by David Safier
Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican Party. If it fits into a slogan, if it sounds good, if it makes your head bob up and down in agreement, it's a winner.
Today's example: a Jesse Kelly ad about his support for SB1070.
"What part of illegal do they just not understand?"
"If you're here illegally, then you need to return to your home country."
"It's just that simple."
Yes, it's just that simple. Put the illegals in buses and send them home, then cut taxes — It's your money! — and Drill, Baby, Drill. Presto, all our problems will be solved. It's just that simple.
Here's the ad.
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I’m 100% certain that we need to be tackling illegal immigration at both a state and federal level, but SB1070 was an incredibly bad move for our state.
In the absence of leadership on either side, we let a guy like Russell Pearce (aka – “Mr. Whoops, I didn’t mean to send out that Holocaust denial email!”) craft a piece of junk legislation to please his supremacist friends and placate the voters who can be whipped into a frenzy be the word ‘illegals’ but can’t be counted on to read the actual legislation.
Aside from the fact that this is the worst kind of lawmaking, it is going to cost Arizona a bundle. My business compadres are cringing – again – at the decidedly anti-commerce climate this kind of ideological chest-thumping brings up, and Arizona taxpayers will be paying through the nose when the state has to defend the law against our Constitution.
I think Thane is correct in saying that Goddard & crew need to step up and explain why this law sucks. To avoid the conversation is to refuse to acknowledge the problems that Arizona is really having with illegal traffic across our border. Legislation like this gets passed only when there is a vacuum of real leadership.
I disagree, however, that this is a illegal vs. ‘legalized’ debate. This is about..
–Upholding inalienable American Constitutional rights vs. abdicating some of those rights to create a patchwork law that still fails to address the core border enforcement issues in our state.
–Supporting our already over-stretched law enforcement officers with real support at the border vs. allowing anyone the opportunity to heap lawsuits onto some policeman who doesn’t jump fast enough at their requests to investigate potential illegals.
I lived and worked in foreign nations, and I never had to fear being caught without my ‘papers’ as a result of some neighbor’s xenophobia or a random traffic stop. Shame on Jesse Kelly and any other politician in our state who tries to spin this catastrophic Constitutional violation into some sort of snarky soundbite.
Simple wins debates. It doesn’t make for good policy. Things are illegal because we make it so; it’s not a natural order, nor is the mere illegality of something an argument for its continuing illegality, or worse, its criminalization. We need to move beyond simple sound bytes to fix our immigration policies to reflect and embrace reality and the proper limits of government power. Kelly is the worst of a pretty poor lot in the CD8 GOP field.
I think that the weakest point the ad makes is:
“Law applies to illegal immigrants only.”
“What part of illegal do they just not understand?” is going to win them votes unless the opposition can present a case that immigration law should not be obeyed. I don’t know of any elected official who has started making that point yet but maybe I don’t watch enough tv news to notice.
The current immigration law creates perverse incentives and unintended consequences. The day Terry Goddard can sell those ideas as a reason to legalize immigration is the day he could beat his competition that doesn’t endorse legalized immigration into pulp.
Insulting those who disagree with you is a great tactic if you want to be extra-extra sure that they (and those that read your words) never ever consider changing their mind on SB 1070.
I’m just saying.
Like the simpletons who are proposing it! Morons for oversimplification! Great slogan.
Sounds pretty simple to me.