggs are implanted only to result in a miscarriage in the early days or weeks of pregnancy—often before the woman is even aware she is pregnant. Should a woman who suffers a miscarriage be charged with negligent homicide because she failed to protect a fertilized egg she may not have even known she carried? Should a man who fertilized an egg be entitled to file a civil lawsuit against a woman who miscarries, charging her with the wrongful death of his week-old fertilized egg?
Unfortunately, none of these possibilities is far-fetched. They would be the almost certain results of the mischievous interaction of the proposed Colorado constitutional amendment with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Here’s the proposed state amendment: Section 31. Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms “person” or “persons” shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization.
Here’s the relevant portion of the U.S. Constitution: nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
If a fertilized egg is a person, just what are that egg’s rights under Colorado law? The question is anything but hypothetical, because the entire abortion debate that culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision rests upon that language in the 14th Amendment. If the fetus is a person under the law, its life cannot be taken without due process, which means states can outlaw abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
Roe vs. Wade answered that question by defining a fetus as a person only in the third trimester of a pregnancy, during which it could conceivably live independently outside of the womb. Thus, under Roe vs. Wade, abortions can be banned in the third trimester, as long as exceptions are made for the life or health of the other “person” in the equation, the mother.
But by pushing the definition of “personhood” to fertilization, the proposed Colorado amendment creates an absurd and unworkable maze. What about women who have difficulty conceiving and try in vitro fertilization. Typically, a number of fertilized embryos are created and frozen. Once pregnancy occurs, the superfluous embryos are often discarded. But under the Colorado “eggs are people” law, that would be murder.
Amendment 48 goes far beyond banning abortion and many forms of birth control. It is legal mischief and should be solidly rejected by the voters in November.
Editorial:
———
Camera, Boulder, Colo., May 28, on moving the Alex Midyette trial. By Clay Evans for the Camera editorial board:
The problem of “pre-trial publicity” for a criminal defendant is the result of clashing constitutional rights.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants the right to a fair trial, while the First Amendment grants the press the right to publish information about defendants.
When those two keystone constitutional rights collide, courts often rule that a change is the answer.
So it may be with Alex Midyette, who has been charged with inflicting fatal injuries on his infant son, Jason Midyette. Prosecutors recently agreed with Midyette’s attorneys that they probably could not find an impartial jury in Boulder, and said they are willing to see the trial moved to an adjacent city or county.
Moving the trial will, of course, result in some inconveniences, for witnesses, expert witnesses and the press.
But as Chief Deputy District Attorney Ken Kupfner said recently, moving the trial may forestall any further delays. Midyette’s trial already has been bumped from January to May and now, to October. A judge is expected to rule on whether to move the trial on June 16.
With both the prosecution and defense on board, it’s likely the venue will be changed, and that’s good. Better to move the proceedings than endlessly delay them.
Editorial:
