AZ immigration law

CheezePavilion wrote:

Why? The direct subsidy lowers the cost;

Not necessarily.

the ethanol promotion 'subsidy' raises the cost.

Not necessarily. The problem with both of those statements is that they assume that the supply of corn remains constant, and they don't take into account the cost of the subsidy and the expense of administering it. Usually, the net effect of subsidization of any kind is to raise prices while causing malinvestment in additional production. The people handing out these subsidies don't mind, because the political favors granted via the subsidies are very beneficial to the "insiders", and the increased costs are largely an externality to them.

The benefit we're looking for here to flow to Mexican corn producers is higher American corn prices--how will removing a subsidy that raises the cost help someone who wants higher costs?

No, the benefit here we're looking for is the cheapest corn possible for everyone without violating property rights or human rights. Cheap corn means more inexpensive food for more people, which is generally beneficial, and more trade, which is also beneficial. The net effect of all the subsidies and the trade restrictions is to raise prices for American consumers while directing those profits to the politically-favored producers (and, incidentally, squeezing out the non-favored producers, which also includes the Mexican farmers).

I think your mistake is you're assuming all 'subsidies' lower costs for everyone, when some actually raise them.

No, the purpose of subsidies is to keep the total prices high, while favoring some producers over others. All subsidies do this in various forms, though the effect is often attenuated by malinvestment that eventually lowers the prices again by increasing the supply to meet the fake subsidized increase in demand. When the subsidies are removed, the prices crash due to the malinvestment, often badly, though the crash is softened by the reduced subsidy cost.

Aetius wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Why? The direct subsidy lowers the cost;

Not necessarily.

the ethanol promotion 'subsidy' raises the cost.

Not necessarily.

Then the subsides are 'not necessarily' contributing to the problem ;-D

The problem with both of those statements is that they assume that the supply of corn remains constant, and they don't take into account the cost of the subsidy and the expense of administering it. Usually, the net effect of subsidization of any kind is to raise prices while causing malinvestment in additional production.

That's not the case here though: the ethanol promotion 'subsidy' results in the kind of investment the subsidy has as a goal: e.g. more corn growing, less oil drilling.

The benefit we're looking for here to flow to Mexican corn producers is higher American corn prices--how will removing a subsidy that raises the cost help someone who wants higher costs?

No, the benefit here we're looking for is the cheapest corn possible for everyone without violating property rights or human rights. Cheap corn means more inexpensive food for more people, which is generally beneficial, and more trade, which is also beneficial. The net effect of all the subsidies and the trade restrictions is to raise prices for American consumers while directing those profits to the politically-favored producers (and, incidentally, squeezing out the non-favored producers, which also includes the Mexican farmers).

I'm not sure you and Seth are looking for the same benefits. What is incidental to you I'm guessing is critical to him. Also, like I said above, squeezing out oil producers for the benefit of ethanol producers is part of the goal of the subsidy.

I think your mistake is you're assuming all 'subsidies' lower costs for everyone, when some actually raise them.

No, the purpose of subsidies is to keep the total prices high, while favoring some producers over others.

Right, same thing I said above: you're criticizing a goal of the subsidy as if it were an unintended unwanted consequence.

It's not a bug, it's a feature! ;-D

CheezePavilion wrote:
Aetius wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

Why? The direct subsidy lowers the cost;

Not necessarily.

the ethanol promotion 'subsidy' raises the cost.

Not necessarily.

Then the subsides are 'not necessarily' contributing to the problem ;-D

Yes, they are - there is always the administrative overhead of the subsidies, the uncertainties in the market distortions they cause, and the after-effects of both the bubble and the crash. These are not trivial costs. They may not directly influence prices, but their effects can be profound and long-lasting.

The problem with both of those statements is that they assume that the supply of corn remains constant, and they don't take into account the cost of the subsidy and the expense of administering it. Usually, the net effect of subsidization of any kind is to raise prices while causing malinvestment in additional production.

That's not the case here though: the ethanol promotion 'subsidy' results in the kind of investment the subsidy has as a goal: e.g. more corn growing, less oil drilling.

Yes - however, that investment is a malinvestment, cannot continue without the subsidies, and causes malinvestments and distortions in other markets as well, like the malinvestments in home building supplies and equipment during the housing boom. The overall cost of all of those things increases the total cost of the corn.

I'm not sure you and Seth are looking for the same benefits. What is incidental to you I'm guessing is critical to him. Also, like I said above, squeezing out oil producers for the benefit of ethanol producers is part of the goal of the subsidy.

It's not the oil producers that will get squeezed out. It's obvious that ethanol can't compete in the fuel market - if it could, it wouldn't need to be subsidized! And the amount of ethanol that could be produced every year from all the corn in the country is a drop in the bucket compared to our daily oil usage. So the oil producers have nothing to worry about from subsidies that must eventually end. The only lasting result of the subsidies is that the Mexican corn farmers and American taxpayers get their wealth redistributed to the large, politically-favored corn producers and ethanol producers ... which is one of the things that drives immigration.

I think your mistake is you're assuming all 'subsidies' lower costs for everyone, when some actually raise them.

No, the purpose of subsidies is to keep the total prices high, while favoring some producers over others.

Right, same thing I said above: you're criticizing a goal of the subsidy as if it were an unintended unwanted consequence.

It's not a bug, it's a feature! ;-D

Artificially high prices are not a feature. The human and economic cost of American subsidy and tariff policies is one of the major reasons we have so much immigration - forcing American taxpayers to subsidize American corn producers so that we can flood the Mexican farmers with aritificially cheap corn and put them out of business is a serious bug.

Aetius wrote:

Yes, they are - there is always the administrative overhead of the subsidies, the uncertainties in the market distortions they cause, and the after-effects of both the bubble and the crash. These are not trivial costs. They may not directly influence prices, but their effects can be profound and long-lasting.

Well then are you really offering an amendment to Seth's point? He was saying the problem is cheap corn, and now you're saying this may not directly influence prices, so aren't you two talking about different things?

Yes - however, that investment is a malinvestment, cannot continue without the subsidies, and causes malinvestments and distortions in other markets as well, like the malinvestments in home building supplies and equipment during the housing boom. The overall cost of all of those things increases the total cost of the corn.

...

It's not the oil producers that will get squeezed out. It's obvious that ethanol can't compete in the fuel market - if it could, it wouldn't need to be subsidized!

You don't play many 4X games, do you? ;-D

Everyone knows you take the Psilons out early in a game of MOO when they can't compete in the space race market before their research bonuses put them way ahead of everyone else! Even in RTS games, you never let an opponent get that expansion base going if you can attack him while he's still getting it up and running.

Same logic applies to the real world: if you're growing at a faster rate than I possibly could, but I have more resources with which to compete with than you do right now, if someone 'subsidizes' you in the form of protection until your faster growth rate delivers enough resources to you to compete with me, you'll be able to 'compete'!

And the amount of ethanol that could be produced every year from all the corn in the country is a drop in the bucket compared to our daily oil usage. So the oil producers have nothing to worry about from subsidies that must eventually end. The only lasting result of the subsidies is that the Mexican corn farmers and American taxpayers get their wealth redistributed to the large, politically-favored corn producers and ethanol producers ... which is one of the things that drives immigration.

Maybe, maybe not: that's a criticism of a particular subsidy program being badly designed, not of the inherent nature of subsidies leading to a particular result, though.

Under those facts, why couldn't the subsidy program of an oil producing country succeed even despite "the administrative overhead of the subsidies, the uncertainties in the market distortions they cause, and the after-effects"? The negative effects of a subsidy might be "be profound and long-lasting" but if the positive effects are longer lasting and more profound, that's a net positive.

If the oil/ethanol market is so skewed towards the former as you say it is, why couldn't they make a subsidy program work?

Artificially high prices are not a feature. The human and economic cost of American subsidy and tariff policies is one of the major reasons we have so much immigration - forcing American taxpayers to subsidize American corn producers so that we can flood the Mexican farmers with aritificially cheap corn and put them out of business is a serious bug.

Wait, you start that paragraph off criticizing artificially high prices, and then you start talking about artificially low prices.

I can't help but think you're kinda getting confused here, saying that something is both priced artificially high AND is artificially cheap.

*tosses some more fuel (of the non-biological kind) on the discussion*

California State laws very similar to Arizona's

Pawz wrote:

*tosses some more fuel (of the non-biological kind) on the discussion*

California State laws very similar to Arizona's

I'd change it to: "blogger at Washington Times can't read":

This is an interesting argument, considering the California Penal Code actually requires that every law enforcement agency in the state shall "fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws."

Below is a copy of section 834b of the California Penal Code that deals with immigration law enforcement at the local level.

(a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. (b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following:

Now let's look at the AZ bill the blogger links to:

FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON

Hmm, "lawful contact" reads similarly to this blogger as "arrested". Isn't that kind of scary? Either that there are people blogging for major news outlets that are this fascist, or this sloppy? I don't know which is worse!

~~~~~

I love this line: "As I'm asking here, federal law which has been around for about seventy years has been saying that undocumented individuals have to be carrying papers."

If you're carrying around papers, how are you an undocumented individual?

Cheeze, Aetius is looking at it, perhaps, from a broader perspective than you are. When the government pays farmers a guaranteed price for corn, that has the immediate effect of raising the price of corn to the subsidy level. So it gets more expensive. Then the government has to get rid of the corn somehow, and one frequent method of doing so is to dump it on foreign countries, depressing prices there. This is a wealth transfer from the general taxpayer, in that they're paying taxes to buy corn and sell it at a loss, as well as paying more for corn products than they should be, and also from foreign corn growers, who have a hell of a time competing against underpriced products. The money they SHOULD be making instead goes into the pockets of domestic corn producers.

So, with guaranteed profits available, that in turn encourages more corn production. Wealth is sucked out of the rest of the economy to plant more corn. Wealth that's used in that way can't be used, for instance, for grain growing or education or roads and bridges.

The economy around the corn producers grows; people that serve their needs profit, and in turn they suck more wealth out of the economy to grow their businesses, or build their homes, or whatever. Again, this is wealth that's not available to be used in areas where it's actually needed. It's wasted money; we're creating production that the market doesn't actually want, that we don't presently have a use for. The government gets to measure a twofold boost in GDP, both in terms of its own spending on subsidies and then on the various trickle effects that causes, but it's not real wealth generation. It's "malinvestment" -- putting wealth into making things that aren't actually needed.

If the subsidies stop, suddenly that whole section of the economy starts drying up, and there's a lot of voter pain, so these kinds of interventions are very difficult to stop once they've been going for any length of time. People do not like losing their farms and supply businesses and homes, and they will yell furiously and vote for anyone who promises the bring the good times back. They can't tell, down in the trenches, that their whole section of the economy is superfluous, so they'll yell and yell about pulling more resources in to support them, even though doing so is destroying systemic wealth. They don't care about systemic wealth, they care about their wealth, right now.

If the distortion is large enough, like the housing bubble caused by excess liquidity, too-low interest rates, and legislative intervention to lower lending standards, the pain can be very severe. If the pain is severe enough, you can have riots and even civil war.

It's a very, very bad business for the government to get into, because it's so damnably difficult to get out of again. People hate economic pain, but pain is how we learn what we should actually be doing. It's how an economy fixes problems and gets more efficient, and our steadfast refusal to allow pain is digging us into an ever-deeper hole.

Malor wrote:

Cheeze, Aetius is looking at it, perhaps, from a broader perspective than you are.

No, I don't necessarily disagree with everything you are saying, my point was that the U.S. government also intervenes in the corn market in such a way that it inflates prices, offsetting the intervention that deflates prices. Mandating that a certain portion of our automotive fuel supply be ethanol is government intervention that offsets at least to some extent the government intervention of agricultural subsides for corn. I mean, as long as we're talking subsidies, let's not forget we also pay some farmers NOT to grow crops.

If the distortion is large enough, like the housing bubble caused by excess liquidity, too-low interest rates, and legislative intervention to lower lending standards

Not trying to take this off track, but the housing bubble was caused by the failure of the free market to recognize risk and legislative non-intervention by means of deregulation. Since the G.I. Bill in 1944, the government had been involved in massive legislative intervention to lower lending standards without causing a housing bubble.

CheezePavilion wrote:

No, I don't necessarily disagree with everything you are saying, my point was that the U.S. government also intervenes in the corn market in such a way that it inflates prices, offsetting the intervention that deflates prices. Mandating that a certain portion of our automotive fuel supply be ethanol is government intervention that offsets at least to some extent the government intervention of agricultural subsides for corn.

And what I'm pointing out is that it doesn't, because you're not counting the money that goes into the subsidies, you're only considering the "street price" of the good. The corn we dump on Mexican and other markets has been paid for, by American taxpayers, but it shows up cheaper in Mexico than the Mexicans can produce their corn, and puts them out of business. Essentially, we are paying to put Mexican farmers out of business and enrich politically-favored corn producers, and this is one of the root causes of our current wave of immigration.

I mean, as long as we're talking subsidies, let's not forget we also pay some farmers NOT to grow crops.

And as I pointed out earlier, such programs have only a minor effect on "street prices" due to market response, but cost us a lot of money wasted on paying people to own empty fields. The total cost we pay is much higher due to both the subsidies and the market reaction to the subsidies. Paying people not to do things is one of the worst economic policies you can possibly imagine, but it is popular because politicians can use it to reward their supporters.

CheezePavilion wrote:

Not trying to take this off track, but the housing bubble was caused by the failure of the free market to recognize risk and legislative non-intervention by means of deregulation. Since the G.I. Bill in 1944, the government had been involved in massive legislative intervention to lower lending standards without causing a housing bubble.

I'll derail a little further, and ask the obvious question: what risk?

In retaliation for the Los Angeles city council's decision to boycott Arizona over the immigration law, Arizona is threatening to stop selling power to LA:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31587415/Response-to-the-LA-Boycott-by-AZ-Corp-Commissioner

Good News for Nevada?

Well, if you read the actual letter, the Arizona Corporation Commissioner is calling on LA to basically put up or shut up. Not much in the way of threatening anything at all. I thought it was pretty well-written myself

Tanglebones wrote:

In retaliation for the Los Angeles city council's decision to boycott Arizona over the immigration law, Arizona is threatening to stop selling power to LA:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31587415/Response-to-the-LA-Boycott-by-AZ-Corp-Commissioner

The funny part is, California and L.A. partially own those plants:

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power general manager Austin Beutner released this statement Wednesday evening:

"I want to make clear that we support the city position regarding the recent law enacted in Arizona and the resolution adopted by the Los Angeles City Council.

"On any given day, we receive 20 to 25 percent of our power from two power plants located in Arizona: Navajo, a coal-fired plant, and Palo Verde, a nuclear plant.

"We are part owner of both power plants, which are generating assets of the department. As such, nothing in the city's resolution is inconsistent with our continuing to receive power from those department-owned assets.

"I might add that, as the city's Job Czar, I certainly would welcome any conventions or meetings that were going to be held in Arizona to come to Los Angeles. We have fantastic facilities and incomparable weather and we'd welcome them to the City of Angels."

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...

Maybe he plans to go all Hugo Chavez on them and 'stateify' that property?

Pawz wrote:

Well, if you read the actual letter, the Arizona Corporation Commissioner is calling on LA to basically put up or shut up. Not much in the way of threatening anything at all. I thought it was pretty well-written myself :)

I disagree--he's attacking a strawman: he quotes the intent of the L.A. boycott being to "send a message" and then goes on to say "if an economic boycott is truly what you desire."

I mean, what L.A. *really* desires is for AZ to repeal that law, with the boycott being the means of sending that message and creating political pressure. He's just trying to chump them into fighting a battle that they never intended to in the first place.

He's either trying to confuse others or is confused himself about the difference between boycotting in order to send a message to someone and create political pressure, and boycotting because you are looking to hurt someone or you find someone so offensive you can't bear to do business with them.

Pawz wrote:

Well, if you read the actual letter, the Arizona Corporation Commissioner is calling on LA to basically put up or shut up. Not much in the way of threatening anything at all. I thought it was pretty well-written myself :)

No, he's basically threatening to violate a valid contract. All he can do is take millions of dollars the LA Department of Power and Water would have paid Arizona and pay it to someone else who will honor the contracts. Ain't a global economy a Female Doggo?

He's doing neither. Read the letter. He doesn't suggest breaking off (violating) any contracts, simply tells them he'd be happy to facilitate a renegotiation of the current ones - pretty standard fare. Which most people realise would be an extremely stupid act on the part of LA, which illustrates how dumb their whole boycott is in the first place.

And the point of a boycott is that you stop supporting an entity in a financial sense at a cost to yourself, in order to get that entity to do what you want it to do. (You stop buying the products you would normally buy) To unlink the boycott from the intent and then claim he's creating a straw man by addressing the boycott - how does that make sense? They put a big noise up about putting pressure on Arizona, and when they get called on it they go "hrm hrm ok well contrary to our strongly expressed opinion, if it's going to hurt we're not going to do it".

Pawz wrote:

And the point of a boycott is that you stop supporting an entity in a financial sense at a cost to yourself, in order to get that entity to do what you want it to do. (You stop buying the products you would normally buy)

No, the point of a boycott is to get that entity to do what you want by no longer buying the products you would normally buy. The cost to yourself is just the unavoidable consequence of that course of action.

It's like that part at the beginning of Patton: saying part of the the point of a boycott is the cost to yourself is like saying that part of the point of a war is to die for your country--it isn't. The point of a war is to make some other poor bastard die for HIS country. The point of a boycott isn't to incur costs to yourself, it's to put costs on someone else.

Just like dying in a war, boycotting at a cost to yourself is a consequence to be avoided, let alone embraced.

To unlink the boycott from the intent and then claim he's creating a straw man by addressing the boycott - how does that make sense? They put a big noise up about putting pressure on Arizona, and when they get called on it they go "hrm hrm ok well contrary to our strongly expressed opinion, if it's going to hurt we're not going to do it".

No, at best they said if it's going to hurt *too much* we're not going to do it. What I read them as saying is that they'll be boycotting things in Arizona they don't themselves have an ownership stake in.

What he's trying to do is spin this as a false dichotomy, as if the only two options are martyrdom or an ineffective boycott. I mean, maybe it's good rhetoric, but it's still a logical fallacy--not every effective boycott requires the boycott to be absolute.

He's attacking a strawman because he's criticizing them for not adopting an total boycott when their actual goal is a boycott that works. If he'd given reasons why Arizona will not give up if faced with anything less than a total boycott, then that would be different.

However, he did not. He basically said "hey I'll be willing to reach an agreement with you that makes it more likely you will give up your boycott before we give in to it." What a surprise!

That's like calling someone you've besieged a coward for not attempting to kill you by throwing the castle's food rations at you. It may be an effective tactic, but let's keep in mind how illogical it is.

How can you effectively boycott without cost to yourself? If I suddenly say "I boycott all Taco Bells because of their abuse of stupid looking dogs", does it make it a real boycott if no Taco Bells exist anywhere near where I live?

If they're so fired up about the moral principle of the thing that they get all gung ho to legislate what businesses should do in the city, but it's not really an important enough issue where a *real* impact may have been felt, it certainly leaves them looking a bit silly.

Aetius wrote:
CheezePavilion wrote:

No, I don't necessarily disagree with everything you are saying, my point was that the U.S. government also intervenes in the corn market in such a way that it inflates prices, offsetting the intervention that deflates prices. Mandating that a certain portion of our automotive fuel supply be ethanol is government intervention that offsets at least to some extent the government intervention of agricultural subsides for corn.

And what I'm pointing out is that it doesn't, because you're not counting the money that goes into the subsidies, you're only considering the "street price" of the good.

I'm counting it, I'm just saying that if you take all government 'subsides' away, that money will be offset by the loss of the artificial increase in the price of corn that comes from other programs that involve government intervention which prop up the price of corn.

I mean, as long as we're talking subsidies, let's not forget we also pay some farmers NOT to grow crops.

And as I pointed out earlier, such programs have only a minor effect on "street prices" due to market response, but cost us a lot of money wasted on paying people to own empty fields. The total cost we pay is much higher due to both the subsidies and the market reaction to the subsidies.

edit: Okay, but then like I said, you're making a much different point than corn having a cheap "street price": you're actually disputing the facts of the argument you're offering to amend.

Paying people not to do things is one of the worst economic policies you can possibly imagine, but it is popular because politicians can use it to reward their supporters.

I don't know--paying people not to rebuild in say, flood-prone areas isn't a bad idea, and I think that's rarely done as a reward to supporters.

Not trying to take this off track, but the housing bubble was caused by the failure of the free market to recognize risk and legislative non-intervention by means of deregulation. Since the G.I. Bill in 1944, the government had been involved in massive legislative intervention to lower lending standards without causing a housing bubble.

I'll derail a little further, and ask the obvious question: what risk?

Rating CDO's as AAA investments when they were not.

Pawz wrote:

How can you effectively boycott without cost to yourself?

Whether you can or not, it's irrelevant to this issue. The issue here is whether L.A. can effectively boycott without the cost from also boycotting power from AZ, not whether L.A. can effectively boycott without cost.

If they're so fired up about the moral principle of the thing that they get all gung ho to legislate what businesses should do in the city, but it's not really an important enough issue where a *real* impact may have been felt, it certainly leaves them looking a bit silly.

The point of a boycott isn't to do things that lead to an impact on *you* it's to do things that lead to an impact on *them*.

See what I mean by this guy attacking a strawman? He's focusing on L.A. deciding not to take on the impact of boycotting AZ power without first demonstrating why the current boycott is insufficient to accomplish L.A.'s goals.

Why should L.A. take on more costs than are necessary to accomplish its goals? That's not "hrm hrm ok well contrary to our strongly expressed opinion, if it's going to hurt we're not going to do it," that's "if it's going to hurt and it is redundant we're not going to do it, because one can be both efficient and true to one's strongly expressed opinion."

edit:
Hey--the guy from AZ that wrote that response could make like this guy:
IMAGE(http://judgmentalobserver.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/vietnam-monk-self-immolation.jpg)
instead of just offering to renegotiate contracts and write strongly worded letters. Does it make him look "silly" because he won't do this because "it's going to hurt"? Why don't the people who put their names on that letter get a huge slingshot like on that episode of South Park and hurl themselves to their death against the the L.A. municipal building?

I'm using hyperbole here, but does this illustrate how flawed I find the reasoning behind "if you won't do X because it will hurt, that necessarily makes you look silly"?

Does anyone have any credible information on Mexican immigration law?

I just saw an article from the "fair and balanced" Fox News that said this:

Super Fair and Balanced News Source ;) wrote:

Mexico repeatedly has been cited by human rights groups for abusing or turning a blind eye to the abuse of migrants from Central America. Until recently, Mexican law made illegal immigration a criminal offense -- anyone arrested for the violation could be fined, imprisoned for up to two years and deported. Mexican lawmakers changed that in 2008 to make illegal immigration a civil violation like it is in the United States, but their law still reads an awful lot like Arizona's.

Yeah it was mentioned earlier in this thread -- I was genuinely surprised by how draconian Mexico's own immigration policies are.

I disagree with using that as justification for AZ's draconian policy, but it's still surprising and I think it's something Obama should push Mexico to change.

(in before the "we shouldn't tell other countries how to live" comments!)

The point of a boycott isn't to do things that lead to an impact on *you* it's to do things that lead to an impact on *them*.

You're still completely missing the point Cheese. The very concept of boycott centres around depriving *yourself* of the services/products of a company that you already utilise. Trying to throw up ridiculous arguments that shift the meaning of 'hurt yourself economically' to 'hurt yourself physically' make it pointless to continue.

Seth wrote:

Yeah it was mentioned earlier in this thread -- I was genuinely surprised by how draconian Mexico's own immigration policies are.

I disagree with using that as justification for AZ's draconian policy, but it's still surprising and I think it's something Obama should push Mexico to change.

(in before the "we shouldn't tell other countries how to live" comments!) :)

The irony here is that the 'draconian' policy is something that went from check papers when 'Arrested' to check papers when 'legally stopped by police or arrested'.

That's pretty much it.

Pawz wrote:
The point of a boycott isn't to do things that lead to an impact on *you* it's to do things that lead to an impact on *them*.

You're still completely missing the point Cheese. The very concept of boycott centers around depriving *yourself* of the services/products of a company that you already utilize.

Unavoidably centers around depriving yourself. Major difference.

The irony here is that the 'draconian' policy is something that went from check papers when 'Arrested' to check papers when 'legally stopped by police or arrested'.

That's pretty much it.

That's...a pretty big change. I know I certainly want cops to see a big difference between legally stopping me and then letting me go if everything is in order, and dragging me down to the station house in handcuffs--I suspect you do too, you just didn't think about it.

Besides, the difference is even greater than that: as originally--and as far as I know, currently--written, the AZ order to check papers pertains to any lawful contact: there's some dispute about what that phrase means legally, but it could mean it went from checking the papers of someone you arrest to checking the papers of someone a cop buys a cup of coffee from if he has a suspicion.

How can you effectively boycott without cost to yourself?

Typically, by using a competitive product instead. For instance, you might go to the local Mexican food place instead. Whether or not that's a 'cost' to you is up to you to decide; usually local food like that is a little more expensive, but it's generally much better. In some cases, you'll end up in better shape than you were before boycotting.

It's rare that anyone has a product that you MUST have, and can't buy from someone else at a roughly comparable price.

IMAGE(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Bx5f-PMBi1s/Se3KBG69mpI/AAAAAAAAAWA/C9CG1FAjMHg/s400/holy-facepalm.jpg)

Sigh.

The f*ck?

That's a level of public bigotry I thought we'd gotten past a long time ago. Sweet Jesus.

The context of the kids in the mural actually being kids at the school makes it unbelievably offensive. What are those kids supposed to think when their faces get "lightened up"? Certainly not that they're first class citizens.

It's hard to tell who's telling the truth here. This doesn't appear cut and dry. It might be true, but it also might not. The claim in the original source is that the painting is 'being lightened up a little', rather than being changed in terms of racial mix. And while there's certainly a racist-as-hell city councilman involved, there just isn't enough data in what we've been given to determine the truth. The painter seems to be the primary person claiming racism, and there's not yet enough data to be sure.

The first order of business would seem to be a full snapshot of the mural, plus some context of the building around it to get a feeling for light levels.

Malor wrote:

The first order of business would seem to be a full snapshot of the mural, plus some context of the building around it to get a feeling for light levels.

Pics of the original mural.

I'm sorry, but given the climate in Arizona right now, with the immigration law this here thread discusses, their recent campaign against ethnic studies courses and all, I'd be very skeptical this was an innocent case of a school administrator giving sound aesthetic criticism (which, considering the murals I've seen in other schools is certainly not a common occurrence), even if the mural was moodily shaded. Thanks to Mystic, though, we can see it is very not.