One of the more inane rallying cries of the tea partiers, Obama-haters and conservative wingnuts — and, really, that’s saying something — is that they want “their” country back. Back from what or from whom, well, they never quite say it out loud, or how exactly it is that this country supposedly differs from the [...]

Eugene Robinson’s column this morning, on the facts of Arizona’s “problem” with illegal immigration, is a must-read (and I use that term sparingly): Border crossings by undocumented immigrants have declined sharply over the past decade. With more Border Patrol agents on duty than ever before, apprehensions of would-be immigrants along the 2,000-mile border have dropped [...]

While liberals have been outraged about Arizona’s new immigration law, quite a few commentators have defended the measure as necessary. Usually the argument sounds something like this, “The federal government has punted the ball on immigration! Arizona receives a huge number of illegal immigrants had to do something to stem the tide! This is something.” [...]

Sarah Palin doesn’t think that there’s any “ability or opportunity” in Arizona’s new immigration law for racial profiling. Surprisingly, her Fox News colleagues disagree: One of the most objectionable things about Arizona’s law is the blatant racial profiling, but that doesn’t seem to phase most conservatives. Jonah Goldberg doesn’t see a problem with it. George [...]

I think George Will is trying to be clever here, but it really just comes off as incredibly obtuse and not a little bit racist: Non-Hispanic Arizonans of all sorts live congenially with all sorts of persons of Hispanic descent. These include some whose ancestors got to Arizona before statehood — some even before it [...]

Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism, isn’t too alarmed with the reach or scale of Arizona’s new immigration law: I support the Arizona law, but I’m also worried that it could lead to civil rights abuses. It seems that whenever government expands either its powers or its enforcement efforts, you should be worried that it [...]