"we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."
If Denver passes ballot initiative 300, an existing ordinance will be rewritten to sharpen the consequences for violating its terms. As is, Denver police officers can use discretion as to who and who should not have their cars impounded based on net public safety. Initiative 300 would revoke that right, and require officers to impound the vehicle of any unlicensed driver without proof of vehicle registration. No, not of any unlicensed driver, but of any driver pulled over without his license.
Damages could total $3,000 after retrieving your vehicle and the incurrence of court costs. So, the next time you run out to the grocery store, are pulled over for your broken tail light, and cannot produce your license, you can kiss your car goodbye, in addition to your next couple paychecks.
Initiative 300 would effect the whole citizen population of Denver, and anyone who drives through Denver, but was designed with one small subset of people in mind: illegal immigrants.
Let me draw a parallel.
Everyone who travels through a US airport has to remove their shoes because our overzealous federal government imposed a sweeping reform based on the actions of a single person. I feel degraded as a human when i am asked to remove my shoes, my coat, at the security check in an airport. so, do i resent the one guy who allegedly hid a bomb in his shoe, or do i resent the reaction of our federal government?
Our entire country was impacted by the action of one man.
That’s power. By reacting the way the federal government did--adding a new branch to our government!-bloating our bureaucracy, spying on our own citizens--all of these actions demonstrated a weakened connfidence in each other and in our system.
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In terms of the extreme measure that the new vehicle impound ordinance proposes, the cost of keeping illegal immigrants out of our country is its dignity. The measure attempts to arrest a problem that local government is ill-equipped to resolve. Denver police officers are employed in the sphere of public safety, not border control. To vote yes on the initiative is to penalize each other. To vote yes on initiative 300 is to have local law enforcement combatting an elusive perpetrator that is the jurisdiction of the federal government.
Initiative 300 would be passed in lieu of public safety, not for public safety.
