Here/s what it means to be the 800-pound gorilla in the room:

Last Tuesday 7 April Fool/s Day 7 U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff announced the federal government would be flexing its considerable musculature to waive the rules with regard to protecting the environment, so the government could complete its 670-mile anti-immigrant fence along the U.S./Mexico border.

Chertoff/s department is doing this because it has a deadline 7 the end of the year 7 to complete the fence, and has fallen seriously behind schedule, in large part because property owners and environmentalists along the fence/s path don/t want it there.

So, our federal government decides to thumb its nose at local rules and laws, essentially telling states and private property owners that, no, they really don/t have any rights when it comes to government expediency.

The waivers affect property owners and agencies mostly along the border in Texas and Arizona, and folks there have been the ones protesting the fence in the first place. In effect, the Department of Homeland Security is telling them 7 and the nation 7 that private property rights are meaningless, when they stand in the way of keeping out jobseekers who want to enter the United States illegally.

It/s kind of ironic that those private property owners have more regard for the principles of freedom and democracy than our federal government, don/t you think.

April 6, 2008