LITTLE ROCK — READING news articles about the outfit called Secure Arkansas is like watching a really bad infomercial at 2 a.m. on the sci-fi channel. The announcer’s lame jokes don’t work, the product is shoddy, and you can tell the studio audience is faking it. Or you hope the audience is faking it. Surely it can’t believe all that stuff. For some reason, though, you can’t change the channel. It’s so awful it has to be seen. Like a car wreck-only with fewer injuries and more noise.
As the Tea Party folks flex their muscle all across the country, from Delaware to Florida to Alaska, others are starting to take notice of all the free pub. And maybe trying to horn in on some of it. We were reading a story about a Tea Party meeting this month when suddenly a Secure Arkansas type popped up in it, laying out the outfit’s agenda for the coming year.
Oh, goodie. To quote a line from the secretary in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off . . . Hello, who’s bothering you now?
Secure Arkansas has made its name by mainly . . . doing not much more than showing up in the news. What did it first want to do? Keep immigrants without all their papers in order from obtaining renewals for their businesses? That didn’t work. Then there was Secure Arkansas’ failing to get enough signatures for a ballot measure that targeted illegal immigrants a few months back.
Arkansas’ modern day version of the Know Nothing Party may be better at getting press than actually passing anything into law. Which may be good news for the rest of us. Especially considering what Secure Arkansas wants to secure for Arkansas in 2011.
Now on Secure Arkansas’ agenda is a plan to keep illegal aliens from receiving college scholarships. As if that would help anybody. If a child comes across the border before she’s even able to walk, then spends K through 12 being educated here, and-praise be!-does well enough in school to qualify for a scholarship, what’s the point of making sure she can get only menial jobs as an adult?
Here’s hoping the next time Secure Arkansas shows up at a rally and starts asking people to sign its petitions, the object of this particular effort is at least explained honestly. Like so:
Sign here if you’d like to deny education to people pursuing the American Dream.
Why make it more difficult to educate young people? That just sounds like spite.
There is a Russian story about a peasant who hated his neighbor. Oneday the peasant was lucky enough to encounter a genie who promised to grant him one wish. But there was a catch: Whatever he wished for, his neighbor would get twice as much. The peasant thought for a minute, then said:
“Make me blind in one eye.”
Spite is a nasty thing to carry around with you.
BUT AS an extra-added bonus, Secure Arkansas will not only throw in an anti-American Dream Act, but if you use your credit card and call in the next 15 minutes, they’ll take on . . . .
Fluoride in the water!
Talk about an oldie but baddie. How long has the anti-fluoridation mania been around? Decades?
In case you didn’t believe Secure Arkansas had gone all black helicopter on us, here’s the proof. The story in the paper said Secure Arkansas will push legislation “resisting efforts to put fluoride in Arkansas water.” Some of us are old enough to remember when putting fluoride in the water supply was a Soviet plot to keep Americans dumb. But just because the Soviets have left the scene is no reason to get rid of a perfectly good conspiracy theory.
Never mind that the Centers for Disease Control lists fluoridation of water among the Top Ten Great Public Health Achievements of the 20th Century-right up there with immunizations, tobacco warnings and seat belts. Hey, what do those dummies at the Centers for Disease Control know? Get on the Internet where you can find the real facts!
Now the conspiracy theorists want to fight fluoride all over again. It’s the 1960s, or 1950s, or at least the Cold War, all over again.
The only good news in all this is that, when a Secure Arkansas type starts to reel in an unsuspecting Arkie and get him to sign a petition or sign up for a membership, maybe the canvasser will mention the evils of fluoride, and the innocent Arkie will be warned off-and back away slowly without any sudden moves.
The whole Tea Party movement has been kind of refreshing. It’s good to see folks get involved in their government, and pay attention to not-so-little matters like taxes and spending.
But the Tea Party needs to beware of the fringe elements out there who’d like to hijack its crowds. Those who lie down with dogs rise up with fleas and all that.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 09/28/2010