The Deserted Truth

Enough is enough. After reading yet another article about protests and opposition to Arizona's immigration law, I feel someone must speak the truth about this issue. It's an issue that oddly divides the American right. Many who oppose it I suspect fear the electoral reprisal of hispanics if they agree to any enforcement measures. The problem is that racially pandering is just about as useless and outdated as racial discrimination. Forgetting the political correctness, here's the truth as I see it.

Here are the facts...

- The economic conditions of Mexico and Latin America at large are quite poor, which necessitates emigration to a country with better economic conditions, predominantly the United States.

- America has a border with Mexico that has, in most places, insufficient barriers to prevent people from illegally entering the country.

- Right now there are 12-20 million people who are not legally present in the United States.

- An estimated $8 billion is annually sent out of the United States in remittences.

- Drug wars between cartels have spilled onto the U.S. side of the border, thus making Phoenix, Arizona the number one kidnapping capital of the United States.

- For more than two decades, the Federal Government has not acted on this growing issue.

Now with that is a backdrop, the Arizona legislature decided to pass and Governor Jan Brewer signed an enforcement bill that did a number of things. Most of the bill consists of restating Federal and Arizona laws regarding illegal immigration.

The part that bothers many people and has caused such and uproar is the following:

B. For any lawful stop, detention or arrest made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation. Any person who is arrested shall have the person’s immigration status determined before the person is released. The person’s immigration status shall be verified with the federal government pursuant to 8 United States code section 1373(c).

The problem is, what the definition of "reasonable suspicion"? The fear is that many police officers will construe it to mean that any person of hispanic dissent is here illegally and will be harassed by officers. This also assumes that a good number of cops are racist, or at least use racial tactics in their official duties, which I don't. Knowing that's already illegal in itself, the Arizona law goes further on protecting the rights of legal Americans...

A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution. A person is presumed to not be an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States if the person provides to the law enforcement officer or agency any of the following:

1. A valid Arizona driver license.
2. A valid Arizona nonoperating identification license.
3. A valid tribal enrollment card or other form of tribal identification.
4. If the entity requires proof of legal presence in the United States before issuance, any valid United States federal, state or local government issued identification.

So, for all of those folks blabbing at rallies about "racial profiling" in the law or that the law is "racist" altogether, all you must do is read the text of the law. Cops "may not" use race to determine illegality, period. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth or is ignorant and hasn't even read the law itself. In reality, it's quite simple to dissuade a cop who suspects you, pull out your driver's license and you're clear. And when it comes to asking for someone's "papers" there's been a federal law for over 50 years stating that all legal non-citizens must carry a Green Card/ ID everywhere.

Now I've also heard a few other inventive arguments even after I read the law's text.

One is that cops simply can't be trusted to stay within the confines of the law. If that's the case, we need to talk to police, not politicians. If the police's competence is your argument against any law enforcement bill, then we need to halt the passage of any law that requires police work (that's all of them) until the police themselves can be investigated further. Setting aside the fact that I, by and large trust cops, the contention nonetheless has nothing to do with this particular law.

The last argument I've heard is that by passing a law on immigration at all, it inadvertently targets hispanics. This is again, complete and utter nonsense. Does enforcing laws against the Mafia inadvertently target Italians? Or does enforcing laws against murder target African- Americans (who statistically commit more murders), or does white collar crime only target white people (who commit more frauds)? NO!!! Enforcing laws discriminates against only one group, criminals.

Crossing the border into America without documentation is breaking the law, period. Doing this makes you a criminal, period. And all the Arizona law did was empower law enforcement to do a novel thing, enforce the law.

Same Old Paul Krugman

In his latest Op-Ed in the New York Times, liberal brainchild Paul Krugman yet again managed to confirm his pretend knowledge of the Tea Party and his nonsensical view of his political rival's objectives.

First off, Krugman displays that primal trait among the intellectual left today that somehow the Tea Party goers are too stupid to realize they're being used. First it was the insurance companies, then the Republican Party, then big conservative think tanks, and now Mr. Krugman has identified corporations has the latest puppet master. He cites the up tick of corporate money toward the GOP. Apparently he forgets that from the 2005-2008 the corporate money moved to the Democrat side. This is indicative of a power play to those who the corporates believe will be in a position to help them. So since mid 2009, the tide has been shifting to the right in anticipation of a GOP win in the fall. Is it any shock that big money will move that way as well?

Krugman cites the abundant hatred for the Obama Administration by Corporate America, as well. And why is this surprising? President Obama routinely demonizes them, even going so far as to hint at a point when "you've made enough money" and that "now is not that time" for profits. But it's those taxes that make them hate Obama, says Krugman. Not to fear though, because they'll only go up to Clinton era levels and why not, "they’ll still be doing extremely well". I guess Krugman forgets about that quadrupling of the federal deficit in the past 16 months and, that the "tax the rich" redistributionist crowd's deficit fervor may increase the taxes beyond those measly Clinton era rates. It's a slippery slope that scares the rich in America.

Krugman cites regulations as the next item of disdain. He uses that tired and false meme about no regulations leading to the recession when it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that drove the lending markets into the ground. But never fear, Krugman has a plan to fix the last government failure, more government interference.

Now to the part about those dumb puppets in the Tea Party. Krugman argues that the right has a conspiratorial "formula" of how to win elections. "Play identity politics," he says. Wait a minute, it was the President himself who called upon specific ethnic groups to help him win in 2010. Aside from a few nut cases masquerading at Tea Parties, there have been no ethnic politics played on the right. But who is the evil mastermind behind this villainous plot, none other than classic hate magnet Karl Rove. Who Krugman apparently thinks should stop working, talking, traveling, etc. after public service.

In the end, Krugman relents that those buffoon Tea Partiers won't heckle at being used, in fact that evil libertarian Rand Paul didn't foam at the mouth over the BP oil spill. Krugman says "it’s a kind of populism that’s remarkably sympathetic to big corporations." Not really Mr. Krugman. This movement is about the freedom of every American, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, and income to pursue happiness.

But Krugman somehow believed that Obama, the most partisan member of the Senate, could "transcend" it once President. He needs to find his inner FDR and fight “the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.” I hate to attack the liberal messiah but since 1936, we have laws of anti-trust, speculation is normal in a capitalist economy, the reckless banks were under duress from Fannie and Freddie, the class warfare is from the White House only, the sectionalism of income and ethnicity also comes from the Administration, and the war contracts ended the Great Depression when FDR's government expansion didn't.

Sorry Mr. Krugman, President Obama can learn from FDR to not waste a term on a failed government expansion and possibly try to create wealth in the most proven way in history, let people keep their own money. It worked under Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. The only thing stopping the President is ironically Krugman and his redistributionist allies who I believe Obama must transcend in order to have a shot at reelection. To do that would show true courage.

College Lessons

Beings I just returned from my freshman year of college, I believe the time is right to look back on a year spent inside the ivory towers of academia.

I entered college life knowing that I would be tremendously outnumbered ideologically. My principle on professors said that they were liberal until proven otherwise. After one year, none proved themselves to be conservative. However, I was surprised to find a couple that were liberal but also intellectually curious. Others held the quite open view that the point of being a professor is to preach from "on high" a political perspective. A year spent in uncharted waters honed my beliefs and attending the hub of the intellectual elite showed me some basics about the intellectual left in America.

First, on any issue on the horizon it is the liberal view that in some way individuals are not capable of fully living their lives, spending their money, or making important life choices. This takes many forms. Many would claim that we are simply too small in the scheme of things. We are so little compared to the big corporations and thus need someone to always help us fight them. On the surface this argument makes sense, due to the fact that in some cases money does equal power. But while that view tended to be the most pervasive, I discovered it was only the first layer of an onion. When you peel another back it reveals another reason individuals are incapable. Coupled with their lack of political power is their lack of civic knowledge. The line would go that the American people don't pay attention to politics. That's why politicians, who presumably follow day-to-day politics, must take a more assertive role. Again this seems plausible due to Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" where random folks can't name the Vice President. Even this reason isn't the end though. If you peel one last layer back you see the real reason individuals are deemed incapable, you're stupid. In the end the first two layers stem from the individual's inherent lack of basic knowledge. They are susceptible to fads, have unreasonable expectations, they have inherent bigotries, etc. They buy a truck even after the elite say they'll kill us all. They buy guns even though they're dangerous. They believe in a God that elite science cannot definitively prove. All of this is the underlying reason why we need a small intellectual elite to make decisions for the large, predominantly dumb populous.

This view of middle America as a bunch of redneck, gun-toting, Bible thumping, bigots was eloquently put in 2008 by an Illinois Senator named Barack Obama, a former college professor himself. All of this leads to the inevitable conclusion that Ronald Reagan said in 1964 on the choice America faced then...

"This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

This issue continues to be debated today.

Another issue that raised its head was the attack on the free market. I kept hearing how the market has enabled the rape and pillage of land and people. Thus, markets must be severely limited and highly regulated. But the facts that determined the raping of an individual were compared to our living standards in the wealthiest nation on Earth. If a farmer in the Caribbean gets paid 80 cents an hour that must be wrong because Americans get paid upwards of seven dollars. One professor attacked a corporation for paying farmers in Jamaica 40 cents a day to harvest the crops. She acknowledged that prior to the company coming to that country the farmer was paid 10 cents a day. She found a way to attack a 400% increase in pay as unethical. If a corporation made it, it must be bad. Even so, the hypocrisy was wild as she came in with designer clothes every single class.

A third point I learned was the opposite of Mitt Romney's book "The Case for American Greatness". Every day it seemed like American greatness was under attack. Our being a large, wealthy, and powerful country is to blame for almost every ill in the world and we must humble ourselves to be liked again. Again I was drawing comparisons to the former professor in the White House's apology tour in early 2009.

But the final thing I found was an answer to these charges.

On the first point it’s hard to give one. All I can say is that everywhere that individual freedom has flourished, so has society as a whole. Everywhere it is oppressed and eliminated, the society has failed. Americans are an amazing people. Sure, we all make mistakes. Some of us aren’t too smart. But as a people we are capable of great things. Point to the largest innovations of the last two centuries and most were accomplished without government’s help, protection, or involvement at all.

On the free market, we must make clear that no one says there shouldn’t be any basic regulation. Some is needed to keep the market stable, like guardrails on a highway. But if you over regulate, it eliminates the ability of individuals to pursue new endeavors, maybe discover a shortcut on the highway. This is how we persevere as a people. This is how innovations are born.

On American greatness, we must also point to the history of the 20^th century and another Reagan quote that makes the point…

“We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong; it is when they are weak that tyrants are tempted.”

American success is not something to begrudge, it is something to maintain and expand. Like our individually our nation has not been perfect over the years. But the scars we bear we bear openly for all to see and learn from. Hopefully we will learn as well. The problem comes when people harp on our small number of faults and ignore the wealth of good this nation has done for the world. The growth or decay of our nation mirrors the rise or fall of the values we hold dear. If we are weak than those principles will weaken. Whether we like it or not, we are the world’s arbiter of freedom and it is up to us to keep freedom alive and prosperous.

Let me say that overall my college experience has been a great one. I’ve made new friends, worked hard, and had fun. My point here is only about the political bias in the intellectual sphere of college life, not any one person or institution. Even those who preach a political agenda aren’t evil, they’re just wrong headed.

For now I’ll be enjoying a summer vacation of blogging, tweeting, and maybe even some old features could be resurrected in the summer of 2010. Stay tuned…