The Not-So-Wonderful Land of AZ
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Hispanics can’t be happy with Hispanics these days.
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Imagine the frustration. You’re a law-abiding, Hispanic citizen living in Arizona – working hard, paying your taxes, and raising your family. All the while, millions of your ethnic brethren brazenly ignore the immigration laws of your country to the point of economic collapse, consuming much more public resources than they pay in. Violence on the border, and also far into Arizona territory, persists in the name of gangs and drug cartels. Not only are these illegal aliens wreaking havoc on the fiscal and social soundness of your home state, but because the large majority of these illegal aliens share your skin tone, you suddenly become a suspect of their crimes.
Bigotry? Racism? Perhaps. But not really. Suspicion of one particular ethnic group is often the justifiable reaction spawned whenever the large majority of violators share an ethnicity. We observe this phenomenon with all the double-takes given nowadays to Arab sheiks strolling through airports. Citing the inordinate amount of crime committed by African-Americans, Reverend Jesse Jackson once admitted that, upon turning around to see who is behind him on the street, he is “relieved” whenever he discovers a white person. And, similarly, when millions of South Americans invade the United States, steal jobs from legal citizens, and drain their public treasury, Americans naturally begin to wonder about anyone fitting the Hispanic description.
Still, to harass or question someone solely on the basis of their race is wrong and immoral, which is probably the precise reason why the Arizona immigration bill forbids doing so. Despite all the yacking about “racism” and “racial profiling” from the ACLU, labor leaders, Hollywood nitwits, La Raza, and other radical leftists, the new Arizona law blatantly states that a law enforcement official “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” in making stops or establishing immigration status. Every left-winger ignoring this portion of the law, conjuring up fears over racial profiling reminiscent of Nazi Germany, is flat-out lying.
This is nothing new, however. Race has always been the Left’s most potent device for stirring up their mindless base of protesters.
Speaking of race-baiting, Al Sharpton has weighed in with threats of protests and boycotts, even as illegal aliens occupy millions of jobs that might well go to American blacks in the absence of an illegal population.
In the face of Arizona’s looming crisis, and Washington’s dereliction of duty, the action taken by Arizona is entirely modest and reasonable. And perhaps most importantly, 70% of Arizonians agree.
Still, just for stigmatic reasons, it would just really suck to be Hispanic in Arizona right now.
But Hispanics shouldn’t expect any assistance from the Left. After all, the best way to alleviate the anxiety over being a suspect of a certain crime is to end the practice of that crime. For years, conservatives – Pat Buchanan being the leader among them – have been warning of the looming consequences associated with lax immigration policies. Conservatives warned of the dangers posed whenever a nation refuses to naturalize its new citizens, ensure that they can speak the English language, and make certain that newcomers adopt the whole American culture. Conservatives have insisted that to truly protect “liberty and justice for all,” then the sanctity of the law must be upheld.
Liberals responded by calling conservatives racists.
Now, look at Arizona. After that, look at Rhode Island, and our state’s analogous difficulties with our own illegal population.
This all begs two questions: Have liberals ever gotten anything right? And have liberals ever adopted a special interest group that they didn’t end up betraying?
Travis Rowley ([email protected]) is Chairman of the RI Young Republicans, and author of Out of Ivy: How a Liberal Ivy Created a Committed Conservative.
