Letters to the editor Jan. 14
Immigration reform
It’s clear that the U.S. needs a better immigration system. That said, let’s see if I have this right. The incoming administration wants to deport most immigrants. But that’s not exactly it. They want to deport some of them, ones who work in jobs that Americans won’t work, such as harvesting crops, food and hospitality service, roofing. These are the people who are not taking jobs from Americans.
On the flip side, they want to increase immigration for foreign-born workers in scientific, engineering and high-tech jobs. These are highly skilled, highly paid jobs. These are positions that do take away jobs, very good jobs, from Americans.
It looks like a lose-lose proposal, workers gone from jobs Americans don’t want, workers coming in to take jobs Americans do want.
A better solution is to improve our immigration system to get safe, honest workers that America needs, and to improve our education system so that highly qualified Americans are prioritized for scientific, engineering and high tech jobs.
— Stephanie Brancati, Big Arm
Democratic principles
Recall if you will the cold, dank days at Fort Clatsop, Oregon. The Lewis and Clark corps had come through our country and finally down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.
It was still fall with a glimmer of chance to make it over the Rockies, perhaps back to the Missouri River and solidly homeward. One misstep going up or down the Rockies and they’d be stuck, perhaps fatally. So, they voted on whether or not to stay the winter on the coast. York, a black man, and Sacajawea, a Native American woman, were allowed to cast ballots along with every one else. A fine civics lesson if there ever was one.
Yes, they’d bonded over each other’s efforts for a full year. And had disagreements, no doubt. But just after the first Fourth of July (in Montana) the leadership chose to take in all sentiments.
As we reflect on Jan. 6, reformers of all persuasions do well to rededicate themselves to democratic principles. Let those affected, however indirectly, have something to say about the decisions. The 2021 version of “revolution” could have been about something other than an election of one or the other. It could have been fluoride or H1B visas or air pollution. In any case, nothing could justify unconstitutional violence or death for those causes, much less a personality contest.
There is something wrong, to be sure. But it’s not administration of elections by our friends and relatives. It’s the larger lack of responsiveness and/or articulation of a leadership practice that works for more than the few at the top or the in-crowd.
The rest of us do well to familiarize ourselves with the terms whipsawing and stampeding. (A little more common in Montana’s dreary winter months.) It , too, will get exhausting.
Whoever your enemy, be they George Soros, Rupert Murdoch or the Koch brothers, let their businesses know your frustrations as well.
Our own Montana Legislature once pushed back on the federal Patriot Act because its email interception without warrant component ran counter to our state’s constitutional privacy right. Yes, Montana lost that argument, but if one looks closely that very Patriot Act is, indeed, up in lights again.
— Tom Cherry, Helena