I wish that you cared about important issues, I really wish you did.
…“were stopped by Tucson police officers for not having a functioning light on their license plate.”
This is as good a time as any to point out what utter bullshit license plate lights are. I can understand laws preventing people from impeding the duties of police, but it’s something else entirely to put the burden of making law enforcement easier for police on citizens themselves.
Uh, not taking a stance on the immigration debate here, but I was startled to see the whole “driving without a license” thing being glossed over in this story. Am I correct to assume that it’s common for illegal immigrants to be happily driving around without licenses, hence there being some routine around it? Because that’s really fucked up, you guys. Where I come from, if you’re driving without a license (or insurance, for that matter), even if you promise you learned to drive once and you’ll stop if you cause an accident, I’m going to go right ahead and assume you’re a terrible person until you have the piece of paper that says you aren’t a danger to the public.
I dunno, I guess the appropriate fix for that is to be nicer to would-be immigrants so they can apply for said licenses (and not be treated like dirt) but I for one can’t say I have much sympathy for what they were doing in the first place…
I kind of like making it easier for bystanders to ID hit-and-run drivers, though.
It’s possible to protest without actually interfering with police work. I think that if you surround a police vehicle (at which point it obviously can’t just drive away without hurting someone), you’ve obviously crossed the line to active obstruction, at which point pepper spray would be one reasonable response.
Uh, so if you’re in a country without documentation, how would YOU go about getting a driver’s license? Or car insurance for that matter? There are ways to do this, but committing fraud in a country where you may only barely speak the language might be more of a challenge than one might think.
When I moved to where I live now, I wondered at first why I saw a whole lot of adult Latino men riding bicycles out on major thoroughfares - and in regular dress, not anything like exercise attire. But my thoughts went quickly from “how long could it take to save up for a cheap old used car” to “what if the issue’s not the car, but the license?”
Silver lining:
You have to commend the use of (non-lethal) pepper spray here.
They could have gone straight to the (less-lethal) tazer option.
Unless I’ve missed something, this sounds entirely reasonable to me.
Pulling someone over for something that effectively allows you discretions to pull them over if they’re brown sucks. Impounding a car for driving without a license strikes me as totally reasonable. State law requiring officers to call in immigration seems pretty fucked up, but deporting people who are here illegally doesn’t strike me as particularly unreasonable. In fact, the only thing here that seems at all worth being indignant about is the state law about calling in immigration.
I agree. I’d even say that forming a double circle around people, not to mention crawling under their car, crosses the line of physical threat. I share the protesters’ anger at such unfair immigration laws, but the pepper spray sounds appropriate in this case.
I can’t find a list, but there are several states where undocumented immigrants can get driver’s licenses legally. Arizona taking a rather hellishly opposite approach, of course.
They don’t and can’t taze groups because the whole point of a tazer is to immobilise and disable. Unless you have a taser and a cop for each person how do you stop the group attacking the cop firing the tazer?
Even dumb redneck fucks like southern cops understand that, so dont give them too much credit 
How about the essentially racist anti-immigration laws themselves?
Get in cops, and face me! It’s a battle for the very concepts of freedom and humanity, and all I’ve got to fight you with is my own two soft, white eyeballs! GO AHEAD AND POUR CAPSAICIN INTO MY EYEBALLS, I’LL BLINK MY WAY BACK TO A DEMOCRATIC STATE
Maybe it’s time to start fighting pepperspray with pepperspray?
Fucking asshole cops.
First Mexicans can legally enter the US, just as US citizens can legally enter Mexico. When I lived in Arizona as long as I purchased mexican insurance and held a valid US driver’s license I could drive across the border and drive in Mexico. I assume that Mexicans can legally drive in the US with a valid Mexican license just as Canadians can drive in the US with a valid Canadian driver’s license.
I’m not quite sure why Mexicans think that it is OK to cross the US-Mexico border illegally and disregard US laws, but it isn’t cool at all. I do not think that either the Tucson Police or the US Border Guards are at fault.
Go ahead, argue against points I never made.
My point: A licence is a system for managing and identifying drivers, not a mechanism to stop someone from driving a car (as you are claiming). Incarcerating a person is the only way to guarantee they won’t be driving.
I also think that some driving-related laws are idiotic. I drive far better than most other drivers and I’m regularly stoned while driving… the law says my licence should be taken, but the raw data suggests that marijuana intoxication while driving is safer than driving after drinking to the legal level: which society accepts.
Essentially I don’t allow other people or societal norms to dictate my moral stance because laws are subjective and were created without my input and in many cases without any respect to truth, harm minimisation or data. Yes I have a licence. I also speed, smoke dope and drive in the aftermath of most any drug you care to name. Accidents while high: 0
Mexicans think that it is OK to cross the US-Mexico border illegally and disregard US laws
That’s a hell of a generalization about Mexicans. Besides, the controversy isn’t about Mexicans who simply want to drive in the US, it’s about Mexicans (and other immigrants) who want to live and work in the US. Only a minority of Mexicans who want to live and work (and drive) in the US can do so legally.
