However what Peggy learned, and John and Ken missed, was that the Supes never voted for this. It turns out that this was a court-approved program, which means that this is the result of a state superior curt decision, and NOT the OC Supes. But don’t worry. Chris Norby went on John and Ken today, and the shock jocks are now commanding their droneslisteners to direct their obscenity-laced calls to the court. Now ain’t that klassy, or what?!
OK, OK, so this IS a real problem. Our personal information is being outsourced to some Mexican company. Should we be outraged? Yes. What should we do about it? As I said earlier, we should rethink our trade policies.
Do I think trade is good? Yes. Do I think globalization can lift the developing world out of poverty AND help our nation continue to prosper? Yes, but ONLY if we do it right. This means that we don’t forbid developing nations from subsidizing any of their industries while we continue to subsidize our own mega-corporations. This means that we treat other people in other parts of the world with the same respect that we treat our own people. This means that we respect the natural resources of every nation, not just our own. Oh yes, and this means that we don’t allow our mega-corporations to raid other societies’ economies and force these people from the developing world to become economic refugees that get labeled as “illegal aliens” as soon as they cross our border looking for a better life.
So John and Ken don’t like our misdemeanor tickets being processed in Mexico. OK, neither do I. What can John an Ken actually direct their listeners to do that wouldn’t just solve this little problem, but the BIG problems of immigration and the outsourcing of every good American job? How about reforming NAFTA to make North American trade fairer for American workers AND the Mexican people? But will these Republicans ever be interested in constructive solutions that get to the root of the problem? I doubt it.
Your “constructive solution” Andrew of blanket amnesty was overwhelmingly rejected by the American people. Let’s try enforcing the law. It will work if it’s tried.
I’m glad you think outsourcing our personal info to corrupt Mexican companies is not a good idea. We agree on that. We also agree about our ridiculous trade policies like NAFTA.
OK, so you want to “enforce the law”, Allan? Are YOU ready to tell your neighbors to stop picking up migrant workers at Home Depot to install the marble tiles in their master bathrooms, and start hiring union workers to do this work? Are YOU ready to tell the restaurant that you’re willing to pay more for your steak so long as they hire dishwashers from this country AND pay them a living wage? Are YOU ready to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share into Social Security, as it isn’t right that we allow “illegals” to pay into the trust fund? Are YOU really prepared for life without poor brown people… Really??!!
I’m glad to see that you at least agree with me on NAFTA and outsourcing. But are you ready to start hiring American workers and pay them a decent American wage? Think before you answer that.
Employers might have to pay higher higher wages if they enforced immigration laws. That’s a good thing. You know Andrew you’re probably to young to remember, but Americans actually filled most of these jobs before the mass invasion began over twenty years ago. Most of these jobs are entry level jobs that were done by kids in high school for a summer job or right after they got out of school to help make ends meet. What do you think happens around the country where illegal immigration hasn’t overwhelmed municipalities yet? These jobs are done by Americans. Once Reagan and the Democrat Congress gave out a blanket amnesty in 1986, the floodgates were opened. And to answer your question…no I have never hired any day laborers ever.
What does “fair share” mean to you? I have a good idea, but i would like to hear you say it.
I got news for you about Social Security and Medicare. They’re going to go bankrupt if the current trends stay the same. Our generation will probably not see a dime of it. I guess with the way the dollar is plummeting from the Fed’s inflationary policies, we won’t have to worry about these programs anyways because our dollar is becoming worth less and less every year.
OK, so we both agree on something. We’d like to see US workers being paid living wages. So what can we do? We can enforce our labor laws already on the books, and require employers to pay their workers the legal minimum wage. What else can we do? We can stop allowing our huge agribusiness conglomerates from ripping off Latin America.
Do you think these immigrants would come here if they didn’t have to? I don’t think so. I think they’de be quite happy to stay in their homelands if they could actually make a decent living there.
Oh yes, and regarding Social Security and Medicare, here’s some straight talk. If the $97,500 ceiling on the payroll tax were lifted, there wouldn’t be ANY “Social Security Crisis”. And if we stopped allowing the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to be raided to pay for “preventive wars” abroad and tax cuts for people that don’t need them, we’d have no problem with Medicare. It’s really that simple.
If the Republican Party actually had a better grasp on economics, I’d doubt we’d be in this much crap.
If we really wanted to help our Southern neighbor Mexico, we should encourage all the Mexican citizens to go back to their own country and start a revolution there and get rid of their corrupt system. Right now all Mexico is doing is exporting their decent people who can’t make a living there because the gov is so corrupt. The only way things will change is if Mexico’s citizenry rises up and overthrows their gov. I’ll leave you with my Ron Paul elevator pitch:
If you want four more years of war, inflation, and the systematic destruction of the Bill of Rights, you can vote for Rudy McRomney or Hillary Clobama. If you want peace, commerce, honest friendship with all nations, our borders secured, and government according to our Constitution, you can vote for Ron Paul
In a perfect world, we could just do that. But then again in a perfect world, the US would not have allowed agribusiness conglomerates and other huge multinational corporations to screw the Mexican people and rip apart their economy under NAFTA. And after all, as we’re finding out now, Mexico’s problems ARE our problems. That’s why we need a comprehensive solutions that includes giving Mexico a fairer shake on trade. Again, giving Mexico a fairer shake means our workers won’t suffer either.
OK, and I do appreciate Ron Paul’s stand against the continued occupation of Iraq. What I DON’T appreciate is that he doesn’t seem willing to build constructive relationships with the rest of the world. Believe it or not, we CAN do that. Bush just thought he could be the world’s police force. We can’t do that, but we CAN have free AND fair trade if we so choose. And you know what? We CAN encourage democracy in the rest of the world WITHOUT alienating it.
We just need to rid ourselves of the old politics of despair, and bring back the politics of hope that helped found this great nation. That’s why I like Barack Obama. Oh yes, and with GREAT foreign policy and economic advisers like Samantha Power and Joe Stiglitz advising Barack, I’m confident that President Obama can start healing our ties with the rest of the world come 2009. 🙂
Actually Allan, the majority of the American people believe undocumented workers should have a path to citizenship. But as the Latino population continues to bloom, please continue the anti-Immigrant stance. It will turn these millions of new citizens Democratic.
Right on, Dan! I think most Americans are sick and tired of the race-baiting in the immigration debate. I think most folks just want to see the problem solved. That’s why we need a comprehensive solution. Reform the trade regime, streamline the process, and make it affordable and accessible to immigrants, and we suddenly have the problem solved! 🙂
Hi Guys! Here I am, the token Mexican. Mass Invasion? give me a break, that’s the vocabulary that screams hate to everyday Latinos, not problem solving. Invasion. I envision guns and riots everywhere. I don’t see any blood spilled here in the OC. It’s probably safe to say my Apache ancestors resided here before Allan Bartlett’s ancestors’ bloody, disease-ridden “mass invasion” … And Dan is right. I used to be a registered “Reagan” Republican. However, with the extremist Neo-Republican “invasion” banter alongside pointing blame at the problems, and not coming up with solutions, i.e. fixing U.S. TRADE policies ala Andrew’s suggestion, I gladly switched my political affliation to Democratic–and an active one too! 🙂
Right on, Elise! These anti-immigrant extremists always like to blame everything on the poor brown people. However, they never try to actually fix the problem that’s causing all the poor brown people to come here.
So how do we fix the problem? Make the “free trade regime” fairer for the developing world. Help Latin America fully emerge from the economic chaos that we helped cause. Streamline our immigration process, which means fixing the backlog and making the legal process more affordable and accessible. If we do all of this, the problem’s solved.
But you know what? I don’t think these grandstanding Republicans want to solve the problem. I think they like to use the “brown menace” to scare white voters into voting GOP. But hey, their strategy is backfiring as Latinos (and all other level-headed voters) ditch their fearmongering nonsense. Hopefully, this can all result in a Democratic President and Democratic Congress who will FINALLY implement these real solutions that will actually fix this conundrum. 🙂