So Prop 100 passed with about a 64% "yes" vote with the major headline of the proposition saying that part of that money will go towards education. The rest will go to police and firefighters, which is great.
The one concern I have is that of the government. We had already entrusted them to use our money wisely to help Arizona develop into a successful state, but out of nowhere we are in a huge deficit, and education seems to be paying the price for the mistakes of the people who are supposed to be leading this state.
How do we know that the money will actually go to education? And what can we do if it doesn't? If the government uses this money for anything other than education, police and firefighting, along with the other mentioned programs in the proposition, then we can consider this no more than a bailout by us for a government who has not proven that they can handle the fiscal responsibility that we allow them by paying taxes.
I was completely for Prop 100, but I do have my questions about the honesty of the government. Are they really going to do what we voted for, or was this just a way to take money from us to fix the problems they created? I certainly hope that education gets the money that is rightfully set apart for it. Ranked 49 out of 50 states, Arizona needs as much help as possible in the education department.
Also, if anybody has the info, can you please let me know if it is a 1 cent tax increase, or a 1% tax increase? If it's 1% it would mean it's 1 cent from every dollar you spend which would can definitely add up.
Also, on another note, here's a video from the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, where Professor Soto gives a political speech about the SB1070 law, and gets reaction from the crowd. She is definitely a strong woman for staying up there throughout the whole thing.
Let's take a look at SB1070 from a different point of view. A point of view that started way back in 1513.
Even before the 1500s the Spanish were running around with what they were calling a legal "Inquisition". That meant that they were running around countries forcing others to adopt Catholicism, and then enforcing the rules/laws (sound familiar?) of the Catholic church, which included death if you broke certain rules.
In Mexico, the inquisition began in 1500s something around the 1520s MEXICAN INQUISITION went on for many years until about 1820. Obviously, we saw the results of this by the way that Mexico has turned out now.
In 1513 the Spanish came out with a document called "El Requerimiento" or "The Requirement". It was a "legal" document used by the spanish to impose their laws and ways on the natives of any country they felt like taking over and changing. It happened in South America and it happened in Mexico. People lost their way of life, their language and their culture. They were forced to follow the laws of the spanish and convert to catholicism.
The language of the requirement was spanish, and since the indigenous people did not understand spanish, they did not know what it meant, so some that resisted were arrested and forced to change or even killed. The language of the requirement was that, while the spanish understood it the natives did not.
This 1070 law is the same thing. They have no defined what "reasonable suspicion" is or just how they will avoid racial profiling in finding illegal immigrants. It's ridiculous.
Another part of this is very recent. In 1993 California set up Operation Gatekeeper which militarized the border between San Diego and Tijuana. In Texas, Operation Hold The Line militarized the border between El Paso, a few other cities, and Juarez. That change made it so the bulk of illegal immigration was funneled through Arizona. What's in Arizona? The most unforgiving terrain in the country, the desert. That's why we hear of people dying in the desert from either dehydration due to heat, or from freezing during the winter.
Then comes SB1070. It's like the government saying,"Oh, you made it? Alright, well now it's a crime for you to be here. Get out."
"Oh, but they should do it legally! They should apply for citizenship so they can be here legally like the rest of us," say Anti-Immigration people everywhere. Yeah? Well SB1070 makes it a CRIME to be here without documentation. And anyone that knows the process to becoming a citizen, knows that in order to even apply you must not have a criminal record. So how can those people enter legally if they have a criminal record due to this law? Not to mention, the parts in the law saying anybody who hires them, even anybody riding in a vehicle with an illegal immigrant, may be charged with a misdemeanor.
The language isn't even clear enough for citizens to understand the law. It's ridiculous that anyone would support a law which THEY don't even understand, that's how ignorant people have become because they feel they can trust their government.
I say, don't trust the government. Do your research, make your own opinions, and speak up! You give loyalty to your country always, but to your government when it deserves it. Well it doesn't deserve it right now, they have begun on a hunt on human beings. This isn't a war zone. This is American soil. Welcome to Arizona.
COMMENT, SPEAK YOUR MIND, TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION
We have been, actually the WORLD has been watching Arizona for at least the past month with the emergence of Senate Bill 1070 (SB1070). The entire U.S. and even countries such as Mexico, Spain and even India have been covering the story of this bill, now turned law since AZ Gov. Jan Brewer signed it last saturday. The few details alone give you a sense of what the law was designed to do and what means can be used to enforce it.
According to azleg.gov SB1070 the purpose of this bill is to:
"Requires officials and agencies of the state and political subdivisions to fully comply with and assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws and gives county attorneys subpoena power in certain investigations of employers. Establishes crimes involving trespassing by illegal aliens, stopping to hire or soliciting work under specified circumstances, and transporting, harboring or concealing unlawful aliens, and their respective penalties."
Translated to plain english, that says that law enforcement agencies have the requirement or responsibility to enforce immigration laws that we already have. This law gives them and county attorneys more power and ways to enforce this.
What this law does is allow police officers to use "reasonable cause" to detain someone and demand that they show their immigration documents, and to ARREST those who cannot produce them on the spot. Anybody who knows what does documents are, and how valuable they are, know that they don't carry them around for fear of them being lost or stolen. It takes years to get a green card and even more time to get your citizenship. If you lose those papers, it takes years to get a replacement.
While this is supposed to be targeting people who are here illegally, it also makes legal hispanics a target. Brewer, in her press conference in which she so publicly and proudly signed the bill into law in front of hundreds of cameras, said that:
"This training will include what does and does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a person is not legally present in the United States. Racial profiling is illegal. It is illegal in America, and it's certainly illegal in Arizona"
What training will allow a cop to make a judgement on who looks suspicious enough to be illegal? There is no way that a cop can tell the difference between a legal citizen or an illegal immigrant....unless he looks at their skin first. Now this is where conservatives freak out saying that this law isn't racist and that there are more illegals here other than Mexicans. Sure, there are illegal Canadians. But how many illegal Canadians are in Arizona?
This law targets illegal immigrants who are Mexican, Hispanic or Latino. It's about the people who do the jobs that nobody else wants to do. If they are deported, are legal Americans really going to take those jobs that make next to nothing? Doubt a man who got laid off after making enough to support his family will be happy making minimum wage at a burger joint.
Let's step away from the race issue for a minute. This law required that immigrants carry their legal papers. Right now it will be affecting legal latinos in the state. Let's say that this law is expanded to include Japanese immigrants, Indian immigrants (of which there are many in Phoenix), Korean immigrants ect. Soon enough EVERYBODY will have to carry identification, which means that somewhere in government, there will be a database with YOUR information on it.
This has already come up in the federal government with the suggestion that requiring all citizens to carry National I.D. cards would somehow help with security in the country. That would mean questioning anybody who the police see fit, for their I.D. (or immigration documents....sound similar?) The U.K. has National I.D.s.....and guess who got them first...that's right foreign nationals a.k.a. immigrants.
Arizona has been the starting place for some of the craziest legislation that has ever been brought up, and here we go again, being played as guinea pigs for another ridiculous law.
Lastly, I want to bring up the police. People like to believe that police officers are honorable people, and I agree that most are. MOST. We have seen different instances in which cops themselves have been convicted of committing crimes using their jobs. Police brutality, murder ect. (check out http://www.policecrimes.com/ if you want examples)
Police officers don't make enough money to keep putting more stress on them than they already have. The good cops do their job, take their paycheck home and raise their families. They legitimately care about their communities which they have been charged with protecting, with their lives if necessary. Turning them into immigration officials on the street just makes it harder for them to do their jobs, not to mention the backlash that they are certain to get if they stop legal citizens who feel harassed.
There is also the issue that this law will be taking police away from what their primary functions are: to protect people. If someone is being raped, or someone's house is broken into, or someone is getting mugged, they call the cops. Sorry, the cops won't show up for another couple of hours because they happened to stop someone who happened to not be carrying their papers, they had to arrest them and drive them to ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, http://www.ice.gov), only to find out, that person was a legal citizen. Then they have to file paper work ect. Even if the person IS an illegal immigrant, then there are more steps they have to take before they can get out to those calls of murder/rape/robbery ect.
We need to wake up and realize that those people who we have entrusted to lead us in government, are regular people just like us! Some of them are not too bright, and even more of them decline to read the bills they read, instead going off of what they are told, as many Americans these days do.
Do the research, look up the facts and then state your opinion. Stop taking the information that is fed to you from various sources such as the news, your neighbor, your parents and (yes i've seen this case in Phoenix) your pastor. Stop being lazy, get off your couch and pay attention to what is happening in YOUR world, because today it's the latino community getting screwed, but next time it may be YOU.
COMMENTS ARE WELCOME, YOU DON'T HAVE TO SIGN IN TO COMMENT. LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS, LET'S SEE WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK. READ THE BILL IF YOU HAVE SOME TIME, THE LINK IS UP TOP IN THE POST. THANKS!
