Heirs of Guamanian Freedom and Opportunity


Tom Fisher

By Thomas J. Fisher

Two members of our community, Attorney General Douglas Moylan and Associate Professor Ron McNinch of the University of Guam have made suggestions for the island’s approach to the phenomenon of homelessness. Messrs. Moylan and McNinch have found the homeless and the poor, their voices diminished in public dialogue, and by circumstance undefended and vulnerable, easy targets for their venomous stupidity.

McNinch’s suggestions, published in a local newspaper on January 9th, 2025, are the most risible and take pride of place. Keeping in mind that he receives a taxpayer funded salary for exposing young people to his feverish ideas, he says, and this is a quote, “[w]e are vastly different and most panhandlers on Guam are not homeless. Many are simply a part of a syndicate that have (sic) a central control and coordination structure.” You read that right. A professor at the University of Guam who is allowed to teach our young has uncovered an expansive conspiracy of individuals who masquerade as homeless and poor. These conspirators trick the good citizens into donating money which eventually flows into the pockets of their shadowy overlords! Zounds!

But our intrepid sleuth is not done. He has a solution; “[f]irst we need to work with Del. James Moylan and lobby for Guam to have a residence commission. If a person cannot work to pay rent to live here, we should be able to tell them to move on.” My guess is that Mr. McNinch, should he appear at the Delegate’s office, could expect to be pepper sprayed.

But McNinch is not done, “[a]lso, we need to screen people who want to live permanently on Guam. We should be able to bar all violent felons and sex offenders from moving here. If a person has chronic or serious pre-existing medical problems, they should not use Guam as a dumping ground.” The screeners, no doubt a panel of our most splendid and brilliant, will be able to exclude the pre-diabetic and unattractive. We’ll soon be an island of only the right sort. But this is all code. What McNinch means, but is too spineless to state, is that he doesn’t want the wrong sort of Micronesians moving here. Perhaps Jews and Irishmen will be allowed though.

 

At this point I could begin a discourse to teach the estimable professor on the Constitutional barriers to his nutty scheme but, as has been said, “it’s like teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”

It’s easy to dismiss the fatuous musings of this small academic; not so those of the Attorney General. Mr. Moylan proposes a camp for the homeless. Much, I suppose, like those we erected to intern Americans of Japanese descent after the outbreak of World War II.

 

He directs his comments as addressing the issue of homelessness, but I suspect this is merely code for the people he doesn’t like. We are informed by Attorney General Moylan that “[t]he Governor has made being homeless and panhandling acceptable, which only breeds more to become homeless.” This is certainly true. I myself am giving up my law practice, selling my home, and heading to a glamorous fun-filled life of malnutrition, fear, untreated illnesses, and public abuse at a street corner near you Mr. Moylan.

Mr. Moylan’s camp will be safe though, surrounded by fencing (perhaps concertina wire as well?-merely a suggestion AG). At dawn the gates will swing open and the lay-abouts housed therein (perhaps Mr. McNinch’s conspirators?) will spread out in search of booty for their controllers.

 

The United States dabbled, to its great shame, in a version of Camp Moylan. It did not go well. Americans and the admitted were deprived of their homes, livelihoods, loved ones and dignity. Writing about the national disgrace, the jurist Frank Murphy said,

“Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting, but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must, accordingly, be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment, and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.” J. Murphy, Dissenting, Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)

 

Mr. Moylan, there are groups of people on Guam to whom you are overtly hostile. You sir are a temporary fixture on Guam’s stage, the future though is inevitable and enduring. The citizens of Guam, no matter their racial or national origin, must and will be treated at all times as the heirs of the Guam experiment, and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

_____
Thomas J. Fisher is a defense attorney and former member of the Guam Legislature. He has been a prosecutor and is a veteran of the United States Navy.


1 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Advertisement