Response: SB 1070

I was asked for my opinion on the SB 1070 law.  Great topic…I thought it deserved its own blog entry.  The question was asked:

“SB1070 - what do you think about it/ Do you believe the American people in the sovereign state of Arizona have a right if the police legally stop someone they can request they show citizenship since they are being over ran by illegal aliens that are smuggling drugs, killing locals, stealing, and etc.? What is racist about admitting that Mexicans come from Mexico? If they are legal aliens they should have no problem with being asked. Just like if I am not drunk I don't worry about taking a sobriety test.”

Thank you for asking.

I covered some of this in my Entitlement…Part 3:  Immigration Post.  Here are some excerpts from that post:

If you’ve read my previous posts on entitlement, you know how I feel about people feeling that they have rights that others don’t. This applies, in part, to immigration as well. I hear a lot of people use the fact that an alien is unregistered as an excuse for them having no rights. Let me respond to this with a huge, resounding, “YOU DON”T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.” It would appear that those of you who say this have never actually read the Constitution. Let me enlighten you…section one of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States says:

“No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”

There is not a lot of ambiguity there. The founding fathers wrote this amendment and used the term “citizen” in it five times. They specifically chose not to use the term citizen in this sentence for a reason. They knew that everyone needed protection of the law in the United States. They did not make any exceptions for immigration status, country of origin, or color of skin.

So what are your other arguments? The economic burden? I won’t argue that point with you because I don’t disagree. I do believe that there is an economic burden with unregistered aliens. It’s the same problem I have with anyone working off the books and not paying taxes. There’s just nothing we can do about it at this time. Of course, that healthcare reform so many of you are complaining about will help when they are all required to carry insurance. This will ease the burden on our healthcare system and reduce the cost of healthcare for the rest of us. But that’s another blog entirely.

So the other argument is crime. Let’s look at the actual impact of immigration on crime (which is really an impossible statistic to measure.) To do this, we need to look at the overall crime rate. The FBI reports on the cities with the highest crime rate relative to the national rate to create a list of the most dangerous cities. They have only released the preliminary report for 2011 so we will use the data from 2010 and earlier. Based on an analysis Onboard Informatics did of the last seven years of data the most dangerous cities are:

1. St. Louis (34)

2. Atlanta (7)

3. Birmingham Alabama (tie) (31)

3. Orlando (tie) (5)

5. Detroit (16)

6. Memphis (22)

7. Miami (5)

8. Baltimore (19)

9. Kansas City, Missouri (34)

10. Minneapolis (tie) (18)

10. Cleveland (tie) (26)

Look over that list again. See the numbers in parentheses? Those are the rankings for the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the states. Do you see a glaring and obvious problem with the crime argument yet? Only three of the top 11 dangerous cities are even in the top 10 states for illegal immigrant population. Arizona’s not even on the list! I’m not a statistician, but I have done some statistics study in my educational career, but I don’t even need to use my meager skills to say, with confidence, that there is not a relationship with the overall rate of crime and the number of illegal immigrants in a state. Before you ask – these statistics took into consideration incidents of property crime, such burglary and motor vehicle theft, as well as violent crime, like murder and robbery. So pretty much all areas of criminal activity were with the exception of financial crimes, but that would only make Wall Street number one and Washington D.C. number two on the list.

The fact that people are so upset over this issue is just another facet of the entitlement diamond that so many American’s (meaning U.S. citizens) have been wearing lately. We live in a country with the 12th highest per capita GDP in the world. Our poverty level is higher than the per capita GDP of over 120 nations. Do we really expect that people will not want to come to our country to try to form a life for their family? What would you do if you lived in Mexico, only miles from a land where the per capita GDP was three times your country’s? When you had to feed your family or watch them starve, I’m betting you would run across that border…rules be damned. Am I saying that illegal immigration is okay? No. I don’t agree with it…I don’t like it. However, if we want to live in a country as well off as the United States, then we had damn well better get used to it.

That being said, I do think something should be done about it. I’m actually a proponent of building a huge wall at the Mexican border. I think it would help reduce the illegal immigration into the United States, and put a lot of people to work for a while at a time when people are begging for jobs. You like that idea, don’t you? Here’s the rub…it has to be paid for. It is an expensive concept. The money will have to come from somewhere. In our society, somewhere means taxpayers. So if you want the problem solved, you will have to pony up the dough. I also believe that, since the border states are the ones that will be benefiting from the wall, they should be shouldering the vast majority of the cost. Don’t ask for the government to fix a problem for you if you aren’t willing to pay for the fix. But put this proposal in front of the people of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California and see how quickly their sense of entitlement starts them screaming about raised taxes…

Finally, to the Supreme Court Ruling on Arizona’s immigration law. I have three things to say…well done, shame on you, and well done. First, well done on striking down most of the garbage in those laws. Article VI of the Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, places the laws and treaties of the federal government over the state laws. In this case, the federal government has been the established source of laws, policies, and procedures regarding immigration and deportation. A state cannot interfere with the execution of the federal government’s authority in this area. Basically, Arizona can’t just get pissed about how immigration is being handled and decide to take care of it themselves. As the Opinion of the Court describes, it takes a lot of training for a federal immigration agent to be able to determine who is eligible to be detained for deportation proceedings. (Yes, I did read the Opinion of the Court – I don’t rely on political analysts to tell me about these decisions). Some people are detained while some are simply issued a notice to appear. A state cannot override this protocol by making a law that they can detain anyone they suspect is an illegal immigrant. This leads to the next problem.

Racial profiling. It is a fact. It can be a problem. Most of us don’t know what that feels like. That’s because the majority of us have never been profiled based on the color of our skin. Unfortunately, many people have. The one part of this law that was not stricken down was the piece that allows officers to verify citizenship for anyone they have a suspicion is here illegally, providing that they have already stopped them for another reason. This law should really read, “Officers can detain any Hispanic so that they can verify their citizenship.” Let’s be honest…officers will look for any reason to stop someone and question them. There is always a reason to stop someone – speeding, a rolling stop, a burned out tail light, jaywalking, suspicious activity, etc. They can now ask people to prove their citizenship. Let’s say that you are a Hispanic person who was born in the U.S. You are a citizen, but you are walking (because you don’t like driving), and you are stopped for jaywalking. While you are issued a warning or a ticket, the officer looks at you and asks you to prove your citizenship. You don’t have your ID because you don’t need it and you don’t have immigration papers because you are a natural born citizen. What happens next? They can’t legally detain you. Fortunately, the Supreme Court issued guidelines along with their ruling that officers can’t detain people for longer than it would reasonably take to handle the original reason for being stopped.

But, why did the officer ask you to prove that you are a citizen? You weren’t committing any action that would lead him to believe that you were in the country illegally. So he just based it on the color of your skin and your appearance. You know, we used to do something similar to people. We looked at them and told them that they didn’t have the same freedoms as the rest of us because they were black. They were harassed and segregated from the rest of us. It took a long long time for us to get over our stupidity concerning civil rights. Oh, wait. We haven’t. We are now just disguising it as immigration policy. The great thing about the ruling is that the Supreme Court specifically said that the only reason they didn’t strike down this part of the legislation was that it had not yet been enforced. They said they couldn’t determine that this is what would happen, but that it would be left open to legal challenges if it did happen. That is a bright, shining star in the future of living without this kind of discrimination and profiling. They left the door open for us to get there; we just have to walk through.

With all of that said, it is very easy to fall into the trap of hate. Our economy is struggling so we want to find someone that is causing the problems. We still have crime so we want someone to be responsible. Who can we blame? It’s no longer okay to blame the Irish, the Italians, or African-Americans. So who is next on the list? How about the fastest growing racial demographic in the country: Hispanics. A number of them are even here illegally so let’s use that as a mask for our anger and fear. Then we can just say that we are being patriotic. We can even make it a political argument because someone hasn’t solved all of the problems that have existed for decades within four years. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d much rather accept people as they are, welcome them to our nation, and increase diversity so that my children can live in a more intelligent, diverse, and prosperous country at my age. Like the man said, “I have a dream…”

To specifically answer the questions you asked:

Question:  Do you believe the American people in the sovereign state of Arizona have a right if the police legally stop someone they can request they show citizenship since they are being over ran by illegal aliens that are smuggling drugs, killing locals, stealing, and etc.?
Answer:  No.  I don’t believe that this is a law that will do much of anything other than encourage racial profiling by police.  The U.S. is not a place that requires me to carry any form of identification at all times.  If an Hispanic natural-born citizen is walking down the street and is stopped for something like jay walking, there should be no requirement for that person to present proof of citizenship.  The color of his skin should not dictate any of his rights in our country. 

Question:  What is racist about admitting that Mexicans come from Mexico?
Answer:  Nothing at all.  The only issue I have at all is that some people are called Mexican that are, in fact, born in the U.S.  Some Hispanics who aren’t born in the U.S. aren’t from Mexico.  I have friends whose have been called Mexican, but whose families are from the Dominican Republic.  It would be equivalent to a proud U.S. citizen being called a Canadian simply because we speak English and are from North America.  So, no, I don’t see any problem with that as long as care is taken for the term to be used correctly, and without intent to discriminate.

Question (after a fashion):  If they are legal aliens they should have no problem with being asked. Just like if I am not drunk I don't worry about taking a sobriety test.
Answer:  I’ll respond to this by going into the second statement.  I have no problem taking a sobriety test if the officer has every reason to suspect that I am drunk.  The problem here lies with the reason to suspect.  A person’s skin color is not a reason to suspect someone is an illegal alien.  I have the same problem with this that I have with sobriety checkpoints.  If the police have no real reason to suspect that I am operating a vehicle under the influence, why am I being asked to provide proof that I am not?  In my opinion, this is contrary to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.  So do I give up my Fourth Amendment rights for some security (on the roads or in Arizona)?  No.  A very wise man, Benjamin Franklin, once said, “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.”  When the government takes away the rights of one group of people, they take away the rights of all people. 

BREAKING NEWS RANT: Regulating the VAGINA! And other nonsense...

Unbelievable! Two representatives in the Michigan legislature have been completely silenced because of what they had to say about a proposed abortion bill. Here are the details from the Detroit News:

House Republicans tried to silence two female Democratic lawmakers Thursday for floor outbursts a day earlier referencing male sterilization and a female sex organ.

The majority party prohibited state Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking on the floor Thursday after she ended a speech the day before against a bill restricting abortions by referencing her female anatomy.

"I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no,' " said Brown, D-West Bloomfield.

State Rep. Barb Byrum, D-Onondaga, also wasn't recognized to speak Thursday for a disturbance she caused on the House floor Wednesday when the GOP majority wouldn't allow her to propose a ban on men getting a vasectomy unless the sterilization procedure was necessary to save a man's life.

Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas, R-Midland, made the decision to prevent Brown and Byrum from speaking on any of the slew of bills the House was racing to pass before adjourning for the summer...

"My concern was the decorum of the House, not of anything she said," Stamas told The Detroit News.

"I ask all members to maintain a decorum of the House, and I felt it went too far yesterday," he said.

Speaker Pro Tem John Walsh, R-Livonia, gaveled Brown out of order for saying "no means no" — because it suggested Brown was comparing the abortion legislation to rape, House GOP spokesman Ari Adler said.

"It has nothing to do with the word vagina," Adler said.

Some male Republican representatives, however, said Brown's comments were vulgar, "inappropriate" and "offensive."

"What she said was offensive," said state Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville.

"It was so offensive, I don't even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company," he said.

During a Capitol press conference Thursday, Brown noted "vagina" is the "medically correct term" for the female organ at the center of the Legislature's ongoing abortion restriction debate.

"If I can't say the word vagina, why are we legislating vaginas?" Brown said. "What language should I use?

"We're all adults here."

House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, would not address the controversy that had become a national news story by late Thursday...

"I followed the House rules," said Brown...

"The war on women in Michigan is not fabricated — this is very real — and it comes at the highest levels of state government," said Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer of East Lansing.

From The Detroit News

Okay...where do I start? Let's start with my opinion on the question. I've been very confused about the trend of regulating people's rights to their bodies and beds over the last few years. The problem is that no one can really define when life begins. There are theories, but they can never progress past the theory stage, so we will never know (until we stand face-to-face with God) when life really begins. How can we justify restricting people's rights for a theory? It is not the government's place to decide the issue of when life begins based on the religious beliefs of some. As Rep. Brown said, why do they want the rest of us to adopt their religious beliefs? Is there not a Bill of Rights that specifically forbids the government to create any law respecting the establishment of a particular religion? I don't remember anywhere in the Bill of Rights that said that this doesn't apply when it concerns women's vaginas or other internal organs.

I do think there is a much more pressing issue with abortion - father's rights. In fact, I believe father's rights is a very overlooked and important issue starting at conception and going all the way through a child's life. Men are not given any say in medical procedures such as abortion, men are expected to pay a disproportionate amount of support for a child in regards to the amount of time they are allowed to spend with the child, and are constantly reminded that they are not as important in the lives of the child as the mother in contradiction to what the law actually states. Before anyone tries to argue this point with me you need to know that I am a victim of this problem. I pay two-thirds of the costs to raise my child don't even get to have her half of the time. I had to fight to even get that amount of time. The system rewards mothers for denying the father more time with their child by giving them more money if the father sees the child less. All of the assumptions surrounding father's rights need to be changed.

Anyway...I'm not going to go on about abortion here because it's a useless debate. People hold such strong opinions about it that they will most likely never change their position. So let's talk about the rules of the House. First, take a minute to watch the actual footage of the situation.

I read through the Standing Rules of the House of Representatives for Michigan. Here are the rules that I found to apply to this situation:

Chapter III Conduct in Debate. Rule 28. When any Member is about to speak in debate or present any matter to the House, the Member shall rise and respectfully address the Presiding Officer, confine remarks to the question under debate, and avoid personalities.

Chapter V Amendments to be Germane. Rule 60. No independent or new proposition or new question shall be introduced under color of an amendment. All amendments must be germane to the main question. When the question of germaneness is raised, the Presiding Officer shall rule on the question.

Let's start with Rule 28. I have watched the video of the debate. I heard nothing that violated Rule 28. Until Rep. Brown said the word "vagina" in her remarks, no one raised a concern. After, the Speaker stated that he expected the members to respect the decorum. When watching the video it seemed that he was speaking to the people who were applauding her remarks. Either way, I didn't hear anything that wasn't respectful, not confined to the question under debate, or didn't avoid personality. So, Rep. Bolger, under what rule and grounds did you ban this woman from speaking on other bills? I don't remember reading a "no vagina" clause in the rules.

Now we move on to Rep. Byrum and Rule 60. On the video I saw a woman who was legally and properly elected to represent the people of her state standing and asking to be recognized on the floor of the legislature be completely ignored. Wow. When she stormed off (justifiably angered by the refusal of Bolger to even recognize her) she was told she was out of order. Why? A few seconds before you wouldn't even recognize her existence, now she's out of order? This was a childish game played by a boy who is drunk with his power.

So these are the problems I've seen with this situation in the legislature. Now let's look at how these problems have been caused by the people.

When I listen to political talk today or watch commercials for politics here is what I hear: Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, etc.

People have become so polarized in line with their political parties that they have completely lost their voice. The only things I hear the average person saying are almost direct quotes from politicians and political analysts. There is no original thought or questioning anymore. Our country was founded by people who questioned the government. In fact, they wrote the right to one of the most important documents in our nation's history - The Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

One of these founding fathers, George Washington, even warned the people of the dangers that political parties posed to our rights in his farewell address:

However combinations or associations of the above description [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

So when was the last time you questioned those who you feel are part of your political party? Would you question them if they silenced those with an opposing viewpoint? Would you question them if they refused to recognize the person you chose to represent you in government? At what point will you question them? When they start to regulate your body? Your bedroom? Your rights? Your freedom? But, at what point is it too late? I know this quote is used entirely too much, but it is very pertinent to this situation:

"First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communist and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionists. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Pastor Niemoeler (victim of the Nazis)

It is time for the people of the United States to speak out. Our freedoms are in jeopardy. I don't care what your philosophy is...you can't tell me you agree with legislators being silenced because the "majority party" doesn't agree with what they have to say or doesn't like the technically correct and medical terms that they use. I have seen so many people since 9/11 stand up and try to say how patriotic they are. They wear their flags and yell their support for the United States and the military. But many of the people that yell the loudest are the most unpatriotic people I have ever seen because they will not only allow this behavior to stand, but will support it because it lets their agenda get passed.

How do you fight this? I'm not saying we need to rise up and overthrow the government. There is only one way the people can voice their disgust with this situation. They need to do their research, find a candidate they can support (regardless of what party that candidate is affiliated with), and place an educated vote that removes the people who are abusing their power from office. Be warned...you will not find a candidate that agrees with everything you want. As another blogger I follow recently stated, "No one will ever be perfect so if you’re holding your breath for a messiah, you’re wasting your time." If you can find an independent candidate who does not bow to a party, even better!

If you will sit idly by and allow this kind of nonsense to continue in our government then I will tell you that, no matter how loud you shout your support for the United States or whether you shake the hands of the military personnel who fight for your freedom, you are no patriot, sir, and are turning your back on those who have fought and died so that you can elect someone to stand up in Congress and fight for your rights. If you let someone silence your voice Congress then you are spitting on the graves of those same men and women. Either stand up and make these people respect your rights or admit that you are no patriot and have the decency to stop shaking the hands of patriots while you spit on the freedoms that they have fought to preserve.