Finding North Without a Compass

Alice in Arizona's Wonderland

Posted by Warren Stumpe on May 10, 2010

All the recent sturm und drang emanating from Arizona’s newly enacted immigration law to identify and deport, at least the bad apple illegal aliens, reminded me of Alice’s experience with the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s "Through the Looking Glass. So far we’ve seen numerous public rallies complete with bottle throwing and confrontations with local law enforcement as well as Arizona boycotts, real and threatened by organizations, cities and states. Their point, as far as I can ascertain, is that maybe, just maybe, someone’s civil rights might be violated in the law’s implementation.

As the White Queen explained it to Alice, "That’s the effect of living backwards. For instance now, there’s the King’s Messenger. He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin till next week: and, of course the crime comes last of all." To further her point, the Queen began screaming. "Oh,oh.oh!" shouted the Queen, shaking her hand......"My finger’s bleeding! Oh, oh oh, oh!" Alice inquired "Have you pricked your finger?" "I haven’t pricked it yet," the Queen said, "but I soon shall – oh,oh,oh!"

Subsequently, the Queen did prick her finger and when Alice asked her why she didn’t scream, the Queen explained that she had done all the screaming already – and what would be the good of having to do it all over again.

Doesn’t that sound remarkably like what’s going on with Arizona? The Arizona immigration law opponents are doing all their screaming before anybody has been hurt. The State and its citizens, who support the new immigration enforcement law, are being punished with disruptive rallies, inflicted boycotts and castigated at every turn from the President on down to most liberal media outlets: and there has been no trial of any wrongdoing; and, of course, there has been no report of anyone’s civil rights having been violated.

Why even our esteemed Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Page Editor, O. Ricardo Pimentel, has announced in writing that he will never return to his home state of Arizona under the present conditions. Wow, that must have really hurt Arizona authorities, coming from someone just a little to the left of Karl Marx! He further illustrated his great displeasure with the example of the police stopping all middle-aged guys near schools, if it could be demonstrated that pedophiles tend to be middle-aged guys. I wonder how he would feel about the police stopping all men wearing turbans, if turbaned men had been identified as responsible of blowing up the editorial offices of major newspapers? Nah - he’d welcome them to his working abode.

It’s my understanding that the influx of illegal aliens crossing over into Arizona from Mexico, now includes a substantial lawless element that have greatly increased Arizona’s exposure to drug running, robbery and kidnaping. I wonder how the good burghers of Wisconsin would react to the same conditions.

I am persuaded that the initial necessary step is for the Federal Government to step up to the plate and fulfill its constitutional requirement to seal our porous southern borders. When that step is accomplished and proven, the next step is to provide a plan for the some 14 million illegals now in our country to be registered and offered a path to legal residency, with the exception of those that have committed crimes of a serious magnitude. Proven criminals must be deported back to their homeland.

The illegal immigration problem did not occur overnight and will not be solved overnight. Unfortunately our chicken-livered Congress is more than reluctant in authoring a solution. Apparently they are not as interested in the welfare of our country as they are of their own political future through the cultivation of the Hispanic vote. Until a national solution is achieved we can expect to see more "Alice in Wonderland" tactics in play opposing stop-gap measures from local governments.