New Arizona Immigration Enforcement Laws

Pig/Horse/Pig

They were not prepared remarks. He was at a planned speaking engagement and the signing ceremony had taken place shortly before. Just like the Gates situation. You would think he's learn.

 

The only thing that proves is that Obama is a dumbass.

 

If Obama is a dumbass, what is Sarah Palin?

 

We agree on something! It's a start.

Whether or not an individual police officer suffers serious conseqences is dependent on many things. Some examples, but not all inclusive: 1) Attitude of the police leadership; 2) The severity of the offences; 3) The ability of the victims to fight back.

I assume that there has been some local news about the NOPD. If there is systemic corruption, bad things can on go for a very long time. It's very difficult for the victims to get a remedy for abuses, especially the mostly defenseless poor. Over time individual police officers may pay a price, but it has little effect on the results.

Could AZ have an example of this? Consider Joseph M. Arpaio, the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona (The county includes Phoenix. It's in southern AZ, but not on the border. Here is a link to a class action suit filed against him and the county:

http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/immigrants/filedfirstamdcm071608%282%29.pdf

If you read it, you will see the extensive use of racial profiling techniques. Note that this is under federal law that prohibits racial profiling that the county explicitly agreed to in a memorandum of agreement. Those that hate Mexicans and believe that hispanic citizens don't deserve constitutional protections reserved for real citizens, will yell, "You go girl," but reasonable people will agree this is abuse.

Now I don't think every sheriff or police department will implement these tactics. I think most will explicitly and vigorously reject this policy, but I also don't naively believe that Arpaio will be the only one who will see the AZ law as a new tool to use. These few can propagate a tremendous amount of damage with little effective recourse available to the victims. Note that the suit covers incidents from 2007. Not exactly swift justice.

WRT the individual policeman, he has a tremendous amount of discretion in his actions and is given an overwhelming benefit of the doubt when his actions are questioned. This should be obvious from the example of the passenger in the vehicle stopped for a minor traffic violation that will turn over his physical ID when he doesn't have to. If he doesn't, that officer could easily make things uncomfortable for a period of time without any real recourse to the victim. As long as an officer isn't too extreme in his actions, he can pretty much do what he wants with impunity. I think this is also proven when you look at the history of racial profiling in this country.

Which gets me to another point. These type of abuses are obviously well known and we have a great deal of knowledge on how to deal with them. Despite what you say, legislatures need to communicate intent when they write the law. What they don't say can be as important as what they do say. Instead of just saying no racial profiling, they could have required well known tools for managing it. For example, look at this excerpt from the lawsuit:

If they were really interested in not allowing racial profiling, they could have required and funded the implementation of these professional safeguards, but they didn't. I wouldn't be surprised if some localities have implemented these things, but it is obviously not universal. What you don't say or do is often a better indication of intent, and this is one of those times.

So to summarize, I have shown that severe racial profiling already exists despite laws prohibiting it, and that justice for the offended is rare and extremely slow. While this type of behavior will not be universal, it will be a significant problem that must be addressed. History shows that if individual officers have a bias against certain groups, they have broad discretion to violate their rights with impunity. Professional standards of safeguards exist to minimize these biases, but the state of AZ chose not to require them, and is relying on the meaningless "the law prohibits racial profiling" excuse. Words without action are meaningless.

Your position seems to be "the law prohibits racial profiling." The legislature requiring professional safeguards would be too complex. Besides, the number of police who violate this law would only be incidental and would face quick and harsh retribution. Please correct me where I'm wrong.

In terms of making a case, I do not think I could ever make an acceptable case to those who hate Mexicans because... But I do think I've made the case where reasonable people with respect for the rights of all citizens will be concerned with what's happening.

If racial profiling is illegal, and you say it is, you are really limited to catching people while they are commiting other offenses or if you trick them (totally legitimate). Your strongest examples are really things that are only appropiate around the border and we are speaking of a law that covers the entire state, where many long term illegals are integrated into the citizen polulace. Behavior can be an indication where illegals might be found, but in and of itself, it doesn't distinguish an illegal from a citizen in any way.

WRT identifying oneself, you should do a little research. You are identifying yourself when you give verbal assurance and the officer can't legitimately make you prove yourself unless there is good reason to think you may be a suspect in some offense that he can arrest/detain you for. Now of course the benevolent omniscient godly perfect police officer wouldn't do this, but as I previously said, he can make you miserable with impunity if he chooses, but this isn't legitimate. If you think he can use your lack of producing an ID as reasonable suspicion of being an illegal, what is the basis?

So this gets back to my original question, what is a specific example of what could make him suspect that a passenger is illegal? For some reason you find it limiting. I'm not limiting anything. A reasonable response would be an example or I can't think of one. Telling me the officer has reasonable suspicion isn't useful when the question is about trying to determine what reasonable suspicion means in practice. Providing some vague definition is not helpful either. Either you can come up with an example or you got nothing.

When I am responding to you, I am expressing my thoughts to you, and I cannot possibly be speaking for you. Expressing what I think you may think is exactly that and is useful to probe understanding. Perhaps because your avatar is a cartoon character, you think people might be confused about who is speaking, but unless you actually are a cartoon character, they can tell you from me. Address the issue being addressed, unless I'm being snarky.

 

do you ever get tired of this line of thinking? are you conceding that obama is a dumbass? do you think it would make obama less of an idiot if palin were also an idiot? whats the relevance? do you think obama is a dumbass? i dont. i think palin is.

 

No i don't think Obama is a dumbass. Just because i don't agree with his policies at times doesn't mean the guy isn't smart. Look at his credentials. And the conversation was with SabanFan, who has come to Sarah Palin's defense many a time, and called me out for saying she was a dumbass. And it was more of a question anyway, trying to find out why Obama is a dumbass and Palin isn't.

The relevance? It's just as relevant as you waiting around for me to post something so you can disagree with it. Once again, i thought i was on your ignore list. Do us both a favor and put me back on it.

 

learn to address the issue at hand instead of always comparing everything to republicans. if obama does something dumb, your point of "well republican x is also dumb" is not a defense of obama. try really hard to understand that and people will respect you more.

i manage my ignore list, you manage yours.