If this is the most tolerance and acceptance the extreme left has to offer, then I am not impressed. This is a video recorded by the Golden Gate Minutemen during a anti-Arizona, pro-illegal alien rally. I’m not going to go into details of the video — here because it would be better for you to watching it yourself — but I would like to make an observation. It appears that the rallies the political left take part in contain every negative aspect that the main stream media would have you believe, but still haven’t been able to prove, take place during a politically slanted right (or Tea Party) rally.
Aside from showing the people on the left to be the hypocrites I believe most of them are, it also showcases the complete bias of news and media outlets. Thankfully, these outlets across the nation are going broke and we won’t have to listen to them much longer.
May 12, 2010 at 3:00 am
This is really depressing, if only now because I have to side with idiots. And with people who can’t spell “immigrants.”
But I’m actually completely on the liberal side of this issue. It came after listening to stories of friends and family dealing with INS, after living in Arizona myself, and after living and working with many illegals here in Texas.
I’m having to stop myself from entering into any online debates, if only because they end up being truly depressing, and all for the same reason: people tend to get angrier online, and it all ends in cursing and implications of violence. But if you’re ever up for a (thank god) civilized discussion, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what essentially would be my rebuttal to the closing comments in this video.
May 12, 2010 at 7:37 am
I actually would be interesting in here your thought on the matter, and I promise that my debating doesn’t turn into cursing — or even anger for that matter.
Here is my primary position:
The Arizona state law, at it’s core, it really just a state level enforced implementation of an already existing federal law that isn’t being enforced by the federal government. We have these law and rules for a reason. If anybody want to enter the country through the appropriate channels and gain citizenship through the process that is in place, more power to them! I’ll support them 100%. Not liking the law, or have issues with the enforcement agency is no excuse to circumvent the process altogether. That’s what we call crime.
For example, I take great issue with some of the tax laws in NYS, and I have even more issues with the excess of power granted to the tax law’s enforcement agency, the IRS. Because of my personal opinion on the matter, does this free me to simply circumvent the entire tax process and not pay them? As much as I might wish, no… no it doesn’t.
As far as changing the law to make all illegals instantly legal, I don’t think that is a good idea either. It sets a precedent that could invite more of this illegal behavior. The lesson could be seen as, “if you don’t get caught long enough, eventually it will be OK”.
Another thought to take into account is the people of Arizona. They have the right to be their own governing body, and so far every poll I’ve seen suggests that the majority of the people support what their governor is doing. If they disapprove of this action, then they are free to to vote out the elected officials who supported this in November. Again, this is the process.
Until the laws change, the burden really is on the political left to present arguments to change the minds of the people who think otherwise. If someone could prepare a an idea that communicated why the immigration laws have to be changed, and show (with numbers) a lessened impact on the existing US social system, then let’s change the system. Though you don’t see too much of it these days, I still believe that logic and reasoning will still be triumphant in the end of all things. However, shouting “get educated bitch!” into a camera is not a convincing argument.
May 12, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Your last sentence made me laugh out loud. Props to you, sir.
You’ve brought up some good points, but if I’m going to be systematic about this, I’ll have to address them later. First, a few points I’m sure we would both agree with:
1) The sane people behind a movement should not, at least to a great extent, be responsible for the idiots that follow it, i.e., I don’t have to defend “get educated, bitch!” so long as you don’t have to defend Shawna Forde (accused of a double homicide of Raul and Brisenia Flores, founder of offshoot militia-border patrol volunteer group MAD).
2) I can’t decide who speaks for you, and vice versa.
3) The most ignorant people will be attracted to the most sensational and violent forms of protest and opposition.
With that, I’ll start with stereotypes:
I can’t stand Orwell’s 1984. People say it’s brilliant. I think even Matrix Reloaded has a better picture of how government works – at least in Reloaded, the government’s not a giant, unified force working solely to keep one ignorant prole down. But we all think this way – the opposition is unified, whereas our side has many facets. That reasoning leads to the stereotypes that brand Minutemen racist. And though the types are false, they’re helpful, at least in understanding how the opposition thinks. So here it is, the Left’s stereotype in all it’s glory (at least as I understand it):
“You claim that your support of the law has nothing to do with race. We find that hard to believe, because all of your complaints and worries contradict each other. Illegals are stealing American jobs, yet at the same time are overwhelming the welfare system. They are running drugs, but at the same time are running from Cartels that have overwhelmed Mexico. They are not learning English, but English is not, nor has it ever been, the official language of the United States. You have drug worries, but you do not stop to consider that your purchase of the drugs is what drives the drug war. You do not suggest stricter rules for governing the full one half of US citizens who pay no taxes whatsoever; you rather spend all your time attacking those who, though they don’t pay all taxes, at least contribute to the economy by working, which is more than most of your non-contributing citizens do. Your worries are not borne out by your actions; the only unifying factor is race.”
False, and a bit misinformed, but certainly not angry and insane, and at the very least coherent. This is the view the Left has of you. Now for the way you view yourself (not “you,” specifically, but the Right). I’m quoting from the video:
(The Left has been led to believe that) “anyone who wants sealed and secure borders, and their country protected, is a racist, and a horrible person. …which was to stand up for the more than 200 million Americans who want only legal immigrants in our country, and who want illegal immigration, with all it’s negative side effects, to stop. Stop the crime, stop the gangs, stop sapping our social services, stop the overfilling of our schools and our hospitals, and stop draining taxpayer money. Our states are broke, and our citizens have had enough.”
Once again, coherent, not insane, and reasonable. But I do take issue with one thing (many, actually, but one main point): this idea that my views as a Leftist on this issue have been driven by lies is, well, just as much a stereotype as is the Left’s idea that your views are driven by race. No one asked me, or you, what our views were. We just assumed.
This is getting long. I’ll stop here, and start over with the next point in a shorter format.
May 12, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Oops. Sorry about the HTML gaffe.
I’ll keep it short – sorry about the length. Per your point on illegality, I don’t think we may ask people to do things a certain way unless we make that way physically possible for them.
In short, if we want immigrants to enter legally, we need to make it possible for them to do so. The odds, however, are not in their favor.
This is one of the sources of the Left’s “racist” stereotype of the Right. Your (and mine, at first) first reaction to “illegal immigration” was, “well, if they’re not entering legally, they have no respect for our laws and shouldn’t be here anyway.” Very logical, but what didn’t occur to either of us was that entering the US legally is an insanely difficult to impossible process. We just assumed the immigrants were lazy and disrespectful – probably from watching too many spoiled US citizens give their ignorant two cents on the issue. But it was a bad assumption nonetheless.
There are four main ways to enter the US legally – marry a citizen, have a citizen relative, be exceptional in some way, or miraculously win the Green Card lottery. The Green Card lottery has been denied several countries due to the overwhelming number of applicants; Mexico is among them. Most Mexican immigrants do not fit the remaining profiles.
I’ve got very sad, albeit darkly entertaining, stories of what people have had to endure while becoming US citizens the first two ways (“you’re just a whore,” “you’re going to set up a prostitution ring here in the US, aren’t you?”). And these are conservative, English-speaking foreigners with degrees. The rest, the Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free, are horribly backlogged. According to USCIS, applications from 2001 – 2001 – are still being processed. And none of those is a guaranteed yes.
The question, then, is this: what’s a more viable option for an immigrant who wants to work – hop the fence and hope for the best, or get in line and wait some ten years before he hears an answer, and hope to god you’re not killed by a corrupt government or a Cartel before then?
I’d hop the fence. Doesn’t make it legal, but it does change the argument the Right has to make. This can’t be about “legal” vs. “illegal” unless “legal” is doable.
May 17, 2010 at 8:13 am
Sorry for the later response. as I mentioned before, I’ve had a very involved past few days and haven’t had the time.
Whereas you do make some poignant observations about the state of the current immigration law, it still doesn’t change the fact that the laws of the land are set (or at least they are supposed to be) by the people, through their elected officials. When their elected representatives pass a law that has the majority support, (at the time of writing, the current immigration bill garnished a 73% approval rating) that is the law of the land that should be enforced. Again, the burden is on the other 27% of the population to convince the others of the errors in their ways. It doesn’t matter if the law is difficult, isn’t doable, or is down right impossible… breaking it is a crime and local state officials have every right to prosecute those criminals.
A thought to consider; the border of Arizona has been “open” for a very long time. (A VERY long time.) Could it be that this bill has such overwhelming support because the people of Arizona, who are on the “front lines” of the issue, are tired of behavior caused by this illegal activity? If this boils down to mere treatment of individuals, the US government needs to side with the US citizens.
If anything, I think this will turn out to be a fantastic social experiment. We can debate on each others platitudes all we like, but I’d be more interested in studying how this unfolds. It will only take a few short years of this law being enforced to see an effect on the state. If the illegals are the invaluable resource they claim that they are, and not just a burden on the social programs of the state, then we should begin to see a decline in Arizona’s economy. This would be the best argument for reform and I would support it. However, if the economy picks up, that is pretty hard evidence against the claims they are making now. If this happens, would you still be against the law?
May 15, 2010 at 3:31 am
Sorry…too much? I kinda got carried away there…
May 15, 2010 at 6:43 am
No, not too much at all. I’ve just had a bad past couple of days. I will formulate a response sometime either today or tomorrow.
May 19, 2010 at 2:35 am
(Once again, this is long, but in my defense, I’m temporarily unemployed – read: transferring stores – while my wife takes over my old store as the new boss. Really. So if I seem like a loser who has too much time on his hands, it’s only half true.)
To answer your question, no, not completely, although I’m not completely opposed to it now. I do think at the very least that if you’re going to require proof of citizenship from those suspected of being illegal, you’d better require it from everyone, however. If the law were amended to make proof mandatory for anyone arrested, it would silence a great many critics.
I’m confused about your defense of the AZ law in question – you’re saying, “it’s the law, and even if we don’t like it, we have to abide by it.” I don’t understand how that statement wouldn’t effectively condemn the Founding Fathers, or get you in a heap of trouble when a more liberal president decides to amend the Constitution to include the definition of marriage as between a man and a man rather than a man and a woman. Claiming “it’s the law” is true, but it misses the point entirely – if no good alternative is available to breaking the law, then the statement “it’s the law, ergo I have I right to prosecute you” is interchangeable with “I can do whatever I please, and I want to prosecute you.” I don’t see this as a defense – I see it as a distraction. The law blatantly ignores a verifiable and important aspect of reality for the problem in question – that some people are crossing the border because they feel they have no choice.
This is not to say that we should simply allow them in. But it does mean that when we say, “yes, you do have a choice,” but don’t pay attention to the mathematical odds against them, we are only kidding ourselves. If we can’t even talk about the problem in direct terms, we’ll never figure it out.
On the economy, again, I think my opinion would turn if AZ grew to a much more prosperous state than it now is. But if it did not, but public opinion still favored the law, would you still support it?
I ask this because – and granted, it’s been a while since I’ve lived in AZ – when I was there, resentment against illegals was quite high. But the violence in the cities was from citizens (see article below), the drugs were being run and consumed by rich white kids, and the angriest people were often the furthest removed from the problem – affluent suburbanites who were very involved in politics but whose closest contact to illegals was walking by Latinos on the city streets.
I’m not suggesting that the problem doesn’t exist – it does – but support for the law does not mean the law is a good idea. Most people I’ve heard – and this is going to be a big generalization, so take it with a grain of salt – mix together La Raza-ites who want to take back Texas, drug runners, the slothful who simply want American handouts, and those looking for work. Most La Raza aficionados who proudly proclaim it are citizens – no illegal would ever, ever call that much attention to himself. Drug runners don’t care what law you pass; if you want papers, they have the money to buy papers. And I’m not sure how the last two fit together – if someone’s willing to save up a few thousand dollars to be taken across the border, risk being raped and beaten in Mexico en route, and escape border patrols, why in the world would they settle for handouts? That kind of ethic would demand multiple jobs when they get the chance (this has been my personal experience, anyway).
I think the problem with the law is this: given that there are multiple problems that stem from mass immigration, and that many of those problems do not come directly from the immigrants themselves, the idea that one law, a mere ten pages long, can solve them all is insane. It will make things worse, even if it makes a few problems better. I suspect ranch land will be cleaner, while drug running, after slowing for a few weeks, will actually get easier. More AZans will have jobs, but the state’s economy will suffer from the huge drop in Mexican tourism. People will be less angry, but crime will probably not drop. And – and this last one no one’s been able to satisfactorily answer for me – we will, in a very uncomfortable way, be more like Mexico.
That last one is the biggest question for me – say a woman is being abused, but is undocumented. Does she call the authorities, or does she decide to suffer through it? And is this the kind of thing we can accept in our country?
May 19, 2010 at 8:39 am
No worries about the longer responses. I really don’t mind, and find intelligent debate interesting — you’ll get no complaints from me.
You raise a couple of points in your recent comment, so I’ll handle them on a point by point basis. Hopefully, I’ve understood you correctly.
Point 1. Providing identification when arrested. – Doesn’t this happen already for everybody already? When you get pulled over for speeding, what is the first thing the officer asks of you? “Licenses and registration please.” When my dad arrests a guy, part of his job identifying who that person is, and where he comes from. From what I understand this law really is just enforcing on illegal immigrants what the law already imposes on the legal citizens. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Point 2. “it’s the law, and even if we don’t like it, we have to abide by it” – Yes. That is exactly right, and no I don’t think the founding father would disapprove of my thinking. If “We the People” have a problem with the laws of the land, then it is up to us to change those laws them through the system in place — by petitions, the courts, through the due process. Simply not obeying the law because you don’t happen to agree with it is wrong. If everybody just stopped obeying law they didn’t agree with, there would be anarchy and chaos. Does this mean that I agree with most of the law out there? No. But I take steps to make my voice heard. I write my congressmen, I donate money to causes I believe in, and I vote; all in an effort to change what I feel is unjust. Unless it came down to an extreme where my life, liberty or that of my family’s or friend’s, was put in jeopardy because of politicians playing politics, I don’t see myself willfully breaking the law.
Point 3. “The law blatantly ignores a verifiable and important aspect of reality for the problem in question – that some people are crossing the border because they feel they have no choice.” – This part honestly confuses me. I don’t understand how a group of people, who are supposedly diligent and honest workers (and obviously great at protesting), have to come to our country and protest changes to our system to meet their needs. How come they can’t stay in their country and put this very same effort into reforming their own government so that they don’t have to feel like their back is against the wall in the first place? If memory servers, didn’t America go through a similar tiff with England form 1775–1783?
Point 4. “On the economy, again, I think my opinion would turn if AZ grew to a much more prosperous state than it now is. But if it did not, but public opinion still favored the law, would you still support it?”” – This steps into some very muddy waters. If I’m understanding you correctly, this question could be generalized and re-written as “If the majority of the governed approves of a policy that holds a negative impact on the governed, should the will of the people be ignored for their own good?” I would like to think that people still have the capacity for reason and would see negative out-comes, and adapt policy or laws accordingly. However; — and even I don’t like my own answer, but so long as that law doesn’t take away freedom from the governed, I would have to defend it — if people aren’t free to govern themselves to any end, even to ruin, are they really free at all? Again, I would sincerely hope it would never come to this, but anything less wouldn’t be liberty anymore.
Point 5. “given that there are multiple problems that stem from mass immigration, and that many of those problems do not come directly from the immigrants themselves, the idea that one law, a mere ten pages long, can solve them all is insane” – I agree. I don’t think that this one law, of it’s own standing will change anything for the better. I feel it is a step in the right direction. What Arizona has done is something that we’re not quite used to seeing. In defiance of the federal government’s unwillingness or incapacity to deal with the problems, Arizona is taking responsibility. If the law were allowed to sit as is, with no other real reform taking place, it will become the disaster people are predicting. However; if the state government takes initiatives to further enhance opportunities for it’s own citizens, and crack down harder on the crime present, I do believe real change for better can occur. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I am very in seeing it. All I know is that they’ve tried nothing, and it obviously hasn’t been working for them.
Point 6. “That last one is the biggest question for me – say a woman is being abused, but is undocumented. Does she call the authorities, or does she decide to suffer through it? And is this the kind of thing we can accept in our country?” – That is a question loaded with shades of grey. Meaning no insensitivity to the situation, but why is it OK for her to want us to enforce our laws when it benefits her, but not when it would inconvenience her? This inconsistency, though on a demagogic scale in this example, could rip this nation to shreds if applied to everything.
What if, and this is completely fanciful thinking on my part, we were to take the funds that are supposedly being drained dealing with the illegal immigration issue, and gave them to Mexico in an attempt to help their clean up their own country? Maybe what they’ve needed all along was a helping hand to get on their feet. I know it’s nowhere near as simple as that, the some of the politicians in Mexico are as corrupt as they come, but their people don’t seem to want to do anything about. They seem to be content to come into our country and protest our laws instead.
The bottom line is that there is no “magic bullet” that is going to fix this issue. But if everything were ran they way people seem to want Arizona to run, it just wouldn’t work.
As a crude example: what if I wanted to see a baseball game down in NYC. (Go Yankees!) They have a wall around their stadium so not just anyone can get in. At the gate, I’m going to be asked to present my papers (ticket) to prove that I have the right to be there. Once inside, it is expected of me that I’m going to obey the rules the of stadium and start running around shouting and protesting how admission into the stadium should be free. Even if I sneak in, and sat in some seat quietly just minding my own business and enjoying the game, I’m still there illegally and if caught, they are well within their rights to send me packing.
May 20, 2010 at 3:39 am
First off, thank you for posting a long post – it made me feel much better about my own.
I’m working hard to make my responses shorter; let’s see how it goes.
On point 1: the actual wording of the law is as follows:
It’s not simply ID – although the law goes on to state that an ID would be considered appropriate proof of citizenship, this is not what always happens. And, quite frankly, if an ID were all that would set the record straight, there wouldn’t need to be a law, given that giving an ID is the current policy anyway.
On point #2 – and please understand that I’m using this example as a counterargument, not as an example that I think fits this situation exactly – would you turn in a slave to his owner after Dred Scott? Or, for that matter, what would you have said to Gandhi as he broke British law?
3: Now I’m confused – I’m not sure what particular illegal aliens are coming here to protest our laws – no illegal I know would ever do something to call attention to himself. (Where are you getting that idea…I mean that question honestly; I’ve never heard before that it’s the illegals themselves who are protesting our laws). If you’re talking about the mass protests, understand that the people protesting are US citizens. They are not – repeat, not – illegal aliens. The same goes for La Raza and advocating that Texas be returned to Mexico – US citizens. I’ve no knowledge of an illegal protesting ANYthing in regards to US law. And I’ve always wondered why people lump the two together.
But on another point you raised (“how come they can’t stay in their country and…reform…their own government?”), and on the comparison with the fledgling colonies and Great Britain, I’ve an easy response: look up Los Zetas. These guys are a group of US Special Forces-trained Cartel hit-men, and I’ve heard even Glenn Beck express his fear of them. Decapitations, castrations, immersions in vats of lye, etc., and the list goes on…this is not, by any stretch of imagination, comparable to Great Britain and America in the 18th century. People are terrified, and with good reason – and this is but one example of how Cartel violence has infiltrated Mexico to a hopeless degree. Asking farmers and migrant workers to rise up against a cadre of special forces operatives with the blank checkbook of a drug cartel is insanity. This is not something the people can handle. It’s not something Americans could handle.
On 4: although I agree that people should be allowed to choose their fate if they wish, your answer does indicate that, per the effectiveness or morality of the law, the people’s approval is completely irrelevant.
On 5: if I may summarize your argument, “yes, I agree that just this law isn’t enough, but doing something is better than doing nothing.” To which I respond, “not always.”
(Meh, it’s late…what can I say…but in my defense, it seemed a lot funnier when I thought of it than when I typed it out. Now, reading it…not as funny.)
On point 6: I don’t believe the means justify the ends any more than the ends justify the means.
Your response threw me a bit, I must confess…this isn’t the rights of US citizens we’re talking about, it’s human rights in general. And though the US certainly isn’t perfect, we’ve got one of the better human rights records throughout history, at least for a nation-state of our size. (I mean, no other nation can claim a rise from slavery to head of state in less than 200 years…that’s an insane record.) We don’t do wrong to have a greater and later right, and we don’t accept wrong results simply because it keeps our process clean. Breaking the law to get a job and breaking the law to prey on the innocent are not, and should never be, in the same category. They’re nowhere close.
I might have made this shorter by throwing children in the mix – given that they didn’t choose to be in the situation they find themselves in, what if the abused were a child and not a woman?
On your stadium example, I suppose I’d have to ask, “well, what if you needed to get in to eat, but there were no more tickets for sale? Do you starve or enter in unlawfully?”
I’m not suggesting we open the gates because we feel people have no choice…but we have more options to change things than they do. And suggesting that they all go home, or try to enter lawfully through a line that’s over ten years long and holds little guarantees, doesn’t sound to me like the best we can do.
Although I must confess, if you ask me what I think the best is, I’m going to draw a huge blank.
May 27, 2010 at 6:57 am
I’ve summed up my final thoughts in the other post, but there are a couple points I wanted to touch on here.
On point 2: I am a supporter of the law as long as it doesn’t tread on justice (not fairness, but justice. I don’t believe in ‘fairness’ as a political guideline. It’s too relative.). In the cases you’ve mentioned the law was wrong and needed to be changed. I would like to hope that had I been around in the heat of those issues, I would have sided with the side in the right, against the law.
On point 4: Again, this is super gray area for me. I think GK Chesterton put it best:
Again, I would hope that a moral majority would still prevail and that we would never see ourselves so far down the rabbit hole where this type of thinking would needed.
On Point 6: Again, I really can’t say anything to this specifically because of the nature of the question. Two reasons: (1) Even though I don’t think this is the argument you’re trying to make, some would state it as “Admission to America should be a basic human right”. What makes American so great would fall apart if the flood gates were opened as such. (Unless of course, the process of making illegal workers legal is streamlined and there was a way to ensure they started paying into the system.) (2) Given this mindset, Why should we stop at Mexico? There are other corners of the world that are far worse off than Mexico is. Shouldn’t we go after them first? Obviously this argument borders on nonsensical as it would be unsustainable, but that kind of my point.
Anyway, see my other post for my “closing thoughts”.