Immigration

[Urbane Guerrilla]

. . .it is the rich who employ the Mexicans, and the Plantation owners who stand to profit the most from an entire underclass of indentured servants for whom they have to pay zero benefits.

That is, the total cost of employment of such employees is low. A too-great total cost of employment means less hiring and more joblessness. See the 15% unemployment rates over in Europe for a textbook example.

The opposite case, of course, means maximum employment, though it doesn't necessarily do much by itself for greater pay.

[Shocker]

. . .it is the rich who employ the Mexicans, and the Plantation owners who stand to profit the most from an entire underclass of indentured servants for whom they have to pay zero benefits.

Actually, the fact that they don't pay them benefits shouldn't even be an issue. No employer is required to supply any sort of benefits to their employees, legal or otherwise. That’s what makes it a benefit. Healthcare? Not required. Retirement plan? Not required. All an employer is required to provide for their employees is a safe work environment and a comparable wage that meets the minimum wage.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Which is precisely how I feel about the Democrats. On the national level, the Jackass Party would rather fight a war for the White House than the war on terror, which is the most singularly inappropriate setting of priorities I've ever seen a group of Americans take, barring, of course, the Communist Party USA. The Dems are engaged in private empire-building while the Republicans are defending the Republic from bigots and jerks who break skyscrapers and made us bleed worse than Pearl Harbor.

So shit on the Democrats -- a useless lot of stupid donkeys. Shit on the Democrats twice -- they are very slow learners, and will require powerful stimulus to reform themselves back into being real Americans.

The Republicans are defending against bigots and jerks? How, by cleverly allowing them a major voice in their party? Is it some sort of sting operation?

If fighting the war on terror means setting up the world's largest terrorist training camp, then it's a big success. Of course, the current adminstration's success in finding the world's tallest muslim hooked up to a dialysis machine consists of invading the country 1000 miles away from the one suspected of harboring him, spending hundreds of billions in an attempt to 'fix' it, and placing the whole cost on the national credit card to insulate voters while saddling their children with a crushing national debt.

Considering this, the Democrats are right in assuming that the greatest threat to our nation is letting another incompetent into the White House.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Since it's been hijacked already...
My brother is a dyed in the wool Republican and even a minor elected official on the Republican ticket. But, he votes Libertarian because he's so disgusted with the direction the republicans have drifted.

[mjohncoady]

Originally Posted by Shocker

All an employer is required to provide for their employees is a safe work environment and a comparable wage that meets the minimum wage.

Not exactly accurate. The term "benefit" refers to all non-wage or salary compensation. Most employers are required to contribute to social security, purchase workers compesation insurance, and contribute to an unemployment fund. These all count as benefits.

An employer can avoid these expenses by entering into a cash arrangement with an employee and this is somewhat common in certain jobs such as housekeeping and lawn/garden work. The problem for the employer, of course, is accounting for the expense -- he cannot very well deduct the salary if it is off-the-books.

Interestingly, and I apologize for digressing here, a great many undocumented immigrants obtain forged documents suitable for employment -- social security card and driver's license for example. The current immigration law, in force since 1986 or so, requires the employer to verify his employee's identity, check the card and one other source of documentation. So, on the face of it, he employs a "legal" person, pays social security, unemployment, and workers compensation on that persons behalf, and books the wage and expenses. All appears above-board. In short, while there are certainly some businesses that avoid benefit expenses by using undocumented employees, many -- maybe even most -- gain no such advantage.

Perhaps the improperly documented workers work for lower wage. I am unaware of anyone attempting to measure wage levels but those who are attempting to measure the problem, estimate some 11 million undocumented persons live here and that 92% of them have jobs. This implies that there are indeed a great many job openings that would go wanting in the absence of these folks. Perhaps we should be reconsidering our process of admitting persons so that we would have a better knowledge of exactly who is here.

[Munchkin]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Which is precisely how I feel about the Democrats. On the national level, the Jackass Party would rather fight a war for the White House than the war on terror, which is the most singularly inappropriate setting of priorities I've ever seen a group of Americans take, barring, of course, the Communist Party USA.

This is a typical republican talking point. The Dems are fine with fighting a war on terror... We should be hunting down Osama instead of killing our troops and iraqis... This administration lied to start a war....lied about outing a CIA operative that was working undercover in Iran .... breaking laws by spying on americans with no search warrents.. I can go on and on. The President isnt above the law, even though "the decider" seems to think he is. He is a disgrace to the office.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

The Dems are engaged in private empire-building while the Republicans are defending the Republic from bigots and jerks who break skyscrapers and made us bleed worse than Pearl Harbor.

private empire building? you think thats the DEMS? Wow... okay..

regarding the "breaking skyscrapers", if yourereferring to 9-11, Iraq had nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

So shit on the Democrats -- a useless lot of stupid donkeys. Shit on the Democrats twice -- they are very slow learners, and will require powerful stimulus to reform themselves back into being real Americans.

Youre entitled to your opinion...even if you just repeat the crap that people like O'Rielly spew.

[Munchkin]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Since it's been hijacked already...
My brother is a dyed in the wool Republican and even a minor elected official on the Republican ticket. But, he votes Libertarian because he's so disgusted with the direction the republicans have drifted.

Ive read about a lot of die hard republicans going that way. The ones that believe in the basic ideals of the party but arent willing to be dragged along by the BS thats happening now.

[Shocker]

Originally Posted by Munchkin

Ive read about a lot of die hard republicans going that way. The ones that believe in the basic ideals of the party but arent willing to be dragged along by the BS thats happening now.

Ok guys, I'll come clean. I am a registered Republican. However, and I feel this is more important, is that I am first a conservative, and then a Republican. I am not going to vote along party lines and I am not going to agree with everything the Republican party does. I am going to follow my beliefs and ideology and vote for candidates who share those same beliefs, values, and ideology. I honestly don't care if they are Republican or Democrat as long as their ideology matches closely with mine.

[Shocker]

Ok so anyways...back onto topic. I received this in my e-mail today - not really sure if this is a real quote or if it even happened like this, however, I do think that what the substance of the message says is very much correct and could possibly put some perspective on the immigration debate we are having now. This is supposedly a quote, taken from Teddy Roosevelt way back in 1907 about his feelings on immigration.

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

-Teddy Roosevelt, 1907

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Shocker

Ok guys, I'll come clean. I am a registered Republican. However, and I feel this is more important, is that I am first a conservative, and then a Republican. ~snip

What I hear most often is exactly what you're saying,except with "fiscal" inserted in front of conservative.
They became Republicans because they wanted less government intrusion in their lives and feel betrayed.

In all honesty, it's hard to see how any party could deliver on that promise, with the increased complexity of our lives and decreased elbow room, that's only going to get worse barring the plague or something. But that said, they don't have to spend like drunken sailors.

TR's speech was right for the time. The immigrants coming here then were bunching up in sections of the big cities, "Little Italy", "Little Poland", "Little Timbuktu".....

In general these people worked hard to be self sufficient, to educate their kids, to become proficient in English (we all know how hard that is ), and to become real Americans. They didn't want to be hyphenated.

As TW pointed out, in a generation or two, the offspring of those immigrants did great things for this country and themselves. If you come here illegally, most of the chances to do those things are voided from the start.
You can make money...... but you can't be an American.

[Munchkin]

Originally Posted by Shocker

Ok guys, I'll come clean. I am a registered Republican. However, and I feel this is more important, is that I am first a conservative, and then a Republican. I am not going to vote along party lines and I am not going to agree with everything the Republican party does. I am going to follow my beliefs and ideology and vote for candidates who share those same beliefs, values, and ideology. I honestly don't care if they are Republican or Democrat as long as their ideology matches closely with mine.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Im an issue voter.. I have a few main issues that I care most about. I just happens that I rarely see a republican that agrees with my stance on those issues, or isnt at least completely on the oposite end of the spectrum.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Munchkin

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm an issue voter.. I have a few main issues that I care most about.

I agree with you here, and with Shocker also.

I[t] just happens that I rarely see a [R]epublican that agrees with my stance on those issues, or isn't at least completely on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Swap out "Republican" for "Democrat" and you've got my view of things. In a local Congressional race the local liberal weekly paper ran a series of quotes from each, with no identification of who put each idea forth, and the reader could find if he agreed, disagreed, or had no opinion for each one. When I totaled it up, it was 85%-15% in favor of the Republican's ideas. I was a bit surprised at just how lopsided the outcome was. Among other things, this clued me that the Republicans are still significantly closer to the libertarian ideas I like than the socialists and money-burners the Democrats have spent the last two generations becoming.

Now Munchkin, the Capitol Hill Dems are simply not fighting the War on Terror. I'd notice it if they were, and I've noticed just about nothing. I pay attention to that kind of thing. The Iraq campaign is not some separate war, as the unclear-on-winning party would have you believe; it is part and parcel of the entire war. The Dems have no plan whatsoever to try for victory -- the Republicans at least understand that we shouldn't lose this war or we'll have to fight a couple more over there. What the Democrats need to convince me they are being anything but flaccid is a war-fighting strategy that actually works better than what the current Administration has come up with. They have not done this, and thus I have no faith in them.

This ninnyhammering on "all the fighting we're doing is a thousand miles away from where Osama is rumored to be" is about like saying the North African campaign was poor strategy because Hitler, who started the whole unpleasantness, was in Berlin at the time. Not an argument that I'd buy, you may be sure of that.

Where we get anti-American terrorists from is not where we're destroying and discrediting totalitarianism and fostering democracy in spite of what the Rump Saddamite slavemakers would try -- notice that their endeavor is stagnant, gainless, and has been for a year now? I have, and where were you looking? -- but from places that aren't democracies and have no immediate prospects of achieving democracy.

regarding the "breaking skyscrapers", if you're referring to 9-11, Iraq had nothing to do with it.

It is simply amazing to me how many Americans who presumably spend their days fully conscious are willing to believe that some other Americans think 9-11 was done by Iraq. I tell you this: I don't know any Americans at all who think that. Not one. Couldn't name anybody. It's the antiwar/anti-Administration party's inability to face or marshal facts like these that leaves me convinced they are unworthy of trust or confidence. As long as you're ill-informed enough to believe that some other Americans somewhere believe that, you are mired in error and doomed to perennial defeat.

Nothing to do with it? Not too directly, but the Saddam regime's providing him with surgery and therapy is the one reason al-Zarqawi still has both his legs (have to look up whether it's al-Zarqawi or al-Zawahiri -- I'd shoot either one, as near to center of mass as I might manage), and it's clear they were working on an operational relationship on the traditional old Middle-Eastern idea that "My enemy's enemy is my friend." Nothing to do with it except training Al-Quaeda, funding training of Al-Quaeda among others, and footsy-footsy-footsy on and on. Hey, asshole regimes run by sociopaths whose political advancement more resembles that of a Mafiosi than statesmen are going to act like assholes. This does NOT place upon us any obligation to accept what comes out of such places. Instead, real advancement of civilization comes with wiping these places slick, which the anti-Administration types will find any excuse to fail to do.

What an abomination!

P.S.: Got it -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the leg-wound guy. That isn't even his proper birthname; it just says he fathered someone named Musab, sometime or other.

[xoxoxoBruce]

And while we are screwing around in Iraq the bad guys are taking back Afghanistan so that all hell will break loose in 2007. Great strategy.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

A little thumbnail sketch of Saddam's involvement with the mean & nasties pulled from Newsmax and quoted in The Museum Of Left Wing Lunacy:

"Saddam's Iraq Was Motel 6 for Terrorists

In the wake of President Bush's speech to the nation Tuesday night, Democrats are complaining that he talked too much about 9/11, falsely implying that Iraq was a terrorist threat. Too bad Mr. Bush didn't cite the mountain of evidence proving that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a veritable Motel 6 for the world's worst terrorists - a gang of mass murderers who had killed hundreds of Americans - well before the U.S. invaded. According to a report last year by the Hudson Institute, the short list of terrorists laying low in Iraq would include:

• Abu Nidal. Before Osama bin Laden arrived on the scene, Nidal was the world's most notorious terrorist. His terror gang is credited with dozens of attacks that killed over 400 people, including 10 Americans. He also threatened to kill Lt. Col. Oliver North.
Abu Nidal moved to Baghdad in 1999, where he was found shot to death in Aug 2002. Rumors swirled at the time that Nidal was rubbed out by Iraqi intelligence because he knew too much about Saddam's terrorist activities.

• Abu Abbas. Abbas masterminded the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship, where wheelchair-bound American Leon Klinghoffer was pushed over the side to his death. U.S. troops captured Abbas in Baghdad on April 14, 2003. He died in U.S. custody last year.

• Abdul Rahman Yasin. Yasin was Ramzi Yousef's partner in the 1993 World Trade Center bomb plot, aiding the al Qaeda explosives mastermind in prepariing the bomb that killed six New Yorkers and wounded 1,000.
In 1996, an ABC News reporter spotted Yasin outside his government owned house in Baghdad. The key WTC 1993 co-conspirator remains at large.

• Khala Khadar al-Salahat. Al-Salahat, a top Palestinian deputy to Abu Nidal, reportedly furnished Libyan agents with the Semtex explosive used to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988. The attack killed all 259 passengers, including 189 Americans. Al-Salahat was in Baghdad April 2003 when he was taken into custody by U.S. Marines.

• Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Zarqawi was training terrorists in Afghanistan for an attack on the U.S. embassy in Jordan when the U.S. defeated the Taliban, forcing him to flee. He relocated to Iraq, where he set up terrorist cells in the Northern part of the country.

In an indication that he enjoyed the status of guest of the state, Zarqawi was reportedly treated for a leg wound at one of Saddam's exclusive private hospitals.

After years of media reports denying that Zarqawi had ties to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden himself dubbed Zarqawi his chief of operations in Iraq last year.

LINK: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...0/110604.shtml

There are reasons for me to think the way I do, gentlemen.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

I don't see you exerting your talents towards something creative like winning the war, Bruce. All your ilk can be indicted on that score.