Dear Scott Beason.... How Do You Feel About "Them" Now?

October 4, 2011 by Left in Alabama

Back in February, we wrote that "Scott Beason could use a little education about immigration," but of course, he knew more than church leaders, local law enforcement, county commissions, citizens standing in the "Beason Lines," or even those "Aborigines" in the state.  Now he's getting an earful from local business owners.  Reckon his hearing has improved?

Farmers told Beason the law resulted in their migrant workers leaving the area and leaving them with a depleted workforce.  That, they say, could cause economic disaster that could even shut down farmers on Chandler Mountain--farms that have been in the same families for as many as four generations.

Farmers say many of them left to find plentiful work in Florida, and took their workforce—not to mention state sales tax money—with them.
[...]

Farmers say Beason and other supporters never researched the implications of the law on Alabama's farms.

"You can make anything work on paper," says Boatwright.  "It doesn't work out here in the real world."

Nope. As always, Beason doubles down....

While Beason told the farmers he feels their frustrations, he stood by the law, and says there's nothing he can do to stop enforcement of it long enough for harvest season.

"I can't just magically make parts of it disappear," Beason told the farmers.  "You're going to make it easy for them to stay here, or not easy for them to stay here, and my position is, to stay with the law that we have."

What are we finding from this experience?  That Scott Beason, Micky Hammon, Mo Brooks, and company are more interested in scoring political points with their howling base than in concocting sound public policy.

• We heard that they're taking the jobs of American workers.... but crops are rotting in the fields now that those "job stealers" are gone.
• We heard that they're lazy, sitting on their butts getting government handouts.... but farmers talk about the hard work their immigrant laborers do without complaining.
• We heard that they're lowering the standards in our schools... but how will our local systems replace the state and federal "per pupil" revenue they received now that Hispanic  pupil absenteeism is rampant?
• We heard that immigrants "don't pay taxes".... but local businesses are lamenting the loss of sales tax dollars.
• We heard that Beason, Hammon, Brooks, etc. are a bunch of xenophobic schmucks.  Oh... that one is correct, IMO.... :-)
  

As we noted in February:

Senator Beason, you proudly proclaim your membership in Gardendale's First Baptist Church, so I assume that your religious belief governs at least some of your personal behavior.  Remember this: spreading lies and hatred for personal gain is not only bad politics.  It's bad for your soul as well.

Now, happily, we're finding that it may actually be bad for his political career as well.