The enemy of my enemy can still be my enemy
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House conservatives criticized President Bush, accused the Senate of fouling the air, said prisoners rather than illegal farm workers should pick America's crops and denounced the use of Mexican flags by protesters Thursday in a vehement attack on legislation to liberalize U.S. immigration laws. Full story
Holy shit, someone agrees with me (at least on the prisoners idea). Unfortunately it's conservatives, but I'm still opposing Bush. I'll take it.
Holy shit, someone agrees with me (at least on the prisoners idea). Unfortunately it's conservatives, but I'm still opposing Bush. I'll take it.
posted by Luke McIntyre at 3/31/2006 01:38:00 AM
3 Comments:
I think America has a responsibility to take on as many immigrants, legally, as our economy will allow. I also think that there wouldn't be such a rush of people from Latin America to the US if we ("we" meaning companies and the consumers who promote them) didn't take advantage of workers in third world countries the way we do. It is a horrific truth that it's cheaper to pay an extremely low wage to factory workers in Southeast Asia or Latin America than it would be to house and feed slaves in America.
That said, I think it's insane that people accept illegal immigration as a part of our economy. I agree that our immigration policy is part of the problem and we should be taking on more people legally, but illegal workers hurt our economy. They don't do the jobs that no one else will do, they do the jobs that no one else will do for illegally low wages. There are alternative, legal solutions to any hypothetical jobs that people "don't want to do."
There are many arguments in favor and in opposition to illegal immigrant workers, which I don't need to get into individually. I say if we are going to go with a guest worker program, which only makes the situation worse for every single side, or something similar to that then every worker should be paid the same wage. Immigrant workers shouldn't be allowed an unfair advantage because they have no laws protecting their wages. Pay them the same so we erase that advantage, then workers will be hired based on skill and desire to work. In a level playing field, the best worker wins.
That would be a quick synopsis, though I probably left a few things out.
Also, what do you think Phil?
I'm more or less with you on this, Luke.
Anybody who thinks there are jobs "Americans won't do" has never been to a trailer park or housing project. I've met Americans who are OVERJOYED to be washing dishes and scrubbing toilets for minimum wage. If it's the difference between keeping the lights on or having them shut off Americans are willing to do whatever they have to do - as long as they'll be paid a fair wage.
Of course it does not surprise me that our president doesn't get this...but I'm glad that there are Republicans who do. It's things like this that make non-religious conservatives hate the president as much as the most hard-core lefty. There's very little that's traditionally conservative about the president's policies -- definitely not economically conservative.
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