Thursday, April 29, 2010

Stay classy, Arizona immigration law supporters

If the Arizona immigration law that makes you a suspicious person if you're caught breathing while Latino, has been good for one thing: the comedy resulting from those who support the law. Not so much "funny ha-ha" comedy, but more of a "oh sweet merciful Christ, these are elected representatives... in America... in 2010" kind of funny.

Even worse on the unconformable comedy of awkward discomfort scale are the people who have viewed this law as a gaslight for them to rush out and espouse their brilliant ideas about ways in which this country can go further down into a racist hole with immigration laws. Take Iowa Republican (shocking) congressional candidate Pat Bertroche
“I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going,” said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. “I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I micro-chip an illegal?

“That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under,” Bertroche said.
Micro-chipping every illegal immigrant? You know, maybe Georgia was on to something with their crazy "no robit hunks in mah body" law. That being said, if we could catch every single illegal immigrant to the point where we could perform invasive microchipping surgery on them... wouldn't we just cart them over the border? I mean we go to all the trouble of catching them to scientifically experiment on them and we just release them back into the wild even though they're illegal? Methinks someone needs to mull over his "Mexicans are exactly like dogs" immigration plan.

But then there's Republican (shocking~!) Rep. Duncan Hunter the Younger of California, who isn't merely content to treat immigrants like stray dogs. No, he's got a better plan.
QUESTION: Would you support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?

HUNTER: I would have to, yes. [...] We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now. California is going under. How much in debt are we? Twenty billion dollars? [...] And we’re not being mean, we’re just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s what’s in our souls.
Yeah, fuck them. Who ever said that being born here means you're a citizen? The 14th Amendment? Balderdash! Let's repeal it and start chucking American citizens who aren't sufficiently white over the border. Their souls aren't American.

But if advanced GPS tracking, a catch and release Latino program, or grossly violating the Constitution in the name of racial paranoia aren't your thing, have you thought of just claiming all your Latin opponents of wanting to cede American soil to Santa Anna and his Mexican hordes? Then get on board with Republican (shocker) Rep. Steve King (shocker) from Iowa (shocker).
I’m wondering if we look at the map of Congressman Grijalva’s congressional district if we haven’t already ceded that component of Arizona to Mexico judging by the voice that comes out of him, he’s advocating for Mexico rather than the United States and against the rule of law, which is one of the central pillars of American exceptionalism.
He is of course talking about Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Latino himself and Arizona representative, who decried the law and advocated that people boycott Arizona in response. Of course that means he doesn't sufficiently love America, is probably a Latin sleeper agent, hates the law, freedom, and baby eagles, and is probably the point man for the Mexican Reconquista movement. Aztlan!

So stay classy everyone. I know we all though that a re-fried bean swastika was about as low as the debate could sink. But we didn't count on the prides of Iowa and a second generation half-witted reactionary race-baiter deciding that this was the perfect opportunity to offer up their brilliant ideas on better ways to dehumanize entire swaths of the US population. Wonderful. It wells me up with so much pride for the country.

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