In the San Francisco Chronicle today the two top front page stories were about the U.S. Senate's passage of a sweeping new Immigration Reform bill, and the legal complexities created by the Supreme Court's knockdown of DOMA and California's Proposition 8 constitutionality (it was struck down too).
In each case, the will of the people was swept aside. On the one hand, by the Supreme Court which is now leaning towards a liberal bias, especially on social issues, and on the other, by a legislative branch which is courting the new growing "Latino/Hispanic" vote.
California voters passed their own version of DOMA by a wide margin, but a single District Court judge (a Gay man himself) ruled it unconstitutional, and the partisan governor and his attorney general "refused" to defend it in court.
Poling has consistently shown that Americans are against a general amnesty for illegal immigrants, and want better, stronger enforcement of our immigration laws and our sovereign borders. The latest amnesty vote in the Senate gives carte blanche to the latest wave of illegals, while "promising" to block further incursions.
In a democracy, the will of the people is supposed to determine the law of the land. And yet these latest maneuvers by our legislative and judicial branches show that that will can be undercut and outmaneuvered through technicalities or corrupt lawmakers. Senator McCain, for instance, whose own state has suffered the most from uncontrolled immigration along its southern border with Mexico, abandoned his staunch stand against amnesty, in order to bolster his party's courting of the Latino vote (he was one of the "gang of 8" who authored the legislation).
What needs to happen in this country is our government to reflect the actual needs and desires of its people. Americans are often stupid, gullible, selfish, and mean-spirited, but in a democracy, we honor sentiments, even when it's inconvenient to do so.
We've known for some time that the interests of big business come first, before the priorities of the voters--that's been true since beginning of our republic. What's even more disheartening, though, is to acknowledge that even small special interest minority groups, like the LGBT and Immigrant lobbies, can overturn the will of the majority--with the assistance of a biased media and corrupt legislators and judges.
These are not good times for American democracy.