Statuette of Liberty Redux

Our little ditty against the Statuette of Liberty drew some comments from Dan Savage yesterday:

And isn't there something meaningful about one Lady Liberty on the East Coast facing Europe and another on the West Coast facing Asia? (Now if we could only get one in, say, Texas facing Mexico and South America—and to hell with bronze, make that one out the bones of the Minutemen.) When you consider the United State's long history of anti-Asian immigration policies (to say nothing of the internment of the Japanese), an east-facing Lady Liberty is that much more meaningful.

There would be something meaningful about a Lady Liberty on the West Coast facing Asia if we were actually still taking applications from huddled masses, but considering the current rhetoric in our country and in the State of Washington it seems a bit like a muffin-top walking around the club in a "porn star" tee shirt. It's wishful thinking. It'd be nice if it were true, but it's actually complete bullshit. We can't exactly shout (ok, whisper - the thing is 6' tall) "give us your poor, your tired" and then sic the Minutemen on them when they hit the beach. Yeah, the Minutemen exist. We can pretend they don't, that we're Big Blue Seattle and are in no way shape or form involved with any Minuteman movement, but as long as we can get in a car and come across a Minuteman in the wild inside of a three-hour safari, it's still our problem/responsibility/fault. And until that's corrected, any Lady Liberty castings are a wee bit disingenuous.

Ok, it's been around for a while in Alki, and the people there dig it. That's cool. It sounds like the thing has won a few hearts in that area and Seattlest gets that it's a reference to a quaint period of Seattle history where we thought we might become the New York of the West. How about we build the Planet of the Apes version in recognition of the fact that that hasn't exactly happened? Seattle has a lot going for it, but New York it ain't (and thank god). And immigration from any direction is...currently being debated in many circles, let's say. Wouldn't a broken and buried Statuette of Liberty be a good way to respect the memory of the original and at the same time let the world know that Seattle's not really happy with the current dialogue on immigration? We did blow it all up. Let's build a statue that says that.