Government Shut-Down:  Democracy Has Been Betrayed

DACA is not a favor the nation generously bestows to 700,000 people out of kindness and compassion, even though it is often presented that way.  It is, instead, a kind of confession that our convoluted immigration laws, as interpreted and enforced by officials, have produced outrageous injustice for a massive group of innocent people.  If inflicted, this colossal injustice would generate universal repudiation at home and abroad.  Just here at home 87%--including most Trump supporters--of the voting public favors righting this wrong. Abroad, the Statue of Liberty, long a symbol of pride in our hugely fruitful, four-century-long embrace of the tired and poor, and hungry masses yearning to breathe free, would become an emblem of American shame, if it hasn't become so already.  What gives?

In a functioning democracy this issue never even would have surfaced. Committee staffers in Congress, working with mid-level White House staffers, seeing the poll numbers, would have resolved it in bipartisan fashion long ago.  That it has not been resolved is the strongest indicator I can think of that something is seriously wrong with American democracy.  What our two major institutions of government have given us in policy affecting 700,000 innocent people, on an issue as symbolically powerful as the Statue of Liberty, is exactly the opposite of what the public overwhelmingly wants done.  Something is wrong, and it goes far deeper than the character of the person currently occupying the White House.  Citizens need to figure out for themselves just what is wrong, and we can no longer rely on the major media outlets to help out:  they have become a major part of the problem.  As for me, I say, repeating myself, throw all of the bastards out, and put the next batch on a very short leash.