What would Martin Niemoller think about Arizona?

[Griff]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

I'm wondering why some of you seem to WANT to be upset by this. And why it is the 'Liberals' that seem to have the biggest objections.

How is this a Liberal vs Conservative issue at all? is it just habit?

Liberals fear the police state as conservatives fear the regulatory state, that is the habit part. Politically, this is just Republicans pandering to their base, once again tying to make the liberals look anti-American while at the same time getting the jump on the Democrat's up-coming Federal immigration legislation. The racist part is mostly to get liberals upset enough to vote, but there is a core group of racists in the Republican party who will be soothed by a States Rights push that will only impact brown people, if you ignore the budget blowing incarceration aspect of the thing.

How much more dangerous does this make the policeman's job? Traffic stops become high stakes situations.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Griff

The racist part is mostly to get liberals upset enough to vote, but there is a core group of racists in the Republican party who will be soothed by a States Rights push that will only impact brown people, if you ignore the budget blowing incarceration aspect of the thing.

Is it possibly, in your mind, for someone to want immigration law enforced and not be a racist?
Is is possible to believe that illegal immigration is a problem, moreso for some areas than others, and that legislating law enforcement tools to deal with it is an attempt at reducing the problem, and not simple pandering?

How much more dangerous does this make the policeman's job? Traffic stops become high stakes situations.

They already are, and not just in AZ.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by jinx

Is it possibly, in your mind, for someone to want immigration law enforced and not be a racist?

Yes.

Is is possible to believe that illegal immigration is a problem, moreso for some areas than others, and that legislating law enforcement tools to deal with it is an attempt at reducing the problem, and not simple pandering?

Yes, it is a regional problem, but this legislation looks to be mostly pandering. It is like the banking thing, the Democrats are not addressing the core problem by breaking up the too big to fail banks, but they are attempting to solve some of the problems.

They already are, and not just in AZ.

...which brings us back to the drug war and the Mexican economy, the real problems.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Griff

...which brings us back to the drug war and the Mexican economy, the real problems.

I agree with Griff here. We don't actually have an immigration problem. Rejiggering our immigration rules and their enforcement will not answer to the trouble we're having.

The problem is in Mexico and I think it can only be solved there: Mexico does not have a middle class visible to the naked eye. To achieve a bootstrapping up from dismal poverty to the lower middle class, the Méxicanos have to travel al Norte. Some carry this all the way to Canada's cities and towns.

Which is likely to improve the quality of Mexican restaurants throughout the continent.

The historical source of Mexico's lack of a middle class and its opportunities is easy enough to see: unlike the US and Canada, Mexican Spanish immigration -- and it was at first exclusively so -- was not a flood of smallholders, each with his stake in the enterprise. It was a sparse settlement of primarily the aristocratic landowning class and their retainers, recreating the only economy they knew: the latifundian economy of Spanish landowners and Spanish peasants. Thus they created it and thus it remained. All over the place and for centuries.

So, the 1960s joke had it that Latin America resembles an LP record -- 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. The twentieth century was when it all came to a head, building on some brawling begun in the nineteenth. Every bit of it over resources, at bottom.

So, short of revolution and raping real estate away from people who used to have it, and rationing it out to people who used not to have it, what? Well, an organic, viral answer was to export labor. Population too. Guess who's importing.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah, we've been Mexico's safety valve, giving the peasants one more option before boiling over and actually fixing their country.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

Do you ever give politicians credit for acting altruistically? Or in this case, legal experts with nothing to gain.

I certainly have never seen it.

So your point is moot.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yeah, we've been Mexico's safety valve, giving the peasants one more option before boiling over and actually fixing their country.

Originally Posted by classicman

So your point is moot.

If you say so... ALL of those legal experts, local officials, police chiefs, etc are opposed for political or financial reasons.

Just like all govt data is biased.

But you're not biased.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I agree with Griff here. We don't actually have an immigration problem. Rejiggering our immigration rules and their enforcement will not answer to the trouble we're having.

...

Which is likely to improve the quality of Mexican restaurants throughout the continent.

Holy crap! We agree on two things in one post! We have three really good Mex places in our area now.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Eleven percent unemployment statewide.

That is pretty rough. Is that as high as it has been or did it crest higher?

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yeah, we've been Mexico's safety valve, giving the peasants one more option before boiling over and actually fixing their country.

A revolution on our Southern border may not be the ideal resolution to the immigration problem... It has been a long time coming though.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Griff

That is pretty rough. Is that as high as it has been or did it crest higher?

Link

and here for the state of your choosing

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Griff

Holy crap! We agree on two things in one post! We have three really good Mex places in our area now.

While we're celebrating our confluence here -- I can recall finding one bad (quite boring) Mexican restaurant in Ventura a couple years-plus ago. Promoted itself as a Baja style place, parked a VW dunebuggy with a couple shortboard surfboards on top as advertisement in the parking lot.

Used a microwave oven and ho-hum recipes that tasted like lunchroom food, lasted maybe eight months.

It's been replaced by a family-owned operation named El Burrito Alegre, which is very much better and has hung in there. They weren't able to move their chili-spiked chocolate brownies, which is a pity, because I liked the things. Thought they'd go well with some Starbucks from across the way.

Bad Mex doesn't dare crop up among the eateries here.