I am shocked, shocked I say to discover there is gambling going on in this establishment!
Memo to Arizona: have you lost what is left of your mind?!?!?!?!?!?
The new “Paperz pleaze” immigration law has the potential for so much abuse, and it is going to cost Arizona so much money, goodwill and jobs that it was hardly worth signing into law.
Now I know that there are some of you out there who are going to read this and say “BigDaddy what the hell is the matter with you? Illegal is illegal!!!” Yeah I get that that is how some of you feel, but that just tells me that you haven’t really considered just how this new law is going to effect you, your families, your jobs, the economic well-being of your community, and the future of everyone in Arizona.
Think about this: there are talks of tourism boycotts coming from places like Los Angeles and San Francisco, cities where there are large Hispanic communities. Think of what would happen if people from places like New York, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Miami and Las Vegas decided that they were going to follow suit and not visit the Grand Canyon. Think of what that would mean for the people who work at all of the hotels in the state if suddenly conventions that were going to be held in your state were now going to be held somewhere else. Don’t you think that some of those people working for the hotels in your state would have to be laid off as a result?
How about the loss of something that brings not only a lot of money but also a lot of prestige to your state, Major League Baseball’s Spring Training? How quickly do you think the Los Angeles Dodgers will pull their Spring Training facilities out of Glendale if Manny Ramirez is arrested because he cannot provide his “papers”? The same is true for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A’s, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers. If they all decided to pull their Spring Training facilities out of Arizona, how disastrous do you think that would be for the economies of the cities and towns where those facilities are housed?
Back when Arizona voted not to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day they lost out on a lot. In fact as a result of that vote the NFL decided to pull Super Bowl XXVII out of Sun Devil Stadium, and the game was moved to the Rose Bowl instead. It was only after the loss of that game and $350 million in convention business that Arizona finally recognized MLK Day as a Holiday. Now it is true that you are not in line to host a Super Bowl in the future, but what if you lost something even bigger than the game itself?
What if you lost your football team?
Ed Roski, part-owner of the Lakers and Kings has plans to build a 75,000 seat stadium in the City of Industry. However he has said that he would not break ground on the stadium unless the NFL commits to moving a team there, and he want a 30% stake in ownership of the team that moves there. So far teams that have been mentioned as possibilities are the San Diego Chargers, St. Louis Rams, Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars, Oakland Raiders, Minnesota Vikings and the San Francisco 49ers. I’m sure that if this new law of yours stays on the books that NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell would move your precious Arizona Cardinals to the top of that list.
Seriously, the “Los Angeles Cardinals” has a nice ring to it.
The same might be said for the Phoenix Suns and the Phoenix Coyotes. Do you think that the Phoenix area would be able to deal with the loss of both franchises? How about the Arizona Diamondbacks? How would you be able to deal if they were moved out of the state by Bud Selig “for the good of the game”? What if NASCAR decides to move their Phoenix Fall race out of Arizona, and hold the race at Rockingham instead? Now I probably made a lot of fans in North Carolina for saying that, but as a NASCAR fan myself I would like to see at least one Sprint Cup race at “The Rock” at some point during my lifetime. I know there are a lot of drivers who would love to go back to Rockingham, and I am sure that Brian France would like to as well. So your new immigration law might give them a perfect opening to do just that, and who knows, if it works out well for them – they just might decide to have the Spring race there as well!
Do you now see how many jobs could be lost because of this new law? Think about all of the jobs in the state of Arizona that would be killed with the loss of your NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB franchises and NASCAR races. Think about how many jobs would be killed with the loos of Spring Training and conventions that will now be going to Las Vegas. In a state that is hemmoraging jobs where the foreclosure rate is one of the worst in the country, this is not the sort of thing that you should be inviting. And that’s not even the worst of it…
How are cops in Arizona supposed to do their jobs if they are too busy stopping Hispanics on the street and demanding to see proof of citizenship? And yeah, I know that Governor Brewer has already said that “racial profiling will not be tolerated…racial profiling is illegal” but the way this law is written, the only way it can work is if racial profiling is utilized. As far as a lot of people who are in favor of the new law are concerned, Hispanics are the ones that this law is targeting and they consider that to be a good thing. They say that most of the illegal immigrants in the country are Hispanic, so they should be the first ones stopped. So in order to get around the accusation of racial profiling there is only one possible solution – everyone in Arizona, whether they immigrated to this country or not, no matter if they were born in this country or not will have to provide proof of citizenship to law enforcement if asked to do so.
That means that not only are the Hispanic maids in the local Marriott going to have to have their citizenship papers on them, but the Caucasian Auto Mechanic patrolling the border as part of “The Minutemen” will have to provide proof of his citizenship as well.
Yeah, that’s right. Just because someone has light skin doesn’t mean that they were necessarily born here you know. How do we know that the Blond-haired, blue-eyed, 20-something coed is not here illegally from Croatia? The only way that the State of Arizona will be able to avoid charges of racial profiling is to check the citizenship of everyone in the state. With this kind of law that is how it should be.
A couple of days ago there was a poll listed in the local fishwrap, it was the following:
A Shasta County public defender is accusing a north state drug task force of racial profiling in its traffic stops. What do you think?
Mexican cartels are running the drug trade – who do you think they are going to stop. – 74%
It’s not surprising – but it is shameful and racist. – 15%
The public defender raises some important questions, but I’d need to see more evidence before judging. – 9%
I find it hard to believe that 74% of the respondents would support a third-generation Hispanic family of five being pulled over by the CHP and forced to kneel down on the ground with their hands behind their head. Mom, Dad, their 15-year-old daughter, their 10-year-old son and the 3-month-old newborn being interrogated in Spanish when none of them speaks the language because they were born in Barstow. The problem there is that the CHP completely misses the carload of tattooed white-supremacists transporting a trunk-full of Crystal Meth up to Seattle, not to mention some of the aging white hippies growing Marijuana.
And this also begs the question…where are the Teabaggers with their righteous indignation during this fiasco? Where are the Teabaggers with their “Don’t Tread on Me” flags screaming about “Government intrusion in our lives” when Arizona has enacted a law that is the ultimate in government intrusion? Oh that’s right, the Teabaggers are not concerned if the government intrudes in our lives, they’re only concerned when the government wants to count how many people live in their house and collect their taxes. That’s right, my mistake – never mind. This issue should show everybody that the Teabaggers don’t give a shit about anybody but themselves, because if they really cared about “Government overreach” then they would be all over this and they would be out there on the streets joining the protests against the new law. But because they feel that this law doesn’t apply to them because of they color of their own skin, they don’t care.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people in this country who think that this law is a good idea, and that their states should have similar laws. What they don’t get is that it would create a situation where they too would have to show proof of citizenship if they were asked for it or they would go to jail. In Arizona if an American citizen does not have their “papers” and they are then arrested on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant, they will have to serve six months in jail and pay a fine of $1,000.00 – even if it is later discovered that they were born in Tuscon, Arizona!
Bottom line is that this law should have to apply to everyone in Arizona – not just to those of Latino descent. This law, in order to be fairly enacted must apply to African-Americans, Asian Americans and Caucasians in the state of Arizona. Period. If Caucasians are going to scream and cry and whine about “Big Brother” and “Government overreach” and say that it is an example of how President Obama is a Socialist or whatever, then they need to remember that the bill was written by a Teabagging, Conservative republican State Senator, and it was signed into law by a Republican Governor.
So for those of you Caucasians out there who think that this law is a good thing, ask yourselves this if you are planning a visit to Arizona in the near future…are your papers in order?
Until next time…
