I don't know what new insight I can add to the recently passed immigration reform laws that were just recently passed in Arizona. I am appalled of course, that in a country that has always prided itself on taking in "the tired, the poor, those yearning to be free", that whenever the economy is tough or the nation collectively feels itself under foreign threat, the very people who make this country run on a very essential level are the first ones we want to deport.
I would be the first to argue that we need immigration reform in this country. The laws are sometimes confusing, they are unevenly enforced and occasionally discriminatory. There are hundreds of thousands (maybe over a million) undocumented foreign workers in this country. But ICE has also abused the deportation laws over the last several years, sending hundreds of immigrants back to their home country for minor infractions. And any directive that basically orders law enforcement officers to racially profile people to determine whether or not they are legal citizens smacks of fascism. (As SNL's Seth Meyers recently cracked in a German accent, "Show me your papers!")
We can and should do better as a nation. The people who are trumpeting the hardline on illegal immigrants want to be able to say that they are giving jobs back to hardworking Americans by cracking down on illegal immigrants. Of course, the employers that exploit illegal labor with their low wages and non-existent benefits aren't going to hire most American citizens for those jobs anyway. People who want to look the other way on illegal immigration ignore many of the negative impacts that illegal immigrants can and do have on this society.
That's the thing about common sense, law and politics. They are almost never to be found in the same place at the same time.
LT and Big Ben
I'm big on personal responsibility, but we as sports fans have to take a little bit of the blame for the out of control behavior that far too many professional athletes engage in. In an article in this week's Sports Illustrated, it was reported that Ben Roethlisberger would get upset and churlish whenever he would go into a bar or club and he wasn't getting enough free drinks or attention. "Don't you know who I am?", he would bellow.
Lawrence Taylor has always lived on the edge and battled innumerable demons, most famously a long addition to cocaine that once cost him $1.5 million a month. Few would be shocked that he likes the company of prostitutes, even underaged ones, but it all comes from the same syndrome, the "cult of me", the ability to want anything and get anything you want just because you're famous and millions of people root for you on a football field/basketball court/baseball diamond. Without fans to indulge these people's every whim, their behavior in no way would go so far off the rails. I don't know if the answer is to stop watching sports altogether but we could all go a lot farther if we didn't idolize the people who we already pay millions of dollars to play kid's games.
Peace.
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