Good news, folks! George Will likes the new racial-profiling law in Arizona. And really, what's not to like? It won't affect normal people, nor will it affect legal immigrants except inasmuch as they may have to show identification papers to prove that they're not unassimilable Untermenschen who are rotting this country from within.
That could be slightly inconvenient if you're in a hurry, I suppose, or if it happens several times a week. But apart from that, the innocent have very little to fear. If they don't like it, they can go to Russia.
Will says the federal government has no right to criticize Arizona's law, since it's the federal government's fault that Arizona has a problem with filthy stinking Mexicans illegal immigrants in the first place.
He's right, of course. Obama could have dug a border moat a mile wide and a mile deep, filled it with Candiru, surrounded it with minefields, and patrolled it with drones bearing thermobaric warheads. But he dropped the ball. And as everyone knows, if Washington DC fails to resolve a state's problems in an emotionally satisfying way, that state is constitutionally allowed — nay, obligated — to pursue brutally stupid pseudo-solutions cribbed from authoritarian dystopias.
Thus, one mustn't view the Arizona law as "presumptively unconstitutional" just because one of the things that constitutes "reasonable suspicion" of non-citizenship is the color of a person's skin. After all, airport screeners pass their wands over white people, even though white people are generally good-natured and harmless. It's precisely this national commitment to fair play that will restrain Arizona's police from abusing their powers any more than they already do.
Besides, there are so many "Hispanics" in Arizona that there's no way the police could harass all of them; they'll naturally be forced to pick and choose. Therefore, they're far more likely to pick up the bad Hispanics who steal and rape and spread leprosy than the good useful Hispanics who mow our lawns and wash our dishes. That's just common sense!
Joking aside, I firmly believe that in any given year, the WaPo's op-ed page does much more damage to this country, and displays much more contempt for its laws, than undocumented immigrants.
(Illustration via Phronesisaical.)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Reasonable Suspicion
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6 comments:
I left the U.S. for Canada over 40 years ago and have never regretted it. Every time I start thinking that things couldn't possibly get any crazier back in Yankeedoodleland, I get proven wrong.
I left the U.S. for Canada over 40 years ago and have never regretted it. Every time I start thinking that things couldn't possibly get any crazier back in Yankeedoodleland, I get proven wrong.
I hear ya. I often ask myself why I'm still here, given that I could live legally in other countries.
I suppose I just don't like the idea of being chased out of my own country by a bunch of peabrained racist cowards who hate the few decent things it stands for.
I'm pretty stubborn that way, but I may throw in the towel yet.
Oh, well, I moved back to Texas. I'm not one for leaving others at the mercy of the crazies.
And even Texas shows signs of sense, once in awhile. Local state rep. has vowed to introduce an "Arizona type" bill in the Lege in January. Even my conservative college students agreed that was a dead issue in Texas. Here, the "real" Mexican border is somewhere just south of Waco. We're so steeped in Mexican culture, and the border is so porous (it's lined with cities, unlike the desert of Arizona) that any attempt to do that would be met with fierce resistance. Even Gov. Goodhair only talks about the Feds guarding the Border, because he knows he doesn't dare send Texas Rangers down there (nor do we have enough to spare). And he only talks that way in North Texas.
On the upside, the AZ bill won't take effect until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns, and it will probably be suspended in court before then.
George Will, on the other hand, is simply a pseudo-patrician idiot.
We're so steeped in Mexican culture, and the border is so porous (it's lined with cities, unlike the desert of Arizona) that any attempt to do that would be met with fierce resistance.
Yeah, I've been heartened by some examples of that resistance, as noted in FHB.
Seems some people don't actually want their communities hacked up and bisected by a giant fence. Go figure!
Seems some people don't actually want their communities hacked up and bisected by a giant fence. Go figure!
The "close the border" sentiment always comes from people who don't live ON the border. The further away they are, the more certain they are about the "solution."
I heard AZ ranchers interviewed on NPR, talking about the rancher who was murdered, probably by an "illegal," probably due to drug smuggling. They were not clamoring to "close the border." They were quite reasonably concerned that Mexico, especially along the border, was devolving into a "narco-state," and the violence of that would inevitably spill over the border more and more and more.
They understood the problem, and the difficulties of the solutions. I didn't hear one of them call for a law like AZ now has, though.
The "close the border" sentiment always comes from people who don't live ON the border. The further away they are, the more certain they are about the "solution."
And of course, the simpler the solution is, the more the failure to embrace it looks like conspiracy. If you refuse to mine the border and shoot trespassers on sight, you're obviously in cahoots with the Evildoers. Why else would you refuse to fix everything once and for all?
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