Christmas Story

Timmy was particularly pleased with the reaction when they opened the Christmas present he'd brought.

"Your logic tells you, all right, these people, they only come here for the money. They speak Spanish. They're used to the desert and hot weather. What are they doing in Minnesota? And the answer is the fact that we give everything away."

So much for Minnesota Nice. And to hell with the spirit of Christmas. Just the way Timmy the Boy Governor calculated they'd respond when he stirred up fears and hatred for his own political ends. Lagging in the polls and on the verge of a spectacular court loss in his bid to convince ordinary citizens that a "health impact fee" is not a tax, Timmy needed something big to shore up his anti-urban "I've got mine, up yours" conservative base.

Enter Worthington, Minnesota, a town of 11,000 out on the western prairie where the meat packing plants offer low-paying and high-risk jobs that attract immigrant workers. It's quite the symbiotic relationship. The immigrant workers are willing to do the jobs that no one else will take for the wages the packing houses pay and then they spend most of their earnings right there in town. Of course some of the immigrant workers have to use phony IDs to get the jobs. Most everyone--the packing houses, the authorities, and the local merchants--knows this. But here in America, where we love our freedom (especially when it's so lucrative), don't ask don't tell seems like the best policy.

But then Chief of Police made the mistake of mentioning that the fake IDs become a real bother when his officers pull over an immigrant worker for a routine traffic stop.

Word flashed to the Office of the Governor who immediately saw the opportunity. Stowing away for the moment his Christian beliefs and what Jesus said about the poor and caring for your neighbor, Timmy the Boy Governor brought the full weight of his office to bear, ordering a study, and then releasing a scathing report saying that there could be more than 80,000 illegals in Minnesota and that they cost Minnesotans upwards of $175 million a year (not quite half of what Timmy the Boy Governor's snafu with the cigarette tax will cost, but who's counting).

Never mind that the report has since been discredited by most everyone, even the experts mis-quoted in it. Never mind that Timmy the Boy Governor himself has since disclaimed most of his own report and now says that he realizes that immigrant workers contribute far more to the State's economy than they cost.

That was never the point.

The point was to feed the ugliest instincts among us and to remind citizens that things could always get worse and so you'd better keep your nose to the wheel and vote for conservative ideologues because they'll watch out for that guy over there who just might be out to steal your stuff.

Minnesotans can do better than this.

One Town's Concern - Star Tribune