From Other Sites on the Line: 19 Jun 08

Your tax, Your vote, Your Sovereignty

Cross posted from Shawmut
http://shawmut.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, June 11, 2008


One challenge that I have never had to meet is proving to citizens of my own country that I have full franchise in everything it does. Sure, I know the anxiety of making a grade, a team; even engaging in an election. But to engage myself in a new citizenship, abandoning one of my birth, in a country with guaranteed freedoms, and with it the immediate values and a chance to share responsibilities with my new fellow citizens is beyond any experience I've had.

It is only with the election season upon us, that issues of voting, voter fraud and indifference to appropriate identification that we hear of newer scrutinies of the electorate. Particularly, the environment of the electorate needs serious attention. I'll only suggest here that one might enter "voter fraud" into "Google" maybe set up alerts for a few days and witness what comes down. It's a universal and bipartisan issue, and though I'll cite one element of civic distortion, I'm sure the idea is in ferment in other parts of the country as well.
Over a few weeks I've come across a couple of articles by one Mark Puleo who writes for "Metro", one of those free print rags that pop up in cities with over-priced, fading newspapers. Mr. Puleo has presented two very well written articles with which I couldn't agree. One is the idea of giving green-card holders the right to vote, and the other is granting non-citizen voting rights for the sake of local elections; cities, townships, school boards and the like.(I'll list these article below.)
http://www.metrobostonnews.com/us/article/2008/05/22/03/4553-66/index.xml and http://www.ethnicnewz.org/en/giving-green-card-holders-right-vote-makes-sense

As you may gather Mr. Puleo is rather free with your franchise as citizens and would even suggest that you just give away your vote or dilute it in a the gush of compromise. Depending on how many non-citizens may reside in the vote zone, a citizen could find that all he or she held in civic terms was gone. Let's just for a moment take a school system; the selection of disciplines, the imposition of language requirements, or as we have seen in some communities throughout the country, Dearborn, Michigan, and Fairfax County, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, to name a few, where cultural imposition has given way to a belief system (religious focus) that is totally alien from American principles. Let's not pretend we don't see this. Better yet, let's not lie to ourselves. Let's not let anyone else lie to us either.
Now as cute and folksy as Mr. Puleo would have us see this, these people would be given a say in your tax spending. Writing, with a heart toward infantilizing these faux-citizens, he would say they pay taxes too. But remember, few, very few school systems function without federal funds. And the use of federal funds run up and down the policy execution ladder. So, Mr. Puleo, apart from the idea of one little village inviting the new folk to the process is suggesting they take part in whole. While we're considering this, let's remember jury duty is drawn from the voters lists.
In the effort to show the merit of this civic franchise giveaway, Mr. Puleo has provided what he evidently believes is compelling drama to his case. Well, I consider it an outrage.

Read the rest of this fascinating article here:
http://shawmut.blogspot.com/2008/06/your-tax-your-vote-your-sovereignty.html

A note from Radarsite: Radarsite highly recommends the work of our friend and fellow blogger Shawmut at Shawmut.com. Take a moment to visit his site and read his bio to understand why. - rg