Tanning, Illegals, Crack. A Study.

I’ve been away for a while, hence my neglect. It wasn’t out of (complete) laziness; I was out in nature for a bit, away from technology. Out in nature for a bit, away from technology, I was able to take some to think, think my thoughts. I ran the gamut: Japanese economic policies, what type of facial hair I wish I could grow (handlebar mustache), the etiquette of waving to a no-armed person, tax cuts for the wealthy, and food. But for some reason I’ve become more interested in race in America. I think it has to do with the amount of air time race (and racism) seem to get in the news lately:

Two black congress members being charged for ethics violation?

=Race

Barack Obama’s approval rating plummeting?

=Race

Revamping crack laws?

=Race

And of course, as we have always known, George Bush hates black people.

Of course treason has been in the news too (more than once), but that's for another post. 

Whites Conservatives are labeled as racists for one reason or another, more often than not it is because they disagree with some policy that coincidentally involves some other race either directly or indirectly. Sadly the core of an issue is often muddled and lost amid talks of potential “racism” and “racial profiling.” But despite all claims that white conservatives are the bigoted ones, I think I’ve found some proof that many liberals don’t abide by the same standard when an issue concerns whites.

The main topic of this post is this: What do crack, tanning, and illegal immigrants have in common?

According to Google Image search the answer is this. 

On the surface, these seem to be disparate issues, but they reveal a deep hypocrisy amongst liberals and within the Obama administration. The way to demonstrate this is to show how liberals and Obama have handled each. 

SB 1070:

Arizona’s immigration law. Just in case you haven’t read it, I should just point out there is no mention of Mexicans in it. It does not once mention the words “Brown-skinned” “Hispanic” or any other Hispanic-identifying phrase. In fact, it is more or less a replica of what is on the federal books. It allows police officers to question people if they have reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally. (Can someone please tell me if illegals are able to get a driver’s license? What happens when a cop pulls over someone without a driver’s license? Is that a big red flag?) I don’t know if you, the person reading this, have ever been to Arizona or Southern California (I’ve lived in both), but suspecting that someone is in the country illegally does not require a Ph.d.

If you thought these people are illegal, then you are a racist. 

Obama’s initial criticism of the bill was that it threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans…” 

That claim was clearly not derived from reading the text of the bill, as the bill does not set out to pursue a particular racial group. The claim comes off the notion that the bill will de facto affect, primarily, Hispanics. The bill also could affect Canadians, Phillipinos, Polish, Jamaicans, Pakistanis, Indians, Irish, Koreans, or Portuguese to name a few. (The peoples I just listed belong to the top-20 countries of origin for illegal immigrants.) Of course, however, the writers of this bill MUST have intended it to affect Hispanics, as I have yet to hear of a major backlash in Vancouver against the bill.

The backlash against the bill concerns the bill's perceived racial overtones—that was Obama’s first argument against it. But when it came time to file a lawsuit against the state of Arizona, that racial argument strangely vanished, it became a matter of whether Arizona developed an immigration law that preempted federal law, which is a big no no, because according to the Supremacy Clause it should be the other way around.

So, for Obama, the intrinsic unfairness of SB 1070 proved to be the catalyst for the suit against it. The law said nothing of race, but he (and liberals) believed it would lead to racial profiling, thus justifying their suit.

The Fair Sentencing Act:

Crack and cocaine are two pharmaceutically identical substances. That’s the fancy way of saying they are exactly the same thing. Saying crack and cocaine are identical substances is, of course, like saying rape and consensual sex are identical biological acts, or even saying that poached eggs and fried eggs are identical organic substances. But we all know they aren’t really the same. Fried eggs are far superior with hash browns and toast than are poached eggs, and I won’t even get into the rape/consensual sex comparison. Crack and cocaine are vastly different, especially in the way they affect people. This is the reason why Harlem and other areas of heavy crack (poor man’s cocaine) use went to the dump and why investment bankers cocaine users are not as violent. This differential is what led Congress to create the bill that Obama and Congress overturned at the beginning of August. If you look at the legislative history of the original bill, the main issue is which drug causes more violence in its users. Hence the reason why someone caught with half a rock gets screwed and why someone using left over cocaine to decorate his lawn for the holidays gets a slap on the wrist. The argument against this bill, and the reason why Obama and Congress overturned it, is because it de facto targeted blacks and Hispanics.

...and Tyrone

 Nothing in the original law mentioned blacks or Hispanics, but again, Obama’s demand for fairness among all Americans led to his decision.

Tan Tax:

And finally, we come to the tan tax, where we see an abrupt about-face by Obama and his hope for “fairness among all Americans.”

Just some quick background: The Obama White House plans to slap a 10% surcharge for the use of ultraviolet tanning beds. In case you are not aware, artificial tanning beds, besides being the bedrock of the New Jersey economy, cater to white people (and some orange people). In fact, they cater almost exclusively to white people, as most blacks and Hispanics go no further than standing in front of tanning salons holding out their hands and screaming, “Oh my God! What happened?”

All racially insensitive quips aside, this is a 10% tax on a white segment of the population. Is that fair? Well, clearly the White House doesn’t mind the tax since they enacted it. Is it legal? Of course it is. As Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School points out: “There is no constitutional problem at all, because a plaintiff would have to show that the government intended to disadvantage a particular group, not simply that the group is disadvantaged in effect.” In fact, this fact is the reason why the cocaine vs. crack law stayed on the books for so long (over 20 years), and why the Arizona law would not be overturned on racial grounds. In all three issues I’ve examined, it would be hard to prove that lawmakers intended to disadvantage a particular group. In the first two, the Obama administration and liberals took to the offensive against laws that affected a particular group in reality, but in the final issue, they took to the offensive, ignoring the same doctrine of fairness that they used to guide previous decisions, to single out a particular group of people that are all of the same race.

A note: You might be reading this and say, “How the hell can he compare these? SB 1070 results in people being deported and families being split, the Fair Sentencing Act affects people going to prison, and the tan tax affects a white person’s life style choice. That’s comparing apples and oranges.”

Well, you’re right. The consequences of each are different. However the core question remains the same: Do liberals and does Obama care about fairness when it comes to whites? The consequences do not have much role to play. Fairness is fairness when it comes to any law that results in a lopsided penalty or benefit for one group of people, and if you talk about fairness being an issue for one, then you should strive to make sure you apply the same standard to all the issues.