Avoid being victimized

Shortly after Donald Trump won the election, a sign was affixed to a London pub door which read: “All Americans must be accompanied by an adult.” I thought it was funny at the time. I got a good chuckle. But now the laughs are over and harm is being done to people we know and care about. 

I hope that Taos will be fierce in standing up to defend our friends and relatives and work partners who are being threatened with deportation, abandonment of environmental protections, threats to our freedom of speech and potential loss of funding for programs important to our town. I think of the term “eminent domain” and imagine how it might be used as a cudgel to take whatever this new administration fancies from our soil, our mountains, our waters. 

Let’s avoid being victimized by this unstable president. The town of Taos has been here for over 400 years, the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians for nearly 1,000 years. We’ve got squatter’s rights. This is our home. Let’s do everything we can to protect our home and the people who live here, no matter where they came from.