...they'll be citizens.
I've been traveling around this paved, malled (a pun, I guess) and tracted land of ours a little over the last week. From sea to shining sea, America is pretty much all of a piece these days & years. Walking into a Walgreen's on the East Coast, I had a Twilight Zone moment when I realized I knew exactly where to go to find what I wanted, because the aisles are laid out exactly as they are on the West Coast. Is this reassuring, confidence-inspiring, or just freaky? Makes no difference. It's how it is in the "Geography of Nowhere," as Kunstler wrote.
Plane travel remains an expensive and unmitigated horror of hunger, thirst, discomfort and petty insults to the person. It is almost as if the airlines are daring their passengers to revolt openly, to swear off travel forever. How, they must wonder in board meetings, can we raise the level of discomfort to the point where our customers just freaking give up? How much can they take? We starve them, we charge for literally everything except the virus-filled air they breathe, no matter how trivial the amenity, we don't even allow the seats to recline -- do we have to crash a plane every day to break them? What will it take? More cancellations, more overbooking, more announcements that the plane is "very full today?" I have confidence they'll explore every avenue until their customers capitulate. They've taken it so far already.
Only three stories seem to matter these days, however: Greece's imminent bankruptcy, the Gulf oil spill, Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona. The East Coast news, naturally, is the same as the West Coast news, all of it conveyed by CNN, MSNBC & Fox. I was surprised to see a national poll affirming that about 60% of the nation's citizens are in favor of the legislation. The anti-Arizona parades and demonstrations are more telegenic, of course, so one can get the impression that the entire nation is in an uproar about all the "racial profiling." The most vociferous attacks on Arizona's race-consciousness seemed to come from the Hispanic advocacy group La Raza. Sometimes irony just writes itself.
Neither side in the debate can afford to tell the truth, of course, because the fight for the national soul is not won that way. La Raza and other Hispanic advocates extol the need for "reform," as in "we need immigration reform now." This is, of course, simply another way of arguing that another round of amnesty is needed to consolidate the position of illegals already present in the country. Hell, it worked in 1986 under Reagan; why not now? The main reason why not now is the junior senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions, who looks remarkably like a ceramic lawn jockey. Immigration "reform" will die in committee, which doesn't matter that much to Obama so long as he can be viewed as fighting for the "civil liberties" of hassled Hispanics and illegals longing to breathe free among the malls, tracts and paving. O Man wants those electoral votes in New Mexico, Colorado and Florida in 2012, and he won't get them if he gives up on this "civil liberties" issue which is suddenly so important to him, although this is somewhat contradicted by his recent, remarkable criticisms of the Supreme Court "activisim" of the Earl Warren years. (Say what, Brother Barry?) Yep, that's what he did.
It's hard to tell exactly how many illegal aliens were naturalized as a result of the 1986 act, but one informed guess is around 3 million. The system, if you're old enough to recall, was based on the principle that the longer the illegal had violated U.S. immigration law, the greater the reward. If one could prove in 1986 that one had been bobbing and weaving under the nose of the Feds since at least January 1, 1982, one was good to go. The other major part of the 1986 law concerned penalties for hiring illegals and the introduction of the I-9 form, honored, of course, always more in the breach than the observance. It seems likely that another round of amnesty, if Obama can lead Congress to contrive it, would at least triple the 1986 effect.
As far as I can tell, the only real difference between the provisions of the 1986 law and the Arizona bill is this: private citizens are given the right to sue the police or enforcement authorities for not enforcing the immigration laws. This is a hammer to force enforcement, since this is what is always missing, and since Janet Napolitano (who, as governor of Arizona, vetoed a similar, earlier piece of state legislation) cannot figure out how to keep known terrorist risks on No Fly lists off American commercial airlines, it's a sure bet the Homeland "Security" chief is not going to get this one under control. Anyway, Obama feels the bill is "misguided" in the sense that America gave up enforcing laws in general many years ago, as enhanced under his Eternal Now Statute of Limitations for (a) all high government officials or (b) necessary voting blocs or campaign donors.
Anyway, it's a thoroughly dishonest debate "raging" within the United States, and no "reform" bill will accomplish a damn thing. It would be interesting if Eric Holder is brought up out of his cryogenically frozen state to challenge the Arizona law in federal court, since ultimately such an issue would be heard by the definitely conservative Supreme Court, who, after all, should not be "activist" in overturning the sovereign will of an individual state, since that's the kind of disreputable thing the Warren Court was famous for. Ain't it fun being President, O?
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