The governor of Arizona, a Republican woman named Janice Brewer, signed a bill into law last week that will allow law enforcement agents in her state to arrest people for breaking the law.
That’s what I call “edgy” policy-making, no?
In the minds of our progressive-liberal friends on the Left, the crime of entering the United States of America illegally pales in comparison to the seemingly unforgivable transgression of pointing out that entering the United States of America illegally is, well – illegal.
Unfortunately for all of us, one of the loudest critics of we illegal immigration “whistle-blowers” happens to be the Commander-in-Chief and 44th president of those same United States of America.
Barack Obama, a man sworn to defend the Constitution, to uphold the integrity of our republic, to defend our borders, shows more public disdain and disapproval when one of the nation’s 50 executive leaders legislatively declares that circumventing the law is no longer a tolerable option, than he does about Iranian and North Korean nuclear “activities.”
The actions by the Arizona legislature threaten “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans,” Obama said.Really? How so? With all due and proper respect for a Community Organizer of President Obama’s stature, what in the world could be more unfair than to allow more than 11 million people to get away with breaking America’s laws? How fair do you think it is to the millions waiting (and desperate) to get into the U.S. legally?
“Surely we can all agree that when 11 million people in our country are living here illegally, outside the system, that’s unacceptable,” Obama said. “The American people demand and deserve a solution.”But only if that solution doesn’t involve any of those pesky American people, clinging to their “guns and religion”, deciding for themselves how best to deal with the “unacceptable” problem, right? Those yahoos can’t be trusted with a spork to eat their mashed potatoes at KFC, let alone with decisions pertaining to the legal, cultural and economic fate of their beloved nation.
What happened to the Man of Hope who, according to he and his wife Michelle, wasn’t going to allow us to “sit on the sidelines” anymore? How can the politician interested in getting people on the local and community levels involved in the political process now be upset that a state (full of people living in local communities) is handling the immigration matter in-house?
Is President Obama tearing down the actions of concerned citizens with “a lot of talking”?
Here’s the message I’ve been receiving from Washington D.C. for the last four years regarding illegal immigration: The decisions of individual citizens, municipalities, counties, and states can’t be trusted (or possibly be fair), but the same people who brought you FEMA, Fannie and Freddie, the public education system that is ranked 35th in Math and 29th in Science in the world, and the “Cash for Clunkers” program last summer will set crooked paths straight, right every wrong, and wipe every tear from every illegal immigrants eye…eventually. (Just stop trying to fix things on your own, you tax-paying, law-abiding, meddling twits.)
“Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others,” Obama said. “That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona.”Absolutely true, Mr. President: the legislative and executive branches of our federal government have thoroughly failed the American taxpayer by their dereliction of duty to deal with the out-of-control border situation and immigration dilemma.
But my question is this: Why does it always have to be Big Brother that corrects every important problem in every area of the country? Why should a state like AZ trust you, President Obama, to be any more serious about addressing the unsustainable situation we’re currently facing than previous leaders?
Why is the default position always, no matter what, that the federal government needs to come in and “fix” things? Especially in light of the fact that it has been Big Brother’s unwavering unwillingness to act that has led to an exodus of upwards of 20 million undocumented, law-breaking people to our shores.
The conservative king himself, Ronald Reagan, mistakenly thought that the illegal immigration problem could be fixed with amnesty at the federal level in 1986 when only about 1 million people were involved. President Reagan was led to believe that if he gave out a few “Get out of having to return to the country you swam through shark-infested waters to get to America from” Cards back then, it would motivate legislators at the federal and state levels to “get serious” about border enforcement so we would be safer and more secure by now.
Errrrr. Wrong.
When you incentivize illegal behavior, then reward it by refusing to punish the wrong-doers, who in their right mind thinks that the illegal behavior will not continue (and, as we’ve witnessed the past twenty years, exponentially expand)? If I lived in a hell-hole of a country, with a corrupt government and abysmal economy, and I knew that I could come to the United States, get work, avoid any sort of legal repercussions for my illegality, and have politicians fighting over who could get me on the welfare’s dole quicker (so they could stay in office), I would absolutely make the same choice to do whatever it takes to get here.
But what makes the United States of America a country worth risking your life to come to isn’t just a stronger economy or free health care from your increasingly-bloated Uncle Sam. Those things are only even possible because of something we used to like to call, “the rule of law.” Nations don’t become prosperous and then decide to look into “that whole 'protecting ourselves and our property rights' thing.”
We are worth escaping to for the very things that allowing millions of foreigners to enter our borders illegally undermine and deteriorate.
The “we’re all immigrants” mantra that well-meaning people regurgitate in hopes that no one will actually ask them to think about their position on the immigration problem leaves out the fairly important word “legal” between “all” and “immigrants.”
And now, in light of the failures of Reagan’s 1986 Amnesty, and a crystal-clear track-record of the federal government being unable and unwilling to tackle the immigration issue in a way that doesn’t include Amnesty, and with anywhere between 11-20 million illegals already among us, we’re supposed to believe that the answer is to give the federal government another college-professor try?
Your position on the immigration problem is what is really wrong, President Obama, not just the methods you want to employ in solving it.
When congress attempted to force amnesty down the American people’s throats back in 2006, the nation responded in force by flooding Capitol Hill with calls, letters, emails, faxes, and, if Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) ever got them, a few of my favorite carrier pigeons.
America’s message to the philosopher-kings in Washington: Get real, clowns. We’re not racists, but we’re not suckers either. You padding your voter-base with 20 million new, appreciative, potential ballot-casters at the expense of the country’s economic, legal and health care system are the kind of “change” societal destruction can conceive in.
If all it takes for me to be granted citizenship (and be eligible for welfare entitlements) is that I promise my eventual vote to a politician, I won’t have to hire Lewis and Clark to explore uncharted territories to find me a willing accomplice in congress.
By wrapping the immigration issue (and themselves) in moral terms, by presenting the issue as a “Lovers of immigrants vs. Haters of immigrants,” the White House and racially-charged groups like La Raza (backed by a progressive-Left, sympathetic media) clearly have their sights set on a new and the-opposite-of-improved version of the 2006 amnesty bill. To suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest.
The insinuation of President Obama’s negative reaction to the new law in Arizona is that our law enforcement agents are too racist to handle the responsibility of arresting perpetrators of illegal behavior (in any and all forms).
The only other conclusion, if that one does not strike your fancy, is that the administration and leadership in congress are radical Leftist ideologues who believe so deeply in growing the size and control of the federal government that facts, figures, history and the prevailing sentiments of the American people are nothing more than obstacles in the way of a utopian vision we’ll thank them for when it’s finished.
I love that we live in a nation people want to come to. The immigrants that I have had the distinct pleasure of working with in various odd jobs growing up have always been the hardest working employees. Many of them are here to send funds back to relatives who need money in their native lands. But none of that changes the fact that we need REAL change in our approach to our borders and immigration policy at the federal and state levels.
Send more troops and guards to our borders. Grant more work visas. Make English the official language of the country. Encourage all states to have their law enforcement agents check for the same identification I have to show at the nearly-extinct Blockbuster Video by my house. Incentivize lawful actions by your citizenry and those hoping to come and work and/or live here.
Fair = judging someone by the content of their character.
Fair = punishing all law-breakers the same.
Fair = upholding the Constitution you ensured voters in January of 2009 you would “protect and defend.”
Arizona acted out of necessity. Is the law perfect? By no means. Few laws are.
But here is what we know: the border is out of control, businesses fear little reprisal for hiring illegals, the federal government has done its best to convince us all to join a local Tea Party, and the nation is in a fiscal mess. In that environment, for a state like Arizona to make a decision on how best they will address the concerns they have in-state seems entirely reasonable to me.
We here at AVITW will monitor the AZ law, and if there are aspects of it that we don't care for, or if there are abuses perpetrated under the cover of it, we'll be unafraid to highlight them for you, the reader.
Our intent is not to tell you what to think, but simply to remind you to think, and think hard, about what kind of city, state, and country you want to live in (and hope to leave for your children).
A Voice In The Wilderness
