I Never Thought I would Agree with Wiers, but...

This is another chapter in the Flores saga over English learners funding. What is interesting here is that the judge is trying to hold Jim Wiers and Tim Bee in contempt for not complying with a court order. While I think we should fully fund under the Flores law suit, I am not sure I agree with the judge. I am uncomfortable with the judiciary finding an individual legislator in contempt. I would like to read the actual order to see the judge's reasoning.

Note to the goof balls that run our legislature, there is an easy way out... Fund the english language learning program. It is funny how people against immigration site not learning english as one of their primary concerns, but don't want to fund the program that would most quickly teach kids english.

Flores and why the Right are a bunch of hypocrites

The Arizona Republic has this article about the Flores case. I am not going to rail against the stupidity of the legislators over this case, although it is rail worthy. What struck me as I read this was how the right ignores reality and pushes toward hypocrisy.

For example, on teenage pregnancy they don't want sex education (where they actually teach about sex), they insist on abstinence only education (fantasy land). On abortion, for the most part the right-wing doesn't actually want to take actions that would decrease the number of abortions (like supporting children and single mothers or providing adequate birth control). Instead they just want abortions to stop (fantasy land). We are clearly losing the war in Iraq, but instead of admitting mistakes and adjusting (not now, 2 years ago), they just think they can will victory through some combination of getting tough, taking the gloves off, sending more troops or praying to Jesus (fantasy land). I could go on...

I know this idea of the right being divorced from reality is not new, but how do we as a community combat it (or explain it and understand it)? The petulance of our legislators is just another case of this divorce from reality. They want English to be the official language. They insist that immigrants are not doing enough to learn English, so what do they? Shut down adult language education and under fund programs for kids trying to learn English (don't even get me started on deporting 12 million people). They always say they want to run government like a business, but no business would operate this way and survive...