A warm, sunny Saturday a decade ago, there was a Hispanic festival in our small town, a bedroom community for illegal aliens seeking day labor jobs in the nearby wealthy suburbs. It was a sanctuary city at the time. No problem with the festival itself. The music was lively and the food tasty. And don't the Irish have St. Patrick's Day, and the Italians Columbus Day?
While wandering around the festivities, I noticed a table with three nice ladies in front of a "Register To Vote" sign. Curious about its presence at a festival where the bulk of the crowd was either illegal alien day laborers or legal non-citizens, I went over to inquire. Before I spoke, one of those nice ladies asked me if I was registered to vote. Wanting to see where this would go, I said no, and asked how to sign up. A voter registration form was thrust in my hands. The very first item on these forms, in Virginia and the rest of America, was "I am a citizen of the United States of America," with YES and NO blocks to check.
"Don't I need to show you some proof of citizenship?" I asked. She replied "no." I asked her how she could verify that I wasn’t lying. Sensing she might be on a slippery slope, she called over a supervisor from the Registrar's Office and told the woman of my concern. The official told me they never checked citizenship status because I would be penalized if I lied. Really? So I asked her how she would verify my truthfulness, or those of the dozens of new voters being registered that day. Defensively, she replied that they checked all registrations for accuracy at the Registrar's Office when they were turned in.
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It was like this when I first registered to vote in 1981. People still took telling the truth seriously back then. When I got my license to drive two years before they took my word that I was who I said I was. Not so for my children. I had to bring their birth certificates. Times have changed. Trust, but verify.
ReplyDeleteThis is a huge gap in thinking, as the Supreme Court made a determination some years ago that lying is okay.
ReplyDelete10:28 and how exactly did the Supreme Court say lying was ok?
ReplyDelete