Category: Arizona

Feds Sue Arizona Over S.B. 1070 and the Etymology of ‘Shyster’

Here is the full text of the complaint.  Dive in if you can stomach it.  It lends credence to Martin Luther's "Reason is a whore."  But these days, with the upgrading of prostitutes to 'sex workers,' the saying should go, 'Reason is a lawyer.'  Pay them enough, and they will argue anything.

The complaint alleges that S.B. 1070 violates the Supremacy Clause (article VI, paragraph 2) of the U. S. Constitution.  How's that for a legal stretch?  Said clause  reads as follows:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. U.S. Const. art. VI, Paragraph 2.

Under the Supremacy Clause, everyone must follow federal law in the face of conflicting state law. It has long been established that "a state statute is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid federal statute" and that a conflict will be found either where compliance with both federal and state law is impossible or where the state law stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress. Edgar v. Mite Corp., 457 U.S. 624, 631 (1982).  

Since 1070 essentially mirrors Federal immigration law, I suppose the argument will not be that 1070 is  in conflict with Federal law but that its enforcement will somehow interfere with the enforcement of Federal law.  Good luck with that, government shysters. 

I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.'  From German scheissen, to shit?  That would fit well with the old joke, "What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?'  "The bucket." I am also put in mind of scheusslich: hideous, atrocious, abominable.  Turning to the 'shyster' entry in my Webster's, I read, "prob. fr. Scheuster fl. 1840 Am. attorney frequently rebuked in a New York court for pettifoggery." 

According to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, p. 659:

Shyster, an American slang term for a shady disreputable lawyer, is first recorded in 1846.  Various authorities list a real New York advocate as a possible source, but this theory has been disproved by Professor Gerald L. Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla, whose long paper on the  etymology I had the pleasure of reading. Shakespeare's moneylender Shylock has also been suggested, as has a racetrack form of the word shy, i.e., to be shy money when betting.  Some authorities trace shyster to the German Scheisse, "excrement," possibly through the word shicir, "a worthless person," but there is no absolute proof for any theory.

A little further research reveals that Professor Cohen's "long paper" is in fact a short book of 124 pages published in 1982 by Verlag Peter Lang.  See here for a review.  Cohen argues that the eponymous derivation from 'Scheuster' that I just cited from Webster's is a pseudo-etymology.  'Shyster' no more derives from 'Scheuster' than 'condom' from the fictious Dr. Condom.  Nor does it come from 'Shylock.' It turns out my hunch was right.  'Shyster' is from the German  Scheisser, one who defecates.

The estimable and erudite Dr. Michael Gilleland, self-styled antediluvian, bibliomaniac, and curmudgeon, who possesses an uncommonly lively interest in matters scatological, should find all of this interesting.  I see that the ASU library has a copy of Gerald Leonard Cohen's Origin of the Term "Shyster."  Within a few days it should be in my hands. 

 

A Case for Open Immigration?

Spencer Case sent me a link to a short op-ed piece by Michael Huemer who teaches philosophy at the University of Colorado.  Huemer's thesis is that

. . . U.S. immigration policy is fundamentally unjust. It disregards the rights and interests of other human beings, merely because those persons were born in another country. It coercively imposes clear and serious harms on some people, for the sake of relatively minor or dubious benefits for others who happened to have been born in the right geographical area.

Huemer's argument stripped to essentials and in his own words:

1. It is wrong to knowingly impose severe harms on others, by force, without having a good reason for doing so. This principle holds regardless of where one's victims were born or presently reside.

2. The U.S. government, in restricting immigration, knowingly and coercively imposes severe harms on millions of human beings.

3.  The U.S. government has no good reason for imposing such harms on potential immigrants.

——–

4. It follows that U.S. immigration policy is morally wrong.

Before addressing Huemer's argument, some preliminary points need to be made.

A. First, a difficult issue such as the one before us cannot be resolved via some quick little argument like the above.  Numerous considerations and counter-considerations come into play.

B. Here is a consideration in the light of which Huemer's argument has an aura of the fantastic.  The U. S. is a welfare state.  Now no welfare state can hope to survive and meet it commitments to provide all sorts of services at taxpayer expense if it opens its borders wide.  Without trying to estimate the tsunami of humanity that would flood into the country from all sides were immigration restrictions removed, it is clear that open borders is a wildly impractical proposal.  And note that this impracticality itself has moral ramifications: if bona fide citizens have been promised that they will be taken care of by some such system as Social Security into their old age, and the government reneges on its promises because of an empty treasury, then the rights of the retirees will have been violated — which is a moral issue.

If state functions were stripped down to 'night watchman' size as certain libertarians would advocate, then perhaps an open borders policy would be workable; but obviously such a rollback of governmental powers and functions  has no chance of occurring.  Let the quixotic rollback occur; THEN and ONLY THEN we can talk about open borders.  Meanwhile we do have border control, half-hearted as it is.  It is not obviously unjust to those who immigrate legally to allow others in illegally? 

C.  An open borders policy is impractical not only for the reason mentioned, but for many others besides. I catalog some of them in Immigration Legal and Illegal.

Now to Huemer's argument.

I see no reason to accept premise (2) according to which the U. S. government imposes severe harms on people by preventing them from immigrating.  Suppose you have foolishly gone into the desert without proper supplies.  You soon find yourself  in dire need of water.  Coming upon my camp, you enter it and try to take my water.  I prevent you from doing so.  Have I harmed you?  I have not inflicted any harm upon you;  I have merely prevented you from getting something you need for your well-being.  But you have no right to my water, even if I have more than enough.  If you steal my supplies, you violate my property rights; I am therefore morally justified in resisting the theft.  You are morally obliged to respect my property rights, but I am under no moral obligation to give you what you need, especially in light of the fact that you have freely put yourself in harm's way.

Similarly, the U. S. government does not harm those whom it does not allow to enter its territory, for they have no right to enter its territory in the first place, and in so doing violate the property rights of the U. S.

Once this is appreciated it will also be seen why (3) is false.  The U. S. does have a good moral reason to prevent foreigners from entering its territory, namely, to prevent them from violating the property rights of the U. S.

Now at this point I expect someone to object as follows.  "I grant you that illegal aliens are not justified in violating private property rights, but when they cross public lands, travel on public roads, use public facilities, etc. they are not violating any property rights.  The U. S. has no property rights; there are no public property rights that need to be respected." 

This objection is easily rebutted.  It is based on a false analogy with unowned resources. An incursion into an uninhabited region not in the jurisdiction of a state does not violate property rights. But the public lands of the U. S. are within the jurisdiction of the U.S.  These lands are managed and protected by the state which gets the werewithal of such management and protection, and in some instances, the money to pay for the  original acquisition, from coercive taxation.  Thus we taxpayers collectively own these lands.  It is not as if the land, roads, resources and the like of the U.S. which are not privately owned are somehow open to anyone in the world who wants to come here.  Just as an illegal alien violates property rights when he breaks into my house, he violates property rights when he breaks into my country.  For a country belongs collectively to its citizens, not to everyone in the world.

The fundamental point is that foreigners have no right to immigrate.  Since they have no such right, no moral wrong is done to them by preventing them from immigrating even though they would be better off were they to immigrate.  Furthermore, the U.S. government and every government has not only the right, but also the moral obligation, to control its border for the the good of its citizens.  After all, protection from foreign invasion is one of the legitimate functions of government.

 

Are Illegal Aliens Acting Immorally?

Victor Reppert raises the question:

People like [Arizona's] Governor Brewer often say that we are a nation of laws, and that is why we must make a strong stand enforcing our immigration laws. Are people who insist on a strong stand against illegal immigration gratuitously assuming that persons who enter the country illegally are acting immorally?  If the only way to support your family was to enter another country illegally, wouldn't you have a moral obligation to break the law, since you have a moral obligation to support your family which trumps your obligation to obey the law?

As a conservative, I find it self-evident that the rule of law is a precious thing, that it must be upheld, and that part of upholding it is enforcing the nation's laws against illegal immigration.  Someone who takes this position, and insists on a strong stand against illegal immigration, needn't thereby assume that every illegal border-crosser is acting immorally.  I concede to Victor that there are circumstances in which the moral obligation to support and protect one's family trumps the moral obligation to respect the laws of another country.

But if it is morally permissible for some to enter illegally, it does not follow that the law making it illegal is without moral justification.  Indeed, the Federal and State authorities have a moral obligation to protect their citizens against the threats posed by border violators.  Juan may be morally justified in attempting to cross the Rio Grande, but border control agents are morally justified in preventing him from doing so and deporting him if he does.  The law cannot cater to each individual case.  In the eyes of the law one is an illegal alien whether one is a common criminal, a member of a criminal gang, a drug trafficker, a human trafficker, a terrorist, a carrier of a contagious disease, or, like Juan, just a poor man down on his luck trying to provide for his family.

The rule of law must be upheld despite the unfairness to some.  One of the reasons we are not not like Mexico, and why everybody and his monkey's uncle's brother wants to come here,  is precisely because we have hitherto maintained the rule of law.  Analogy: it is reasonable and just that felons not be allowed to vote or purchase firearms.  The fact that this is unfair to some felons is not a good reason to question the rightness of the law.  As I said, the law cannot cater to individual cases.  Examples like this can be generated ad libitum.  Consider laws regulating drinking age and driving age.  Fourteen year olds are not allowed to drive despite the fact that some drive better than forty year olds.

Church, State, and Arizona SB 1070

E. J. Montini of the Arizona Republic reports that ". . . one of the lawsuits challenging SB 1070 is based on the notion that the law inhibits First Amendment freedom to worship."  As Montini correctly states, "Among other things, SB 1070 makes it a crime to knowingly transport, harbor, conceal or shield an illegal immigrant if you do so while committing a separate criminal offense."

This provision of the law will of course cause trouble for those pastors and other church members who transport illegals to and from church functions.  Suppose Pastor X is pulled over for a traffic violation while shuttling a group of illegals.  Said pastor is liable to prosecution under the 1070 law.  That is as it should be since the pastor is aiding and abetting the flouting of U. S. law.

But by what stretch of logic does one conclude that violators of U. S. immigration law are having their First Amendment rights violated?  They have no such rights!  Those are rights of U. S. citizens, not rights of anyone, citizen or not.  But even if you think that illegal aliens do have First Amendment rights, or some analogous universal human right, there is nothing in 1070 that prohibits the free exercise of religion on any reasonable construal of 'prohibit.'    The right to the free exercise of religion does not give one the right to do anything in the free exercise thereof.

Take a simple example.  Catholic priests cannot be prohibited by the state from saying mass.  To do so they need wine.  But there are laws against theft, so they need to come by their wine by some legal means.  Now suppose some benighted liberal argues that the laws against theft inhibit the First Amendment freedom to practice one's religion by prohibiting the stealing of wine and other supplies needed at mass.  Anyone can see that to argue in such a way would be a joke.  To take a more drastic case, suppose there is a Satanic ritual that requires the killing of cats.  No sane person could argue that the laws against cruelty to animals interfere with the First Amendment rights of satanists.

Similarly with 1070.  No rational person could argue that it inhibits First Amendment rights.  The right to practice one's religion does not give one the right to break laws in its practice.

Churchmen need to reflect carefully on their relation to the State.  If they flout its laws, and in so doing undermine the rule of law, then who will protect them when they need it?  Will the good pastors who aid and abet illegal aliens forego calling up the police when they need protection?  Will they try to have it both ways, deriving the benefits from the rule of law while undermining it?

The Misrepresentations of Arizona SB 1070 Continue

People from whom one would expect intellectual honesty continue to misrepresent SB 1070.  Yet another example surfaced in this morning's Arizona Republic in a letter to the editor from Clara M. Lovett, president emerita of Northern Arizona University.  She writes:

A statute that allows police to stop people on the basis of "reasonable suspicion" that they are undocumented aliens turns on its head one of the most sacred principles of American law. Anyone stopped and questioned by police is presumed guilty until proved innocent.

This is an egregious misrepresentation.  The statute does not allow police to stop people on the basis of reasonable suspicion that they are illegal aliens.  The 1070 statute as amended by HB 2162 disallows this.  The following are the conditions under which an immigration inquiry may proceed.  Each must be satisfied.  See here for links and quotations.

1.  There must be a lawful stop, detention, or arrest.

2. The stop, detention, or arrest must be made in the enforcement of a law other than 1070.

3.  There must be reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien.

4.  The immigration inquiry must be practicable.

5.  The immigration inquiry must not hinder or obstruct an investigation.

Lovett ignores  (1), (2), (4), and (5).  Lovett joints Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano, and the others who presume to criticize what they haven't read.  And this woman is a former NAU president? 

Did Holder, Napolitano, Obama, et al. Lie When They Said They Hadn’t Read the Arizona Law?

J. O. e-mails:

 A caller on the Dennis Miller Show called in and said something very insightful I thought you would like. Miller was asking callers to call in about Eric Holder et al. not reading the Arizona Illegal Immigration law, and the caller said that he thought they HAD read it and were lying about not having read it. Why? Because there isn't anything in it that could possibly be unconstitutional. If there was, it would be plastered all over the news, the exact offending line. Of course they've read it, but by saying they haven't they can criticize it without actually having to show what is wrong with it.

I thought this was insightful, and so I shared it with you.

Now I hadn't thought of that, perhaps because I have more respect for these people (Attorney General Holder, et al.) than I should have.  But now that you mention it, the caller's supposition is very plausible.  How could they fail to have read it?  First of all, all three are legally trained.  Their reading comprehension extends to legalese, and they have staff members who could have summarized it for them.  Second, SB 1070 and the clarificatory  HB 2162 are very short as laws go and easily accessible to anyone with Internet access.  Third, one of them, Homeland Security 'czar' Janet Napolitano (not to be confused with the astute Judge Andrew Napolitano), is a former governor of Arizona, and one would think she would have a keen interest in any laws enacted there, especially laws that have a direct bearing on national security.  Or is Napolitano of Homeland Security unfazed by the possibility of terrorists entering the country via the southern border?

The more I think about it, the more preposterous it sounds for the Attorney General of the U. S. to show no interest in the content of a law when said law mirrors at the State level Federal immigration law.  Would he not want to check whether the law perhaps is inconsistent with Federal law?  How can he not have an interest in the content of a law that is being debated on the international stage?

The caller's surmise seems quite credible.  Why not lie, if it serves your purpose?  The purpose being to prevent anything serious being done about the problem of illegal immigration.  Bear in mind that, for the Left,  the end justifies the means, and 'bourgeois morality' be damned.

Another Round with Reppert on AZ SB 1070: Reasonable Suspicion

In his most recent post on this topic, Victor Reppert tells us that his "main concern is with the 'reasonable suspicion' clause. That strikes me as horribly vague."  Here is the relevant SB 1070 passage as amended by HB 2162 which contains the clause in question:

For any lawful contact stop, detention or arrest made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who and is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation. 

Reppert continues:

In our state, most illegals are Hispanics, but most Hispanics are not illegals. If you define your conception of what it takes to have reasonable suspicion, and on my blog I made an un-remarked-upon recommendation that we have reasonable suspicion just in case we have objective criteria leading to the conclusion that it is more likely than not that the person is illegal, then you could at least eliminate the worst of the profiling problems. You can't just stop a Hispanic and make an immigration status inquiry, because being Hispanic is not sufficient for it to be more than 50% likely that the person is here illegally. (Emphasis added)

I believe Reppert is missing the point here.  I agree with the last quoted sentence.  But the  1070 law does not mandate that Hispanics be stopped at random to have their status checked.  The law clearly states the conditions under which an immigration inquiry may proceed:

1.  There must be a lawful stop, detention, or arrest.

2. The stop, detention, or arrest must be made in the enforcement of a law other than 1070.

3.  There must be reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien.

4.  The immigration inquiry must be practicable.

5.  The immigration inquiry must not hinder or obstruct an investigation.

I should think that Reppert's 50% rule is satisfied if all the conditions are observed.  For example, during a lawful traffic stop, the cop has the right to ask for a driver's license.  If the Hispanic driver has no license, no proof of insurance, no registration, has a campesino sticker on his bumper, is driving a junker, etc.  then the the chance that he is illegal is way over 50%.

There is a distinction I made earlier which is very important and which Reppert may be ignoring, the distinction between a law and its enforcement.  If a law is reasonable and just, it is these things whether or not some cowboy of a cop oversteps his legitimate  authority in its enforcement.  It would be absurd to argue that a particular law should be repealed because there may be abuses in its enforcement.  For any such argument would 'prove too much': it would prove that every law ought to be repealed.  For every law is such that an abuse can occur in its enforcement.

Are Immigration Laws Discriminatory?

Liberals routinely complain that immigration laws such as the recently enacted Arizona Senate Bill 1070 are 'discriminatory.'  This is nonsense, of course, but it is important to understand why.

1.  Let's start with the very notion of discrimination.  Discrimination as such is neither good nor bad.  In this respect it is like change.  Change as such  is neither good nor bad: there is change for the good and change for the bad.  Change for the good is improvement, but not all change is improvement.  (Obama take note.)  Similarly, there is justifiable discrimination and unjustifiable discrimination.  As a matter of fact we all discriminate all the time.  When you refuse to eat rotten food and insist on fresh, you are discriminating.  When you forbid your children from associating with crackheads, you are discriminating.  When you sort arguments into the valid and the invalid, you are discriminating.  When you accept the true and reject the false, you are discriminating.  Such discriminations are obviously justifiable.  But that is to understate the point.  Anyone who fails to discriminate between people with whom it would be dangerous for his children to associate and those with whom it would not be dangerous is  guilty of dereliction of parental duty. Discrimination is not only in a vast range of cases permissible; it is obligatory.

2.  The same goes for laws.  Every law discriminates against those who either do or fail to do the actions either proscribed or prescribed by the law.  A law that proscribes the operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated discriminates against drunk drivers. Is that a problem?  Of course not.  Discrimination in cases like these is obviously justifiable. 

3.  So there is a clear sense in which SB 1070 is discriminatory:  it discriminates against those who are in the country illegally.  Now I hope our liberal pals are not opposed to 1070 for its being discriminatory in this sense.  Presumably, what they will say is that it 'targets' Hispanics and discriminates against them unjustifiably.  But this is a false and scurrilous allegation.  It does not 'target' Hispanics, it targets illegal aliens.  Of course, the vast majority of illegal aliens in the Southwest are Hispanics.  But that is irrelevant.  The objection to them is not that they are Hispanic, but that they are illegal.

It takes a little subtlety of mind to understand this, but not that much.  Suppose someone said that drunk driving  laws are unjust because they disproportionately affect those of Irish extraction.  You would of course respond that if they are the ones who are doing most of the drunk driving, then it only right that they should be the ones who disproportionately suffer the penalty.  You would point out that, even if it is true that most drunk drivers are Irish, the objection to them is not that they are Irish, but that they are drunk drivers.

4.  1070 does not unfairly 'target' Hispanics despite the barrage of lies emanating from the Left.  So what are liberals/leftists really opposed to? They are opposed to the very notion of national sovereignty and national borders.  They simply do not want border control.  But being  mendacious, they will not come out and clearly state that.  So they use weasel phrases like 'comprehensive immigration reform' which either mean nothing or are code for amnesty and open borders. 

I Was Forced to Show My Papers!

Az_police_state_175 Things are really getting bad here in the fascist state of Arizona.  Why just this morning I was forced to show ID when I went to vote.  I strolled into the polling place looking a fright after several hours of hiking.  I introduced myself as 'King Blog' but that cut no ice with the  old ladies who manned the place.  They asked to see my driver's license! What chutzpah!  What bigotry!  A bunch of damned Nazis, if you want my opinion.  What if I forgot it, or never had one? Then the Nazi bastards would have disenfranchised me!  The very act of requesting ID is an act of disenfrachisement and intimidation.  Besides, it prevents me from voting twice, which I have the right to do.  I should have adapted a line from B. Traven's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  Papers?  I don't need no stinkin' papers!  I'm a human being.  You just hate me because I smell like I spent the night under a bridge.  I have the right to do whatever I want, wherever I want, and vote wherever I want and as many times as I want.

I'm gettin' the hell out of this rattlesnake infested inferno of gun-totin' yahoos, rednecked racists, and xenophobic immigrant-bashers.  I'm going where a man can be free.  I'm headed for the People's Republic of China.  "Live free or die," as I always say.