Boycotting Arizona is a Misguided Strategy

Let's assume, for the moment, that all the wild rhetoric against Arizona's new illegal migrant law is true. The cops are all going to throw down their donuts in July and wage a racist, fascist, totally unconstitutional war on brown people. The only exceptions will be all those Latino cops who will be allowed to continue kicking back with their donuts until an illegal walks by with a sign saying, "I am illegal." At this point the Latino cop will have to take action or risk the possibility that some concerned citizen noted their failure to take action and decided to pursue a lawsuit against the officer for failing to comply with SB1070. The question that follows, given the foregoing assumptions, is what is a right thinking, freedom loving American to do about this?

San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and others all think they have the answer. Boycott Arizona-pull the money out and wreak havoc on lower income Arizonans whether they are there legally or illegally. Just think of all the hotel and restaurant support staff who will be laid off. Just think of all the cab drivers, golf course groomers, car washers, and others who will be out of work as tourism and conventions and sports events fade away. Heck, some of the above mentioned might even end up out on the streets if we can get enough cities, corporations, and organizations to sign up with the boycott agenda. Perfect! The boycotts will economically destroy hundreds, perhaps thousands of the very people the boycott folks are pretending to stick up for and protect.

The downside, of course, is that the boycotts won't have any significant effect on the people who wrote the obnoxious law. The boycotts won't put the people who passed the law through the state legislature, or Governor Jan Brewer, who signed the law out into the street. Sure, there may be some political heat later on and their incomes may take a dip if things get bad enough, but rest assured all the folks responsible for the new law will still know where their lunch is coming from far in advance. They will still retire to comfortable homes at the end of each and every day.

So, by all means boycott Arizona in support of those whose first act on U.S. soil is to ignore an inconvenient law. After all, ignoring immigration law doesn't suggest they'll ignore other "inconvenient" laws does it? And maybe, just maybe, when things get tough enough in Arizona thanks to the boycotts, these people who pick and choose which laws to obey will move to Los Angeles or San Francisco and get our cops back to their donuts.