The philosophical divide could not be more clearly defined.
On one side, there’s the state of Arizona. The 48th state to join our union, the very young Arizona will celebrate its centennial in February of 2012, and its capitol of Phoenix has become America’s 5th largest city.
Arizona’s state government, as most of the world knows by now, enacted a tough new law regarding illegal immigration. The law itself provides a bit of a mirror image to our nation’s federal law regarding illegal immigrants, yet Arizona’s law is rather extraordinary. The fact that an individual state would perceive a need to replicate federal law says something profound about our federal government’s ability to enforce federal law.
On the side of Arizona’s state government resides a majority of the Arizona citizenry. Despite the on-going threats of boycotts and racially charged attempts to smear the state, some 70 percent of Arizona’s citizens still believe their legislature and governor have done the right thing. 59 percent of the entire U.S. citizenry also sides Arizona, as do members of legislatures in at least nine different states.
Suffice it to say that there is a clear majority, a “critical mass” of American support for Arizona’s new law regarding illegal immigration.
But on the other side of the aisle, there is the United Nations. Earlier last week, five “human rights experts” from the U.N. issued an official “statement” claiming that Arizona’s new law might lead to people being targeted by police because of their skin color, and noted that this, in itself, is a violation of “international law.”
On the U.N. side of the aisle there is also Hugo Chavez, the dictator of Venezuela (and currently one of the worst violators of “human rights” in the world). Chavez, who has become quite expert in using his dictatorial power to shut-down Venezuelan media outlets when they articulate things with which he disagrees, has also become masterful at “playing” America’s old-fashioned mainstream media. He demonstrated this manipulative skill last week by throwing out the “R-word” (a sure-fire way of garnering news headlines in America), and claiming that Arizona’s new law was reflective of America’s “old habits of racism.”
Standing with the U.N. and Hugo Chavez are such notable individuals and institutions as the city government of Los Angeles; U.S. Congressman Raul Grijalva (he’s supporting the boycott of his own state); the city government of San Francisco; Grammy Award winning recording artist (and citizen of Colombia) Shakira; embattled Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon (he’s supporting the boycott of his own city); the Phoenix Suns basketball team; the “leadership” of Great Oak High School in Temecula, California (they cancelled their marching band’s scheduled appearance in the Fiesta Bowl this December as a means of “protest” ); and the “leadership” of suburban Chicago’s Highland Park High School, who cancelled their girls basketball team’s trip to an Arizona tournament as a means of “protest” (what a shame that adults are using the children they “lead” to advance their own political agendas).
That’s pretty much what the philosophical divide looks like. There’s the Arizona side of the aisle, with the vast majority of the American people, who are in earnest standing for lawfulness and national sovereignty. And there’s the U.N. – Hugo Chavez side of the aisle, with a small minority of the American people and a lot of folks who aren’t U.S. citizens. And citizen or not, these folks don’t seem to have much concern for U.S. sovereignty, and seem fine with lawlessness.
So where does the President of the United States fit-in? Thus far, it seems that President Obama is squarely on the U.N.-Hugo Chavez side. And there’s no evidence that he intends to change anytime soon.
It may be that President Obama has been caught off-guard by America’s collective stance on these issues, and has simply misread the American electorate. While Reuters news agency recently reported on the overwhelming American support for Arizona’s new law, Reuters also reported a dismal 25% support for President Obama’s “immigration reform” proposals, which call for the “legalizing” of millions of illegal immigrants. Surely the sitting President of the United States – any sitting President of the United States – would not want to be aligned with the U.N. and Hugo Chavez, while at the same time at odds with his own citizenry.
That assumption might apply to most U.S. Presidents. But Barack Obama is different. He has stated no less than three times since his inauguration that he would rather become a one-term President, than be something less than a “great” President. And he has made it clear that, for him, his “greatness” is contingent on his ability to fundamentally transform America into something very different from what it has been.
So, Americans have a choice to make in November of this year, and again in November of 2012. Will we choose the “Arizona side of aisle,” or the “U.N. – Hugo Chavez side of the aisle?”
The choice is nothing short of the difference between lawfulness, and lawlessness; between national sovereignty, and sovereignty’s demise.
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