Just to be clear, the police only found a small amount of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor, but prosecutors tacked on a charge of child endangerment just to be assholes. Of course, what isn’t child endangerment apparently, is having a SWAT team kick down a front door in the middle of the night and shoot a kid’s dogs in front of him.
This is crazy. Absolutely crazy. How can anybody defend a national drug policy that leads to this?
The latest Elway Poll shows Sen. Patty Murray with a comfortable lead over all rivals.
Last week KING-5/SurveyUSA had Dino Rossi leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Patty Murray by a stunning 52-42 percent, a margin both camps dismissed as an outlier. Well, now that the latest Elway Poll has Murray leading Rossi by an even more impressive 51-34 percent margin, it’s easy to understand the insiders’ reluctance to accept SurveyUSA numbers at face value.
SurveyUSA had Murray only garnering 73% of both self-identified Democrats and Liberals, and a paltry 46% of metro Seattle voters… unimaginably low numbers come November. By comparison, Elway found Murray enjoying the support of 92% of Democrats, and 73% of Seattleites.
Further, Elway examines Murray’s job performance ratings, a number often looked to as an indicator of electoral strength, and while incumbents never want to come in under 50%, Elway points out that “Murray’s ratings have historically been mediocre,” and that her current 48% rating falls only slightly below her 17-year average. So Republicans shouldn’t take much encouragement from that either.
What does this all mean for Rossi, who was widely expected to announce his candidacy by the end of April, and who we know to have had lengthy meetings and conversations with consultants and fundraisers in recent weeks? Well, there’s simply no strong evidence that Murray is quite as vulnerable as Republicans would wish her to be. Sure, this is just one poll amongst many, and the election is still a long ways off, but as Elway concludes:
The world is going to turn a few times before voters actually cast ballots, and campaigns make a difference. But no matter how these findings are sliced, Patty Murray appears to be in a formidable position.
No doubt Rossi is still getting a lot of encouragement to enter the race from the NRSC and the Republican consultancy class, even in the face of these daunting numbers, so I hope he takes seriously a bit of free advice from someone with nothing to gain from his decision one way or the other. Nobody has ever profited from underestimating Patty Murray… except, you know, the dozens of pollsters, fundraisers, consultants, media buyers and other political professionals who have made millions off previous failed attempts to unseat her, and who would make millions more off of your campaign.
Remember, politics is just as much a business as real estate, so don’t trust their salesmanship any more than you would trust your own.
Update: [Darryl] I’ve done some further analyses here, including a combined analysis of the two polls today and last week’s SurveyUSA poll.
Dan Savage has been bringing us the latest anti-gay zealot to be exposed as having a secret gay lifestyle.
I’ve always wondered (and may have even asked this question before at HA), is there an equivalent to this when it comes to being fervently anti-drugs? Have any hardcore drug warriors ever been exposed as secret drug users? Off the top of my head, I can only think of this one, but that guy was neither a politician, nor all that zealous a drug warrior. What’s the difference, then? Obviously, the major difference between homosexuality and drug use is that homosexuality is in-born, while drug use is a choice, but I’m not sure that difference alone explains why the phenomenon of self-loathing only happens with homosexuality.
UPDATE: In the comments, Troutski points out that Elvis was made an honorary narcotics enforcement official by Nixon. That also made me think of an obvious example of this, Rush Limbaugh, whose love of Oxycontin and frequent railing against druggies certainly qualifies.
I’ve now gone over 48-hours without DSL at my house, and seem nowhere closer to getting this fixed. The good news is that Qwest’s automated tech support line reports that I actually have an open ticket. The bad news is that it reports that I’m scheduled to have it resolved by January 1. After 45 minutes on hold, I gave up waiting for a live representative.
Technical breakdowns happen, but the most annoying thing about this outage is that there is nothing technical about it. My line and my modem were fine until somebody at Qwest reprovisioned me to faster, more expensive service without my permission. And despite support’s promises, they’ve been unable to reset my line to the where it was prior to 9:30 am Monday.
I’ve probably wasted five hours over the past two days attempting to deal with this, and many more hours traveling about in search of open WiFi networks. This sort of customer service is inexcusable.
State Rep. Chris Hurst (?-31) has started identifying himself on his campaign website as an “Independent Democrat,” which I suppose as far as bullshit, swing-district, campaign rhetoric goes, isn’t so remarkable. (Cowardly, disloyal and whiny, yes… but remarkable, no). But word is he’s planning to take his pouting subterfuge to the next level by identifying himself on the ballot as “Prefers Independent Democrat Party”… and he’s reportedly urging several colleagues he presumes to be equally cowardly, disloyal and whiny, to join him in pissing on their own caucus.
Yeah, well, that sorta transparent gamesmanship may be acceptable from the lying bastards in the Prefers Grand Old Party Party, but if Hurst and his cohorts want to deny the Democrats, then I say turnabout is fair play. Any candidate who refuses to identify himself as a Democrat to voters simply can’t be trusted to uphold Democratic values and unity, and thus should be denied any party support during the election. Furthermore, should Hurst or others follow through with their petty little game, I wouldn’t mind seeing them stripped of their caucus rank and committee chairmanships.
After all, it would be unfair to voters to allow Hurst to run as an “Independent,” yet serve as a Democrat.
Playing games like this with the ballot is both a disservice to voters and an insult to the rest of the caucus, so if Hurst and others are so disgusted with their fellow Democrats that they can’t bear to identify themselves as one, then I suggest they man up and start their own party.
UDPATE [Lee]: Hurst also happens to be the biggest roadblock to getting even basic drug law reform passed through the House. If being an “independent Democrat” means putting law enforcement union special interests over fiscally responsible and morally sound progressive policy, then it might be worthwhile for the voters of the 31st District to send someone else to Olympia.
Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.
Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 352 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.
The grand entry is served by a roundabout driveway. The 5 car garage is located to the right.
Reagan Dunn has a really nice house. Big. Expensive. Showy. (Though judging from the gaudy interior design, not all that gay.) So it’s little wonder a big spender like him opposes a high earners income tax…
LOCAL attorney and income-tax advocate William Gates Sr. is at it again. A few years ago, he led a task force to look into creating an income tax in Washington state. Now he is proposing an initiative to the people to create an income tax this November.
Oh that naughty Gates Sr., he’s “at it again.” Him and his income tax fetish.
Actually, the state Legislature created the bipartisan Washington State Tax Structure Committee back in 2001, composed largely of academics specializing in public finance, tax economics, accounting, and tax law, of which Gates Sr. was elected chair. The committee was charged with reporting back on how well our current tax system worked, and with recommending changes that might better serve the citizens of Washington state in the twenty-first century. The committee was not instructed to look into an income tax, in fact, it was specifically encouraged not to.
The committee determined that our tax structure is “fundamentally inequitable to low- and middle-income people, unfair to many businesses, and subject to sharp fluctuations in revenue.” It further concluded that it was inadequate for the realities of our modern economy, and proposed several major and minor alternatives for addressing these problems, one of which was a flat, broad based income tax.
The Legislature typically did nothing.
That proposal is wrong for Washington because it opens the door to expansion of the tax to all of us in the future, it will kill our economic recovery and it makes our state less competitive to new businesses.
And of course by “all of us,” Dunn is referring to himself, his family and the wealthy in-laws who presumably paid for the “grand entry way” and the rest of Dunn’s shockingly ostentatious McMonstrosity:
Grand entry way features elegant chandelier and custom millwork.
Dunn makes two economic assertions, and one bullshit, rhetorical red herring. Whether a high earners income tax would kill our recovery and make our state less competitive, as Dunn asserts, well, neither he nor I are economists, but many of the members of the Tax Structure Committee were, so I urge you to read their findings on such issues. As to the bullshit slippery slope argument that has become a mainstay of the anti-1077 camp, even Dunn can’t manage to keep that one straight:
The Legislature recently went through a long, torturous special session to debate increased taxes and to pass a state budget. Their final budget proposal made modest cuts and made up the difference with increased taxes. Legislators in Olympia didn’t have the guts to raise general taxes. They realized the people of this state have limits on what they are willing to pay to government.
So, um, the fact that the Legislature didn’t “have the guts” to raise general taxes… doesn’t that somewhat rebut Dunn’s argument that the slope to taxing “all of us” is as slippery as the granite countertops in his gourmet kitchen?
Kitchen features heated floor, and two Islands, as well as breakfast bar and pass thru to informal dining area.
Last year, when I spent the session endlessly editorializing on the virtues of a high earners income tax, I heard from several legislators who lectured me on my arrogance. The “people” rejected an income tax by a two to one margin back in 1973, I was told, so who was I to think I know better than the people?
The result of such forward thinking in 2009, Dunn fails to remind you, was an all-cuts budget.
Since the Legislature has maxed out every other tax source, those who want to endlessly increase the size of government need a new one. Gates has now stepped in with his proposal to “tax the rich.” Proponents will argue that it’s just a few thousand rich people. They hope you won’t notice that they have opened the door to a general income tax in the future.
Once Pandora’s box has been opened, how long will it take the Legislature to expand the income tax to you? With the Legislature’s proven appetite for taxes and spending, I would say not very long.
I’ll agree with Dunn that our current tax sources are pretty damn close to being “maxed out,” yet ironically, state and local government spending has been steadily shrinking as a percentage of the state economy for the past couple decades, as has per capita state spending adjusted for inflation according to the IPD for State and Local Governments. In other words, demand for government services is growing faster than the government itself.
Oh, and speaking of appetites:
Formal dining room has coved ceilings and wainscoting will enhance any dining experience.
The fact is, the experience of the past two Legislative sessions, in which budgets have been slashed, is that our elected officials have little appetite for tax hikes, even when that would be the economically responsible policy. Again, as Dunn himself points out, our legislators don’t “have the guts” to impose a general tax increase, and I hardly see how a high earners income tax changes that.
There has never been a tax that legislators have voluntarily cut. The only things we see year after year are incremental increases in the sales tax, property tax, sin taxes and a multitude of fees. Is there any doubt that the $200,000 income-tax cap will slowly creep down to the middle class?
Patently untrue. When Tim Eyman’s I-695 and its massive tax cut was thrown out as unconstitutional, state lawmakers quickly reenacted it legislatively. And when Eyman’s I-747 was recently thrown out after years of starving local budgets, Gov. Chris Gregoire called a special session to reenact that.
Dunn says that “we see year after year” of incremental tax increases, yet the state sales tax rate was last raised in 1983, and the state property tax levy rate has shrunk by a third over the past decade due largely to the limits imposed by the legislatively approved I-747. Meanwhile the state B&O tax on manufacturing has actually been cut twice over the past 15 years.
Yes, sin taxes routinely go up, but that is the nature of volume based excise taxes if they’re to keep up with inflation, and the same holds true for the gas tax, which despite recent (voter approved) increases now sits well below the historical average as a percentage of the cost of a gallon of gas. As for recent local sales and property tax hikes, these have all been approved by voters, often by overwhelming margins, to pay for services and public infrastructure investments we obviously want.
Informal dining area with fireplace and access to patio.
So there’s as little to support Dunn’s fears of middle class tax creep as there is to support his need for a second dining room.
The people passed Initiative 601, limiting state spending to the rate of inflation. When the Legislature found that inconvenient, they changed it. The people passed Initiative 960 requiring a two-thirds vote by the Legislature on new taxes. This past session, the Legislature found that inconvenient and changed it.
And the people elected the legislators who suspended I-601 and I-960, so what exactly is Dunn’s point? That’s how a democratic republic works, and if the people are unhappy with their lawmakers’ actions, they can always vote them out of office. Which perhaps explains why, as Dunn points out, our legislators lack “the guts” to pass a general tax increase like, you know, this one:
Is there any reason to believe state lawmakers will honor the $200,000 income-tax threshold in future sessions?
Yes! Because they don’t “have the guts to raise general taxes!” Those are Dunn’s words, not mine, though I agree with him 100%. And because, as they have proven with I-695 and I-747, our lawmakers don’t just tend to honor the will of the people, they fear it.
Whether the Legislature will be all that quick to adjust the income thresholds upwards with inflation, well that might be a stronger line of attack from critics like Dunn, although regardless, it would take an awfully long time for personal income to rise to the level where the proposed tax would fall on folks without “butler pantries.”
Butler's pantry features dual wine refrigerators and sink. It connects with formal dining room on right.
I guess even Dunn understands that defending the middle class against a high earners income tax is a bit of a challenge, so now it’s time to defend the virtues of the butler pantry crowd:
Gates will mask this income tax in the class-warfare mantra of “tax the rich” that we have heard far too much of in recent years.
Yes, in advocating for a slightly less regressive tax structure, Gates, the billionaire father of America’s richest man is engaging in “class warfare.” Gimme fucking break.
What he doesn’t tell you is that most small-business owners report their business income on their personal tax returns. They include money that they plan to put back into their business.
And what Dunn doesn’t tell you is that I-1077 eliminates the B&O tax on 80% of businesses, and lowers it on another 10%. This will be a particularly welcome relief to startups that have yet to turn a profit, but must now pay taxes on their gross revenue.
The income tax will prevent businesses from hiring new workers and expanding their operations. It will effectively stymie our economic recovery and continue the misery of the Great Recession.
He says it, but he provides no evidence to back it up, unlike 300-page Tax Structure Committee report that he so glibly dismisses. What is this… some sort of game?
Game room with wet bar, TV, and entry to home theater. Note the box beam ceiling!
People must ask themselves how this initiative will attract business to this state and put people back to work?
Um, by making it easier and more affordable to start up a small business because you’ll only have to start paying taxes on it once you’re drawing big profits out of it?
Clearly it will be a drag on our economy and add one more reason why businesses will not relocate here.
Clearly, Dunn doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, as Washington consistently ranks as having one of the best business climates in the nation. And clearly, Dunn would make a lousy spokesman for our region’s economic development efforts.
We have already seen Boeing move its headquarters to Chicago and open a new assembly line in South Carolina. Will creating an income tax attract the jobs that we have already lost to other states?
I dunno. Both Illinois and South Carolina have income taxes, yet Boeing had no qualms about moving there. So will creating a high earners income tax drive jobs away from Washington when we’ll still have one of the most wealthy-friendly tax structures in the nation? Huh? Will it, Reagan? Do you have any answers, or just rhetorical questions? Or is this all just political theater to you?
The theater has sound proofing construction, 10 barcolounger theater seats, HD receiver and surround sound. In fact, the whole house is wired with hidden speakers.
The citizens of Washington state have repeatedly told our elected state leaders that they don’t want an income tax.
True, voters rejected a broad based income tax by a two to one margin the last time it was on the ballot… way back in 1973. But they approved an income tax with 70% of the vote back in 1932. And if you find that 78 year-old vote unconvincing, well, it’s instructive to point out that 1932 was about as far removed from 1973, as 1973 is removed from today.
Our state leaders don’t have the guts to pass an income tax through the legislative process.
So let’s see… “our state leaders don’t have the guts to pass an income tax” on rich people who live in 6,900 SQFT houses, but they would have the guts to extend the tax to the rest of us. I still don’t get Dunn’s logic.
They hope that you will take the class-warfare bait and pass it for them. Let’s tell them once again that we don’t want an income tax — now or ever.
I think what Dunn and his fellow travelers are really afraid of is that voters will tell legislators the opposite, and that even if I-1077 loses, it will lose by such a small margin that it will forever reshape the debate on tax structure in Washington state. I think what Dunn is really afraid of is that a strong vote in favor of I-1077 will finally give our state leaders some guts to see to it that people like him finally pay their fair share.
David Frum tries to fill the pair of clown shoes that have been sitting around the CNN offices since Lou Dobbs left:
Many Americans carry in their minds a family memory of upward mobility, from great-grandpa stepping off the boat at Ellis Island to a present generation of professionals and technology workers. This story no longer holds true for the largest single U.S. immigrant group, Mexican-Americans.
Stephen Trejo and Jeffrey Groger studied the intergenerational progress of Mexican-American immigrants in their scholarly work, “Falling Behind or Moving Up?”
They discovered that third-generation Mexican-Americans were no more likely to finish high school than second-generation Mexican-Americans. Fourth-generation Mexican-Americans did no better than third.
If these results continue to hold, the low skills of yesterday’s illegal immigrant will negatively shape the U.S. work force into the 22nd century.
Ignoring for a second the obvious flaws in this argument – that the poor educational results aren’t necessarily a result of ability, but of circumstance and environment, both which can be improved upon – you can click through to the report to see that Mexican-Americans do about as well as African-Americans. In other words, David Frum is arguing that African-Americans and Mexican-Americans negatively shape the U.S. work force. The overall argument he’s making regarding immigration is no different than if he was arguing that we need to save the U.S. economy by keeping black people from having children.
Of course, this sentiment among conservatives shouldn’t be surprising to hear. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina specifically pointed to his state’s large African-American population as a “problem” facing his state. Conservatives often like to claim that the racism of the 1960s is dead. And in a way, they’re right. But a different racism has taken its place. What was once a more individualized contempt for any and all people of a different color has just transformed into a more subtle belief that people of a different ethnicity are collectively a burden on greater society.
My DSL stopped working at about 9:30 am this morning, and I’ve been on and off the phone with Qwest ever since. So I’ve been reduced to pecking stuff out on my iPhone.
Just thought you should know.
UPDATE:
So here’s the scoop.
Last week, a Qwest sales rep called me, trying to sell me their new 12 Mbps service, up from the 7 Mbps I have now. I’m always interested in faster broadband, but the woman didn’t quite seem to have a handle on how much more it would cost, and whether I’d need to spend $70 on a new modem, so I told her to call me back in a couple days so I’d have some time to check out the costs and specs and think about it. The next day a different Qwest rep calls with the same pitch, and I told him I’d already spoken with somebody, and would let them know.
Well apparently, I didn’t say “no” definitively enough, and somebody at Qwest decided to pad their commission by putting through the order anyway. So at about 9:30 AM, my line was re-provisioned, and no, my old modem doesn’t handle the higher speed connection.
It took about an hour with tech support to figure this out, and another couple hours to try to reprogram my modem to get it working — apparently, they couldn’t just throw a switch and bring back my old profile — at which point the rep promises to get this fixed and call me back. An hour and a half later, I call back Qwest and get tech rep number four on the phone, who assures me that everything has been fixed, the 12 Mbps order has been canceled, and the I’ve been switched back to the 7 Mbps service.
So then, why doesn’t everything work? The modem is now successfully synchronizing, a positive sign, but refuses to actually connect.
Oh, the tech rep explains, that’s because this new order won’t go through until 5 PM tomorrow. That’s just how long it takes to re-provision the line, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
So essentially, I’ll go the better part of two days without Internet service, all because some asshole at Qwest either couldn’t understand the word “no,” or simply didn’t care. (I say “asshole” rather than “idiot” because I assume the latter.) And the land line companies wonder why they keep losing customers?
Honestly… fuck ’em. Comcast offers similar speeds at similar prices (I think… I mean their website is incomprehensible when it comes to ordering broadband without cable TV), and even Clearwire looks like a reasonable alternative, so it’s not like I don’t have options. So if I’m gonna lose a couple days of service at their whim, I might as well lose it playing the special offers, getting discounts to switch from one to the other and back again.
On the bright side, I’m surfing the web now from a window seat at the Columbia City Alehouse, enjoying a $3 Happy Hour imperial pint along with a side order of free WiFi. If anybody reading this is in the neighborhood, stop on by and join me in raising a pint to the demise of Qwest.
Former Washington State Republican Party chair and failed 8th Congressional District candidate Diane Tebelius has a poll in the field testing the waters against 48th Legislative District Democratic incumbent Representatives Ross Hunter and Deb Eddy.
From all accounts the questions are pretty typical for this sorta poll: right/wrong direction, favorables/unfavorables, descriptions of the candidates followed by head to head match-ups and then some demographics. It is being conducted by Fallon Research.
The 62-year-old Tebelius has long been a party drudge with little to show for her efforts, having repeatedly been passed over or urged out of races in favor of fellow Republicans perceived by the powers that be to have more political upside. Following the GOP’s disastrous showing in 2006, a wave election for which Tebelius can hardly be blamed, she was unceremoniously ousted from her brief tenure as WSRP chair in favor of McKenna cabin boy Luke Esser. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” and all that.
I know GOPers are hoping that 2010 might produce a wave that washes in their direction, sweeping a few Republicans back into control of key Eastside seats that until only recently were solidly red, and there are a few vulnerable Dems who come to mind. But neither Hunter, the Times-endorsed candidate in last August’s King County Executive primary, nor former Discovery Institute fellow Eddy, come across to voters as representing the liberal wing of their party, and thus neither would provide much of an ideological contrast for Tebelius. And having watched Tebelius represent the KCGOP during their misplayed 2005 mass voter registration challenge, both Hunter and Eddy just come across as, well, smarter.
I’m not saying that Tebelius would make a bad candidate (though from past performance she hasn’t come across as a particularly good one), but one of the keys to success in politics, as in many other endeavors, is being in the right place at the right time… and once again Tebelius can’t quite seem to line the two up.
No doubt neither Hunter nor Eddy would prefer to draw Tebelius as a challenger, but I’m guessing neither is particularly awed by the prospect either. This may be the most favorable political climate local Republicans have enjoyed in years, but if they’re just going to throw old-timers like Tebelius at the Dems, it doesn’t say much about the WSRP’s strategy for exploiting it.
Last week’s winner was mlc1us. The correct location was in Kent, WA, where a woman was saved from being crushed by a car because of her decision to add more cheese to her chili. My in-laws live right near there and sent me this picture from on the ground.
As I mentioned last week, the secret locations each week will now be related to something in the news. I should also mention that the views are no longer guaranteed to be at the default orientation. By default the Bird’s Eye Views are facing north, but you may have to rotate the view to match the picture below. Good luck!
Exodus 22:21
“Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”
Discuss.
Despite the amount of inadvertent entertainment value he provides for this site, I haven’t been very familiar with the work of Ted Van Dyk. But in looking around at various items related to the new law in Arizona, I came across his column from yesterday in Crosscut.
In providing some context for why the law has enjoyed widespread popularity, Van Dyk writes:
The middle-sized central Arizona city, where I spend time, until recently was best known for its small colleges, farming, and ranching. It is a conservative place but populated as well by California and Midwest retirees drawn to the city’s natural setting and authentic old neighborhoods with Victorian homes. In recent years, however, it has been flooded by inflows of illegal Latinos far different from the family- and church-oriented, hard working Latinos familiar to Arizonans over many decades. Violent crime, drug production and trafficking, burglaries, and road accidents have skyrocketed. Burdens (and costs) also have mushroomed for local law enforcement, social service, and education agencies. Citizens no longer take casual night strolls they once did.
The home I share there with my life partner has been shaken twice in recent months by automobiles careening at high speed into its yard, both times driven by illegals high on drugs (who both fled the scene on foot, to be apprehended later). The drivers had no insurance and promptly disappeared, making restitution for property damage impossible.
Down the street, in this traditional neighborhood, a family residence became a notorious drug-distribution point, with autos driving through to make pickups, night and day. Couriers on bikes (Latinos, as it happens) made drug deliveries throughout the city. Law enforcement recently was able to stop the operation, after several years. But it was only one of many in the city.
The deterioration of Phoenix is not merely anecdotal. The amount of drug cartel activity and kidnappings has gone way up in recent years. But as Dave Neiwert points out here, this is a drug prohibition problem, not an illegal immigration problem. Going after illegal immigrants will do absolutely nothing to address what many Arizonans see as the justification for their new law.
The escalation in the violence has been a result of a number of factors. As I’ve written about previously, the strength of Mexico’s drug cartels was a result of our relative success in cracking down on Colombian cartels. In addition, the border crackdowns since 9/11 have forced those cartels to move more of their operations into the United States, especially by growing marijuana in public lands within America instead of trying to smuggle it across the border. Third, the nationwide efforts to restrict sales of over-the-counter cold medicines – making it much harder to cook up large quantities of methamphetamines – has shifted that trade from being small and local to being a more high-scale operation that makes its way from Mexico through the southwest.
All of these things have made Phoenix, which sits in an ideal location near the Mexican border, a major transit and operation point for Mexican-based drug distribution networks. This is wholly separate from the reality of the vast majority of illegal laborers within the United States, most of whom are still the “church-oriented, hardworking Latinos” that Van Dyk fondly remembers. He probably doesn’t see that so much now that the growing anti-immigration paranoia has painted targets on their backs.
Not surprisingly, none of this history shows up in Van Dyk’s column, despite the fact that it’s the reason for why there’s now so much crime there. Instead, what’s left unchallenged is the incorrect assumption that all of these bad things are simply the result of people coming here illegally to work. In reality, the cause and effect is reversed. Drug prohibition and the empowering of the cartels over the past 20 years is what has created the need for so many people in Mexico to seek low-wage employment in the United States. And now that the violence and economic devastation is starting to follow them across the border, we’re blaming them and continuing to ignore the real villain.
I don’t think I need to add anything to Jon’s sentiments from earlier this week. There’s little to no distinction between the actions of those behind the Arizona law and the kinds of things that real fascists were doing in the beginning of their rises to power. And the attempts to misdirect blame for the failures of drug prohibition onto some of the individuals who’ve been most negatively affected by it is appalling.
Of course, this isn’t a criticism of Ted Van Dyk. In his column, he recognizes the potential grave injustices that this law tries to normalize. But there’s a separate criticism that needs to be made. And it’s to all of those in the media who continue to discuss the topic of illegal immigration without even mentioning the central role that drug prohibition plays in it. Without that context, we will continue to remain angry at the wrong people and will continue to steer ourselves towards that more dangerous world where large classes of our fellow citizens lose the presumption of innocence that should be a right to us all.
Guess I shoulda posted this soon but there’s a May Day march today, rallying in support of humane immigration reform. It starts at the Judkins Park Playfield at noon, and marches to Memorial Stadium. Come show your outrage at Arizona’s anti-American new immigration law, and to demand that Congress take up the issue.
UPDATE:
A good suggestion from comment thread. Sign the petition urging the City of Seattle to boycott Arizona.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!