Immigration amnesty not nearly as popular in CA as gay rights

There really has been a genuine change in American views of gay rights. The longer the Republican Party sees its members look at this new world and then act out in the fashion of the Arizona legislature, the harder it will be for the GOP to maximize its power.

But while many millions of voters are increasingly comfortable with the equating of anti-black discrimination and anti-gay discrimination, they don’t necessarily slip into the same stance when it comes to immigration — specifically the idea that racial animus drives those who question amnesty or amnesty-lite policies that trivialize federal laws.

Consider the fallout from a court ruling last week of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. This is from the L.A. Times’ account:

“SAN FRANCISCO — An attorney is vowing to appeal a federal court ruling that a Northern California high school that asked students to remove American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo acted reasonably to avoid igniting ethnic tensions.

“The ruling stemmed from a 2010 incident that provoked angry commentary across the country and a lawsuit by students claiming their constitutional rights had been violated.

“An attorney for three students who sued said he would ask a larger panel of the 9th Circuit to overturn the ruling.

“‘I am pretty astonished that in this country you can’t express your patriotic freedom without offending people of other national origins,’ said William Becker Jr., who represented the students on behalf of FreedomX, a nonprofit he heads to advocate free-speech cases for conservatives and Christians.

“If the school feared a disturbance, it should have canceled the Cinco de Mayo celebration, ‘not deprived students of their 1st Amendment rights to patriotic expression,’ he said.

“In siding with the Morgan Hill Unified School District, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said administrators at Live Oak School had reason to fear the flag attire might spark a potentially violent race-related disturbance during the school-sanctioned celebration of the Mexican holiday.”

Recipe for blowback

Since this ruling came down, I have seen lots of reaction that says the decision makes sense, given school administrators’ responsibility to keep students safe.

But I have not seen a single white Californian — in print, in emails, on Twitter, anywhere — who thinks the white students did something wrong or who is comfortable with how this mess played out then and now. One Dem I know said he would have filibustered school board meetings for the rest of his life before allowing his daughter to go to a school in a district that sent kids home for wearing U.S. flags in a proud way.

My point here is going to be muddled no matter what because of my ambivalence on this issue. If I lived in Mexico and wanted my family to have a better life, I wouldn’t think twice about breaking U.S. law to come here. I also think that America needs a big influx of people to pay for the Baby Boomers going on the dole.

But I also think there is massive intellectual dishonesty on the part of many of those who support illegal immigration or who report on the issue. If you add millions of unskilled laborers to the U.S. work force, of-bleeping-course the unskilled laborers who are already in the U.S. work force will suffer. That group includes mostly minorities. How come this is never mentioned?

Oh, well. Expecting rationalism or honesty in politics or political journalism is stupid, so I’ll just shut up now.