No Shame
In November, Columbia County Voters will find Measure 5-190 and Measure 5-191 on their ballots. Both are sponsored by Wayne Mayo.
Mr. Mayo is portraying these measures as bold steps to ensure Columbia County citizens are fully employed by punishing employers who elect to employ undocumented workers. He also proposes giant signs at all county construction sites proudly proclaiming them free of undocumented workers.
Both measures address the same basic issue. Both give local government powers it never sought itself. And both embody Mr. Mayo’s expressed belief that fear and shame are the best motivators and the right tools to use–regardless of the circumstances.
That’s the way Mr. Mayo sees the world–a frightening place where unseen dangers lurk in the shadows. He believes the best way to a better world is to build higher and higher walls while threatening to punish anyone else inside the enclosure should they even think about opening the door to see what’s outside. If he allows a door.
That’s what Mr. Mayo really wants. Control. And if you read these two measures, the focus of the fines and punishment isn’t on the undocumented workers. It’s on us. Controlling us by presenting consequences so severe that none of us dare step out of line.
Which highlights the real motivation of the measures. It’s Mr. Mayo’s line. And we’re the ones he expects to toe it.
It isn’t that hard to understand. Mr. Mayo has a history of past initiatives focused on establishing a rigidly controlled environment where things run his way. These measures just continue that walk toward nowhere.
Read the measures and you’ll see. Step out of line? Fine you. Resist ? Shut your business down. Continue to resist. Not to worry, since by that time you’ll be out of business anyway. And Mr. Mayo? Let’s just say he’ll be ready for business. Your business.
Mr. Mayo once argued in an editorial that one problem with people who weren’t citizens was that they couldn’t be shamed into proper behavior. Reverse that and something very frightening indeed emerges–The proper way to get citizens to behave is to shame them into doing so.
That’s what these measures really are all about. Using shame as a mechanism to make Columbia County into what Mr. Mayo wants it to be.
Those of us who oppose these measures don’t intend to let Mr. Mayo define right and wrong for us. We will not willingly allow him to blur his true intentions by introducing two measures where one would have defined what he wanted just as well. A shell game is a shell game. The only positive outcome is simply not to play.
We also won’t allow Mr. Mayo to bankrupt the financial health of the county to do so. You don’t have to be an accountant to know that you and I will be financing his ideas, not to mention the endless legal costs the challenges to his measures will bring in the future. And you don’t need to be a genius to recognize that both these measures will be financed by the very money set aside for the poorest and neediest among us–the county General Fund. Or that Mr. Mayo clearly gave no consideration to any realistic means to put the money back.
We hope you feel the same. At the least, we encourage you to read these two measures and our arguments for why they’re bad for Columbia County. We have faith that you, like all of us opposed to these measures, respond better to truth and honesty and fair-mindedness than shame.
