I’m someone who thinks we need to do something about the current immigration mess – open borders, a high standard of living, and a welfare state really aren’t a combination that can last very long.
But from what I’m reading in the papers, I really – really, really – don’t like the new Arizona law.
The idea that police can ask people who are suspect – i.e. darkskinned – to hand over their papers just creeps me out. My distaste for state power exercised in this way outstrips my real concern about immigration.
–
A link to the laws text would be helpful…
“· Stipulates that a law enforcement official or agency cannot solely consider race, color or national origin when implementing these provisions, except as permitted by the U.S. or Arizona Constitution.”
It’s pretty telling that support for the bill is running pretty close to the same level as the English speaking portion of the population. That argues strongly to me that people support this bill when they think that it can’t or won’t apply to them.
It’s an ugly situation– I understand completely why people want something done as they see their property values plummet and the drug violence gets worse every year. I understand completely why states and municipalities feel compelled to overstep their strict Constitutional bounds when the Federal government can’t agree on anything.
It’s even not quite as bad as I thought, if a simple driver’s license is good enough.
Still, it creeps me out, too. We’ve fought passionate legal battles to prevent the authorities from hassling people on a routine basis, and now we’re going to mandate it? It’s a bad solution to a bad problem.
And sadly, the new demi-party of government restraint, the Tea Party, seems to endorse this great expansion of government powers.
Chronic non-enforcement of the borders has led to this crisis. Officials may be more justly suspected of being inclined to do less than the law says than of being eager to take the law further than it goes.
Joe – “here’s a summary…”:http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/04/23/20100423arizona-immigration-law-passed.html
David – regardless, it’s a bad law. A real problem, but a really bad law.
Marc
Read the bill. The bill would be a very good bill, if it removed this one clause:
bq. “Requires officials and agencies to reasonably attempt to determine the immigration status of a person involved in a lawful contact where reasonable suspicion exists regarding the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.”
Among other things, that clause is a surefire way to dry up crime-related tips and help from the hispanic community. Which will make the law enforcement problem much worse, not better.
Everything else is sorely needed.
Here is “wretchard”:http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/04/23/engagement-queue/#comment-104791 opining on exactly this subject and he says it better than I. I have redacted some text those of gentle sensibilities may object to because someone in the post got snippy and made leaps to racism (as liberals are wont of doing these days) that were never uttered.
Something must be done. They leave the bullet riddles corpses of ranchers along the border in their ranches as a warning. They run the streets of US towns and have NO – NONE! – regard for the rule of the Republic. It is time for the rough men to do something. If you have not the stomach, stand back and be quiet.
This is a great example of states being laboratories for law, which I read somewhere. And why they should be allowed to do so.
I just read the link to the text of the bill provided by David Blue. Since I support legal and oppose illegal immigration, I naturally favor the law. Since some people don’t want to stop illegal immigration, it’s not surprising that they oppose this law as they would any other serious attempt at stopping illegal immigration.
There is nothing anti-liberal about expecting the law to be enforced, when the law is made by democratically elected representatives. You do not have less government power when officials chose to ignore laws they don’t agree with. What you have is less democracy, more government, and an attitude of corruption that threatens everybody’s rights.
Whether this law is diabolical or divine, the 70% who support it know this:
– For decades, the authorities in Arizona (with the strong backing of business) have closed their eyes to illegal immigration, because they saw it as a net benefit to the state.
– They continued to to see it as a net benefit even after the 80s when it became a conduit for drugs and gangs. When you subtract incarceration costs from the benefits of dirt-cheap labor, you still get a profit.
– They have continued to support it after it has become obvious that the strain on public entitlements (above all education, with health care a distant second) has turned that profit into a horrific deficit.
Furthermore, the people know that:
– In all of the above calculations, officials put their own interests above public safety. (Incidentally, the chief victims of the violence have been law-abiding Mexicans on both sides of the border.)
– The culprits include the state government, the federal government, the government of Mexico, business, both political parties, the Victim Industry, assorted unelected busybodies (both political and religious), and private sector union officials who sold out their own people because their political masters ordered them to.
And:
– Everybody who objected to this was attacked as a racist. Legitimate public objections are used as state propaganda against the public.
– The state, and the abettors of the state, have lied about illegal immigration so much that their credibility is zero. This is a correct calculation.
So this is what you get when people finally refuse to put up with official corruption, venality, and mind-blowing stupidity. And you’ll get worse laws than this before this is over.
This is why we have the leaden hand of zero-tolerance policies, and even things like mandatory sentencing. Because the public cannot trust persons in authority to uphold the law, be honest, or even use basic common sense.
The problem, Glenn / Robo is that the cure is in this case worse than the disease. I’d rather live with the immigration problems we have now than live in England where the state has the ability to put it’s boot firmly on my back.
Actually, I’d rather have neither set of problems, which means I’d like to see the Arizona law amended.
Marc
One of the biggest problems I have with this bill is the enforcer: Arpaio. Murphy’s law should actually be called “Arpaio’s Law”, in that many of his “convictions” are fraudulent, overturned or inept… leading to slew of lawsuits against Arizona State. I could go on and on… (but my postings with more than 2 links always disappear).
So here’s 2 of my favorites (but I’ll add more in a second post):
Here’s a list of “cases”:http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-11-29/news/enemies-list/ where Arpaio has attempted to shut down critics by raids, false convictions, and tailing his opponents.
One of the best of these is the “Seville”:http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2004-06-24/news/in-the-crosshairs/ case, where Arpaio entraped a teenage kid for a murder plot. Why? because it was good 5 o’clock news. It also cost the county over 1.1 million in lawsuits when the kid was finally cleared of all charges.
So, you’ve got a guy (Arpaio) whose willing to break the rules to jail his opponents, and now he’s got new rules, where all you have to do is not have a license… this is going to be bad.
To Robohobo:
_When the rule of law is undermined it is the weakest who suffer first._
You know and I both know how this law is going to work. Yes, many illegal immigrants will be pulled off the street. For the record that’s pretty good (except for, as Joe mentioned, you’re going to drive cooperation way down). Still, you’re also going to get a large number of LEGAL immigrants who happen to have missing ID get little or no recourse for their rights. It’s very, very easy to lose a wallet for a few days. I’ve done it 3 times in the last 5 years (mostly at sporting events where it fell out of my bag). And when you have a guy like Arpaio around, it can conveniently _disappear_
Normally, I’m not up to this line of conspiracy thinking, but over the years, Arpaio has deserved it.
Again, the people most likely abused by this law are the weak and powerless.
_If you have not the stomach, stand back and be quiet._
But when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up…
In case you think I’m exaggerating, here’s the cozzolino case, where Arpaio went out of his way to get a critic thrown in jail for a crime that he “STOPPED”:http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2003-12-25/news/the-trial/1
…. And then trying to doctor drug tests for “methamphetamine”:http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2004-02-19/news/false-positive/
This all led to another country lawsuit… that Arpaio was forced to settle out of court.
I’m not a resident of Arizona, and really only go to the state for Lake Havasu and Camelbak for Dodger spring training, but I am one of those law-abiding “dark-skinned people” who doesn’t like carrying his ID everywhere (hey, I don’t even have a driver’s license these days since I’ve spent the last four years as a diplomat in Iraq and Afghanistan, I just never got around to renewing it).
I’d like to believe my flawless English and California accent (where I was born and raised) would be enough to keep a police officer from even invoking this law to harass me, but my experience with the police wouldn’t entirely surprise me if some power-abusive cop (and there are some out there) didn’t exploit the law to make me do a Stepin Fetchit routine simply because he doesn’t feel I treated him with the appropriate amount of “respect” in some manner or other and knows he can get away with it.
Color me a bit anxious about this law.
–Bobby
AL:
_The problem, Glenn / Robo is that the cure is in this case worse than the disease. I’d rather live with the immigration problems we have now than live in England where the state has the ability to put it’s boot firmly on my back._
Your call. Perhaps it helps to be a Liberal in that. I’m more in the nature of a (realistic) Libertarian, and I already feel the boot of the state on my neck every day. To me, the question isn’t _whether_ but _how_, and do I get actual value in exchange? (I did say I’m a _realistic_ libertarian. 🙂
_Actually, I’d rather have neither set of problems, which means I’d like to see the Arizona law amended._
Great. What amendment(s) did you have in mind?
Meanwhile, you and like-minded people have perhaps two years to come up with an answer for CA, before AZ-style propositions show up here in earnest.
(No, I don’t have a viable good answer. All _my_ good answers are political non-starters in CA until we rewrite our constitution, barring a certified miracle.)
Cheers
— perry
“The idea that police can ask people who are suspect – i.e. darkskinned – to hand over their papers just creeps me out. My distaste for state power exercised in this way outstrips my real concern about immigration.”
Armed Liberal immediately imagines a scenario in which a darkskinned person is asked to hand over his papers, and his negative reaction to this is so strong that it overwhelms his very real concern about immigration.
That’s hypersensitivity to the interests of darkskinned people.
If Armed Liberal’s concern about immigration was not very real it wouldn’t be as big a deal that he immediately sets it aside because the race image / fantasy is more important.
That what the law actually says conflicts with his imaginative vision is passed off with a “regardless”.
“David – regardless, it’s a bad law. A real problem, but a really bad law.”
–
“The problem, Glenn / Robo is that the cure is in this case worse than the disease. I’d rather live with the immigration problems we have now than live in England where the state has the ability to put it’s boot firmly on my back.”
The real issue is the state having the ability to put its boot on his back. The labels “me” and “darkskinned person” are interchangeable. The fantasy becomes more elaborate, personal, humiliating and threatening. Armed Liberal personally is the target and the victim. Again, the fantasy image is so powerful that it overwhelms his very real concern about immigration.
I think you have an intense racial bias, Armed Liberal.
That’s normal. But I don’t want to hear later that you are objective whereas other people have racial agendas.
If it was your habit to see no fault in what others say over race, or even if your argument in this very thread was not all about your perception of a tendency to racial tyranny in others, I would not have called you on this now.
Alchemist:
.bq But when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up…
I invoke Godwin’s Law. This thread is dead.
Normally, Robohobo, I’d agree with you. In this unique case, where the enforcer of the law (Arpaio) has shown he will do anything in his power to eliminate his opponents, then things change. As AL writes, if you allow the state to arrest people for mere suspicions, we start heading down that road…. (have you seen “the lives of others” yet?)
David: you ask about amendments; here’s what I would propose: all individuals who are arrested for a violent or serious violation (such as DUI) must provide documentation on their day of court.
This minor change in the amendment gives people/families the opportunities to find/get reissued said papers in the case of simple mistakes. And keeps cops focused on their job: catching dangerous criminals, not doing the job of immigration services.
David, #18:
Armed Liberal immediately imagines a scenario in which a darkskinned person is asked to hand over his papers, and his negative reaction to this is so strong that it overwhelms his very real concern about immigration.
That’s hypersensitivity to the interests of darkskinned people.
I… cannot manage an interpretation that puts you in anything but a very bad light, David. Could you clarify what you mean by that, especially the last sentence?
Robohobo: “I invoke Godwin’s Law. This thread is dead.”
It is.
The rest is about persons and accusations, the business of the thread having been concluded.
–
Armed Liberal: David, check the mirror for the log in your eye – I’m not the one who defines the problems of the west in terms of race – that’d be you.”
“Check the mirror for the log in your eye” is my message to you, Armed Liberal. I’m not the one who disregarded the text of the law I was condemning in favor of in favor of elaborating an explicitly racial fantasy starring the “darkskinned” person / “me” as the victim – that’d be you.
Armed Liberal: “And no, I’m not ‘oversensitive to the issues of racial minorities’; I’m oversensitive to the issues of citizens as opposed to the state.”
The “issue” you defined was of a darkskinned person interchangeable with yourself being asked for his papers, or – apparently much the same thing – having the boot of the state set firmly on his / your back. That’s an emotive fantasy.
The main reason I did not address your argument instead of pointing to this is that this actually was your argument.
–
Marcus Vitruvius: “I… cannot manage an interpretation that puts you in anything but a very bad light, David.”
I know you can’t. So there’s no point in me saying anything more.
AL:
But England has the boot and the biggest illegal immigrant population in Europe.
In fact, we would not want to trade our illegal immigrant problem for theirs. Illegals are bankrupting their National Health, whereas over here they are merely bankrupting Arizona and California.
David Blue, #23:
I know you can’t. So there’s no point in me saying anything more.
Well, I thought I’d give you the chance instead of just assuming the worst.
When someone asks you for honest clarification, and you refuse, don’t get all upset when you don’t like their interpretation.
BTW: This law is going to court, so we’ll see how well it stands up under appeals. It wouldn’t shock me if it went all the way to the Supreme Court.
I do not know enough about conditions in Arizona or state law there to assess the likely outcome of such a law. However, I notice that much of the opposition to the law is based on how it might be abused rather than on what it actually does.
Is there any law that would stand up to that standard?
I put no more stock in the contemporary slur of “racist” than I would have the McCarthy-era slur of “communist.” It’s just a way of saying “I don’t like what you think, so I’m going to shut you up with a charge that is at the same time so vague and so heinous that there is no response.” For Christ’s sake where do most of the illegal aliens in America COME FROM? And if I were a legal hispanic immigrant or a citizen of hispanic descent, why on earth would I object to showing my ID if asked, especially since illegal immigration is as bad for me as it is for European Americans? Once, when I was about 18 and going through my teenage rebellion stage (hair down to the middle of my back, dressed in a tee shirt, ragged jeans, and racked out tennis shoes), I was walking through my neighborhood. A policeman stopped me and asked for my ID. When I showed it to him, he apoligized and explained that an elderly woman in the neighborhood had reported a “suspicious looking character.” And you know what? I WAS a suspicious-looking character. Had a criminal been casing the neiborhood, he would without a doubt have looked a lot like me. Ergo, far from angry at being stopped, I was grateful. It meant the cop was doing his job. There was no injustice. Why is this law any different?
Thorley: _my understanding is that immigrants to our country are already required by federal law to have their alien registration documents with them to provide proof that they are here lawfully._
I’m actually not talking about immigrants here, but the rights of legal citizens who may be prosecuted for the assumption that they are illegals. (This is very plausible, as %30 of Arizona’s legal residents are Hispanic).
Dave: _Is there any law that would stand up to that standard?_
I certainly hope so, or at least, is designed with a legal standard of suspicion. For example, a cop cannot walk up to you, indicate that you look like a pothead, and so they’re going to search your car. Legally, that’s not considered ‘reasonable suspicion’, and it’s very likely to end in a lawsuit.
However, if they smell marijuana, see illegal paraphernalia, or you look intoxicated, they have a legal right to search you and your vehicle. (Note: that these criteria are generally written into the law)
The problem with this law, legal suspicion has now been changed to: Does not have ID. That’s it. And “reasonable suspicion” is….? No definition is given. Joe Arpaio says that he “knows the criteria” for finding illegals, which only makes me more nervous.
Without an understanding of what “reasonable suscipion” means, you could technically be arrested for reporting your wallet stolen. Again, you don’t have an ID… Now most people wink and nudge and think we know how “reasonable suspicion” applies… but legally it could be used for anything.
This has the potential of being bad. Now this scenario may not happen, (It may even be highly unlikely) but you’re better off fixing the bill so that the ‘worst case scenario’ is impossible.
I’m death on open borders but i have to come down against this law for the same reasons AL and Alchemist have explained.
We’re a nation of laws. I don’t see how this one can hope to stand up to judicial scrutiny, either constitutionally or statatorially, but regardless legislators are duty bound to pass laws that are constitutional.
There is no question in my mind that this law will be used to force a burden of proof unnecessarily upon American citizens regarding their very citizenship. It doesn’t take much to imagine how this could spiral into something horrific, and I don’t trust _anyone_ with that kind of power.
Plus its a bridge too far. There are a mountain of things that can be done that won’t pick this fight. How about simply deporting people you _know_ are illegals because they are already in the criminal or civil justice system as such? Isn’t that the low hanging fruit here?
For that matter, if I were Arizona I would be building my own border fences ala California before i started this kind of thing. This seems like a provocation and given the mixed record on illegal-immigration by some of the primaries in this fight (ahem, McCain), I do have to wonder about their motivations.
Stunningly stupid law. the worst part being that it does not do anything about illegal immigration other than provide a fig leaf for politicians that don’t have the gumption to stand up to a real problem.
By way of Explanation:
We have a need for workers or the Mexicans wouldn’t be risking their lives to cross the order illegally.
Instead of trying to work out a reasonable solution that would be backed with some teeth, we have two sides posturing, for votes, as they have been for 50 years. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, this has not worked.
This law is just another one of those back and forth grandstanding ploys by politicians on both sides. It makes headlines, but does nothing to solve the problem.
What’s worth is that it is just another infringement upon peoples rights by the government. It infuriates me that the best that politicians can come up with in terms of directing Police officers is:
_”Requires officials and agencies to reasonably *attempt to determine* the immigration status of a person involved in a lawful contact where reasonable suspicion exists regarding the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.”
If a cop asked me for identification under this sort of directive, I would be tempted to give him a swift kick in the testicles.
Thank God we have a Constitution to deal with this kind of stupidity.
Fred, #23:
I put no more stock in the contemporary slur of “racist” than I would have the McCarthy-era slur of “communist.” It’s just a way of saying “I don’t like what you think, so I’m going to shut you up with a charge that is at the same time so vague and so heinous that there is no response.” For Christ’s sake where do most of the illegal aliens in America COME FROM? And if I were a legal hispanic immigrant or a citizen of hispanic descent, why on earth would I object to showing my ID if asked, especially since illegal immigration is as bad for me as it is for European Americans?
Once might not be so bad.
Enshrined in public policy, leading to regular stops and the effective inability to leave home without your papers is quite another.
What I always find remarkable is how people who are never (and once in your life is statistically close to never) hassled about something feel free to claim that the hassle isn’t actually a hassle at all.
I, frankly, wouldn’t put up with it, and since I drive to work every day, I always have a driver’s license with me. And since I won’t put up with it, basic human fairness means I won’t expect anyone else to put up with it.
I _do_ have to put up with the hassle. Every time I get a job, I’ve got to file paperwork to prove that I’m a US citizen. I’ve got to go dig out my Social Security card, or my birth certificate, and fill out the I-9 form.
Every person in the nation has to do this every time they get a job.
If they’re going to bother making me file paperwork to prove my right to work, then shouldn’t they be doing something with it? If it’s okay for people who aren’t in the country legally to work, why bother making me prove it?
I can see the merit in not giving cops carte blanche to hassle anyone with a bit of Latino ancestry. But currently, our policies tilt too far in the other direction, and illegal immigrants enjoy a LOT of government services that they’re not entitled to, simply because nobody wants to be rude.
And that’s the kind of thinking that’s led Arizona to this point. People are sick of having to obey laws themselves, but seeing others violate those laws with impunity. It’s not unusual to think that the reaction, when translated into law, might carry the reaction further than it might be wise to go.
I’d like to see Arizona back off the “any time” requirement, but it’s plain that they need a lot more enforcement, and the federal government just isn’t interested.
Toc hit the nail on the head. There is plenty of low hanging fruit if anybody in Arizona actually wanted to have an impact on the number of illegals in the state. The only reason we have the kabuki system we’ve got is because nobody (in power) wants to change anything, but they all want to be seen as doing something. By that logic i’m even more loath to see this law enforced. Its bound to go badly.
There are already laws on the (Federal) books to require immigrants (NOT nationalized citizens) to carry their proof of legal immigration.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, nor with a state mandating that federal immigration law be enforced by local political/police bodies. That’s what most of this law does, and I agree with that part of it 100%.
What I think most of us are worried over is government stopping people and asking for their papers without a good reason. We expect not to get called onto the carpet without reason: due process, presumed innocence – in other words, gov’t presumes you are innocent and not doing anything wrong until they have “good reason” to believe otherwise.
Defining a “good reason” to investigate immigration status is where this law is lacking.
There is an exclusion stating that race/etc. cannot be used as the single factor in deciding whether to “attempt to establish” legal immigration status, but I’m concerned that this law is too open-ended.
I think many of us would agree that restraint in government power is a good direction to err.
I can maybe illustrate this with a hypothetical. A hispanic citizen is jogging through a neighborhood park a few miles from his house, but is not carrying identification. A purse was stolen nearby, and a cop is calling people over and taking information. He calls the man over, and the man refuses to produce ID.
This is a terrible hypothetical, but hopefully you see what I’m trying to get at. (And I realize some local law requires all citizens to carry ID outside of the home… I left this out, personally I disagree with these laws).
The law is a good one, but it’s never a BAD thing when people push for a little more clarity and restriction on government power.
To clarify the hypothetical slightly, my concern is that under this law, “hispanic” and “no id” (or some other trivial reason) could justify an attempt to “determine immigration status” — which, without ID, may lead to detaining the person.
I don’t want peace officers detaining people for doing things citizens do every day. There needs to be some kind of extenuating circumstance that lends suspicion, and that hasn’t been defined here.
The problem of illegal entry and illegal employment is hugely complicated, partially due to the politics of it, but also for several other reasons, particularly here in California:
1. CA has made it virtually impossible to legally run a globally competitive business employing some number of semi-skilled or low-skilled workers. So, in practice, nearly all such businesses in CA hire such people off-the-books. And since the work is off-the-books, the employers want off-the-books employees.
Changing this would require redoing the regulations around employment so CA is actually competitive. One aside: this isn’t about the minimum wage as much as it is about expensive workplace regs, union-favoring laws, and all the litigation around them.
2. One point that isn’t discussed is a surprisingly large number of these small employers themselves are illegals.
3. Open-borders types and the various ethnic lobbies have worked overtime to shift the discussion away from “illegalness” to “immigration”. This is a base disservice to the rule of law.
We are a country of laws or we aren’t. And one wonders what would happen if citizens regarded tax laws with the same cavalier attitude that the various levels of government regard immigration law.
Long, long ago I asked my dad what was wrong with separate but equal, and he explained that the whole point was to have separate and not equal. The Arizona law claiming it isn’t to harass people who look like they might be illegal immigrants because they speak Spanish and are brown is a lot like separate but equal. When pushed, one Republican congressmen said officers could be trained to spot illegal immigrants by their clothes. Yeah, right.
Now, Arizona could change its worker safety and wages-and-hours laws to, say, treble the fine when illegals are involved (since a major reason to hire illegals is they don’t complain about labor law violations), but somehow I think one key component of the GOP coalition isn’t on board for employer sanctions.
It’s heartening that many conservatives have no trouble understanding the real meaning of the Arizona law.
I’m kind of bemused that it appears there are only two points on the spectrum – “open borders” and “your papers, please.”
As I’ve noted, I don’t like either, and consider “your papers, please” to be about as awful a thing as we could do in this society; we’re all subjects then, not citizens.
For my POV, there are a pretty simple list of things I’d do; employer sanctions – yes, deport criminals – yes, limit or ban cash welfare or food stamps for illegal residents – yes…
Those seem pretty simple places to start.
I wouldn’t restrict access to healthcare because of the public health implications, and I’m left scratching my head over the anchor baby issue.
As a sidebar on that, here in LA, Asian families have businesses where 2nd term pregnant women will fly here, stay in a house (level of luxury/comfort varies by price) and deliver their child here so that they will have a US passport and the whole family can then immigrate if they choose to.
Yes, it seems pretty wrong to me…
Marc
The problem with employer sanctions is the employers doing this are often small, off-the-radar employers who aren’t easily found. How do you sanction a taqueria in east LA who likely has no legal existence? Similarly for a tiny clothes factory?
The business itself is illegal, and ignoring immigration laws has created a whole economy around this sort of thing.
CA has developed into a third-world legal environment where pretty much everything is illegal, but the laws are enforced only when it’s convenient to do so for whatever reason.
A realistic work program with an orderly and secure border would go a long way towards curing those ills. One thing missing in the off-the-books discussion is that while we’re shelling out for social services we’re also missing out on a taxation stream, making it a double whammy on the budgets.
End the drug war as well and you’ve removed most of the incentive to sneak across the border at all, making it far easier to separate the wheat from the potentially terrorist chaff. Then our federal border guards can stop pretending to patrol the border with the billions we’ve spent on magical technology that doesn’t work, and actually get out there and lock it down.
More oversensitivity, privileging some interests and demonizing others (link):
“It is absolutely reminiscent of second class status of Jews in Germany prior to World War II when they had to have their papers with them at all times and were subject to routine inspections at the suspicion of being Jewish,†Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo), who is Jewish, told POLITICO.
Avatar #36:
But unless you never leave the house except to apply for a new job, that’s really not the same thing. Applying for a job is a specific and fairly rare act for most of us– comparing it to the specter of being harassed on a daily basis misses the point.
Chris #38:
Your hypothetical is pretty relevant. I finally got around to looking up the Hiibel case, to see how it was decided. Suffice to say, I was on Hiibel’s side, and I find Justice Stevens’ dissent to be spot on: Any such mandatory ID laws are, necessarily, demanding that you give testimony against yourself on demand.
Andrew #41:
Yes, I think the separate-but-equal feel is accurate. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s in the same general ballpark, because the de facto result is going to be a class of theoretically equal people who are treated separately from the rest. That may not be the goal, but it will be the result.
A.L. #42:
Agreed, also, on the two-points-of-the-spectrum observation. Just because I think this law is stupid and abusive doesn’t mean I’m for open borders.
More oversensitivity to the interests of some combined with non-recognition of the legitimate interests of othes, playing the NAZI card and creating emotive straw-men (link):
Cardinal Roger Mahoney: “I can’t imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation. Are children supposed to call 911 because one parent does not have proper papers? Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance?”
Some people have an interest, and the familiar phenomenon of anchor babies shows what that interest is. This is a great movement of the peoples, like that which destroyed Rome in the West.
Other people have conflicting interests: in not being swamped and displaced, in not being subject to violent victimization and other averse consequences of being swamped, in getting their tax burden down to the point where they can invest in kids of their own rather than have the state invest their money on more settlers, and in enjoying legal and social legitimacy in defending their interests like other groups do.
What’s happened is that group A has been favored by partial or non-enforcement of the laws, and group B has been and is being demonized and displaced.
This has nothing to do with Nazis and everything to do with driving down group B, socially, politically, legally and demographically.
Fancy theories have no more to do with it than when the Roman state invited barbarian tribes into lands that had become underpopulated due to a combination of disease and overtaxation, clean contrary to the interests and sentiments of the who wanted to keep their lands, and repopulate them themselves with time and less taxation, and not have their new neighbors.
This is about a struggle in which the elites of the state have been back-stabbing its core ethnic population.
Armed Liberal: “David, how – exactly – is this different than the immigration of rural Germans, Irish, and Italians during the late 19th century?”
The B groups in those cases were not smeared as NAZI. They were able to articulate their identity and interests freely. There are many other differences, but that’s a big one.
Armed Liberal: “No it’s not that group a is favored and Group B is displaced; it’s that in all societies we have migration.”
The issue is mass-migration with state collusion in the displacement of the core ethnic population of the state, and that is very far from being universal. Contemporary examples of its happening outside the West are scarce.
Armed Liberal: “Now you’ve hung yourself pretty badly on issues of race so far. I’d love to see you walk some of that back.”
You’ve started smearing me as a racist, basically. I didn’t enjoy that, and I’ve pointed out that you are speaking out of race bias, as articulated in your fantasy.
You’ve hung yourself pretty badly on issues of race so far. Suppose you walk that back?
David #
More oversensitivity to the interests of some combined with non-recognition of the legitimate interests of othes, playing the NAZI card and creating emotive straw-men….
So. David. I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth, but as Freudian slips go, you just implied that the interests of brown-skinned citizens not to be harassed as a separate class are illegitimate.
I wouldn’t have read much in to that, except for your incessant harping on “core ethnic populations,” and the backstabbing thereof. What you ought to think about walking yourself back from, as A.L. suggests, is the notion that basic rights inhere to ethnic populations rather than to individual men and women.
Marcus Vitruvius: “So. David. I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth, but as Freudian slips go, you just implied that the interests of brown-skinned citizens not to be harassed as a separate class are illegitimate.”
No, I claimed that the interests of those being displaced and their actions to resist displacement are legitimate.
Marcus Vitruvius: “What you ought to think about walking yourself back from, as A.L. suggests, is the notion that basic rights inhere to ethnic populations rather than to individual men and women.”
In the first place, what’s needed in the face of the “NAZI!” chorus is not “walk back” but push back.
In the second place, the idea of fundamental rights as individual and universal is effectively suppressed when the idea of “pluralism” as state-manged inter-group harmony dominates.
Especially when there’s lots of emphasis on the state, and its construction and management of groups (as in census-counting, no child left behind and so on), and no emphasis on the accountability of those pushing this anti-individualist agenda for the promised harmony, which turned out to be just a beguiling dream.
The reality is that construction that elites are enforcing, rights do inhere in groups, and they are enforced to the detriment of individual rights when needed by “affirmative action” and “diversity” backed by state power.
When the road to individual justice is closed – blockaded by strong elites – and when everything including whether secured creditors get paid before unsecured creditors is political and a matter of the politically connected gaining and the politically abandoned losing out, it is a grim joke to imply that one state-defined group, the one constantly smeared as NAZI when its members explicitly assert their common identity and interests, have recourse only to individual justice.
An imperial system, with permanently clashing race groups defined and managed by the state, has its attractions for those who look forward to benefits like the locked-in monolithic African-American vote for Democrats. But it’s not republican in spirit, it’s not universal, it’s not consistent with anything that group B should respect.
Okay, Dave, so let’s put a sharp point on this, since you’ve characterized any concern for brown-skinned citizens as “hypersensitivity.”
Are, or are not, the interests and rights of brown citizens not to be harassed and made to show papers, legitimate?
Blue, if the shoe fits, wear it. You couldn’t be more explicit in your white supremacism, doctored as ‘core ethnicity’. The mongrelization of America must be crushing you.
Marcus Vitruvius: “Okay, Dave, so let’s put a sharp point on this, since you’ve characterized any concern for brown-skinned citizens as “hypersensitivity.””
That is a repetition of your steadily repeated and clearly false statements about what I said.
Marcus Vitruvius: “Are, or are not, the interests and rights of brown citizens not to be harassed and made to show papers, legitimate?”
That is a poorly phrased question, as it:
* Omits s key issue, that this isn’t about “brown citizens” but the displacement of one group by another, which happens to be made up in large part of non-citizens.
* It combines interests and rights as if they were the same thing.
* It supposes a “right” not to be made to show your documentation, which doesn’t exist. It’s not only “brown citizens” who don’t have that right.
Do people have an an interest in not being hassled? Of course. Is that interest legitimate? Of course. Is that interest less legitimate if they have brown skin? Of course not. Is that the only or the main interest in play? No.
Andrew J. Lazarus: “Blue, if the shoe fits, wear it. You couldn’t be more explicit in your white supremacism, doctored as ‘core ethnicity’. The mongrelization of America must be crushing you.”
Andrew J. Lazarus, if the shoe fits, wear it. You couldn’t be clearer about the lying, smearing, NAZI-calling, race-baiting agenda that you and others are pushing here. That there are people who would rather push back than “walk back” must offend you, but that’s your bad luck.
David, let’s put this to bed. Two final comments to you, one to the crowd, then I’ll let you respond and we’ll close the thread.
First – “blut und volk” predates Nazism; it’s an old European phrase that means you’re talking about nations as ethnic and geographic tribes.
Next – When Andrew Lazarus, Marcus Vitruvius and I are all in agreement about something – as we are here – I’d really suggest you take a breath and ask why it is that three people with such widely divergent views are making the same calls.
Now – to the crowd – I think this is a classic example of ‘the cure for bad speech is more speech’ David’s positions were stated clearly and forcefully – and pretty much everyone pushed back in unison; no one who reads this thread is at a loss for what the point is…
Marc
The Arizona law is a legitimate popular response to a long-term failure by federal governments to do their duty.
There’s nothing illegitimate about the interests the law protects.
Rather, the effort to delegitimize the assertion of those interests, carried on by shaming, “shut-up” speech and by writing on the basis of race hate fantasies and as if there was not a crisis, deserves push-back and not concessions.