Open Thread

Ah, it must be so nice to be able to look at the Arizona policy as nothing more than a good-natured attempt at stemming the tide of illegal immigration. California was being ‘good-natured’ too when they tried out Proposition 187. All of you who think this is innocent and not going to sponsor stops based on skin color…get back to me when you roll down the street and get stopped numerous times because of the color of your skin. Get back to me when you report thieves in K-Mart and the management decides they’d rather search your bag instead. Get back to me when you stand in the ‘attorneys only’ line while wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, only to be told by the person behind the counter that you don’t belong there. Get back to me when you have to let your laundry cart roll down the hill while you try to stop a group of school girls from fighting because the two cops on the corner have said, “eh, let em go. that’s what these animals were raised to do.” Get back to me…oh wait…you’ll never get back to me…cause you’ll never know first hand that this exists. You’ll have to be content with taking the word of the people who actually experience this. Or, maybe you won’t and you’ll just insist that the police are well trained and would *never* do such a thing. Oh well.

There is a big difference between an immigration policy designed to control illegal entry into this country, and people being stopped in the street and asked for papers. Just writing that scenario gives me the creeps. I don’t understand how you, Legion, can’t see how wrong this is. I don’t care if the cops are Latino, the judge is Latino, and you, as a Latino, think it’s hunky dory. It’s not.

Why? Because in the real world, illegal aliens don’t have serape’s and sombreros on(those are the tourists), or suitcases being dragged down the streets, or people wandering around looking lost. They will be ordinary, Latino men, women and teenagers walking down the street, minding their own business. If logic dictates that Latinos make up the population of illegal immigrants in Arizona, then logically, any Latino is a potential illegal. All one of them has to do is stop and dig in their pockets for change, or something that draws the attention of law enforcement, and they will be stopped and papers will be demanded. While the vast majority of law enforcement people are good and decent, there is an element that is not. To deny that is to deny reality. There are people trying to improve their arrest rates, people who hate Latinos, and think all of them are illegal, and people who live to abuse power and get off ordering people who are helpless around. These are the people who will be stopping people with no cause other than because someone is Latino.

Worse yet, you’ve got all of these “Citizen Militia” border patrols and wannabe cops who will see this as a license to abuse people. The real illegals are going to stay underground and off the streets, especially the criminals, while decent people, some of whom have been in the US before Arizona was a part of the US, are going to be subjected to “Walking while Latino”, a phenomenon black people in certain neighborhoods know all about.

legion- I’ll tell you one last time- don’t put words in my mouth. I never said law officers were brownshirts and stop trying to use my religion to score points. That Israel comment had nothing to do with the discussion. So drop it.

And understand something else- this law is so vaguely written that people who are expert in constitutional law and in law enforcement (yes- you read it right) have come out against it. So very obviously you don’t know what you’re talking about.

“Sorry, but you will not convince me that it is OK
to have this nation without a legitimate immigration policy.”

I don’t think anyone is saying we shouldn’t have an immigration policy. I, for one, just don’t like this one.

“Tie ‘Crist’ jokes to ‘Yo Mama’ jokes and I will declare you brilliant.”

Nobody is gonna try to nail this? Don’t be so politically correct.