Recently the state of Arizona passed immigration law which, gasp, allows local law enforcement officer to enforce immigration law. This of course has aroused the typical liberal angst against the largely conservative state. Epitaphs of racism, accusations that this will lead to racial profiling, etc. all have been leveled at this state. Frankly I'm happy Arizona has the good sense to pass such a measure and I shake my head that something so simple drives so many otherwise fine people to hate their neighbor and call them a racist. It's more par for the course though and I was content to let it pass, but a recent incident has caused me to decide to comment fully on it.
Yesterday after logging into facebook to see what my friends and family are up to back home I came across a posting by a cousin of my girlfriend, random thought, why do we make people we barely know friends on facebook? Anyway, her views trend to the left and I generally ignore it but saw this posted by her "WTF. Arizona immigration law?" It had quite a few responses and my curiosity made me check out the idiocy I knew laid inside. Sure enough there were the typical responses equating Arizona's laws to fascism. In fact in 12 responses all i saw as gestapo/nazi this and fascist that. So, being the nice guy I am I responded "yeah, a country that enforces it's laws, crazy concept." Along with another note taking a shot at such liberal use of a term like "fascist" by people who apparently had little to no knowledge on what it actually means. This morning I saw that my GF's cousin, well didn't appreciate it too much and asked me to refrain from posting my political views on "her wall." To be more exact it was keep my views on my wall and she will do the same. First signs of leftist tolerance i see. I also saw one of her friends gave the always delightful response to the tune of "if you don't agree with our group think, that STFU." No differing views allowed here. Another sign of that leftist tolerant attitude we hear so much about.
In the end of course I will respect her wishes as I would expect her to respect mine and I only baited the STFU guy a little, it's the most fun i can have right now. Really, this got me thinking though, what is the big deal about this? Is there perhaps something in this law that I have overlooked that would and should cause such protestations? There could be and so in the hopes of becoming better informed I looked it up and shockingly, it was exactly what I heard it could be. Basically it says that a cop my have "reasonable suspicion" that the person he is speaking with is an illegal immigrant. After having that the officer may than request that the suspect provide documentation proving he is a legal resident or immigrant in our nation. That is it folks.
Now if your looking for the outrageous part in all this, it is in the term "reasonable." That's right, reasonable is an unreasonable term that will inevitably allow those mean police officers to target Hispanic immigrants in this country. President Zero even expressed some concern about this by notice that this law would allow an immigrant to be here for generations and suddenly be stopped by those men no doubt wearing jackboots and have to answer their unreasonable inquiries. Oh the horror.
In the end folks, the law does little but assist the federal government in their enforcement of immigration laws. Other than that the State of Arizona will remain as serene as it always has been.
-Zach
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