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But first: Why should we do anything about SB 1070?

Something missing from quite a lot of the UU conversation on the topic, as we rush to sort out our urgent move-General-Assembly-or-not question, is what exactly is wrong with this law. We shouldn’t take it for granted that UUs are unanimous, or anything close to it, in their opposition to SB 1070; we have to make the argument. There are actual Republican UUs, beleaguered minority though they are, bless their persevering souls, and I’m willing to bet that a lot of UUs who are liberal on most matters are conservative on immigration. I also don’t think the man we overheard after a sympathetic-to-illegal-immigrants service at the San Miguel UU fellowship was all that unusual. “These people don’t pay taxes,” he grumbled. (Sure they don’t. When they go to Costco, the checkout worker squints at them, says “You look Latino,” and rings up their items without sales tax.)

We UUs have our share of Libertarians too, and I’ve already heard from a few self-described Libertarians (some UU, some not) who don’t see any problem with SB 1070. The fact that someone can call themselves Libertarian, and yet approve of something so close to pass laws, speaks to the intellectual bankruptcy of the libertarian movement, whose concern for freedom seems to have dwindled to an obsession with “property rights” and minimal taxation–but I’m impressed to see that at least the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party has written a blog entry opposing it.

So what is wrong with a law that is, after all, essentially saying “We don’t think the federal government is doing enough to enforce its laws, and we’re going to do more to enforce them”? For starters, three things. Read the rest of this entry »