At least that's what Sheriff Joe's pal Senator Russell Pearce would have you believe. In the wake of another questionable arrest by the Sheriff's deputies, this one of civil rights leader Salvador Reza, Pearce, the creator and chief blowhard behind SB 1070, is speaking up for the Sheriff whose lawsuits for illegal arrests and inhumane treatment have already cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Ask Monica Sandschafer, director of the immigrant rights group LUCHA, whose group did little more than stand and applaud during a county meeting before being arrested, and then:
All charges against them were dropped and they will be receiving a total of about $500,000 after suing and claiming their First Amendment rights were violated.
It remains to be seen if Sal Reza will sue Arpaio, but Senator Pearce isn't waiting. He's already passed judgment on Reza and anyone who stands up to the Sheriff.
Speaking in general terms, Pearce called some of Arpaio’s critics “anti-American, anti-law, pro-illegal alien, pro-open border. They intend to get arrested. They put themselves into position to be arrested,” Pearce said. “And they complain he’s picking on them. It’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard.”
Wow, speaking out for one's rights, practicing civil disobedience in the face of discriminatory policies, is the "most outrageous thing [he's] ever heard"? He must have a fairly warped threshold for outrage. Here's what's outrageous:
It's outrageous, Senator, that you favor repealing a Constitutional Amendment simply because it provides a path to citizenship for people you don't want here. Yeah, let's go after babies, that'll solve everything. Maybe you'd like to pick apart some sections of the First Amendment too, because you don't like some things people say.
It's outrageous, Senator, that you make immigration the cause of every friggin' problem in Arizona. As powerful Chair of the legislature's Appropriations Committee, you've been in a position of leadership for years. It is your bass-ackwards tax policies that have driven us into this economic ditch, yet you deflect blame from your own shoulders and place it on the backs of poor people.
It's outrageous, Senator, that you keep yapping about Obama "failing us" and "not securing the border," when FBI statistics show crime is down along the border and in the cities, when Obama has sent way more agents to the border than Bush ever did, and when the administration has made available more NG troops than your dimwit Governor has requested.
It's outrageous, Senator, that you'd forward racist National Socialist email propaganda, hang out with "Sieg Heil" goons, praise the 1950's "Operation Wetback" program, and then have the nerve to call others "anti-American."
It's outrageous, Senator, that you'd sponsor a bill that says Arizona wedding licenses will only be granted to couples when both parties can prove they are American citizens. Even Arizona voters weren't crazy enough to support this, but what's more outrageous is that you say you'll reintroduce it next session.
It's outrageous, Senator, that you think the Constitution is under attack from communists and secularists, and the only people who can save it, according to your mentor W. Cleon Skousen, are white Mormon men. Now I see why you don't want non-whites here; they'll just get in the way of your theocratic Rapture.
Pearce said he admires Skousen and has read many of his books. Indeed, Pearce's philosophy echoes Skousen's book "The Five Thousand Year Leap," which asserts that God inspired the Founders to create a society that has fostered more human progress in 200 years than in all the previous 5,000 years put together. The book has become a favorite of talk-show host Glenn Beck and others in the "tea party" movement. Skousen believed in an obscure prophecy attributed to Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith that held that in the final days of the world, the Constitution would be hanging by a thread and would only be rescued by "the elders of Israel" - Mormon men. Link
It's outrageous, Senator, that you think teaching multicultural literature is a threat to your white hegemony, so you ban ethnic studies from public schools, and you even make it unlawful for the state's universities to sponsor student clubs that celebrate ethnicity, like the African American Student Association.
It's outrageous, Senator, that both you and your son were caught forging documents when you were director of the Motor Vehicle Division. After being canned, you got elected to the legislature and your son ended up working for a towing company whose owner was one of your largest donors – a business you helped get a state contract.
It's outrageous, Senator, that you'd spend time at the legislature debating and eventually passing the Arizona Birther Bill, so we'll be sure our next Presidential candidate is a real citizen!
And what is abso-fucking-lutely outrageous is that you continue to push for even more bigoted policies – all of them casting a racist image over the state and undermining our principal economic engine: tourism. Man, that's some expensive bigotry you got there.
There's a lot to be outraged about here. People speaking on behalf of their civil and human rights isn't one of them. Unless you're someone trying to curtail those rights.
UPDATE: Thanks for the rec list! I should've added: what is also outrageous is that if Arpaio and Pearce had their way, they'd know who many of you are now. Back in 2008, in their fight with New Times, they tried to get the email ID's of people who visited the newspaper's website - and other websites the New Times' reader visited. Welcome to Joe Arpaio's America.
VIDEO UPDATE: Want to see SB 1070 in action? Here you go, get stopped for a traffic citation, then hauled off by the Border Patrol.