re: #392 Spare O’Lake

The feds have failed to control your border with Mexico for so long that it is now completely out of control. There are now two main viewpoints - one is the view that is willing to tolerate the status quo so long as the drug cartels and criminal gangs can somehow be dealt with; the other view is that the borders must once and for all finally be sufficiently secured to allow the existing illegals to be documented without millions more illegals pouring in to repeat the past folly as happenned after 1978.
The AZ law is indeed a desperation move by one state which aims to fill the vacuum left by the federal government’s abrogation of its responsibility to uphold the laws of the land. Sure it is a blunt edged instrument which raises legitimate concerns on behalf of all citizens and legal immigrants who percieve a threat to their civil rights. But for the majority of the people of Arizona, this law seems to carry risks which they are willing to take in order to give their own police the authority to try to deal with the problem.
If left isolated and on its own, Arizona will almost surely fail to solve the problem of dealing with its undocumented population, because for one thing it would need to secure not only the international border but also all the State lines as well. However, the desperate hope has to be that the other border States will follow suit and/or the feds will finally enforce the existing laws and secure the border.

I disagree with almost all of this, and I’ve explained why, extensively, over the past several days. Most of all I disagree with the characterization of Arizona as a desperate, besieged outpost.

I recall all of this same rhetoric being used to pass and then support Prop. 187. It was dishonest then, it’s dishonest now.

Eh.