Defining Hypocrisy

By Benton on 10:00 AM
I considered writing a post today, despite the fact that I started the day late, but then I finally took the five minutes to watch this video. It should be played across the internet as the definition of hypocrisy. It isn't just Glenn Beck either, it is the foundation of the Tea Party "movement".

All summer long we saw pictures of President Obama with a Hitler mustache. Well, excuse me the President Republican governor of Arizona would like your papers.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party

Let me add an actual bit of analysis to the Arizona immigration law. Many Republicans have constantly run out polls talking about how much Americans like the law. I'm not going to attack the polls - they are right. You would like the law too, if all you ever heard about it was that it was keeping illegal immigrants from taking American jobs and killing Americans in drug wars.

Here's what else is does:
- It will cost the city of Phoenix millions of dollars in lost tourism revenue, thanks to different boycotts and travel warnings from Mexico.
- The same can be said about the Arizona Diamondbacks and possibly the planned 2011 MLB All-Star game.
- It will likely cost local law enforcement agencies money thanks to a provision allowing lawsuits against them if they fail to enforce the law.
- It was followed by another bill targeted ethnic studies programs - a specific shot a Latino studies program in Phoenix, where more than 40 percent of the residents are Latino.
- It threatens to pull funding from schools that allow teachers with accents to teach English classes.
- And the one I continuously say: It makes illegal immigration a crime in America. Until this law was passed, it was a civil issue. You paid a fine, we sent you home. Now, we have to waste money throwing you in jail. For something that isn't a national security threat. More on that in a minute.

- One positive effect is that it targets those who pick up "day labor" from street corners, when the laborers are illegal. This is positive because it is on the right track. If you actually want to stem illegal immigration, you have to do it through the business owners that hire illegal immigrants. That, however, is against the Republican creed. You can't punish small businesses, they'll go out of business. Nevermind the fact that they weren't employing Americans anyway!

Ah, but the goal of this legislation is not to stem illegal immigration, or at least it is a very ineffective way of doing it, as I said. No immigration bill will succeed without significant penalties levied on business owners. Same way no meaningful safety improvements will be seen without significant penalties levied on oil and coal companies. That's reality.

No reduction in crime will be seen for a couple of reasons: one, criminals don't walk across the border. They use tunnels and other means. And maybe you haven't noticed my little tidbits here and there about Juarez, but Mexican cartels have never shown they are unwilling to murder police officers or US government officials. These people are ruthless.

Which brings me to my real solution. For decades, we have been fighting a war on drugs. Everywhere but here. Yeah, I remember "Just Say No" (not as much as Just Do It), but did it work? Hundreds of billions have been spent in Columbia, Mexico, and other countries. However, the problem is not the source, it is the buyer. So first, identify the problem: the United States of America. We buy the drugs. I've said this so many times, but we have an insatiable need for drugs in this country. Without solving that, immigration will never be solved. Ever. If there is a buyer, the seller will always find a way to get the product to them. No matter how many people have to die.

- A thing about Beck. Few people can deliver a message like him. He takes huge, complex ideas and brings them down to bite size sound bites. On Wednesday he blatantly said: "if God tells you to do something, do it. If your government tells you to do something, question it." Nevermind that the Bible itself says that you should obey your governments, because those people are put there by God, to lead. Details. And don't even get me started on his crusade against Social Justice. I suppose God was just bored when called on Moses to go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to "let my people go." Or in the New Testament, when the focus became saving Gentiles. Is that not the definition of Social Justice?

Have you ever been to a church which does not hold, as a major pillar, helping the poor? And Beck claims to be a leading voice in the plight of blacks. But when Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said he had a dream, was he not asking for Social Justice? Some of my conservative friends like to point out that "conservatives" have always been better for black people in this country than "liberals" (George Wallace - "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever" - was a Democrat, for example), nevermind that today's conservatives are far different from those historically. Abraham Lincoln was the most liberal conservative in history. And when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he was giving Social Justice a government policy. But that wasn't enough for him. Instead, as I quote often, in his second inaugural address, he said: "With malice toward none, with charity for all."

God did not create this country. His people did it according to His design. And His people, for the first time in history, said to him that we believe that all men are created equal. The foundation of this country is Social Justice.

Comments

0 Response to 'Defining Hypocrisy'

Post a Comment