The law, signed by Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer last Friday, allows police to question anyone they believe may be an illegal immigrant, even if they are not suspected of committing a crime.Interesting, but if you've bothered to read sb 1070, you know this is not true. The law specifically states that individuals cannot be stopped only to question them about their immigration status.
In a twist, the article also states that in a recent poll, roughly 71% of Americans supported the new law. So once again, the main stream media is putting way to much light on the protesters, and failing to note the opinion of the majority, which, by the way simply supports the federal laws already written governing immigration.
But I digress. The title of this post is, "Racial Profiling." Several years ago, I remember a quote from, I believe, Andy Rooney, who said, "When the police arrest 95% African Americans in a community that is 95% African American, that is not profiling, that is statistics." Quite frankly, if the arrest rate for non-African Americans was significantly higher, that would argue for racial profiling away from African Americans. There has been a huge outcry against the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) profiling for middle eastern or "islamic" types. Because of this, they bypass the most probable suspect for a terrorist, but shake down a midwest grandma. With the recent uproar about Jihad Jane and other homegrown terrorists, the liberals have been crowing about how racial profiling isn't going to work. Once again, the mainstream media has been right there promoting this attitude. But you know what? If I'm at the track betting on the ponies, and horse A wins 98% of his races, and horse B wins 2% of his races, who do you think I'm gonna bet on? It's called statistics (BTW, a fascinating subject, but definately not my favorite), and using this same approach, I'm gonna chance it that I might miss grandma with a bomb in her underwear, and take a closer look at the 3 or 4 chaps with the funny sounding names coming from somewhere in the middle east or saharan africa.
In Arizona, I personally think it's time for the authorities to throw off any denying of racial profiling. As governor, sheriff, police chief, etc., I would step up to the podium and state clearly and firmly:
We are not worried, here in Arizona, about Canadian illegal immigrants. Nor have we seen a significant increase in the number of Norwegians, Swedes, Russians, or Brits trying to sneak across our border into Arizona. Here in Arizona, 99.9% of the illegal aliens is Hispanic. Therefore, we will focus our attention in seeking out illegal aliens out individuals of Hispanic descent. We will continue to actively pull over and arrest Anyone who appears intoxicated, is speeding, has expired plates, or is seen leaving a bank robbery, regardless of race. If you are a legal immigrant in Arizona, please help us by obeying the posted laws, and having your papers with you, as you were instructed at the time you entered this country. If you are a US citizen, please have an appropriate State Issued ID with you. You know, the one you're supposed to have with you when driving, the one you use to cash your checks, sign in at the doctor's office or the hospital? Yeah, that one.
It is very hard for someone to make a huge stink about profiling if you step up to the mic and say, "Yep, we're using profiling because It works!!
Take care,
Ok, I've been thinking about this for a while now. This reminds me of when there was this huge out cry for people to speak better and to choose their words better. To stop hurting people with their words.
ReplyDeleteIf you tried to defend your opinion it was instantly twisted into "you insensitive PIG" or worse. There as no way to fight it. Why? because the attack was multi-leveled.
At the first level was the attack on what you said. But the 2nd level was an attack on your intentions. If you had good said X then your intentions MUST be Y. So you never had the discussion about what was actually said but about your intentions and to your opponent, what you said defined your intentions.
There was no way to win.
Today we have a way to battle this. We have a LABEL for this. The label is "Politically Correct". He wasn't being politically correct doesn't mean that he has horrible intentions, just that he disagrees with having to temper his words to avoid offending somebody.
At this point in our history there is a huge dog and pony show about "race." If you do anything a minority disagrees with, you are "racist."
criticize a black mans actions? Your a racist. disagree with a law calling for the enforcement of current laws "racist". Point out that one group of people have killed more Americans than another and your a racist.
I'm not having a discussion about whether or not I'm a racist. I'm having a conversation of how to best defend my country from killer, how best to preserve the constitution for my children, how best to provide for me and my children, how best to protect my city, state, country from invaders.
If the facts say that the decedents of Spanish invaders are the people doing most of the kidnappings in a city, then when I see that sort of person I might consider him MORE *likely* to be a bad person than some other group.
Would've, could've should've is not what we base our lives on. It is what is real and what did happen.
Stop the pony show and lets talk about what's real.