ARIZONA IMMIGRATION RULES

In Puzo's The Godfather, most of the book is sensationalistic. The only "idea" portion is toward the end, when Michael Corleone is in Sicily, and we learn the history of the Mafia, and the reasons for its existence:

"Justice had never been forthcoming from the authorities and so the people had always gone to the Robin Hood Mafia. And to some extent the Mafia still fulfilled this role. People turned to their local capo-mafioso for help in every emergency. He was their social worker, their district captain ready with a basket of food and a job, their protector... It had become a degenerate capitalist structure, anti-communist, anti-liberal, placing its own taxes on every form of business endeavor no matter how small" (324-325).

The Mafia had begun because the government of Sicily was corrupt, and entirely in the pocket of the rich. The rich faction had a de facto monopoly on justice, on employment, and on rights.

The poor formed a Mafia, and struck back silently.

To be a member of the Mafia, you had to have two Sicilian parents. It was not an equal opportunity employer. Their tactics included blackmail, murder, and extortion. Omerta was the honor code never to snitch.

Merit had no part in the scheme. If you wanted a job as a doctor, the Mafia capo could make you one. Even the medical establishment was considered illegitimate, and so one illegitimate license was as good as any other.

Finally, the only hope for such a corrupt society was emigration. Everyone who could got out, and came to America, but the Mafia came with them. Italian Americans complain that they are discriminated against because people think that they are Mafiosi, or that they may have Mafia connections. Some do, some don't. But that some do, makes every Italian look bad.

One gets the sense that identity politics grows in non-functional populations, populations in which for whatever reason law and order do not function.

Identity politics is dangerous, because it leads people to identify with their own group instead of with the nation and its laws. They decide that law is of no use. The only use is to band together and exact vengeance.

When part of a group goes bad, and if the other members of the group nevertheless do not do everything in their power to dislodge that bad group, what resource is there but for others to think the entire group is corrupt?

If the Mexican-Americans (legal immigrants) do not help to police the situation vis a vis the illegals but actively help them to integrate and receive American resources, and riot in the streets so that America will be overrun, then the police can't be blamed for not being able to distinguish one from the other. We can't be blamed for thinking that all Hispanics are lawless and are here illegally.

If enormous Latino groups cry racism, when this is actually a case of invasion from another country, then the police should have the right to go through each dossier as they now do in Arizona. (Actually, a proviso has been added that says that they can only be searched if another crime is suspected. It can't now be the only reason for a stop.)

Legality is important. I think many do get this. It will hopefully help legal immigrants figure out that it is not in their best interest to support the "right" of illegal immigrants to remain here.

This is a complex matter, but let me draw a further parallel that will please very few, and then draw yet another parallel that will please no one at all, in order to dig as deep a hole for myself as possible, before I miraculously pop back up out of the hole, sound principle intact.

When terrorists dress up as legal Americans, and even infiltrate the military, as did Major Hasan in Texas, it makes all Islamic-Americans look suspect. Therefore, we should attempt to keep all Islamics out of sensitive military and police positions, whether there is a cry of racism or not.

Few people will agree, and yet, it is the only sane principle.

Now here is yet another extrapolation that will please absolutely no one, and probably infuriate everyone who isn't already infuriated, and yet the principle is sound.

When Vietnamese children and women became combatants in the Vietnam War, tossing grenades at American soldiers who they pretended to befriend, they blurred the line between combatant and women and children to the extent that American soldiers, in their retaliatory fury, destroyed everyone in the village of My Lai.

Was this legitimate?

No, but whose fault was it?

Most assume that it was the fault of the American soldiers. I disagree. The fault lies with those who deliberately blurred that line in the first place.

In a similar way, to go back to the original problem, it is in the best interests of legal Mexican and Hispanic immigrants to comply with American law, and to rat out any suspected illegals, unless they want to be confused with them.

It is in everyone's best interest to maintain law and order around them at all times.

When the hippies looked the other way when people in their midst sold drugs, or when the Manson Family formed in their midst, it made all hippies look suspect.

When animal rights protesters fail to vigorously dissent from the actions of eco-terrorists, it makes them all look like eco-terrorists, or that they are at least in league with them. If their leaders, such as Peter Singer, do not denounce eco-terrorism, then it makes it look as if they condone it, which undercuts their entire movement, and denies them any of the moral credibility which they desire to attain.

When someone like Ward Churchill's writings blurs the line between decent and suspect scholarship, when he makes profoundly treacherous comments toward his country, it makes everyone in Ethnic Studies look like a dishonest bigot and traitor. And yet, few if any within those ranks were willing to go against him. Most of the members of his department continue to support him: even when his plagiarism and treachery are well-known to all Americans.

When the Duke 88 slander three innocent lacrosse players, and never say they're sorry, they make Duke University itself look suspect. If all these 88 are not denounced, and fired, but are left to look like upstanding citizens, it then destroys the credibility of not only Duke, but of all professors who do not denounce their actions.

When Affirmative Action hires people who are not of the best quality from within a certain group, it makes all those who were hired with regard only for their ability look like losers who were helped out by a discriminatory policy similar to the way that the Mafia in Italy put bad doctors into place. Even the American president looks like an Affirmative Action hire without the requisite background to do his job when quality is no longer the only criterion.

Distinctions and boundaries if not scrupulously maintained by those on the decent side of the border risk corruption when they do not help to maintain the strict lines that separate right from wrong, good from bad. When Martin Luther King receives a doctorate for a dissertation that he did not write, and everyone knows it, it makes all of us who did write our own dissertation look like plagiarists. Should his doctorate not be rescinded? Should we continue to call him DOCTOR Martin Luther King, when he has no right to that title?

If distinctions and boundaries and laws are not kept, it corrupts everyone and taints all the laws, boundaries and distinctions.