Wednesday, May 12, 2010

What is wrong with this country (and California in particular)?

According to the Los Angeles Times—hardly a conservative rag—support for the Arizona immigration law appears to be growing across the country. This is encouraging news and needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

The LA Times points out that while Obama is vociferously opposed to the new Arizona law, 73% of Americans now think that it is reasonable for police who are already engaged with individuals for some violation of the law to request identification and—if they are immigrants—to check their immigration status. Among Democrats—usually the last to recognize good ideas and common sense when they see it—has risen and they are now evenly split, 45% for and 46% against. This, despite all of the president’s false, inflammatory, and (some might even say) slanderous statements against the law. It appears the Democrats are no longer getting a shiver up their legs every time Obama says anything.

Republicans support the law by 85%, while 64% of independents support. Kind of looks gloomy for the illegals in Arizona, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, the protests and riots by the illegal immigrants and their supporters appear to have fizzled out.

My attention on the issue was sparked again due to the absurd events in the Santa Rita School District. A 13-year old girl, Tracy Hathaway, was working on an art project in her school in which she drew an American flag with the words “God Bless America” on it. Her teacher, seeing the flag, told her: “You can’t draw that—that’s offensive.” Interestingly, the same idiot teacher noticed that another child, who had drawn President Obama in red, white and blue colors, praised that drawing. When confronted by the parents, the teacher clammed up and wouldn’t comment.

Santa Rita superintendent, Mike Brusa, issued a statement on the district website that “I asked the administration to contact parents again to see if there is {sic} any expectations from prior contact that have not been met. The Principal did so, and indicated the parents were satisfied that the situation had been handled.” Grammatical errors aside, the superintendent appears to be downplaying the serious nature of the discriminatory actions of one of his teachers.

This latest event echoes the infuriating treatment given to the five boys at Live Oaks High school a week or so ago, when they were suspended for wearing American flag T-shirts on May 5th…just because that might offend Mexican Americans celebrating Cinco de Mayo. At least there the principal, Nicholas Boden, took the time to issue a formal apology for the incident. I can understand his stated concern that the flag T-shirts might have been considered “incendiary” and could have resulted in a violent confrontation between students, but I still find it offensive that, rather than issue a statement to all students that everyone should respect each other’s patriotism and no confrontations over flags would be tolerated, he instead chose to punish American citizens for wearing flags because that day happened to correspond to a Mexican day of commemoration (not a holiday, as I think I’ve mentioned before).

It seems like a the whole situation was just a little crazy…but maybe I should not be surprised, since the “mascot” of Live Oaks is the Acorn, and the slogan on their home page is “Go Nuts!”

Forgive me for thinking that the entire state of California has gone just a little “nuts”. Maybe it’s the influence of the nutters in “Holly-weird” on the rest of the state.
  • “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane likened the law to Nazi Germany, saying “Nobody but the Nazis ever asked anyone for their papers.” Such a childishly stupid statement does not merit a response.
  • George Lopez joked that “Arizona, George Lopez is coming…Ooops…I just got pulled over…Apparently I fit the profile.. Gacho!!” Another idiotic comment that reveals the very limited ability of Hollywood stars to comprehend complex issues and comment intelligently.
  • The “brilliant” singer Ricky Martin stated that “Racial profiling should never be tolerated…” You’re right, Ricky, which is why the Arizona law explicitly forbade it.
  • Eva Longorea Parker whined that “The recent legislation in Arizona threatens to undermine basic notions of fairness.” Apparently, Eva does not think on her own, and simply parrots the falsehoods coming from Dear Leader Obama.
  • At least Jon Stewart’s idiotic take on the law is mildly amusing, saying that Arizona is “the meth lab of democracy”. Ha ha, Jon, that was almost funny. Maybe your writers should write jokes for President Obama!? Oh…yeah…they already did!

All this begs the question: what is the world is going on in this country? How have we gotten to the point that wearing an American flag is somehow "disrespectful"? How can a child's drawing of an American flag and the motto "God Bless America" be "offensive"? Since when can enforcing federal law be likened to "Nazi" policies? How can Hollywood even think about producing a film like Robert Rodriquez's "Machete" that glorifies a Mexican national attempting to assassinate US representatives?

***UPDATE***

Just when I thought I could go on to look at other topics, I see two more infuriating articles.

A high school girls' basketball team that won the opportunity to play at a tournament in Arizona has been told by their school district that they cannot go to Arizona because (as Assistant Superintendent Suzan Hebson told the Chicago Times) the trip “would not be aligned” with the school's “beliefs and values”.

And so-called experts in human rights from the United Nations have now issued a statement condemning the law--not for what it does--but what THEY think MIGHT happen as a result. According to the statement, "the law may lead to detaining and subjecting to interrogation persons primarily on the basis of their perceived ethnic characteristics." Apparently the "experts" didn't read the law, or they would know the law takes steps to prevent that happening. So it makes just as much sense to say that the law is excellent because it MAY result in terrorists being captured after crossing the border illegally.

But most important is this quote: the experts are concered about the "vague standards and sweeping language" of Arizona's law, saying it raised "serious doubts about the law's compatibility with relevant international human rights treaties to which the United States is a party."

This reveals the most insidious aspect of the United Nations: it pretends to usurp the sovereignty of United States Federal and State Laws. Since the state law simply echoes the already existing federal laws, and the UN had no problem apparently with those laws, there is no way the state law somehow violates UN agreements. But this is how the UN attempts to control the citizens of sovereign nations and force them to submit to the rules of world government.

No, thank you. We'll make our own decisions, thank you.

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