Think Progress is reporting that North Carolina is competing with Arizona’s asshatitude status when it comes to anti-immigrant laws, racial profiling, labeling, shaming, disrespect, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio-style despicability:

North Carolina is set to vote on a piece of anti-immigration legislation on par with Arizona and Alabama’s racially-tinged laws that drew national attention and ire from immigration advocates. The Reasonable Enactment of Comprehensive Legislation Addressing Immigration Matters (RECLAIM) in North Carolina Act, or HB 786 would expand the scope of law enforcement officials with “reasonable suspicion” to authorize immigration status checks on anyone who has been lawfully stopped. [...]

The measure also allows for law enforcement officials to have the ability to “securely transport an alien… to a federal facility” potentially without ever having seen a lawyer.

Here is what North Carolina conservative policy makers have previously been up to. Hint: They’re up to no good.

For people who claim to revere constitutional rights and freedoms, they sure have a funny way of showing it. Latino voters will surely warm to the Republican party now. How could they not?

I wonder how many Canadians and Swedes will be pulled over and questioned.

Please read TP for more details, but some of negative impact includes “severely undermining public safety benefits” because immigrants are likely to duck and cover, avoiding driver’s licenses that conspicuously feature the words “no lawful status.” Then there’s that little problem of tourism dropping (that sound they’ll hear is an economic thud) due to concerns about being asked about legal status.

I am becoming more and more concerned about the direction this country is taking, the intensity of conservative disdain, intolerance, and bigotry, and the perpetual obstruction that cuts any attempt at compromise or reasonable, constructive lawmaking off at the knees.

And those are just a few of my worries. I’ve resisted writing about this because I am not an alarmist and try not to indulge in overly negative feelings and writings that would bum everyone out, especially in my current state of mind.

But with all the gerrymandering and redistricting to assure Republican wins and single party rule in state legislatures, and the ease with which those on the right pass laws that are so unhealthy, so restrictive, and so hateful, it’s not easy to feel optimistic about our chances of overcoming their perpetual obsessions, greed, backward attitudes, and power grabs.

We are all real, living, breathing, struggling, caring participants in this country. We the people. Immigrants are people, my friend. Corporations– and sometimes it seems like Republicans– are not.