Del,
I love you dearly, you know that much. But that just smacks of idealism and not reality.
Actually I was thinking that the other side of our discussion was being very idealistic.
Compared to these people, our lives are Disneyland. Period.
Um, would that be Jack and Ennis people? You want to start comparing, there are plenty of poor comparisons in this country as well. Did you check out the news while watching those poor people in Louisiana? Somehow I doubt they think their lives are Disneyland.
I don't understand why it's so hard to admit that while immigration advocates like me are not advocating open borders by any means, we are attempting to adjust what is largely, on both sides of the house, considered an inequity and unfair bitch of an unsatisfactory situation for 12 million people.
True, but I haven't heard any real economic answers. If you read my earlier posts, you'll have noticed the Cesar Chavez migrant farm workers example another poster brought up. Cesar Chavez back in the 70's organized migrant farm workers - mostly illegal - who were treated horrendously in their seasonal jobs. Paid a pittance and treated almost like slaves. He managed to get them organized and strking for better conditions/money, etc.
What happened to them?
They were 'Americanized' in their demands. What did their employers do? Promptly went out and hired NEW illegals who were not unionized. Suddenly, there were a bunch of migrant farm workers who were unionized but now without jobs.
The problem doesn't lie with the workers, it lies with the employers who want to save money by hiring illegal and under the table workers. It keeps their overhead low and subsequently, prices. To destroy the illegal supply, you have to cut off the demand.
Grapes from Mexico, probably picked by dirt poor workers cost $1.89 a pound. Organically grown grapes, grown in co-ops, tended by the individual farm owners in this country are $3.49 a pound. Which ones are a strapped, harried mother of 3 going to buy?
Illegals are essentially the WalMart of workers. They come into an area and undercut the working wage for several types of jobs. Would you hire a $900 a month per child daycare/nanny/au pair or a $350 a month illiegal alien caretaker? Pay $350+ for a GreenThumb company to service your lawn or hire the local lawn care guys who don't speak much English at $25 a pop?
Pretty soon, the local daycare, GreenThumb service or what have you is losing money or out of business and no one wants to pay more for the services offered than they're paying illegals and the cry goes out that 'illegal workers take the jobs Americans don't want' when that isn't true. Those who hire them were the ones who invented such slave wage jobs by preferring to pay illegal rates rather than legal ones.
Why can't everyone "have it?"
What makes you think we can? Currently the U.S. is only 6.7% of the world's population. Yet we use over 30% of the entire world's energy sources. If we just used our 'fair share' of energy resources and let everyone else 'have it', Americans would probably only be able to use 1.5-3 hours of electricity per day.
I don't see everyone rushing to want to give up their 24/7 power so that others can have it.
But that would be fair. That would be allowing 'everyone to have it'. Currently the Western worlds are pouring money and technology into 3rd world countries. Why? Because these countries are moving from pre-industrial to industrial and since they don't have the money to buy oil, they want to use cheaper sources, burn wood, coal to fuel their new economies.
Obviously the rest of the world doesn't want the pollutants pouring in the air and seas. They rightfully charged the West with 'YOU had your Industrial Revolution, why are you trying to keep us from having ours?' So what the West is having to do is dump enough resources, money and technology so these countries leap-frog from pre-industrial to 21st century.
The message last Monday was clear. If you removed the "illegals" as you call them from society, particularly cities, you would see a complete debilitation in the efficiency of your own life -- your clothes would not get cleaned
Um, I do my own laundry.
your bus would not arrive
I walk or drive and most of the bus dirvers I see are NOT illegal aliens.
your dishes would not be washed
Are you rich? Only rich people don't do their own dishes.
your hotel room not straightened
Doesn't bother me. If doing my own cleaning would drop the hotel rates, I'd trade in a second. Unfortunately, I can't afford to travel much as it is, much less rent a hotel room.
your food would go unprepared, your vegetables unharvested, your taxis would not be driven, your gardening not done, your home not cleaned, your cable TV not installed, your.... should I keep going?
You could, but NONE of those things applied to me or my family. We would do quite well. Again, the loss of their work only affects those who use it. For the majority of the unskilled labor intensive jobs, families such as mine, do it ourselves.
This is a very large social issue that cannot be addressed with ideals like what "should" be -- we need to address what simply IS.
I agree, but what we both see as simply
IS is the opposite side of the same coin. I see social services being overwhelmed, neighborhood tax values falling, reckless uncaring drivers on the road. What can be done about that?
Undocumented workers can get TIN numbers, they can get driver's licenses in some places and they can even buy homes. And they are doing all of these things, and planning for the future.
Yes, they get drivers licenses - and in my state, you are required to have insurance to take advantage of this privilege. They buy one months worth of insurance, get their license, then let the insurance lapse. Then such dirivers total my family's cars and RUN.
I think you'll agree that's unlawful. Had me or my mother been killed, would their running be excused? They obviously cared more for themselves than for the safety of other people. This is the attitude of people who think flouting a country's laws is OK because of THEIR needs.
It's naive for anyone to deny these privileges they have rightfully earned just because some silly law on the books doesn't measure up to the situation in this country today. The law needs to be changed, period.
And it's naive to think that undocumented workers don't cause as many problems as they solve.
And when that law changes, and they are suddently not looked at as second class citizens anymore but rather, equal citizens, then what? Will American society crumble? No, it will get stronger and more diverse.
Or perhaps we'll have a whole new class of citizens who are unskilled and uneducated who are now themselves, priced out of the workplace by new illegals and thus become burdens to the society at large.
Heard the latest from a relative. He was stupid enough to bring some mail order bride home from south of the border. He got her a visa and paid for her to come up. Several months of living together (chastely apparently), they made plans to get married.
We all bought outfits for this shindig. Then right before the wedding, girl says she wants to borrow his car to pick up a friend at the airport. Since she can hardly dirve, he says he'll go with her. She doesn't want him to go. He asks why her fiance shouldn't meet her friends.
Tearfully she admits the friend is her boyfriend, but she's very grateful to him for bringing her to this country.
He asks for his money back. She doesn't have it, of course.
He has her visa revoked, reports her to Immigration, packs her up and buys her a ticket home.
Unfortunately, he couldn't afford a non-stop flight to her home country. Do you know where I'm going with this? She gets on the plane, but when it lands in another U.S. city to make the connecting flight, she gets off, gets the final part of the flight refunded to her and disappears.
A few months later, she calls from where she is living with her boyfriend to mock my in-law. Laughing and making fun of him.
Oh, no, not the end of the story.
She shows up a year later on his doorstep, destitute begging for forgiveness.
Where is her boyfriend? In jail, doing 7-10 on a drug charge.
She's 8.5 months pregnant.
We told him to call Immigration and ship her home quick before she had the baby here and then could stay since her child would be a citizen.
Doofus didn't act in time and she had the baby here.
Welcome to our new illiegal immigrant citizen and her baby.
The father a convicted criminal, the mother uneducated, no visa, no green card, doesn't speak the language, no money, no job skiills.
Can you say, welfare mother? Because that is what she is, among such things as liar, thief and conwoman.
You can say I'm naive
rtprod - and you know I've got nothing but love fer ye
- but I think I'm the realistic one.
