In a post a few days ago, I pointed out that many people on both sides of the new Arizona immigration law are being collectivists. A particularly flagrant example popped up in Highland Park, Illinois, where a school administrator cancelled a high-school girls’ basketball team’s trip to Arizona. She claimed that she couldn’t keep the girls safe because of the law.
I doubt that that’s her real reason. My strong hunch is that she objects to the law and that, rather than spend her own resources fighting it, she singled out a group of innocent victims and made them suffer. These girls, apparently, had spent months raising money to finance the trip.
So, assuming I’m right about her thinking and motives, besides her collectivism, she’s a bully. Actually, I’m reminded of an event that led to my first article on foreign policy, in 1980–Jimmy Carter’s making American farmers and American athletes take a hit because he wanted to express his moral outrage at the Soviets for invading Afghanistan. He imposed a grain embargo and forbade U.S. athletes from attending the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. That was very easy for him–a non-grain-farmer and a non-Olympic-athlete–to do.
HT to Christoper Manion.
READER COMMENTS
Evan
May 13 2010 at 11:18am
You mean cancelled a trip to Arizona, not Illinois, I presume.
[Comment okayed even though it’s from a disallowed email domain because the comment is a clarification.–Econlib Ed.]
Anonymous
May 13 2010 at 11:26am
And that’s a very easy judgement for you to pass, as someone who isn’t responsible for the students’ safety.
I’m reminded of an incident with Jimmy Carter back in 1980…
You guess is entirely plausible, but I wouldn’t be so quick to pass judgement on someone that has to think about the safety of these students. If you were Hispanic I think you’d be concerned about visiting Arizona right now too.
Sean A
May 13 2010 at 12:28pm
I’d like to see a post on this disturbing trend of calling for the boycott of Arizona business as a response to this law. My father, a Mexican-American businessman whose firmly against the law, would be hurt by this.
For some reason, a large number of ignorant people continue to be intent on connecting the actions of government with the actions of private individuals.
David R. Henderson
May 13 2010 at 5:15pm
Evan,
Corrected. Thanks.
JKB
May 13 2010 at 5:20pm
Interesting that all the fuss is about what Arizona law enforcement might do? Fear that it might be unsafe for who? An unauthorized alien?
Yet, everyone seems to be okay with visiting New York City which has a decade long practice of arbitrarily stopping and frisking individuals based on “reasonable suspicion”. Surprisingly, 90% of those stopped and felt up are black and Hispanics. NYC is small compared to Arizona so your risk would be higher that you might end up as one of the more than 575,000 (2009) stopped. But I guess that’s okay since the NYPD don’t ask about lawful alien status?
Maybe AZ should follow the NYC model and only stop and inquire in poor neighborhoods. Surely that would let the players off the hook?
can
May 13 2010 at 10:22pm
Highland Park is a very wealthy suburb north of chicago. Just try going to school there without papers/identification proving you are a resident.
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