By the time you are protesting the high rise in your neighborhood it is too late. By the time you are sitting in more traffic jams it is too late. By the time you are rationing water it is too late. By the time you are watching the dwindling numbers of wildlife turn into roadkills it is way too late.
In order to prevent overcrowding and keep our remaining quality of life, in order to maintain our open spaces and help wildlife continue to live within our borders we must pay attention to policy matters regarding growth in the US.
They say you should never watch what goes into making policy or sausage, it’s too complicated and too many strange ingredients go into them. But pay attention we must. We must learn that policy sets in motion a series of events from which will either suffer or benefit.
Our best chance to preserve our remaining wilderness, stop the hemorrhaging of our aquifers, cease to build those giant unsustainable developments in our neighborhoods, and curtail the never-ending need to construction more freeways is to stop growing our population.
Yes, we must stop growing because we are pushing the boundaries of what the US can handle in every parameter of life. We are using up too much water, too much energy and too much open space. We cannot ‘green’ our economy while we keep growing. We are growing mostly by immigration and therefore we must focus on how best to curb our growth by tackling the political football of immigration policy. Those who are unafraid to address this important issue are the ones also unafraid to curb women’s rights and voting rights, to cut social security and foreign aid. They are the ones also challenging the last election results and offering only obstacles to sensible gun laws.
Few want to pay attention to what is happening in congress, it seems out of control and too complex, but we need to spend some time understanding that if we paid attention, we could start seeing just how we end up in too much traffic, with too many crowds, with too little quality of life. We need to see that those who otherwise might represent us to do not represent us when it comes to curbing growth and protecting America from being overrun with a kind of demand for its resources it cannot sustain.
By every important marker, the US is full and overflowing that is why we can’t fund our border without reforming our policy that recognizes our limits without demeaning those trying to gain entry. A bill which must be the beginning of sustainable justice, passed the House this last spring. It includes some of the reforms needed. H.R.2 would close loopholes and mandate the use of the E-Verify system for employers. The Senate and the president need to step up and sign and enforce this bill so that sustainable justice can begin its long overdue journey.
Social justice is a worthy goal but only when it lives under the parameters of sustainable justice. If we cannot sustain more newcomers because we have reached our limits, we are not being just to them or those already here by having policies which permit more to come in and especially to ignore those who are here without having followed legal entry policies.
If those on the Democratic side of the aisle are choosing to be weak on curbing mass immigration especially illegal immigration due to social justice concerns, they need to think twice. They must realize that there is nothing socially just about letting people into a country which will not be able to provide for them without sacrificing our remaining open space, wildlife and water supplies. Perhaps more of us speak up the Democrats would see that there is a majority of voters who want them to support sensible immigration policies.