Strictly Accountable: A Call for the Tough Love of Real Solutions

• Dr. Karen I. Shragg
• February 21, 2024
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
• 0 Comments

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Strictly Accountable: A Call for the Tough Love of Real Solutions
An NPG Forum Paper
by Karen I. Shragg
February 2024

ABSTRACT
NPG is pleased to present a new paper by Dr. Karen I. Shragg. For those of you familiar with her writing, you know she does not shy away from speaking her mind and this latest paper does not disappoint.

Commenting on the current trend of renaming everything from schools and roads to birds and mountains, Dr. Shragg challenges the many environmentalists who are so “woke” that they fail to see the forest for the trees, as the old adage goes.

In her own words: “Worrying about what we call the people streaming over the border cannot matter more than how destabilizing immigration-driven population growth is to our country’s well-being and wildlife. No matter what term we use to distinguish those who come into the country with or without proper papers, the fact that we are already overpopulated remains the same. When we make the name change from ‘illegal aliens’ to ‘undocumented workers,’ we have done nothing to address the flooding of the country with those who will now need housing, food, water and jobs, or the additional stress they put on our social and physical infrastructure.”

We hope you find value in this thoughtful composition.

“More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future.”
Barbara Jordan, Chairwoman, US Commission
on Immigration Reform 1994 – 1996

Language matters, but not as much as corrective actions. As comedian/commentator Bill Maher said on his recent podcast, “Woke is a joke, they don’t care about making real change just about not offending anyone.” Political correctness has landed us in a quagmire of debates about what to call certain people and places. Descriptions are changed to soften a concept so that it is more palatable to our collective understanding of what is currently acceptable. Our society initiates contortions of gymnastic proportions to avoid offending people. We continue to promote the unsustainable goals of economic and population growth which should be number one on a list of things that should offend us due to the problems caused by adherence to the obsession with growth mentality. In the end we often waste our bandwidth debating words while leaving deeper issues unaddressed.

Language is the low hanging fruit, easy to attack without ever really delivering the rewards that are promised. We give our stories a different coat of paint, but a whole new narrative is required. Often, underlying problems are not addressed, but everyone involved can sleep better at night because they believe they did something significant. Statues are coming down, school names are being changed, and birds are getting name-lifts – all to stop honoring the dishonorable. These are tangible acts, and often appropriate, but they need to be the beginning of action, and not represent the finish line…Continue reading the full Forum paper by clicking here.

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