Posted on 05/01/2010 7:09:11 PM PDT by Kaslin
The last few days have seen an extraordinary outburst of criticism of Arizona’s new immigration law. In the nation’s elite media outlets, its most respected commentators are portraying the law as an act of police-state repression. Many, if not all, of the specific criticisms can be refuted simply by reading the law itself, but others are more generalized criticisms of immigration enforcement. In any event, it’s hard to choose the most over-the-top and wrongheaded commentary on the law, but here are ten choices, in no particular order. (If you don’t know why a particular statement is wrong, you can check here, and here, and here, and here.)
1. “The statute requires police officers to stop and question anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant.”
2. “As the Arizona abomination makes clear, there is a desperate need for federal immigration action to stop the country from turning into a nation of vigilantes suspicious of anybody with dark skin.”
– Dana Milbank, Washington Post
3. “I can’t imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Here’s the rest:
4. “This law creates a suspect class, based in part on ethnicity, considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent. 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.’”
– Michael Gerson, Washington Post
5. “In case the phrase ‘lawful contact’ makes it appear as if the police are authorized to act only if they observe an undocumented-looking person actually committing a crime, another section strips the statute of even that fig leaf of reassurance. ‘A person is guilty of trespassing,’ the law provides, by being ‘present on any public or private land in this state’ while lacking authorization to be in the United States — a new crime of breathing while undocumented.”
– Linda Greenhouse, New York Times
(Greenhouse’s “trespassing” allegation was based on an early version of the Arizona bill that was not the bill that became law. Her mistake was later removed from the Times site, but you can see original version here.)
6. “Federal law treats illegal immigration as a civil violation; Arizona law criminalizes it by using the legally dubious mechanism of equating the mere presence of undocumented immigrants with trespassing.”
– Washington Post editorial
(This editorial makes the same mistake as Linda Greenhouse’s “trespassing” column above.)
7. “I am saddened today at the prospect of a young Hispanic immigrant in Arizona going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring her passport and immigration documents with her. I cannot be dispassionate about the fact that the very act of her being in the grocery store will soon be a crime in the state she lives in…An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being.”
– Bishop Desmond Tutu, Huffington Post
(Tutu is perhaps relying on the erroneous information in the New York Times and Washington Post above.)
8. “It harkens back to apartheid where all black people in South Africa were required to carry documents in order to move from one part of town to another.”
– Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on ABC’s “This Week”
9. “You can imagine, if you are a Hispanic American in Arizona…suddenly, if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed.”
– President Barack Obama
10. “This week, Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country which will allow police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. I know there’s some people in Arizona worried that Obama is acting like Hitler, but could we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying ‘Show me your papers?’ There’s never been a World War II movie that didn’t include the line ’show me your papers.’ It’s their catchphrase. Every time someone says ’show me your papers,’ Hitler’s family gets a residual check. So heads up, Arizona; that’s fascism. I know, I know, it’s a dry fascism, but it’s still fascism
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/top-10-dumbest-things-said-about-the-arizona-immigration-law-92577964.html#ixzz0mjjgDOTV
Apparently, actual reading of a law is not necessary in order to offer “informed” criticism as in the Arizona case, or even to vote for and fully endorse a bill such as the Healthcare monstrosity.
“– Cardinal Roger Mahony
4. “This law creates a suspect class, based in part on ethnicity, considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent. 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.’”
Judgement day,God: “ Anything to fill the coffers, eh Cardinal? “
nice...
“Each will be issued a water bottle, a nightstick and a whistle to signal for help.”
LOL, I thought basically this same thing myself.
And it’s no picnic up here in NJ, the elites just close their eyes to it.
Right now we have an illegal alien on trial for brutally killing 3 college students in a school yard in Newark. The one gal who miraculously survived has been unshakable on the witness stand. so far no clear “motive” has been determined.
In Jersey City we also had the unlovely situation of the illegal alien who was engaged in a years long sexual assault of his own daughter. The daughter gave birth to not one, but two, babies who she threw down the shaftway to die.
Now we folks in NJ can pay to give that evil man three hots and a cot for the rest of his natural life.
NO AMNESTY-CLOSE THE BORDER!
Ping!
Here’s a top ten list you won’t see on the Letterman show.
As usual, when someone does the right thing; the nutjobs come out screaming and whining their deluded crap.
This is one of the worse cases of hysterical lying I’ve ever seen from the left.
These are not the words of an educated, articulate leader. These are the words of a street punk. I wonder how he ever got the reputation for being a great orator, when he speaks like this when unscripted.
Went to a counter rally yesterday and as we were leaving some young illegal alien supporters were walking ahead of us.
One of them was handed a pamplet by a street vendor. He took, it looked at it, and promptly threw it on the ground.
I loudly said, "Hey, Nice way to litter this country." and I picked it up and threw it away.
I'm sick to death of their trash!
Great pic. Great sign. Thanks!
I too am sick of picking up litter on my very busy city street. We deer hunted in Sonora Mexico right across the border from AZ a few years ago. The small towns we drove through were completely devoid of litter. I have never seen such clean towns anywhere. Other parts of our border are covered in trash on both sides.
Absolute nonsense.
Virtually every country I have ever traveled to has asked for my passport (papers). And when we went to Italy a couple of years ago, if you stay at any place longer that three days, you or your hotel has to register your name with the local police.
Dear Comrade Leader is a complete moron.
And wt_ is his obsession with eating junk food, in particular ice cream?? His only job that we know of was at an ice cream stand, where he gave away the store’s profits.... He’s always shoveling food in his mouth, etc. Not that I don’t love ice cream, but he seems to have some OCD over it.
You can not visit another country without a passport. Perhaps the Europeans can visit each other in their counties, but they do have to have some form of identifications on them
As I said to someone who posted this article on FB, it is pretty bad when there are 9 so-called columnists and religious and community leaders who manage to say something “dumber” than what was in a SNL script......
I am not sure what you mean? What article are you talking about, and who was the one who posted in FR?
Roger Hedgecock on radio 600 San Diego suggested the republicans should announce the 2012 convention will be in Phoenix. Good stuff.
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