Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Lawmakers prepare legislation to deny citizenship for anchor babies

Once again the editors tip their racist hand with this headline. Using the framing and terminology of extremism shows the careful reader that you're in bed with extremists. (Notice that "anchor babies" does not appear anywhere in this AP story.)

What the editors should have added is that Senator Pearce is the leading contender to be Senate President for the next two years and likely longer. Not only will this hateful extremist continue peddling his bile, most of which will be thrown out by the courts after long and expensive litigation, he will be setting and enforcing the agenda for the entire Legislature. We're facing an ugly future here.

10 comments:

Jon said...

Thought you would enjoy this quote from "Arizona Constitution and Government" which you can find in the Prescott Library. It's important to look at history and see what is causing all this hatred, I think the core issues should be addressed. I think we should get to the core issues that is causing all this hate. I consider the core issues to be socialism, the war on drugs, bad trade policy (we don't have free trade), etc.

Voting Non-Citizens

"Until the Constitution of 1910, Arizona allowed aliens to vote if they were residents. This practice was fairly common, especially in the western states, where actual citizenship was often not a matter of great concern. Even the United States government had little interest in the matter until the Fourteenth Amendment was passed after the Civil War. Until 1917, it was fairly easy to enter the country legally and the question of citizenship was not stressed."

Steven Ayres said...

What is causing "all this hate," as you put it, is obvious, clear, and none of what you imagine. It's much simpler than that, and it's purely emotional, not logical in any way.

For a certain segment of every society, accelerating societal change is deeply frightening. These people feel that they're losing their grip on what they value and they cannot adapt, so they react by trying to stop change or even rewind change to the sort of world they remember as comfortable. They invariably reject any responsibility of their own for creating the conditions that cause change, and they react with anger toward those who are better able to adapt and embrace it. They trope to simple answers, like religious fundamentalism, and blame anyone they can see as an outsider for their own failures to succeed.

Alvin Toffler predicted this clearly in his 1970 book Future Shock.

Mason said...

I think Pearce's challenger for Senate President has a better chance of winning that seat because the lawmakers do not want a one-issue Senate President. His name: Steve PIERCE.

Steven Ayres said...

I know that some of the Rs are very concerned about the results if Pearce wins, and so Steve Pierce is a contender. But it appears that the Senate will be yet more extremist after the election, and Pearce has a lot of public clout. He's a rock star on the far right. Our Pierce will be a sophomore with no House experience, and so few political alliances.

Given an 18-12 or 20-10 majority in the Senate, it will take only ten or eleven votes to elect. It's a close thing, in any case, and "we the people" will have not one word of say in it.

Jon said...

Yes, history has shown that this hate is as you say. We treated the Irish the same way back in the day. The difference from then and now is that the laws were better in letting people in and out.

In the book "Let Them In" it talks about how up to 2/3 of the Irish went back home (I haven't read the book but listened to an interview). In the interview they also stated that if we had better laws for letting people in and out we would see up to 90% of the Latinos return home, i.e., most people would come to work and then go home.

Of course, with the recent economic slow down we have seen many go back home. So, yes, our current laws are part of the problem but not the entire problem.

We have to remember too that the Latinos don't treat their immigrants much different than ours, except, there is much more violence down there.

As for who becomes senate president, who cares? They all suck. Anyone who wants to rule over other people has mental issues.

coyoteradiotheater said...

Here is my question: we've had a legal work visa program for Mexican workers in the U.S. before - the Bravos Program (1942 - 1964). Since the 1980's, successful Federal administrations have acted like they can't pull that off and never mention the precedent. So, who's making money on the fact that we don't have a work visa program?

coyoteradiotheater said...

Doh, I meant to say the Bracero Program,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program

Jon said...

I believe it's just special interests combined with the legislatures that have blocked a lot of the legal visas. Per this video (book forum for the book "Let them in") http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=4846

Steven, yes, I know you think cato is of the devil but they do put out some good material.

Steven Ayres said...

Workers with legal status have access to legal recourse in terms of workplace protections, minimum wages, personal security, etc. The artificial scarcity of work visas instantly creates a black market in labor, and those who work in it are on their own legally. This makes them a lot more pliable and profitable. Who's making money? Our entire food industry, from agribusiness and slaughterhouses to restaurants. Our "hospitality" industry. Organized crime. Everyone who can hire an illegal for less to do more gardening, or domestic chores, or steel work, or roofing, or paving, or sex, or whatever.

They tell us that over 12 million illegals are living in the US. You can be completely confident that they're not living on welfare, they're working, most in dirty jobs for low pay, no benefits, no job security, and no backtalk. There's an awful lot of profit there, and very little of it for them.

Steven Ayres said...

d: Cite all the Cato Institute you like, it doesn't bother me. Just bear in mind that they're not trying to get to me, they're working to fool you.