Ignorance

So we're passing through small town Florida and stop for lunch at a little middle of nowhere dive and I grab the little local weekly newsrag for the always amusing read. There's a "joke" in here that bothers me in several ways and demonstrates the ignorance that is so woven into the fabric of American discourse and policy. Here's the "joke".

Two Iraqi spies have successfully snuck into the US. The first one begins to congratulate the second on their success in Arabic. "Shut up!" says the second. "We're in America! Speak spanish!"

Where to start? What is an Iraqi spy? Are we at war with Iraq? What exactly would an Iraqi spy be in the US to learn? The allusions to racist anti Latinos is obvious and a little heavy handed, but basically those who would have written this or find it amusing would have a few things in common:

They assume we are at war with Iraq.
They assume immigrants are a bad thing.
They are assclowns.

That is all.