Imagine a country where rapists and thieves roam the countryside. A place where landowners who try to stem the inflow of banditos are shot on sight. A place where a man with no name can infiltrate the public services and drain the local economy, all while making himself the victim. This place is Arizona. 

Until the Civil War, the U.S. was referred to as “These United States,” with emphasis on the “These” part. The states used to have rights to control their borders, to control their own rules, without interference from other states, and without being told by the morons in Congress what to do, think, and say. The will of the state trumped what California thought.

But lo and behold, we entered the 21st century. Banditos and western thugs were supposed to be a distant memory.

New Mexico, Texas, and California built fences to keep Speedy Gonzales and his cohorts out. They upgraded security and stemmed the tide of illegal immigrants.

Arizona, however, had little help in upgrading its fence. The hundreds of thousands of illegals from Mexico and points south now are funneling through the only open areas of the southern border left open. 

Let’s clear the air here. Sneaking into the country illegally is against federal law. There is a proper way to gain immigration status to the United States, and it usually doesn’t include a physical challenge of swimming a river or scaling a wall.

I don’t care the reason for sneaking in; illegal immigration is still illegal. If I snuck into any other country and demanded medical help, free schooling, and free social services, I would be deported after spending a considerable time in a dank, dark jail.

Arizona manned up, grabbed its low-hanging fruit from between its legs, and decided to step in where the federal government failed. Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 empowers law enforcement officers to turn over illegal immigrants to the federal government — not to torture, kill, check IDs out in the street, but to check for immigration status at normal traffic stops. There is even a special provision to make sure racial profiling doesn’t occur. 

But, Holden, they are just stopping the Mexicans.

Yes, but there aren’t too many people of Polish descent trying to sneak across Arizona’s southern border. It’s a matter of demographics.  If the population of Phoenix is 75% Hispanic, then the law of large numbers dictates that 75% of the people stopped will be Hispanic.

If Sheriff Joe Arpaio were pulling over Eskimos 87% of the time, then people could scream that there was racial profiling — and that Phoenix was being invaded from the north by Eskimos.

Now comes California. Los Angeles was one of the first to start bashing Arizona for defending its own borders from the invading hordes of illegal immigrants.

Boycotting Arizona will obviously fix the problem. Will L.A. not be sending crappy movies, Jay Leno, and smog to Arizona? I sure hope so. That will defiantly show the state who’s boss. 

However, Arizona Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce gets my vote for standing up and reminding L.A. that a quarter of its electricity comes from his state. I hope that the Crips and Bloods can have their gunfights in darker alleys now that L.A. will go “greener” by using less power. 

Can’t we all just get along? We can agree that stealing is a crime. Rapists should go to jail. Law and order should be upheld. Can’t we agree that illegally sneaking into a country is a crime and those found should be turned over to the Border Patrol to be returned to the appropriate side of the border? Please?

Finally, I want to give a big shout out to my new friend TB who emailed me about last month’s article. I want to remind him that the big stick was not to be inserted rectally. I know that the gray matter in between my ears may be tapioca pudding, but at least I can read an entire article before going on a blind rampage. But then again, I wrote the entire article just for him.