According to Goldman Sachs puppet California Republican and eMagnate pro-CEO gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who apparently … well, you can guess…
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I love this particular hypocrisy, rather common on the right. From “we need to deal with the ILLEGALS!!11!!,” to getting caught with illegal immigrants among their employees. Republican politicians seem rather adept at this problem though. They often seem to have this magical ability to get smacked directly in the face with incontrovertible evidence that they have illegal immigrant employees, yet still get elected.
My favorite are the ones who claim that it’s the government’s fault that they can’t screen them out.
On the other hand, at least Whitman isn’t suggesting complete and utter stupidity as her “solution.” If one accepts the paradigm that illegal immigration is an inherently bad thing, going after employers and smacking them really fucking hard when they employ illegal immigrants is the only sensible solution. Set fines relative to the size of the company and make sure that the fines will hurt a hell of a lot, if they don’t put companies entirely under.
Though personally, I am all for bringing in more immigrant labor and sending U.S. American workers who have the prevalent modern U.S. American work ethic down to the countries the immigrant workforce came from. I suspect that if we let them come back in a few years, they would come back ready to bloody well work.
People mainly come to the US because they want work at a higher age than can get at home (if they can get it). In the US farms and other places need labor for jobs most Americans are not willing to do.
Many people who come would like to go freely between their own country (where they often have relatives) and the US. However, it is so hard to get here they do not dare leave once here for fear of never getting back.
I would have thought a simple solution was a very freely available 6 month work visa. You can come and work for 6 months in any one year, after which you must return home for six months before you return. This would enable such workers to work in the USA without become long-term residents. It would enable them to maintain their families and houses in their own countries, and make a contribution there as well.
@DuWayne: Ah yes, the libertarian “If people can’t get jobs it’s because they aren’t willing to work!!!!111” argument.
Generally people that make that argument have never done manual labor in their entire privileged lives.
After all, god forbid people demand a livable wage for their efforts.
I wish I could edit posts so I could stick this in the other one, but just once I’d like to see a limousine liberal admit they think blue collar workers aren’t really people and don’t deserve to be able to make a living wage because they generally lack college educations.
I suspect if universities were to begin outsourcing or importing professors we’d see a sudden and rapid about-face from them on this issue. Just like we did from the IT libertarians that thought cheap labor was the most awesome thing to ever exist, right up until their jobs started getting outsourced. Funny how that worked out.
And I say all this as a labor liberal. I’d like to see a much easier path to citizenship for people from other countries and the draconian tactics ICE directs at undocumented immigrants cease. So unfortunately, branding me as a racist will be somewhat difficult. On the other hand, I also don’t share the Republican disdain for the lesser people, like some people I could mention.
JT: I agree with you about the attitudes of the academic elite. Half of them could disappear tomorrow and this country would not be less smart (depending on which half, I suppose). Not because they are not smart, but because the system does not encourage many academics to do what we need done.
Um JT, I would suggest you reread my post, as you seem to have very dramatically misread it. I didn’t say anything about people not being willing to take jobs if they’re available. Considering I lost everything and failed my family utterly, for a lack of work you can comfortably assume that I believe nothing of the sort.
All I was complaining about is the modern U.S. American work ethic, versus the work ethic of every Latin American I have ever worked with. I have worked for a lot of construction employers and have been such an employer myself.
I am all about a living wage, have spent most of my adult life beating the piss out of my body in construction and other physically intensive jobs and in the end couldn’t keep a roof over my family’s heads. I am privileged in that I have opportunities that many people who ended up where I was do not have. But accusations of privilege are rather precious to me.
The problem with any “freely available” visa is getting people to leave when it expires. I is regularly read some highly amusing outrage by people reporting that someone who has outstayed their visa has been *gasp!* arrested and deported. Well, yes. If you are in a country of which you are not a citizen without permission, then that’s what happens to you. That’s kind of what having a national border means.
I’m sorry, but as much as I dislike Whitman, this does sound a lot like a ginned up story (aka rat-fuck to use Rove’s term). Roll out a press conference making the accusation with a dramatic and emotional ‘victim’, but delay providing supporting evidence. The accusation gets out there and a sizable portion of people never hear (or don’t pay attention to) the analysis of the evidence, which is either weak or non-existent. SOP
I’m not claiming that this is what is happening, but it looks like that is what’s happening. The alternative is that the evidence is going to be metered out slowly to keep the story alive in the media, which is a pretty slimy political tactic too, but not actually dishonest.
Sadly, pretty much anything can be justified by the old “you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight” adage these days.
And yet, if the Republicans started doing the background checks we probably could do, you’d call them fascists and privacy invaders. You’re all getting upset with Whitman, and so easily you forget how many women Clinton left out to dry after nominating them and then finding they had nanny problems. I guess the left will never see what they do. From hanging out with the weather underground murderers or appointing the head of the NY Fed, who presided over the largest domino bank failure in US history and who didn’t report his income to the IRS, Secretary of the Treasury. Sorry for harshin’ yer buzz!