Aliens R-U-N-O-F-T here

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My strong feelings on the matter are simple.

We're all fine with buying cheap agricultural products, getting a deal on home renovations or garden work, or having a nice cheap nanny. We really like cheap new construction homes. Businesses like it, customers like it, and the government turns a blind eye because a pool of cheap labor helps push the economy along by limiting wage inflation in high volume, low cost products and services.

We used to employ our children and young teens to do a lot of this labor, and there were also a lot of manual laborers with pride who wanted to provide for their families. Now the pride seems to have evaporated and of course we have child labor laws to prohibit putting kids to work.

So who the heck is going to do all these jobs that just wouldnt get done or be economical to purchase if the price rises above a level well below a living wage?

Vacuum....something to fill it with!

Where I have problems is when someone decides to rail against the brown people for overloading our education or health care systems or claim they bring health risks or crime into the country. Mostly because there arent any facts to indicate that any of that is actually true, excepting some specific border areas which for some reason continue to do what they're doing in the face of this awful menace.

I mean, its fine for Consuelo to watch our kids for $4 an hour while her husband fixes our sprinklers for $20, but how about they just keep their kids at home instead of at school and if anyone gets sick, hike back to mexico to see a doctor, ok?

And forget about the dream of becoming a real citizen, earning a real wage and living above boards. I mean, this country wasnt founded on the basis of entrepreneurial peoples backs who wanted to make a dangerous trip, fight the authorities and earn a better life, right? I read this absolutely ridiculous malarkey about requiring them to pay a huge fine, be required to learn a new language, dance the mambo with a live tuna on their heads, and be on a waiting list for 5 years and then we'll think about it.

You know, all the same stuff we required of their european and asian predecessors!

Our problems with education are primarily related to parents who fail to engage with their children on learning, respect and responsibility. Our problems with health care are primarily with bureaucracy, fat insurance companies, fat pharmaceutical companies, and fat people.

But its a shitload easier to wind up your patriotism until it covers up your narrow minded prejudice than to address and resolve the actual problems.

So certainly theres a burden on the US taxpayer. Theres also a bunch of benefits.

But a lot of people think they're dirty little people that arent as good as we are. We're fine with sucking the life out of them but we dont want to give anything back. We're the railroad barons of the 21st century.

 

[ERD50]

My strong feelings on the matter are simple.

We're all fine with buying cheap agricultural products, getting a deal on home renovations or garden work, or having a nice cheap nanny. We really like cheap new construction homes. Businesses like it, customers like it,....

So certainly theres a burden on the US taxpayer. Theres also a bunch of benefits.

Well, in my view, it is best when products/services reflect their true costs.

If the products/services are priced cheap, but we pay the costs through other taxes, it distorts the free market forces.

-ERD50

 

[Caroline]

Awesome, CFB.

 

[Walt34]

You know how the system works Walt...nobody wants to be the supervisor that reports to the chief that the number of tickets written went down in the last month, that the number of arrests and convictions dropped, that the headcount in the jail was low, or that a weak number of illegals were rounded up. The answer is likely the same: Surely there must have been a few people breaking the law we didnt work hard enough to catch, or at least a mouthy white guy we could have picked up?

I guess it depends on the jurisdiction and their priorities, ethics and professionalism. I'd have been fired for doing stuff like that. But the PD funding wasn't dependent on anything the PD did. Linking PD funding to PD activity is a recipe for ethical disasters, as in some small towns all or part of traffic ticket fines go to the town's treasury. So what is the mayor going to tell the officers to focus on? In MD that was forbidden for exactly that reason - all traffic fines went to the state general fund, and nobody I worked with cared about the state general fund.

Talking with another guy from a small town PD about why he left - pretty much the BS you describe and worse - I was astonished at the environment he worked in, he was equally astonished at mine. I cannot say that where I worked was perfect, it wasn't. There are people involved and people will never be perfect. But I can say that we tried, and I am proud to have worn that uniform.