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Charlie Sykes: Sykes Writes

THURSDAY HOT READ: ARIZONA HYSTERIA

By Charlie Sykes

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Victor Davis Hansen provides some perspective.

Racist! Nativist! Profiler! Xenophobe!

Write or say anything about illegal immigration, and one should expect to be called all of that and more—even if a strong supporter of legal immigration. Illegal alien becomes undocumented worker. Anti-immigrant replaces anti-illegal-immigration. “Comprehensive” is a euphemism for amnesty. Triangulation abounds. A fiery op-ed grandstands and deplores the Arizona law, but offers no guidance about illegal immigration — and blames the employer for doing something that the ethnic lobby in fact welcomes.

Nevertheless, here it goes from a supporter of legal immigration: how are we to make sense of the current Arizona debate? One should show concern about some elements of the law, but only in the context of the desperation of the citizens of Arizona. And one should show some skepticism concerning mounting liberal anguish, so often expressed by those whose daily lives are completely unaffected by the revolutionary demographic, cultural, and legal transformations occurring in the American Southwest.

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  1. BB - Apr 29, 2010 6:16 AM

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    I do not understand the debate. Illegal means just that.there is a system in place for imagration.If the fed govnt is unwilling to enforce the law then a state must act.

  2. MADDOG - Apr 29, 2010 6:28 AM

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    The debate is this. Conservatives want the laws upheld because it would be a major step towards fixing a lot of the financial and health care problems we have here. The liberals want the illegals left alone because they would be losing a votebase if they were sent home. I know they are illegal and are not supposed to be able to vote but the dems don't care about that as long as they can stay in power.

  3. ED - Apr 29, 2010 6:36 AM

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    Arizona is sinking into a morass of red ink (est as high as $5.1B deficit and one of the highest deficit to budget ratios for 2010).It is no wonder that they had to do something. It is my understanding that the AZ statute is modeled on the federal statutes, lifted word for word in some cases. I wish they hadn't had to do it but I understand what drove them to. Fiscal responsibility is a virtue.

  4. Bert - Apr 29, 2010 6:37 AM

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    The debate is this. Conservatives want an America like Brazil or Edwardian England where you are so well off and lazy that you won't clean your own house or mow your own lawn, but you love to sit around and bellyache about the servants.

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