Whining children

Every day at high school, someone gets his feelings hurt. He whines. He thinks he's entitled to stamp his feet and pitch a fit until someone will agree with him, or decide it's not worth the fight.

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And then, the crybaby gets his own way, regardless of how stupid that way is, and how immaturely he has behaved in order to get it.

Sadly, in this whiner's world of the 21st century, the crybaby is — all too frequently — a teacher or administrator, and not a 14-year-old.

Yesterday, the principal at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California, sent Daniel Galli, Dominic Maciel, and three other students home for incendiary conduct. Presumably to protest Cinco de Mayo (or maybe to celebrate free expression, or ... what is it called ... America?), the boys wore T-shirts bearing American flags. To the feeble-minded infants running the school, that's as good as inciting violence.

They were told they could wear their patriotic clothes on any day other than May 5. They had to refrain that day out of respect for Hispanic students.

According to Maciel: "They said if we went back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended." So the boys went home instead. They returned the next day and will not be otherwise punished.

Principal Nick Boden would rather the students skip a day of school than see them in the classroom wearing red, white, and blue. Do his teachers have nothing important to teach that day?

Or, perhaps, Boden feared the patriotic clothing would cause disruption. If so, is he so deeply racist that he thinks Hispanic teenagers are incapable of behaving when they see an Old Navy t-shirt?

Probably, it's neither of these. Probably, he's just a bully. A whiny, wimpy punk so lacking in manhood that he hardly qualifies as a human being. The kind of weakling who is so dissatisfied with who he is, that he must dominate others by force to justify his own existence to himself.

I'm a little disappointed in these teenagers (although, at that age, I probably would have done the same). But if I were in their shoes yesterday, and I could muster the wit and fortitude for it, I would have done things a little differently. I would have left the principal's office and returned to class. Then, when they suspended me, I would have declined to leave the classroom, unless they physically removed me by force. Then, I would have filed suit for assault, battery, intentional affliction of emotional distress, and a violation of my First Amendment rights.

However, it's hard to hold much against these teenagers. When I was their age, I was occasionally bullied by teachers (though, not to this extent), and I let them get away with it. I wish I hadn't, but it's hard for adolescents to stand up for themselves at school. They're just kids.

The principal, however, is another matter. He is as grown as he'll ever be (although, after reading about how he treats people, it's hard to call him an adult) and he has an advanced college degree. He has absolutely no excuse. The school district has already released a statement denouncing the principal's actions, or at least stating disagreement.

It ought to go further, and fire him.

The immaturity does not help

America should learn something this week: A great many of us need to grow up.

Yes, I'm writing about Arizona's new immigration enforcement law. More importantly, I'm thinking about where we are as a nation.

Arizona's problems

Illegal immigrants constitute a full 8 percent of Arizona's population. Many (without evidence, I'd guess it's an overwhelming majority) of those people merely moved to America to exploit its economic bounty, as almost all Americans came here.

But a significant portion has contributed to a violent underground:

— On Friday, urgent national news blared on Foxnews and CNN's web sites: A border patrol officer was missing for several hours, and he'd suffered a gunshot wound. He received it from a person he suspected was running drugs from Mexico into Arizona.

— Earlier this month, Arizona police arrested more than 40 people in a sting on a human smuggling ring.

— In 2009, a study found the kidnapping capital of the world was not in Baghdad or Afghanistan, not in an Eastern European human sex-slave trade hub, not in some impoverished and war-torn African nation. It was Mexico City. The runner up: Phoenix, Arizona.

National problems

If we go back far enough, we can trace every single American's lineage to someplace other than here. The one way that we are from common stock is that we (or our ancestry) came here from somewhere else. The day America forgets that, America ceases to be what it should be.

But any country must have a baseline rule of law, or it will lose the respect of its own people and those around it. A nation that cannot enforce its own border exudes incompetence. And those who take advantage of that incompetence bear the shroud of illegitimacy that all cheaters wear.

Especially in this nation of immigrants, we must not tolerate a disregard of immigration rules. Doing so cheapens the achievement of those who came to America the right way. And it masks the indefensible bureaucracy that clogs the process of immigrating — the bureaucracy that carries a 3-year wait to get a Green Card and 2 years (by their own tally) after sending in the paperwork to become a citizen.

For our nation to hold its head up proudly, two things must happen: Our border must be enforceable enough that cheating is not tolerated, and the flaws in our immigration system must be fixed. Until they happen, America is less than it ought to be.

• • •

Those two things have not happened. Worse, it seems the federal government (for decades) has willfully abdicated its immigration responsibilities. Every serious observer agrees that the federal government's failures led to Arizona's actions.

And Arizona's action, to a serious (and grown up) observer, appears quite reasonable. The federal government won't enforce it's laws, so that state decided to adopt some of them, and therefore allow their own authorities to enforce them.

Title 8 Chapter 12, Subchapter II, Part IX, Sec. 1357 of the United States Code grants federal agents the power to "search for aliens" in any vehicle — without a warrant — and to "arrest any alien who is in his presence" that is entering the country illegally.

Arizona's new statute grants that state's police officers the authority, during any "lawful contact" with a person, when he has "reasonable suspicion" that the person is an illegal alien, to make a "reasonable attempt ... when practicable" to determine if the person is an illegal alien, "except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation."

In other words: Arizona's new statute contains a paragraph — with four qualifiers and an exception — that grants its cops the authority to enforce the law.

The reaction has been troubling:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg described the new law as "national suicide."

Congressman Connie Mack equated Arizona to Nazi Germany.

Headlines say: "Arizona Immigration Law Causes Fury, But Will It Ever See The Light of Day?", "Arizona law a dangerous approach to border issues," and "D-Backs, union have concerns about Arizona's new immigration laws." Always a tone of illegitimacy. Nary a word about the real issues surrounding the new law's passage.

A lead story on Yahoo, from a sports reporter, invented the following lament-filled hypothetical: "An 18-year-old from Venezuela playing in the rookie league jumps in a friend’s car to head to the grocery store. The friend rolls through a stop sign. A police officer witnesses the infraction. ... The Venezuelan player, accordingly, is asked to furnish paperwork proving his legal residence. ... If he happens to have forgotten his passport and work visa at home, his friend would get a traffic ticket and the player would get ... hauled off to jail."

On Friday night, a Google search of "Arizona racist" yielded 3.9 million hits.

• • •

And now comes the growing-up part. (I will frame this in the most un-controversial terms I can.)

The United States government has declined to enforce this country's sovereignty, for at least a decade. This has allowed a wholesale disregard of one fundamental set of laws, and it has caused Americans reason to question their government's motives and abilities. One glaring result is the blood spilled and the people kidnapped by Mexican drug cartels operating in Arizona and other southwestern American states. And when Arizonans decided to do something about it — something identical to what federal law purports to do — mainstream America has denounced them by branding their actions as racist, on par with the Holocaust.

This is an issue of international relations. It's a realm where the federal government has legitimate authority (and duty) to act. Arizona's new law is not the answer. The answer can only come from federal authorities, and it is as simple and as mature as enforcing our existing laws.

That answer has not come, for the last decade, because each step towards adulthood has been met by thoughtless accusations of racism. One side of this issue is terrified to bring it up, for fear of being branded a bigot. The other side doesn't want to act, because they like holding that bigotry card and playing it whenever it's politically fruitful to do so.

The message for Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Mack, the headline writers, the Yahoo sports reporters, and the web-masters at 3.9 million internet sites — and everyone in Washington who has any authority — is a simple one.

Stop behaving children.