Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Royal☭]

Or rather he saw how the Arizona law was going over like a lead balloon and is trying to keep it from dragging him down in the closest electoral battle he's ever had.  The second largest ethnic group in Texas is hispanics, and they're also the fastest growing.  Perry probably wants to avoid pissing them off in an election year.

I may hate Perry and think he's a murderer and an idiot, but he's at least a shrewd enough politician to realize when his career would be hurt.


So basically, watch this space after 2010.

[Mongrel]

Yeah guys, the extended wait might be painful, but if you're feeling down about the usual abysmal state of things, all you need to remember is that eventually sheer demographics will crush the right-wing nuts.

[Catloaf]

That's why they're trying to deport them.

[Mongrel]

They might as well try to deport water.

[Joxam]

Ha.

[Brentai]

Law narrowed so that police can only check papers of people they've stopped for other reasons.

It's not going to stop Arizona's Finest from harrassing brown people for littering, but at least we're moving away from PICK UP THAT CAN territory.

[TA]

Can you be more specific on the "stopped for other reasons"?  Because with Terry and Whren, it's very, very easy for the police to justify a stop.

[Royal☭]

That's how I assumed the law worked in the first place.  They pull you over for speeding, then because you're hispanic they ask you for your papers, if you don't have them they throw you in jail, regardless of whether you're a citizen or not.


Of course, the more I think about this law the closer to just an unlawful detention law it seems.  What's really to stop police from just throwing anyone they want in jail because they don't have identification?  Obviously the biggest target hispanics, but if a cop stops you for jaywalking or littering and demands your ID and you don't have it, they can just throw you in jail on these grounds because they don't like you.

[Thad]

One of the main arguments I've heard for this is that since they're in the country illegally, this is just giving the police the power to enforce the law, which puts me in mind of what Martin Luther King Jr. said about how "a law can be just on its face and unjust in its application". That's something this law seems to be perfectly set up for, especially with people like Sheriff Joe running the show over there.

Yeah, it's really quite amazing seeing all the people dismiss concerns about racial profiling with "Well, it says RIGHT IN THE LAW you can't use racial profiling," like that's the end of the discussion.

So it turns out this law is starting to have some very predictable results: namely, making a very large group of voters very angry at the Republicans in an election year.

I do not think that Brewer thought her brilliant plan all the way through.

Sure she did.  If she'd vetoed the thing, she wouldn't get the Republican nomination for governor.  There's really no disputing that.

Of course, she might STILL not.

She might be running against fucking Arpaio.

But it IS going to galvanize the Latino vote.  Not just in Arizona but nationwide.

The New Times (which, for purposes of perspective, I will note would be flattered to be referred to as "a left-wing rag") has an article about the backlash:

[Reverend Warren H. Stewart] called upon the Biblical story of Joseph in Genesis. Joseph had been made governor of Egypt, after he'd been sold into slavery by his own brothers. Joseph's brothers worried about revenge.

But according to Stewart, Joseph told them, "Do not be afraid, even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good in order to preserve a great people.'"

Then Stewart thanked the Arizona Legislature for passing the bill and Brewer for signing it.

"You may have intended it to do harm, to thousands of people of color and Latino descent," he preached, "but God intended it for good for his great people.

"Thank you, Arizona, for SB 1070 . . . you have awakened the 21st-century civil rights movement!"

I'd sure like for this to be a big rallying point like that, a moment that changes the course of the future...even though it sucks that my home is the negative example against which the future will be judged.

Anyhow, yeah, boycotts are rolling in.  MLB's liable to be a biggie.  NFL could be too.  Essentially what forced AZ into recognizing the MLK holiday was the Super Bowl pulling out to another state.

[Royal☭]

Hey, uh, Thad.  We got some bad news.  We're rolling out an Arizona boycott on these forums, so uh... yeah.  We'll see you around again when the law is repealed!

[Thad]

If you want to boycott me, you're going to have to start paying me first.

Though I'll admit I do jobs nobody else wants to.

[Catloaf]

While we're on the subject, you've probably been asked before, but why do you choose to keep living in that oven filled with and run by people you strongly disagree with?

[Thad]

Find me a job somewhere else and I'll start packing.

Related:

The report examined fine particulate matter over 24-hour periods and as a year-round average. Bakersfield, Calif., had the worst short-term particle pollution, and the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area of Arizona had the worst year-round particle pollution.

My family moved here because my great-uncle had asthma.  Ironically, I want to get out of here because of mine.

And, you know, because it's an oven filled with and run by people I strongly disagree with.



(Also: I love how, even in stories that mention other cities in Phoenix metro, Tempe STILL doesn't fucking exist.  Phoenix-Mesa.  Yeah.  Because there's nothing in between those two cities except some sort of bizarre space-time rift and a faint smell of sulfur.  Certainly not a city of 175,000 with a major university or anything else of note like that.)

[TA]

Do you program, or just do admin?  I know a place in Virginia that really needs more software engineers, though part of it would be convincing the boss that that's true.

[Thad]

From the place that just banned brown people to the place currently celebrating the subjugation of black people?  Well, it's not ideal, but I'm listening.  Yeah, I've got a CS degree.  Mainly Java but I'm a quick study.

[Sharkey]

Christ, man. You're a techie of no mean skill. Why you don't hit the bay area is fucking beyond me. Hell, you could suck dicks for dollars for the first few months, if need be.

  I just want my dick sucked.

[Büge]

I don't suppose it surprises anyone that Arizona is the first state to force limits on abortion coverage in health insurance policies.

[Mongrel]

Hey hey, nice job beating Utah.

[Bal]

To be fair, we've got damn near as many Mormons as they do.

[Thad]

...so in a brief moment of sanity, the state senate voted down the birther bill.  Presumably because they realized the rest of the country already thinks we're a bunch of insane racists and decided now would not be the best time to throw fuel on that fire.

Also, Sheriff Joe's not running for governor.  Though that's not a sign that he doesn't think he'd win so much as a sign that he realizes he'd have to resign as sheriff and let the County Board of Supervisors replace him with somebody who'd cooperate with the feds' investigation of him.