Open Season

"It's open season on Arizona," says Maggie Gallagher.

She's right, of course. No sooner did the governor legalize racial profiling, and declare that classes on Latino history and culture are verboten, than the Grievance Industry started whining about "racism."

These bullies also complain that the state has some of the worst jail conditions in the country. And houses inmates outdoors, in summer, in makeshift detention camps, after sending them on forced marches through the city streets for the edification of the public. Why don't they pick on someone their own size for a change?

If you need further proof that Arizona is the Jew of liberal fascism, consider this astonishing example of intolerance, which would be roundly condemned by the Usual Suspects if it were applied to the disease-ridden wetbacks who are trying to thwart the Southwest Territorial Imperative:

A former Phoenix Suns basketball star who is now the mayor of Sacramento put the repulsive logic of the Arizona boycott in shocking clarity. "I still have many friends in Arizona, and know the state is not a land filled with hatred. But sometimes Arizonans need a reminder of their foolishness. If we shun them, maybe they will get it."

Since this logic is repulsive, let's take a gander at the good kind:

Why is the president of the United States and his party acting this way? To jack up the Democratic vote.

If "sixty percent of Americans support Arizona," the notion that "bullying Arizona" will "jack up the Democratic vote" seems counterintuitive.

And so does this:

People who were serious about actually reforming immigration would begin by defusing, not inflaming, the racial issues.

Just like Arizona did when it made skin color legal grounds for demanding proof of citizenship, and curtailed "ethnic studies" in state colleges.

Gallagher "cannot speak for all Americans," but she can say that Americans are "pro-rule-of-law" and "believe racial understanding is a two-way street." For example, if Americans are expected to understand minority concerns, minorities should be equally willing to understand that those concerns are wrongheaded at best. Fair's fair!

This is a generous country. Millions of Latinos are not rushing to our borders because we are such a racist society.

If we were racists, see, we wouldn't have this Very Serious Problem along the Mexican border. Since we do, we can harass nonwhite folks to our heart's content, without being accused of anything more shameful than a völkisch sentimentality about national character.

Serious immigration reform must begin by refusing to play the race card, by attempting to conciliate the legitimate concerns about immigration's sometimes serious local costs.

"Playing the race card" is a typical tactic of lazy, dishonest people who would rather demonize white hardworking Americans than acknowledge the glaring defects of minority cultures. Claiming that Mexicans are invading Arizona and murdering its sheriffs, but are being coddled by a Democrat Party that needs to replenish itself by recruiting minorities — just as gays recruit children to keep their unnatural breed alive — is not playing the race card but expressing "concerns."

You can't blame Mexicans for having dark skin or being born in Mexico. But you can blame them for acting like Mexicans, and shattering a national unity that exists only in our minds, and threatening our health and wellbeing simply by daring to exist, and clinging to alien notions even after their cultural superiors have gone to the trouble of correcting them. That's not racism, though; that's common sense.

Which is not to say that racism doesn't exist. But it's something very far removed from the "normal concerns" of "ordinary Americans." Or, if you prefer, the ordinary concerns of normal Americans. For whom Gallagher can't speak, but must, given what's at stake.

Simply put, you're not a racist unless you accept the title as proudly as a normal American would accept a bowling trophy. Being told that you're making a racist argument, when you're really just fretting over the deadly threat of Mexican drug cartels, is an injustice that dwarfs all others, including racism.

"There is no easy answer," as Gallagher notes. And yet, all these pseudo-American grievance-mongers persist in bullying Arizona, simply because the state has arrived at an easy answer with which all sensible people should be able to agree.

The fact is, we're in terrible danger. Why else would we be defending ourselves?

UPDATE: Gallagher complains that a member of a Mexican drug cartel shot a law-enforcement officer while crossing the border. As it happens, seven police officers were shot by right-wing radicals in the past year. The most recent attack was by Jerry Kane, who murdered two officers because he was angry about "being arrested at what he called a 'Nazi checkpoint' near Carrizozo, N.M."

I always knew a white guy would do something like that.