So the same people who disrupted the health care debate with cries over unconstitutional governmental intrusion in their lives now want to empower the police with the ability to verify someone's identity (and detain them if refused) at their whim? Color me shocked...shocked.
There is a singular, common thread to all of these activities... and it is a deep seeded racism (call it xenophobia if you want).
The TEA party's real message is == I don't want the Government giving my money to the blacks or immigrants.
Arizona's Show me your Papers law == We don't want anyone here except people that look like us.
The Birthers == A black man cannot be our President.
Protect Marriage folks == Homosexuals are second class citizens.
If you try to use any sort of logic to decipher these groups, it fails, unless you view the groups through the lens of racism/xenophobia.
But, the people are not to blame, it is the politicians that use these groups to further their own personal cause -- and that is power and money.
The people in these group are ignorant (and usually under-educated and old) and there is very little hope to alter their views, but the Republican party that are using these people for their own gain should be ashamed.
These groups represent an exclusionary view of the world -- it is us against them -- us, "true Americans" to speak Palin, versus *them* -- be it blacks, immigrants, gays, or any other minority group.
The silver lining in all of this is that we have encountered these same people in previous generations... be it when slavery was ending, when women were allowed to vote, when social security was enacted, when blacks and whites were allowed to marry, when gays rioted at stonewall.
Their hate is nothing new.
Time will prove, once again, that they are on the wrong side of history.
