21st April 2010, 1:09 AM
ABF, I agree with some of your points and actually go further on a few things I'll get into in a sec, but I will say this. Illegal immigrants almost certainly are taking jobs legal citizens want when we have as high an unemployment rate as we currently do. Certainly they aren't jobs you or me would do, but when you don't have much of a choice, or your skills are limited, that's what you do.
That said, there is ONE sort of job that only an illegal immigrant CAN take, the one that pays well below minimum wage. It's not that that legals couldn't take them, it's that when they do, they have the law as an option (though not all are going to be in a good position to take advantage of it). An illegal immigrant doesn't have that option, they'd be found out. As much sympathy as I may have for that, a job market for such low salaried employees certainly does take possible jobs from the legal citizens.
Oh, just investigating any "suspicously hispanic" people is not just illegal, it's downright racist. I do believe it's plausible for someone to dislike illegal immigrants purely on the standpoint of not paying taxes and being outside the system in many other ways. However, the more I talk with the average person I meet that doesn't like the illegal problem, the more I realize that the majority of them really are just plain racist. They go on and on about how much they hate their various ways of life, families packed into small houses and so on (things I would add I don't honestly care about). The big hot button end-all argument seems to be "it hurts my property values".
I'd like to say something about that. After thinking about this for a long time, I've finally decided that I DON'T CARE ABOUT PROPERTY VALUES. Property values aren't an actual thing, they're just the value the public at large puts on your stuff, and if I don't care that a lot of people are suddenly unwilling to buy one company's record players because Sony's new CD just destroyed that intellectual property's value, do you really think I'm going to care that your house probably won't sell all that well? That's the least important thing when it comes to that. I care if a neighbor is doing something that literally damages property, or endangers people, or even simply is very annoying like playing music really late at night. However this big huge argument that "my property is being devalued" as though they are literally stealing money, is complete nonsense. Yes, I can see you being upset, but it's not them, it's the racist people that wouldn't want to live NEXT to them. You can't blame someone for someone else decided they don't want to live next to them. It's an idiotic argument and a cheap excuse to want "those people" out.
I would also add that the argument from ANY company that they can't do business without breaking the law holds no water with me. Let them fail if they can't find a business plan that doesn't involve paying employees below a decent income. There's plenty of other businesses failing that have perfectly legal business plans. I seem to remember another time in our nation's history where businesses made the argument that without really cheap labor they couldn't stay in business... Remember how that turned out?
Darunia, I can respect that you don't like tax money going in any way to help people who aren't paying taxes, but the fact is, legal representation is a guarenteed part of our legal process, and it IS to be applied to anyone being tried in our courts. It makes no distinction saying if they aren't a citizen, those rights can be violated. If the courts need to appoint a lawyer in their defense, so be it. The same would be done for a legal citizen brought to court who never paid any taxes (I happen to know such a person).
As for them not learning English, well everyone's got an opinion on that, but if you ask me, it's not something the law needs to care about. It's a social issue. It's in any immigrant's best personal interests to learn American English. That's for sure. Also, it certainly is awkward to speak with anyone that doesn't know the language. That's also true. However to be downright MAD at them, that's really not going to help anything, is it? If a business wants to provide a spanish translation for things, that's the open market responding to the needs of a growing demographic. What's wrong with the free market responding like that? Sometimes you go to a restaurant and the person taking your order doesn't speak English. Don't get mad at the immigrant, get mad at the business for making a poor business decision, but it IS their decision to make. :deal: If you go to an area where most people speak spanish, guess what? You're the outsider, and you can't expect too much. If most of them are illegals, you have the annoyance compounded with them not contributing tax money, yes, but again the language barrier is a social issue.
Society does change over time. If we made every single illegal a legal immigrant, a lot of them are still going to speak spanish. At first, it's really in their interest to learn English, and some will. There is also a chance that enough of a spanish community will develop that within it, a lot of people don't need to learn english, and they can live their whole life speaking spanish, a language they DO need to live in that sub culture. It's really no different than what most english speakers already do. In the end, one or the other will become dominant in our society, and there is a chance, small though it may be, that spanish MIGHT just win. Then in the future that'll just be how it is. It's just the natural progression, things change, and if we reach that point where most people speak spanish, though some still speak english, do you really want to be so stupid as to argue "well they should all learn english" even though some people will say "those people just need to learn spanish, it's what everyone else speaks, and it's so annoying ordering a burger from some englishman who can't speak a word of spanish" but they wouldn't say it like that, because that sentence was english.
My point is, whatever happens should just happen as a natural result of social interaction. Sometimes you'll be inconvenienced by someone who doesn't speak clearly in your language, but that's just how it goes. No need to bother the law about that. It's the legal status of the immigrants that's actually the issue here.
The way I see it there's a few options. The first is to expedite the immigration policy. If anyone in Mexico can become a citizen in a process that takes weeks rather than years, then we should have nearly entirely legal citizens coming in from Mexico. Maye that'll just make the cultural "problem" explode, the biggest issue being what economic impact so many would have, but really I doubt it'd be that much worse considering that when most can't get in legally, they just get in anyway. At least this way, they are paying taxes.
Another would be some sort of actual aid with the Mexican government. The Mexican society DOES have well off people, and the bigger cities do have plenty of middle class, it's the sheer difference between their middle class and their poor, far greater than the difference in our's, that is the bigger part of the problem. Their ability to control crime is another big factor, and their organized crime is gaining a larger foothold in some of the southern states. If a concerted effort was used to help bolster the Mexican police force so they could actually squash their organized crime, and perhaps if they could start helping their own poor, they wouldn't feel the need to come here.
Of course, another option I've wondered about is this. What about our nation offering to start gaining a few more states? Canada's a nice candidate for starters. They're basically our attic anyway. We could then focus on expanding our basement. I'm not talking about conquest, I'm talking about starting some sort of negotiations. If Mexico IS America, the issue becomes moot. They're reduced from illegal immigrants to... Okies.
I admit the expansion idea is appealing to me for one more geographical reason. If we did that, no longer would it sound so egocentric to call ourselves "Americans" when there's more to North and South American than just the US. It would just be an accurate description for the whole thing. We'd be the Federation basically. Face it, the UN is a toothless organization, more of a peace conference than any sort of acting body. Forming an ACTUAL global government, one deserving nation at a time, is a big step in the right direction. There'd be some requirements, the place up for candidacy must respect certain rights and already have a certain level of infrastructure in place before being considered.
We Earthicans would then all be united... under the GREAT TASTE OF CHARLESTON CHEW!
That said, there is ONE sort of job that only an illegal immigrant CAN take, the one that pays well below minimum wage. It's not that that legals couldn't take them, it's that when they do, they have the law as an option (though not all are going to be in a good position to take advantage of it). An illegal immigrant doesn't have that option, they'd be found out. As much sympathy as I may have for that, a job market for such low salaried employees certainly does take possible jobs from the legal citizens.
Oh, just investigating any "suspicously hispanic" people is not just illegal, it's downright racist. I do believe it's plausible for someone to dislike illegal immigrants purely on the standpoint of not paying taxes and being outside the system in many other ways. However, the more I talk with the average person I meet that doesn't like the illegal problem, the more I realize that the majority of them really are just plain racist. They go on and on about how much they hate their various ways of life, families packed into small houses and so on (things I would add I don't honestly care about). The big hot button end-all argument seems to be "it hurts my property values".
I'd like to say something about that. After thinking about this for a long time, I've finally decided that I DON'T CARE ABOUT PROPERTY VALUES. Property values aren't an actual thing, they're just the value the public at large puts on your stuff, and if I don't care that a lot of people are suddenly unwilling to buy one company's record players because Sony's new CD just destroyed that intellectual property's value, do you really think I'm going to care that your house probably won't sell all that well? That's the least important thing when it comes to that. I care if a neighbor is doing something that literally damages property, or endangers people, or even simply is very annoying like playing music really late at night. However this big huge argument that "my property is being devalued" as though they are literally stealing money, is complete nonsense. Yes, I can see you being upset, but it's not them, it's the racist people that wouldn't want to live NEXT to them. You can't blame someone for someone else decided they don't want to live next to them. It's an idiotic argument and a cheap excuse to want "those people" out.
I would also add that the argument from ANY company that they can't do business without breaking the law holds no water with me. Let them fail if they can't find a business plan that doesn't involve paying employees below a decent income. There's plenty of other businesses failing that have perfectly legal business plans. I seem to remember another time in our nation's history where businesses made the argument that without really cheap labor they couldn't stay in business... Remember how that turned out?
Darunia, I can respect that you don't like tax money going in any way to help people who aren't paying taxes, but the fact is, legal representation is a guarenteed part of our legal process, and it IS to be applied to anyone being tried in our courts. It makes no distinction saying if they aren't a citizen, those rights can be violated. If the courts need to appoint a lawyer in their defense, so be it. The same would be done for a legal citizen brought to court who never paid any taxes (I happen to know such a person).
As for them not learning English, well everyone's got an opinion on that, but if you ask me, it's not something the law needs to care about. It's a social issue. It's in any immigrant's best personal interests to learn American English. That's for sure. Also, it certainly is awkward to speak with anyone that doesn't know the language. That's also true. However to be downright MAD at them, that's really not going to help anything, is it? If a business wants to provide a spanish translation for things, that's the open market responding to the needs of a growing demographic. What's wrong with the free market responding like that? Sometimes you go to a restaurant and the person taking your order doesn't speak English. Don't get mad at the immigrant, get mad at the business for making a poor business decision, but it IS their decision to make. :deal: If you go to an area where most people speak spanish, guess what? You're the outsider, and you can't expect too much. If most of them are illegals, you have the annoyance compounded with them not contributing tax money, yes, but again the language barrier is a social issue.
Society does change over time. If we made every single illegal a legal immigrant, a lot of them are still going to speak spanish. At first, it's really in their interest to learn English, and some will. There is also a chance that enough of a spanish community will develop that within it, a lot of people don't need to learn english, and they can live their whole life speaking spanish, a language they DO need to live in that sub culture. It's really no different than what most english speakers already do. In the end, one or the other will become dominant in our society, and there is a chance, small though it may be, that spanish MIGHT just win. Then in the future that'll just be how it is. It's just the natural progression, things change, and if we reach that point where most people speak spanish, though some still speak english, do you really want to be so stupid as to argue "well they should all learn english" even though some people will say "those people just need to learn spanish, it's what everyone else speaks, and it's so annoying ordering a burger from some englishman who can't speak a word of spanish" but they wouldn't say it like that, because that sentence was english.
My point is, whatever happens should just happen as a natural result of social interaction. Sometimes you'll be inconvenienced by someone who doesn't speak clearly in your language, but that's just how it goes. No need to bother the law about that. It's the legal status of the immigrants that's actually the issue here.
The way I see it there's a few options. The first is to expedite the immigration policy. If anyone in Mexico can become a citizen in a process that takes weeks rather than years, then we should have nearly entirely legal citizens coming in from Mexico. Maye that'll just make the cultural "problem" explode, the biggest issue being what economic impact so many would have, but really I doubt it'd be that much worse considering that when most can't get in legally, they just get in anyway. At least this way, they are paying taxes.
Another would be some sort of actual aid with the Mexican government. The Mexican society DOES have well off people, and the bigger cities do have plenty of middle class, it's the sheer difference between their middle class and their poor, far greater than the difference in our's, that is the bigger part of the problem. Their ability to control crime is another big factor, and their organized crime is gaining a larger foothold in some of the southern states. If a concerted effort was used to help bolster the Mexican police force so they could actually squash their organized crime, and perhaps if they could start helping their own poor, they wouldn't feel the need to come here.
Of course, another option I've wondered about is this. What about our nation offering to start gaining a few more states? Canada's a nice candidate for starters. They're basically our attic anyway. We could then focus on expanding our basement. I'm not talking about conquest, I'm talking about starting some sort of negotiations. If Mexico IS America, the issue becomes moot. They're reduced from illegal immigrants to... Okies.
I admit the expansion idea is appealing to me for one more geographical reason. If we did that, no longer would it sound so egocentric to call ourselves "Americans" when there's more to North and South American than just the US. It would just be an accurate description for the whole thing. We'd be the Federation basically. Face it, the UN is a toothless organization, more of a peace conference than any sort of acting body. Forming an ACTUAL global government, one deserving nation at a time, is a big step in the right direction. There'd be some requirements, the place up for candidacy must respect certain rights and already have a certain level of infrastructure in place before being considered.
We Earthicans would then all be united... under the GREAT TASTE OF CHARLESTON CHEW!
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)