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Boycott Arizona?

Not your fault. I read a lot of science fiction growing up and I paid more attention to the first word than the second.

As an atheist, my ideas of heaven revolve around me living long enough to enjoy the Utopian future. And what do I get for my troubles? Another version of Windows.

Just to be clear, I will not boycott Arizona robots when they become available. Because some things trump political beliefs.
 
Speaking of boycotting Arizona, in 1990 the NFL moved the Superbowl from Tempe to Pasadena because of Arizona's holding out on MLK day.

But there are no racists in Arizona politics!

ETA: Does anyone know Arizona's current status wrt MLK day? I know at one time McCain was a strong advocate in favor of observing the holiday in his state, but I guarantee you in the current Tea Party climate, he won't be making speeches in favor of it these days.
 
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thaiboxerken said:
They do MLK day in AZ.
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Thanks.

I've just looked at the history a bit. Congress passed it in 1983, and the governor of Arizona rescinded it in 1987. Following a tourist boycott, it was reenacted by popular vote in 1992.

Is that about right? (I'm just finding this from less-than-scholarly websites.)
 
Thats about right

Other groups were lobbying for the same recognition as MLK day. There was also martin luther day, john calvin day, joseph smith day, brigham young day and a few others.

The solution decided on at the time was to make everyone happy, to the point where the whole year would be a holiday, or to make noone happy

Of course bigots from outside would cast it as racism, when the majority of holidays that were denied were white people, but hey. If it helps with the blind bigot prejudice from outside that's still going against AZ today, it was a good solution
 
WildCat said:
I love the way people pretend illegals usually work for less than minimum wage, and that minimum wage is somehow A God ThingTM.

This isn't true. What is true is that for any given job they will work for less than a legal worker would, thus dragging down wages.

Do people really think it's a good idea to fill low-skill jobs with cheap imported labor while low-skilled Americans sit at home and collect welfare, housing assistance, Medicaid, and food stamps? And that the workers filling those jobs for cheap also put a strain on social services, because they simply don't make enough money to pay medical expenses or even food and housing? And no, minimum wage doesn't pay the rent.

How is this good for the US and particularly the US economy? Wouldn't it be better if employers had to pay higher wages or even (gasp!) benefits to attract workers?
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Indeed, we should be employing as many Americans as we can, making sure employers follow the labor laws in all respects, and pay a living wage even. I just don't know how high a wage would need to be paid for Americans to be willing to do some of the jobs that illegals come to this country to do. And the increased costs will be passed on to the American consumer, of course... I'm willing and able to pay the 'real cost' of domestic goods produced by all-American labor, but not everyone can say the same.
 
Since the Arizona law is practically equivalent to the existing federal law that nobody is enforcing, in effect the campaign is to boycott Arizona for criminalizing criminal behavior. And we wouldn't want that, now would we?
 
Arisia said:
Indeed, we should be employing as many Americans as we can, making sure employers follow the labor laws in all respects, and pay a living wage even. I just don't know how high a wage would need to be paid for Americans to be willing to do some of the jobs that illegals come to this country to do. And the increased costs will be passed on to the American consumer, of course... I'm willing and able to pay the 'real cost' of domestic goods produced by all-American labor, but not everyone can say the same.
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My thoughts on this go pretty far beyond the topic at hand, but I suspect moving factories overseas, locating call centers and help desks to India, setting up dummy corporations in tax havens and so on probably have a greater negative impact on our economy than illegal immigrants.

That's why I think this is just a political, scape-goat issue. It's an attempt to cater to a certain segment of angry voters.
 
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/535577/201005261901/Border-Charade.aspx

After letting Mexico's president trash Arizona's immigration law and his immigration enforcement chief say he won't enforce it, the president wants to send a token National Guard contingent to the border.

There's something disingenuous about the president's plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the Arizona border to help the Border Patrol catch illegal aliens.
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Disingenuous? I'd call it just plain dishonest (in keeping with the underlying theme of his administration). Dishonest because his administration has refused to build the two fence system that was approved by Congress and which the American people clearly want because it would clearly be effective. We aren't fooled, Obama.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/pub...ministration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-five percent (45%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -22. That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for this president
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Support for the boycott is anemic:

According to the poll, 57 percent support Arizona's controversial new immigration law, in line with other recent national polls. Only 17 percent say they would participate in a boycott of Arizona as a result of that legislation.
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JoeTheJuggler said:
Thanks.

I've just looked at the history a bit. Congress passed it in 1983, and the governor of Arizona rescinded it in 1987. Following a tourist boycott, it was reenacted by popular vote in 1992.

Is that about right? (I'm just finding this from less-than-scholarly websites.)
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Yep, although they almost blew it even then. All along the powers that be had promised us that MLK would not be an additional day off for state workers, that they would either consolidate Washington and Lincoln's birthdays into President's Day (as most other states and the feds had done), or eliminate Columbus Day (which was a real popular idea with the Italians). But they couldn't agree on which, so they decided to go back to adding it as an extra day. So AZ is the only state to vote in an MLK Day, and one of the very few to actually add a vacation day for state workers in order to observe it.
 
Brainster said:
Yep, although they almost blew it even then. All along the powers that be had promised us that MLK would not be an additional day off for state workers, that they would either consolidate Washington and Lincoln's birthdays into President's Day (as most other states and the feds had done), or eliminate Columbus Day (which was a real popular idea with the Italians). But they couldn't agree on which, so they decided to go back to adding it as an extra day. So AZ is the only state to vote in an MLK Day, and one of the very few to actually add a vacation day for state workers in order to observe it.
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Thanks.

But it sure seems that it was the boycott that led to the popular vote.

I don't imagine the boycott in response to the immigration law will reach that level. I'm amazed that the NFL moved the Superbowl. When people first talked about MLB moving this year's All-Star Game, my reaction was there's no way because it's way too late to move an event like that.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
My thoughts on this go pretty far beyond the topic at hand, but I suspect moving factories overseas, locating call centers and help desks to India, setting up dummy corporations in tax havens and so on probably have a greater negative impact on our economy than illegal immigrants.

That's why I think this is just a political, scape-goat issue. It's an attempt to cater to a certain segment of angry voters.
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Notice that 1) there are certain types of low or moderate skills jobs that can't be outsourced such as construction and service industry jobs. Notice that those coincidentally also happen to be where much of the employment of illegals happens to be. A farmer can't outsource his labor to India, neither can a construction company, nor a restaurant, nor a landscaping company, carpet cleaning company, etc. Manufacturing can outsource, but good luck calling up your plumber in China.
 
MikeMangum said:
Notice that 1) there are certain types of low or moderate skills jobs that can't be outsourced such as construction and service industry jobs. Notice that those coincidentally also happen to be where much of the employment of illegals happens to be. A farmer can't outsource his labor to India, neither can a construction company, nor a restaurant, nor a landscaping company, carpet cleaning company, etc. Manufacturing can outsource, but good luck calling up your plumber in China.
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Precisely, its two sides of the same ponzi scheme type thinking of short term profit that is the ultimate summation of wall street
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Thanks.

But it sure seems that it was the boycott that led to the popular vote.
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It was an extremely complicated issue. First, then-Governor Bruce Babbitt instituted MLK Day by executive order, which was unpopular. Then a total wack-job named Ev Meacham won the governorship in a crazy three-way race, and rescinded the executive order. Then, after Meacham's impeachment, there were two ballot initiatives in the same election, with one subbing MLK for Columbus and the other combining Washington and Lincoln's birthdays.

The Sunday before the election, gasbag Greg Gumbel announced on one of the pre-game football shows that the NFL was considering pulling the Super Bowl from Arizona if the MLK day was not approved. This actually energized the anti-MLK people and both measures went down to defeat, although analysis of the vote afterwards showed that a clear majority voted for one proposal or the other. Sorta shows the hazards of direct democracy.

So I don't know if the second vote really reflects the boycott or not; it may simply have been the fact that there was only one MLK measure that time around.
 
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