"They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
— Pastor Martin Niemöller
On Saturday I attended the Bar Mitzvah of a friend’s son. Sitting in the Temple with my friend’s family and members of the congregation observing the Shabbat, I couldn’t help but wonder how they felt about the passage of the misnamed immigration-enforcement bill by our Arizona legislature. I wondered if they had made any connection between the actions of our misguided, and gallactically stupid, lawmakers and the group of brown shirts that passed similar laws in Germany as part of the Nazi take over. As it turned out, it didn’t take long for the rabbi to make the connection at all. Although his remarks on the subject were succinct, they were nevertheless powerful, as he reminded everyone in attendance that there was not a very big leap between legislation passed under the guise of providing protection for citizens and the murder of more than six million Jews.
The law does not target Jews. Instead, it targets Hispanics. That the law is racist in its roots is not even in dispute. If he though he could have gotten away with it the law’s author — Russell Pierce (R-Nazi) — would have immigrants sew a bright M (for Mexican!) on their clothes to more easily identify them. Do you doubt that? Well, does anyone seriously believe that any of the millions of Canadians who visit and stay in Arizona every winter will be pulled over, questioned and have a police officer demand their papers? Or how about the millions of white Europeans who visit (or, at least who used to) the Grand Canyon? Didn’t think so.
It is not an overreaction or hyperbole to suggest that Arizona’s immigration-enforcement law is Nazi-like. The law allows any law enforcement officer to demand citizenship papers from anyone they suspect is an immigrant, at any time. There is zero requirement for reasonable suspicion or probable cause — fundamental rights guaranteed to everyone, including visitors to our country, in the Fourth Amendment. The language of the Fourth Amendment cannot be clearer: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law knowing that every provision of it stood in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and that it did little to protect Arizonans or alleviate any of the concerns in Arizona caused by Central American drug cartels (cartels, by the way, that do most their work south of the border, and use U.S. citizens to deliver and sell their product north of the border). Of course Brewer — who, like the majority of Arizona’s cowardly legislature, is badly in need of a spine — was never looking to protect Arizonans in the first place. What she, and the republican majority wanted to protect was themselves. More specifically, their re-election chances in November. It just might work. Unfortunately their re-election is likely to come at great expense to the state and citizens they’re supposed to serve.
What Brewer and company lack in fortitude they make up for in ignorance. Among the many damages caused by Arizona’s term limits law is the lack of institutional knowledge in the halls of the legislature. No one in Arizona’s legislature . . . check that. No one in Arizona’s republican majority at the legislature seems to remember what happened to our state the last time it went the way of the racists. That was back in the late 1980s when then-Gov. Evan Mecham (R-Ku Klux Klan) rescinded a holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. As a result, Arizona lost billions because of canceled events (including a Super Bowl), a drop in tourism and billions more because, generally, for the most part, people don’t want to do business with people who appear to be racists, or who take racially motivated political acts. Turns out racism isn’t just bad for business, it just plain bad business.
In Arizona, we’re about to find out — again — just how bad it can get.
