posted on December 20, 2002 12:05:07 PM new
My concerns with this proposal by the Bush Administration have nothing to do with either color or merit.
The Bush Administration has revealed absolutely no plans of how to pay for the enormous increases in bureaucracy and defense. Not only are no plans being prepared that would insure the continued solvency of the already endanged Social Security System, monies continue to be siphoned from the account to pay for other government programs. To advocate further strains on the system at this time and with no corresponding proposals to provide the funding is fiscally irresponsible, if not inept. Just exactly from where is all this money currently being spent going to materialize? Alchemy? Are both the Holy Grail and the Philosopher's Stone hidden away somewhere in Baghdad? Oh, I know, it's all a matter of faith! God will look down on the almost blinding purity and high-mindedness of the beatific Dumbya and turn acid rain into gold!
posted on December 20, 2002 12:15:29 PM new
" Just like Lott you can all couch the reasoning for doing that in complicated legal explainations, but the real root of it is contempt for the brown skinned funny speaking furriners. Of course you can't admit that the jobs they are doing are ones very few Americans want or are willing to do even if nothing else is available."
I couldn't agree more.
The current unemployment rate for whites is 5.2%, for "hispanics" it's 7.8%, and for blacks 11%....
when we solve the problem of all these illegal immigrants...I wonder who's going to:
harvest our food
process our poultry (ever been to a chicken plant? want to work in one?)
tend our lawns
wash the pots in our restaurants
prep our fancy new cars at the dealer's lot
care for our children
clean our homes and offices
cut the stone for our stylish patios
rent our run down properties at inflated prices
the list goes on...
that will leave the LEGAL Mexican immigrants, whom this article is about. Seems to me that since the US has 20+ agreements like this already with other countries, you either have to take the position that they should ALL be done away with, or the agreement with Mexico is only fair...any other conclusion must be born of prejudice.
posted on December 20, 2002 12:59:29 PM new
profe51,Ive done all but 2 of the jobs you listed,even working in the poultry plant,Of course, I lasted 3 hours.But hey"! I did good before turning green.
posted on December 20, 2002 01:22:06 PM new
And I'm sure there are many just like you who would take those jobs...if they couldn't fall back on the government to take care of them because they're too good to do such 'lowly' work.
I admire you junquemama. From your posts [over time] I've come to see your life wasn't always an easy one. But you did what it took to survive and I admire that in you and others with your personal sense of pride.
___________
The disparity in unemployment % most likely just show the difference in educational levels - thus more opportunities open to them.
posted on December 20, 2002 01:39:53 PM newwhen we solve the problem of all these illegal immigrants...I wonder who's going to:
[i]harvest our food
process our poultry (ever been to a chicken plant? want to work in one?)
tend our lawns
wash the pots in our restaurants
prep our fancy new cars at the dealer's lot
care for our children
clean our homes and offices
cut the stone for our stylish patios
rent our run down properties at inflated prices
the list goes on...[/i]
What a bunch of BS, Prof. My greatgrandparents and grandaunts and uncles did those jobs and while they were immigrants, they sure as hell didn't come here ILLEGALLY. Yes, immigrants tend to take the unskilled labor jobs, but you are trying to promote illegal immigration by claiming that these types of jobs only appeal to ILLEGALS.
Junquemama, he said "hatred hides under many masks" (or words to that effect)... claiming "racial prejudice" as usual for those who disagree with his pro-illegal immigration views.
posted on December 20, 2002 03:32:08 PM new
Yes, it is a bunch of BS. Americans have done and continue to do all that.
WHY NOT BE HONEST?
The real truth is that Americans *do* do the "dirty" jobs...they just won't do it for pennies. The people who work so hard to keep illegals here, to "support" them, do so for the bottom line, not "social conscience." Because illegals can be paid far, far less than American citizens. Will accept far, far worse living conditions than American citizens. Can be treated far, far more poorly than American citizens. The illegal Mexicans pouring across out border are the poor & ill-educated. In fact, they shape up fine to be the slave labor of the future. They can be used, and when they become "inconvenient" they can be rounded up & thrown out. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on December 20, 2002 05:04:22 PM new
>Of course you can't admit that the jobs they are doing are ones very few Americans want or are willing to do even if nothing else is available. - gravid -
Aha! You've discovered the Secret Plot! You see, the ONLY way to solve the problem of illegal immigrants from south of the boarder is to fill up ALL jobs, no matter how nasty or dangerous, with Americans.
Just how do you do that?
Well, a full Depression would do that. But that's always going to be a Temporary solution at best! There's a better (for some, that is), more permanent way to do it.
What you do is to delete FREE Public Education! That's right! Get rid of Public Education, which isn't really FREE because we all pay taxes for it. That will cause an uneducated underclass to quickly evolve. Those are the Americans that will fill those jobs in the fields, the sewers, the mines, and the construction industry. And to top it off, no longer will you be forced to pay for your children's private education AND pay for some schmoe's impoverished kid to go to school where they ignore how to read and write anyway -- right?
So, how do we come to this Heavenly Paradise?
First, we offer School Vouchers. Heck, so long as we're forced to pay taxes to fund those schools, we may as well be able to use the money ourselves for our own kid's education. Good deal, huh? And, if we DO end up having to pay for someone else's kids to go to school to not learn anything except how to become a Liberal, we may as well pay for them to go to a private religious school and Pick Up Some Values!
Of course, once the Public School system collapses, that will be the end of taxes for schooling! Then, the new Worker/Laborer class will come about and we can all enjoy ourselves and keep the Mexicans out -- right?
posted on December 20, 2002 05:15:42 PM new
>The real truth is that Americans *do* do the "dirty" jobs...they just won't do it for pennies.
That's right, bunni! So long as there are federal social programs to pick them up and to coddle them, these laborers are gong to want higher wages.
By trucking in Mexicans at half the going wage rates, that will depress the wage market. But to get Americans to stop turning their noses up at perfectly good work, even if it IS low paying, they have to have no other choice about it!
So, social "safety net" programs will have to go as soon as possible! To do that, we first have to un-fund them. To do that, we have to have an economic crisis whereby we can no longer "afford" the programs. We do that by draining all of our tax money away for military projects. In order to do that, we have to have Wars that never end! Now do you understand why everything is happening the way that it is?
posted on December 20, 2002 07:50:07 PM new
katyd:
Why don't you voice an opinion on the original post that started this thread? It had nothing to do with illegal immigration.I'll bet you think it's just fine that LEGAL Mexican immigrants can't apply for benefits from a system that they have paid into, while their counterparts from others countries, TWENTY other countries..can.
posted on December 20, 2002 08:33:17 PM new"Why don't you voice an opinion on the original post that started this thread? It had nothing to do with illegal immigration"
Wake up, prof, it was YOU who brought illegals into the mix. Look above.
posted on December 20, 2002 08:46:39 PM new
krs: Read the whole thread before you embarass yourself... bunnicula brought illegals into this mix long before I posted. On the first page, if you care to read the entire thread, eighth post down, you will find:
As for my earlier comment: the PTB already want to allow illegal aliens to get driver's licenses...want to allow substandard Mexican trucks free access to our highways...allow illegals to clog our medical system & our schools...allow them to drain other social services. Call my attitude "prejudice" if you like, but we both know that isn't what it is.
posted on December 20, 2002 08:54:02 PM new
Prof: I was responding to your statement:
when we solve the problem of all these illegal immigrants...I wonder who's going to: harvest our food process our poultry (ever been to a chicken plant? want to work in one?) tend our lawns wash the pots in our restaurants prep our fancy new cars at the dealer's lot care for our children clean our homes and offices cut the stone for our stylish patios rent our run down properties at inflated prices the list goes on...
And your vehement agreement with the statement:
but the real root of it is contempt for the brown skinned funny speaking furriners. Of course you can't admit that the jobs they are doing are ones very few Americans want or are willing to do even if nothing else is available.
As to your statement:
I'll bet you think it's just fine that LEGAL Mexican immigrants can't apply for benefits from a system that they have paid into, while their counterparts from others countries, TWENTY other countries..can.
You seem to be ascribing some sort of ethnic prejudice on my part which would be hilarious if you knew anything about ME, who I am, and what I believe.
However to make things easier for you, I will tell you that I do not believe that Social Security benefits should be extended to anyone other than American citizens. I also do not believe that "guest" workers nor so-called "permanent alien residents" should have these deductions taken from their paychecks, if that makes you any happier. They shouldn't have to pay into the system, and by the same token, neither should they receive the benefits of the retirement system until/if they decide to become American citizens.
And since we're discussing the article...
The Social Security Administration pays 94,022 beneficiaries from other countries an average of $162 a month, for a total of $184 million a year. and
An agreement with Mexico could add 162,000 beneficiaries in the first five years, according to The Washington Post,
Look at the numbers there. Almost DOUBLE the amount of beneficiaries as the "twenty" other countries, and eight times the amount in benefits possibly paid out within the first 5 years. Now how can you possibly believe that is equitable? If Vincente Fox was so concerned about Mexican citizens retirement, perhaps he should do something within the Mexican system to take care of that. Instead he keeps coming to the U.S. with "demands" for his countrymen. This is a man who has publicly denied that Mexicans who enter the United States to live and work unlawfully are "illegal". But there ya go.
posted on December 20, 2002 10:12:17 PM new
Different 'mix' prof; as you mixed with KD. I didn't refer to the entire thread but even had I bunnicula's post was essentially off topic 'mixing' so had nothing to do with my post to your mixing.
Why do you feel that we owe every Mexican a path to ease and comfort? Do you underpay your servants? We've never conquered them and the only lands we ever took from them were taken fair and square either by grant or on site residential revolt. Why, the only time we made a military incursion there was by invitation and unsuccessful to boot in rooting out that troublesome villian named pancho.
posted on December 21, 2002 03:44:00 AM new
"Why do you feel that we owe every Mexican a path to ease and comfort?"
I don't think we owe anybody a path to ease and comfort. Like helen, gravid and others here, I sense an undercurrent of ethnic prejudice and have tried to respond to it.It's interesting that when they bring it up, nobody jumps down their throats accusing them of being "pro illegal immigration", nobody accuses them of wanting to give every Mexican a free ride.
"Do you underpay your servants?" huh? Did you mean "employees"? I don't have servants.We do have seasonal employees who come in the fall to help on the ranch with shearing, docking and fence repair. Most are from Mexico, although I couldn't care less where they are from. What matters to me is that they are as dependable as the sunrise and as honest as the day is long.Shearing and docking sheep is hard, dangerous work..both for the worker and the animal.I pay them very well for their services. There are a few locals around here who gripe about the fact that we and other stockmen hereabouts won't hire locals to do our work...those gripers are the same ones who showed up drunk on the day we needed them in the past...or who took off early when they thought the job could be put off a day.They can watch daytime tv, drink their beer and gripe till the cows come home for all I care.
My family owned this land during all three major changes in governments. First Spain, then Mexico, now the US. We've never paid any more attention to who thought they were "in charge" than we needed to. Governments have come and they have gone..the people remain. It kind of gives you a different perspective I guess.
Whether Pancho Villa was a villain or not is probably good grass for another topic.
posted on December 21, 2002 04:29:15 AM new
There you go with your bolded rage again, prof.
You say that you "sense an undercurrent of ethnic prejudice" (leaving aside your meek attempt to enlist the aid of others here) yet you speak of certain of your local residents in phrases which include "who showed up drunk on the day we needed them in the past...or who took off early when they thought the job could be put off a day.They can watch daytime tv, drink their beer and gripe till the cows come home for all I care". Though those things may be true of them can't you see that were you to say such things without preface you might be taken to have your ethnic predjudice? After all, you have assumed drunkenness unless you tested for it, you assumed their daytime TV watching, their beer drinking, and even their thoughts in the speaking of it. But you spoke, I'm sure, from experience.
Could it be that the attitudes which you have detected to be ethnic predjudice are merely expressions by others here of their reactions to your own types of experiences?
I am not a racist in any form of the word. I simply don't like AHs. Through my life I've known, served with, worked with, done jail time, and otherwise met AHs of every color and national origin. Several times I've been accused of being a racist or the like upon expressing my feelings about one or more of them. Was I though? Or was that their easy answer for everything adverse which confronted them? I know it's the latter, and I think that you have subscribed to that easy answer when you make such accusations as you have done here.
posted on December 21, 2002 09:16:21 PM new
"You say that you "sense an undercurrent of ethnic prejudice" (leaving aside your meek attempt to enlist the aid of others here) yet you speak of certain of your local residents in phrases which include "who showed up drunk on the day we needed them in the past...or who took off early when they thought the job could be put off a day.They can watch daytime tv, drink their beer and gripe till the cows come home for all I care". Though those things may be true of them can't you see that were you to say such things without preface you might be taken to have your ethnic predjudice? After all, you have assumed drunkenness unless you tested for it, you assumed their daytime TV watching, their beer drinking, and even their thoughts in the speaking of it. But you spoke, I'm sure, from experience.
You betcha I spoke from first hand experience..When I have two hundred sheep to be sheared and vaccinated, and the local brothers I have hired to do the job spend the night before drinking and playing pool till 2 a.m, and then show up two hours late and are so hung over they are chopping chunks of flesh out of my animals with electric shears, or the local cowboys who think it's no big deal that a mile of my fence doesn't get mended and three of my best rams are taken by dogs. These same locals piss and moan because local ranchers are fed up, and refuse to hire them...then they cry because their jobs were "taken" by "messicans"...too bad.. And no..I don't think by saying what I said without preface I'd be accused of ethnic prejudice, at least not by anyone with any sense. I did not indicate any ethnicity in regards to the lowlifes I spoke of. They could be black, brown, yellow or green...they could come from this or any other country, be legal or illegal residents for all you know...I merely said they were local residents. Since you don't know anything about where I live, any assumption about who they are or what ethnic group they belong to is your assumption, and nothing more.
As far as my "weak attempt" to enlist aid...go back and read the thread. There are others here who sense the same prejudice I do, and I did not "enlist" their aid...
" Could it be that the attitudes which you have detected to be ethnic predjudice are merely expressions by others here of their reactions to your own types of experiences?
I doubt it, you'll notice; if you read the entire thread, that I did not join in until the thread was well under way, and at least two others had already commented on the existence of anti-Mexican sentiments here.
I don't know what an "AH" is. Anti-Hispanic? Amnesiatic Hebrew? Arabic Heretic? Abbreviated Hereford?
Ha! I was censored for answering your question about "AH"!
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
[ edited by bunnicula on Dec 21, 2002 10:52 PM ]
posted on December 21, 2002 11:55:21 PM new
Ho hum.
It's fairly easy to determine that the lands you speak of as guaranteed by the treaty of guadelupe hildalgo are not in new england.
Are you foolish enough, prof, to think that your racial predjudices do not exist if they are not antagonistic to mexicans? A person of the same origins as those "cowboys" you spoke of, whatever their origins, hearing your descriptions might easily come to believe that the real reason for your hiring has more to do with your racial preferences toward mexicans than it has to do with personal habits or even with work practices. It works in more than one way, don't you know?
Attempts to buttress your argument by name dropping is an attempt to enlist the aid of those others. Speak for yourself and they will for themselves.
--------------------
" Could it be that the attitudes which you have detected to be ethnic predjudice are merely expressions by others here of their reactions to your own types of experiences?
I doubt it, you'll notice; if you read the entire thread, that I did not join in until the thread was well under way, and at least two others had already commented on the existence of anti-Mexican sentiments here.
------------------
There you've completely missed the point which had nothing to do with any such previous commentary. OK, asfinge?
My First comment Among comments here, I sense some prejudice toward Mexicans. Why should they be exploited and work for nothing? Denying fair pay and benefits to Mexicans who work in America only helps to maintain the poverty zone along the border.
The biggest burden to Social Security was the Bush tax refund to the wealthy. It's about time, that the Bush administration showed some degree of integrity. My Second comment Using poor people to balance the budget and as an excuse for underfunded schools, social services and poor health care while we spend billions every year to maintain the military machine is not acceptable. To have to quibble over social securtity and fair wages for people working in this country should be an insult to our intelligence.
..........
Although my comment did not start this disagreement, I wish that I could retract only one word from my comments above. That word is prejudice which implies an unreasonable hostility toward a group. I could have used a number of more appropriate words such as alienation, hostility, anger. I apologize for that.
My focus was clearly on the Bush administration and their failure to act in a responsible way to resolve this issue while they spend billions reducing Afghanistan to dust and preparing to do the same to Iraq. They take care of the wealthy while the poor people along the border, both American and Mexican are ignored. As American hospitals go out of business and American doctors leave because they are unpaid, US citizens are being left without medical care. From my perspective, the Mexican border people are not responsible. They are simply doing the best that they can to obtain emergency medical care. But, like Americans, their problems are being neglected by their government. Vicente Fox should be held accountable for this problem and Bush should demand cooperation from the Mexican government right now.
That is just my opinion. Since I am far removed from the border and not directly affected by the influx of Mexican immigrants, I may be wrong. I know that I was wrong to use the term prejudice in this case.
So, Profe, don't use me to bolster your case. If I had wanted to support your argument, I would have done so.
posted on December 22, 2002 06:59:32 AM new
"There you've completely missed the point which had nothing to do with any such previous commentary. OK, asfinge?"
Ok, please explain the point...and by the way, while you're at it, what is an "asfinge"?? and I'm still waiting on the "AH".
helen: I didn't quote you, and therefore I don't think I was directly "using" you to bolster my case.Upon rereading the beginning of this thread, quite a while before I posted, it's obvious that some posters felt that prejudice might be involved. I used that fact in my statements. Is there something wrong with speaking to prior posts? If I had wanted to specifically use you to bolster my argument, I would have done so with direct quotes. Having said that; I have always admired the exacting word choice in your posts. Forgive me for mistakenly thinking that by using the word "prejudice", you actually meant it.
I don't think we owe anybody a path to ease and comfort. Like helen, gravid and others here, I sense an undercurrent of ethnic prejudice and have tried to respond to it.It's interesting that when they bring it up, nobody jumps down their throats accusing them of being "pro illegal immigration", nobody accuses them of wanting to give every Mexican a free ride.
As you can see in your comment above, you did use my name. I consider that comment "specifically using me to bolster your case."
I hope that I have made my position clear in my previous post.
When I recognize that I have made a mistake, I correct it.
As you probably know by now, I take some heat for unpopular opinions too. I am not here to pal around with a bunch of "friends" and talk about cats. I enjoy reading opinions by other people and occassionaly I change my opinion based on information that I read here. Right now, for example, I am considering bunnicula's opinion that money is not the answer to this problem.
When I say that I made a mistake in using the word prejudice, it is not an apology made to curry favor with the popular group. In other words, I'm not here to kiss anybody's ass.
posted on December 22, 2002 08:50:10 AM new
"I'm not here to kiss anybody's ass. "
nor am I, helen...my apology above was sincere....I'm not sure there's much point in even discussing prejudice...seems like it always comes down to an "I'm not but you are" argument that sounds a lot like kids on a playground..
as my uncle Memo used to say.."I'm not prejudiced...I don't like anybody"
posted on December 23, 2002 05:54:15 PM new
My opinion is that ANYONE who lives in this country and works in this country should pay taxes,not be exempt because they are from Mexico.They should have to buy auto insurance and not run like hell when they kill someone driving drunk because they don't have a green card or a drivers licence. Most of them will never collect Social Security because they are using a fake card anyway.
