Delray Beach Anecdotage

I took my family down to balmy Florida last week to visit friends.

We were talking about illegal immigration briefly and my wife proclaimed that she wouldn't want to have a business that was levered to illegal labor because obviously, any crackdown would imperil the business. A friend of ours responded,

I wouldn't worry about that ever happening in this country...

[his company employs around 150 people]

When our supervisor hands out the paychecks, he'll yell out "JOSE RODRIGUEZ",

They'll be no answer.

"JOSE RODRIGUEZ"

[no answer]

"JOSE RODRIGUEZ"

[no answer]

"JOSE RODRIGUEZ!!!"



And finally some guy will remember that is his alias and come up and grab the check.

Furthermore, this is what the government does. They notify us that we are employing too many illegals. We ask, who are they? Which ones? We'll get rid of them all. But they won't even tell us the names. Apparently, there's some vague quota system on how many you can employ.



I also ran into some guy on the beach, a loosely connected friend-of-a-friend.

CaptiousNut - What do you do down here?

Guy - I am a prosecutor for the Palm Beach County District Attorney.

CaptiousNut - So was that you guys that hassled Rush Limbaugh over his Viagra?

Guy - Yeah. [giggle, giggle] That was us. That was a lot of fun. [giggle, giggle]

CaptiousNut - I don't know. You guys don't check the pills of every rock star and celebrity that flies down here. What you did to Limbaugh is prosecutorial abuse.

Guy - [silence]

If you don't know the background on Limbaugh and Viagra, click here. The crux is that Palm Beach politicians (read: District Attorney's office) harassed Limbaugh at the airport and leaked it immediately to the press to embarrass the guy - simply because they don't like him. Palm Beach County is, let's just say, by no means a bastion of conservative Republicans. I could be wrong, but it seems more like a locus of extremely wealthy, Democrats from New York. Every single person we met was a displaced or vacationing New Yorker.

I really hate talking about what others refer to as "politics" but it's become increasingly clear to me that today's Democratic Party is really anchored by the richest people around. Just list all of the wealth centers of the country: Manhattan, Boston, Malibu, Beverly Hills, the Hamptons, Palm Beach County, etc - they are all Democratic enclaves.

Forget the BS politics. In this Rush Limbaugh incident, I am not defending a thrice-divorced, drug-addicted, pervert; I am defending the rule of law. This is what I should have said to the giggling Palm Beach prosecutor,

"How would you like it if one day you drive through some rural town, grapple with a local, and then have some corrupt sheriff or prosecutor hold your feet to the coals on a contrived or trumped up charge?"

I didn't say it, because I had just met the guy not five minutes beforehand; also because I was on vacation. Anyway, that is the type of line I save for more opportune moments. I would ideally unleash it on him in a larger group of mixed company to maximize his embarrassment. I don't believe in the persuasion of willful idiots; I opt to Marginalize them both for sport and to enhance society.

In another, more virtuous world, selective application of the law would make prosecutors shudder, not giggle.