For some strange yet supposedly valid reason, a coalition of groups — including Action NC, Bonilla Community Services, Immigrant Solidarity Committee and St Peter’s Catholic Church – rallied in Charlotte on Thursday to protest Arizona’s immigration law. According to some of the organizers, the Arizona laws on the books are “racist”, and they “unfairly criminalize Hispanic people”. In lockstep with the recent (and somewhat obtuse) ruling in federal court, the protesters also argue that the law violates concepts of federal preemption.

Allow me to make a few comments.

First off, let me say that as a general rule, I don’t like protests. Arguing against things you do not like is fine, and protesting is sometimes a valuable tool that is conducive to argumentation. In the modern era, however, most protests seem to be more about chanting and obstinacy rather than actual debate. Going out in the middle of Charlotte and chanting with signs does very little other than harass local citizenry and make the participants feel better about themselves. As a general rule, well worded, much quieter arguments tend to be the most potent.

But allow me to address the law itself.

The Arizona immigration law is a tough law to discuss because the contours of it make it difficult to grasp for the average person. On one hand, militant Republicans are willing to fight tooth and nail to defend it without fully understanding that parts of the law are decidedly weak and problematic, virtually begging for repair. On the other hand, however, militant Democrats lob words like “racist” and “exclusionary” at the law without even reading it (or the requisite amendment), making grandiose presumptions about the nature of the law without truly understanding what it entails.

Before I begin discussing the finer details, allow me to provide a very simplified synopsis of Arizona immigration law and pertinent Federal immigration law:

• According to federal law, legal aliens over the age of 18 in the US have to carry papers (specifically, registration documents) with them at all times. This is common practice for many countries — I was required to do this in Japan, and ironically, it is required in Mexico.
• The Arizona Law (Arizona SB 1070) makes it a misdemeanor to be an alien without carrying these documents.
• During a “lawful stop, detention or arrest”, police are to, when possible, check the detainee’s immigration status, specifically when they have “reasonable suspicion“ that person is an illegal alien.
• Anyone who is arrested will have their immigration status checked before they are released.
• Arizona HB 2162 amended this legislation shortly after the SB 1070 bill came out, specifically requiring that “prosecutors would not investigate complaints based on race, color or national origin” and emphasizing that officers could only investigate immigration status based upon a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest [...] in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state”.

Naturally, the best thing you can do is to simply read the bill (and the amendment) and skim over the relevant Wikipedia entry, the latter being naturally somewhat academically questionable, but sufficiently controversial to warrant some degree of credibility.

Okay, let’s address this thing straight on.

The Arizona Law is clearly intended to put a system in place to allow police officers to check the immigration status of citizenry whom they feel may be illegals. This is a fairly reasonable desire on the part of Arizona lawmakers — one can easily imagine that there are many instances in which the Arizona Police Department(s) suspect an individual is an illegal alien, but cannot do something to stop it. However, obviously to ensure that police officers do not stomp around carding everyone in sight, the law requires “reasonable suspicion” and a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest”. To furthermore vouchsafe against race-based harassment, the amendment clarified that investigations would not be held based on race/color/origin, basically meaning an officer cannot demand information simply based on the fact that someone appeared to be Latino and had no papers.

As many Democrats point out, there is possibly an issue here: this law leaves a considerable amount of power in the hands of police officers. The issue arises from the nature of the conditionals placed upon the officer — specifically, the nature of a “reasonable suspicion” and a “lawful stop, detention or arrest”. These conditionals appear to indicate that a police officer, with a “reasonable suspicion” that someone is an illegal, could arbitrarily stop/detain/arrest that person and require papers — which would have been a plausible scenario under the original copy of SB 1070. However, this presumption is invalidated by amendments via HB 2162, which emphasize clearly that the stop is to be made “in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state” — meaning, basically, that an officer can only check for immigration status if the person in question is being stopped or detained and the officer has “reasonable suspicion”, or if the person is arrested (in which they are investigated regardless of suspicion).

So the long and the short of it is that the Arizona bill requires that the suspected illegal in question has to be detained for something specifically other than being a potential illegal in order for police officers to have the right to investigate their immigration status. Most Democratic pundits (and uneducated/unwilling protesters) who argue otherwise have either simply not read the bill or are not aware of HB 2162, which was passed on 30 April 2010.

This does not entirely clear up the race issue, however — the “reasonable suspicion” issue still stands. According to United States v. Brignoni-Ponce and Arizona v. Graciano, because of the high percentage of illegals who happen to be Mexican (especially in Arizona), the appearance of Mexican ancestry can be a factor (but obviously not an exclusive factor) that would compel a police officer to check an alleged illegal’s immigration status. While HB 2162 specifically notes that “prosecutors would not investigate complaints based on race, color or national origin”, it does not entirely exclude the possibility that an officer might use race, color, or national origin as one of a few reasons to comprise “reasonable suspicion”.  This, though it sounds racist, is actually fairly logical in application — like it or not, statistically, especially in Arizona, the majority of illegals are going to be of Hispanic/Latino appearance, meaning that, given other evidence, appearance may be a persuasive factor. Much more vague “reasonable suspicion”s are used in justifying frisking a suspect in an average terry stop (Terry v. Ohio).

So, here’s the million dollar question: would this impose an unfair burden on legal citizens? The answer is possibly. Let’s address some hypothetical situations.

One of the major arguments is that it is unfair for Arizona to expect legal immigrants to carry “papers” at all times. Ironically, this is not an Arizona law:

“Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section.” USC: Title 8, Chapter 12, Sub Chapter II, Part VII, SS 1304

So that argument is entirely off the table. Arizona is simply acting based upon established federal law.

However, a more plausible argument exists — what if a legal alien (or a normal citizen) is detained as a result of not having proof of identity? The detainee could possibly sit in a detention center for days waiting for the federal government to send citizenship information.

While this argument is plausible, it does not entirely hold up to scrutiny — all of these immigration checks are required to be done in addition to a stop/detention/arrest resulting from (the possibility of) another crime. This means that to get into such an unlucky situation as what I mentioned, a citizen would have to be suspected of a crime (or otherwise stopped pursuant to a law or a crime) AND not be in possession of relevant paperwork proving his identity. For legal aliens, lacking this paperwork is illegal anyway, pursuant to the Title 8 law cited above. Even for legal citizens, in most realistic cases, after being stopped regarding the possible violation of a law, lack of relevant identification — particularly if the citizen was stopped while driving — would be questionable.

Even if a citizen did manage to screw himself into such a horrible situation, HB 2162 specifies that “[t]he court may award court costs and reasonable attorney fees to any person[...] of this state that prevails by an adjudication on the merits in a proceeding brought pursuant to this section” — meaning, in short, that the person detained would not only be allowed to bring his case to court, but he or she would also be compensated for doing so, pending the citizen won. This argument also presumes that the federal database would take a significant amount of time to return immigration status to Arizona. If a police officer can check immigration status remotely at a traffic stop, we can safely presume this process takes only a few minutes tops, meaning prolonged detainment as a result of bureaucratic slowness is unlikely.

There are other fairly valid arguments against the law. Some stipulate that the law violates the Supremacy Clause by attempting to bypass federal immigration law, which was one of the main arguments held by the federal court. This seems like an interesting argument, but a highly tenuous one — while there are doubtless good arguments on both sides, it seems strange that the law would be considered a bypassing of immigration law when it largely seems to attempt to enforce federal immigration law (specifically the requirement for identification and the ability to check immigration status with the federal government). Also, some have argued that the law violates parts of the Fourth Amendment vis-a-vis unreasonable search and seizure — an interesting argument, but yet again one possibly invalidated by the requirement that those investigated be suspected of another crime. Some additionally argue that the law violates the Fourteenth Amendment by means of being “impermissibly vague” — something that is at least cognizable, but really something only trained legal eyes (far beyond my ability) and debate could determine.

But really, there are a lot of terrible arguments. One argument states that the law violates the First Amendment (specifically Freedom of Speech) by scrutinizing citizens based on their speech (i.e. if they speak English or not). Many continue to argue that the law violates the Fourteenth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause by means of subjecting minorities to stops/detentions/arrests based on their minority status — of course, an argument invalidated by the fact that a stop/detention/arrest would require a core basis other than ethnicity to allow police officers to check for immigration status.  Another argument vaguely implies that the law inhibits the freedom of travel without being stopped/questioned/detained — of course, like the above, being invalidated by the fact that the citizen in question would have to be in suspicion of violating another law in order to be stopped/questioned/detained in the first place. Finally, and perhaps most hilariously, some pundits argue that police officers would be allowed to “harass” minorities based on this law — an assumption invalidated not only by the conditions placed upon the law itself, but also by the fact that the aforementioned minorities would have the legal right to complain (or outright sue) if they had a valid complaint.

So what can we learn from this discussion and analysis? First off, the Arizona immigration bill (at least post-HB 2162) is not that bad of a bill. It is not “racist” or “exclusionary” — it is a tool that allows officers, when detaining someone for a potential crime specifically not related to immigration status, to check for immigration status. It is a defined strike against the plague of illegal immigrants committing crimes. While many arguments against the law sometimes are plausible, the biggest and loudest one — namely, that it unfairly discriminates against minorities and legal immigrants — are not even remotely cognizable. Again, read the (amended) bill for yourself. It is not nearly as scary as you might think.

According to WXII 12, a Bureau of Labor report recently revealed a rather startling, though perhaps not entirely surprising, statistic: North Carolina is the 4th laziest state in the US. With higher leisure times and lower exercise and work times, NC also happens to be tied with Michigan as the 10th most obese state in the US, with 29.4% of our citizens being classified as obese. Naturally, these are frightening numbers.

However, there is something just as important, and possibly much less discussed, to worry about. In my opinion, NC has another issue with laziness — political laziness. It seems somewhat trite to say so, but North Carolinians seemingly have a hard time truly grasping politics or what makes the nation they live in tick. Indeed, many of them can identify the President — they may even have a campaign sticker — but in reality, most of them are too lazy to truly educate themselves about the political system.

Few of my NC friends have any idea who their Congressman or Senator is, who their local representative is, or even who the Vice President is. Most of them don’t vote and simply don’t care to, though they make sure to diligently vote on the latest American Idol-esque TV craze. These friends are not stupid — they are simply lazy and passive. Even the ones who claim to be “politically savvy” only do so from a distance, by reading heavily partisan websites or news tickers and making grandiose assumptions based on what their television tells them. True, critical, active thinking about politics is largely dead in NC.

It’s time we fix that. My generation (“Generation Y” or the “Millennials”) needs to step up and do something — and by doing something, I don’t mean protesting or going to a politically charged concert. We need to think. We need to read, study, and process. We need to stop trying to be told our news in little simplistic blurbs or contextualized via late night talk show jokes. It’s time we got off our couches and did something, before it becomes too late.

According to WXII 12, a Bureau of Labor report recently revealed a rather startling, though perhaps not entirely surprising, statistic: North Carolina is the 4th laziest state in the US. With higher leisure times and lower exercise and work times, NC also happens to be tied with Michigan as the 10th most obese state in the US, with 29.4% of our citizens being classified as obese. Naturally, these are frightening numbers.

However, there is something just as important, and possibly much less discussed, to worry about. In my opinion, NC has another issue with laziness — political laziness. It seems somewhat trite to say so, but North Carolinians seemingly have a hard time truly grasping politics or what makes the nation they live in tick. Indeed, many of them can identify the President — they may even have a campaign sticker — but in reality, most of them are too lazy to truly educate themselves about the political system.

Few of my NC friends have any idea who their Congressman or Senator is, who their local representative is, or even who the Vice President is. Most of them don’t vote and simply don’t care to, though they make sure to diligently vote on the latest American Idol-esque TV craze. These friends are not stupid — they are simply lazy and passive. Even the ones who claim to be “politically savvy” only do so from a distance, by reading heavily partisan websites or news tickers and making grandiose assumptions based on what their television tells them. True, critical, active thinking about politics is largely dead in NC.

It’s time we fix that. My generation (“Generation Y” or the “Millennials”) needs to step up and do something — and by doing something, I don’t mean protesting or going to a politically charged concert. We need to think. We need to read, study, and process. We need to stop trying to be told our news in little simplistic blurbs or contextualized via late night talk show jokes. It’s time we got off our couches and did something, before it becomes too late.

Something hit me today about a statement that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made recently regarding the automaker bailouts. The quote and video, from Real Clear Politics:

“Isn’t it a good thing today in America that we have an automobile manufacturing sector? If it had been up to them [Republicans], General Motors would be gone. If it were up to them, Ford Motor Company would probably be gone. Chrysler definitely would be gone.”

Allow me to address something — and no, not the fact that Reid was incorrect and that Ford didn’t take bailout money, but a very important (and erroneous) assumption that Harry Reid was making: that nostalgia justifies legislation.

Allow me to sum up the automaker bailouts as simply as I possibly can (read more here if you want). Companies like GM and Chrysler basically imploded upon themselves thanks to a number of bad decisions and a failing economy. The companies that were failing were valuable, just very, very mismanaged, and they quickly fell apart when faced with a new consumer focus on fuel efficient cars (which had supposedly been their loss leaders, whereas SUVs and big trucks were their main profit line). For some indiscernible reason, in an act generally explained away as an attempt to avoid total economic collapse and the mass hemorrhaging of jobs, the U.S. Government provided a huge bailout to these companies, to the tune of over $30 billion (in two main loans, one under Bush, the other under Obama) divided predominantly between GM and Chrysler. Both of these companies went bankrupt anyway. As of recently, these companies have allegedly paid back a good amount of these loans, though reports reveals that they are paying the money back with other forms of federal grants, meaning that a very significant amount of government money continues to be held by largely insolvent car companies today.

So the long story short? The government directly involved itself to prevent the economic destruction of companies that should not have survived. In a sense, these companies were rewarded for their poor decision-making with a coddling from the government, whereas other foreign companies managed to do remarkably well (though they indeed lost sales) due to good old fashioned smart, safe business (and were subsequently not coddled for it). For all intents and purposes, GM and Chrysler deserved to die outright, for their ridiculous business practices, mediocre offerings, and ridiculously huge number of arcane brands (with the same cars just re-branded). Naturally, had the government simply let nature run its course, GM and Chrysler would have quickly become bankrupt (like they did anyway), and other car companies (be they local or foreign) would have picked apart the two carcasses, redistributing parts of the companies to more intelligent owners. It’s highly likely that both brands would still be around, with many workers still able to keep their jobs, the only difference being that the company would be owned by different people who could manage better.

Still, Harry Reid wants you to know the world is better. The US Government now owns a lot of these companies for no real reason, and we’ve effectively managed to keep bad business afloat for no other reason than we feel that it’s a “good thing”. Spoiler alert: in both business and the animal kingdom, it is survival of the fittest, and GM and Chrysler did not survive. If we are to take Reid’s word for it, Republicans would have understood this fact and let nature run its course in destroying mismanaged companies that could not survive — a fate much more reasonable and realistic than keeping these companies on life support. Other than idiotic nostalgia for low-tier brands, there was no reason to keep GM and Chrysler alive — the business world could have handled their destruction perfectly and kept on going. The artificial intrusion into the natural business world that was the involvement of federal funds was a terrible idea. No matter how emotional you get about it, business is business.

So no, Senator Reid, the auto bailouts were not a “good thing”. They were a terrible thing. The government has sent the message that it is willing to reward companies who do not do business reasonably and carefully. It has revealed itself as overly emotional and capricious with its money, ironically in a time when most of its citizens don’t have a time to spare. They are far from a “good thing”.

The Republican National Committee has not been doing well. Not long after RNC money was spent on a lesbian bondage themed nightclub, it has recently come to the attention of the press (and the FEC) that the Republican National Committee failed to report a whopping $3 million in debt. In addition to this snafu, though it seems likely that the Republican party looks forward to many victories in November, the Republican party is allegedly facing difficulties fundraising, likely mostly a result of a bad economy and a lack of general public interest in non-Presidential political races. In short, the RNC in 2010, though arguably in a better position than in 2008, is having problems.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has an idea: free market alcohol. And it’s a damned good one, one that North Carolina needs to consider as soon as possible.

Currently in Virginia, much like in North Carolina, alcohol is monitored by the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control — and, like in North Carolina, you can only really get liquor from ABC stores. This essentially means that the government has a monopoly on the sale and distribution of alcohol, a move done to (allegedly) ensure that the government can properly tax and restrict alcohol. This definition is a bit fuzzy, but nonetheless, it stands to this day, and Virginia has had the Alcoholic Beverage Control system for over 75 years. The problem with this is pretty clear to anyone who favors free market economies: the Virginia government is not a really good controller of alcohol. ABC stores really do not in and of themselves curb or halt drunk driving, and their existence really only serves as a way to streamline the taxing of alcohol in Virginia, albeit at the expense of the Virginia Government. Currently, these stores (all 332 of them) draw in about $220 million a year.

Enter Governor Bob McDonnell. McDonnell wants to privatize the state liquor industry, allowing companies in Virginia to sell liquor to consumers directly, subject to monitoring and restrictions by the state. This has some pretty obvious benefits — while the state can still tax liquor at the usual rate (and thus make the same amount of money), privatization of Virginia liquor means that the state does not have to own and operate a huge number of stores, which saves it quite a bit of money. In addition, by making liquor more readily available and removing many of the limitations imposed upon customers, it is very likely that purchases of liquor from stores will increase. In short, a lot of money would be saved, and a lot of needless government intervention into the private lives of citizens would be stopped.

Of course, there are negatives to this plan. According to the linked article, the process of closing down the state’s 332 stores would be fairly expensive in the short term, including $40 million in severance for employees, $15 million in order to close down trucking contracts, and millions spent pulling out of leases for Virginia’s many rented liquor stores. Furthermore, a lot of interest groups, particularly religious and parental groups, claim that the increased availability of liquor would encourage drunk driving and risky behavior — an unproven assertion, but at least a plausible one. On top of it all, many Virginia politicians seem leery about changing public policy unless the change would result in a net benefit for the state, which is difficult to prove given the aforementioned transitional expenditures.

Still, I hope Virginia does manage to privatize alcohol, and I seriously hope that North Carolina considers doing so as well. While I may sound a bit excessively right-wing, I firmly believe that the government has no place intervening into the private lives of citizens, even if it does so in an attempt to curtail crime. ABC stores are little more than a useless vestige of prohibition era ridiculousness, and it makes both economical and logical sense to get rid of them as soon as possible. Drunk driving is not merely an issue of where one buys alcohol — it is an issue of the amount of consumption, of behavior in bars and at parties, and of self-control. The fact that something can be linked to crime does not necessarily require it to be sold exclusively by the state — current gun laws are an excellent example of this. In short, it’s time for Virginia — and North Carolina — to enter the modern era and cast off prohibition era misconceptions about alcohol — our government budgets will thank us.

Throughout the history of US Presidents there have been a number of ridiculous appointments, but this one may very well take the cake: the Obama administration has recently promoted their “Food Initiative Coordinator”-slash-Assistant Chef Sam Kass — that is, the Obama family cook — to the position of “Senior Policy Adviser”.

While this in some cases seems logical (Kass is reportedly fairly intelligent when it comes to nutrition and cooking, to the extent of even having a presence on Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” website as well as next to her during speeches), it seems suspect that he would be promoted to the position he now holds, especially when his salary is explicitly not disclosed.

It may be a smart move for the Obama administration to quell the worries of people like me and release more information about Kass and his work, lest the dreaded “corruption” word get thrown about.