Ban my account ffs!
snowguy716
Atlas Star
Posts: 22,632
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« on: April 06, 2008, 11:37:09 AM » |
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It’s Friday afternoon and I’m just about ready to drive home for the weekend. I have to admit that I’m very excited to get home to northern Minnesota and see my wife and hopefully catch the last bit of snow before the arrival of spring.
I am also pleased with the way the legislative session is going. Yes, we’re dealing with a pretty difficult budget situation, but I remain confident that we can plug the holes in the budget and still protect what I believe are the key priorities of state government — our kids’ education, health care, creating jobs and protecting Minnesota’s natural resources.
That kind of focus has benefited this state over the years. Previous generations understood that government plays a key role in our lives. They also understood that there are limits to what government should get involved in.
Article I, Section II of the Minnesota Constitution states, “No member of this state shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof …”
That essentially means that government shouldn’t be telling us how to raise our kids, where to go to church, who we live with, what we do in the privacy of our own home, or what kind of guns we keep our gun cabinets.
The problem is that Article I, Section II has a second half to it. There’s a comma after “No member of this state shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof …”, followed by “unless by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.”
That’s where the slippery slope lies. We get into trouble when we pass laws that forget the limits of government and try to impose one view of the world on the rest of us. The danger is particularly acute during tough times because too many politicians are willing to use hate and play to people’s fears if they think it will give them an advantage.
You can see it this year at the Capitol, where the minority leader in the House continues to try and demonize immigrants and distract the public from the really important issues like education, health care and creating jobs.
Over the next seven months, they’re going to be trotting out their laundry list of hate issues and blame this group or that for all of the problems in our state today. They’re going to try to talk about this negative stuff — anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-liberal, anti-government – and demonize groups of people simply because they’re different.
We’ve succeeded as a state over the years because — for the most part — we’ve kept our focus on what’s really important. We’ve built a world-class system of public education. We’ve taken care of our sick and disabled. We’ve protected our natural resources. We’ve invested in each other.
We have also — for the most part — kept our noses out of places they don’t belong. We’ve kept our laws out of the bedroom, out of our churches and out of our gun cabinets. We haven’t asked neighbor to turn against neighbor. That’s the genius of Minnesota. We not only protect the rights that we are comfortable protecting but more importantly we protect the rights that may be uncomfortable.
Sure, times are tough. But there have been tough times in Minnesota before. We can meet the challenges in front of us, together, without making scapegoats out of immigrants, gays or some other group. In fact, that’s the only way we can meet those challenges and preserve what’s best about this state.
Frank Moe, DFL-Bemidji, is assistant majority leader of the Minnesota House.
I really really really like my state house rep. because I agree with him whole heartedly on almost every issue. I think what he has to say here applies to our nation as much as it applies to Minnesota.
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