I happened to catch country curmudgeon, Earl Pitt's, a real Uhmerikun, daily editorial on the radio this afternoon and chuckled while Earl, in his overdone redneck shtick, took on all "them dope-smokin' sissies" at ACLU and other liberals who are outraged over the utter indignity Arizona Latinos will be subjected to under the terms of the new law governing illegal aliens.

With a down-home delivery Dan Rather must truly covet, Earl made the very valid point that being stopped by the police and asked for identification exposes one to far less indignity than the average air traveler undergoes as a matter of routine. Arizona police aren't going to make every Latino take off his shoes, empty his pockets and walk through a metal detector. They won't be examining the contents of his vehicle or bags. They won't be making him pass through an x-ray machine and cracking wise at his endowment or lack thereof.

Nope, they're just going to ask to see his identification, an indignity universally and frequently shared in America. Here in New Mexico the Department of Adult Beverages periodically gets its panties in a twist and requires ALL purchasers of said beverages to produce photo identification. My 88 and 89 year-old in-laws were asked for I.D. in a Mexican restaurant when they ordered beer with their meal. That's indignity wrapped up in colossal bureaucratic stupidity.

And getting back to Earl's point about airport security, that, too, is indignity compounded by stupidity. Just as the New Mexico booze fuzz don't use common sense enforcing age requirements, the Homeland Security authorities refuse to apply common sense as to who is most likely to be a legitimate threat. But we all go along with it because we realize and accept the indignity as being rooted in a desire by our government to provide for our safety because we have been put at high risk by Jihadi terrorists.

What's the difference? The Arizona government passed a law to provide for the safety of its citizens who have been put at high risk of crime by a flood of illegal aliens. Is it too much to ask of Arizona Latinos to undergo the minor indignity of having to produce I.D. if stopped by police? As owner of a rather heavy foot until I became a seasoned citizen, I have been stopped many times by the police in any number of states and I do not recall a single time I was not asked to produce I.D. Not only that, I almost always was asked for proof of insurance and vehicle registration. When I was traveling on business I was required to produce a rental car contract.

What was the purpose of my showing the authorities all that paperwork? It was simply to show that I was conducting myself within the bounds of the public safety laws enacted in those various states. The Arizona law requires identification when stopped by the authorities for observed law violations; it was enacted to promote the public safety. What's the difference?

Something tells me we wouldn't be hearing a peep out of the media, the ACLU and all the other outraged liberals if the State of North Dakota had enacted exactly the same law and it was white Dakotans who were being asked to produce I.D. because they're indistinguishable from all those illegal Canadians flooding across their border, eh?