Politicians Should Not Live in Glass Houses

People in glass houses should not throw stones. This idiom has been around for a long time. And as we head into what can only be described as the silly season here in the United States, the glass houses are shattering left and right.

Over the weekend, Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for Governor found her glass house coming down around her ears as her illegal housekeeper filed papers seeking unpaid wages and mileage reimbursements. This is very similar to the unpaid taxes on nannies that brought down several presidential appointees in the late 1990s, but in this case, Whitman is running on a platform of holding employers responsible for hiring illegal immigrants.

It is political theatre of course. And something will be put on stage next showing Democratic candidate Jerry Brown in a bad light and the mud slinging will continue. The real problem though, is one of expectations.

The American people, for some bizarre reason, expect the politician running for office to be as pure as falling snow. A virgin, dressed in white with no skeletons in their closets, no change in their views over time and well read on everything from the latest study on medical ethics to the most complex economic theories. And frankly, that is farcical. Such a candidate does not, and cannot exist. Being a politician is all about charisma, deal making and dealing with the devil. In many cases at the same time.

And as long as we expect our politicians to be something more than human, we will continue to be disappointed by them, and their actions.

When Religion is More Important Than Governing

This morning, a retweet from one of the Fox News stations opined, out loud, if the President should not be more open about his religious position. This follows a number of surveys that indicate as many as a quarter of Americans think he is Muslim. This is probably the same group of people that think Iraq had something to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks, but I digress.

On another site, I found this interesting evaluation:

United States Constitution Article VI, paragraph 3

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Of course, this begs the question. If the Constitution says no religious test shall ever be required then the issue is moot right?

If only it were that simple. Let's face it, most in the United States choose to hide behind the Constitution when it suits them, such as the issue of gun rights, but choose to ignore it when it is less convenient, such as the issue of being granted citizenship at birth. And those that are screaming loudest for the President to reveal his religious beliefs are those that are also most willing to shred the Constitution when it is inconvenient to their argument.

Religion is a personal issue. To make it more than that is to devalue the entire purpose of religion. Who you worship is between you and your god, and who the President worships, is completely and utterly not the business of the American people. Sadly, most seem to feel this is not the case.

Reasonable Suspicion

A good friend and I have been discussing the new Arizona bill on immigration. He lives in Arizona and contends that it is not as bad as the press makes out. I, of course, contend that is a bad idea. So today, I offered to actually read the thing. And I am going to encourage you to do the same and draw your own conclusions. I should point out that neither of us are strangers to the United States immigration process. For my part, I have been through it, both as a resident alien and now a citizen and as a contractor. So I can speak with some knowledge when I say the system is broken. Not only broken but also…well…elitist. And that was before all the provisions put in place to enhance security following the events of September 11, 2001. The process to residency and citizenship is not a straight line (even if you marry a citizen), it is expensive, both in time and cash that has to be laid out, and it involves a lot of hurry up and we lost your paperwork, go back three spaces gamesmanship. So it is little wonder there is a class of people, living in the United States that cannot be bothered, or are not able to go through the process. Some of them happen to come from south of the border, which is where states (and the people thereto) like Arizona and Texas get upset.

Being in the United States illegally is hardly a new thing. There have been illegal residents in the US since…well, before Columbus, and there are likely to be illegal residents here long after the current brouhaha has settled down. It will come as a shock to many to learn that, illegal or not, they are protected by the Constitution. I actually got that question wrong on my citizenship exam. The question was who does the Constitution protect? The answer is all the people. Not all the citizens, not all those who are here legally, but all the people.

So, with that in mind, here are some of my issues with the Arizona law, as well as the regulations passed in my own backyard a couple years back for similar reasons.

The argument goes, that because the federal government is not doing enough to round up and deport these illegal aliens, the local jurisdictions are being force to take matters into their own hands. The reasons are the normal ones you would expect to hear – the illegals are using up the health care dollars, costing too much money to school their anchor babies, causing an increase in crime, lowering property values. I could go on. In most cases, the issue revolves around money. Specifically, the misperception that they (the illegal aliens) are getting more than their fare share while decent, hardworking, upstanding Americans are being shafted. Even the pejorative term anchor baby, which the Constitution refers to as a citizen, highlights the lack of understanding and even knowledge of what is really going on. It would be hard to refute the anecdotal evidence of this group of illegals moved into the house next door to me and trashed the place, and we have all heard of someone who it has happened to, so many someones that to me it is more urban myth than fact, although I have seen the results of one such house. Similarly with so many Americans without health insurance, it is hard to think that the health care costs can be simply attributed to one group. (I ran the numbers once and if they are correct, the population of illegal residents might be responsible for less than 1% of all health care costs. But no one wants to actually sit down and do that sort of logical evaluation). And that is where I start having issues.

From the bill: the intent of this act is to make attrition through enforcement the public policy of Arizona. It goes on to say The provisions of this act are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present Now, I have no problem with the whole unlawfully present aspect of the bill, but I do have serious issues with the words used, especially the attrition through enforcement. That just really does not sound friendly. In fact, it almost sounds vindictive.

But what really got my attention was the amendment of article 8, section 11-1051 B, which reads: FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. (capitals from the bill).

Not, once we arrest you for breaking the law (which is section C), but only with reasonable suspicion. The first words out of my mouth were reasonable to whom?. Because reasonable in Phoenix is certainly not the same as reasonable in Bisbee, no matter what colour you want to paint those glasses.

To me, that one section points out all the things that are wrong with the bill. Even though the rest of it is about what you would expect to find anywhere. Reasonable suspicion.

What Arizona has done is throw a match into a tinder dry area and started an uncontrolled brush fire. But it has done it in such a way that rarely happens when immigration law is codified and enforced at a national level. It has introduced a law, no matter how well meaning that says we don’t want your kind here. And rightly, the Hispanic community is interpreting your kind as them, whether they were born in East L. A. or Juarez Mexico. Whether they can prove they are living in the United States legally or not. Because despite all the language in the law about checking with this or that Federal agency, the purpose of the law is to so scare those that have neither the legal resources to pursue a false claim against the State of Arizona or have the language skills (and let’s face it, when it comes to the law, most of us who speak English fluently do not have the language skills) to understand that perhaps they might have a case.

In short, it is a Jim Crow law, with a different wrapper on it. And regardless of what you might think or believe, nothing good can come of it.

When "security" and "discrimination" meet.

Italy's fingerprinting of members of the country's Roma community is a direct act of racial discrimination, the European Parliament has said. (BBC News)

I find this statement particularly disturbing, "But former EU Justice Commissioner and current Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini defended the measure which he said 'does not target ethnic groups and is not inspired by racism but by the elementary need to identify anyone who does not have a valid document'."

Now, the question I have to ask, is how long before this is the justification in Prince William County, or any other part of the United States?

Bigotry is the issue, not immigration

I have long argued the position that so-called illegal immigration is an issue that the United States has had to deal with in the past and will have to continue to deal with in the future. In a series of ionic twists, again reminding me how little Americans really know about what is going on in their own country, much less the rest of the world, I have discovered that not only am I right, but that the memory of many Americans is subjective at best and revisionist at worst.

According to Michele Wucker's book Lockout, it was not until World War II that the United States even began keeping serious track of immigrants in the United States. Up until the early 1900's they were encouraged to vote! It was in the early 1980's that it became a crime to knowingly hire an illegal alien, but (and there is a huge one here) immigration officials could not raid outdoor agricultural operations without a warrant (and one assumes they still cannot). So the party line about "assimilating like my grandparents did" (and according to history - the facts, not what is remembered - this is also not the case, more than 50% of immigrants actually never naturalized, sent money back home [to countries in Europe rather than Central and South America] and eventually returned to their home countries themselves) is little more than romantic hogwash at best and shrouded bigotry at worst.

The current debate in the United States is being lead by a small, vocal group of old white men who are more afraid of the growth of the Latino/Hispanic minority than they are about the so-called costs of "illegal" immigration and their racist attempts to deny services will only result in increases in tax burdens and continued decreases in real revenues.

Illegal Immigration is Complicated

US businesses fear illegal foreign worker crackdown by J.D. Riviere Thu Jul 26, 3:58 AM ET AUSTIN, United States (AFP) - US businesses are bracing for a possible major crackdown on illegal foreign workers, as the government seeks to give immigration authorities more power to punish companies hiring undocumented workers. (Yahoo News)

There is a segment of the population in the United States that is just delirious to hear that there could be a crack down on illegal immigrants. These are the same saints that have never broken the law or been forced to do whatever was needed for their family's well being. These are the same individuals that have money to burn and feel the government is taxing them too heavily and too often. I would call these people deluded, but I think even the residents of Oz would find them too far "out there" to be considered normal.

When businesses begin to feel threatened, especially when the markets are at such stratospheric levels and unemployment is so low, yet oil is close to a record high and defaults in the mortgage market seem to be looming like a repeat of the Savings and Loan scandal of the late 1980s, it is time to really take a look at the realities.

1) The population, illegal or otherwise, fill a needed niche in the economic structure from a labor perspective. Further, it is unlikely that the jobs they occupy could be filled by the average American today, either because of the low wage or more importantly the lack of skill set.

2) The population has become increasingly integrated into the economic fabric of society, with everything from cell phones to cable TV contracts. Defaulting on those contracts could cause more of an economic problem than the perceived burden burden placed on the society they live in.

3) Rounding them up and deporting them is an expensive and unrealistic option.

4) When the fines begin against businesses, those costs will be passed onto the consumer, in the forms of higher prices for goods or worse, the loss of jobs if the company is forced to close. Some would argue that this is not a significant issue, but the reality is that every business is tied to the economy and there are a few that are just barely hanging on. That would increase defaults in a shaky banking industry, but it would also displace workers and leave companies that depend on the labor (office buildings, construction sites to be stereotypical) without the labor to get things done, delaying or risking ongoing projects etc. like a string of dominoes.

I get that they are here illegally. As someone who has gone through the byzantine process of naturalizing, I get that. I also get that they are as integrated into our society as any other economic element and you do not just pull a thread out of a tapestry without knowing what it is connected to. The results could be catastrophic

Bigotry, Nothing Less

Loudoun Looks to Discourage Illegal Immigration July 17, 2007 - 6:32am Hank Silverberg, WTOP Radio WASHINGTON - Will Loudoun County, Va., follow Prince William County's lead and crackdown on illegal immigrants the same way? (WTOP)

I am sorry to say I live in the shadow of Prince William County. Sadder still to say that these laws are coming and there is very little will to stop them because those that see them as the bigotry they are are too few and too far between. The United States was, in theory anyway, founded on a premise of freedom and democracy. Heck, I will even pander to the Right and throw in the Golden Rule. Since 2000, these same freedoms and democratic ideals have been chiseled away and consistently destroyed. I have spoken out several times about the hypocrisy of bringing freedom to Iraq while here in the United States the soldiers are coming back to a country with fewer rights and freedoms then when they left.

So how is it that these new laws seem to target those that are not white (or even black for the most part)? If I thought for a minute that every single person that requested services would be required to provide positive proof (and folks, a birth certificate, in most cases, is not sufficient), then I would have no problems with these laws. But I know that if a Caucasian, a Black and a Hispanic apply for the same services, only the Hispanic would be checked for legal residency.

And I will tell you right now, that is wrong.

There are illegals in the United States today that run the gamut from looking like you and me to being as alien looking as if they stepped off the moon. You tell me how to distinguish them, because I will tell you how I would do it. Papers please. Passport or I-551/H1B. Nothing else is acceptable, because nothing else is proof positive.

The Federal Government can do little to prevent people from entering and leaving the United States at will. Even erecting a fence is of little use in a country this size. Sorry, that is the reality we all must live with and there is little that can be done. Further, every nation has some percentage of their population that is illegal. In the United States, however, there is a serious dichotomy between the services demanded and the services paid for. The citizens of the United States seem to demand a great deal from their government in services but seem reluctant at the very least to pay for them. As a result, what services there are are stretched so that any additional pull on them stretches them beyond the breaking point instead of being absorbed like they would be in other countries where the citizens are less disinclined to pay their own way. Health care and education are two of those areas where there is a legal mandate to provide the services, but a strong reluctance to pay for them.

Regrettable, the increase in funding that will have to result from the waste of resources required to verify every single request for services not to mention the increasing chill the whole process puts the entire thought of democratic principles, to my mind at least, seems to be a step in the wrong direction, regardless of the monetary savings portrayed.

Achtung!

County Approves Immigration Crackdown July 10, 2007 - 6:49pm By SARAH KARUSH Associated Press Writer MANASSAS, Va. (AP) - Lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure aimed at discouraging illegal immigrants from settling in Virginia's Prince William County. (WTOP)

There are those that characterize this decision as being about enforcing the immigration laws. Certainly, I can support that. Unfortunately, this is not about that. This is about targeting one specific part of the population that has become the fastest growing minority in the United States and threatens to become the majority population in this primarily Caucasian enclave. That would be the Latino/Hispanic community.

You see, if this was about immigration, then every person who is subjected to this draconian (I liken it to the Third Reich or the Soviet Union, but feel free to pick your favorite dictatorship) legislation should be required to present their documentation for inspection. Too bad most of the white people in the county cannot even prove their status. Too bad they also will never be asked to prove it.

This is discrimination. Pure and simple and nothing else.