Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Megyn Kelly wants to compare Tea Partiers to Arizona immigration protesters.



This is so typical of Fox. They run two sets of footage - one from the Tea Party protesters and one from people protesting Arizona's new immigration law and ask us to be outraged at the violence from one group of protesters and impressed by the lack of disorder coming from the other group: the Tea Party folk.

Now leaving aside the fact that - as Crooks and Liars point out - the Arizona protest was mostly peaceful and that the Tea Party protesters did react in an ugly fashion when Democrats walked through the crowd, am I the only person who doesn't find this comparison ludicrous?

The Latinos protesting in Arizona have had something taken away from them. The police now have a duty to demand proof of citizenship if they suspect a person might not be a citizen. And what would this suspicion be based on if not the person's colour, or the fact that they might look Mexican?

What's been taken from the Tea Party protesters is NOTHING.

They have lost no rights, they have lost no freedoms, they are protesting because their party lost an election and that the party led by the black guy won.

They have nothing to be angry about, unless to rage about the fact that the rest of the electorate did not share their choice for president.

Latinos, on the other hand, have lots to be angry about. They have LOST something. I would be angry if I had to live with the knowledge that I might have to prove to the police force in my own country that I have a right to be here, especially as I pay for that force - like everyone else - through taxation. And it would gall me that fellow citizens, who simply looked different from me because of colour, did not face the possibility of ever being asked the same question.

But, Mike Gallacher goes as far as to say that the Latinos protesting are "pro-illegal immigrant criminals", instead of people who feel that a law has been passed which allows them to be subject to police actions which other Americans will not be subjected to.

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