Reason prevails, as does the Constitution

A big victory for justice today when Judge Susan Bolton struck down the most offending parts of Arizona's immigration law.

I wrote about Arizona’s law back in April when it was signed, and I stand by my initial thoughts. I still feel that it is unconstitutional and bigoted; far too many are making those with brown skin a scapegoat for our national woes. (The majority of the people responsible for our problems are Morticia Addams-white.) As I wrote back then, we definitely need to work on immigration reform. I do not deny that we have a problem, and I have never denied that. But suspending our Constitution in order to focus on and go after a certain group of people is simply wrong.

In her ruling, Judge Bolton wrote:

Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked. Given the large number of people who are technically “arrested” but never booked into jail or perhaps even transported to a law enforcement facility, detention time for this category of arrestee will certainly be extended during an immigration status verification. Under Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070, all arrestees will be required to prove their immigration status to the satisfaction of state authorities, thus increasing the intrusion of police presence into the lives of legally-present aliens (and even United States citizens), who will necessarily be swept up by this requirement.

I wholeheartedly agree with that. The possibility that someone who is here legally, or a U.S. citizen, might be detained for even a few hours in jail is abhorrent to me. (That is why I am against the death penalty; even a remote chance that an innocent person is executed is too much.) I can't remember where I wrote this previously (maybe on Facebook), but imagine being in a foreign country, let's say...Turkey (I'm thinking "Midnight Express"), and being stopped by their police for some minor infraction. When they ask you for your passport, you realize that you've forgotten it in your hotel room. Because you don't have your passport with you, you get to spend a couple of days in a Turkish jail until they can contact the American embassy and sort out who you are. I suspect they might not be in a huge hurry, either. I suppose you could yell at them about how you're an American and they have no right to treat you this way. I'm guessing they wouldn't be moved by your pleas or impressed by your professed citizenship.

A nightmare scenario? Of course. And it's one we are creating in the sunny climes of Arizona for residents who aren't obviously white. (If you think that Arizona cops are going to suspect that someone with blonde hair and blue eyes is here illegally and ask them for their papers, well...that's just dumb. Yeah, those darn Canadians just keep pouring across our borders, don't they?)

Of course, we need to fix this problem, and I look forward to the Obama administration tackling it next year. In the meantime, we still need to adhere to our Constitution. C'mon, people. You know we need to do that and protect the rights of everyone within our borders. That goes for citizens as well as non-citizens. Anyone on American soil is afforded the basic rights outlined in our Constitution.

Also, here are a few things to think about, if you're gung-ho on the "ship 'em all out" philosophy.

• Undocumented workers will pay about $80,000 more in taxes than they will use in government services.
• The right's statement that border violence is out of control is not true.
• Deportations of illegals are up under President Obama, despite Arizona's claims the that federal government is doing nothing. The feds are also targeting those who are involved in criminal activity.

As with anything else, please take the time to find out more about an issue, rather than seeing only black and white. There are always shades of grey, and there is always more to the story. And please, please take the time to learn and read about our Constitution rather than buying into the teabaggers' fallacies about it. They profess to love it, if not worship it...but they sure don't seem to grasp the full meaning of it. If you would like to do a little research and reading, I highly recommend Text and History, a site that writes about various constitutional matters, including the teabaggers' claims about them. It's some good reading.

Your reality has been disconnected

I'm really noticing a major break from reality in a lot of people lately. I'm not talking about getting things a little bit wrong; I'm talking "fuck the facts I'm just going to make shit up" wrong.

We've got the Missouri farmer who placed a huge sign on his farm calling the Democrats the "party of parasites." This same farmer has accepted a million dollars in crop subsidies from the federal government. Sir, I know parasites; I worked with parasites for much of my career. The Democratic party may have its share, but certainly does not have the market cornered on parasites.

Then there is Michelle Bachmann, teabagger royalty, who takes every opportunity to rail against big government and Obama's "socialistic" agenda. Bachmann's farm received over a quarter of a million in federal subsidies. Kind of digging that whole socialist scene, aren't you, Bachmann? At least when it is you who is the beneficiary.

Let's see...then there is Lutheran pastor Tom Brock, who is virulently anti-gay and takes every opportunity to tell gays that they are immoral and disgusting and going to hell if they don't change their ways. In his down time from gaybashing, he attends conventions with other pastors, and in a recent one in Slovakia, apparently fell into temptation and was weak...and had some sort of a homosexual encounter with a Gypsy (who he says are toothless, filthy, and smelly, although I guess for such an encounter, toothless might be a plus!). Oh, he's admitted that he's gender-confused, and belongs to a group that promotes abstinence among men who are fighting homosexual urges. All the while, he continues to preach his I-hate-gays-and-so-does-my-god rhetoric. What an amazing amount of self-loathing he must be carting around! Give it up and be fabulous, dude!

We're not done. There is the lovely desert flower, Jan Brewer, who, in order to drum up more support for her racist immigration bill in Arizona, is claiming that illegal immigrants are mainly concerned with smuggling drugs across the border rather than trying to get jobs here to feed their families. The assertion that illegal immigration in Arizona has led to higher crime rates is simply not true. It is a falsehood, and Brewer continues to spew such lies...and people continue to fall for it.

In a delusional break that hits closer to home, I've had a person who ridiculed my nephew as a coward and a "mama's boy" for not deploying to Afghanistan while in the Marines--despite the fact that he was hospitalized for over a week with a severe abscess and designated as non-deployable by the U.S. Marines themselves--in a tizzy about their own family member's possible immediate deployment, and ensuring that such deployment was delayed by whatever means necessary. Gee, really? How is that cowardice, mama's boy thingie working for you?

What do all these things have in common? From what I can tell, it's such a hatred and disdain for the other side that there is an inability to recognize one's own inconsistencies and irrational behavior, or that of whatever group affiliation is claimed. We saw it during the health care debate, when teabaggers were calling for smaller government, but at the same time shouting, "Keep your hands off my Medicare!" Or when Palin continued to harp about "death panels," when it was a patently absurd suggestion and a complete fabrication and misrepresentation of something that every family should discuss. I honestly don't know if it's a matter of being unable to grasp the larger complexities of an issue, or simply willful ignorance. Not all of these people are unintelligent; I believe it's often a calculated attempt to prevaricate and persuade through dishonest means. It is most certainly a disconnect from the reality of a situation. I may try to persuade with my arguments, but I always stay firmly rooted in reality. Once you give that up, I suppose you can justify anything, at least in your own mind.

That doesn't change reality, though. No matter how deeply you've managed to deceive yourself, those of us who haven't followed you to your own personal Bizarro World know the reality of things.

When will they come for you?

I join many of my friends in roundly condemning Arizona's recently passed law that will allow the police to stop anyone they think might be an illegal alien.

I don't think I can begin to adequately express my disgust about this, but I'm going to try.

Do we have an immigration problem? Absolutely. Do we need to address it? Of course. But this draconian law is not the way to go about it. I am appalled that any of my fellow citizens would think that this is in any way acceptable in a civilized society. Giving the right to the police to stop anyone for anything, merely because they think they fit the profile of an illegal alien, is completely unconstitutional and is shortsighted, ignorant, and intolerant. This is yet another instance of white, religious conservatives feeling threatened by someone "other" than them. Feeling that "their" country is being taken away from them. Beginning to feel that their dominance is coming to an end, as more and more people around them don't speak English as a first language, as they see more brown faces than white in their stores and neighborhoods.

They're probably feeling a little like the Native Americans felt when their country was taken away from them by the whites who came here, claimed it as their own, and systematically eliminated all Native American claims to the land. Good. Just simmer in that for a while, why don't you?

I don't have an easy answer. I don't necessarily believe that complete amnesty is the way to go. Our President (and like it or not, he is YOUR President, too) has proposed that we secure our borders, that any illegals will be held accountable for back taxes, need to learn English, and will be penalized by having to wait in line for citizenship behind those who are here legally. That makes sense to me; I want these folks to become law-abiding citizens who pay taxes, but if they have come here illegally, there need to be some consequences to that.

Stopping anyone who looks a little more brown than others is not the way to go about this. I cannot even believe that this is happening, and as someone who has studied quite a bit about Nazi Germany, I can tell you that this smacks of the Geheime Staatspolizei a lot more than I'm comfortable with. I hate to Godwin myself, but since the teabaggers have been bleating for a while now about how Obama is a Nazi, I feel perfectly justified in comparing them to the Nazis. As others have stated, it's way too reminiscent of those black and white post-WWII movies in which a coal-helmeted soldier angrily and coldly demands to "see your papers."

What is next? Are you going to applaud if a Hispanic person is stopped, runs from the police, and is gunned down like a dog in the street? Would that make you happy? Would you applaud our fine police officers for upholding the law?

Some of those who disagree with what I'm saying may think that I don't know what I'm talking about because I don't have to deal with immigrants. Not to the extent that border states do, no. But for at least a couple of decades now, there has been a large influx in my area because of good manufacturing jobs, and in Michigan because of jobs associated with fruit crops. There are the usual problems when those from another country try to assimilate, but it hasn't been anything horrible. The vast majority are hardworking people who just want to have a better life than they did in their home country. The extreme violence in border states needs to be dealt with, and I hope that our federal government starts working on this problem soon, so that other states don't fuck it up royally like Arizona did.

Honestly, people...this is America. We are a nation of immigrants. Each and every one of us, unless you're full-blooded Native American. Have we all forgotten that? Anyone who thinks this is a capital idea needs to think about how their ancestors felt when they came over from Ireland or Germany or Italy or Eastern Europe and were looked down upon as poor white trash by the ruling class at the time...who in turn had immigrated here several decades before.

Well, I can take some consolation in that the Department of Justice is going to look into the constitutionality of Arizona's law. From everything I've read, the law will not stand. Something about that search and seizure thing...something about the Fourth Amendment...something about that pesky Constitution. Again, for all the teabaggers' clamoring about how the Constitution is being perverted, I'd say that this law pretty much bends the Constitution over and fucks it right up the ass. If I sound pissed off, believe me...I AM.

What is wrong with people? I am astounded that anyone would think this is a good idea. Astounded and appalled. If you're in apoplectic joy about this, if you're grinning like a happy asshole, I think you'd best stop and think about what it is about YOU that might be the next target. Your ethnicity? Your heritage? Your religion? Your political affiliation? Your hair or eye color? Speaking of happy assholes, Glenn Beck seems to get off on talking about the concentration camps that President Obama is secretly building. You have the nerve to believe that and bitch about that and then support this bill that allows the police to stop anyone who looks a certain way, without provocation, and demand their papers?! Do you not see the lunacy of that, the complete disconnect from reality?

Gaaaahhhhh! This is insanity! Canada is looking better all the time, but I can assure you that I will keep my American citizenship so that I can continue to VOTE.

This would be an appropriate time for Martin Niemöller's quote, as translated from the original German. Hard to believe that it is pertinent to the United States of America in 2010, but it sure as hell is.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.