Thread: NE-What If (AZ) Law Creates Injustice?

Community columnist, 10/16: What if law creates injustice?
StoryDiscussionCommunity columnist, 10/16: What if law creates injustice?
By ANNE KUBR / For the Lincoln Journal Star JournalStar.com | Posted: Friday, October 15, 2010 11:45 pm | (6) Comments

Community Columnist Anne Kubr .
..We are a nation of laws. They are the foundation upon which a democratic society is based. Ideally, each law we pass makes us a better nation.

We struggle, though, to pass just and meaningful laws. We want good laws; we just tend to each want those laws that help us personally. Sometimes, it is difficult to separate our individual needs from the greater needs of our community or our country.

"Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the ... individual without having to pay the penalty for it," Henry David Thoreau said.

As we look at laws to support legal immigration and discourage illegal immigration, we need to look at the unintended as well as the intended effects of any law we draw up.

There are some things in life that, unless we are constantly vigilant, will magnify exponentially: weeds, clutter on kitchen counters and, on a more serious note, bigotry. Bigotry is not something that is a part of just a few of us. It is not a part of even most of us. It is within all of us.

Like joy, sadness, anger and the good feeling that comes from success, it is a part of our human condition. History has shown again and again that it is in every people, every nation.

Like the common cold, there is no cure, and it spreads rapidly. One difference between bigotry and the common cold is, however, that colds spread rapidly as a virus moves from one person to the next. Bigotry spreads because we give permission through our actions or words for that waiting within each of us to be released.

Also unlike the common cold, once released, bigotry is not present for a few days followed by a return to normal. It has had enormous and devastating effects on peoples and nations.

How is this germane to our conversation on immigration laws within our states? When a city or a state's law enforcement officials or the landlords of an area must check that each person is a legal citizen of our country on a traffic stop or before he or she rents a home, does that mean that every person is checked or only those who look a certain way?

When we pinpoint people who have, say ... darker skin, black hair ... on such occasions as these, how do we keep our bigotry in check? Have we not, through those laws, given ourselves permission to look negatively at a group of people?

And what if that person who is being looked on as someone less is you, or perhaps your sister, or your mother? The risk is real, to our citizens, to our country, to ourselves.

If a law, in attempting to create justice, has the effect of creating an injustice, we all must stand up and take notice. If a law, instead of making us a better people, paves the way for our frailties to take precedence over our better nature, we have enacted the wrong law.

Gov. Dave Heineman has stated that he is looking into an Arizona-type law for Nebraska. Why? Immigration is in the federal government's jurisdiction.

Our illegal immigrant population is, even by percentage of our full population, a fraction of Arizona's. We are facing, according to the governor himself, a severe revenue shortfall in the next biennium. All of this begs the question: How can we afford the hundreds of thousands or, as has been predicted by some, millions of dollars needed to enact and defend legislation of this type when we don't have enough for the most basic of our state's needs now? And what would be the true cost, not just the cost to the programs and needs of this state that would go unfunded?

To be governed wisely, we must be wise. We are all, in a very real sense, the lawmakers of this land. We must look at the complete impact of each law we consider, especially those that could touch, directly and indirectly, who we are as a people.

Anne Kubr is a sixth-grade language arts teacher in Lincoln Public Schools.

http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/edi ... 03286.html

Why? Immigration is in the federal government's jurisdiction.

Because the federal government is no longer doing their jobs and they are not protecting the people they are suppose to be working for.

When we pinpoint people who have, say ... darker skin, black hair ... on such occasions as these, how do we keep our bigotry in check? Have we not, through those laws, given ourselves permission to look negatively at a group of people?

And NO WE DO NOT We are trying to clean up the problem that our fellow Congress people have created over the years. IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT MOST ILLEGALS ARE OF HISPANIC cultures. Why don't you ask these people to just "please leave"?

So if this teacher has one or more students KIDNAPPED.IS she going to call the police? WHY? It is a federal offense. Leave it up to the feds.

http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/crimi ... pping.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/federal-kidnapping-act
http://www.circuit7.net/documents/famil ... apping.pdf

Same as her bank getting robbed. Is she going to call the police? WHY? It is a federal offense.

http://law.jrank.org/pages/565/Bank-Robbery.html
http://www.srhunterlaw.com/Chicago-Bank ... y-Attorney

If the law applies to everyone, then how is that unfair?

Anne Kubr is a sixth-grade language arts teacher in Lincoln Public Schools.

Yet she apparently doesn't understand the meaning of the word bigot?

From dictionary.com:

big·ot
   [big-uht]
–noun
a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

World English Dictionary
bigot (ˈbɪɡət)
— n
a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race


big·ot·ry
   [big-uh-tree]
–noun, plural -ries.
1.stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

2.the actions, beliefs, prejudices, etc., of a bigot.

I guess they're trying to move away from their failed attempts to label us as racists.

Hey, Anne Kubr, 6th grade teacher in Nebraska. Bigotry has nothing whatsoever to do with immigration and shame on you for trying to associate or connect 2 totally dissociated unrelated issues.

The AZ immigration law is the law that requires state and local law enforcement officers to use their time and resources to enforce US immigration law in Arizona. The color of their skin or anyone else's has nothing whatsoever to do with enforcing US immigration law. In fact if you look closely, you'll find that the skin shade of those law enforcement officers in Arizona is the same or quite similar to the skin shade of many of the illegal aliens that are and will be arrested by these law enforcement officers because many of the illegal aliens in Arizona are from Mexico and South America and many of the law enforcement officers of Arizona are Americans of Hispanic descent.

I realize we can't expect much today from 6th grade public school teachers in the areas of economics and sustainability, but you really should at least learn the demographics of our states and the citizens who live in them before you write articles attacking the good citizens of Arizona with the "bigotry" card because they want to enforce US immigration law and you don't.

I also understand that your public teaching jobs are at stake as we the people enforce US immigration law and deport illegal aliens because that will drop enrollment in your public school system, require less teachers being needed and OH NOES, you might be on the long list of the unemployed.

Well, Anne Kubr, when you didn't stand up to protect the jobs of fellow citizens that were handed off to illegal aliens by the millions, you betrayed your fellow citizens in favor of foreign nationals in our country illegally which cost Americans twice, it cost them their jobs and livelihoods, and then raised their property taxes to pay you and others like you to educate the children of illegal aliens who stole crucial jobs from Americans.

So, please don't be surprised when you learn that Americans don't care if teachers teaching illegal aliens at our expense lose their job.

After all, what goes around, comes around. And no racist, xenophobia, nativist or now bigotry card is going change that fact, because that's a law of the universe.

Sharpen up that resume, Anne Kubr. Illegal aliens are going home, the easy way on their own or the hard way through deportation, whatever it takes, by all means necessary, and I suspect you'll soon be looking for a job in a new profession working 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year and paying for your own health insurance.

Welcome to America, Anne Kubr.

Judy can I post that to the comment section at the link if you didn't?

If the author was worried about government resources she would want to eliminate the cost of services for the ILLEGALS. How about "some compassion" concerning the resources stolen by the ILLEGALS to educate their ILLEGAL children and anchors that could have been utilized by the LEGAL children of United States Citizens. The Blanket Amnesty of the 80's is the main reason today's ILLEGALS expect and DEMAND another BLANKET AMNESTY and if it is granted the ILLEGALS will continue to come to steal our resources and DEMANDING another BLANKET AMNESTY.

Originally Posted by Ratbstard

Judy can I post that to the comment section at the link if you didn't?

It would be my pleasure Ratbstard for you to post my post at the link, and thank you for doing so.

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by Ratbstard

Judy can I post that to the comment section at the link if you didn't?

It would be my pleasure Ratbstard for you to post my post at the link, and thank you for doing so.

I just now posted it and will check to see when or if it makes it to the board there.