An article on CNN brought back some memories from April 1, 2004 when my home state, Connecticut, banned smoking in all restaurants and bars. It seems that smoking bans are becoming more popular around the world as “both Northern Ireland and England are introducing similar bans next year,” and here in the U.S. all but 17 states have bans on smoking.

When Connecticut introduced it’s smoking ban, I remember hearing from conservatives how the government was taking away “our rights” and that business owners should be able to choose what people do and don’t do in their place of business. These people are amazing; on the one hand, they are pro-life to the point that they believe legislation should exist in favor of their cause, yet it’s perfectly okay in their eyes for people to be poisoned by second-hand smoke.

If a club owner wants to dictate the color of my shirt or the style of my tie, that’s fine–neither of those things are a threat to the health of the public. Second hand smoke, however, is a threat to public health. You might think that proponents of a “culture of life” would agree. Sadly, that’s not the case.

Here’s a shocker, old fat xenophobic white guys in congress have crafted a bill aimed at getting rid of, you guessed it, 11 to 12 million brown people.

Apparently, the idea of mexicans picking oranges from trees, sweeping floors, working in tobacco fields and plucking the feathers from chickens has become the source of much concern regarding the war on terror.

House Resolution 4437 would make all undocumented immigrants felons and require all employers to verify the immigration status of its employees. The House already has passed Sensenbrenner’s bill, and Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, has introduced a companion bill in the Senate that also would make it a felony to be in the United States without the proper paperwork.

Of course, there is no direct racism here, I mean come on… it just happens to be brown people who are here “illegally.” We all know that Republicans and conservatives would never do anything to alienate people of color and that they are only doing their best to keep America safe from the huge number of Al-Qaeda operatives who come to the United States through Mexico.

Here’s a hot tip for law enforcement. I took some time and conducted some field research and here’s what I found. Members of Al-Qaeda are easy to differentiate from mexicans–they don’t speak spanish. I know this bit of insightfulness is difficult for Republicans to grasp, but making the information available is the first step. However, Republican leadership decided it was just easier to take all the brown people they can find, declare them felons and put them on a bus. Brilliant.