Wednesday, April 12, 2006

and Even More Ellipses...

Thank You For Smoking, is not about what you go there thinking it is... There is apparently a gay and lesbian organization in Australia named Dayenu... "I cannot deal with a box of rocks"... Really I think I would have liked the offer... My latest foray into Chang's Spicy Chicken was somewhat spicier than I remember... Leave it to my class to find a way to have a SNAFU with paints on a class project... The thing is, when you volunteer to do something at a meeting often people don't forget - then you have to actually do it... We are having people over, huzzah!!! I believe I may have firmly entered the mopey phase of the academic calendar... I don't know why, but it seems like Spike and Bravo are conspiring against me... Which do you think will win the battle for my wife's affection: Lost or a Seder??? It looks like I am looking for professional prominence rather than tenured TDs... Whichever parking lot I have to move to, I will have to pay more money. Why am I not surprised... Must be real hard to be a righty and come up with a position on illegal immigrants, all that low cost labor... I really can't think of any reason to watch The Real World anymore, and I used to really like it. Now I'm an 8th & Ocean guy... Next week is carnival, I can't wait to see what that does to parking... I believe that the current state of my garage in unacceptable... When did it get that late???

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

> Must be real hard to
> be a righty and come
> up with a position on
> illegal immigrants, all
> that low cost labor

Not as hard as you might think. I can't speak for anyone else but if hiring more expensive (and legal) workers means I have to pay a few more bucks for a loaf of bread or some tomatoes, I'm cool with it.

David said...

Isn't that an undo outside influence on how someone runs their business?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure what you're asking. I don't see enforcing our immigration and border laws as unduly interfering with the way people run their businesses any more than enforcing child labor laws interferes with the way people run their businesses. (In fact, child labor laws are a more direct interference than immigration laws are.)

That being said, I don't see the whole border controversy as primarily an economic one. First and foremost it's an issue of national security. In the course of my job I've had occasion to talk with agents of ICE and Border Patrol and they talk about how 10 years ago, between one and five out every 100 illegals caught along the border would be what they call OTM (other than Mexican) and of those, they were usually from other Latin American countries like Guatemala or Honduras. Now they're finding a ratio of 20-40 per 100 are OTMs and they aren't from Latin American countries anymore. They're from countries like Pakistan, Syria and Afghanistan. Ranchers along the border routinely find Islamic prayer rugs and Arabic newspapers discarded on their land. And when it's reported, the politicians and upper-level officials in the government just don't want to hear it, just like they didn't want to hear the FBI field agents who were telling them they had Middle Eastern guys taking flight lessons who had no interest in learning how to land the plane.

All this hand-wringing over national security and the "war on terror" is absolute nonsense if no effort is made to secure our borders. And I take issue with the idea that Americans are "racist" for attempting to do so (as many in the media claim). For some reason, we're the only nation in the world that's expected not to control its own borders and national security. Every other nation has rather strict border and immigration laws compared to the USA but when we attempt to enforce the ones we have (let alone toughen them up a little to bring them in line with the world norm), we're called "racists".

And the ultimate standard of hypocrisy on this issue is Mexico itself. If I wanted to apply for a work visa or permanent residency in Mexico City as a US citizen, it would be extremely difficult to secure the necessary legal approvals to do so (and forget about getting a Mexican driver's license as a foreign national). And if I went down there anyway without legal approval and violated their immigration laws, I could get serious jail time for doing so.

How can we possibly be racist for attempting to mirror laws that Mexico itself has enacted? Or are they racist, also? And if so, why does no one ever mention that fact?

David said...

I guess theres a part of me that says "must be hard to be a righty and have an opinion on child labor" except that there really is no conflict there. With illegal immigrants its a conflict between national security and corporate freedom. With child labor there's no conflict. I'd assume that at their core rightys would have to be against child labor laws, OSHA, overtime... anything that mandates how they run their outfit.

I agree with you about border security and the economic issues and all the chaff in the arguements.

Anonymous said...

Well, a person can be a conservative without adopting the most extreme aspects of right-wing philosophy, just as one can be a lefty without having to be a full-on communist.

Anonymous said...

How so?

Anonymous said...

...oooh shiny things!

-d