Editorial: Aim sign anger to do some good

The unnamed Courier editor takes the opportunity afforded by the antics of Councilmen Hanna and Blair to polish his rightist immigration credentials, managing in a couple of hundred words both to characterize removing the Spanish banner as "an extreme reaction" and to urge readers to elect more extreme reactionaries.

Along the way he betrays his lingual chauvinism (or is it racism?), calling it "an unfortunate fact of life that many legal American citizens still speak primarily Spanish in their daily lives," as if speaking Spanish is some sort of developmental handicap.

But he really kicks it into gear when he demonstrates that he really doesn't get the issue at all: "we at the Courier don't like an expression that encourages illegal residents to participate in the census," as if it's an illegal act, or participation in the census confers some sort of legal privilege.

Editor, we, all of us, including you, really do want illegals to participate. If they do, we have a clearer idea of how to apportion public spending (like roads and infrastructure, say) for the actual number of people in our community, as well as ensure that we get enough votes in Congress to account for that real number. More illegals on the census is an advantage to our communities, and does not change their status or public benefits one bit.

But I gather that's really hard to see through race-tinted aviator sunglasses.