Really? It’s All About Crime?

Judges are interesting people. In this country, a judge is supposed to be able to get beyond the politics of an action and determine if the action is amenable with the spirit of the constitution. This is really interesting stuff. Interpretation is always open to disagreement and, occasionally, sparks political, religious and social outrage.

One thinks of Roe vs. Wade, school prayer, gun control (or lack of it) and the Equal Rights Amendment as issues that have affected the baby boomer generation. Each of these topics has engendered protest, counter protest and even physical confrontation. Religion has played an impolitic role in much of this, with fundamentalists, Catholics, obscure sects and even perverse cults maneuvering to influence the courts.

Today, there is the movement for same-sex marriage, immigration (or the exclusion of it) and extreme political ideologies concentrated on taxation and federal imposition of law on the separate states. These, too, portend social unrest.

But most of these issues are conservative/liberal ideological lines in the proverbial political sand. Our so-called forefathers, who are insipidly praised by current political figures, never digressed for a moment on the particular intricacies of the above debates. Most of it is covered by broad strokes of the conceptual pen.

The exception here is the disaster taking place in the state of Arizona. Its immigration law, as enacted, was so unconstitutional that it had to be largely rewritten simply to pass minimal muster in court, where it was sure to be challenged. Still, concepts that largely impose upon law officers to profile a large portion of the populace, survived in the bill. Related legislation in Arizona also prohibits studies of an ethnic nature and restricts schools from dallying in languages other than English. Copycat politicians all over the south promised similar legislation to enable various states to impose new demands on already stressed law enforcement entities which would distract them from their real purpose – to deter crime.

Most conservative viewers have embraced the new law(s) as a means to (1) reduce crime, (2) free up jobs for citizens and (3) reduce the load placed upon social services, hospitals and schools that such unfettered immigration might provoke. Of course, even a cursory inspection of FBI data shows that border states have experienced a significant reduction in all types of crime. Ethnic studies were largely offered to exceptional students and it is this type of student that suffers. The large influx of immigrants actually expands the economic base in the sense that someone has to provide services for these people. They must attend school, eat food, worship and find housing. They need health care, clothing and other services that require various levels of expertise. In short, it is a gold mine in economic terms.

So what is the matter Arizona? Texas? Oklahoma? Why would anyone want to limit or reverse a situation that was enriching it? Opportunities abound. Instead, the really angry ones lash out with something somewhat more perverse than law.

It represents little more than an unsightly racial attitude. It extends to everyone from Barack Obama to the smallest immigrant who wouldn’t be here unless some greedy American hired him to work for wages far inferior here, but significantly higher than those offered in their homeland.

There is absolutely no economic incentive for an immigration law that would stigmatize our law officers by forcing them to sweep for illegal aliens. Bigotry and maniacal laws meant to institutionalize that bigotry should have no place in exceptional countries. Since we seem to be willing to elect extremist crazies to political office at an alarming rate, it becomes incumbent upon the courts to sort out the perverse from legislation intended to harm others regardless of whether it is offered in the same of God, our forefathers, or to narrow minds that seem to fester everywhere these days.