Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles says it's the former, comparing the recently passed Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona to the requirements by the Third Reich for Jews to carry around identification documents and wear the Star of David on all of their clothes.
Understating it, SB1070 is a controversial bill, as it is the strictest and most open-ended immigration law to be passed on US soil in many years. Formed as a means to identify and deport illegal immigrants, the law was signed into passing by Republican Governor Janet Brewer on April 23rd in spite of strong criticism from President Obama and many other groups whose cries of 'foul' seem to be clamoring louder everyday, involving everyone from Cardinal Mahoney to Major League Baseball players.
Needless to say, immigration reform is way overdue and needs to be given high priority by the federal government. Issues have arisen far too often but nothing concrete has yet been done to address the problem and fix yet another broken system. The fact that such a controversial law as SB1070 has been passed is evidence that the federal government's failure to act on the issue is making it necessary for state governments to act on their own. Maybe SB1070 was exactly what was needed for Arizona to get the federal government to pay attention.
Aside from the necessity of comprehensive reform, just as important is the way in which such reform takes place, which is the real problem with SB1070. Although it's great that Arizona is trying to do something about immigration, this is an inappropriate and inadequate solution to the problem, only addressing symptoms, not root causes.
Among the largest criticism of SB1070 is that it "makes racial profiling legal." This accusation itself is enough to get people riled up and speak out against the bill - how could the Arizona legislature be so hateful? It's almost surprising how many people have joined together to speak out against SB1070; if Americans feel this strongly about the issue, then obviously something needs to be done about it. Yet for all of the support immigrants are receiving from some groups, there are not nearly as many cases of actual interaction between regular Americans and immigrants - they're still isolated and misunderstood.
More than any solidarity with immigrants, perhaps it's just that Americans are put on high alert by an issue that skirts as close to racism as racial profiling does. Such a strong reaction to the possibility of legalized racism sends people into a frenzy that has caused them to quickly isolate the state of Arizona, calling it a "police state" or a "Nazi Outpost." Yet it's quite disappointing how quickly people are willing to ostracize and label Arizona with so many hateful names, boycotting its businesses and withdrawing students from its universities, without making it clear that it is not the people of Arizona who are to blame, but the state legislature and the governor who passed the law. How often do states in the Union effectively boycott other states because of their local laws? Is boycotting really going to get the Arizona government to pay attention or is it only going to exacerbate the problem in Arizona even further?
This situation draws parallels with the debate in International Relations studies about the efficacy of imposing sanctions on a foreign country to get it to comply with demands - is it the people in power who are actually affected or is it the people under them who suffer?
So, does SB1070 actually legalize racial profiling? SB1070 requires Arizona law enforcement officers to investigate under "reasonable suspicion" those people they suspect of being undocumented immigrants, to prosecute them and deport them if they are proven to be illegal. Critics complain that racial profiling is inevitable since how are you supposed to tell if someone is illegal or not just by looking at them? Are officers going to go around and detain everyone who appears to be of Hispanic origin, or who can't speak English? Even people who are found accompanying illegal immigrants can potentially be arrested under SB1070.
Critics are right that such a wide-sweeping law should not rely upon something as arbitrary as "reasonable suspicion" - there are too many possibilities of abuse of this law. And yet on the other hand, if people are worried that officers will abuse this law, doesn't that reveal a need to crack down on an irresponsible law enforcement system too? If people believe that police officers will racially profile, given the chance under law, that reveals a lack of trust in the moral character of law enforcement. SB1070 contains manifold problems and has holes in it at multiple levels. Even long time citizens will now have to carry their identification papers with them at all times for fear of being investigated at a time when they are without one. This creates a fear of law enforcement which should not exist, as well as creates more work for law enforcement officers that will distract them from the more dangerous drug lords and criminals who do get through the border.
Although SB1070 does not blatantly legalize racial profiling, it does open up more possibilities in which it can take place. Police officers are still subject to federal law that makes racial profiling illegal - state law does not supersede federal law, and any violations of the 4th Amendment's protections against unreasonable search without probable cause will still be prosecuted according to federal law. Criticism of the law should not be primarily based on conjecture as has been the case here. Proper criticism must include a thorough analysis of the actual text of the law as well as acknowledgement of the defense given by those who helped write the law. If someone is so willing to speak out against SB1070, they ought to at least make sure they know what it says, so that there are no false assumptions made. Then, rather than stopping at being upset about Arizona's laws, there needs to be better alternatives put forth, as was recently done by a group of Democrats in Washington. For an issue which potentially affects the entire country, immigration must be dealt with by the federal government, not the states themselves. Let's hope that despite the elections coming at the end of the year, immigration will be given its deserved attention by Washington.
Another of Stephen Mack's blog posts deals with another aspect of public intellectualism, this one dealing more with those with religious leanings. In his post, Mack discusses that timeless debate about whether religion and politics should mingle with each other or not. In reference to some disagreements between Christian conservatives and liberals, Mack quotes Peter Beinart:
What these (and most other) liberals are saying is that the Christian Right sees politics through the prism of theology, and there's something dangerous in that. And they're right. It’s fine if religion influences your moral values. But, when you make public arguments, you have to ground them—as much as possible—in reason and evidence, things that are accessible to people of different religions, or no religion at all. Otherwise you can’t persuade other people, and they can’t persuade you. In a diverse democracy, there must be a common political language, and that language can’t be theological.
Stephen Mack makes a good counter-point to Beinart's statement, saying that:
It’s not only absurd but unfair, some argue, to ask religious intellectuals to disarm their political speech of its fundamental moral rationale.
While I understand what Beinart is saying about having a common language, I also think it is just as important to learn to speak the language of religious people in order to better understand them rather than simply invalidating their claim because things aren't being communicated. Now granted I don't know a lot about Beinart, so I don't know what his deal is, and I'm only going off of his quote here, but I wonder if it's really language that Beinart is concerned about here, or maybe his frustration is not so much with the terms used, but with the beliefs advocated? I don't think so much that Christian conservatives and liberals speak different languages, but just that they have different beliefs and because those beliefs lead to different policy goals, there are bound to be clashes. A more constructive approach would be for both sides to learn each other's language, to sit down and actually try to understand why the other side believes what they believe, and then if there are disagreements, to simply hold it as a difference of political opinion rather than demonizing religion altogether or making accusations about a political philosophy without morals; once demonizing occurs, there is a breakdown in communication and very little progress can be made from then on.
This is one of the big frustrations I have with partisan politics - it's always the Right accusing the Left, and the other way around. Surely better progress would be made if politicians stopped treating everything like a sports match, each party on opposing teams, fighting for votes like points. We're all supposed to be on the same side, working for the common good of the country rather than special interest groups, right? Don't get me wrong, I think the American democratic system is very rich for having two equally strong parties with differing views. This is essential to our whole system of checks and balances, each party toning the other down so as to arrive at an overall middle way that's acceptable to a larger group of people. That's one of America's great strengths, is its diversity. The problem is when diversity becomes self-limiting and politicians get more hung up on their differences than in utilizing each other's strengths.
We don't necessarily need a common language in politics, as vaguely as that word 'language' is used; much more beneficial would be to learn the language of the other so as to better understand and relate to them. Political philosophy and religious theology, while they should not be synonymous definers of what laws we make, should neither be isolated as exclusive to each other. As Mack points out in his post, so much of US history and politics WAS grounded in theology. So to completely remove that element would be to severely restrict the wealth of ideas found in the US political system.
Both religious and non-religious people speak a language much closer to each other then they think, and translating religious beliefs into political jargon is not as difficult as one might think, and indeed has already been done throughout US history. Mack points out that:
American politics “uses” religion in the sense that it draws something vital out of it, redefining it in the process as something secular, essentially social—and not at all dependent on the belief systems of particular faiths. In short, liberal democracy takes from religion what it cannot supply on its own: a deep sense of belonging.
Kwame Appiah, whom I introduced in my previous post has some very relevant things to say on this issue as well. Big Think's website has several video interviews of Appiah discussing his philosophy on various issues. In one video titled "What's Your Question" Appiah demonstrates his open-minded, disinterested approach to philosophical questions when he asks himself:
If I'm so sure I'm right, how come she's so sure she's right too? If it's obvious to me what the answer is, if the answer's obvious, why isn't it obvious to the other person? And I think just that sort of turn-taking, standing in the other man's moccasins, walking in the other man's moccasins kind of thing, saying, well, I'm so sure I'm right about this, and yet here are these other people who don't think what I think. How is that? Are they just fools or irrational? Is there some part of reality that's hidden from them? Or could it be that I ought to reflect more carefully on what I think and listen a bit more to what they have to say?
I like Appiah's objectivity and his desire for unbiased truth. His approach to philosophy seems to consist of honest debate with himself about things, playing around with his own ideas and allowing other ideas from outside of his mind to flourish as well, allowing him to find truth from all of it as a whole.
In another video interview, Appiah is asked, "Does religion inform your worldview?" In response, he talks about how his parents raised him, but he quickly clarifies that:
Where an idea comes from doesn't settle the question whether it's right or not.
Appiah states that he sees no problem in religion informing philosophy - he cares more about whether it's correct or not rather than where it came from. Later in the video he addresses the reality of accepting differing viewpoints from your own:
People have to live with the views that they have, I think that they should sustain them, subject them to some kind of analysis, reflection, perhaps even criticism. But still, even if you do that, you're going to end up with a view that is going to be different from the views of lots of other people, and you're going to have to live in a world where that's true - where lots of people have different views about these religious questions and you're not likely in the course of your lifetime to be able to persuade any single person around to the same view as you have. And nor are you going to be able to come to consensus with them at some view in between your view and theirs. And so we have to learn to live in a world in which because we're in a poor epistemological situation, because we're not well-placed to find out the truth, we have to accept that other people will have views that are different from ours on some very important questions, and that there's not much we can do to come to an agreement about that. I think there is something we can do to try and understand other people's points of view and to learn from that. I think even the most thoughtful and convinced atheist has things to learn from talking to people from religious traditions whether or not she recognizes it, and vice versa. People of religious traditions I think have things to learn from each other and from non-religious people if they're willing to engage in the conversation. But if the conversation is guided by the thought that three weeks from now we'll come to an agreement, then that's a mistake and you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
So the question that I'm asking is: Are Christian conservatives and liberals having the conversations necessary to understand each other and learn each other's languages?
