Your Papers And Other Nonsense

The opposition has reached a fever pitch on the Arizona law now, with media outlets readily parroting the notion of 'showing your papers' and extreme racial profiling being the result. Why? Because that phrase conjures up all the scariest images of Nazi Germany or the Communist Soviet Union. We've already talked a lot about this, but it appears that this issue isn't going away any time soon. There's a really good reason for that, but we'll get to that in a moment. First, let's take a look at a bit more commentary.

First, it's interesting to note that the Governor of Arizona has seen a HUGE leap in the polls -- 16 points -- since signing this bill into law. Though a couple of Arizona cities are planning to fight the law, other states seem to be taking Arizona's actions as an example, too. Lawmakers in Texas are planning to bring forward a bill much like Arizona's. In California, lawmakers are talking about the inherent problems of anchor baby citizenship:

Representative Duncan Hunter wants to deport the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

Hunter, who spoke at a tea party gathering in Ramona Saturday, said he does not believe children born to illegal immigrant parents should get automatic U.S. citizenship.

“We’re not being mean,” he told the crowd. “We’re just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen.”

Our media partner the North County Times confirmed the statements when a reporter spoke with Hunter Tuesday.

The congressman, whose district includes parts of Poway and Ramona in North County, told the paper that it makes sense that if the parents of illegal immigrant children are deported, that their children go with them. Hunter said he also supports a bill, House Resolution 1868, that would eliminate automatic citizenship for those children.

Amen to that! There are other states looking at similar measures, too.

Ironically, the AP is now reporting that angry illegal immigrants are pledging to leave Arizona. My first thought: cool, it worked immediately! If all 50 states passed a law like this, we would apparently resolve 100% of illegal immigration instantly and without having to deport a single person! My second thought: how is it that the Left insists that we cannot possibly even consider mass deportations because we couldn't possibly even find all these illegal immigrants...and yet, that same Left is always -- ALWAYS -- able to dig up an illegal or two every time they want to write an article about how horrible it is that American citizens think that the laws of America should be obeyed. Just sayin' you can't have it both ways...

Anyway, Byron York knocks it out of the park with a blistering critique of a Washington Post columnist's whine-fest (emphasis mine):

In the Washington Post, columnist and former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson pronounces the new Arizona immigration law "understandable -- and dreadful." Gerson says states do not have the authority "to take control of American immigration policy -- an authority that Arizona has seized in order to abuse." The effect of the new law, he argues, will be bad for everybody:

It makes it harder for illegal immigrants to live without scrutiny -- but it also makes it harder for some American citizens to live without suspicion and humiliation. Americans are not accustomed to the command "Your papers, please," however politely delivered. The distinctly American response to such a request would be "Go to hell," and then "See you in court."

Which leads to the question: What America is Gerson living in? No, we are not confronted by actors with heavy German accents demanding our papers. We are instead confronted routinely by people of all stripes asking to see our driver's license. When we board an airplane, we are asked to produce a government-issued photo ID, usually a driver's license. When we make some credit- or debit-card purchases in department stores, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we enter many office buildings, both private and government, security guards often ask us to produce a driver's license. When we go to doctors' offices and hospitals, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we check into hotels, we are asked to produce a driver's license. When we purchase some over-the-counter drugs, we are asked to produce a driver's license. If we go to a bar or nightclub, anyone who looks at all young is asked to produce a driver's license. And needless to say, if we have any encounter with police or other authorities, we are asked to produce a driver's license.

Some situations involve an even higher level of scrutiny. When we get a new job, we are asked to provide not a driver's license but a passport or birth certificate to prove citizenship. In other situations, too: When I renewed my District of Columbia driver's license last year, I had to produce a passport to prove citizenship, even though it was a valid, unexpired license I was renewing. And in many places, buying a gun -- a constitutionally-protected right -- involves enormous scrutiny.

Has Michael Gerson never experienced any of those situations? And by the way, has he read the Arizona law? Does he know that it specifically states that in any encounter with police, when a person produces a valid Arizona driver's license (or, for non-drivers, other forms of ID listed in the law), that person is immediately presumed to be in the United States legally? Given all the situations listed above, can anyone argue that being asked to produce a driver's license, if one is in some sort of encounter with police in which police are acting lawfully (that is also specified by the new law) is overly burdensome? Being asked to produce identification is a burden that falls on everyone.

That is simply a fact of life today. Many of the situations in which we are asked to produce ID are the result of laws passed by our representatives, Democrats and Republicans, that are, overall, good things. But they require Americans to produce their papers, in the form of a driver's license, quite frequently. If Americans responded with "Go to hell" and "See you in court" each time they were asked to produce their license, both hell and court would be very crowded.

P.S. -- All the discussion above relates to people who are American citizens. In addition to the situations requiring a driver's license, some people might not know that since the 1940s, federal law has required non-citizens who are in the United States permanently to carry on their person, at all times, the official documents proving that they are here legally -- green card, work visa, etc. That has been the law for 70 years, and the new Arizona law does not change it.

So can we please drop the scary images of Nazis and Communists? Rush Limbaugh suggested on his radio program that the behavior of the Obama administration has been far more thuggish and Nazi/Communist-like over the past year, what with the takeover of private car and insurance companies, unconstitutional brute force legislative tactics to confiscate 17% of the American economy and 100% of the American health care system, anti-transparency on all manner of issues, the generation of crisis after crisis simply to expand government power, governing against the will of the people on most of the major issues, and so on. It's a good point, if we're going to be discussing Nazi/Communist behavior, I think.

And how about that lame argument about 'fairness'? It's hogwash:

Democrats say that they're in favor of everything being fair. Let me ask this. How is it fair to legal immigrants that have taken all the necessary steps to become legal citizens for years to grant everybody legal benefits even if they aren't legal and have cheated the system? What is fair? If we're going to use fairness let's throw it right back in their face. What about any of this is fair? Isn't it funny, ladies and gentlemen? Isn't it funny how much we heard about the need to cut our health care spending? But neither Obama nor any of the Democrats ever suggested that providing health care services for millions of noncitizens was ever once mentioned as part of the problem. In fact, wouldn't part of our new era of fiscal responsibility notice how many billions of taxpayer dollars are being spent on illegal aliens who are getting costly services that they are not paying for? We've got this big blue ribbon commission with Irksome Bowles and Alan Simpson. They're going to recommend all these Draconian steps, we've gotta get the deficit under control.

We never, ever hear anybody say, in this era of fiscal responsibility, about all the billions of taxpayer dollars that are being spent on illegals. And, of course, ladies and gentlemen, wouldn't anybody who is turning his laser-like focus on providing jobs for Americans, wouldn't that person notice that there would be a lot more jobs available for our citizens if there were not so many noncitizens here illegally? Obama loves to talk about the need for people to have skin in the game, doesn't he? How do illegal aliens have skin in the game? They don't. That's social injustice.

And we can't have social injustice, you know. Damn the consequences, we CANNOT HAVE SOCIAL INJUSTICE!!!

Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's site observes an interesting contradiction:

Obama has blasted the new Arizona illegal alien law that 70% of Arizona votors favor as “poorly conceived” before his justice has even finished its review (a “poorly conceived” law to the Obama administration being one that the signatory actually took the time to read). But in the same speech, Obama also said that illegals shouldn’t be harrassed with requests for papers, but rather the US should “make them register, make them pay a fine, make them learn English.”

And exactly how do we know who needs to register without checking IDs? Naturally, Obama doesn’t mean any of it — except maybe the “register” part. I have no doubt the goal is to get illegals to register… as Democrat voters.

As a Senator, Obama voted “no” on making English the official language for the US government. If Obama doesn’t care if I can understand what the clerk at the DMV is saying when I’m trying to renew my driver’s license (which I have to produce papers for, by the way), I seriously doubt he cares if a construction worker in Tuscon can speak English.

The “wink, nudge” factor from this speech yesterday in Iowa is enough to knock you off your chair — and if that doesn’t do it, you’ll fall off the chair laughing

That really brings us to the core of the issue: why do the Democrats insist with an almost religious zeal that we allow unchecked and rampant illegal immigration, even at the expense of our own safety, security, and economic health?

Because this is their only hope for winning elections.

If Democrats were completely honest about their beliefs, intentions, and plans for governing America, they would never win. As usual, Rush Limbaugh explains it best:

Drop.io

And just to clarify...

Drop.io

Bingo. Need a real-world example of how this affects you? Rush supplies again:

"A Federal immigration probe in 1996 into alleged motor vote fraud in California's Orange County revealed that 4,023 illegal voters possibly cast ballots in the disputed election between Robert Dornan and Loretta Sanchez for Congress." Dornan lost that race by fewer than one thousand votes, and there were alleged to be 4,000 illegal votes. That is the point.

So there you have it. But, if you're a long-time reader of this blog, you knew that already.

The icing on the cake, of course, is that under the new DemCare regime, everyone will be required to 'show their papers' to prove they have insurance and avoid the insurance enforcement tax and legal prosecution by the IRS...everyone except illegal immigrants, that is.

Go figure.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Deconstructing the outrage
Brilliant liberals boycott Arizona brand drink products...without realizing it's based in New York