Arizona - a Police State

Boy it just keeps getting better to be living in Arizona (I'm being completely sarcastic here). This week, in a wholy unsurprising move, the uber-conservative governor of this state - Jan Brewer (she reminds me of that preacher Pax is always joking about, Jan Crouch), signed SB 1070 which allows Arizona police to stop anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant and asking for American citizenship paperwork, always having to carry around your paperwrok, just like in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

I smell racial profiling in the works, though of course proponents of the act say, "if you are here legal, you have nothing to worry about." I'd like to know how many white people will get pulled over, in comparision to those looking of Latin descent. What bothers me about this bill is that again the onus is "guilty until proven innocent" and that employers who hire these illegals get away scot free, and we know why these employers get absolved of any guilt, because they are white men - they can do no wrong, only people who look different, well they must be mistrusted (cause they eat babies for breakfast - sheesh)!

I find from the local news that this issue has really divided Arizonians, Conservatives (generally white and older people) are for the bill, while those of latin descent find this highly offensive. To me, this all goes back to proving to me that Arizona is one backwards state (and also speaks to the meanspiritedness of conservatives). I think there should be boycotts of the state, don't come to visit, don't spend money here, let them fend for themselves.

Again, this whole thing is reactionary politics, instead of addressing the real issue, what causes these people to cross the border illegally (jobs), they target the victims. No one wants to take on the employers. Start arresting them and I think we would see some significant change.

Best part of this debate is the utter stupidity of the people, one of the local news channels was discussing some of the emails they had received regarding this issue and one lady wrote, "get rid of them illegals, I am tired of paying for their kids to go to school." I had to laugh, so this lady would prefer these children stay illiterate and uneducated, because we all know what a sure-fire way that is to guarantee a productive adult member of society. Idiots. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will NEVER have a problem with my taxes going to pay for children's education, be they American or not, legal or not, I have no problem paying for educating any child. If we are picking and choosing where our taxes go, than I don't want mine to go to anymore expensive defense programs, also reduce foreign aid to Israel!

ps - Arizona's unemployment rate is 9.6%, the governor is trying to make up the budget gap by cutting all health care for children (yeah she's a real peach), and Arizona's high school graduation rate is less than 80%, why can't these issues be addressed??