I’m as sympathetic as the next guy when it comes to [at least some] immigration concerns, really, I am, but I can’t see why some folks south of the border are getting wound up to the degree that they are over something as simple the type of money a private business chooses to accept as payment.

Explain to me how this isn’t xenophobia, or possibly good old fashioned bigotry.

DALLAS (AP) - A pizza chain has been hit with death threats and hate mail after offering to accept Mexican pesos, becoming another flashpoint in the nation’s debate over immigrants.

“This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico,” one e-mail read. “Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans,” demanded another.

Dallas-based Pizza Patron said it was not trying to inject itself into a larger political debate about illegal immigration when it posted signs this week saying “Aceptamos pesos” - or “We accept pesos” - at its 59 stores across Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California.

As far as any [at least] semi-intelligent person should be concerned the medium of exchange a business accepts is nobodies business but the owners of the business. Just why the hell should anybody care if, in addition to the currency of the nation, a business makes the business decision to accept currency from another country?

According to a company spokesman

….. the company was just trying to sell more pizza to its customers, 60 percent of whom are Hispanic.

Just exactly what a business in a [supposedly] capitalistic society is supposed to be doing — isn’t it?

If the pizza place makes the decision to accept any and every form of legal currency in the world it is nobodies business but their own, if they want to accept dish washing, tap dancing, or poetry, in lieu of money for two medium all dressed and a box of BBQ wings that’s nobodies business but their own either.

They are the ones providing the product, they’re the ones doing the exchange calculations at the cash register, and they’re the ones making the trips to the currency exchange, and the rednecks and bigots need to be told to either shut their pie holes or open a competing business that only accepts American dollars and see if there’s a market for la marca de fábrica particular de la paranoia que están intentando vender.