3 Democrats and 3 Republicans — Durbin, Schumer, Menendez, Graham, McCain, and Rubio — "have been meeting quietly" and are about to announce their proposal,
the WaPo frontpages:
The new effort was spurred in large part by the growing influence of Latino voters who strongly backed President Obama and other Democrats in November.
Interesting how that energizes both parties to act. A fascinating political game, which includes not only the reform itself but also — whether the reform occurs or not — the way various political actors look as they relate to the proposal for reform. It's sure to be a garish spectacle. In this political theater, who's most likely to take pratfalls on the public stage?
The senators are expected to call for normalizing the status of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, including allowing those with otherwise clean criminal records to obtain legal work permits, officials said. The group is also likely to endorse stricter border controls and a better system for employers to verify the immigration status of workers.
It was not clear, however, whether the final agreement will offer guidance on perhaps the thorniest issue in the immigration debate: what mechanism illegal immigrants could use to pursue full citizenship.
Here's a chance for Republicans to stop being "the stupid party" — as
Bobby Jindal advised recently — and to become the truly smart party. Don't appeal to fears. Don't resort to ideology. Actually figure out the right answer on the basis of sharp economic thinking, and be prepared to explain it clearly. It seems to me, we have 11 million undocumented immigrants working in this country because they are serving
our needs. My hypothesis is: We don't kick them out because we
want them here, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. That's why we don't get tough. We still
talk about getting tough and kicking them out — and walling out additional migration — because that appeals to emotion and tracks habitual thinking. But what's really happening? What have we really been doing all these years? How can we align the official policy with reality? That's how I'd like to see Republican politicians sharpen up, become the smart party, and show leadership.
Posts
289 comments:
1 – 200 of 289 Newer› Newest»The dirty little secret is that we've reduced the inflation rate by hiring illegals off the books, at illegally low wages and illegally low benefits.
If the illegals all went back to their countries of origin and we had to hire native-born Americans at wages they expect, the price of food would rise sharply, the rates charged by hotels would rise sharply, etc.
Any attempt to put illegals on the books will get shot down by the powerful landscapers' lobby.
Yes, Republicans should just be Democrats and get it over with.
Once the present 11 million are 'normalized' they next 11 million Mexicans will be packing their bags for Del Norte.
Althouse, it isn't fear. It's reality.
Importing millions of low wage workers driver down the wages of middle and lower class workers.
It has no affect on you, which is why you don't notice.
"we have 11 million undocumented immigrants working in this country because they are serving our needs. "
The needs they serve are very simple and basic. The majority of the illegals whose disability applications I reviewed, claimed (!) a second grade education. Most were illiterate in Spanish, let alone English.
The second generation Hispanics descended from illegals are demonstrating the same social pathologies seen in the other poorly educated minority communities.
We have succeeded in reversing the trajectory of immigrant families in 50 years. California tried to limit the benefits available to illegals in the 1990s and the measure passed with 65% of the vote. The state Supreme Court killed it.
Althouse, you do not mention the cost to taxpayers of welfare to immigrants. I don't pretend to be an expert on the topic, but it has to be part of the conversation. What's California at, about a billion dollars per year?
Translated...
Republicans join forces with Democrats to screw American workers.
That's really smart!
Hong Kong has it right. Guest worker visas. As long as you have a job you can stay and work. No retiring in the country, so no paying FICA taxes. Children aren't citizens. Employer pays health insurance.
All sorts of unintended consequences waiting in the weeds with this move. While Juan or Jose might be fine workers, and worth every cent of the $50/day that the contractor pays them will they still be worth hiring at minimum wage + social security + the Obamacare tax? I can see a lot of illegals choosing to stay undocumented because they'd be unemployed if the employer has to pay all the overhead.
The problem here, Althouse, is that this issue creeps into your "discrimination" mania.
In other words, nostalgia for the good old days of the civil rights era.
Who's stupid?
I am a laborer, so that my son may be a laborer, so that his son may be a laborer.
Why even have 2 parties anymore?
Just one, the Demopublicans, redistributing from John to Juan, until both are serfs fighting each other over scraps doled out by the king.
ANYTHING with a Dick Turbin connection can't possiblybe good..
They'll never get credit for it this way. The Dems and particularly Obama will portray it as giving in.
We have 11 million illegal workers in the country to serve a need all right...
Cheap labor.
Importing all that cheap labor reduces the wages of lower and middle class native Americans. And takes away their jobs.
People aren't opposed to this madness because they bear a racial animus toward Mexicans, Althouse. They are opposed because they want to work at a decent wage.
PS: And the comments of EVERYONE who have posted so far are right on tgt..
The basic thing is that Republicans want to define a set of rules and laws which we will follow going forward. Democrats will agree, if all past sins are given amnesty, but then the Democrats will renew their complaints that the law is still unfair.
I'm pretty liberal when it comes to immigration policy. I believe its a net benefit to the country. You can't build a wall high enough to block the overwhelming economic forces pulling immigrants across the border.
Having said that I also agree that while better and broader rules regarding "guest workers" make sense, they won't "control" those forces either
Finally, I've never fully understood how tough immigration laws and enforcement are core conservative issues. Always sounded more like a core union principles.
**EVERYONE who "has" or, alternately, "all who "have"
The demographics in Mexico are such that within about a decade there isn't going to be much pressure to mojarse -- to "wetback it". Much of our immigration problem in the last generation was driven by a massive baby boom of Mexicans reaching working age with no place to work.
The California-Arizona experience with Mexicans is also quite different than that in the rest of the country because their source areas are primarily Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja, which even the Mexicans have considered bandit country for about 400 years.
Here in the Midwest most of our Mexicans come from central and eastern Mexico and they're generally decent hard-working folks making a genuine attempt to assimilate and become estado-unidenses.
And for those of you talking about "illegal" wages, in the two professions I know (horticulture and construction) the Mexicans were about half of them legal and working for $12 to $15 per hour at modestly skilled jobs. Many of my Mexican neighbors have gone home -- falta de trabajo -- and I mostly miss them.
First build a Big F'ing Fence.
"The senators are expected to call for normalizing the status of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, including allowing those with otherwise clean criminal records to obtain legal work permits,"
and what about that portion of the 11 million that don't have otherwise clean criminal records?
I'm simply calling for real economic analysis and not emotion. Some of you are expressing the conventional thoughts and emotions, but I'm saying this is clouding the question and causing Republicans to look like they pander to nativists.
Let's get some straightforward analysis that's smart and tough. Some of you are expressing the fear that low-wage illegal immigrants are hurting the job market, but let's look at what is really happening. I'm saying consider other perspectives on it. If this is what we've been letting happen for so long, it might be happening because it benefits us, whether we want to admit that or not.
Note that I'm not saying let's be empathetic to these people (which triggers the response, no, be empathetic to Americans who suffer in various ways). That's the emotional politics I'm trying to step away from.
I'm saying the GOP should get a solid economic analysis of the whole system and do what is good for the American economy.
The invitation is to be smart.
It seems to me, we have 11 million undocumented immigrants working in this country because they are serving our needs.
Define "our". Having a lot of cheap, unskilled labor around obviously benefits buyers of unskilled labor and hurts native unskilled laborers.
The buyers of unskilled labor are a lot more influential than the unskilled laborers themselves, so we have an endless stream of finger-wagging articles telling us that importing more immigrants and driving down the price of labor for employers is a wonderful, wonderful thing. That to be opposed to it is immoral and tantamount to the dreaded racism.
But for many, many Americans - those who provide unskilled and semiskilled labor rather than buy it - more immigrants means lower wages and a lower standard of living. Maybe the GOP ought to consider speaking those people?
"Actually figure out the right answer on the basis of sharp economic thinking"
Victor Davis Hanson covered this years ago in his book, Mexifornia.
"Not just in its finances but almost wherever you look, the state’s vital signs are dipping. The average unemployment rate hovers above 10 percent. In the reading and math tests administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, California students rank near the bottom of the country, though their teachers earn far more than the average American teacher does. California’s penal system is the largest in the United States, with more than 165,000 inmates. Some studies estimate that the state prisons and county jails house more than 30,000 illegal aliens at a cost of $1 billion or more each year. Speaking of which: California has the nation’s largest population of illegal aliens, on whom it spends an estimated $10 billion annually in entitlements. The illegals also deprive the Golden State’s economy of billions of dollars every year by sending remittances to Latin America.
... The unlawful entry of Mexican nationals into California not only ensures statistically that Mexican-Americans as a group suffer from disproportionate poverty rates; it also means that affluent third- and fourth-generation Mexican-Americans become part of a minority receiving disproportionate state help. As one of my middle-class, third-generation college students once put it: “Without the illegal aliens in this school, I wouldn’t get special treatment.”
This, along with the absolute failure of the Republican Party to directly and ferociously challenge the racial and sexual quotas systems, is why I'm not a Republican.
Essentially, Althouse is advocating precisely what the Democrats want... a declaration that the white middle and lower class is composed of "bigots" who should be excluded from pushing for their economic and political objectives.
Meanwhile, blacks, gays and women should be encouraged to push for their objectives with a vengeance.
This is the ultimate victory of the "bigot" strategy of the Democratic Party. Althouse falls for it. Well, it didn't take much to suck her in, given her incessant romantic nostalgia for the civil rights era of the 60s and 70s.
Althouse, there is no other perspective.
When a Mexican will do your job for 50% of what you want, the American worker gets the shaft.
Are you familiar with math and market economics?
Yeah, sure, fine. Do the math. As long as the math includes welfare.
And color me skeptical, but Paul Ryan did the math. Fat lot of good it did us.
Born-in-America Americans aren't producing enough children to keep the economy going. The children of Baby Boomers aren't having enough children and the next generations are seeing what a terrible economic burden it is to have children. As we age, we need new people to work and to be taxed. Time to adjust. America needs people, and the people who have undertaken risk to come here to work are the enthusiastic volunteers. You may be needing them to care for you in your old age. It might be time to show them respect instead of assuming that they will put up with all hardships just to be in America.
Get smart = admitting that "the rule of law" is capricious and meaningless.
The "bigotry" bullshit sucks Althouse in again.
Big surprise.
Althouse, no matter I present my political and economic objectives, I'm going to be called a bigot. And stupid.
The only response to that is Fuck You!
Thanks for suggesting again that my job on this earth is to take it up the ass for blacks, gays, women and Mexicans.
Thanks Pogo-I was off by an order of 10, apparently.
The idiocy of the open borders movement is revealed by simple "Camp of the Saints" logic. If 11 million "illegals" are fine, then why not 20, 30 , 40, etc? Or what if the bottom 50% (i.e., the least educated and the most in need of social services) of either India or China decided to hop on boats and arrive on our shores? Does anybody even pretend with a straight face that we would retain even a semblance of the Republic created by our forefathers?
To even ask the question is to answer it. So....if the latter scenario is deemed beyond the pale, where, exactly does one draw the line?
Immigration "reform" is like both the abortion and obscenity questions: What's the point of "viability." In the case of abortion we argue about weeks--in re immigration we talk about millions...and the acceptable count is all in the "eye of the beholders."
Time to show them respect...
Althouse pulls out the bigotry bullshit again.
Yes, I've heard all these arguments, Althouse.
They are intended to shut me up. I'm not supposed to advance my political and economic interests like gays, blacks and women. And, now, even illegal immigrants' interests supersede mine.
Thanks!
"Importing millions of low wage workers driver down the wages of middle and lower class workers."
No. Misguided minimum wage laws and the ever-rising costs of legal employment have driven down those wages. Illegals are simply one workaround for that problem. Because, unlike unemployed American citizens, we implicitly recognize that these men and women are smart enough to find work and price their services without the government's mandatory "help".
"When a Mexican will do your job for 50% of what you want, the American worker gets the shaft."
Sounds like a market to me. Maybe leaning toward the free market makes more sense.
It's not fixed what "the American worker" wants. How about wanting something that aligns with market forces? Seems like the problem is the coddling of American workers. Why are you against the pressure of market forces? Do you not buy products that are priced based on the wages the workers accepted? If the products were re-priced to reflect the wages "the American worker" wants, "the American worker" will want more in order to buy these more expensive things.
You are currently living in the world where the 11 million illegals are working, and you say this is bothering you. As if this imaginary other country of yours would work so much better. I thought conservatives looked at reality and market forces and didn't go in for utopian dreaming.
If you think you're being smart: Prove it now.
Ann Althouse said...
As we age, we need new people to work and to be taxed.
That seems premised on the assumption that they will work to support any aging population with which they share little to no kinship. Other cultures have ways of caring for their elders which differ markedly from ours. Social Security was premised on the notion that it took care of our parents and grandparents.
Why should a poor immigrant work his/her butt off to keep an elder in a lifestyle to which it has grown accustomed?
Agree with Palladian.
I am coming to accept, but not embrace, the fact of the death of the US Constitution.
Laws are bullshit, enforced for political reasons. And I am the enemy, the other.
And no, we don't need more people. It's a long discussion, but assuming the answer to the death of the family is importation is foolish and ultimately destructive, as the Muslim takeover of parts of France and England are proving.
Ann Althouse said...
Let's get some straightforward analysis that's smart and tough. Some of you are expressing the fear that low-wage illegal immigrants are hurting the job market, but let's look at what is really happening. I'm saying consider other perspectives on it. If this is what we've been letting happen for so long, it might be happening because it benefits us, whether we want to admit that or not.
I'm a native Califorian, with family from Delano, the epicenter 30 years ago of the United Farm Workers Unionization efforts led my C. Chavez. (my uncle used to rent a home to Chavez)
I don't have hard evidence about the impact of illegals on wages, but I can tell you that Chavez, who is now the Patron Saint of La Raza, was strongly against illegals, and the use of wetbacks (as he called them) in the fields, because they drove down wages for Chavez's legal locals. He was an expert in wage analysis in his industry.
"That seems premised on the assumption that they will work to support any aging population with which they share little to no kinship."
Better get some kinship while there's still a chance or you will be vulnerable and dependent on people who hate you!
Actually figure out the right answer on the basis of sharp economic thinking, and be prepared to explain it clearly
Because American voters have a deep love and understanding of economic principles, and always appeal to logic.
Tenured law professor: a job that will never be threatened by unskilled, low-wage-accepting Mexicans.
How about wanting something that aligns with market forces?
If you enforce the borders and don't allow those 11 million workers in, it's an entirely different market.
Most other countries do this.
"I don't have hard evidence about the impact of illegals on wages, but I can tell you that Chavez, who is now the Patron Saint of La Raza, was strongly against illegals, and the use of wetbacks (as he called them) in the fields, because they drove down wages for Chavez's legal locals. He was an expert in wage analysis in his industry."
If that's true, it makes me wonder who is responsible for the system that has developed over the past quarter century.
The union movement is in decline. Do you want more of it, conservatives, or less.
Maybe the reason Republicans come across as stupid is that they need to say one thing and do another, and that's they way they like it. Tough on immigration is propaganda, and the real policy is to exploit an underclass.
If you want to use that as the criticism.... keep going.
Ann Althouse said...
Born-in-America Americans aren't producing enough children to keep the economy going. The children of Baby Boomers aren't having enough children and the next generations are seeing what a terrible economic burden it is to have children. As we age, we need new people to work and to be taxed.
The solution is to change our imigration policy and move from "family unification" which floods the country with the poor, to, visas for the educated or those who can bring $$$ capital. The Effort of the Canadians to skim off the cream of the Hong Kong businessmen to BC was a great boon to their economy. As Europe stagnates, or the Chinese get agressive toward Taiwan, we should do the same...
"Suck it up and accept your new, meager wages, law-abiding American laborers! Market forces, don't you know! Now excuse me, I've got some skiing to do!"
Tenured law professor: a job that will never be threatened by unskilled, low-wage-accepting Mexicans.
Precisely.
And, gets to pat herself on her back for her racial enlightenment.
If someone can be replaced at their job by a peasant from a village in Oaxaca, they have much bigger problems on their plate than tighter immigration policies can solve.
People come here to work because their services are desired and they fill a market need. A sound immigration policy should find some way to accommodate that simple fact.
Althouse, here is the wiki view:
Immigration
The UFW during Chavez's tenure was committed to restricting immigration. Chavez and Dolores Huerta, cofounder and president of the UFW, fought the Bracero Program that existed from 1942 to 1964. Their opposition stemmed from their belief that the program undermined U.S. workers and exploited the migrant workers. Since the Bracero Program ensured a constant supply of cheap immigrant labor for growers, immigrants could not protest any infringement of their rights, lest they be fired and replaced. Their efforts contributed to Congress ending the Bracero Program in 1964. In 1973, the UFW was one of the first labor unions to oppose proposed employer sanctions that would have prohibited hiring undocumented immigrants. Later during the 1980s, while Chavez was still working alongside Huerta, he was key in getting the amnesty provisions into the 1986 federal immigration act.[21]
On a few occasions, concerns that undocumented migrant labor would undermine UFW strike campaigns led to a number of controversial events, which the UFW describes as anti-strikebreaking events, but which have also been interpreted as being anti-immigrant. In 1969, Chavez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valleys to the border of Mexico to protest growers' use of undocumented immigrants as strikebreakers. Joining him on the march were Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale.[22] In its early years, the UFW and Chavez went so far as to report undocumented immigrants who served as strikebreaking replacement workers (as well as those who refused to unionize) to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.[23][24][25][26][27]
In 1973, the United Farm Workers set up a "wet line" along the United States-Mexico border to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States illegally and potentially undermining the UFW's unionization efforts.[28] During one such event, in which Chavez was not involved, some UFW members, under the guidance of Chavez's cousin Manuel, physically attacked the strikebreakers after peaceful attempts to persuade them not to cross the border failed.
Better get some kinship while there's still a chance or you will be vulnerable and dependent on people who hate you!
Rather naive to think that you can create kinship simply by adopting a politically correct position on immigration. People instinctively know who is their kin and who isn't, it's not something you can circumvent by putting an Obama bumper sticker on your car.
The benefit to employers is they will do low skill jobs for low wages. Can we simply make them citizens and start taxing them, having them pay into FICA, make them subject to labor laws, have them start receiving the soon-to-be Obamacare subsidies for insurance...and still retain their advantage to employers?
"The solution is to change our imigration policy and move from "family unification" which floods the country with the poor, to, visas for the educated or those who can bring $$$ capital."
This assumes that we don't want the group that is satisfied with low wages and willing to work hard for them. If Americans aren't willing to be the underclass, then who will serve that role? Do we not want people doing that? I know we don't like to talk about how the lowest level of workers serve us, but let's talk about it.
I'm hearing arguments premised on sympathy for Americans who won't work at bad jobs. If that's the problem, the answers seem to go in 2 directions: 1. make the jobs better, or 2. limit the safety net so not working is less comfortable than a lousy job.
Althouse wrote:
Maybe the reason Republicans come across as stupid is that they need to say one thing and do another, and that's they way they like it. Tough on immigration is propaganda, and the real policy is to exploit an underclass.
so republicans should be open about exploiting the underclass? that's your idea of being smart?
Better get some kinship while there's still a chance or you will be vulnerable and dependent on people who hate you!
Why should there be no hard consequences for a generation which failed to foresee collective consequences?
If someone can be replaced at their job by a peasant from a village in Oaxaca, they have much bigger problems on their plate than tighter immigration policies can solve.
Wrong.
Poor and low skilled Americans exist. They need jobs.
Their biggest problem is being forced to compete against illegals who will work for 50% of what they demand.
Rather naive to think that you can create kinship simply by adopting a politically correct position on immigration. People instinctively know who is their kin and who isn't, it's not something you can circumvent by putting an Obama bumper sticker on your car.
Exactly! I love love love you people...can't you see it? Now give me my retirement, dammit!
Althouse, this is not a "reasonable" issue.
It's a brass knuckle, let's go back in the alley and settle this issue.
In this case, the old union guys had it right.
Heads need to be smashed. The boss need to have some fear instilled in them.
We've just lost the ability to accomplish this.
In 1986 we were promised that if we gave amnesty to 3 million illegal alliens, we would have strict enforcement from then on and the problem would be solved.
Instead, predictably, by rewarding 3 million we encouraged 30 million (I don't believe the 11 million figure) to sneak in.
Now we are told that if we give these 10s of millions more illegals amnesty, we will get "tough border control" and "enhanced employer verification."
What kind of an idiot do you take us for?
This amnesty will encourage 50 million more to come here. And every cycle, the previous illegals get the vote and their offspring vote and they throw the amnesty gates even wider open for the next group.
So my question is, how many millions more uneducated, unskilled, non-English-speaking, welfare-education-and-health-services-using Third Worlders are we supposed to allow in here?
100 million more? 500 million more? 2 billion more?
Because they will keep coming until they have reduced our standard of living to the level of the Third World countries they came from. At that point there will be no economic reason to come here, and they will stop.
Inviting the Third World to live here does not turn them into First World people. It turns our country, progressively, into another Third World country.
I'm hearing arguments premised on sympathy for Americans who won't work at bad jobs. If that's the problem, the answers seem to go in 2 directions: 1. make the jobs better, or 2. limit the safety net so not working is less comfortable than a lousy job.
LOL. Yeah, that's exactly what will happen! Those 11 million new Democrats will surely support limited government!
If someone can be replaced at their job by a peasant from a village in Oaxaca, they have much bigger problems on their plate than tighter immigration policies can solve.
Spoken like man who has virtually no contact with the left side of the bell curve. Not everyone is capable of being a lawyer or a financial analyst and people without those those capabilities still need to find some kind of useful employment. What do you propose they do if we outsource our unskilled jobs to peasants from Oaxaca?
How illega immigrants are helping Social Security
Why are Conservatives against making even more immigrants pay into the Social Security fund? It doesn't make sense. Why be against something that could be the answer to our problems with declining birth rates as Althouse pointed out. It does smack of bigotry. Why bite off your nose to spite your face?
This assumes that we don't want the group that is satisfied with low wages and willing to work hard for them. If Americans aren't willing to be the underclass, then who will serve that role? Do we not want people doing that? I know we don't like to talk about how the lowest level of workers serve us, but let's talk about it.
You don't think there are enough blacks and whites able and willing to do construction?
At many sites, they can't get jobs because they don't speak Spanish.
Waste of time with Althouse.
The abstract "discrimination" argument trumps everything.
Always.
And, now we have a new compelling argument.
White American women are too fucking lazy and self-interested to pop a baby.
Yeah, we know that, too!
It does smack of bigotry.
The fucking moron argument.
Fuck you, Inga. I hear you burn crosses on your black neighbors' lawns.
That's the rumor!
"Rather naive to think that you can create kinship simply by adopting a politically correct position on immigration. People instinctively know who is their kin and who isn't, it's not something you can circumvent by putting an Obama bumper sticker on your car."
I'm not talking about what people say and taking the politically correct position. I'm talking about getting the official policy aligned with the way we are actually using people.
And "kinship" wasn't my word. I was responding to somebody.
My stance here is about looking at reality. Human beings migrate to improve their lives, and we've done this going all the way back to before we were the species Homo Sapiens. The degree of improvement, these days, is affected by the legal status you will have in your new location, but we're seeing the degree to which that factor has affected people. Whether you're welcomed or hated in the new place is also a factor.
Another reality is that the generations unfold, and in America, the children of illegal immigrants, born here, are citizens, and they participate in this democracy.
Limiting the safety net requires the Democrats to become a smart party, too
The GOP already wants to leave people on their own, remember? They are already happy to starve minorities.
South America is booming compared to North America. This may in time reverse the direction and flow of overall current migration.
Another immigration policy would be to reopen the doors to other nations which Teddy Kennedy helped close in 1965. If there is one thing Republicans can get behind, it's undoing another plank in a Kennedy scaffold.
Althouse, other countries effectively prohibit illegal immigration.
What in the fuck are you talking about?
--Better get some kinship while there's still a chance or you will be vulnerable and dependent on people who hate you!--
We have the revenge president.
You haven't been listening to the elminationist rhetoric, have you?
You're teaching a dead document. And you helped make it so.
The Republicans are idiots if they think they are ever going to win a majority of the Latino vote.
Asian voters voted 75% for Obama.
If you can't get Asians to vote Republican - smart, hard-working, diligent, prosperous Asians - you will never, ever get Latinos to vote for Republicans. Why should they vote for imitation Democrats when they can vote for the real thing?
But the Republican party WILL vote for an amnesty because it is the only thing they can see to do to make a gesture towards pleasing Latinos.
And they will further antagonize conservative whites like me who will not vote Republican because of it. What is the point of voting for Democrat-lite?
And at a certain point, idealistic liberal whites like Althouse will see that the country is becoming more and more Third World, and that non-whites don't vote Republican no matter how much the Republican party panders to them, because they can get real stuff from the Democrats, who are after all basically the anti-rich-white-man party. Being anti-rich-white-man party is the only thing that holds all of those grievance groups together...otherwise they couldn't stand one another.
"At many sites, they can't get jobs because they don't speak Spanish."
Consider this slight edit to your sentence: At many sites, they don't get jobs because they can't speak Spanish.
(Ability to speak a language isn't the same as the color of your skin. You can change it!)
They are already happy to starve minorities.
The political dialogue is so degraded by this bullshit that it has become hopeless.
OK, so middle and lower class white hetero men are the enemy to be silenced and denounced.
I get it. Fuck you!
AA said: "Better get some kinship while there's still a chance or you will be vulnerable and dependent on people who hate you!"
OweBama has been the most divisive president in my lifetime. Has no other equal. He has driven a wedge between the minorities (primarily blacks and hispanics) and the rest of the general population. Kinship? You are in Oz. This crowd hates us and will continue to hate us. Look at their rhetoric.
I have planned not to rely on this gang for my sustenance. If you think I should, take a gander how well the blacks are doing since they developed a kinship with the Democrats.
Ann and the senators both begin with the sensible proposition that the 11 million illegal immigrants (who knows if the number is accurate) will ever be forcibly expelled. Not ever going to happen. So now what?
Ann suggests that an economic analysis, focused on what generates the greatest benefit for the US, is the way to answer that question. Perhaps so -- surely it's one element, and maybe the most important. But that kind of analysis requires lots of data about how that population breaks down in terms of age, education, skill level, language ability, health, and on and on. As far as I am aware that data does not exist (we are talking about illegal immigrants here, and so the lack of data all around is the norm).
An economic analysis might well lead to the conclusion that the US would be better off if some large segment of the total illegal population were forced to leave, either by being expelled or via 'self deportation.' But that gets you back to the starting premise: there isn't going to be any large scale expulsion of illegals because the American voters are too divided for the politicos ever to adopt that policy.
In all events, a key factor that economic analysis ignores is family structure among the illegal population -- families in which some members are illegals and some are not (often but not always children). That is merely one of many factors not captured by a purely economic analysis. Another is the reality that, in a country built by immigrants, there is no consensus and really no desire to treat any subpopulation that's already here harshly.
It's all well and good for some to go on a rant about how awful and unprincipled the current situation is, and to point out the moral hazard of rewarding mass illegal behaviour. All true, and all beside the point, and I hope it makes you feel better. But when you're all done, wrap your head around this idea: a large scale, forcible expulsion of millions of people will never happen in the America we all live in.
Any policy about how to deal with the issue has to start from there.
Althouse, there really is nothing to be discussed here.
White hetero men and their families will either find a way to fight back against you or we'll lose.
That's all there is to it.
There nothing to reason with you about. It's just war, and so far one side hasn't shown up.
Why do taxpayers dump so much money into public schooling without getting graduates capable of speaking a foreign language?!
What an outrage!
Prepare people for the real world: Learn Spanish in high school (or earlier). If that's too hard for us, we are truly pathetic.
Mexico is very tolerant when it comes to illegals....oh wait.
Are you sure the real world will be Spanish-speaking?
Shouting Thomas is doing his "stupid party" routine.
How pathetically small would the GOP be if it played to the sector of voters who think and talk like that?
Kinship?
The government does not and cannot love you.
Importing unrelated people to take their money becaus we have an unsupportable Ponzi scheme of welfare seems to me terribly unethical.
Hey, what we need is more suckers!
Prepare people for the real world: Learn Spanish in high school (or earlier). If that's too hard for us, we are truly pathetic.
What can I say, Althouse?
You're the enemy of my family's self-interest when it comes to this crap.
The only question here is How do I deal with the enemy?
Shouting Thomas is doing his "stupid party" routine.
OK, so fuck you, Althouse.
You're the enemy.
The problem is restricting wages and benefits of American workers too high.
There'd be lots of jobs for Americans at free market wages.
That's how you get started in a first job. Your very limited skills are more valuable than a sufficiently low wage.
As your skills improve, you get paid more, not by altruism but by market forces. You're worth more.
You'll never be able to explain that to the women voters.
Instead McCain and other traitors want to bring in a huge population that won't assimilate.
It's our country. We get to say who lives here, Try that for smart.
Spoken like man who has virtually no contact with the left side of the bell curve.
Not true! Haven't you seen me trade bon mots with people like edutcher? Granted, such interactions are limited, but still, you make it sound like I live in a bubble!
What do you propose they do if we outsource our unskilled jobs to peasants from Oaxaca?
They can work at the market rate or find a way to improve their skills do they can get in a better market environment.
She's just trolling you, ST. Don't take the bait, for once.
The Brits are yammering on about the Poles.....at least that won't be racist.
The best thing we could do is push Mexico to stop being so corrupt. There is no reason for it to be such a struggling country whose citizens flee.
And, no, Althouse, I will not be deterred from regarding you as the enemy and fighting against your efforts to fuck me and my family over because you call me stupid.
We are The Balkans, get used to it.
Althouse, I agree that if the goal is to win or have more members, we should Ll become some form of Democrat.
I know my side will lose, because the US has become a socialist state and there's no going back. That doesn't mean I have to join others at the trough.
"Are you sure the real world will be Spanish-speaking?"
Part of it is. Getting educated, you need to think about your own economic future. If you want to bet on everyone else knowing English, you can try that, but don't whine about failing to qualify for a job where communicating with Spanish-speaking people is a requirement.
And as a taxpayer, spending thousands of dollars a year on educating the children of my city, I expect some useful things to be taught so the next generation can contribute and be productive. What else are they learning? Seems to me getting that second language -- probably Spanish -- is one of the most obvious, specific uses of public education.
It's our country. We get to say who lives here
Not anymore!
Memo to Althouse.
Every hetero white man in American has been called a stupid bigot several million times.
The institution you work for endorses this as policy.
I've developed a thick skin for this tactic. And, I've learned how to work around it.
Althouse wrote: Prepare people for the real world: Learn Spanish in high school (or earlier). If that's too hard for us, we are truly pathetic.
I used to agree with you. But here's why it doesn't work: link. fwiw, Amba agreed with me.
I think that public schools need to figure out how to teach English before they move on to teaching other languages. It's not really a second language when you don't have a first language.
Mexico was settled by the Spanish & The French....ain't gonna happen. The've got their ruling families & it ain't gonna change.
Throw in the drug money......
1 thing my dad always said was we were the escape valve, we cannot have civil unrest on our border.
It might come anyway.
" My hypothesis is: We don't kick them out because we want them here, whether we admit it to ourselves or not."
The problem in politics is figuring out just who that "we" is. The fact is "we" don't agree on anything.
They do help the better off in this country but in general they hurt the lower classes, but if we can get enough votes, who cares.
Keep in mind, 2 of those 3 "Republicans" have made a career out of "reaching across the aisle to their friends in the Democrat Party".
It's one thing to work toward a compromise, quite another to sell out so you can boast a list of "accomplishments" at election time.
There's also the little issue that 2 million illegals have gone home because thing are better in Nuevo Leon than New York and maybe the Demos are getting scared their ace in the hole may be running out on them.
Ann Althouse said...
Let's get some straightforward analysis that's smart and tough.
OK, with the blacks aborting themselves out of existence, the Lefties need a new underclass.
Born-in-America Americans aren't producing enough children to keep the economy going.
55 million dead babies makes a difference, doesn't it? That theoretical right Ann supports.
somefeller said...
People come here to work because their services are desired and they fill a market need.
Cheap labor here and no employment there. It's ending because of declining population there and economic mismanagement here.
A sound immigration policy should find some way to accommodate that simple fact.
We had that until Teddy Kennedy came along.
"I know my side will lose, because the US has become a socialist state and there's no going back. That doesn't mean I have to join others at the trough."
Whatever you want to do within the life of your mind in your waning years, Pogo, the GOP, in this 2 party system, will go forward somehow. It won't simply be a holding pen for old people grousing about the past. I remember my father, in the 1960s, expressing his alienation from politics based on the way FDR ruined the country.
The country will go on, and there will be 2 parties. The GOP will readjust somehow.
Obama care helps illegal, off the books, workers to the great disadvantage of Americans who want to work, and who would work for less, but can't get hired because they have to be paid the way the government dictates.
Democrats did that.
Americans are hated today, but the African Americans and the Hispanics are not the ones who hate us. Those groups are predominantly faith filled Christians.That is not the fault lines where we find enemies.
We are hated by Muslims, atheists in the EU, and earth worshiping Neo-Malthusians in world government just because we are identified with 250 years of faith filled Christianity.
Hispanic people are kind and loving. Their only crime is speaking Spanish.
So, it's war, Althouse.
Sticks and stones ain't gonna work against me.
I've got a problem in that neither political party wants to serve my political and economic interests.
And, now the Republicans are officially disowning me.
Fuck them, too.
I know how to work the system solo. I didn't have my ass kissed like you did for playing the feminism bullshit. I'm stronger than you. I don't need a tit to suck on.
I keep reading or hearing about the jobs illegals take from "Americans"...e.g., whites and blacks, male and female.
Let me select one trade that is a necessary service and hires many illegals (as well as paroled convicts) in my area: Roofing.
How many white or black Americans of either sex, other than parolees, are chomping at the bit for those jobs?
Before we argue that jobs are being taken, first identify what jobs those are and just who will really perform them, and at any price.
The Chinese own us. SoCal is being bought up by them now, that's 1 reason SoCal real estate is booming.
Ohh, having the Spanish learn Chinese would be very interesting.
African-Americans are moving out of Cali, this could get really interesting.
Yeah, the problem is the low-skill jobs are filled by the least educated Americans. If you have a GED and need to wash dishes, you probably aren't going to have excelled in your foreign language class
You have to factor in reality if you want to brainstorm for the smart party.
Lemme get this straight. Hispanics vote Dem by about 70% - 30%, but the GOP is stupid if it doesn't support adding 11 million new Dem-leaning voters?
And if you're going to claim that Hispanics will just love the GOP if only they support amnesty, please remember that the last round of amnesty occurred under a Republican administration and how much did the GOP benefit from that?
How many white or black Americans of either sex, other than parolees, are chomping at the bit for those jobs?
Prior to the era of massive illegal immigration, those roofing crews in Woodstock were entirely white, and most of the men involved were musicians I worked with.
Now, those crews are entirely illegal Mexicans.
Next question!
The senators are expected to call for normalizing the status of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, including allowing those with otherwise clean criminal records to obtain legal work permits, officials said. The group is also likely to endorse stricter border controls and a better system for employers to verify the immigration status of workers.
It was not clear, however, whether the final agreement will offer guidance on perhaps the thorniest issue in the immigration debate: what mechanism illegal immigrants could use to pursue full citizenship.
The first paragraph is just a re formulation of Bush's immigration plan. Register workers, make companies use registered workers and punish companies that don't. This is a good thing. But the downside will be, if we do register workers, will companies be required to pay minimum wage for these workers? Doesn't that defeat the whole point of why these workers are valuable? Because businesses that can't afford to pay minimum wage can hire people willing to work? If we raise these wages to minimum wage levels how will this effect the work force that we want to have for these crapptastic jobs? and if we don't raise the minimum wage, but have legalized the idea of paying under inimum wage, what's to stop more and more companies from moving most of their jobs to the less than minimum wage variety? all those unskilled American laborer s will now be competing with 11 million u skilled Mexican laborers.
The second paragraph though is where it completely falls apart. The idea of making these undocumented workers legal is ludicrous rous. Why? because these workers do the jobs hat Americans won't do. If they are American they won't do those jobs, and we will need a whole new influx of unskilled workers to do those jobs. And now we'd have 11 million more people competing for Jobs that American will do. What is the unemployment rate again?
Let's just annex Mexico and to Hell with it.
"Laws are bullshit, enforced for political reasons."
Law takes account of the real world. If it didn't, it wouldn't be accepted and respected even to the extent that it is. It's not all texts and abstract reasoning. It can't be. You may think you'd like it better if it was, but you wouldn't. You just imagine that you would. You feel that you would. Now, your feelings are part of the real world to which law adjusts. It's a complicated and mysterious process. That doesn't make it bullshit. That makes it awesome.
The capriciousness of the powerful is awesome!
While Althouse correctly points out the incentives we already create for illegals to work the low end of the labor market, these new laws would be incentivizing a whole new generation of illegals to come up and maybe integrate, maybe not. We're also incentivizing politicians to pander for "brown" votes.
This may be the "smart" move for the Jindals and McCains and the current "moderate" push, but it's at some cost to conservative principles, and it's moving to where the Left is trying to shift the culture.
Will Republicans even get the votes? Probably not, and certainly not right away.
This is the McCain who chose Palin to pander to women and played the hip, maverick Senator on David Letterman too often.
California, here we come.
This diverse salad still needs a binding agent. What is the agent?
This discussion demonstrates the republican problem. The party must progress while the members want to regress.
I remember my father, in the 1960s, expressing his alienation from politics based on the way FDR ruined the country.
Pogo feels that way now, in 2012. It's amazing how long these things can last.
The country will go on, and there will be 2 parties. The GOP will readjust somehow.
Very true. If the Democrats can go from being the party of segregation in the South to the party of racial and cultural minority rights and aspirations, anything can happen in our party system. Maybe the GOP and the Democrats will develop into something more like the Tories and Labour in Britain. That would be fine with me. Maybe I could become a Republican again!
Via Insty....why can't we all just get along?
Lee Goodman of Stop Concealed Carry was one of the panelists at the Chicago-area anti-gun forum featured in my prior post, Veteran stands up for 2nd Amendment at Chicago anti-gun forum.
During that event Goodman and Iraq war veteran Kevin Tully had a back-and-forth discussion of the 2nd Amendment. In a video I took, which now has over 160,000 YouTube views, Tully is seen calling for an end to partisan divide in the country, and giving an impassioned defense not only of the 2nd Amendment, but of 1st Amendment rights.
After the event, Goodman wrote a blog post titled ”Overthrowing the Government“ in which he analogized the audience standing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to Nazi beer hall conduct (emphasis added):
The Illinois State Rifle Association had asked their people – who love their guns more than they care about other people’s lives – to go to the forum. They showed up and, on a pre-arranged signal, interrupted the moderator’s introductions by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. There’s nothing wrong with pledging allegiance, but this demonstration was designed to take control of the meeting and display their power. You may have seen something like it in movies like Cabaret and The Sound of Music, which chronicle how Nazis would intimidate patrons of beer halls and other public events by singing, saluting, scowling, taking names, and following up with beatings.
I was not there when the crowd stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, as there was a delay at the door getting in, but to compare this crowd of patriotic Americans standing for the Pledge of Allegiance to a Nazi beer hall Putsch is pretty outrageous.
Let me select one trade that is a necessary service and hires many illegals (as well as paroled convicts) in my area: Roofing.
How many white or black Americans of either sex, other than parolees, are chomping at the bit for those jobs?
In my area of the country, at least, there are still US-born roofing crews, but they're getting squeezed by competition from Mexican crews of questionable legality.
It is not really accurate to say that roofing is a "job Americans won't do", it's just that they won't do it for the same rock-bottom wages as a crew of illegals. Remove the illegals, the wages for roofers go back up and suddenly, it's a job that Americans will do again.
1. It wasn't the "illegals" who ran this country like a banana republic for the last 50-60 years. We citizens made the mess, and we need to fix it.
2. We need to get the non-Hispanic divisions of the Democratic Party to agree that the word "illegal" indeed means illegal, i.e., no driver's licenses, no social services of any kind, and liable to deportation wherever and whenever found.
(This is also what I had to sign that I had read and clearly understood before I was allowed to enter legally.)
3. What to do about those who already are here. Deporting 10-12 million people is not going to happen (so get a grip on yourself and see 1. above). Also forget the jabber about paying back taxes and penalties, etc.; few of these people are in any position to comply with this, nor is our government competent to collect it. The simplest thing is to just say OK, come in and declare yourself, and we will issue you a "green card" and pretend you just arrived legally. That is for those who want to become citizens. Others may just want a visa and a temporary work permit.
There is nothing new about this. Before WWII lots of people traveled back and forth between the U.S. and their home countries as the relative job situations changed.
3. We need to establish relations with Mexico so that we can have reasonable assurances that Juan and Rosa are who they say they are. This is not the pre-WWII world anymore.
4. The "anchor baby" thing is just "policy" and should be abandoned; it is not required by the Constitution. The babies themselves is a Constitutional principle that I am loath to see abandoned, and I think it would take a Constitutional Amendment anyway, which is not an easy thing to pass.
Good teaching Professor. That full night's sleep has you fit for combat this morning.
Sure there are a lot of immigrants taking jobs, but the fact is Americans as a group don't want to work anymore, and we have created such a comfortable safety net that they don't have to. Unless we exclude them from the safety net, we will just exacerbate all of our problems including winning elections.
This talk of being "smart" to win elections is blind to what just happened in November. Obama ran the most dumbed down campaign in my lifetime.
Sure, I think at least one party should be honest and serious, but the suggestion that that will win elections is not suggested by the evidence. Educator, reform your profession if you want that.
The capriciousness of the powerful is awesome!
Yes, the Althouses will tell us what to do, lest we express our bigotry.
She knows what's best for us.
Althouse has bought the emerging Democratic Party offensive. All the issues are settled! Only stupid bigots would protest.
She's been working the bigotry angle her whole life and it has worked for her and her son.
As all people do, she believes that the strategy that worked for her will work for everybody else.
I've learned to fight back against the Althouses by mastering the role of the Lone Ranger. I don't have any advice to other white hetero men about how to fight back against the Althouses. I've been fighting against the Althouse style middle manager my entire life. Won more than I lost.
You're on your own, just like me.
I ask again, what is the binding agent?
Ann althouse wrote:
"Prepare people for the real world: Learn Spanish in high school (or earlier). If that's too hard for us, we are truly pathetic."
well what about people from countries other than Mexico. They should learn Spanish AND English?
Or should we do away with English altogether and just make Spanish our native tongue?
Why, in althouses world does preparing for the real world not involve making Spanish speakers learn English?
Last I heard Althouse, America wasn't Mexico and there are immigrants from other countries that aren't Spanish speakers.
Labour recently apologized for calling people who opposed their immigration policy "racist", and admitted the increased immigration hurt low skilled workers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9348653/Labour-knew-immigration-was-out-of-control-seven-years-ago-says-former-minister.html
I think it's correct to point out that Althouse hasn't worked in the low end of the labor market in a while, either.
She sounds a little like the rich lady who's really cheap with the help, because she's showing them the virtues that got her ahead.
Maybe there's some white majorititis there too, as she's probably just hearing the anti-immigration grumbling that comes from living in a dominant white culture. They can afford a little 'diversity.' and get hip to what's going on.
It seems to me, we have 11 million undocumented immigrants working in this country because they are serving our needs.
sinz52 pretty much hits the nail on the head right off the bat. The "11 million undocumented immigrants" (Why can't we call them "illegal immigrants"? Or, talk abut "undocumented guns" instead of illegal guns?) are here because they serve the needs of the rich via providing low wage/low benefit/low cost labor.
15 years ago farm workers in Kentucky could get $8-$10 an hour cutting and putting up tobacco. Once illegal immigrants came into the picture, that dropped to $5-$6 per hour. More Americans went on welfare and the illegal immigrants did the work.
In various forms, fashions and industries, this has gone on all over the country. Just another way the rich help the rich get richer. The Democrats played it smarter because they lied about what's going on and told a story that go the stupid middle and lower class liberals to vote for them.
If we go a bunch of qualified immigrants to come into the country and be college professors for half of what college professors are being paid now, maybe some people would understand.
Ann Althouse said...
Laws are bullshit, enforced for political reasons.
Law takes account of the real world. If it didn't, it wouldn't be accepted and respected even to the extent that it is.
It's not accepted and respected, it's enforced.
The IRS will tell you internal revenue is based on voluntary compliance. Try not volunteering next April 15.
The immigration mess was based on law that "takes account of the real world", I grant you. Teddy Kennedy & Co saw a chance to create a new underclass that could be harvested for the Democrats because they'd never get out of poverty.
No offense, but you need to get out of the ivory tower for a year or two and take a look at the real world. Idealism is a good thing - I'd rather see someone like you on the Left than all the trolls here who care nothing but power and the emotional kick it gives them, but reality is pretty compelling.
When, as The Blonde's oldest nephew puts it, you can get a couple of days' manual labor out of Jose and Jos B and Jos C with $100 and a case of beer, we're talking about a system where everybody loses but the Lefties.
. This talk of being "smart" to win elections is blind to what just happened in November. Obama ran the most dumbed down campaign in my lifetime.
Amen.
Good teaching Professor. That full night's sleep has you fit for combat this morning.
Very true. I'm thinking she had some carnitas for dinner last night.
Hagar:
"2. We need to get the non-Hispanic divisions of the Democratic Party to agree that the word "illegal" indeed means illegal, i.e., no driver's licenses, no social services of any kind, and liable to deportation wherever and whenever found.
(This is also what I had to sign that I had read and clearly understood before I was allowed to enter legally.)"
Ha-ha. Therein lies your problem, my friend.
See California.
If we go a bunch of qualified immigrants to come into the country and be college professors for half of what college professors are being paid now, maybe some people would understand.
This would provide the added comic benefit of giving us the opportunity to deride Althouse as a bigot.
Big Mike said...
Let's just annex Mexico and to Hell with it.
This is more likely. In 10 to 20 years Mexicans in California will have sufficient numbers to vote (or use other methods) to secede and become part of Mexico.
The fact is we don't need any more immigrants, legal or illegal. If you lower the "safety net" so that it pays to take a job (more than be on the dole), people will take those jobs. If you don't pay people to do nothing, they will work. They will call you names, but they will work. Althouse, from her tenured position in academia will look down on those who say this, but it's true.
We have lots of unemployed skilled and unskilled people in this country. THEY don't benefit from cheap illegal competition.
Meanwhile, blacks, Mexicans, women, gays, academics all tend to vote for the "more left" party. It does Republicans, if they want to be the "more right" party (do we need two more left parties?) no good to have more left leaning voters. Being nice to illegal immigrants will not make them vote for conservatives.
McCain and his lapdog Lindsey, why am I not surprised?
The Democratic party is moving further away from such thinking, especially so under Obama, which is why good ol McCain, picker of Palin, hip, centrist RINO type who can go on Letterman, could never appease the media and crowd.
If the culture is moving in that direction, then fine, but have no illusions that that culture is moving further away from conservative principles.
Be smart Republicans, commit suicide.
If we go a bunch of qualified immigrants to come into the country and be college professors for half of what college professors are being paid now, maybe some people would understand.
Colleges hire qualified immigrants as professors all the time. The Green Card process has a track for people with unique skills. That hasn't led to a drop in wages for professors because both the immigrants and the native-born can command a certain market wage for their high skills.
"If you enforce the borders and don't allow those 11 million workers in, it's an entirely different market."
Just add unicorns!
Just add unicorns!
Other countries effectively police their borders.
Clearly, the problem is simply lack of political will.
Democrats have taken to bewailing about income inequality. Guess what one of the major causes of income inequality is. Illegal workers that drive down wages.
The Democrats are far more invested in serving the rich than the Republicans ever have been. Hell, just look at all the rich, Soros, Bloomberg, Clooney, Kerry, Democrats out there. And, their primary tasks is to oppress the masses by robbing them of their rights.
Be smart Republicans, commit suicide.
Yes, that is what Althouse is prescribing!
Althouse saith, "Consider this slight edit to your sentence: At many sites, they don't get jobs because they can't speak Spanish.
(Ability to speak a language isn't the same as the color of your skin. You can change it!)"
So native born citizens of an English speaking country need to take Spanish lessons in order to get jobs roofing houses?
Jaysus wept.
Our Hostess ought to get out of the comfy bubble of the Madison, WI professoriate and visit some of the real world.
Hey Althouse, you and Meade should do a road trip to California.
Just throwing it out there.
Shouting thomas said ...
Next question!
Woodstock? WOODSTOCK?! Never mind ...
Thanks, you affirmed my point. The "eras" you cite have passed by, twice in fact. I am referring to today. Today, how many *musicians* would work in roofing?
I don't have an answer, but I think the conversation is worth having, with all opinions evaluated. Bagoh20's points on safety net effects and education are worth discussion.
We are a nation of immigrants, unquestionably. In our first century no immigrants were documented in the fashion of today. It is humorous that the descendent's of those undocumented folks now seek to just pull the door shut. Immigrants are going to keep coming, how we receive them or not doesn't matter...they WILL come.
There is no easy answer, or we'd already have established it in the first amnesty go-round.
"Althouse, other countries effectively prohibit illegal immigration. What in the fuck are you talking about?"
Try reading and thinking. And try calming down first. Try figuring out how to look at a problem from a new perspective. Saying "fuck" doesn't make you look smart and doesn't incline me to respond. The answer is already in the text. Reread. Get back to me when you are less stupid and less abusive. You don't deserve a response at this point.
I ask again, what is the binding agent?
Pico de gallo!
The union movement is in decline. Do you want more of it, conservatives, or less.
Speaking personally I would like unions to adjust to the 21st century. They should have adjusted twenty or twenty-five years ago, but they seem to think it's still the 1950's. News flash to garage: it ain't.
The immigration fiasco doesn't just affect the bottom end of the political spectrum.
I spent my entire career competing against Indian H1B programmers, who also drive down wages at the skilled level.
There is no shortage of skilled programmers in the U.S. that needs to be addressed by issuing H1B visas.
Steve Jobs was a major figure in lobbying for the H1B visa fiasco.
Colleges hire qualified immigrants as professors all the time. The Green Card process has a track for people with unique skills. That hasn't led to a drop in wages for professors because both the immigrants and the native-born can command a certain market wage for their high skills.
Not in the same way illegal immigrants are hired in other industries. If universities could hire at the lower wages, like other industries do, we'd see that happen. The supply isn't there. Pay grades are set in stone, etc.
But, you miss my point, if professorships were subject to the same forces that the jobs illegal immigrants take are, we'd being hearing a different song from college professors.
Oh, fuck, Althouse, you say fuck plenty.
In case you haven't noticed, the schoolmarm lectures don't work on me.
In this case, you're just the enemy of my and my family's interests.
There's nothing to reason with you about.
If you ask me, the way the system is now is already working as well as possible for everyone except the poor who want jobs, but even for them the public dole is better than a minimum wage job, and if they keep voting Dem, it will stay that way. The rich get their cheap labor, and the middle class get their cheap goods and services.
Of course there is a huge fiscal price to paying for sloth and cheating, but if one party can hold power by keeping that pyramid game going, then it's all good.
Remember: "Better than nothing is a high standard."
Really, you conservative just have to stop this silly affection and emotion about following rules and pretending the law is anything more than a game to be won or lost at. Just put down the rule book and concentrate on winning. Nobody cares about the rules anymore.
But, you miss my point, if professorships were subject to the same forces that the jobs illegal immigrants take are, we'd being hearing a different song from college professors.
Althouse, a middle class white woman, has been working the feminist discrimination racket for her entire life.
You have to add in this wild card.
"we have 11 million undocumented immigrants working in this country because they are serving our needs"
Please do not say 'our'. The two groups pushing for legalization are the US Chamber of Commerce (on the right) and the Democrat party (on the Left.
One wants their cheap labor, the other wants their vote.
Ask an American-born tradesman whether the illegals are serving 'our' needs.
Hey Ann@9:24!! You are right on. With the baby boom bubble passing through retirement in full swing, in a few years we will be at "worker shortage". With people living longer and retirement approaching for boomers, we are reaching a point where, as I read somewhere, almost 50% of Americans will be on SS! Who will be paying in and at what rate??
As your Presidential candidate here is my plan for immigration. 1) Illegals who are here must declare whether a) they are here to become American citizens. They will be issued their own SS card, they will be required to learn of American history and MANDATORY English Classes. Or b)they are only here to work. They will be issued a guest worker card. They will pay a flat income tax 15%, they will be SS and Med (and employer will match) but they will receive no benefits unless provided and paid for by employer. Finally, Any money sent out of the US is subject to a 15% "export tax"
Increase border surveillance to keep out any MORE without going through the above procedure!
Althouse dodged the point:
"Althouse, other countries effectively prohibit illegal immigration.
by getting all outraged at the use of the word "fuck". SO remove that word and now answer the point.
By the way this is Althouse in her professorial mode where she assumes she has the right "smart" answer but then doesn't answer any of the challenges to her assertions.
Why don't YOU try to look at the problem outside the prism of your own leftism Althouse? Maybe you haven't thought it through enough.
Democrats would love to unionize the newly minted low-skilled low wage workers
Doesn't the SEIU support "immigration reform"?
Again, though, that would eliminate the low-wage portion of the equation.
Answering myself. Yes, they do:
http://www.seiu.org/a/immigration/seiu-principles-for-comprehensive-immigration-reform.php
Just add unicorns!
Yep. Because expecting American politicians, Democratic especially, to act in the best interest of their citizens is about as realistic as believing in unicorns. Helping the rich donors get richer and serving their other desires is all that matters.
Just recently immigration from Asia exceeded that from Latin America, so you have to rethink a lot of stuff to be "smart".
Hey Ann@9:24!! You are right on. With the baby boom bubble passing through retirement in full swing, in a few years we will be at "worker shortage". With people living longer and retirement approaching for boomers, we are reaching a point where, as I read somewhere, almost 50% of Americans will be on SS! Who will be paying in and at what rate??
As your Presidential candidate here is my plan for immigration. 1) Illegals who are here must declare whether a) they are here to become American citizens. They will be issued their own SS card, they will be required to learn of American history and MANDATORY English Classes. Or b)they are only here to work. They will be issued a guest worker card. They will pay a flat income tax 15%, they will be SS and Med (and employer will match) but they will receive no benefits unless provided and paid for by employer. Finally, Any money sent out of the US is subject to a 15% "export tax"
Increase border surveillance to keep out any MORE without going through the above procedure!
Althouse why don't you, rather than lecture us answer some of the points raised by others about what you seem to be saying.
For one:
So native born citizens of an English speaking country need to take Spanish lessons in order to get jobs roofing houses?
That appears to be what you're saying? And note this doesn't just apply to native born citizens, but from immigrants from countries other than Mexico who may not speak Spanish. You want them to learn TWO languages just so they can get a job roofing houses?
Or, are you saying we should do away with English and make Spanish the default language of this country?
Maybee wrote:
Doesn't the SEIU support "immigration reform"?
Again, though, that would eliminate the low-wage portion of the equation.
Would it though? I'm wondering, does Althouse think those 11 million should now be paid "a living wage"
Has she thought through the math on that question?
Born-in-America Americans aren't producing enough children to keep the economy going. The children of Baby Boomers aren't having enough children and the next generations are seeing what a terrible economic burden it is to have children. As we age, we need new people to work and to be taxed. Time to adjust. America needs people, and the people who have undertaken risk to come here to work are the enthusiastic volunteers. You may be needing them to care for you in your old age. It might be time to show them respect instead of assuming that they will put up with all hardships just to be in America.
Good grief. And you're accusing other people of just spouting "conventional wisdom"?
And "emotionalism", lol - when your entire viewpoint is based on the premise that people who disagree with you are "bigots" and "afraid of Mexicans", rather than people who may have thought a lot harder and longer than you have about the issue, including, yes, the economic nuts and bolts.
I see nothing in this thread that indicates you know anything about this issue beyond what you've imbibed from the regular-scheduled NYT or WaPo immigration propaganda/fluff-piece. That would be OK - why should you be well-informed on a subject that doesn't engage you deeply? But what's with the disinterested deep-thinker pose?
And fer cryin' out loud, any politician who is anti-amnesty or in any way supports immigration restriction is going to be tarred as "pandering to nativists", no matter what.
"Just add unicorns!"
That's exactly what you are doing when you expect the Congress to fix this. Just leave it alone. Everybody already knows how to cheat at the current game and now you want to make a new game. Be smart and work on something worthwhile, like making a budget. Ha!
Yes, Althouse is pulling the Cartman "Respect My Authoritah" bullshit now.
bagoh20 wrote:
Just recently immigration from Asia exceeded that from Latin America, so you have to rethink a lot of stuff to be "smart".
Maybe to get a roofing job you should learn Spanish, Chinese (or whatever Asian language is dominating our immigrant pool) and English.
Maybe now the Mexicans have to learn that Asian language to get a roofing job.
Maybe American citizens need to learn 5 languages in school.Spanish, Asian, English and maybe two others just so they can get a menial job.
OR, here's a thought. Why don't these immigrants learn ENGLISH?
what a crazy concept!
Would it though? I'm wondering, does Althouse think those 11 million should now be paid "a living wage"
Has she thought through the math on that question?
If she has, she is not sharing her conclusions.
Dadvocate said ...
The Democrats are far more invested in serving the rich than the Republicans ever have been ...
Agreed. That has been true my entire life. How does that simple fact get revealed to a majority of the electorate in each state?
Ha, going point bagho. Perhaps we should be questioning the motives of people who want to "solve" this. That should be the starting point.
Well if anybody should, it should be teachers and professors who learn a bunch of tongues. You know, you just repeat all your classes 4 times a day in different languages 4 sets of materials, books, test. C'mon be smart.
Ah, the ivory tower law professor growing fat off the federally backed loans putting law students into massive bankruptcy proof debt for worthless law degrees graces us with advice on how to stop being so "ugly" when it comes to immigration.
Fuck you.
There really isn't anything else to say.
Things must be the way they are because the majority wants it this way, no?
What is The Professor's vision?
What does she think will happen?
Fuck you.
There really isn't anything else to say.
Yes, it really is just an all out war, but only one side has bothered to show up.
Engish is smart to know because it is the neutral language. You can go almost anywhere if you know English. This is what I've learned living in 4 counties in the past 10 years.
Althouse babels in tongues.
Althouse's advice to learn Spanish is the ultimate absurdity.
In my travels around the world, I've noticed that every educated person speaks fluent English because that is the world standard for doing business.
BTW - there was an article a few years ago about California possibly dropping ESL because they found out putting kids in an intestive English program not only raised their scores, but taught them to speak it faster.
I prefer no dual citizenship anymore. Just look at what the Canucks went thru in was it Syria or Lebanon, I can't remember.
AA: ...try calming down first. Try figuring out how to look at a problem from a new perspective. Saying "fuck" doesn't make you look smart and doesn't incline me to respond.
Why on earth do you think the perspective you're offering here is new to any of your readers? You could show them a little respect by assuming that they're familiar with the hoary establishment talking-points you're retailing. You're not "inclined to respond" because of a "fuck"? Sure, whatever.
The problem with any changes to the law is that we have liberals. They will invariably turn any smart changes into dumb fiscal policy as soon as possible. It's what they do.
Emotional policy on the left is the reason that the right gets emotional about this. It's not our first rodeo.
When we were deciding between Hong Kong & Thailand to visit, we chose HK because they speak English.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The signs were in both............
Apple growers, chile pickers, and carpet layers we need; more college professors not.
There's actually a ton of English in Thailand too, Seeing Red. For next time.
I agree with Althouse that staying calm in a battle of wits and twits is important.
[See Inga, last night]
Chrisnavin suggested a road trip to California for Ms Althouse and Meade. I'd say be sure including a few days hanging out with fellow academic Victor Davis Hanson at his farm and touring the area.
Much to learn there.
I'll bet I know more immigrants and more illegal ones than anyone in here, and I speak Spanish more during my day than English. They don't want us to learn Spanish. They just want to have as many advantages as possible, just like you would.
Any policy should be designed to best serve Americans, not immigrants, period.
I love these people, but they came here for what we already have. They may not realize it,(and most don't), but Progressives are ruining what they came here for. We should fight that, win or lose.
Staying calm is important, chickelit. But as so often happens in such debates, the calmer people in the debate got fewer responses from the person who called for the debate.
I agree with Althouse that staying calm in a battle of wits and twits is important.
Althouse's suggestion that my use of the word "fuck" is a disqualifier was just a tactic on her part. I was winning. She has no answer.
Would you like me to produce a dozen instances of Althouse useing the work "fuck" in precisely the same manner?
She does it all the time.
Shouting Thomas: 1
Althouse: 0
The answer is to find specific Democrats hurting their labor from South of America.
Every Republican must the repeatedly talk of the suffering of the poor at the hands of the rich Democrat who hurt them and continues to do so.
We could start in Hollywood or Washington.
Althouse's suggestion that my use of the word "fuck" is a disqualifier was just a tactic on her part. I was winning.
Declaring victory is always a convincing move on the internet.
I love these people, but they came here for what we already have. They may not realize it,(and most don't), but Progressives are ruining what they came here for. We should fight that, win or lose.
Poser Alert!
Well. That will teach her to come into our blog all puffed up and start trying to learn us stuff.
I'm still trying to figure out how law that is capricious and enforced for political gain is "awesome", unless it is Old Testament-like, as in "terrible, evil, juggernaut", rather than Keanu Reeves in 1990.
I see no useful approach other than that of Althouse's dad, embittered and not smart. I'll play the game, as one must, but see no reason in participating, as the trajectory is unsustainable.
So tell me Garage, what do you think I'm posing about? Do think I'm really a closet Progressive?
"Ann suggests that an economic analysis, focused on what generates the greatest benefit for the US, is the way to answer that question."
Yes, Ann. Greatest benefit for which part of the US? When gas prices crashed in the eighties, and the economy roared under Reagan, Houston and Dallas were devastated because they were heavily economically dependent on oil. Those cities are now balanced among different economic sectors, thus less vulnerable. You can't have a Grand Five Year Economic Plan without creating winners and losers. You have chosen the highly skilled over the less skilled. Fine. Own it.
I know too many guys thrown out of construction work, etc. Who aren't going to become accountants as a career restart. And, not living in Madison, WI, I know that blacks and lower skilled whites suffer the most from these policies. I don't know what the answer is, but Iam not sanguine about the future of our country as currently constitued.
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