There were some interesting things to note about Monday's protest, but all in all the protest did much more harm than good for their goal...


For starters, one of the biggest noticeable effects here in California was that the freeways had almost NO traffic all day long. Being traffic is one of the most stressful daily occurrences here in southern California, this pretty much shows that all the freeway clogging would go away if the illegals went away.

Further, there were no waits in emergency rooms. People who did go to emergency rooms found no lines and no waits, again lending to the idea that things would be better off without illegals. Were there no emergencies? No, what really happened was the illegals simply didn't go in and occupy the emergency rooms to get a mild cough treated...

And what about the economic impact? Well, initial results indicated that the areas most effected by the boycotts were in fact the very neighborhoods where the majority of the protesters live. So in a sense the people most economically harmed by the protesters was the protesters. The news repeatedly showed business after business closed. But what they failed to acknowledge was that these were select areas. On a local news broadcast, someone made the argument that an IHOP was closed, as well as a Kinko's. Sure, but 99% of the IHOPs & Kinko's were in fact still open. The ones in the area that I lived were open... It was only a select few that closed, and again they were predominately in Latino based neighborhoods. One person made the argument that the Nasdaq and so forth were down as a result of the protest. However, that would almost be like arguing the only reason it's raining today in Southern California is because of the protests. Stocks go up and down on a daily basis, there is zero evidence to support the idea that had there been no boycott, stock would have gone up.

All & all, the protest solidified many of the arguments that the anti-illegal crowed has been making from the beginning: Things in this country would be a whole lot better over all if we enforced immigration laws. That's not to say there wouldn't be any issues at all, but as a whole the gain would greatly outweighed the loss...