What’s right is right!

Many times we as sports fans have been unwillingly forced into the political arena by events beyond our control. Today we are once again being confronted with a situation where one of our sports is suddenly being thrust into the role of political lightning rod. The State of Arizona passed and enacted an illegal immigration law which in no way supersedes the Federal Government’s immigration laws. This state law simply empowers the Arizona law enforcement officials to do the job that the Federal Government is supposed to have been doing all along.

Arizona has been overwhelmed. It has become the major corridor for smuggling people, drugs and who knows what else into our country from Mexico. Now American citizens are being killed. Our leaders in the Federal Government evidently think that what they have been doing to control the problem is adequate while it obviously is not. Arizona state officials have called for a higher level of Federal involvement for many years but to no avail. Finally they took matters into their own hands.

Out of this border state’s actions have come a virtual firestorm of racist vitriol aimed at the good people of Arizona when all they’re doing is enforcing existing laws. Now we hear that the Hispanic professional baseball players are threatening to boycott the 2011 MLB All-Star Game scheduled to be played in Arizona if this law is not repealed. Again, let me say that this has come about because a border state in our country has taken it upon itself to enforce the laws that our Federal Government’s officials have evidently been unwilling to enforce.


Aren't we a country of laws?

Why are the Fed’s not enforcing our country’s laws and more to the point, why is the head of our Federal Government acting as a cheerleader essentially fanning the flames of protest against our country’s laws at the expense of Arizona? I have my ideas.

For over thirty years I was involved in agriculture in the western U.S. I owned and operated farming operations that depended on hand labor and what that meant was I depended on Hispanic workers (primarily because, and don’t let anyone tell you differently, our homegrown workers were not willing to do that type of hard, physical labor).



As an employer I was required to have several documents filled out for each new employee every year. These documents were proof that the person applying for work was legally in our country and had a Social Security number. I was not required to verify the validity of these papers as this was supposed to be the Federal Government’s job. Most of these potential employees were illegally in the country using fake labor documents and I knew it. My problem was that if I wanted to harvest my crops, I had to have these people and let me say that they are some of the best, hardest working people I’ve ever met. I have immense respect for them and sympathy for their plight.



Once the papers were filled out I was then required to send them off to the Federal Government for verification. Not once did I ever hear back from them.

As work was carried out I was then required to pay my new employees at least the federally mandated minimum wage per hour or the State’s mandated hourly wage (when the state was the higher of the two). Out of this process, as wages were earned, I
then had to do the usual withholding of income tax, social security tax (FICA) and Medicare. In the case of the FICA I was also required to match the amount withheld from the employee. Now what do you think happened to all this money that I had to withhold and send into the government on a quarterly basis? Like I stated, the vast majority of these workers were in the country illegally and were using false identification documents. It’s simple; the government pocketed all that money and they still do to this day.

I’ve heard recent estimates that tell us as many as 20 million illegal aliens are living and working in our country. If this is anywhere near the actual level, just do the math. Let’s say there’s only 10 million of these workers and they are being paid $7.50 per hour on average while working 40 hours a week (most work many more hours than this per week). Just the FICA withholding at 15% (rounded number) would amount to almost two billion dollars a month! And remember that’s not counting the income tax or Medicare withholding. I’d venture to say that the Federal Government takes in at least 50 billion dollars a year from this process. Like we always say, just follow the money.

There is another, even more telling angle at work here too. Today, approximately 80% of Hispanic American voters are registered Democratic. Is it any wonder that the current administration is talking amnesty for these illegal aliens if 80% or more of them will end up in the Democratic Party? I’m not making these facts up folks.

Now do you have a better idea of why the officials in our Federal Government have drug their feet when it comes to enforcing the country’s established immigration laws? And now by stirring the anti-Arizona Immigration Law fervor, it is, in a round about way, pushing toward the aforementioned amnesty. If amnesty is enacted, do you think that will stop the flow of illegal aliens into our country? If you do you’re dreaming, and the cycle continues…

Today the American citizens interested in protecting our country’s soverenty are being called racists by the people on the left simply because we want the laws of the United States enforced and I for one am tired of it.



If Major League Baseball caves to the wishes of these unreasonable people and moves the 2011 All-Star Game to another venue because the people of Arizona are willing to stand up for what’s right, then I will do everything in my power to boycott baseball. What’s right is right!