Recently three fundamentally important issues arose which speak to how dramatically the US electorate has fallen away from understanding their basic liberties. It is indeed a sorry state of affairs.
1. In Arizona, a law was passed which would allow police to request identification from anyone they come into contact with. The average American, by a margin of roughly 60-40, approves of such a law to combat illegal immigration.
What they fail, it seems, to recognize is that the police could presumably detain anyone not carrying identification even if they are a US Citizen. Importantly, since you are not required to carry identification to simply walk the street, you could be held for not carrying something you don't have to carry. Immigrants are required to carry identification, but there is no way to tell an immigrant from a citizen unless you unlawfully profile and therefore discriminate against one section of the population. If you, why is such a profile right? Either way, it will setup a situation where people will start carrying and presenting identification to police when it is effectively a constitutionally guaranteed liberty that you not do so and don't have to.
2. Likewise, and on a related topic, I was recently talking to a friend about immigration. He said he's just fine with stripping citizenship from the children of illegal immigrants and preventing any children of illegal immigrants from being given citizenship in the future. This would overturn a premise that our Founders fundamentally believed in, namely that anyone born here has the right to stay here and is a citizen. It would also overturn citizenship guarantees in the 14th amendment. Fortunately such a change would require a Constitutional Amendment, but it speaks to the myopia and ignorance regarding our fundamental freedoms which Americans of today seem to have about same freedoms. As well, my friend DG points out that there are only 4000 (approx). so called "anchor babies" allowed to stay in the US per year. Consequently, we appear to be willing to muddy the Constitution and worry about the costs of 4000 children per year, or from the ages of 0-18, a grand total of 72,000 people. That's hardly the student population of even one city, yet we'll belly-ache incecantly about the cost.
When I confronted my friend about the fact that it would overturn 230 years (or so) of past Constitutional practice, as well as fly in the face of how we did things for his parents and grandparents, he didn't care. The comment was, "Well then we should change it, it should go back to the way it was before where people went through the process." Now, notwithstanding that prior to about 1860 there was no process, this comment, from a conservative, and presumably a constructionist, flies in the face of preserving the framer's intent - but to heck with ideals, if the basic rights of those darned (whomever we don't like today) get in our way, strip their liberties!
3. On another front, a Proposition was passed (Prop 8) in California which would have put the government directly into churches, demanding and requiring that those churches not perform weddings for gay and lesbian couples. There was no fundamental liberty being protected by Prop 8, there was no imminent danger or harm, this was (in my opinion) quite intrusive and overreaching act violating both the (non)establishment clause and the idea of keeping government out of dictating to churches what is permissible and what isn't when no other law governed the underlying conduct. No matter, the same people who bemoan how government is "attacking" Christianity were all well and good with using government to attack some Christian churches in order to advance their own fundamentalism. "Government shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor preventing the free expression thereof" obviously only counts if it is protecting "me" but not you. Again, the Californians who voted for this travesty (and seemingly more than 50% did) apparently didn't seem to care about equal protection under the law nor care overmuch about unwarranted separate but equal requirements. To heck with the Constitution or so it seems.
One more thing, on the immigration front, those who belly-ache about the issue, when you are ready to pay 30% more for your products at the grocery store, Target, or Walmart (or CostCo) o a host of other stores, and when you are ready to make-up the shortfall which property and sales taxes paid by those illegal immigrants make-up in our society far beyond what they receive in benefits (in California, for example, they contribue 10 times in taxes what they receive in benefits), then I'll think you're serious about solving this issue. Until you are ready to pass laws making penalties for employment of illegal immigrants severe and to see them really enforced, you just seem to be again trying to find (yet again) one more poor, powerless group to blame for your troubles but without actually being willing to pay the price to fix the problem (including higher costs for produce and higher taxes). You pretend to be troubled, and you pretend this is an "important" and serious problem, but you aren't willing to do anything other than (seemingly) persecute those who are most powerless and least to blame. We want cheap produce, we create demand and companies fill that demand.
All in all, our understanding of actual economic realities and of the fundamental liberties being violated and cast aside is appalling. I am chagrined at how easily we seem to fling such things as due process, prevention of warrantless intrusion, equal protection, and even the golden beacon of what being and becoming a citizen entails. We are willing to toss them all aside simply because we are fearful, or resentful. We should be and are concerned for our country and our jobs, but stripping the rights of some to address a problem which fundamentally lies entirely elsewhere anyway, will solve nothing and could irreparably hurt our liberties in the future if our judicial branch doesn't correctly stop it (as Judge Walker did with Prop 8). A better solution would be for Americans to be far more conversant on subjects like civics and to be aware not just of the text, but of the meaning and purpose behind the text.
Unfortunately, the state of most American's education concerning basic civics, and even the basics of American government is pathetic. Most native born citizens probably could not pass the citizenship test given to prospective citizens. To see if you could, you can see the questions at this link: Citizenship Test
ReplyDeleteActually you would not have to carry id. If you can give name and birthdate to the police they can look you up. And from reading comments from some law enforcement about 95% of checking immigration status comes from traffic stops and there are laws that say you have to carry a drivers license in every state if you drive. I still don't see the big deal about the Arizona law, the police could not do anything unless they detained you for another criminal act. Most police depts in the southwest US already check immigration status if they take you to jail and you don't have id, which is why I thought the law unneccessary in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThere is another reason for the law Tuck, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with actual need for this 'papers please' law.
ReplyDeleteTurns out this dovetails neatly with a current push by the republicans to privatize the AZ prison system. The WHOLE prison system.
By creating a system which puts a lot more federal prisoners in that privatized system, even just temporarily while checking immigration status, AZ could bill the federal government for a lot of money - some estimates are as high as $3 billion. That money would go to the pockets not of the state of AZ, but the private operators.
No surprise - the private prison opeprators are behind the scenes of the papers please legislation and squarely inside Governor Brewer's staff.
There is NO crisis in Arizona - the number of illegals is down, crime is down, deportations of illegals is far higher than under any recent president. There are NO decapitated bodies in the AZ desert, nor is Phoenix or any other city in Arizona any kind of kidnap capital - of the state, nation, or world.
But is IS a great way to exploit the fears on the right in order to manipulate the base for greed-- taking the low information rest of the national population along with them through deliberate exaggeration and gross misinformation.
Tuck,
ReplyDeleteIn an earlier article, I discussed in detail the fundamental flaws with the Arizona law, and why the judge held that it is facially unconstitutional. The fact is, although we agree, US Citizens do not have to carry ID, a police officer does not even have the right to demand that you prove who you are unless you have been lawfully detained.
I have not seen any indication on the numbers of police departments which routinely check immigration status. However, the Arizona law which required a check of citizenship status on everyone who was arrested, (or presumably even ticketed), placed impermissible burdens on the federal government, which regardless of the claims of such experienced legal scholars like Sean Hannidy and Faux News, still has complete and sole authority to regulate immigration.