Posted on 09/24/2005 2:11:22 PM PDT by mwfsu84
Listening to a conservative radio talk show today, I heard the host bash Bush and the GOP on their lax immigration policies. He stated that this issue threatened to tear the GOP apart. And he isn't the first person to make that prediction.
I'm a staunch Republican who would hate to see such a dire prediction come true. I also admit in many ways I share Bush's views on the subject. Since he has done a poor job defending his views, I'd like to explain my own. Let's have a discussion and see if we can find some common ground. Or perhaps I am misinformed on the subject, in which case, I'd appreciate your input. I'd like to find some common ground...because I don't want this issue to destroy the conservative movement. Only civil responses, please. I didn't come here to fight.
I've always believed that America should be open to anyone who wants to work hard, live in peace. And the vast majority of immigrants who cross our southern border fit that description. I know several small business owners who hire them - both legally, by the way. They say they can't find Americans do the jobs they hire immigrants for. And these owners are extremely pleased with the immigrants' work ethic. They bust their tails and never complain.
Hispanic immigrants, for the most part, place a high value on their families. That's why many of them come here. A high percentage of them are practicing Catholics.
In my view, these are not the kind of people we should be turning away.
As I understand it, those who oppose illegal immigration do so for the following reasons:
1. It's in violation of the law.
2. Illegal immigrants use up services they don't pay for - schools, health care, etc.
3. Open borders leave us vulnerable to terrorists.
4. Many immigrants are violent criminals.
There is some validity to all of these arguments. Here are my responses.
1. Most of the immigrants here are in violation of the law. But like Prohibition in the 1920's, or the 55 mile an hour speed limit, it's a law that can't be effectively enforced.
We share an 1800 mile border with Mexico. What kind of barrier - physical or human - would possibly suffice to seal us off?
2. It's true that many Hispanics use services they didn't pay for. And I would hold their employers accountable for that. Employers should be the ones to report immigrants, taking out taxes from their payrolls. If not, the government should shut those businesses down, or fine them severely.
3. Open borders leave us vulnerable to terrorism. While I agree with this to an extent, I'd be more worried of terrorists crossing our border with Canada...a much longer border than the one with Mexico, by the way.
As I see it, there are two ways we can fight terrorists. We can seal off our borders, which is a defensive move. Or we can go on the offenisve, as we're doing in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. But we can't do both. Doing both would be cost prohibitive.
I would suggest the reason we haven't suffered a major terrorists attack in this country in over four years - despite our open borders - is because our strategy of going on the offensive is working.
4. Many illegal immigrants are violent criminals. I have no doubt this is true, but I'd like to know what the percentage is. As I said before, I believe the vast majority of individuals don't fit this description.
Hispanics are already the largest minority in America. Who they vote for in the future will determine which party stays in power.
In one of those strange bits of irony, the average illegal alien that works, probably has a job that CAN NOT be outsourced.
I.E General contracting, construcion, landscaping, etc.
Irony is a weird thing sometimes.
All the above applies to the "overabundance" of illegal aliens (especially in the border states). Add to that the burden on the schools and our medical facilities, and also our prisons. We are forced to pay for everything, and we just can't afford it anymore, yet our own government continues to roll out the red carpet for anyone and everyone who crosses the borders. The burden falls entirely on American taxpayers, and it's OK with our government. It's insanity!
The voters will respond with a big NO to open borders politicians, whatever party they represent.
The idea of South/Central American peasants* risking life and limb to come to America and work long hours to make a better life for their families, too proud to take handouts, and whose greatest dream is to one day become an American citizen, is at best naive, and at worst verges on racism. The real story is much more complicated, messy and fails to describe the many different motivations and desires of people who come here illegally. I'll grant you there are some who are heroic in their efforts to make a better life for their families, and sometimes they are able to do so, even though their first act on American soil is to enter it illegally and uninvited.
And to round it out - a little light reading on Marxism and Liberation Theology:
But while liberation theology may be dead in a formal and political sense, it is part of a species of leftist religious economics that is still alive and well, particularly in Latin America. …editorialist Carlos Ball have noted that posters and billboards for leftist causes are appearing all over the region. He reports that with economic turmoil, resentment against "globalism," American influence, and property owners and producers is high.
There are many differences this time. Redistribution, not revolution, is the watchword this time. Resentment is directed against globalization, not the commercial classes as such. The theological dressing behind the new Latin leftism is more populist and nationalist than communist. This rhetoric focuses on popular control of industry and welfare measures rather than wholesale looting. And, most importantly, because the new political trends do not play into an overarching global-political drama, hardly anyone is paying much attention. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1146703/posts
The theology of liberation …missionaries raised questions of the theological significance of a social revolution… "Authentic socialism is Christianity lived to the full, in basic equality and with a fair distribution of goods" (7). Father Camilo Torres exemplifies this new attitude. He realized the need for a United Front linking together peasants, workers, slum dwellers, and professionals for basic changes. He expressed the need of revolution for implementing the fundamental changes in the economic, social and political structures. The essence of revolution was the removal of power from the privileged to the poor majorities. Revolution could be peaceful if the privileged elites did not put up a violent resistance, and the Christians should become involved. … On the international plane, social scientists emphasized that underdevelopment was structurally conditioned by the exploitation by foreign economic powers maintaining Latin America in a system of dependency on hegemonic centers. Such a system of oppression calls for ethical indignation. The encyclical of pope Paul VI "Populorum Progressio" (1967) (8) critiqued the international economic order, explicitly condemned the capitalistic system as presently known for the social evils and called for development through consensus rather than struggle: "[It is a system] ... which considers profit as the key motive for economic progress, competition as the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation". http://www.socinian.org/liberty.html
* What the heck is a "peasant" anyway, in this day and age?
Step back a little from the situation. Availability of cheap labor need not be directly in the Big Corporation jobs. The lower wages at QuickBurger tend to hold other wages at a lower level. The total effect is to reduce wages overall, top to bottom. Not the very top, of course, as the Five Hundred oligarchical families will continue to leverage the system more strongly every generation.
>A high percentage of them are practicing Catholics.
The only first world countries I count are, or rather, the only countries on earth I would consider living in are:
1) The USA - Protestant
2) Australia - Protestant
3) England, France, Germany - Protestant history
4) Israel - God's people
The "Catholic" countries south of the border are entities from which people are fleeing.
There is some truth to Catholicism, but not enough for the society to be as blessed as ours, praise Christ. The hard numbers fleeing lands filled with "practicing Catholics" to ours makes my point.
Wealth can only be created where there is morality, because only with morality can you create wealth without frittering it away hiring security or worrying about who your wife might be sleeping with.
"I'm so sick of hearing that 'Mexicans do jobs that Americans won't.' It's not that Americans won't do them, they just won't do them for sub-par wages. Pay a real wage and you'll have Americans cleaning toilets, doing construction, landscaping, just like 50 years ago."
Actually, fifty years ago, most Americans were employed in manufacturing jobs, not landscaping or cleaning toilets. Our manufacturing base (automobile, steel, etc) has eroded precisely because unions (Democrats) wanted employers to pay higher wages.
Okay, I won't even mention Bechtel or Halliburton.
Right. McDonalds is of course not one of those Big Corporations.
While I dont disagree with the impact abortion had, we do NOT need most of the immigrants at all. Serious trouble, look at the impact illegal and legal immigration has had on many cityies and occupational feilds, from stagnant wages, to a deterioration of many neighborhoods. Even educated immigrants have had an impact because it has taken away many incentives American students would have had in many R&D feilds.
Immigration is only a band-aid fix for a lack of leadership for both big and small business alike.
Actually into the 90s industries like janitorial work and construction were dominated by Americans. While I will be the first to agree that by the 70s, the wage structure for US industry had become in many cases insane, such as auto workers making $15 hr in 1975, I will say that the higher wages US workers made after WWII is the main reason why the US did not become a fully socialist country like France did.
You need to learn a bit more. First off, Mexico, and many Latin American nations for that matter, has been ran by secular, heavily influenced by Freemasons, forces for almost 100 years. The Roman Catholic church untill it was devastated by Vatican II in the 1960s was the voice for Westeren Morality in these countries, but sadly the secular powers, who based their nations govrenments off the radical French revelutionary ideologies was in no mood to listen.
As for large parts of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Europe, they were quite developed industrially and they were quite Catholic.
You miss the biggest issue. The cheap Mexican labor holds down wages of working class citizens.
Take new construction. Contractors are forced to hire illegals to be competitive with other builders who use illegals which drives citizens out of the workplace if they are unwilling to work at cheap Mexican wages.
This might hold down the cost of new construction but it also holds down the value of old construction, such as our homes.
When the builders are forced to use citizen labor it drives up the cost of the new construction but to the benefit of working class citizens and those whose homes are already built.
Another real problem that you didn't mention is that the immigrants will end up voting for Democrats in larger numbers than for Republicans. They become addicted to government hand outs as soon as they arrive and the Democrats constantly romance them with promises of free stuff. Republicans can't do that or they lose their meaning.
Okay, that's worth discussing.
We can ignore small business. The business of America is Big Business, that is, Big Corporations.
Now, in Big Business, would not the availability of cheap labor benefit the bottom line, even if the actual employment of illegals is mostly in small business, individual stores, small taxi companies, small trucking companies? Those jobs would go cheaper, and the community would then have a lower wage overall, which would filter up to the positions available in the Big Corporations. So, while illegals wouldn't be answering the phone at the IBM typewriter repair office, the English-speaker answering the phone would be working for less due to the surplus of such labor.
It might be that management of Big Business is not discouraging illegal immigration even while not hiring illegals themselves because that gives them a strong hand both ways. Not a failure from that aspect.
Do something constructive about illegal aliens and the level of spending and *maybe* I'll send you some $ in 2008.
If they don't, I'll either vote 3rd party or for some sorry Democrat (hey, might as well get it over, right).
Bush has been a major disappointment, and I wasn't expecting a lot from him.
i was talking about residential contractors that (get ready for this) hire illegal immigrants in the United States to build houses. If an international company like halliburton or bechtel can make more money by being based in the virgin islands like Ruport Murdoch's companies more power to them. the answer isn't always tax the corporations...when the tax environment gets too oppressive they will move overseas taking jobs with them. by the way...where did you see that either of those companies are moving their headquarters overseas out of curiosity?
The border of the Soviet Union was many time longer than ours, yet nobody could possibly crawl through --- even 50 years ago.
You set sensors, fast response teams and IMMEDIATE action against the criminals (removal and courts for their guides).
2. It's true that many Hispanics use services they didn't pay for. And I would hold their employers accountable for that.
Enforcement of law is the job of the government. Enforcement of national borders is the job of the federal gov't. Why should employers, private citizens just like you are, incur the costs while you and I sit our? On the contrary, all us pay taxes to the gov't that must do its job.
3. Open borders leave us vulnerable to terrorism...
As I see it, there are two ways we can fight terrorists. We can seal off our borders, which is a defensive move. Or we can go on the offensive,
I agree 100%. A good general fights wars far from home if he can help it.
This does not exclude sealing the borders, however: while attacking generals still cover their flanks and the rear.
4. Many illegal immigrants are violent criminals. I have no doubt this is true, but I'd like to know what the percentage is.
Why is percentage important? There are over 100 murderers that killed in CA and ran back to Mexico --- do you think the percentage matters to the families of the victims? This is the case where one is too many.
Insult to injury :-)
All this does is make the federal government larger.... which should be one of the last things you want.
What do we need them for?
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