AZ is dead. Long live AZ!
Posted by tomleveen at 12:30 am
There’s an even chance you’ve heard about some of the goings-on in my dear old home state of Arizona. As per usual, the only time we ever make national news it’s because of something cataclysmically stupid. Well, “we” are at it again. You know it’s bad if your entire state winds up on The Daily Show.
There’ve been calls by folks of many types to “boycott Arizona.” Please don’t do this. Please don’t support this. Think about it.
I don’t have the exact figures, but I can count on one hand the people I know who are in support of our legislature’s latest gambit for the Darwin Awards. The vast majority of Arizonans I’ve heard or read are wildly opposed to the things our legislature is doing, has done, and continues to try to do. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe most Arizonans are in favor of this whole immigration thing (and in fairness, it’s not like I’ve read the bill myself), but I haven’t personally heard many people say so. For cryin’ out loud, the entire Suns basketball team had Los Suns jerseys on.
I don’t want to talk politics here; I rarely do, because I rarely know whereof I speak on this front. (Neither do most people, but that’s my opinion.) What I do want to talk about is that we’re in enough trouble as it is without having Famous Stars and armchair politicians calling for a boycott of the entire state. Arizona has a massive tourist economy (though not necessarily in the summer, in fairness), among other industries like farming and manufacturing. To take your business elsewhere in protest of something a handful of people pushed through without bothering to ask our opinion on the matter isn’t fair to the people who are working hard to put food on the table just like everyone else.
If you want to effect change – and I hope you do, whatever your political affiliation; make your voice heard, whether I agree with you or not, I say – then by all means, flood the Arizona legislature with emails, letters, and phone calls. Participate. Have your say. Blog. Tweet. Whatever.
(Say Words.)
But don’t punish the joes and janes who are trying to make a living. This wasn’t our call. And it’s not like anyone voted our current governor into office.
Just something to think about. I love Arizona, always have, always will. But man…we end up on the news for the damndest stuff. As my hero Mike Ness said, if you want to make change, then you gotta get off your ass and do something. Withholding business from people who happen to live here isn’t how to do it. Voting is. Protesting, writing, organizing…all good things. Do them.
But please also check the size of the brush being used to paint six and half million of us the same color of Stupid.
(Speaking of our legislature’s, um, fiscal shortcomings, please consider taking two minutes to sign up at http://www.refresheverything.com/search/?q=MCAP and voting every day for a program called MCAP, which helps underserved teen mothers complete their high school equivalency and thus goes a long a way toward reducing and ultimately ending cycles of poverty. Two. Minutes. This is my wife Joy’s program, and no kidding, this program WORKS and it ROCKS. Thanks!)
