Arizona, at early stages of ethnic cleansing?
Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 10:49 PM
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The problem with opening a Pandora's box is that it's so hard to put the lid back on.
Just look at Arizona. Suspicion, fear and even outright hostility toward a hard working ethnic minority has resulted in SB 1070, setting the stage for an ugly clash in the desert that may ultimately decide who we are as a people for generations.
For many of us SB 1070 is little more than thinly-veiled legislated racism, and cynically misguided politics at its absolute worst.
As I have mentioned previously, the bill is being ardently supported and funded by hate-based white supremacist groups, who are fairly salivating at the prospect of a race war. There used to be a time when keeping that kind of company made even the most conservative question their own direction. Those days appear to be over.
One Phoenix police officer said this week that enforcing Arizona's new immigration law would make him feel like a Nazi. Paul Dobson, a 20 year veteran, said: 'I could stop a person and start interrogating them, even if I don't have reasonable suspicion. It's horrifying. It violates our calling to serve and protect.'
And now some critics of the bill are even describing SB 1070 as a form of ethnic cleansing. Hubristic at it sounds, there's no doubt that it actually does target a racial minority, and that bolsters their charge.
When U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton put on hold key provisions of the bill last month she received hundreds of death threats at her court offices within hours of her ruling. In fact, she was inundated. Shouldn't we be concerned about that?
Meanwhile on the ground in Arizona the effects of the law have already hit. Immigrant businesses like bread shops, restaurants, English language schools and clothing stores have closed down, turning thriving areas of Phoenix into ghost towns overnight as families are being torn apart.
It's estimated there are 500,000 undocumented immigrants in Arizona and that most of them are sending their kids to school, paying their taxes and pursuing their lives in the shadows. And it's no secret that these people were working at some of the hardest work there is. Yet local politicians talk as if they were trying to rob the state.
'The majority of undocumented immigrants, in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of law enforcement, is that they are not coming here to work. They are coming here and they’re bringing drugs. And they’re doing drop houses and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families. That is the truth.'
This is the view of the state’s own governor, Jan Brewer, who apparently think's she's living in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, rather than a state where crime has actually decreased. I wonder if Brewer also lives in fear of the Canadians invading Phoenix and forcing their public option health care on her too?
Let's face it there are millions of people in America who WANT to believe that there could be thousands of headless bodies out there in the Arizona desert, courtesy of the cartels. These are mostly the same people who lie awake at night fretting over the President's missing birth certificate. And Brewer and SB 1070 are playing their deepest anxieties like a baby grand piano.
Looking into the future, it's very hard to see any good coming from Arizona's fateful decision. Because SB 1070 is more a provocation than a policy. It's a gold plated invitation to a circular shoot-out. It poisons the air before the administration tackles the tough business of immigration reform. It invites a nation of immigrants to bash immigrants. It may be too late to step back, but it's not too late to take a stand against it.
97 comments
2BorNot2B | Aug 17, 2010, 11:39 PM EDT
seanofmelbourne (and he should stay there!) says: **If a Latino judge was pulled over for a violation and had no I.D. he would be charged under the new law,** -- So far you are right. The operative word is "pulled over for a VIOLATION" -- If a judge, the king or the president comitts a violation he deserves to be pulled over whether his color is purple, black or magenta
However, the second part of your post reeks of idiocy: (if) **he looked Latino therefore he is guilty of an offense. That is profiling on the basis of skin colour.** That is the most ridiculous assertion the left makes.-- The Arizona law MIRRORS the federal law, good research was done before it was written so that the challenge they knew would eventually come would not succeed. However, that did not stop the democRat admin from playing politics. -- oVomit knows that Mexicans and blacks gave them the margin that put him in power, and since he has now lost most of Independents, and even quite a few of the democRats that voted for him, his strategy is to grant amnesty to illegals who are a growing minority, so that they become the factor that will keep his party in power till doomsday. -- Unfortunately, the fact that he is precipitating doomsday with his disastrous policies and his ineptness... he may be doomed no matter what.-- I lived in several countries of Europe and they all demand that anyone moving into their country show up at the 'Commune' before anything else and get ID'd. which one must carry at ALL times, under penalty of incarceration. -- Further, it's nearly impossible to immigrate to any European country unless one has substantial wealth or constant and sufficient income. -- So why demonize the US for less than that?
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2BorNot2B | Aug 17, 2010, 11:04 PM EDT
**The USA should annex Mexico and make Mexico the 51st state in the Union.** Says krysdaly -- Newsflash krys, the US tried already, way back when in the time of Polk -- for some reason the Mex's rebuffed the invasion and since then the Mex intelligentsia and the professional political class (read: the thieving leeches that keep Mex's poor and unschooled) absolutely detests the US!-- And, since they are the ones holding the power in every possible way, they are happy as hell the US is now the recipient of the problems not only they themselves (the ruling class), caused and cannot and will not solve because frankly they don't care! -- Get this America, 'educated' Mex's absolutely HATE the US, and uneducated Mex's don't give a..., all they want is to live in the US earning dlls they can then send back to Mex, and eventually have enough to emulate the people who never gave them a chance at education, who screwed them by pocketing the taxes they gathered from the common folk, and who were ultimately the cause of their 'illegalhood.'
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seanomelbourne | Aug 17, 2010, 09:48 PM EDT
Is the homeless problem caused by state or fed. government inaction or a "survival of the fittest" mantra. We have our share of homeless here in oz.
looking at O'Reilly today, his mate "Miller the mean-spirited" deriding the top 10 livable countries in the world because the U.S. didn't make the list.
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Monsoonman | Aug 17, 2010, 09:38 PM EDT
lol me boy, NYC is a tough town sometimes, you used to need lots of change to buy your way through the panhandlers before rudy g. took over. Now san francisco is home to a tremendous "homeless" population that continually pester you for money as you walk down the street and have to step over them...
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seanomelbourne | Aug 17, 2010, 07:11 PM EDT
5days Mman! My late wife panicked when she discovered
there were no shops (withdrawal symptoms). And to add insult to injury it was her idea,unfortunately no time for fishing only tears when I told her we had a problem leaving. I was more at home on the boardwalk(L.A.)or buying a hot-dog from the vendor outside the Empire State Building (couldn't even get that right) I was admonished by him for not having the correct change.
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Monsoonman | Aug 17, 2010, 09:49 AM EDT
Lad??? Just how long were you "stuck" in Cuba? The answer could solve one of my questions regarding your political views....Did you do any freshwater fishing while there? Did you get to golf on one of Fidels personal golf courses?...I don't know about you, but my travel experience has proven that everywhere in the world I need valid i.d. to do anything. Checking into a hotel in a foreign country requires I have a passport...let along if I get stoped by a police official. If i didn't have i.d. I would get hauled right into a different type of hotel, the graybar hotel.
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hancock | Aug 16, 2010, 10:26 PM EDT
In America you must carry ID , EVERYBODY.
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seanomelbourne | Aug 16, 2010, 07:54 PM EDT
Moonsonman your transgression did not profile you as an illegal immigrant. I think hancock misses the point. Why should you carry I.D.? It is not mandatory
in Australia. Had an experience some years ago in Cuba. Flew from L.A.Mexico city /Havana.(1989) could not leave Cuba to return to Mexico because the Mexican visa was only good for an in/out visa.
Had to bribe Mexican official($100)to return. The actual cost of a visa (at the time) was 6 Cuban pesos about $1.
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patrick1945 | Aug 16, 2010, 05:19 PM EDT
I guess you don't need any identification papers or licenses when you sneak into Mexico or Canada either.
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Monsoonman | Aug 16, 2010, 09:44 AM EDT
Even if you forgot to have your i.d. with you, you can still tell the officer your name and address so he can verify who you are. Otherwise escaped fugitives like the murderer who just escaped from prison could not be stopped and asked for i.d., the police would have to let him go...think this through.
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Sungold | Aug 16, 2010, 04:11 AM EDT
As a legal American citizen there are many, many instances where I am required to show I.D. Flying on an airplane or riding a train; cashing a check; paying by check; purchasing alcohol; checking into a hotel; renting a car; if I am stopped for a routine traffic stop, or any other time a police officer asks. These are just some examples off the top of my head. Why should illegals be exempt? And I don't care what color they are.
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Monsoonman | Aug 16, 2010, 01:07 AM EDT
Lad, I got a citation for not having i.d. once upon a time here in cali, the land of fruits and nuts. Ya gotta have i.d. when asked for it, they want to know who you are, they want to run warrant checks on you, etc.....I really don't think that is very much to ask.
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hancock | Aug 16, 2010, 01:06 AM EDT
Why wouldn't he have any ID? You think a Latino judge is that stupid, or couldn't get himself extricated from that situation?
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seanomelbourne | Aug 15, 2010, 11:17 PM EDT
If a Latino judge was pulled over for a violation and had no I.D. he would be charged under the new law,he looked Latino therefore he is guilty of an offense. That is profiling on the basis of skin colour.
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