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Razing Arizona; or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Fascist America

April 30, 2010 in Civil Rights, Rants

Tough love, that is.

You may already be somewhat familiar with this story, as previously reported upon by ChillbearLatrigue, our resident man of the badge (police badge, that is, if you’re a slow one) in his delightfully satirical piece, Suspicious Sombreros.  The basics: last Friday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer emphatically signed into law a new illegal immigration bill, known by the ominously simple title of SB1070, that enables the Arizona law enforcement to detain anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant (just to be clear, I’m on team Walter [see Chillbear's article and comments to get this callback]) and would required those detained to produce evidence of citizenship.  To put it more enragingly, in Arizona you are now assumed an illegal immigrant until you prove otherwise.

It’s outrageous.  It’s unconstitutional.  It’s fascist.  I find it very ironic that a lot of the proponents and supporters of this legislation are the same one’s referring to our president as “Fuhrur Obama.”  So how do we, the reasonable and tolerant volk of America, vent our frustration?  Do we cry out in protest?  Do we angrily write passive-aggressive posts on the internet?  Do we join in a boycott of the state of Arizona?

I’ve called for boycotts of other states in the past.  You might remember the boycott of Oklahoma I pushed for in my piece on the state pushing through an abortion intimidation bill.  I remember considering writing a post calling for the boycott of South Dakota, but I didn’t and now can’t recall why (although I suspect it was also for some crazy abortion ban).  I’ve not written much about it here, but I also have a standing boycott of Southern California.  For personal reasons.  Long story.

So it may come as a surprise to you that I’m not calling for a boycott of Arizona (and it’s not because I have future family-in-law there).  Quite the opposite, in fact.  I encourage all in Arizona to stay there, and any who are planning on visiting to continue to plan to visit and also to encourage those who are willing and available to consider planning a trip to Arizona.

With one caveat, involving a sharpie and a t-shirt:

In whatever means you can, self identify as an illegal immigrant.  T-shirts, buttons, tattoos.  Start wearing the clothing, apparel and attire that the proponents of this bill purport to indicate an illegal immigrant.  Start acting like how you’d suspect the Arizona law enforcement suspects an illegal immigrant acts like.  Give the police every possible reason to suspect you of being an illegal immigrant and if they don’t detain you and ask you for your papers please, ask them why.  If they say you don’t look like an illegal immigrant, point to the shirt.  If they still don’t detain you, mutter something about them being a racist under your breath and when they sternly ask, “What did you say?” reply, “Nothing!” and when the officer replies, “That’s what I thought,” it’s time to walk away.  Even though the police force is caught up in all of this, we still ought to show them a certain degree of respect.

Of course, I’m not saying anyone should actually risk going to jail if they don’t want to.  Have some form of identification on you, so the entire encounter becomes a complete waste of time and resources on the side of the Arizona law enforcement.  That’s the idea, to waste the time and resources of the state of Arizona until they’ve either gotten sick of it or this new law becomes too expensive to continue.

This is the tough love I referred to.  Although it seems racism and prejudice are just as American as deep fried Twinkies and super size fries, fascism has always been something we’ve fought against, and we cannot let this illegal illegal immigration bill stand.  These United States are like 50 brothers.  Some have gone to college and on to other successful endeavors, while others are still struggling with sixth grade arithmetic.  Just like with real brothers, when you see your brother state making mistakes and terrible decisions, we need to wrap our arms around these brother states in a tough love embrace and whisper into their ear, calmly yet sternly, “Brother, you’re fucking up.  You’re fucking up right now.”  We do need some form of immigration reform, but brother, this ain’t it.

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  • http://wordsmoker.com/ BookishLookish

    S&P500, you are a heaping helping of awesome. But I still ain’t going to that arid land shedding its leathery country club dames and potbellied golfers.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/strawberry-shortcake/ Strawberry Shortcake

    Can we just give Arizona back the great country of Texas and be done with it.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/marshmueller/ marshmueller

    Haha! I will phone all my pasty relatives in Arizona and tell them to don their ponchos and sombreros when they drink Coronas on the streets. I sort of wish I was planning to visit AZ soon, but I really don’t feel like getting burned.

    The scary thing about this bill is that all the illegal immigrants will leave Arizona, but they’re not going to go South. They’re going to go to New Mexico. And Nevada. And so on. I only see two options: eradicate the bill (which I am highly in favor of…I never would have thought we would follow any sort of fascist regime), or all the states will slowly adopt similar laws to avoid a flood of illegal immigrants seeking refuge in their state.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/mama-penguino-2-2-2/ Mama Penguino

    Huh. I always thought of the 50 states as fun-loving sisters. In any event, I’ve been thinking this for several days, but don’t really have anything to back it up other than anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me that illegal immigrants are sort of okay in Kansas. I know the city of Great Bend has a large immigrant population and I’ve never heard or read anything negative about it other than how difficult it is to find interpreters for city services, etc. Mr. Penguino enjoyed the business of many illegals as clients as they were caught with cars full of pot while driving along I-70 near our town. Is it patronizing to say they were his best clients, with relatives driving in from Chihuahua with gifts of cheese and other items?

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    To begin with, thanks for the plugs, Samurai. I think that your piece really cuts to the heart of the matter. Didn’t we try the matching clothes thing once in our film Amigos! Amigos! Amigos!?

    You are right about fascism. Americans hate it when they recognize it for what it is. I have a few thoughts about why a bill like this could be passed in our freedom loving country. As usual, the two main culprits are fear and ignorance.

    A friend of mine posted her support of this bill in her Facebook status. I don’t have permission to quote it here, but I responded to it over there rather quickly. A number of people took her side of the argument, which was fine; I’m used to being outnumbered. Most of the explanations that I read were about Arizona being a land of chaos and that the affected people were illegally and couldn’t expect to be afforded the same constitutional protections that a citizen or resident alien could. In a strange way, I agree with this in part even if I’m not happy about the way Arizona has decided to deal with it. A small percentage of these illegals are committing a lot of crimes. Keep in mind that if 1% of the illegals are committing additional crimes to illegal entry, that is still amounts to over 100,000 criminals. After Mexico City, there are more kidnappings in Phoenix than anywhere else in the world. I don’t know what it’s like to live in Arizona, but I was in South Florida when Cuba emptied its prison cells into boats. It was an unpleasant time to be here, especially if you were a Cuban expatriate who arrived here ahead of the boat lift. Those people had it the toughest because the criminal elements settled in and around Little Havana.

    From what I read in the Facebook comments, a number of people never considered the broader repercussions of the law. The problem isn’t that the law violates the reduced rights of the 99% of illegals who aren’t committing other crimes (99% is still a made up percentage). The law violates the rights of anyone who gets caught in the enforcement net. As a cop, I am here to tell you all that the notion that this will not lead to racial profiling by necessity is laughable. Racial profiling is used in drug enforcement all of the time. When a cop sees a group of three or four white kids stuffed into a GTI driving through an African American neighborhood known for the sale of narcotics, he isn’t going to ignore what his eyes are telling him because he’s been told not to profile, but at least he knows that he is dealing with probabilities and not certainties.

    However, if his mission is looking for illegals along the Mexican border, he knows that he is only looking for latinos. So, he will drive around looking for cars with latin drivers or passengers and find a reason to stop it. Here is a free tip and WhyAmIHere can back me up on this: There is almost always a reason to stop a car. If the car is completely legal, the driving generally isn’t.

    @MamaP: I have some not so rosy stories about illegals. However, from a law enforcement standpoint, I haven’t had a lot of issues with them. Illegal immigrants never call us. If we are called its because someone witnessed the knife fight. I’ve been dispatched to two knife fights involving illegal immigrants. A few of them were deported. However, most of that community really just want want to work and be left alone.

    “50 states as fun-loving sisters”

    Florida is clearly a dude. I shouldn’t have to explain why.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/nefariousnewt/ NefariousNewt

    I appreciate that Arizona has trouble with illegal immigrants; this was not the solution. This is the literal fascism that so many in this country have thrown around casually as extra invective in their anti-Obama ranting. Has it really been so long since the U.S.S.R. and Nazi Germany that we forget that? Apparently so, because thanks to the great state of Texas, history has be re-written by the ignorant, and we are forced to repeat the mistakes of history because that history has been papered over.

    It starts with illegal immigrants. Then it will move on to Muslims. After that, homosexuals and the trans-gendered. It will become part of a systematic campaign to “cleanse” the country, at the expense of our individual freedom and liberty. Bad enough that people call the President a socialist or a fascist, when they remain eerily silent on the stripping away of privacy and rights that is The Patriot Act, or exhort the hunting of illegal immigrants, as if it is the next great sport.

    I never thought I’d see the day that Americans became so ignorant, so self-aggrandizing, so oblivious to reality, that they would gladly sign away the freedoms that so many in the 18th Century died for to bring to them. I never thought I’d see Americans stain the legacy of all those who fought and died for their freedom, by acceding to this wishes of a twisted, bigoted, and hypocritical minority in this nation, that never learned tolerance or human fellowship. I detest this law and all laws like it to the fiber of my being, because no one should be treated as a criminal by mere pretense, or worse, like an animal to be exterminated. This is not my America.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/whyamihere/ WhyamIhere?

    I agree with Chillbear that there is almost always a reason to stop a car.
    My take on this law is a little different. I’ll start with my position on immigration. I think that anyone that shows up should be able to fill out some forms and be let into the United States. There are always some exceptions: known terrorists, convicted criminals, genocidal maniacs, those who have demonstrated a wish to overthrow the US Government, etc. I also think these reasons should allow noncitizens to be deported, swiftly and with little fanfare.

    Now back to the Arizona law. I think this will have very little impact. I understand that many people are afraid it will be abused but the part they are most worried about is the part that allows officers to ask for proof of citizenship when they have reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien. This could definitely be abused. My problem with worrying too much about this is that the police officers can do this now under the federal law. The big difference will be that once they identify an illegal alien they will now be able to detain them in the local jail rather than turning them over to Immigration. The Phoenix Police Chief even said it will offer his department no new enforcement tools.

    Some police officers and police administrators will be for this and some will be against it. Either way there are not thousands of extra local police officers around to work on this. They will still have there other duties to take care of and this will be ancillary. It will look like there is an increase in immigration enforcement since people will be detained under the new law rather than the federal law but I do not think it will have much impact at the enforcement level. It will have its greatest impact in what it has already done by bringing the debate about immigration to the forefront.