God, I love Bennett's work in the Chattanooga Times Free Press...
While the dust settles from yesterday's rulings, five of the Soupreems must be relishing their new powers to influence national politics and terrify some of the country's most vulnerable.
Most of us are waiting with trepidation for Thursday's scheduled ruling on the Affordable Care Act, but a sizeable percentage of the population is more concerned by what the conservative justices had to say on Arizona's draconian immigration laws. The court struck down three of that state's new statutes, but allowed the fourth one, the infamous "Papers, please" measure to stand (at least for now).
Already several other state legislatures are working to advance their own versions of Arizona's racial profiling laws, and unless the lower courts contest the constitutionality of those new laws, we might see scenes from Arizona played out all over the country.
But watching Arizona's smug Governor Jan Brewer bray to the cameras that her state had been "vindicated", even after getting bitch-slapped by a majority of the court's justices on three out of four cases, was indeed reminiscent of the Black Knight's state of denial in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"...
3 comments:
Squatlo,
I disagree. Having lived in westside Indianapolis with what basically has become a barrio across I-465; I would have no problem with a IMPD officer in the course of a routine traffic stop asking for ID.
The law doesn't allow the cops to target (racial profile) people.
Shit, you cound take two school buses over to the Hispanic flea market and fill seats for a one way (doubtful) trip to ElPaso and the bridge back to Mexico.
What we need is a comprhensive policy to address immigration reform. The problem is politics and big donors and their lobbyist
bagmen...
Sarge
Activity profiling is OK, is the guy acting suspicious, is he doing something wrong. then you grab him. Appearance profiling is not OK.
This law had more wrinkles in it than a scrotum. For one thing it allowed citizens to sue police if they thought the police were not racial profiling. No other law on the books in Arizona exists, no law says I can sue if cops don't chase people that pass on the right. WTF?
I think a lot of folks are just getting their panties in a wad because there are suddenly more brown people around speaking in Spanish than they care for. So they've come up with ways to "racially profile" by other means... and they intend to see it enforced by making cops fear lawsuits if they DON'T ask for identification based merely on appearances or last name.
It's an ugly, sadistic way to extract a toll on people who are already living on the fringe of society.
In Nashville, the Davidson County Sheriff has used "legal" stops as an excuse to deport parents, separate moms from kids, etc. It's like a legalized "driving while brown" rule, and it's gotten so bad that immigrants who are victims of violent crimes are reluctant to call the authorities, which makes them even more vulnerable to predatory landlords, scam artists, and thugs. Why call the cops if they're likely to haul your ass in and demand bond before you can get someone to show up with documentation that you're here legally?
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