Arizona Stands Up to a Bully Named Illegal Immigration

Wow.

Things are hot-hot-hot over there in Arizona now, and I am not talking about the weather.

Arizona finally did what I have been teaching for years, and that is to stand up to the bullies in your life and take back your power.  In this case, that bully is illegal immigration.

I don't blame them; I applaud them.

It is not like they had much choice.  A search on crime and murder rates comparing Phoenix, Arizona – one of the epicenters of illegal immigration – with New York City shows that Phoenix has a murder rate of 6.83 per 100,000 people; New York City has 7.29 per 1000,000.

Here is the eye-popping stat: Phoenix's population is 1.5 million; New York City's is 8.2 million.  So, Phoenix has a murder rate almost identical to New York City, but with a population roughly five and half times smaller.  

Not good.

There are two things about this situation that jump out as great lessons for anyone dealing with bullies in their lives; one is how out-of-touch and skewed society is becoming and the other is about how to handle yourself when you find yourself in a similar situation.

The first thing – and this made me mad, and then it made me crack up – is that many people are up in arms, lobbing around the racist label, saying this is Nazism, calling for boycotts and everything else because Arizona passed a law that makes it illegal to be an illegal immigrant.

Let me repeat that – it is now a crime to be an illegal immigrant?

Wait a minute…if you are in the country ILLEGALLY, you are already committing a crime, hence the name, "illegal immigrant".  What is everyone all fired up about?  If you are in the country illegally, you are – in fact – committing a federal crime and subject to legal action and deportation.

If I commit a crime, I get punished; if my neighbor commits a crime, he gets punished.  If you are in this country – no matter what your status – if you commit a crime, you get the ding.  Period.

Now before you start lobbing Racist Bombs at me, some backstory:  My great-grandparents came to America from Germany through Ellis Island.  My wife's parents came here from China via Taiwan on student visas, and then earned their citizenship, allowing my wife to be born a Chinese American citizen.  My five month old daughter is what I lovingly call a, "Tweener", as she is in between white and Chinese, an "Americanese" if you will; I get that immigrants are a part of who I am and are in every part of my family tree.  

This entire country is bologna – we are made up of a little bit of everything.

The point is that Arizona was forced into a corner because of one reason:  they gave their power away to the Federal government in regards to their illegal immigration problem – and the Feds fumbled.

This is an example of what happens when you give your power away to a person or entity and expect them to "fixee-fixee" and make everything all better.

To be fair, the Feds are buried under so many priorities that they have to look up to see the bottom, but that is not Arizona's problem – that is the Fed's problem.  Perhaps if the Feds focused on what they were chartered to do by our Founding Fathers instead of all the other things they have burdened themselves with, they would have more time to dedicate to what they are supposed to be doing – one of which is National Security, which includes – wait for it – securing our borders…

I digress.  My bad.

Arizona was forced to act.  After staying in the background, passing what legislation they could and practically begging the Feds for help, they had no choice but to act, and act decisively.

To be clear:  whenever you are faced with bullying or harassment of any kind, you always inform all parties that need to be involved – teachers, principles, the school system, your co-worker, your boss, human resources, your attorney if necessary; but – you DO NOT turn over responsibility to those parties – YOU take charge and stay in charge until the situation is resolved in full to your satisfaction.

Arizona drew a line in the sand (pun intended) and put illegal immigrants, the Feds, law enforcement and citizens of Arizona on notice that it was no longer going to tolerate the situation and changes were coming.

Whether or not is is legal, constitutional or anything else is not my call.  If you would like to see a great article on all of those points, written by a law professor, look up Kris Kobach's op-ed piece in the New York Times.

That is also the third "bonus" lesson that this situation can teach you; Arizona did the right thing for Arizona and what was necessary, and look at how they are being vilified, from the President Opromisator all the way down to illegal immigrant advocate groups.  Even Shakira, the Columbian pop star, is personally visiting Arizona to "get to the bottom of this".  If I was an illegal immigrant, I would feel better already.  "Have no fear, Shakira is here!"  (By the way, how people that are in a country illegally can have advocate groups is another testament to how great our country is; any other country that an American is traveling to illegally can grab your heiney, toss you in the clink and throw away the key.)

Even if you are right, when you stand up to the bullies in your life and take back your power, it is going to upset the apple cart.  There is an old saying that I love that says, "When you stand head and shoulders above the crowd, you are going to get hit with a tomato once in a while".  Standing up to the bullies is going to make you stand out.  It is going to be threatening to other parties involved.

I have seen parents stand up for their kids that were being bullied and seen them called unreasonable, aggressive, anal, demanding, pushy, self-righteous and more.

Hogwash.  When you are standing up for yourself or your child, what other people think does not matter.  What matters is what YOU think about you, and what your child thinks about himself.  That is why it is so important to value yourself and your happiness.

Arizona grew a pair and did what it had to do, knowing it was going to be controversial and cause a firestorm of criticism, lawsuits and more.

What Arizona did – however controversial, aggressive or what some consider racist, illegal or worse – is exactly the right way to handle the bullies in your life.

Take back your power,

Sensei Harrison huff

P.S. – Last night I recorded the course, "Cyber Self Defense: 8 Steps to Stopping Cyberbullying" and the principle of Taking Back Your Power from people and other entities was covered in depth, along with specific, step-by-step strategies to handling cyberbullying and electronic harassment.  Learn how you can get your hands on that product for no charge in the very near future.  Stay tuned…