And Then Along Came Mahony vis-a-vis Arizona

Let me say from the beginning, I am totally and wholly in favor of Arizona's recent immigrant legislation. Good for Arizona, good for the U.S. And then along came Cardinal Roger Mahony. Mahoney, cloaked in, and protected by, the vestments of a Roman Catholic Cardinal recently spewed forth from his website a vile diatribe against the law abiding citizens of Arizona who, weary of waiting for the federal government to protect and defend the southern border, decided to do so themselves. I doubt that the Arizona legislature asked Mahony his opinion before enacting a basic defense against illegal border crossings because the law doesn't sit well with him. Cardinal Mahony described Arizona's immigration legislation as, "...retrogressive, mean spirited, and useless...". And it gets worse. Much worse. With the apparent OK of the Church, Mahony attacked everyday Arizonans, writing "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation." Yes, a Roman Catholic Cardinal painted each and every law abiding Arizonan with this ugly brush, comparing them to Nazis and Communists, just for trying to protect themselves. The tenor of Mahony's diatribe is that the law is turning away good labor; farm workers, shoe shiners, fruit pickers, armadillo shuckers, marimba bands. LABOR is his soapbox and the laborers he's referring to are the ones from whose pockets he makes a payday. He pleads that if the U.S. doesn't allow in the illegals that we won't have anybody to perform all the labor. He seems to give all the credit for what is good in America to illegals, "I have met so many of our immigrant families and I am in awe at their love for our country, their care and concern for their children, and their resourcefulness in helping to improve our communities, our way of life, and our economic future." Well, perhaps, the illegals are all these things, but getting here made them criminals. They abandon their own country and their own problems and illegally make their way here to present us with a whole new set of problems, dividing us all the way. Mr. Mahony, we already have laborers. Legal ones.

Mahony asks us to ” Please listen carefully to their stories, look into their faces. The more we come to know immigrants as individual people like ourselves with the same longings and yearnings for themselves, their families, and our countries, the more we will understand the need to reform federal immigration laws to help bring these people along a path to legal recognition.”

Look, the path the illegals need is an unceremonial path right back to their own country, whichever it is. And federal laws are not forthcoming, hence Arizona's law.

Mr. Mahony is flat wrong. They are not people like ourselves.The vast majority of us were either legally born here or are here via legal status. They may have some of the same kinds of longings, but will subvert the law to realize those longings in the U.S., not in Mexico or their home country. Millions of Mexicans and others violated U.S. law to get here. We don’t need more belligerent lawbreakers, and we certainly don’t want a ‘path to legal recognition’ for these international criminals. Mr. Mahony, you obviously are not God fearing. You would better serve humanity by attempting to save souls, rather than by politicizing your views in violation of separation laws, and by aiding and abetting crime, which is exactly what you are doing with your Holier-Than-Thou stance.

Mahony goes on to beg, "Let's not allow fearful and ill-informed rhetoric to shape public policy." Mahoney, Your own rhetoric is filled with vile spitefulness, inflammatory accusations, and bareface lies. Your own demagoguery is reminiscent of the late Joseph McCarthy, U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1957. McCarty came to national prominence during the early 1950’s by accusing a number of politicians and other individuals of being either communists or communist sympathizers. Mahony, McCarthy, too, presented himself as being above reproach while anyone who questioned or disagreed with him was personally labeled by McCarthy as disloyal to the US government. And this, Mr. Mahony, is exactly what you are doing. You are shameful, despicable, and an embarrassment to the Nation and to all law abiding citizens of the United States.