Barry Goldwater Jr.'s rant is more of the same from career government sycophants ("Hysteria over illegal immigrants must stop," Opinions, Sunday).
Though some racists attached themselves to the illegal-immigration enforcement movement, they are a small minority within a huge group of law-abiding citizens that are disgusted with the lack of leadership from our government representatives and their vast army of leeches, who include public- and government-affairs consultants.

Since the race card is being pulled out again, I'll play it. The true racists in the saga of illegal immigration are the business owners that prey on immigrants and the government officials that facilitate 21st-century slavery. These folks enjoy hiring certain ethnic groups that are here illegally because they can impress them into menial labor at artificially low wages and hold control over them through their immigration status.

Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, government officials like John McCain, Jeff Flake, Harry Mitchell and George W. Bush all mirror the words and actions of slave owners and Southern politicians before the Emancipation Proclamation.

Let McDonald's, Ford and Chrysler prove that they don't support racist franchise owners by holding a lottery south of the border and giving 25 to 50 lucky winners fully paid for franchises, and then make the current franchise owners pay their and their families' medical and education.

I can hear the retorts: "Those people don't have the ability to manage a complex business like flipping burgers or touting cars." Goldwater's remarks reminded me of those made by freshman Virginia Congressman Daniel C. De Jarnette, which he delivered in Congress on Feb. 15, 1861:

"The free suffrage and free labor of the North ... has so shattered the framework of society that society itself exists only in an inverted order. African slavery furnishes the only basis upon which republican liberty can be preserved. There is more humanity; there is more unalloyed contentment and happiness, among the slaves of the South, than any laboring population on the globe."

-- Kevin Brown, Fountain Hills